Latvia - Part 2 - Cool Runnings

We came down the west coast of Latvia and eventually parked up in a car park by a beach just north of a town called Saulkrasti. The beach was a nice strip of white sand and there were people sunbathing when we arrived. We got our chairs out for the first time in a long time (maybe since Warsaw), but the clouds were rolling in on the horizon and it wasn't long before we retreated into Lo11y. There was a continuous stream of cars pulling in and out of the car park all evening, but what we hadn't appreciated at the time was this is part of the Sunset Trail and it wasn't until after the rain had stopped and it was sunset time that we could see why. Being a Saturday night we had groups of young people parked near us into the small hours. They weren't overly disruptive, but in the morning you wouldn't have known they'd been there i.e. not a scrap litter or empty cans/bottles.

We had a short journey to reach Sigulda, a beautiful town thought of as the Baltics answer to Switzerland, with parks,castles and lots of outdoor activities. We took the cable car that stretches over a kilometre across the Gauja valley with great views of 3 castles and the bobsleigh track we planned to visit later.

On the other side of the valley we walked down to Gutman's cave which has a tragic legend attached to it involving a fair maiden dying due to a nasty man tricking her..... The walls are covered in graffiti, some of it dating back to the 16th century.

We walked back up to the town and visited the Livonian Order Castle which dates back to 1207. The ruins have been partly restored. Next to them is a Mansion House and nice gardens. There were some large swanky homes nearby, but the main roads through the town were in a right state while roadworks were being carried out.

The thing Colin really wanted to do in Sigulda was hurtle down the bobsleigh track. The 1,420m bobsleigh and luge track was built in the 1980s and is open for the public to use between November and March, but also offers summer bob experiences on wheeled bobs that fly down the 16 bend track at 80kmph. I wasn't quite so sure I wanted to do this, but FOMO kicked in and before I knew what was happening we were climbing into the bob joined by an American traveller called Ben who bravely videoed the 60 second experience (see Recent photos on the homepage for our Instagram post). Thankfully an experienced bobsleigher steered us down. For the first couple of bends we were thinking it didn't feel so fast, but suddenly our heads got bashed against the side cages and I was in fear my glasses were going to fly off. It was over too quickly but what an experience - one we're not sure we'll ever get to try again. We were towed back up the hill on a windy path that was also fun.

We had a wander around the track afterwards, hoping to see another group fly past us but unfortunately there were no others doing it. We went up to the top floor of the complex that has great views of the valley.

We continued on to Turaida Castle which had looked magnificent in the distance from the cable car. We gave Ben a lift there, but we probably didn't have enough time to give it justice as it was set in beautiful gardens and houses a very good museum, both of which we had to skip over.

The reason for our shortage of time was that we had a tour booked at a Secret Soviet Nuclear Bunker that afternoon which was based near the lovely town of Ligatne which sits deep inside the lush and green Gauja National Park. The 2,000 sq metre bunker, built 9 metres below ground during the Cold War, was a secret facility posing as a rehabilitation centre but was used by the top Latvian communist leaders and their families at weekends, and was fully staffed in preparation to carry on governing following a hypothetical nuclear war. It would have had enough supplies to survive several months of nuclear fallout, including an autonomous power plant, air purification system and direct telecomms with Moscow. It's hard to imagine what it was like for the poor staff who worked and slept in such cramped conditions underground 'just in case' there was a nuclear war and were being eavesdropped upon constantly. Their paranoia must have been overwhelming. If they did not answer a phone call immediately there would be serious repercussions. We had to request our tour in advance, but we hadn't appreciated we'd be the only ones on our tour. The guide, Alejandro, was actually Mexican but had come to Latvia 'for love' as he put it. The bunker has been left as it was in the time of its operation, and it was a fascinating place to visit. We even got a plate of dumplings and a glass of juice in the original canteen as part of the tour.

From here, after a very full on day sightseeing, we parked up at a very nice campsite in the town of Cesis which has another Livonian castle. The campsite rented kayaks to go up and down the river there, which we hoped to do the following morning. We managed to sit outside a short while in the evening admiring the impressive Austrian expedition vehicle opposite us.

