We left Cēsis behind this morning, first making our way to Sigulda. Here we were dropped at a parking lot for our walk to Paradise Hill with nice views of the area. On the way we had an introduction (or refresher for some) on simple microbial life…

From the viewpoint we started the actual hike – heading down to the Gauja river, walking through meadows and forests until we eventually made it back up to Segulda and its castle. After some free time around the castle grounds we headed over to the cable car, to cross over to the Krimulda side of the valley, where – once again – we engaged into a short walk, first back down to river level and on to Gutmanis Cave, a small cave in sandstone rock with inscriptions dating back to the 17th century.

A short bus drive got us to the Turaida Museum Reserve, an open air museum, featuring the Turaida castle (built 1214, abandoned in 1776), a church and other historic buildings (incl. a historic sauna).

It took us about two hours (including a – well – questionable late-lunch witch-inspired stop) to reach the final destination of the day – Riga, Latvia’s capital.