An hour by train, we walked to Kemeri National Park. A beautiful clear morning for the Raised Bog Trail, built in 2000.Fall colors, detail and highlight the Raised Bog Trail. This is the largest and most accessible bog in Latvia. It is also a very important bird migration area.This bog started forming about 8,000 years ago. As the peat layer grew thicker the bog started to rise into what is now called a dome. Inner pressure cracks start collecting water into numerous pools.This is a massive bog as we saw from the viewing tower — basically around 24 square miles.This gives a sense of scale as we enjoyed the reflections and sunshine!We got off the train at Majori Beach. A very popular area on the Gulf of Riga! About 30 minutes from Riga — nice!Jurmala means ‘seaside’ and has this extremely long sandy beach — 21 miles! Gorgeous. While Latvia was under Soviet occupation, Jūrmala was a favorite holiday resort and tourist destination for high-level Communist Party officials.Now everyone can enjoy! We were lucky to get a seaside table for an afternoon FIKA with our own lion sand sculpture.Amber is found tangled in seaweed in the Baltic — all along the coast after strong storms. And the store windows are so enticing! Made us think about what did happened to Catherine the Great’s Amber room…The Rundale Palace — in southern Latvia — dates back to the 1700’s. This Russian summer palace was designed by the same architect as the Winter Palace in St Petersburg. Catherine the Great’s brother lived here before Napoleon destroyed the interiors.We toured the lovely gardens with lots of different “rooms” devoted to tulips or hydrangeas, or roses.The Salaspils Memorial was built in 1967 by the Soviets to emphasize how bad the Nazi Work Camps were. Renovated in 2018, it now honors the German prisoners of war who died here as well under the Soviets. And explains the complete story of all who perished under the horrors of war and occupation.The statues are monumental as you can see from the people walking around. Very emotional in their depictions.Concrete statue “unbroken”. But the country was broken, but has recovered in the last 30 years of independence.
