We are driving our motorhome Vanni, around northern and eastern Europe and have just been in Pärnu, Estonia. Leaving there, we drove south along the coast of the Gulf of Rīga to cross into Latvia, where we stopped at the tiny seaside village of Tūja (pop. 260). We stayed a few days at a campsite there to admire the wonderful sunsets.
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| 11:16 pm sunset from the beach at Tūja, Latvia |
The Tūja campsite is right on the beachfront. It has a lovely beach restaurant where we spent quite a bit of time. The food was great, the view spectacular, and the service good - but it was very windy. In fact, we had strong wind and rain for most of the time we were there, but we enjoyed the break and the views.
Leaving Tūja and the coast, we drove inland to the edge of Gauja National Park, Latvia's oldest and largest national park. At the edge of the park we turned south-west, headed to the small commune of Straupe (pop 500), to see the 13th century Lielstraupe Castle.
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| Lielstraupes Castle, Straupe, Latvia |
The Castle has a chequered history that includes wars, fires, and changes of ownership. It was restored in the 20th century in Baroque style, and looks very quaint. Unfortunately, we found it closed and could not look inside.
Next, we reversed our route and drove along the north-eastern side of the National Park, and after driving through several villages, stopped in Valmiera. The city of Valmiera was founded in 1323, but the area is one of the longest-inhabited in Latvia, being settled around 9,000 years ago.
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| Orthodox Church of St. Sergey of Radonezh, Valmiera, Latvia |
We went for a walk around the city and found some interesting architecture, including the attractive red-brick Orthodox Church of St. Sergey of Radonezh, built in 1879. Many Orthodox churches were built in 19th century Latvia because the church offered land and cattle for those changing their religion to Orthodoxy.
Later, we found a small attractive replica ‘old town’ along the banks of the scenic Gauja River, then returned to our motorhome Vanni for lunch. After a visit to the local supermarket, where we took ages to translate food labels so we knew what we were buying, we moved on.
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| Street in old Cēsis, Latvia |
Our next stop was in Cēsis, a town of about 17,000 people in the centre of the Gauja National Park. We found its old town which was full of narrow streets, and stone or timber houses. The town has a history dating back 800 years and is supposedly, one of the best-preserved medieval cities in the Baltics. The 13th century Livonian Cēsis Castle dominates the town centre.
Fortunately, we managed a good look around Cēsis before it began to rain quite heavily. So, we rushed back to Vanni for shelter, and thought about where we would find a campsite for the night.
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| Marg at Lake Raiskums, Cēsis, Latvia |
We soon found a peaceful camp just out of Cēsis, right on Lake Raiskums. The weather was a little breezy with the occasional thunderstorm.
The camp provided a BBQ, so we tried it. However, the wind was too strong so we cooked on Vanni’s inside gas stove instead. But we’ve noticed that no matter what the weather, Latvians love their BBQ. Our neighbouring campers were all out there under their umbrellas cooking away. We decided we are not as weather-tough as Latvians.
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| Marg at Red Cliffs, Gauja National Park, Latvia |
On the way out of Cēsis the next day, we visited the Raiskums Red Cliffs in Gauja National Park. After a lovely forest walk, we found the 200 metre long and 10 metre high ancient, deep red, marble-like creviced cliffs. They are dotted with caves and springs and we saw people queuing up to fill bottles with the clear sparkling water.
From Red Cliffs, it was a short drive to other places in the Gauja National Park. One of these was Zvārte where we saw more sandstone cliffs and rocks.
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| Leigh climbing 500+ steps at Zvārte Rock, Gauja National Park, Latvia |
We drove down a shocking road to find these rocks, parked Vanni, then paid to see them. After a short walk we found a swing bridge at the base of the cliffs which are on the river. After crossing the bridge, we huffed and puffed our way up 500 or so steps to get to the top of a giant rock.
After a short wander around at the top admiring the wonderful views, we opted for the short walk down. This meant going down the same steps rather than taking a circuitous and slippery forest walk. Upon reflection, the forest walk may have been better as our calves were very sore from so many steps the next day!
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| Sigulda Castle, Latvia |
Moving on, we soon arrived in pretty Sigulda which seemed to have lots of green spaces, parks, quite prosperous looking houses and two castles, both called Sigulda Castle! We visited the new 19th century Sigulda Castle and its beautiful gardens, and behind that, found the ruins of the medieval Sigulda Castle; both very different and interesting.
Leaving Sigulda, we made the relatively short drive to Rīga. We were visiting Rīga again to get Vanni repaired after the damage caused by running over a huge branch a month ago. Repairs were to take 2 days, so that meant a night in a hotel for us.
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| Leigh with the Tall Ships, Rīga, Latvia |
After dropping off Vanni, we used our bikes to get to our riverside hotel. While there, we saw tall ships sailing up the river. We discovered that it was the Tall Ships Race coming in on the Rīga leg of the race. We’d seen the Tall Ships docked in Helsinki, Finland three weeks ago, and it was great to see them now in full sail.
From our side of the river, we could see that Rīga harbour was alive with activity. So we cycled over the bridge into the old city, and visited the activities at the harbour and along the river where the tall ships had docked. We had a great time.
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| Leigh with helicopter at a festival in Rīga, Latvia |
We bought some Latvian take-away for lunch, then wandered over to a huge army helicopter. Leigh’s youngest brother is a helicopter pilot in Australia, so we were interested in how it all worked. Later, we cycled back to the hotel after a fabulous, but different type of day.
The next morning, we picked up Vanni from the repair shop, only to find that there was a part they could not fix. However, they had ordered the replacement part so we arranged for it to be sent to and fixed in Warsaw, when we would be there in around 3 weeks. Soon after, we left Rīga and drove south.
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| Cathedral of St. Simeon & St. Anna, Jelgava, Latvia |
Our next stop was the lovely little town of Jelgava. We read that it had two palaces and we managed to see one of them. There were also some lovely churches, and we particularly liked the blue and white Cathedral of St. Simeon & St. Anna.
After admiring Jelgava, we kept driving south, heading for the border. Our next stop will be in Lithuania again, but our story about that is in the next blog.
This blog describes part of our 6-month motorhome trip around north-eastern Europe, which began in Prague.