Wow, Latvia was great — good riding, excellent sites, friendly people, nice forests. Rīga turned out to be one my favorite cities, and I also really enjoyed Rundāle Palace and Gauja National Park.
Crossing a border without any border posts always makes me happy. We crossed the border from Lithuania on a dirt road near the Sarkaņu kapi cemetery. The only post was this one:
Our campsite near the school in Pilsrundāle had too many mosquitoes, and that, I think, was my biggest complaint in Latvia — mosquitoes, sometimes even during the day in the forests.
Nearby was a small park with two sundials. One was a typical sundial — see? it’s about 06:50,
but the other showed Italian hours, in other words the number of hours till sunset. Here’s a photo of that sundial, but there’s no sun on it yet ’cause I was too early.
But no one comes to Pilsrundāle for the sundials. The attraction is the fantastic Rastrelli-designed Rundāle Palace, a baroque palace for the Dukes of Courland.
If you’re not familiar with the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia, well, you probably should be. After establishing a colony on the Gambia River, they headed to the Americas and established a colony on Tobago. They were early European importers of American products, including apparently potatoes, and thus — though potatoes certainly aren’t from Latvia — Latvians feel a bit justified in calling potatoes their national dish.
If you’re not familiar with Rastrelli, well, you’re going to be if you follow this trip till to the end (future posts). Here are some photos of typical Rastrelli interiors:
The luxurious throne room had a niche for the duke’s Chinese porcelain collection.
Check out the details on the stucco decorations.
Most of the ceiling paintings were done by Italian artists.
I loved this place and had never seen anything like it before, but — spoiler — we ended up seeing seven more Rastrelli buildings before the end of our trip. Rundāle Palace is his earliest so maybe we can follow the evolution of his style?
We found this bridge to cross the Lielupe River to Mežotne Palace.
We crossed the Lielupe again at Staļģene and just after swimming were invited to spend then night at Klāvs and Evelina’s house. They made dinner (chicken on the bbq) and breakfast for us, and then when it was raining in the morning, we all went together by car to visit Bauska Castle.
It’s a utilitarian fortress, now a museum, so different from the luxurious palace that we had visited the day before.
It was fun to meet Evelina and Klāvs and worked out well to visit the castle while it was raining. We had sunshine for the afternoon ride to Jelgava, the capital city of the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia.
We can think of Rundāle Palace as the Dukes of Courland summer palace. In Jelgava we saw a larger baroque palace by Rastrelli, Jelgava Palace, the Dukes of Courland winter palace.
Continuing north we had some nice forest riding and made it to the coast — for the first time this trip — at Jūrmala. Özgür and I attempted to go swimming in spite of the cool weather and very shallow sea.
The next day we arrived in Rīga and crossed the Daugava, the same river that we pedaled along our first few days in Latvia 3½ weeks earlier. Rīga was founded by a man from Bremen, representing the Hanseatic League who ruled for three centuries. Bremen and Rīga are now sister cities which is why we find a Bremen Town Musicians statue in Rīga.
The Poles were here, then the Swedes. One Swedish king wanted to move their capital to Rīga since it was better defended than Stockholm. Swedish soldiers were housed in barracks just outside the city walls, but they punched a hole through the walls to gain access to the breweries and Latvian women. It’s now called the Swedish Gate (behind Ferda), and the street still has beers and beautiful women.
The Russians defeated the Swedes and considered Rīga the third most important city in their empire after Moscow and Saint Petersburg. It seems a lot of people like this place. I loved it and thought it was perhaps the best city I’ve ever visited for walking around and looking at buildings.
Maybe that gives you an idea. Rīga Art Nouveau isn’t for everyone. Özgür was unimpressed and mentioned at least four cities in Italy — none of which I’ve been to — that he liked more. But I liked Rīga so here are more photos.
Özgür ran out of time, took a bus to Tallinn, and flew back to Antalya from there. Ferda and I pedaled east to the Latvian Ethnographic Open Air Museum. It’s a very well done site, housing wooden buildings — houses, barns, windmills, churches — from all the historic regions of Latvia from the mid-18th to mid-20th centuries.
A young Serbian student working at the site was telling me about a touring cyclist he follows on the internet. “I know Snežana,” I said. “You must be Bryan,” he said!
The rest of our days in Latvia were spent riding through Gauja National Park, much of it on fun forest paths with great campsites.
Krimulda was a fun collection of buildings. The manor house is now a sanatorium.
We camped near the third highest waterfall in Latvia — less than 2.5m! — and used it as a shower.
Līgatne is an old paper mill town. We enjoyed visiting the wooden worker houses.
Cēsis is a cute town.
Outside some houses you can see a row of shoe statues. Each pair represents a person who lived in that house before they were killed in the Holocaust.
And on to Valmiera, the end of our cycling in Latvia.
I lived in Riga for 2 years. Worked in Jurmala. Love that city too.
“You must be Bryan,” he said!
You’re famous in all sorts of places!
Lots of nice sights and sites there.