Sunday in Sigulda

Travelling feels good. Even if you go away for one day.
I sure didn't get enough sleep last weekend. After sleeping just for 4 hours I woke up at 5 o'clock and started to get ready for the upcoming day - I with two of my colleagues decided to go to Sigulda for one day. And though it's just around 320 kilometers away from Kaunas, we wanted to make the most out of our day. So, leaving the home around 6 am was a must.
The idea for this trip wasn't very random. I hosted a girl from Daugavpils, which told me about vertical wind tunnel she took in Sigulda. I was fascinated by her story. I knew someone at work, who would be fascinated too by this experience. All I had to do - just to retell the same story with the same passion. Talking someone into it was easier than executing the idea. Vertical wind tunnel is extremely expensive sport, so, the limit of the time you get to fly there is the your bank account. Just to go there for few minutes and return back - didn't make much sense. Good for us, Sigulda is known for other attractions, such as bobsleigh track, Tarzan park, Gauja's river national park, and castles. Well, I wanted to add even more extreme to this trip and go there by hitch-hiking, but this idea, which seemed to be in motion for a some time, had to be stopped, and another one - to go there by car just for one day - was born.
We reached Aerodium - vertical wind tunnel sight just before noon to be lucky enough to make into the first group. Sigulda is much more farther away than 320 kilometers - there are a lot of road construction on the way, so, the trip extends a lot. And you have to make coffee/cacao breaks, have pick-nicks on the grass behind gas station.
We were there, got talked into taking 4 minutes of flight(which was the best decision for that day!), attended instruction workshops, put on the gear, made warm-ups, plugged our ears and ... nobody wanted to be first to start(or didn't show much initiative in starting), so I got to be the test rabbit. Not seeing how others were doing before me, made me nervous a little bit and it wasn't helping me to relax. So, yes, after first two minutes, I wasn't thrilled that much. But then the last two minutes totally paid off. I got to fly a lot higher, do the turn really fast. All right, it was with a help of instructor, but it really felt good anyway.

Behind this sign is a wind turbine which lifts you in the air

Next stop - bobsleigh track. A little bit disappointing - a one minute ride for 10 euros for each person. I guess we were comparing the this excitement with the one we had before, and it just didn't feel that good. Maybe, in winter it's different, but it's a lot more expensive in winter.
After this unimpressive ride it was time to get more strength - by eating sandwiches and drinking tea on a beautiful lawn near Gauja's river. We were expecting for a lot worse weather, but it just was windy and the rain stayed away from us. I guess, three mean people coming from a land of rain is a scary thing:)

We had a lunch looking at this nice view. Almost a pick-nick in the sky! 

Gauja river

We descended the hill by chair lift or by toboggan track and took a catapult challenge. Actually, I was the first to try it out (you notice the pattern?:) ) and others followed by me. I guess, not all of them felt so exciting, as I did - it's like a demo version of bungee jumping, with few changes: you don't have to make a decision when to step of, you are not going head down(ok, some managed to do a salto, or something similar), and you get a few swings only(4 or so). But it's enough to get a daily adrenaline dose. All this and many more outdoor activities can found at the Tarzans rope/climbing park.
I guess, that adrenaline made us decide to go up the hill by foot. Some party members were not happy about that (but only realized their mistake halfway the hill)!
From the things we wanted to experience only one was left - cable cart over the Gauja river. It's slow. It opens picturesque panoramas, but 5 euros is too much. Well, it saves you half an hour of walking: descending the hill to the river and then ascending it again to get to the other side - Krimulda. So, doing it one way is recommended, but going backwards - only if you are saving your time.
Krimulda is a manor with lots of old houses, dating back from XIX century and a XIII century castle ruins. We didn't do our homework about it, but walking around with too little time left on our schedule was quite nice (and the path we got to take to get to the other side is going through this estate).

Krimulda's castle ruins. Strategically it's a very good location for a castle, I still can't understand why it is ruined.

Desceding from Krigulda is quite an extreme experience - at least the path and stairs we found were quite broken, wet and all kinds of not suitable for old ladies. Dodging snails resting peacefully on the path we experienced the Latvian jungle. Beware! Тhere is a teddy bear living in one of the trees(which you can observe from cable cart), hopefully, he is afraid to get down from the tree:)

People do bungee jumping from this cable cart sometimes

While waiting for a cable cart to arrive we observed a castle from far away

Crossing the Gauja's river bridge and facing few hundreds of stairs(I didn't count, but there was a lot of them), our group split into two groups: those who still had energy left, and those who were practicing daily smoking hobby. Cigarette lover went to Tarzans park to get a car lift, and the rest two of us - swearing and sighing took the wooden stairs up the hill (the swearing part came later, halfway). At least the steps were in a lot better condition. And we were so happy to reach the top!

We left Sigulda quite on time, but the journey home was really long - road construction, lots of Latvians returning from country side to Riga after weekend, doing photo shoot at the sign of "Code"(I'm not gonna explain it!), heavy rain at Lithuania side of the trip - I reached my doorstep at about 12.30 am.

P.S. at our last coffee stop, just before stepping out of the car, it was surrounded by crazy playing/dancing/singing people, which happen to be Lithuanians coming with a bus from some folklore dance festival in Estonia. It was unexpected, but added a nice touch  to the whole day.