Araisi windmill

The windmill is at the highest elevation of the surrounding area, offering lovely views of the Āraiši church, manse and Lake Āraiši with its ancient lake castle.  This is one of only a few Dutch-type windmills to still be in working order in Latvia after having been first built in 1852.  The windmill is a museum, with four floors that allow visitors to track the way in which grain was ground and to try their own hand at grinding.  Each year the windmill celebrates St Jacob’s Day, when fresh rye bread is the star of the process.  Visitors can order a miller’s lunch of wheat flour porridge with meat sauce, crêpes, kefir and herbal teas.

Host:  Vineta Cipe

Preserving Latvian architectural values in the landscape

Praising Latvian foods: Bread

Miller’s lunch – wheat flour porridge with meat sauce, crepes, kefir, herbal teas.

Ten kilometres from Cēsis and one kilometre from Āraiši Lake Castle, there are windmills, where it is possible, with the help of a guided tour, to follow the road of the grain into the flour, grind the grain, see all four floors of the mill. 

Owner Vineta Cipe offers a special "Miller‘s lunch" from grains milled in Āraiši windmill.

Individual visitors and groups of 10-80 people are welcome by prior arrangement. A tour of the mill and the Miller’s Lunch 1.5 h. A programme with bread baking in an authentic 13th century clay oven 2.5 h.