Latvia

I arrive in RIGA by bus from Palanga, Lithuania, and visit the beautiful lively city, which is the largest in these Baltic republics with almost a million inhabitants. It is on the UNESCO list for its historic centre in Art Nouveau, Jugendstil and art nouveau style, which includes about 700 buildings. There are also two enormous churches with very tall bell towers, two little castle-museums, the Guilds and a jewel of a building, the House of the Blackheads, which was a congregation of unmarried medieval merchants. There are lively squares with lots of music in the evening, lovely gardens and parks, and the modern part, next to the historic centre, is equally beautiful with a canal, some parks and the beautiful Freedom Monument, a woman on top of a tall column holding three stars, the regions of the country.

Just outside Riga you reach the beautiful beach of Jurmala, 10 km of immaculate sand and a pine wood alongside that houses wooden villas, hotels and spas, which show a centuries-old tourist tradition that today sees above all the presence of Russians, some of whom own the most exclusive villas. In the eastern part, in a couple of hours you reach the beautiful resort of SIGULDA, inside a national park that includes a walking route of about 6 km among green landscapes, caves and castles, including the famous one of Turaida linked to the story of the Rose of May, a beautiful girl who preferred to die rather than betray her beloved and give in to the insistence of an aggressive suitor.

Finally I went south of the country, almost to the border with Lithuania, to visit the beautiful castle of RUNDALE, built in the 1700s by the Italian architect Rastrelli (who also designed the Winter Palace in St Petersburg) for the Duke of Courland, favourite of the Russian tsarina. The yellow palace has about 180 rooms, of which only 40 have been restored, and gardens full of red roses. In short, a visit that is worth making even alone, because you can get there by public transport right in front of the castle, despite all the warnings to the contrary, including that of Lonely Planet, which is evidently out of date.