Things to do
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Cēsis Castle
Livonian Order knights held this ruin half an hour north by train, and visitors tour its dark tower by candle lantern handed out at the gate. A later manor house alongside holds the town museum, and gardens run down to a pond. The old town around it is walkable, which makes the trip worth a full day.
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Park
Gauja National Park
Sandstone cliffs, caves and oxbows follow the river through the oldest national park in Latvia, which stretches from Sigulda past Ligatne to Cesis. Marked trails link the outcrops, and canoe trips run downstream over a few days in summer. Spring floods can close riverside paths, and mosquitoes are serious in the forest sections from June.
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Gutmanis Cave
Sandstone hollowed by a spring forms the widest grotto in the Baltic region, its walls cut with coats of arms and visitors' names going back to the seventeenth century. The spring water is still drunk by tradition. It stands beside the road between Sigulda and Turaida, open at all hours and free, and takes minutes to see.
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Sigulda Bobsleigh Track
Built for Soviet athletes in the 1980s and still used for World Cup racing, the concrete run drops through sixteen curves above the valley. Summer visitors ride a wheeled bob; winter brings a soft-sided version on ice with a driver at the front. Sessions run at set times on weekends and book out, and neck or back trouble rules it out.
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Sigulda Cable Car
Strung across the Gauja since 1969, the cabin carries passengers between Sigulda and Krimulda some forty metres above the river, taking a few minutes each way. The valley view is the point, best in late September when the slopes turn. Departures are half-hourly, and bungee jumps from the cabin run on summer evenings.
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Turaida Castle
Red brick towers on a bluff above the Gauja mark a bishop's fortress begun in 1214, its main tower climbable for a view along the gorge. The grounds hold a sculpture park of Latvian folk figures, a wooden church and the grave attached to the legend of the Rose of Turaida. Allow two hours, more in autumn.