On the second day, after eating an early breakfast at our hotel and seeing that the weather was warm and beautiful again, we didn't waste any time and left the dust of Riga behind us.
Luckily, our destination wasn't more than an hours drive away. It was still early, when we reached the beautiful Gauja National Park and the Gauja river in Sigulda.
Since we planned staying Sigulda for the night, our explorations were centered around the area as well. Above the bridge, crossing Gauja river, you can see a cable car, that connects Sigulda to Krimulda on the other side of the valley and a winged flying mechanism, that you can ride above the valley as well.
How this works is the cable car crosses the valley first, taking passengers to Krimulda on the other side, and then the winged mechanism follows, with two people flying over the valley in great speed. When the cable car returns, it also pushes the people hanging back to the start.
This cable car ride and visiting Krimulda is something we wanted to do, so we found this endless stairway up the mountain and started our ascent. Alas, it was only after what felt like ages climbing to the top, we found out that you can access it with a car as well.
When finally at the top, on one side you can see the Krimulda Manor (photo above), with a million dollar view of the whole valley opening from it's terrace. Today, the Krimulda Manor operates as a spa hotel, so it's possible to spend your night there and have a breakfast with a million dollar view.
From the other side, you can see the Turaida stone castle in the distance (photo below). Turaida castle is somewhat of a symbol for Gauja National Park.
When it was finally our turn to step into the cable car and start our trip to the other side with a majestic view between, we caught one more glimpse of Turaida Castle and the beautiful nature around Gauja.
Last look back towards the Sigulda side...
... and we're ready to move on. Everybody from the cable car went in one direction, so naturally, we headed the other way.
And stumble on the Krimulda Manor we did. Parks, flowers and beauty gardens are not my thing, but i'll share some photos nonetheless.
We circled around the Krimulda Manor and caught some photos from the other side and below.
Neatly, a path spirals down behind the manor and seems to point to our next destination far, far away, the Gutman's Cave, which is one of the largest sandstone caves in the Baltics. If you want some more interesting reading about the caves, check out the legend of Turaida Rose on Wikipedia.
We were already exhausted from all our climbing so far and the hot weather, but luckily the path lead us under the cool shade of the trees.
Along the way we saw some cool spots, a house with a nice architectural style and even stumbled accidentally across the ruins of Krimulda Castle.
After a long walk (luckily only downhill) we finally reached Gutman's Cave, a popular tourist spot it seems. People have been carving their names into the sandstone for ages here, probably contributing to the demise of the caves. But somehow, it still looks beautiful.
Enough. By this time, we were so hungry that we visited a random restaurant here and asked for Shashlik and latvian kvass.
And they were delicious. Perhaps I was just hungry or perhaps this shashlik was one of the best I have eaten. But latvian kvass - you've got to try it.
It was time to check into our hotel for the night. It was still early, barely supper time, so we decided to explore a bit behind our hotel.
It's a beautiful small hostel-type hotel on the outskirts of Sigulda, overlooking a lake behind the hotel from the terrace - with a beautiful view for next morning's breakfast, I bet.
But seeing as we still hadn't managed a nice cooling swim, we grabbed our towels and headed to the shore of Gauja river near the Tarzan Adventure Park.
What's cool about this place, is that the current here is so strong, that if you're a weak swimmer, the current will take you away. Hence the buoys and a very agile lifeguard monitoring from a nearby tower and constantly yelling intructions to swimmers via a loudspeaker.
Luckily the water is shallow on this side of the buoys. I tried swimming against the current a few times and reaching from one buoy to the other took me several minutes :)
A good way to get some recreative exercise while having som fun at the same time, wouldn't you say?
As it was getting late by this time, we drove around a bit more, visiting a nearby sports center, where a bob-sledge practise area is hiding itself, unfortunately this one was closed for the day.
We also visited a famous waterfall in a nearby forest, alas it was quiet due to the prolonged dry period.
This is where I leave you on our second day of the trip. See you soon!
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