Новости путешествий
We have come up with some carefully detailed programs in the countryside that might catch the interest of individual travellers and groups alike. They can be experienced as stopover visits with lunch in the countryside if you are on a longer touring route, or as 1-2 day outings for people staying in Riga. The program descriptions include maps, distances, timing, facilities, contacts and other practical details that help to plan your trip. Get inspired to explore the countryside!
The Valmiermuiža beer brewery is a great keeper of local traditions and a local community centre just 110km from Riga. On the top of producing excellent beer, they organise seasonal celebrations and farmers markets. Valmiermuiža’s winter solstice market is a popular celebration that attracts visitors from near and far, tempting them with fragrances, flavours and visual delights. This year it is held on December 16. As usual in Valmiermuiža, the market will be attended by craftsmen and home producers offering visitors pots of honey, authentic rural rye bread, homemade wines, dried berries and other delicacies. In addition, visitors can also choose from a selection of beautiful and useful Christmas gifts including warm gloves, woollen socks, attractive jewellery, woven baskets, wooden spoons, leather gloves and wallets. During the market, special workshops will be open where everybody will be able to learn the ancient practices of solstice celebrations and to make traditional decorations from natural materials.
The market closes in the evening to continue the celebration together with “Dandari”, a popular folklore group to involve everybody in singing, dancing and traditional seasonal games as Latvians celebrated in pre-Christian times.
Gingerbreads – the famous Christmas cookies are a real Christmas treat. Many people make them at home, and many bakeries offer ready-made dough. Traditional ingredients are honey, malt, butter, eggs, flour, and a rich bouquet of various spices including ginger, cinnamon, clove, and more. The “Lāči” bakery is famous for its great variety of traditional rye bread, but in Christmas season they offer gingerbread workshops. Small groups of 10-15 people are welcome to enjoy a 1 hour session with a professional baker making gingerbreads in wonderful shapes – it is even possible to make your gingerbread Christmas tree or a little gingerbread cabin. Traditionally gingerbreads are glazed in sugar coating to make them nice and beautiful. Natural colours are used to make the glazing colourful, like beet-root, fruit and berry juices. Such masterpieces are often used as decorations on Christmas tree.
The Ethnographic Open-Air Museum of Latvia in Riga offer the traditional Yule log Eve on December 17. Christian and pre-Christian traditions live along well in modern Latvia. Many Latvians celebrate Winter Solstice following old Latvian traditions. The idea of this celebration is the victory of light over the darkness as days are getting longer and nights are getting shorter. As in old times, to ward off the darkness, cold, last year's hard luck, bad work and thoughts, people roll the Yule Log from one farm to another and eventually burn it. The Yule Log burning symbolizes the beginning of a new solar year and the Sun itself, which is very important for farmers. And of course, it is time for ‘happiness casting’, fortune-telling, merrymaking and games.
Winter season reveals fascinating bog landscapes when shimmering snow crystals cover trees, majestic silence rules and abundance of fresh, snow-smelling air makes one happily dizzy.
Two young Latvian nature scientists came up with the idea to offer bog tours some years ago. Since then, their bog tours have become extremely popular in all seasons as family fun, team building experience or nature lovers’ escape. The tours are available for small groups, and the participants are given special snow shoes to make walking easier on the snow. The route length in the Great Ķemeru bog is 6km, and the guided tour takes ca 3-4 hours. The guide tells about plant and animal life, about nature processes in the bog and landscape. Even when temperatures are below 0°C, people feel warm as walking takes some physical effort. The Great Ķemeru bog offers and excellent and safe opportunity to spend a day in wild nature just 45km from Riga.
Esam izdevuši ceļvedi japāņu valodā, kas domāts individuāliem ceļotājiem - "GO RURAL - Latvija, Igaunija, Somijas dienvidu piekraste". Ceļvedī ietverta karte, kā arī praktiska informācija un norādes uz avotiem, kas palīdzēs saplānot ceļojumu, atrast transporta informāciju, naktsmītnes un citus pakalpojumus vai uzzināt vairāk par mūsu valstīm. Ceļveža mērķis ir aicināt individuālos ceļotājus ārpus galvaspilsētām un iepazīstināt ar to, ko var redzēt un darīt laukos. Ceļvedī raksturots mūsu reģiona ēdiens, naktsmītnes, daba, gadalaiki, iespējas apmeklēt lauku saimniecības, amatniekus, izmēģināt pirts tradīcijas, doties mežā sēņot vai pat nosvinēt kāzas lauku viesu mājā. Iepazīstinām arī ar Latvijai, Igaunijai un Somijai raksturīgiem suvenīriem. Šis izdevums būs noderīgs unērti lietojams gan plānojot, gan arī ceļojuma laikā.
We have come up with five new touring routes that offer colourful holiday experiences across three Baltic Sea states – Latvia, Estonia, and the South Coast region of Finland. The itineraries combine city and rural experiences offering the best highlights in each country and UNESCO heritage in all its diversity - from Art Nouveau architecture in capital cities to traditional smoke sauna in Estonian countryside. The countryside attractions are specialised in hospitality service and offer insight in small self-sustained farms, local food, arts and crafts, and nature while staying at comfortable guest houses, rural estates with gourmet restaurants or charming country homesteads that make you feel happy in simplicity and sincerity of real country life and home-made meals.
The tours can be organised on your own contacting the sites directly, or contacting Baltic Country Holidays for arrangement of services or modifications of the itineraries. Read further for itinerary descriptions and maps:
On 18th November 2018 Latvia as a country will celebrate its 100th anniversary. This anniversary is the biggest event in today’s Latvia’s history. It will be celebrated for five years (2017. – 2021.) with more than 800 different events all around Latvia and in 70 other countries, bringing in the light important events and persons that are connected to Latvia’s formation as an independent country while telling Latvia’s full story.
Dobele is a town in the cultural region Zemgale, in the central part of the country on the banks of the river Bērze. The town has long standing apple cultivation traditions. The Latvian national insitute of horticulture has its orchard there with some 600 sorts of apple trees. The orchard is named after Pēteris Upītits, a prominent Latvian horticulturist and breeder. For this reason Dobele is known as the Latvian capital of apples.
The 4th Apple festival will be held in Dobele on October 7, 2017. It promises a variety of events and activities like apple tasting, a competition to find the biggest, the most beautiful and the heaviest apple, pressing apple juice and making apple jam with produce tasting, the umurkumurs – a traditional pole-climbing contest, awarding ceremony of the Apple Order, singing and dancing performances, craft and farmers’ market, and much more fun for adults and children alike. The Dobele Crafts House will host the exhibition of apples from Pēteris Upītis orchard. The orchard will be open for excursions.
Esam beiguši vairāku mēnešu darbu, lai sagatavotu lauku tūrisma produktu rokasgrāmatu "Go rural" (Baudi laukus), kas paredzēta Japānas tūrisma operatoriem, nozares profesionāļiem un ceļotājiem. Rokasgrāmata ir izdota japāņu valodā (pieejama arī angliski digitāli), un tajā iekļauta praktiska informācija, lai saplānotu ceļojumu – maršrutu piemēri, naktsmītnes, nacionālie parki, apskates saimniecības, amatnieku darbnīcas laukos, informācija par transporta iespējām, kā arī Latvijas, Igaunijas un Somijas tūrisma operatoru kontakti. Ar šo rokasgrāmatu septembrī dosimies uz nozīmīgāko Japānas tūrisma izstādi JATA Tokijā.
Rokasgrāmatu skatiet ŠEIT.
