Gauja

Gauja National Park was established in 1973 in northern Latvia and at some 917 km² it is the first and the largest of the country's national parks. It protects the middle stretch of the valley of the river Gauja, between Valmiera and Sigulda.

The river has cut a deep valley into Devonian sandstones, exposing intensely red bluffs that in places rise more than eighty metres, such as the Ērgļi cliff or the Zvārte rock. That combination of wooded valley, meanders and sandstone walls has earned the district the nickname of the Latvian Switzerland. Caves hollowed out of the soft rock open in the walls, among them Gūtmanis, the largest in the Baltic states, with inscriptions going back to the seventeenth century.

The park preserves pine, spruce and broadleaf woods, hay meadows and a notable built heritage, with the medieval castles of Turaida, Sigulda and Cēsis, relics of the period of the Livonian Order. The wildlife includes beaver, otter, lynx, elk and an abundant forest and river birdlife, and the Gauja is one of the Latvian rivers with the best water quality.