Wednesday 12 September – A castle, a palace, a garden – and some local goodies.

Late start this morning – we were picked up at 11am for our private tour to Rundale Palace, just under 80km from Riga. Our guide and driver provided a safe, enlightening and interesting day out.  En route we learned that life under the Soviets had a level of certainty – everybody had a job, somewhere to live and basic sustenance was available, but people were not happy and were not able to plan for the future.  Now, people are worried about the economy, unemployment and inequality – the average wage for an 18-year-old is €12 (less than $20) a week; petrol is about €1.35 ($2.20) a litre.

 Our first stop was at the town of Bauskas, where we walked through an old castle built on a rise on the confluence of the shallow rivers Mūsa and Mēmele where they form the Lielupe River. It was first constructed in the mid-15^th century, as a defensive castle to protect the town and  trade route from Lithuania to Riga.  Much of it has been rebuilt, but sufficient of the original caste remains to give an idea of how it functioned back then.

We continued on to Rundale Palace, originally built during the 16^th century but totally torn down after 1735 and reconstructed, using the original bricks, stones and even the mortar. It had three owners, all counts, until it became the property of the Russian emperor after the subjugation of Latvia by the Russians at the end of the 18^th century.  It has had various uses since then and is now a tourist attraction and a venue for conferences and cultural activities (while we were there it was being prepared for an international symposium tomorrow).  Much of the original has been restored, although all of the furnishings were removed by the last Latvian occupiers when they left, so it is now furnished with art work and furniture acquired from antique dealers.  Nonetheless it was surprising to be told of how much of the extant décor is original from the 17^th and 18^th centuries, especially the wall panelling and ceilings.

After an interesting lunch in the palace café we boarded a “train” for a tour of the palace gardens, travelling past the extensive rose gardens featuring more than 2,000 roses from around the world (including a bed of blue roses, first developed by a Latvian) and a myriad of other gardens featuring trees and shrubs from around the world.

Then, after a quick stop at a local Rundale village store to purchase some locally-made essentials (chocolates, a local liqueur and some Bauskas beer) we were back into our small bus for a leisurely drive back to the city.  A most enjoyable day.

Back at our apartment we partook of the beer and chocolate then emptied the bottle of liqueur as we had been told that it would cure our tummy complaints. We must confess that we certainly didn’t feel any pain afterwards.