Sigulda, Latvia

Next stop after Parnu was Sigulda, the "Switzerland of Latvia". Caught the bus from Parnu to Riga (about 2 1/2 hours) and then caught a local bus in Riga to Sigulda, about another hour out. FWIW, the driver looked an awful like Hunter S. Thompson. Spooky.

Arriving in Sigulda I realised that I hadnt actually bothered to look up the address of the place we were staying in. Slight oversight. Headed to where the Lonely Planet said the info centre should be, colocated with the rather swanky looking Sigulda Hotel, but no dice. Bit of a regular occurrence - things seems to change quickly in this neck of the woods. Asked the girl behind reception for directions to info centre. She talked, we nodded our heads, walked out, looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders and then headed off in the wrong direction. Got chased by a young guy who had been sitting in reception who spun us around and headed us in the right direction! Never did find the info place (well not until the next day). Instead stumbled across an info post that had our Guest House on it. Sweet. Finally found the place okay and checked in okay with the help of A's German.

Next day was spent hiking around Sigulda. Caught the cable car across the Gauja valley, catching glimpses of the restored Turaida castle across the valley, to the ruins of Krimulda castle. After a beer stop on the steps of the Krimulda Mansion (now half hostel, half youth sanitorium) we headed off down the valley to get to Turaida castle. Wandered along the valley floor, via Gutmanis cave in which there are carvings of crests/names dating back from the 16th century. Quite cool.

We got extorted by an accordion player who, spying us coming his way along a narrow track, quickly struck up a tune. Talk about a captive (captured?) audience. Would've been a bit hard to walk pass without dropping some coins. Points before audacity!

The quickest way to get to Turaida castle is to follow the road up when the track hits the main road. We didn't go that way, instead following the track along the river. Of course, not only was the road the quicket, it was also the simplest. We walked and walked. We saw one track up into the forest but, well, I'm not sure why we didn't take it - it was obvious in hindsight. Instead we wandered on a bit further until we came to a collection of three or so deserted houses. Quite spooky. According to our map there was a track leading up from behind the "village" but we couldn't find it. Ended up walking back to the track we saw earlier and heading UP it. Hard work.

Came out of the forest into a clearing containing a very cool statue/sculpture park. Quite bizarre after out little detour to come across a sculpture park amongst manicured lawns. If you ever get there, the statue of the woman's face was definitely my favourite - will post photots when I get to London.

The sculpture park was in the grounds of the Turaida Castle so we wandered over to it. This time we agreed with the Lonely Planet, it was "best viewed from afar". And full of tour groups to boot. Wandered back to the main entrance to find that by coming up the forest track we had avoiding the "whopping" entrance fee of 1.5 Lats (about $3)!.

After another beer stop (well two actually, mainly because of a rather full on thunderstorm which stranded us under an umbrella for 45 mins!) we walked the 5km back to Sigulda centre, via the bobsleigh track which snakes its way down the side of the Gauja valley at one end of the town.

Nice to have a day out away from the city after Tallin and the packed beaches of Parnu. Definitely worth a look, just don't expect castles in the Alps - it aint that Swiss(h) !!!