Kuldīga Latvia

We can't travel outside Latvia during the COVID-19 restrictions, but we could maintain our social distancing while exploring the town of Kuldīga about 2 hours away. There were quite a few other people with the same idea, but we all tried to give each other extra room as we walked around. Here's a sign of the times about keeping the required 2 meter distance.

Kuldīga is a neat little town and home to the widest waterfall in Europe. It isn't tall, but Ventas rumba or Ventas Rapid is a naturally occuring waterfall that's normally 249 metres (817 ft) wide or 270 meters (886 ft) wide during spring floods.

The historic town center next to the falls is a great place to walk around. There's a couple of nice parks with sculptures and wood carvings which were cool to find. There's a pedestrian only road with closed shops during this pandemic. We found a food stand and terrace bar with outside seating for lunch overlooking the bridge and falls. This will be even better in the summer if things go back to normal.

Check the link for Kuldīga for more info on the town including these tidbits about the brick bridge and a run that happens over it during Midsummer:

The old brick bridge across the Venta was built in 1874 and is the longest bridge of this kind of road bridge in Europe – 164 m. It was built according to 19th century standards – 500 feet long and 26 feet wide, allowing two carriages to pass each other. It consisted of seven spans of brick vaults. During World War I two of the spans were blown up. The 'race of the naked' over the bridge has become an annual tradition for Midsummer nights.

We'll probably visit a few more times after everything opens back up. There's more to see and do listed on their Visit Kuldīga tourism website so this is one of the places to check out when you're in Latvia.

 

 

 the flip side of this sculpture

keeping the facade and chimneys

Driving between Kuldīga and Rīga is the town of Sabile. It has something on the map called Leļļu dārzs or Puppet Garden. These dolls are all dressed up and standing by the road so don't be too startled when you drive past. It was definitely an unexpected sight for us!