Road-tripping around the Baltic States. Day 9: Rīga-Sigulda.

This is a cautionary tale to why you should NEVER go on vacations with me. Not that I'm actually looking for anyone to come. 

Today I went from the stress of the city to the peacefulness of a Natural Park in barely one hour. Sigulda is a quiet city next to the Gauja national park which is, as its name says, a natural park. It was a big change, but the weather was perfect for a day in the forest, so I fully embraced it. I started by going to the information point where I was informed that a 10km walk would take me four hours. FOUR FUCKING HOURS! So I promptly replied by "Oh, I can actually come back through this other path that is 15km long, can't I?". Here's the lesson, if I'm told there's a hiking trail I will go hiking. No matter what. The walk started in Sigulda to visit a couple of castles and the church and continued into the natural park. There were lots of wooden stairs everywhere because apparently Latvians believe that the only way up and down a hill is a straight line. The walking path followed the Gauja river and there are several caves and castles on the way.

Of course, at one point I lost the trail because there aren't many sings, and because I always take hiking paths on the wrong direction. Anyway, I found my way back and with it some really challenging moments, as a flight of stairs that was missing more than one step and had a fallen tree on top of it. 

Across the river there were two options of trail, of course I took the one that went by the river, and even climbed up and down a hill to get to see the views the emperor had. Also, in the middle of the forest I found a red squirrel (I have some pictures on my camera, but none on my phone). I also passed by a couple of ski slopes (which was really weird), and by a river beach where I proceeded to put my feet in (it felt awesome). Also, throughout the walk I kept confusing bulges in the river with beavers because the map said there were beavers and I wanted to see beavers (I didn't see beavers). 

Someone munched on those trees. 

In the end I think I walked around 22 km in a bit less than 6 hours, so it's not bad at all. And more taking into account how some places I almost had to crawl to pass through.