Turaida Castle
Red brick from 1214 and a round tower over the valley.
Laaciz — CC BY-SA 4.0 · VolodyaVoronin — CC BY-SA 4.0 · EllaKGr — CC BY-SA 4.0 · EllaKGr — CC BY-SA 4.0
Maija, a girl adopted by the castle scribe, was promised to a gardener; a Polish soldier lured her to the cave to rape her, and she convinced him her scarf protected her from the sword and asked him to strike it to prove it — so he killed her, she choosing death over betrayal. The soldier was tried and executed, and her grave is still visited.
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"Latvian Switzerland" and the country's first national park: Gauja (1973) follows the Gauja river valley northeast of Riga — red sandstone cliffs eighty metres high, caves, forests, and three castles in a single triangle around the town of Sigulda. The castles are the story: red-brick Turaida (1214) with its round tower and its view down the valley, the ruined Sigulda castle of the Brothers of the Sword, and Krimulda manor — with a cable car crossing between them forty metres above the river since 1969, the park's most famous feature. At Turaida stands Gūtmaņis Cave, the Baltics' largest and the most inscribed (some carvings from the seventeenth century), and before it the grave of the Rose of Turaida: a girl killed in 1620 for refusing to betray her betrothed — her legend is Latvia's most famous love story, and newlyweds still lay flowers on her grave on their wedding day. Sigulda itself is Latvia's winter sports town (an Olympic bobsleigh track), with bungee jumping and autumn colour.
Red brick from 1214 and a round tower over the valley.
Forty metres above the river since 1969.
The Baltics' largest, covered in carved inscriptions.
Sigulda, Latvia