Doesn’t it seem as if there has been no happy medium throughout the Baltics? We go from three churches in one day to three castles the next. On the drive back into Sigulda from Turaida Castle Museum Complex to spend one night, Signe told us a little about Latvian wedding customs. All the guests attend the wedding carrying large bouquets of flowers as a gift to the bride. After the ceremony, the groom carries his bride across seven Sigulda bridges (you either need a very thin bride or a very strong groom to accomplish this tradition) for good luck and she throws her flowers into the Gauja River. Their future together depends on whether or not the flowers stay together or drift apart.

The extremely nice Aparjods complex has a main wooden building, several outer buildings with rooms, big restaurant in the center and even an authentic log sauna that has to be reserved in advance.

Aparjods, Latvia bread basket
Our room was in the main building and big with free WI-FI. The usual routine of a brief unpack, prepare to move on tomorrow and go into the restaurant for dinner. Aparjods’ restaurant was warm, cosy and crowded with diners. An excellent menu that made it difficult to decide since we were absolutely ravenous. There were traditional Latvian foods, soups, salads, wild game, fish, meats, appetizers that all made it very difficult to choose and then the waiter brought us a bread basket. This bread basket was extremely exciting. Only the second one we’d seen in almost two weeks that actually had a selection of breads other than the ubiquitous brown/rye throughout the Baltics. It’s the little things in life…

A couple glasses of excellent wine, delicious dinner with huge food portions, and the day’s rigors were forgotten. The prices were comparable to America. One large Greek salad, two entrees and two glasses of wine ran $56 U.S. This took care of demolishing all remaining Lats, put the rest of the bill on Visa before heading into Estonia tomorrow where it will be back to EEKs for the remainder of the trip. If you decide to visit this area, Aparjods would be a perfect location to base yourself, do all the castles, hike or just relax. In the meantime, Estonia, here we come…