Latvia loop self-drive
A closed loop from one airport, so you book a return fare instead of an open jaw. On most routings that alone is worth €120 a head.
The route.
Day by day.
Daylight is shown for a departure on 26 October, calculated for each day's own location. Ask us and we will run the figures for your dates.
Arrive in Riga, no car yet
Fly into Riga (RIX) and take the booked transfer to the Old Town. No car for two days: the medieval core is pedestrianised and the Art Nouveau district is a twenty-minute walk from it. Route book and briefing at the hotel.
- Private airport transfer
- Route book and offline maps handover
- An evening walk to the Dome Square
Riga on foot
The route book's two walks. In the morning, the Hanseatic core: the House of the Blackheads, the Three Brothers, and the Dome Cathedral organ. In the afternoon, Alberta iela and the densest run of Art Nouveau facades anywhere, then the Central Market in its five zeppelin hangars.
- Self-guided Old Town walk
- Alberta iela and the Art Nouveau district
- Central Market in the zeppelin hangars
Neiburgs Hotel
Second night, same room.
Held, not booked, until your deposit clears. If it is gone by then we substitute an equal or better hotel and tell you first.
Into the Gauja valley
The car arrives at the hotel at 09:00. An hour northeast into Gauja National Park: Turaida's red brick castle above the river, with entry held, and the sandstone caves on the valley floor. On to Cēsis for the medieval castle ruin, where they hand you a candle lantern for the cellars. Night at a country house in the park.
- Car delivered to the hotel at 09:00
- Turaida castle above the Gauja
- Cēsis castle ruin by candle lantern
Kārļamuiža Country Hotel
A restored manor outbuilding on a bluff above the Amata river, inside the national park. Walking trails from the door.
Held, not booked, until your deposit clears. If it is gone by then we substitute an equal or better hotel and tell you first.
Two seas, then a merchant town
West across the top of the country to Cape Kolka, where the Gulf of Riga meets the open Baltic and the two swells collide in standing waves offshore. South down the Livonian coast, past villages of a people almost gone, to Kuldīga and its brick bridge over the widest waterfall in Europe.
Read the full day
Kolka is worth the detour and the route book says so plainly. The spit ends in a drowned pine forest and a beach of grey driftwood, and on a windy day you can watch the two seas argue. The drive south along the Livonian coast passes through Mazirbe and Košrags, the last villages of the Livonians, a Finnic people whose final native speaker died in 2013. Kuldīga at the end of it is a preserved seventeenth-century merchant town with a waterfall 249 metres wide and, in season, fish that try to jump it.
- Cape Kolka, where two seas meet
- The Livonian coast villages
- Kuldīga's waterfall and brick bridge
Jēkaba sēta
A merchant's yard of restored eighteenth-century buildings in the middle of the old town, five minutes from the waterfall.
Held, not booked, until your deposit clears. If it is gone by then we substitute an equal or better hotel and tell you first.
The naval port that was never on a map
South to Liepāja, and to Karosta on its northern edge: a tsarist naval port turned Soviet closed zone, with a military prison you can walk through and an Orthodox cathedral in the middle of the parade ground. The afternoon is Liepāja proper, its wooden quarter and the amber clock on the beach.
- Karosta naval port and prison
- The Orthodox cathedral on the parade ground
- Liepāja's wooden quarter and the beach
Liepāja wooden quarter guesthouse
In the wooden quarter a short walk from the beach, in a restored timber house with a garden.
Held, not booked, until your deposit clears. If it is gone by then we substitute an equal or better hotel and tell you first.
East to the palace country
Inland and east across Zemgale, the flat farming south, to Mežotne. The night is in the palace itself: a small 1797 country house built for the Lieven family by Rastrelli's circle, with original parquet and painted ceilings, fifteen minutes from Rundāle.
- The drive east across Zemgale
- A night inside a 1797 palace
- Fifteen minutes from Rundāle for the morning
Mežotne Palace
A small neoclassical palace above the Lielupe with its own park. Original parquet, painted ceilings, and breakfast in the old dining room.
Held, not booked, until your deposit clears. If it is gone by then we substitute an equal or better hotel and tell you first.
Rundāle at opening, then the airport
Fifteen minutes to Rundāle for the ten o'clock opening, which puts you in Rastrelli's state rooms before the first coach arrives from Riga. Lunch in the gardens, then 75 km north to Riga: drop the car at the airport, or at your hotel if you are staying on.
- Rundāle Palace at opening, ahead of the coaches
- Lunch in the baroque gardens
- Car dropped at RIX or the hotel
Request your quote.
Tell us your dates and party size. We'll reply within one working day, with a private, fully-costed version of Latvia loop self-drive to follow within two.
within two working days
Prices shown in USD for reference. You're billed in EUR.
- Private trip: just your party, your pace
- Flexible dates, year-round departures
- No payment taken to enquire
- A $304 pp deposit holds your dates
- Protected under the EU Package Travel Directive
Priced by party size.
- Per person
- $1,685(≈ €1,440)
- Total for 2
- $3,370(≈ €2,880)
- Deposit to book
- $608(≈ €520)
- Balance, 45 days out
- $2,761(≈ €2,360)
Calculated from the same per-person rates as the table below. Final pricing is confirmed with your quote and moves with your dates, room choices and any day you change. Billed in EUR.
Per-person rates by party size
Prices shown in USD for reference. You're billed in EUR.
What's included.
- 6 nights in booked and paid country houses, boutique hotels and one palace, parking at every one
- Car hire for 5 days (compact estate) with unlimited mileage
- Full insurance with zero excess and a second driver
- A bound route book plus offline maps loaded to your phone
- Timed entry held for Rundāle Palace and Turaida
- Karosta prison and the Liepāja naval port tour
- Daily breakfast
- A staffed local phone line, 07:00 to 22:00, and 24-hour roadside assistance
- International flights to and from Riga (RIX)
- Fuel and city parking away from the hotels
- Most lunches and dinners (the route book shortlists two per stop)
- Travel insurance (mandatory)
- The Gauja bobsleigh track and the Sigulda cable car
