#ķengarags

Each year the city has added to this path and expanded it a bit southeastward. It now goes almost twice the distance it did compared to when I first visited Ķengarags a few years ago, and it barely existed when Līga first moved to the neighborhood in the early 2010s. Now, it's easily the neighborhood's greatest feature, and was being well-used today by walkers, bikers, and rollerbladers from all walks of life. The reason I love it so much compared to any other path in the city is that you can look east down the Daugava and imagine that you're on some kind of lake far away from the city, while looking west you see the majestic skyline in its true glory, with the silhouettes of all of the tall buildings visible. Its off the radar of most tourists and residents of other parts of the city due to its distance from the center and Ķengarags' somewhat unfair reputation as a “rough neighborhood,” so most of the people who enjoy it are the people who live and work here every day.

Līga and I started the path near the Dole shopping center and decided to go as far up the river as the pavement continued. We hadn't been since the spring before, so we were interested to see how far the pavement went now.

A little bit past the turn off to the “Dole” shopping center, there's a short but sturdy observation tower that gives a decent view of the area. It's nothing like the bird's eye from Bumbu kanlniņš in Kleisti, but it's also a lot easier to get up (and less scary for those with a phobia of heights). From the top there was a good view of Ķengarags' southeastern skyline as well as well as both directions of the river.

Further up the river, there's a small hill that kids bike or sled down depending on the season, and from the top I could see a group of people grilling. I was envious.

Right past the border of Ķengarags and Rumbala there's the ruins of two brick houses that I would have loved to have played in when I was a kid. They surround a pond, together making up one of the nicest areas of the entire promenade.

We took a detour down a dirt road to the shopping center “Zoom” to grab some picnic food from the Rimi inside. We felt fairly safe leaving our bikes chained outside as there was a security camera pointed directly at the bike rack.

The area further on through Rumbala is the most recent to have been paved, and this is apparent from the landscaping.

And after a while, the paving ended and turned into a dirt road. We didn't go any further than this since we were pretty hungry and ready to eat, but we look forward to seeing the path get expanded soon. We found a nice place to sit by the river and ate our lunch.

On the way back I tried to get a good shot of my second favorite view of the city's skyline (first being Dzeguškalns in Dzirciems), but unfortunately Līga's Blackberry Q10 wasn't quite up the task in such unfavorable light. I've really got to get my camera fixed...

I took a few more pictures as we biked home, with the sun just beginning to think about setting. While it would have been nearly dark by now in winter, there was still plenty of warmth and light.