Gauja National Park

Heading North we spent 2 Days in Gauja National Park.  European National parks are not like Canadian ones.  Gauja is full of castles and towns and farmland.

We met a German couple in Riga who had just spent 4 days canoeing down the Gauja River, thy recommended it, but the weather has turned rainy and we are not equiped, so instead we toured some historic towns and castles.

We were forced by the weather to abandon our tent and hole up in a camping cabin.  The lap of luxury (electricity and heat, but no bathroom or kitchen facilities).

We visited the Turaida Museum Reserve is a reconstructed medieval fort built in 1214 on the remains of an older Livonian stronghold.

There's an exhibit of Livonian artifacts found on the site.  I always like to look at the personal effects of long ago peoples.

A bird pin!  The round ones are the clasps that hold one's cloak together.

There's also extensive buildings of a manor on the site, a church, farm buildings, a bathhouse and a blacksmith shop.

And this being Latvia, a sculpture garden in honour of Latvian folk songs. Leo went to town photographing all of them, but I'll just share one.