On the third day of our trip, we got up for an early breakfast on the terrace with the glorious view, overlooking the forest lake.
But as it promised to be another sunny and warm summer day, we had no desire to stay at our hotel, rather we packed our bags fast after breakfast and started on our way further into Gauja National Park - Ligatne.
Ligatne is a historic town, built around a paper mill nearly 200 years ago. So many of the places we visited here are part of the historic Paper Mill Village.
If one drives into Ligatne center, he will come across beautiful forests above sandstone cliffs, which can also be seen on the photos.
There are both natural and man-made caves in the sandstone cliffs, forming astonishing shapes, and all that in a naturally beautiful environment - there's always a river or a viewing platform near, if not both.
In this case, there was even a table with goods, snacks and foods(can be seen behind the bush in the topmost of the 3 photos above). For tourists? Who knows. Anyway, as the temperatures were around 30 degrees Celsius, we decided not to touch the food.
Circling around, we got to the other side of the Ligatne river and there we came to the man-made cellars in the cliffs. As Ligatne has the highest amount of sandstone cliffs in Latvia, it's only natural, peole would take advantage of it and store their food and other goods there, due to the easy nature of sandstone carving.
This tradition has been going on for as long as there is history. Some of these holes could be ancient!
And behind the rivers and the sandstone cellars - more stairs, more climbing. But the nature is beautiful here and I really want a view from the viewing platform up top, so up we go.
This forest is probably perfect for mushrooms as well, so if we hadn't been so exhausted from constant climbing and the heat, we probably would have gone for a nice walk in the woods - you see, Ligante is also famous for it's hiking trails.
Afrer we climbed down, we drove a tad further, only to see the original paper mill area sealed off. This looks like the perfect place to explore - old buildings with a story to tell, overlooking the beautiful forest and the Ligatne river. Unfortunately, the gates remained locked for us this time.
We drove back towards the other side of the old town and visited the older part of the papermill, the Handfabrik, where paper was manufactured mainly by hand. Later the manufacturing moved to the other side of the town and leaving only subsidiary functions here.
One can see the system of sluices built onto the riverdam and the cliff in the back, filled with cellars, rooms and who-knows-what-purpose holes.
And more stairs! More climbing. But again, a viewing platform up top, that promises a spectacular view, caught our eye.
Of course we had to peak into the holes as well, alas the holes in this cliff were all deserted. If something was stored here once, it's long gone.
But the hard climb usually pays off, and luckily this time we got rewarded as well.
The views are magnificient. And what's more curious, is that there are no hordes of tourists cramping the area. One other car with a family only pulls up.
After taking a few moments to enjoy ourselves, we headed downwards and our trip back home started, with mandatory breaks at the beaches of Salacgriva.
This is where this story ends, hope you enjoyed the photos.
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