Our plan was to spend one day checking out the sights in Riga, with one day trip to the seaside resort area of Jurmala, and another day trip to scenic Sigulda. However, once in Riga we decided to skip the day trip, over an hour each way, to Sigulda, and spend another day in Riga.
We liked Riga; in fact, it was fabulous. It's lively, located on the water, has great architecture, plenty of vegetarian food, and good transport. And it seemed to me that the non-locals in Riga, including us, seemed to be visitors rather than tourists. Does that make sense?
This post covers our day trip to Jurmala, an area of seaside resorts and health spas located to the west of Riga and accessible by train. In fact; in 1911 a direct train between Jurmala and Moscow was established.
After checking the 3-day forecast, the weather for a day trip to Jurmala looked best for our first full day in Riga, so off we went on the 9:20 train.
From the train, we get a good look at the National Library of Latvia as we head out of the city.
Our first stop will be at Kemeri National Park to walk on the Great Bog Boardwalk. Sun-Ling loves boardwalks and this one makes her top five list for sure. Here's Kemeri Station (mentioned above).
The Great Bog is a raised bog, similar to bogs in Ireland. The boardwalk trail is about 4 kms long with an observation tower at the midpoint. As usual, we encountered a group of children on a school outing.
The boardwalk "floats" on the surface of the bog. It was tempting to step off the boards into the squishy bog...
... or poke a stick into a particularly slushy looking spot.
Rainwater is the sole source of water in the bog.
The observation tower.
We had a few minutes to look around Kemeri before catching the train to Dubulti and the seaside resorts. Many of the buildings in Kemeri were in need of repairs.
Dubulti Station is pretty cool.
This Lutheran Church dates from 1909 and looks the part.
Typical wood house. Although this one is a now a museum dedicated to the Latvian poet Aspazija. This building was her home for many years. Great museum with some cool digital displays.
And we kept walking east to the resort town of Majori, the main/central part of Jurmala.
It was cool and breezy. No one was in the water.
Along the main drag.
The old Post Office.
And a view of Riga as we approached the station on our return.
I was starving so we ate dinner at a "self-service" restaurant in the station. The eggplant "stacks" (left) were tasty: two slices of eggplant topped by a slice of roasted pepper, topped by two slices of zucchini, with melted cheese over the whole thing.
Sooo flat up there!
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