Per Kaspars’s recommendation from yesterday’s Riga walking tour, I went to a tourist information center to look for details on how to get to and from Sigulda. The woman who helped me handed me these timetables, one for the bus and one for the train. She recommended taking the train since it would be more comfortable than the bus.

The train station was close to my hostel, so it took almost no time to reach it. Only one ticket counter was open at 6:00am, but there were a couple of women ahead of me already. When it was my turn, I asked about whether I could get a return ticket (€3.71) without knowing what time I would come back, and it turned out to be all right. I was about to buy my ticket when a jerk on a bike interrupted me and said he had no time to catch his train and cut in front of me. Oh, well: that’s why I arrived ahead of my train to account for the unexpected (unlike this guy).

I didn’t have a hard time finding the platform for my train even though its ultimate destination was actually Valmiera.

None of the cars’ doors were open until I walked to the last two cars, and they were fairly empty.

The ticket checker came by shortly after the train started moving and stamped the back of my ticket. The ride was pretty comfortable, and the train stopped at many towns before arriving at Sigulda. All the announcements were in Latvian, but I didn’t have any trouble figuring out when to alight the train. Time to go see a more authentic look at Latvia!