From Estonia we cross into Latvia, the next country on our tour. The crossing is barely marked, in fact we only notice it as we observe that the signs are now in a different language. Finding Ligatne, where our AirBnB for the night is located, proves relatively easy with the GPS but otherwise it would have been quite difficult.
The house is good enough with the bedrooms but the problem we are facing is that it is cold with only one small heater. We give the heater to our ailing relative that we are now almost certain has Covid and we bundle up for the night and hope to survive it, it can’t be as bad as it was when sleeping in the hide when searching for bears. Or so we hope.
We wake in the morning and are quite happy we survived after the cold night with basically no heating in our room. This is due to the fact that the AirBnB is located in the old workers housing, not sure how they survived in the winter with no way to heat the house. A bonus though is the small river next to the house where we even see a mammal walking nearby but no luck taking photos of it.
We take a few more photos of our AirBnB which looks better when it is warmer and in daylight, and of the really really small heater that needed to heat two rooms and the living room, suuuuuure.
Today we are not sure exactly what to visit so we decide to start with the visitor center right across the road, housed in the former guard house. The visitor center is quite helpful and we even get a walking tour map of the historical center of the Ligatne Paper-Mill village. After a brief deliberation we decide to try to visit the different point represented on the map as they seem quite interesting.
We are still a little groggy after the cold night so finding an automated coffee station is quite a fortunate event and each of us gets a hot coffee to go as we pass by the mallards in the little creek and start climbing towards the cellar-cave of Kyber’s Hill the first point we decide to visit.
The trail is quite nice even though it climbs slightly up the hill passing an adventure course which seems quite scary, luckily no one is forcing us to try it :).
Soon we are at the caves, dug in 1818 when the founder of the Paper Mill, Kyber, built his house on the top of the cliffs. Unfortunately we see no wine in the caves when we look inside, quite disappointing.
There is a hotel/restaurant on top of the hill which is closed this morning so we enjoy the views of the meadow and our accomodation for a while before starting our descent. One thing that gives us hope while watching the meadow is that we seemingly see a mammal and we are quite excited as it might be a bobcat but it is just a big cat taking a stroll.
Returning to our accomodation we take all our luggage and place it in the car before continuing on. From our newly acquired brochure we learn that we stayed in the part called Hare’s Island with the first wooden houses built for the paper mill workers. Opposite our rooms lies the “Breweries” which were small buildings used for baking bread and boiling of clothes.
There are still people living here as we can see from well maintained garderns that we pass as we make our way towards the mill which we can see in the distance.
There are two more houses at the end of a road that we don’t visit as they are inhabited but still have a plaque describing who lived there. The area seems to be quite rainy as all the trees are full of lichens and moss.
We then reach the Ligatne Paper Mill, assumed to be the oldest industrial company in the Baltics. Its history dates back to 1815 when the first sheets of paper were produced here and its heyday was when they were allowed to produce tsar’s paper, with the tsarist watermark, by the end of the 19th century.
The planned village for the mill workers was progressive for its time with a childbirth hospital on the grounds to help the workers. We pass it as it cannot be entered due to being a different business now. Then it is time to climb the schools hill first following the road but keeping an eye for the stairs that would allow for a shortcut.
We find and climb the stairs (twice even due to missing some details for a cache at the bottom) and then relax at the overlook for a while, the view of the mill and the valley is reasonably good given the amount of trees.
Besides the school there are also additional wooden worker housing that are now fully occupied. Hopefully they have more heating that we had during the night….Continuing our tour we pass the former hospital, an imposing building, which is now an old people’s home.
Next on the map is the cemetery, it is quite dramatic with ivy and moss covered graves all surrounding Arnold’s chapel built in memory of a Mill’s engineer.
We now return passing a few rustic houses in the village and reach the next point of interest, the “morgue” caves, which are across the street fro the hospital. Two of the caves here were used as a morgue while the last was a vegetable cellar. Looking in all of them we can’t guess which is which so on we go.
We see the Club House already in the distance and we could go there directly and then to the car but the map is beckoning us with an interesting area and when we see the ruins of the old hand factory from a distance it is decided we will go that way. The ruins of the factory where paper was produced by hand till 1871 are quite scenic, but we decide to not enter them as it is not clear if it is allowed or not.
The major attraction on this detour is the cliff of Anfabrik. It is very scenic with multiple caves that we are already planning to enter and an overlook on top that we hope will give us a great view over Ligatne and the surrounding area. It also has a legend attached to it that it was thrown by God when it become angry that the devil and witches were quarrelling about the truth.
Near the cliffs is a system of channels and the sluice for the fast flowing Ligatne River which is the reason that the factory was built here. Now what we like is that the channels are upgraded so they allow fish to pass even though it feels like it would be a very arduous journey, we would be curious to understand how many make it up the special channel.
We enter the caves and they are quite shallow, in fact they are carved by the factory workers and they were used as cellars. Interestingly there are many many inscriptions here some really old, one supposedly from 1788(!).
The climb to the overlook is exhausting but it allows us to do some birding and see some mushrooms. Unfortunately the overlook itself doesn’t have a view that is quite that spectacular, as the view is obstructed by trees.
We now continue following the river as the map is showing a bridge further downriver. It is quite scenic and quiet and a nice walk through the park. Unfortunately for us there are no mammals or interesting birds on this stretch and soon we reach the bridge.
The bridge is not the one we expected which was supposed to be a historic one but we are tired so we cross it while enjoying the White Wagtails which are quite common here.
Now we pass the club house/center of culture that we saw from a distance. This was the hub of recreational activity during the factory times with a library, theater and other activities possible inside the house. It is also a historic house designed by the famous first Latvian architect Baumanis and it looks impressive.
The last place that we visit on our tour of beautiful Ligatne are the cellar caves of Kyber Hill. It is surprising how many cellar caves are in the area and the ones here are even used as cellars…at least some. Others however are holding soviet secrets as far as we can determine which is fun and other are closed and we cannot determine what is inside. And then it is time to get to the car and start towards Riga, but we have one more stop planned on the way.
