In 2007, after a 3 day stop in Iceland, I rented a bike in Rīga, Latvia and traveled solo around the Kurzeme region of the country (most of the area west of Rīga) for a total distance of around 500 miles (800 km). The trip was 13 days long, with the flight back to the US on the 14th day.

In this website, I collect some of my photographs of the trip, with some minimal captions to describe each photo. There are no substantial photos of Rīga here, as I had visited that city on a previous trip and took a large number of photos at that time. At some point, I hope to post those photos, as Rīga itself is quite beautiful in the Old Town.

Hopefully the pictures convey something of the diversity of the landscape in Kurzeme. I will be returning to Latvia in Summer 2008 for the Dziesmusvētki (Song Festival), and I will also be visiting some parts of eastern Latvia prior to the closing concert.

The above map summarizes my progress during each day. A few comments:

The first day involved backtracking twice after getting lost. I had purchased Latvijas autoceļu atlants (road atlas) from the Jāņa sēta store, which is quite thorough. However, when I started out, I assumed that Daugavgrīvas sala (the first black arrow) connected to Jūrmala proper, which it doesn't. Fortunately, the tip of that island is a nature park, and a bus was just pulling up to drive me back to Imanta. The second black arrow is the result of trying to bypass A10 and getting lost in the Buļļupe recreational area. This time, I backtracked to a main road and took A10, driving on the grass on the side of the road.

The third day I decided to make a loop in order to see Māras kambari, pass through some countryside, then return to Sabile. I did not have a good chance to see Sabile the previous day, because the campsite I was intending on staying at did not appear open. As a result, I ended up camping next to Abavas rumba. A German couple with their RV were the only other ones there.

On the fourth day, I decided to visit Engures ezers, which is why there is a doubling-back there. This was a result of realizing that visiting Papes ezers south of Liepāja was not possible on this trip. Both sites have wild horses and bison.

The fifth day campsite in Mazirbe was marked only by a sign that had been taken down and put next to a shed. There appeared to be no one nearby, and the locals knew nothing about such a campsite (it didn't help that I kept saying Mērsrags instead of Mazirbe at first - this was due to passing through Košrags and of course being at Mērsrags the previous day). By this time it was pitch black outside, so I set up tent within the perimeter of what appeared to be the picnic area of this former campsite.

The ninth day, I did not stay in Aizpute because I was unable to find lodging. I got there a bit later in the evening (still light), and strangely the hotel seemed to have no staffing. The other places on the map that appeared to be lodgings also were not open, or were guest houses, which I wasn't certain of how to deal with. Given some strange encounters with locals, including one lady who kept motioning for me to get into her car and myriad dogs chasing after me, I decided to set up a tent elsewhere. Unfortunately, it was beginning to storm, and I did not want to camp in the open since there were no marked campgrounds. As a result, I eventually set my tent up behind a local kapi (graveyard) which I hoped wasn't on anyone's private land. All the other land appeared to be farmsteads with dogs.