Latvia is known for its beautiful capital Riga and its historical town center with art nouveau houses, narrow alleyways and the famous House of the Blackheads. But Latvia has so much more to offer... Inspired by 2014 year made film "Lost in Latgale", where bunch of boys clearly showed that you don't need to go outside from Latvia to have a good time and enjoy your dearest hobbies, we decided to organize memorable adventure trip for ourselves. So we united all the true, carefree freedom lovers to rush into adventures with us.
Together we disappeared from the city crowd for four days, jumped into the call of nature, culture, history and enjoyed adventures in Latvia's untouched part - Latgale. During the journey, we visited places where the past, present and the future meets. We swam in the greatest lakes in Latvia, we were in the furthest eastern point next to Russian border, we visited most sacred place in Latvia. Worth mentioning that we have our own warmest places named Malta and Egypt in our country. Also, we were at the oldest festival in Latvia which celebrated 20 years last year.
For the trip we used special designed „Fiat 126" cars, which made this adventure trip more fun and colorful. Also, the journey was divided thematically - in activity, sports, cultural and environmental days. This events aim was simply to have a good time and to draw attention for active lifestyle and improvement of cultural roles of places we visited, hope it will.
Here’s a story of it in pictures made by amazing Latvian photographer Janis Bumanis.
On the move
Image credits: Janis Bumanis
The first stop of our journey was in Kekava, where we collected sand
We had a fantastic opportunity to put our hands for place named Liktendarzs (The Garden of Destiny) establishment, which is located on an island in the river Daugava. Everyone was invited to take some sand and help to create this place.
Immediately after that we went to Kegums hydroelectric power station, where we spent some time for viewing of exposure and tour
Energy museum exhibition is housed in an authentic environment - Kegums power station area
Exhibit of technological equipment and a collection of objects are forming an idea of the power generation, transmission and distribution, reflecting electrician everyday work. We were also introduced with the power plant construction and history.
Liktendarzs - a place where the past, the present and the future of the people as well as the nation merge
Merge to give solace to the past, strenght to the present and inspiration to follow your dreams in the future.
As mentioned before - we took part in the making of Great hill and had a tour there
Just as generations left the Statue of Freedom to us, we will leave the Garden of Destiny as our legacy.
On the way
Lost in Latgale
Late at night, we arrived at the camping site next to Viesites lake, which stands out for its characteristic unusual long form unlike other Latvian lakes
Here our rest began. Without glance and pomposity - eco-camping by the lake - the main values here are nature, silence and simplicity. Countryside romance and real emotions for them is more important than euro repairs and stars in the title, because they are special in a different way. Here we stopped our engines, united for talks and games and shortly after it sneaked into lake for a naked swim.
After we spent all morning doing sports and other uniting activities near the lake, we moved on just in the afternoon
This day's path led through villages such as Lone and Nereta
There we talked and had fun with locals. There our brilliant photographer Janis also did photoshoot of us and our beautiful limousines.
Later on we were dining at Garsenes castle park
Here we went for a tour in historic palace complex. In this park almost on every step is significant environmental object or unique natural landscape.
In the park we played croquet
One of the most restful bats and ball team sports and lazily, listening to bird songs had a lunch, very aristocratic.
After lunch we went to the Latvian/Lithuanian border to be at the furthest southern point of Latvia
It is also the warmest place we have - it is called Egypt. Along the way between Garsenes castle and Egypt, we stopped at peat extraction site, we contacted the owner and he allowed us to go inside there. So we went...
Here we are at our accommodation in Berkeneles manor territory
It is known as a significant Latvian writer and public figure Janis Rainis childhood land, where we were cooking sausages on the fire and spent the evening by sharing stories about everything important and maybe not so much. Right after breakfast we looked the house, which is a national architectural monument and Raina Museum, at the moment, here is an exhibition devoted to him. Also there are organized young artist exhibitions.
On the way to the most sacred place of Latvia, we went to look from Priedaines observation tower, which is the second highest wooden tower in Latvia (32 m)
At the top, we felt like birds over the Daugava river, forests and Kraslavas wooden houses, castle and churches. On the ground, next to the tower we rested shoes four ourselves and for our cars, here we created the letter "P" linking cars to each other, which means "Pazust" or "Get Lost".
On our way to the most sacred place in Latvia - Aglona
There they celebrated region holiday, so we pleased Aglonas residents with our beautiful carriages and took some beautiful smiles as payment.
Further we stopped in the second warmest Latvian place - Malta
We went to swim in the greatest and clearest Latvian lake to refresh and clean up for the evening.
On the way to the oldest festival in Latvia - Osvalds
We got lost, again. It is close to Russian/Latvian border, but we did not want trouble so we put all our heads together and found the way to meet Osvalds, who celebrated his 20th anniversary last year.
Back on track
We stopped at Baltinavas great oak and spent time in trails, where we breathed fresh air, sang powerful Latvian songs and found the right answers to our questions within ourselves
Considering previous nights loud singing and good reception of Osvalds (VIP tickets) we decided to sleep little longer in the next morning. However, also in this day activities appeared by themselves. From today we behaved much conscientiously of our life life on this planet than day before.
Like coming home from any trip, we are no the same as we were before
