Checking out Kuldīga—a quaint town in Latvia

Sitting room

Several people suggested we have a look around Kuldīga, a town of more than 13500 people in western in Latvia. We were told it had a good museum, an interesting Old Town and the ‘biggest’ waterfall in Europe. We even saw a review on Trip Advisor that implied the waterfall was the most impressive in Europe.

One look at the accompanying picture had us howling with laughter—it resembled an overflowing bathtub. But the promise of a good museum and a bit of pretty old town (bunch of pics just below without captions) was enough to pique our interest.

When we got to town, we parked the car near the centre, stopped at tourist information, grabbed a map, and set out to explore the Old Town and find this waterfall.

So let’s get the waterfall (called Venta Rumba) out of the way first. It’s not the biggest in Europe—it’s the widest at 800 feet. And while it’s not a raging torrent, it is absolutely gorgeous. Apparently in spring, you can watch the fish flying up the ledge; due to this, Kuldīga was once famous as a ‘place where they catch salmon in the air’.

When we were there quite a few people were swimming and playing in the water and others were wading across the wide expanse. It looked about knee deep to wade. The setting was breathtaking and we could see why people had such high praise for it. The main pic of it is at the bottom of the post—I saved it for last.

The Old Town was very interesting too. Cobbled streets and ancient buildings. As much as I love to look at cobblestones, I hate to walk over them. At an earlier tourist stop, we met a woman in a wheelchair. She’d fallen on the cobblestones in Riga—recovery four weeks.

Luckily, I haven’t fallen over YET, but I look down a lot into between times of looking up and around.

After the Old Town, we walked through the town park to get to the waterfall and the museum. The museum overlooks the river and falls (talk about prime real estate), and has been in the same location since 1940.

We met Liene and Līga (by the way, the line over the letter i is called a macron) when we arrived at the museum and paid our 1 euro each for admission. Goodness that was money well spent.

The museum has more than 100,000 items (obviously not all on display) covering archaeology, ethnography and numismatics (currency).

Gramophone

Bedroom

Sitting area

Flags as language tags

Sitting area

Kitchen

Clocks

For example, there are written documents from the 13th century, furniture and household goods from past citizens of Kuldīga, art, photographs, and items recalling the Jewish community that lived in the town.

Two other displays especially caught my attention. There’s an amazing collection of playing cards that a resident donated to the museum. Methinks he got sick of storing and looking after them. They are very cleverly displayed in sliding drawers (both horizontal and vertical). Given my past life in printing and journalism, I was also drawn to the scrapbook of old labels done by the printing house that used to operate in the town.

Liene, whose English is absolutely superb, accompanied us for much of our trip around the museum. While almost all the exhibits are described in multiple languages, her explanations were always even more enlightening. And see the pic (above) showing how the language sheets are identified! Clever thinking.

Selection of labels

Playing cards

Playing cards

Armour

Beer mug

Līga and Liene

After touring the museum, Liene recommended a restaurant, Pagrabins, and told us to order their rustic grey peas with vegetables stew.

We followed orders, and it was fantastic. And I completely forgot to photograph the meal. Oops.

On our way back to the car, we saw a little girl enjoying the random jets of water sent up by the town fountain. Pity that I missed some of the best shots.

That’s all from me on Kuldīga. Do stop if you are ever in the neighbourhood. It’s even worth going out of your way.

The beautiful Ventas rumba—not Europe’s biggest, but its widest

Bridge over the River Venta

Museum overlooks the river