Around the World in 8000 days: Ligatne, Latvia - Storks, Spoons and Soviet bunkers

Welcome to our travel blog. We are Tabitha and Nic. In 2011 we 'retired' in our early 40s and set off to travel the world. We spent our first year in South America and have been lucky enough to make two trips to Antarctica.

Our blog is a record of our travels, thoughts and experiences. It is not a guide book, but we do include some tips and information, so we hope that you may find it useful if you are planning to visit somewhere we have been. Or you may just find it interesting as a bit of armchair travel.

Thursday, March 9, 2017

Ligatne, Latvia - Storks, Spoons and Soviet bunkers

Cellar Caves, Ligatne

While we were staying in Cesis, we drove out to the Ligatne area. One of the things that we were aiming to see was the Ligatne Soviet bunker, but we only set off for there in the afternoon, and then took wrong turn, so by the time we realised, corrected and got there, we had missed the 3pm only tour of the day.

Our wrong turn, which had taken us down gravel and eventually sand 'roads', actually took us out to a leisure complex that has lots of camels and alpacas, so at least it was an interesting diversion.

As we weren't going to the bunker, we checked out a few of the other sights in Ligatne instead. We started with the Cellar Caves. There are some 333 cellar caves, of varying sizes, carved into the sandstone hillside.

Cellar Caves, Ligatne

The earliest date back as far as 1770, while the newest are as late as the 1970s. It is possible that some people lived in them, perhaps hiding from authorities, but in the main they appear to have been used as storage cellars. They aren't very exciting, but then what can you really expect from caves!

What was more interesting, were some of the more up to date contents of a few of the caves. They have used some of them as little shop fronts to sell locally produced good such as honey, cheeses, turned wood and, our favourite, some interesting fruit wines. Alongside standards like apple, pear, and blackberry, they also had rhubarb and cloudberry wines as well. We took a couple of bottles away with us.

Wild boar, nature walks, Ligatne

After the caves, we visited the local Nature Walks. This was a specified route through the forest, where you were supposed to be able to see various animals along the way. The enclosures that we passed were a reasonable size, but we didn't see anything in most of them.

Wild boar, nature walks, Ligatne

We were rather disappointed with the bear, as it had a lovely big outdoor enclosure, but had for some reason, been locked up in a small section of his building. He certainly wasn't happy, and was being quite vocal about it, which we hoped was a sign that he wasn't usually cooped up like this, but still.

Aside from the grumpy bear, we just saw some owls and a few boar, and the walk wasn't especially scenic, so overall we weren't that impressed.

Araisi windmill, Ligatne

The drive back along the country roads did have some nice scenery though, and being quiet, we could slow down to admire it. We finished off the day with a stop at the Araisi windmill. It is only from the 19th century, but it is nice little stop off.

Storks at Araisi windmill, Ligatne

The guy who looks after it came out of his house on his mobility scooter to let us in and give us a leaflet telling us a bit about it. His huge dogs were also quite keen to say hello, and thankfully friendly.

The windmill was fine, but we spent just as much time watching a couple of young storks next to it.

While one was content just to lay in the huge bundle of twigs that was its nest, and presumably wait for the adults to return with the next feed, the other was busy trying out its wings.

We watched it for quite a while, flapping its wings in the wind, almost, but not quite, daring to take that leap off the edge of the nest. Eventually, we had to tear ourselves away, left to wonder whether or not it finally plucked up the courage.

Krimulda Manor, Latvia

The next day, after our visit to Sigulda, we had another attempt at the Soviet Bunker. But first we stopped off briefly to see Krimulda Manor.

There was a castle here initially, from 1255, but the Polish took over the place in 1566, and when the Swedish kicked them out forty years later, they destroyed the castle and village, so that the Poles couldn't return.

Krimulda Manor, Latvia

A couple of hundred years later, Prince Johann Lieven bought the grounds, and built the manor house in around 1822. The Latvian Red Cross turned the manor house into a TB sanatorium in 1922, and it is now officially a rehabilitation centre, although it seems to be more hotel in style. As it is private, we couldn't go in, but it is a nice building, and the mostly rundown outbuildings are interesting to take a look around too.

Soviet Bunker, Ligatne

From there, we finally made it to the old Soviet bunker. We got here in plenty of time for the tour, which was good, as the car park fills up, and I didn't fancy having to squeeze around the huge lumps of concrete that were inconveniently positioned for some of the spots!

Soviet Bunker, Ligatne

They run tours in Latvian, Russian and English, and the English speaking guide was pretty good. He had a good sense of humour, which confused a few non-native English speakers when they took him seriously.

It was quite a good tour, with just the right level of information, not too much but interesting and informative.

Soviet Bunker, Ligatne

Of course, it never actually operated during the cold war, as although they started it in the 1960s, it wasn't finished until 1982. It remained a secret until after Latvia gained independence, hiding its existence under cover of the hotel above it.

The bunker was intended for the communist elite, and was planned to house 250 people for three months, in the event of a nuclear or chemical attack. The rooms are fun to look around, as they really are relics of the past. As the guide said, there was no point in them having fancy new technology that they couldn't fix if it went wrong, as they couldn't just call out an engineer to a secret bunker.

Soviet Bunker, Ligatne

We were told that most Latvians would have had access to a bunker of some sort, but it sounded like those bunkers may have been about as much use as a chocolate teapot in the even of an actual attack.

Trying on gas masks was fun. I think we looked a bit like the Ood from Doctor Who! And yes, there are photos further down.

After the bunker, we made our way over to Ausligatne to check out the wooden spoon workshop, which is also where they make the wines that we tried in the caves. The guy who makes the spoons wasn't around, but we had an interesting chat with his sister, who also works there, and we bought ourselves a couple of nice pieces.

We really liked the Cesis and Ligatne area. The Gauja National Park has plenty to see and do, including some good activities for families. You do need your own transport to get around though, if you want to get out to all of the smaller places.