Castles in Lielvārde Latvia

 

Lielvārde is a little town along the Daugava River about an hour drive southeast of Riga. They have a reconstruction of a wooden castle similar to the one in Tērvete. There's no need to choose a favorite between them since they're both fun to explore. There's a castle ruin on the other side of town in the manor complex. The nice park grounds around it with huge carved poles are a great place to stroll around. Finally, there's a named waterfall listed on their tourist board. If you're not interested in the castles then skip to the end to see that amazing wonder.

Castle Of The Livonian Order In Sigulda

Siguldas Viduslaiku pils (Castle Of The Livonian Order In Sigulda) is a great place to hang out. The castle compound has some interesting shops, food, and ice cream. It's about an hour away from Riga by car. We took the train to Sigulda last summer and explored Turaida Castle, so see that post for another Sigulda tourist spot.

Tērvete Wooden Castle

I love castles! This is a really cool reconstruction of a 12th century wooden castle. It's a unique experience to wander around inside what they believed to be the fortification style of the Semigallians with some artifacts and some recreations in the museum. They were the Viking Age people of the region before the Kingdom of Livonia. There's a long rich history of Latvia to explore. This timeline link covers prehistory to modern Latvia.

This is across a street from the park where the original castle stood on a hill. We also hiked over there through the nice park so the rest of the pictures are of that area.

Cēsis Castle Latvia

We previously visited Turaida Castle in Sigulda so check out that post too if you like castles. That one has a really good museum, a great park area, and an interesting castle structure. However, if you want to see a more typical medieval castle, then the 13th century Cēsis Castle is better. The museum isn't as good and the park grounds are smaller, but the castle is really cool to see. Next to the castle is the old town area of Cēsis, which is another great place to hang out. Heck, go ahead and plan on visiting both towns because castles are really cool and Latvia is a great place to live or vacation.

Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania

We had a great day exploring this big museum in Vilnius for the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania. A new palace compound was reconstructed on the ruins of the old palace. Part of it opened in 2013 and the whole thing opened just last year in 2018. There's some history on it at the link above.

The ruins are incorporated in the interior of the building so just walking through that is really cool. Their great presentation of Lithuanian history and reconstructed palace rooms are also worthwhile. The whole thing was just 8 euro so it's worth at least a quick stroll through the buildings even if you're not that interested in their history. We were interested, so we spent most of the day here exploring it.

Turaida Castle

Turaida Castle is a cheap train ride away to Sigulda and a short (and small) bus ride to Turaida Museum Reserve. The castle was started in 1214 and went through various changes until it's decline in the 17th century. It wasn't rebuilt after it had become private property and a major fire in 1776 destroyed a lot of it. It became a protected object in 1924 and they've rebuilt some of the structures as they turned it into a museum. It now has some interesting exhibits in many of the buildings. The main tower is well worth the climb to get a view of the surrounding land like the picture above.

Budapest Városliget Park and Vajdahunyad Castle

Városliget Park or City Park is a wonderful place with Vajdahunyad Castle. I really love this castle because it's an intentional mashup of old styles.

Vajdahunyad Castle was built in 1896 as part of the Millennial Exhibition which celebrated the 1,000 years of Hungary since the Hungarian Conquest of the Carpathian Basin in 895. The castle features copies of several landmark buildings from different parts the Kingdom of Hungary, especially the Hunyad Castle in Transylvania (now in Romania). As the castle contains parts of buildings from various time periods, it displays different architectural styles: Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque. Originally, it was made from cardboard and wood, but it became so popular that it was rebuilt from stone and brick between 1904 and 1908.

Buda Castle District and a Labyrinth

We went up the funicular to the top of the Buda Castle District just for the fun-icular of it. This time we turned right and checked out the rest of the Castle District with Fisherman's Bastion. We also went underneath the area and  wandered through a dark labyrinth. The only thing left was to fly over but I didn't see a way to do that so that's as much as we covered there.

Gellért Hill and Buda Castle

Lāčplēsis Day

November 11 is Veterans Day in the U.S. honoring all military veterans. It's sometimes confused with Memorial Day which is to remember people who died while serving in the armed forces. Veterans Day was originally Armistice Day commemorating the armistice ending WWI and is still observed in many allied countries. November 11 is also Remembrance Day or Poppy Day in British Commonwealth nations to remember armed forces members who died in the line of duty similar to the the U.S. Memorial Day.

November 11 is Lāčplēsis Day in Latvia as a memorial day for soldiers who fought for the independence of Latvia. This day marks the victory over the West Russian Volunteer Army at the Battle of Riga in 1919 during the Latvian War of Independence. A popular Lāčplēsis Day tradition is placing candles on and by the wall of Riga Castle. These are pictures of that event and the gathering at the Freedom Monument.

Royal Palace Stockholm

Oh Sweden! Spring and temps in the 70s F happened a week ago but now I'm reminded of where I am. Overcast, rainy, and highs in the 50s for the weekend calls for a bit of inside tourism to inside places. Will the temps edge above 70F before leaving next month? We'll see.

Nearly 2 years later and I've finally visited the Royal Palace (Kungliga Slottet). It's not far or difficult to get to in Gamla Stan but it's just one of those things I hadn't gotten around to doing. The ticket includes 4 museums consisting of the Royal Apartments, Treasury (no pics allowed), Tre Kronor Museum, and Gustav III's Museum of Antiquities. There's also an awesome armory museum as a seperate ticket with royal coaches that I've blogged about before which is definitely worth a visit. The palace building doesn't look like much other than a boring big building. It's really too bad the Tre Kronor or Three Crowns castle burned down because that looked much more interesting from the model of it.

Lisbon Portugal

I had to go to Lisbon for a week of information systems security training. Life is just so rough sometimes. :-) I hung out for the weekend before returning to Stockholm. I had a wonderful time and highly recommend it for a vacation based on just the weekend.

We started down at the docas (docks) to eat at one of the nice restaurants. It's near the 25 de Abril Bridge built by the same people that built the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco. Lisbon feels a bit like San Francisco built over many hills with trolleys rolling around town.