I started the next morning at the fairly early hour of around half six. It was bitterly cold outside as I contemplated my life choices, as with every single time that I’d start an early alarm on holiday, and packed myself up for a short stroll to the tram towards the station.
This morning, I was headed for Sigulda. It was about an hour out of Riga, being famous for its castle and various hiking trails, and I decided that I may as well have a gander, despite being pre-warned that it wasn’t necessarily the place to go in the depths of winter. I purchased my ticket for the train on the insanely easy-to-use Latvian Railways app, paying a pittance for the hour-long journey.
It remained predominantly dark for the winding trip through the mountains, as I was deposited at a rather snowy Sigulda, knowing only the vague direction that I needed to head in, and that I had around two hours to see it all. I trudged my way towards the main road into town, keeping some distance behind the dodgy-looking bloke that had joined my train mid-way through the journey. There was a fairly thick layer of snow on the ground and I was thankful that I’d bothered to wear my boots, even if they were about as comfortable as listing to Piers Morgan speak.
The first sign of civilisation along the long and not-so-winding road was the Evaņģēliski luteriskā baznīca, or Lutheran Evangelical Church, which sat next to a rather frozen-looking lake. A lone dog-walker (seemingly a feature of every deserted landmark in Latvia) made their way past me as I tried to make my way towards the castle.
I did quite well in following Google Maps, but alas it seemed that I was either too early or plainly lost as it would appear that all of the grounds surrounding the castle were very closed. I tried to make myself look not-totally-insane by making a loop around a frozen pond which apparently played host to various forms of wildlife when it wasn’t resembling a flavourless slushie.
I ended up on a path high above the River Gauja instead, which I’ve no doubt again plays host to various events and a plethora of happy families at warmer times of year. Instead, we had a Soviet-esque Ferris Wheel and a couple of dog-walkers for company as I sized-up the best vantage points for photos without meeting an untimely death several hundred feet below.
No doubt, in warmer weather, Sigulda is an absolutely magical place. That said, I wasn’t entirely annoyed at the wintry mystique that it held as I realised I was absolutely fucking starving and headed for the nearest supermarket. None of what I bought vaguely resembled breakfast, but pistachio eclairs and Kvass sounded healthy enough to me as I clambered my way up onto the train back to Riga.
With the Dark Tourism website as my guide, I headed for the bus after we arrived back at Riga’s main station, with me passing various signs pointing out the departure locations of trains to Minsk, St Petersburg and Moscow. No doubt, COVID-19 had put paid to such services and the subsequent Russian invasion of Ukraine hasn’t done that any favours.
My next stop was the Biķernieki forest, which lay at the side of a road a few miles out of Riga proper. After the bus made its schlep through suburbia, we seemed to enter the middle of nowhere just as my cue came to press the bell and jump off. It went against all normal instincts to head straight into this creepy-looking forest that lay in front of me, but I went for it and started walking. Small markers with the Star of David started to appear between the tall trees, with I was soon confronted with the main memorial, with roughly 5,000 granite stones representing typical Jewish tombs.
Biķernieki was, basically, a killing forest. It was used by the Nazis to slaughter around 46,500 Jews with their bodies being buried in mass graves. I was alone there, no doubt, because it was the middle of February and I was in the middle of a forest, but it was absolutely haunting to know the atrocities that took place exactly where I was standing. It was even worse knowing that unlike in Western Europe, such atrocities were only followed by further oppression and atrocities too.
Having soaked up what lay around and underneath me, I headed back to the main road and took the bus back into the centre. I stopped off at the Elkor Gift Shop for some souvenirs for home, being rather taken aback by the demand for my vaccination pass (indeed, the Latvian state of emergency at the time meant that getting in just about anywhere required this).
My next stop was the Museum of the Popular Front of Latvia. It was a slightly jollier affair than the museum I’d visited the previous day, telling the story of the road to revolution. Again, it was entirely free to visit, though donations were welcomed. The museum spanned across several floors, beginning with the initial struggles for independence, the revolution and finally the first steps of Latvia as a democracy. There was also the rather adorable opportunity for me to try my hand as an artist:
It was a fascinating hour or so, and I was then left pondering how I would spend the rest of my afternoon.
I ended up in a fancy-ish shopping centre, picking up some more Kvass to quench my thirst. It’s an odd ol’ drink, best described as kombucha, rye bread and malt loaf shagging over a plastic bottle. Alas, I had to show my vaccination pass three times in my twenty minutes or so spent wandering around. It was a bizarre contrast to the UK, where restrictions were nearing non-existent.
With rain starting to come down, I ended up taking a tram right to the end of the line near Daugmale, in the south-eastern suburbs of the city. It was then about a fifteen minute walk through some slightly dodgy-looking Commieblock estates to Daugmale Station, which lay on the mainline towards Ogre (hello Shrek fans) and Daugavpils. I whiled away my wait for a train back towards Riga Pas. watching the freight yard comings and goings and ignoring the massive ‘no photography’ signs.
With little else to do in the pouring rain, I ended up taking another train towards Jelgava, around an hour south of Riga, when I reached the main station. There’s little to say about the journey there and back, other than that it was decidedly bleak but an interesting (and very very cheap, and warm) insight into provincial Latvian life. All that was left was to head for the nearest branch of Rimi and pick up some sandwiches, weird sliced meat, and beers for the evening, before getting ready to fly back to the delectable London Luton the next morning.
The beers were terrible. I don’t know what it was, but they both tasted exactly the same and were like licking a musty floor. Which is something that, of course, I have extensive experience in.
Of course, landing in Luton was ten times worse.
The Lone Bon Voyager 