Sigulda

I guess every country needs a city for its citizens and tourists to find new ways of having thrills and near death experiences. It would appear that, for the Latvians, that place is Sigulda, situated north east of Riga in the Gauja River Valley.

Our day began with a short bus ride to Saulkrasti. After two weeks of drastically reduced sleep,every such bus ride becomes a valuable chance to get a little extra shuteye. After about an hour in the bus, 20 sleepy passengers staggered out to assemble outside the famous bicycle museum.

This museum has been assembled over a forty year period and contains a superb collection of bikes and paraphernalia. It is currently run by a father and son team, however they were obviously caught by surprise when we arrived. The gate was locked and the driver had to spend some considerable time on the phone, before the son was eventually roused. (The father apparently chose to stay in the Land of Nod).

As it turned out, the young man spoke excellent English and was very professional in his explanations and demonstrations. It really was well worth seeing, even though it looked rather modest from the outside.

We then climbed on the bikes for the day's ride. Once again the weather was perfect - fine and sunny. It is really starting to look like we have a good chance of getting through the entire ride without encountering any rain. What a bonus that would be. The last time we rode this region was in 2014, and it was cold and drizzly almost every day. That's just the luck of the draw I guess.

For most of the ride the road climbed gently, however the surface was pretty good and we were able to make good progress. To assist with safety on the public roads we divided into two groups and this worked well.

One interesting highlight we encountered was a lovely flower covered cemetery. Although the gardens were informal, they were obviously lovingly cared for. Many of the graves were covered with wildflowers and some even had a bench seat to sit down and remember the deceased. We even found a real well, complete with bucket and chain. Since no one was around, I decided to lower the bucket and see if there was any water inside. The well was very deep, but the bucket was eventually withdrawn with a load of crystal clear and very cold water in it. It would have been very tempting to sample it, but none of us were game.

On the outskirts of Sigulda we reached a steep descent with a sign telling us that it was an 11% gradient. Every knows the old adage that "what goes down, must come up", and so it was with a deal of trepidation that we freewheeled down to the base of the valley. After a short rest stop on the bridge, it was time to start the climb up the other side of the valley. This was the hard part.

The road quickly turned upwards and the helpful sign warned that the climb was once again a gut busting 11%. Of course I am not a flyweight mountain climber and was soon left way behind by the rest of the group. I clicked down to the third lowest gear and slowed down to something a little less than snail's pace. As I inched my way up the climb I was able to observe the grass growing and seemingly a lifetime passing by.

Somehow I managed to keep the pedals turning (about the same speed as the hour hands on a clock) and finally reached the top. By that time the rest of the group had had a long rest, read some books and explored the town. I had no sooner reached the top when some of the ladies took off again. I tried to tell them they were going the wrong way, but was informed that they were following the bus driver. I certainly was not going to try and chase them down. By that time my sole thought was to reach our hotel.

Our original hotel was to be the centrally located Hotel Sigulda, however we had been shafted to another hotel right outside the city outskirts. This meant we had to ride on another 2.5 km before we could finally stop. On arrival I contacted the second group of riders with the walkie talkie and told them to collect the ladies that had followed the bus.

Our new hotel was the Hotel Ezeri Spa Resort. Although it was a long way from anything, the location certainly was pretty, with a panoramic view from the rear terrace. Being a spa resort it offered a large range of exotic (and very expensive) treatments such as chocolate toe massages, seaweed wraps and the intriguing sounding "couple's paradise of dreams". For as little as a 100 Euro or so,anyone could be wrapped in seaweed, painted with chocolate and taken to paradise. I thought about it for about 1 second and decided that, since I have never had a massage in my life, I was not about to start now.

Eventually the missing three riders were delivered by bus to the hotel and the riders from Group two explained that they had spent some time wandering the ruins of a castle. We must have missed that one.

Although some of the rooms apparently took advantage of the glorious valley views,,my window looked out onto a singularly unattractive black rooftop and a large exhaust flue. The fan in the chimney made such a racket that it was hard to open the window without being deafened. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.Read more