After a day in the city we decided to head north west and visit Cape Kolka, the point where 2 seas meet – we love these spots, remember Skägen in Denmark? Well, it was a little bit sunnier than when we were in Denmark so thankfully raincoats weren’t necessary this time.
We drove up the coast from Riga through some small villages which are populated by ‘Livs’, a group of Latvians who have based their livelihoods around fishing for years and ended up in the carpark at Cape Kolka where there was a nice lady giving out parking tickets – €1.50 an hour and you pay when you leave – mission on! Get to the cape, take photos and get back within the hour! We’ve got a budget to stick to you know…
There is an info board on the way to the beach telling you all about the period of time when this area was a soviet military base and home to lots of soldiers who apparently fit in well with the villagers, the sign made a point of telling you is was specifically the local girlys the soldiers made an effort with…
There are remnants of this time dotted along the shore such as the abandoned radio tower and creepy old bunkers. There are also a bunch of trees scattered on the shore which apparently blew down in a huge storm in 2005 – I was a little bit amazed they were still there.
The meeting point of the seas was cool – you could actually see the difference in the two bodies of water, one was far calmer than the other, and both were surprisingly warm. No swimming though, it’s a ‘danger to life’, so we just had a paddle and a few photos.
I even managed to have a little relax in one of the hammocks belonging to the ‘Happy Houses’ further up the beach – little wooden huts which you can rent out and stay the night in, the side facing the sea is all tinted glass so you can watch the sunset and the sunrise – ‘cos they both happen over the water up here.
Then it was back to the car park, we made it to the payment desk with about 2 mins to spare and managed to save ourselves the extra €1.50 – might have to put it towards more Latvian pastries….
tiny van adventures 