Cycling & Canoeing in Latvia

This was a great trip – really enjoyed it and wished we’d had more time in this lovely country. The pre-trip organising was really good and all the guides were very friendly and where they were supposed to be at the designated times along the way. The pre-organised train tickets were good to get too.
All the accommodation were good. Home stay in Ligatne was lovely - people were really accommodating and the place in the semi-rural setting was so relaxing. People at Hotel Gutenbergs in Riga were really friendly and couldn’t do enough for you. The Sigulda Hotel was too far out of the town - this made it hard to get back to the attractions. Getting to the Valmiera Hotel was quite a long walk - there were no taxis at the train station. We enjoyed the walk but it did require using google Maps to get there through fields and forest.
The supplied mobile phone was a really good idea as our phone didn’t work in Latvia and we needed to get in touch with the guides at the end of a few legs to be picked up.
The cycle through the forest was my highlight – we ate berries and lingered in a few spots to enjoy the river or the white cliffs or the quiet of the forest. Navigation wasn’t obvious though – we followed initially a bike trail (which took us a little time to find) then some orange markers on trees. I recommend that better maps and instructions are provided to make this easier. We were lucky to find the orange marked trail but wasn’t sure it was taking us to the right place at times.
Few tips:
1. There are no lunch spots along the way for the cycling or canoeing. Get something the day before.
2. Make sure your bike is set up before Maris and the local contact leave you. The bikes were in good working order but my seat needed adjusting (not up and down – the angle).
3. Take your time on the canoeing days. The distance is easily achieved in the timeframes. Get out and explore the forest or take a picnic and stop along the way. We didn’t do this and probably didn’t get as much out of the padding sections as we could have.
4. We recommend that the bike hire in Sigulda should be for the whole day so that you can explore the whole area – there is so much to see and would be hard to do on foot (we just kept the bikes and got in trouble with Maris – sorry mate!).
Thanks Daina and everyone else. We highly recommend this trip.

Hello Daina

We've been back home for over a week now.
We all enjoyed the holiday very much.
Your organisation of the whole trip was excellent!
Many thanks from us all.
The hotels were all fine, and the guided-tours were very interesting. Also, because there were only the 3 of us, we had plenty of opportunity to ask questions.
A nice introduction to the tour of Riga was the sampling of  "Janu siers un Janu alus".
In Cesis the guide wore medieval Latvian costume, which looked lovely.
The tour of Sigulda on bicycles made a nice change too.
The cycle-ride through the forest was beautiful - so much forest!!
Canoeing on the Gauja was lovely too: peaceful, and pleasantly cooler than on land, as the weather was HOT.
Maris (Bike and Canoe Rent) was helpful too.
We particularly liked Ligatne.
We also loved seeing so many frogs, and especially ALL the storks and their chicks on their nests!
I would like to mention 3 things though, of which it  might be useful to warn other tourists:
1.  In the forest we were plagued by flies, and received many bites. A good insect-repellent would be a useful item to recommend.
2.  We each brought a mobile-phone with us from England or Ireland. None of them worked in Latvia. We couldn't text, or make calls on them, which caused us some difficulty. This happened to me and Anne in 2008, and we had hoped that this wouldn't happen again, but it did.
In the end, I bought a cheap mobile-phone out in Latvia to use during our stay.
3.  On the forest cycle-ride, we were following orange markers on the trees, which indicated our route. This worked very well, except for in one place, where the route forked backwards to the right and the marker wasn't visible, from our direction. Instead we went to the left towards a house in a lovely spot, where a very helpful, friendly man lives with his family. He showed us around. It was very interesting! This house was ABOUT  half-way between Valmiera and Cesis - maybe further on. Where we turned left instead of right there is a yellow sign: "SKAISTS PRIVATIPASUMS". It WAS beautiful too. We only went a little way in the wrong direction towards Cesis, as the owner of the house told us where we needed to go. He also told us that many cyclists on this route make the same mistake, so it wasn't just us!
We did have a lovely holiday though, and we would recommend it to others.

Best Wishes
Velta