Sadly the weather in the morning was dreadful again, certainly not good for kayaking, so we headed to the historic town centre and visited the castle. The old castle had quite a torrid history of attacks and fires, but there was a newer 18th century manor house next to it which housed a museum.

Our next destination was Riga, Latvia's capital. It was a wet journey most of the way. We called in at the Salaspils Monument which is about 15km from Riga. The gloomy wet weather added to the emotions of walking around this monument which is on the peaceful grassy site of where there was once a concentration camp that was set up by the Nazis in 1941. The statues conveyed the suffering of the inmates, most of whom were pro-soviet locals and Jews. As well as providing information on the atrocities at this camp, the information boards had a very damming section on the recent war crimes involving Ukraine's citizens.

The traffic on the roads into Riga was painful, as was the weather, so when we parked up in a car park at the port, next to the Dutch Unimog we had last seen in Trakai, we had no urge to visit the city, preferring to wait to see it in the sunshine promised the following day.

We had two city tours booked, the first being another free walking tour. There was a huge group waiting to do the tour, but thankfully they split the group and our guide (Harry) was excellent giving us lots of fun stories and history about the city. Did you know that Riga was the first place in the world to decorate trees at Christmas?

Our first impressions of Riga were certainly better than we were expecting, as most peoples comments suggest it's the poor relation to Tallinn and Vilnius.

Our afternoon city tour was on bikes so we could see more of the outer districts of the city. It was just the two of us with our guide Olga, who had a very different style to the walking guide, but gave us a very enjoyable and informative tour starting in the old centre, then taking us through parks, through the art nouveau district and past the central market before crossing the river where there was nice parkland and a modern indoor market.

During the tour we paused outside the Russian embassy which stood on a street that had been renamed in recent years to Ukrainas neatkaribas iela (Ukrainian Independence Street). This meant the embassy had to send out change of address notifications and update all its letter headings - brilliant!. To wind them up further a huge poster mocking Putin had been hung on the building opposite. Latvia has a high Russian population, and Olga said that originally after independence the young were allowed to attend Russian only schools, but now law has been brought in so that they must now learn in Latvian. There is currently a big shortage of Latvian teachers though, as most had trained to be English or science teachers. She also mentioned that the memories of living through Russian occupation still lingered with the older generation - for instance her mother still gets anxious talking on the telephone as she thinks someone may be listening.

We'd had a great day and the sunny warm weather makes such a difference to how we saw the city. We rewarded ourselves with a drink followed by a delicious meal at a trendy Scandi style restaurant before waddling back to Lo11y.

Our plan for the following day had been to cycle to Jurmala, a strip of golden beach that is just 30km from central Riga and where the jet-setters of Riga like to hang out. Our luck with the weather had been short-lived though with the rain and gloom returning so we ended up driving there and changing our onward plans to try to get the best out of the poor forecast for the following few days.

We woke to a huge cruise ship that had moored up next to our parking place overnight. When we reached Jurmala we jumped on the Bromptons and had a look at the beach, which was a lovely stretch of sand, but it was definitely not beach weather. We cycled down the main street running through the town which was full of bars, restaurants and souvenir shops - a bit tacky touristy, but we had a late breakfast in a traditional cafe. There was some very nice big houses on the back streets of the town and the railway station was a striking design, but other than that there was nothing more to keep us here in this weather.

Our original plan had been to visit a couple of other places on Latvias coast, but there didn't seen much point in the wet weather forecast for the next few days, so instead we headed south and inland towards the Lithuanian border to the Zemgale region where there is a grand 18th Century palace to visit called Rundale Palace. It was designed by the same Italian architect who was responsible for the Winter Palace in St Petersburg. There are about 40 rooms open to visitors and some lovely formal gardens that were based on Versailles. We arrived there late afternoon, but were glad we able to able to visit before it closed for the day. The house and the gardens were stunning.

We parked for the night in the car park of the palace which was very peaceful and got ourselves set to head back into Lithuania.