Ravishing Riga hides a secret within the folds of her ornate civic garments. She is draped in all the normal accoutrements of a beautiful European city – picturesque old town, swathes of green, a calming river running through.
But her Art Nouveau buildings are her crowning glory – masterpieces, often multi-storey apartment blocks, built in the “flaunting modern” style employing sinuous, organic lines with a strong synthesis between decoration and construction.
Here’s my story published in November 2019 in The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age Traveller and online at Traveller.com.au here: https://www.traveller.com.au/sailing-into-latvias-riga-one-of-the-worlds-greatest-art-nouveau-cities-h1jcqw
About alisonstewartwriter
Alison is a writer, journalist and travel writer, born in South Africa, now living in Australia. She has had nine books published - two books for adults and seven for young people. Four of them have been translated into Italian, Danish, Dutch and Thai.
Her latest project, Cold Stone Soup, an unpublished memoir about growing up under apartheid and migrating to Australia has won the FAW 2013 National Literary Awards (Jim Hamilton Award for a non-fiction manuscript). Cold Stone Soup was also runner-up in the 2010 Penguin/Varuna Scholarship.
Her first book for adults, Born Into the Country (Justified Press 1988, South Africa) was shortlisted for the 1987 AA Mutual Life Vita Young Writers’ Award. Heinemann Australia published her next adult novel, Bitterbloom in 1991. Her YA novel, The Wishing Moon was shortlisted for the 1995 Australian Multicultural Children’s Award and was a 1995 Children’s Book Council Notable book.
Her YA dystopia, Days Like This, published by Penguin Australia was a finalist in the inaugural 2010 Amazon/Penguin Breakthrough Novel Award in the YA category.
Alison worked for years as a news and feature journalist. She is now a regular travel writer for The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age and online Fairfax Media publications. Her travel story, Snails in the Mist, was placed first in the Lane Cove Literary Awards 2019 travel story category and was shortlisted for three awards. Snails in the Mist will be published in the Lane Cove Literary Awards Anthology in 2020.
Alison Stewart writer 