Caves of Sigulda

Hello Stranger! I am from northern Europe, a small country by the Baltic Sea called Latvia, and it is beautiful in many ways. When tourists come here, they mostly just visit Riga, our capital city. While Riga is quite an eye candy with cobblestone streets and art nouveau buildings, tiny restaurants, pubs, clubs, and gorgeous people, it often saddens me that not many get to see what the rest of my country looks like.

One of the most scenic cities in Latvia is Sigulda. What makes it the most scenic? Sigulda is blessed with many natural treasures, and more rigid, hills and valleys like relief, which is quite rare here as the rest of the country is mostly flat. Tucked away at the banks of the River Gauja, Sigulda is a Mecca to all nature and active lifestyle lovers with endless pathways for hiking and cycling, which are especially beautiful during autumn with the colorful tree leaves everywhere. In autumn half of Latvia visits Sigulda to see the golden leaves, similar to how people travel to Japan to see sakura.

Today, I invite you to follow @lemony-cricket and me on a hike to see a few of the natural wonders that can be found in Sigulda…

The first stop we visited was a place called Raganu katls or the Witches’ Pot. It is a glen which is part of Gauja National Park. Its massive, sandstone walls reach up to thirty meters high currently, but the glen is constantly changing as it is affected by the weather, processes of erosion, and water circulation in the area.^[1] As I stood there looking down in the glen, I could see a bunch of tree trunks that had slid halfway down the walls indicating how unstable the sandstone composition is at this place. I would have felt a bit more uneasy if it had been a season with more rain. Luckily, it was not the case, yet the forest vegetation was hiding most of the beautiful layers of the sandstone in a green leaf coat from us at this time.

One of my favorite things about places such as this one is the legends and old folktales about their origins that have been collected and kept for the next generations. We found a couple of those on the information board which I thought were super fun. Here is how they went:

In ancient times this was a gathering place for witches. From near and far the witches arrived here on their brooms and learned all sorts of sorcery and witchcraft. One who has been in the Witches’ Pot, gains strength and courage, and is forever protected against any spells!

On Midsummer’s night next to Daudi House, the witches milked the owner’s cows. When they were caught, they escaped from the steep slope at such a speed that they made a large pit, which resembles a pot.

We continued our hike through the forest. It was an extremely hot day with horseflies buzzing around. We passed a sign which pointed at our next destination, indicating it was under a kilometer away. It felt a lot more than that as we navigated through the terrain. We spotted various critters roaming around, such as toads and frogs, and even a snake that wiggled its tail through the green foliage while running away from us. We disrupted its sunbathing session.

_{The wooden steps led us down to a small river called Vējupīte by which a tall, red sandstone wall greeted us covered in moss and other forest plants.}

As we moved closer to our first cave of the day, we spotted more and more carvings in the sandstone. Some of them are initials, some of them - full names, and years of visitation. It is prohibited to do any carvings in the sandstone, but all it takes is one rebellious individual, and more always follow, riddling almost all clear spaces available. Even the ones that seem to be impossible to reach. They still find the way. Must be those caveman instincts that kick in...

_{Pētera ala or Peter’s cave}

Pētera ala resembles a giant, five-meter tall crack in the red sandstone wall. It almost seems to appear out of nowhere. Wouldn’t it be a perfect hiding spot if it weren’t for the wooden pathway leading straight to it? Perhaps, that is the reason why its legends are tied to a person named Pēteris who was escaping hard times of war hiding in this cave.^[2] Imagine, back in the day, there was no visible path giving it up so easily, or maybe even there was no knowledge about its existence to most people. I feel there must be some truth to these legends.

_{I love the different colored layers in the sandstone and the odd shapes that somehow keep themselves together yet are fragile by the touch of the elements. How come it is so easy to carve into these walls and yet they stand for decades? Fascinating!}

_{The green layers are the moss growing and covering everything slowly.}

_{I guess someone tried to replicate Edvard Munch's The Scream here?}

_{Sateseles kanjons or Satesele canyon}

We briefly stopped by at a small spring named Satesele and after a steep hike down the valley, we found the Satesele canyon. The red sandstone dominates here as well. What caught my eye here was the formation in the above photo. It almost appears as if it was carved in nearly perfectly straight lines. Isn’t it odd how nature works sometimes? No wonder we try to explain these things with tales involving supernatural forces, or even aliens.

Our final stop was at the cave which has a legendary status in Latvia and also in the Baltic region since it is the biggest being 18,8 meters tall and 12 meters wide.^[3] Its called is Gūtmaņa ala or Gutmanis cave. It wouldn’t be the full Sigulda experience without visiting it. Especially, since the access to the cave is not that difficult at all with parking available right next to it. Normally, the cave would have hundreds of visitors per day with large tour busses bringing them in. This time, we saw only a couple of people here and there. Probably due to the pandemic.

_{These two signs were on the same fence xD Which one to follow?}

There are good and bad sides to tourism. With so many visitors each year, it has been a challenge to preserve the cave in its natural form. One of the most visible things that have been altered over time, is the cave entrance and artificial drainage system. It can be argued that these things have been done to prevent or slow the cave from eventually caving in. At the same time, the way the cave naturally would develop with the water movement over the decades is also altered.

And of course, people leave their markings in the sandstone here as well. Can you imagine how many out of all tourists will decide to carve something here despite it not being allowed? Part of the reason for it not being allowed is to protect the carvings that date back to over 300 years! They were carved here at the request of rich barons and lords.^[4] Humans are surely strange, aren’t they?

It is interesting how the cave got its name. Gūtmaņa ala, while the name Gūtmanis is made to sound more Latvian, it is not very Latvian at all. It originates from German gutmann,^[5] a good man, which does make sense since the Latvian language did not have a written form before Germans first arrived here to teach us religion. In Latvian, it would be Labā vīra ala instead.

Why the good man’s cave? An old folktale might have the answer:

In old times, a good man lived in the cave who healed people using the water from the spring which runs at the foot of the cave. It was believed that the water had healing powers.

Perhaps, this tale was documented back in the day by Germans even before we could write?

_{Can you spot the oldest carving I have managed to capture in one of these photos?}

This concludes our tour. There are so many more amazing places and things in Sigulda to see and do, maybe in the future. Thank you for reading and stopping by! It was a long one, wasn’t it? I hope you enjoyed it and found it at least interesting. Until the next adventure!