Journey: Cape Kolka – Ventspils – Uzava Lighthouse – Edolé – Kuldigas – Aizpute

We couldn’t have asked me a nicer morning walk. Opting for a trail through the forest which led further up the beach the pups had a paddle, a roll and Ernest found a boat he was fond of… likely due to dead fish smell.

We then drove down the coast to Ventspils, which is a busy port with lots of coal, but has a nice market, square and a fun cow sculpture trail! I love how popular these city animal trails have become, they are a great way of exploring.

After lunch I had a nap as I’d been tired and hangry for most of the morning. It did the trick and I felt human/sociable again. Ready for a second beach walk at Uzala Lighthouse which we had largely to ourselves ❤️ It was then onto the little village of Edolé to see the castle which is now a hotel. In honesty it’s nothing special but the village is quaint. We noted they had pink washed the satalite dishes so they didn’t stand out as much 😂

We then visited Aleksupite Waterfall which from the picture I’d imagined was in the countryside but is actually in the middle of a nice town called Kuldiga. It’s noticable that the outskirts of each town are run down either with soviat tower block housing or ramshackle houses but the inner town’s have largely been gentrified. This one seemed well set up for tourists.

Our bedtime walk was round a derelict castle in Aizpute. Tomorrow we are going to try a few museums as we are keen to learn more about the Baltic’s history.

As a side note so far the only real negative has been Latvian drivers. They must have a death wish. The roads are very bumpy and they are very liberal with the speed limit and get frustrated if you stick to it. They will happily drive up your arse, overtake on blind corners, overtake multiple vehicles on the presumption others will make space for them when on coming traffic is about to collide (we saw an accident between car and lorry where this didn’t work out), and today rather than wait at roadwork red light 5 cars ignored it and drove down a single track towards traffic who had right of way! Wondering if Lithuania will be any different 🤔

Journey: Riga – Jamala – Kandava – Cape Kolka

With van chores complete we drove to a new part of town known for its art nouveau buildings. Albert and Elizabeth street have some beautiful examples; each unique, but go one street off and it’s completely different and a bit run down. So funny how cities get made up. 

Post lunch we had promised the pups a beach walk and drove to Jamala which is where locals go for beach holidays. We hadn’t realised you have to pay €2 to get into the town and poor doggies weren’t allowed on the beach! Fortunately we had a back up plan so decided to drive on to a lovely waterfall walk… except we never found it 🙈 Google took us down some dirt roads with grass growing up the middle to a dead end. On the plus there were lots of cranes in the field, so Ernest sat on my knee and we watched them for a while before driving on to the small village of Kandava for a potter and ice lolly. The highlight was a hog sculpture🐗

Keen to keep our promise we pushed on and made it to Cape Kolka where the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Riga meet. It’s a stunning bit of beach, Mabel had a roll, Jasper tarted himself out to a baby, and Ernest wondered why I’d asked him to sit still for two minutes to get his photo taken with the sunset. Sunrise is at 5:57 if we are up…

Journey: Turaida Castle – Saulkrasti – Piejura – Riga

A huge bonus of me getting my bum out of bed earlier is having the whole gorgeous Turaida reserve site to ourselves. We were able to climb the tiny spiral tower stairs and walk the castle grounds with the pups and had just finished as the first coach load appeared. Add in multiple gardens, sculptures and traditional out buildings relaying the history of life here and it’s no wonder it’s so popular.

Latvia has some glorious coastline and Saulkrasti is the quieter but arguably more beautiful option – we are going to Jamala the busier beach soon so can compare. We did two walks at different ends. Firstly the White Cliffs sunset trail and secondly the Gejaju Paku trail through the Piejura National Park. It’s wonderful walking out through the pine trees to white sands and such long quiet beaches. Our sand rolling aficionado Mabel loved both, but was initially dawdling on the second walk as it was on boards and she didn’t realise it led to the beach…as soon as she realised, she suddenly popped straight into speedy mode – she does make me laugh 😂

And then to Riga, Mark is meant to plan the cities as I generally get stressed in them and fair play he found a campsite just 20min walk from centre, then handed me a notepad with 8 barely legible suggestions, two of which were street names but he couldn’t remember why he had written 😂 In future I’m going to ask he just find the parking, otherwise we would have missed a whole host of amazing sites. I know I’m a nerd with my route planning but it’s obviously more my skill set, and he wouldn’t want to miss out on seeing such gems as a cat hostel and armildillo sculpture 😜

Again it’s a quite a compact city so you can see so much in quite a short time. The old town has a gorgeous maze of architecturally beautiful streets and there are pockets of different things, lots of churches, squares, shops, bars. Remembering to look up at the roof line and around for little quirks. There are obviously lots of tourists but it’s not heaving and it feels like a proper city, not solely catering for them. 

We walked for miles, and outside the old town visited the best and biggest food market…I may need to go again, my god the nectarines were huge and so juicey 🤤. There were also stunning views from the Latvian Academy of Sciences Observation Deck and a deeply moving holocaust museum. Each lantern is decorated with files and photos of a life lost…I cried – seeing smiling photos and reading snippets of what happened to them. In today’s world of communication it’s hard to comprehend that people just didn’t know/believe this was happening and chose to stay until ultimately rounded up. Also the power of rumours and negative feelings that can run riot and turn the average person against a whole group of people. It was a very sombre experience ☹️

As a special treat we had a scrumptious meal at the Fat Pumpkin, visited Freedom Square and glimpsed Cat House which I later couldn’t find. A young lad had set up a 5min chess game for 1euro, and Mark had a go. I’m a luddite at chess, but it was obviously a really good game and a crowd of 30+ people watched them. I could see people whispering stretegy options with their friends. Ultimately Mark lost but it was very close. 

We then picked up the pups and following good old Google walked 35minutes through a rougher part of town to a great outdoor bar with multiple food trucks and live music called Kalnciema Kvartãls . I had a devine slice of cake but had to take it in turns to eat as Ernest was desperate to get it 🙈 Once food was dealt with, a couple of ladies joined us and fussed the pups for ages while nattering away. Jasper will lap up cuddles all day long and even Mabel was sociable. Ernest has the attention span of a gnat with ADHD and can’t sit still 😂

We got back to the van at 10:25pm – dirty stop outs! And I realised I needed to do my run. I’m guessing it was a sugar high from the cake but I actually enjoyed it and ended up doing 4miles and over 50,000 steps! Can’t wait to go explore some more 😄