I have always wanted to visit one of the national treasures of Latvia, The Great Kemeri Bog Boardwalk. It is a popular tourist destination in Kemeri National Park in Latvia. There are no tickets to buy and and is completely free of charge.
A great place to visit if checking out Latvia. Fresh air, nature, trees, what more can you want from nature tourism?
The Great Kemeri Bog Boardwalk
The first footbridge was made in year 2000 which was actually footbridge used to get to Soviet Meteorological station located in the swamp. In 2008 it was closed due to wear and reopened in 2013 with a 3.7km long footbridge walk.
Bog is located 35 km on the East of Riga. Drive to it is fairly straightforward with only one highway that direction. With last 2 km drive on the gravel it was very easy to get there.
I was traveling with my close friends visiting. So i had to play a tour guide for everybody. Even though i had been there, it was a long time ago so it was something new to myself as well.
Here is a insight in my trip.
The Sightseeing Tower visible in close distance
If you decide to go here in May or June remember to have some insect spray with you because forest trail leading to footbridge was absolutely filled with mosquitos!
Footbridge trail is made from solid wood that doesn't get worn so easily as this trail is available all year providing amazing experiences all year long. Every season and time of the day it is amazing to photograph. This is how it looks 6 PM during early summer.
This is a place where many protected species of animals and kinds of vegetations live without interactions from humans other than a few who takes a walk.
Even though sightseeing tower was not the highest of them all it gave fantastic view over the swamp area. Photographs taken from here might take somebody's breath away easily. Certainly provided a great look to a vast spaces of the bog.
Climb up was easy. Every now and then you might be able to spot an information plac with interesting stories or notes about the particular place, animal species or vegetation. Since most of us didn't do any homework these came quite handy after all.
Me having a rest and taking a good look over the huge swamp.
The trail is only 3.7km long but the territory of the bog is absolutely huge covering the ground of a small city. Just take a look at some of the pictures.
For many of us the view reminded us of some kind of wild golf-course. If you take away the trees i can totally see that happening. Well, other than that is a swamp.
These trees are very weird. We tried and you can actually just pull them out of the grounds, mainly because it is super moist. Some of them appear to be dead but they actually are not.
I hope you enjoyed a little tour of The Great Kemeri Bog Boardwalk. I tried to include some of the best photos but there are a lot more in addition to this. If this gets the recognition i will post more photos including us in the swamp and getting there.
Thank you for reading.