Latvians often say that Cesis is the most beautiful town in their country. A walk through its cobbled streets makes it easy to agree. The medieval castle ruins dominate the hilltop, a red-brick fortress that withstood sieges for centuries. The newer manor house beside it now holds a museum of local history. Saint John’s Church […]
The Gauja River has carved a valley so deep and green through the Latvian sandstone that locals call this corner of the country their Switzerland. Sigulda sits above the river, where the ruins of Turaida Castle rise from a forested ridge like a fairy tale forgotten by time. In autumn, the deciduous trees ignite in […]
Daugavpils, Latvia’s second-largest city, is a place of surprising contrasts. Located in the south-eastern corner of the country, near the borders with Lithuania and Belarus, the city has a population of around 80,000 and a history shaped by the many empires that have ruled over this strategic territory. Daugavpils has been part of Poland, Sweden, […]
Kemeri National Park sprawls across the coastal lowlands of Latvia, a vast wetland wilderness where boardwalks lead through misty moors and sulphur springs bubble up from deep below the surface. Established in 1997 as the third largest national park in Latvia, it protects more than 380 square kilometres of forests, swamps, lakes, and lagoons along […]
Gauja National Park is Latvia’s largest and oldest national park, a deeply picturesque landscape of the ancient Gauja River valley, Devonian sandstone cliffs, dense forests, and three magnificent medieval castles (Turaida, Sigulda, and Krimulda) scattered across the park’s 917 square kilometres. Known as the “Switzerland of Latvia” for its unusually hilly terrain in an otherwise […]
Gutmana Ala (Gutman’s Cave) is the largest and most visited cave in Latvia, a striking sandstone grotto hidden in the ancient Gauja River Valley within Sigulda’s storybook landscape. More than just a geological wonder, Gutmana Ala is steeped in Baltic legend, ancient inscriptions, and a tragic love story that has made it one of Latvia’s […]
Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia, the biggest and most vibrant city in Baltics, and an important seaport, situated on the mouth of the Daugava. It is also the largest city of the Baltic states and third-largest in the Baltic region, behind Saint Petersburg and Stockholm. Riga’s historical centre is declared a […]
Estonia is the Baltic pearl, a small country on the northeastern edge of Europe that punches dramatically above its weight in digital innovation (it invented Skype, pioneered e-residency, and has the most start-ups per capita in Europe), medieval beauty (Tallinn’s UNESCO-listed Old Town is one of the best-preserved Hanseatic city centres on the continent), and […]
Categories: All Countries, Estonia
Latvia is the beating heart of the Baltic States, a compact, captivating country on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea where Art Nouveau masterpieces in Riga, vast unspoilt forests teeming with wildlife, a 500-kilometre coastline of white sand beaches, and one of Europe’s richest folk music traditions combine to create one of the continent’s […]
Categories: All Countries, Latvia
