‘By the time I got to Jurmala, I already had a song in my heart’
Credit: Pauls Zvirbulis / riga-jurmala.com
Sun, sea, sand – and symphonies. There’s a lot to be said for such a formula, and my wife and I very easily slotted into a routine that involved showcase performances on three consecutive evenings interspersed with exquisite lunchtime concerts in the more intimate setting of the smaller Dzintari theatre space during the days.
But we found much to explore beyond the music, too. Stretching over 14 miles, the white-sand beach is the star of the show, and we enjoyed early-morning strolls and swims while admiring the many power walkers who were carrying on Jurmala’s long tradition as a place of exercise and physical well-being.
We took a tour of some architectural highlights – attractive late-19th-century wooden houses popular with the creative spirits that have always been drawn to the resort, which now sit slightly incongruously with the more blingy mansions favoured by the new Russian moneyed elite.
Riga has been welcoming more and more Britons in recent years
Credit: getty
We travelled to one of the sanatoriums built to accommodate the summer influx of Soviet workers and were shown round the truly extraordinary building known as Brezhnev’s Villa, a place that was set aside for the use of senior figures of the Politburo. The Soviet leader himself never actually visited, but the villa has been maintained in every detail – the USSR circa 1976 preserved in aspic complete with fittings, furnishings, ageing telecommunications and copies of Pravda – just in case the great man suddenly appeared. We were given vodka and blinis and soon found ourselves raising our glasses to friendship between peoples.
We cleared our heads at the great bog of Kemeri National Park, a mass of moss and small pines and marsh lakes and more than 200 types of bird. We travelled by train along the thin sliver of land between the gulf and the Lielupe river on which Jurmala is built, a line that leads all the way back to the art nouveau powerhouse of Riga (“I never knew such buildings existed in the USSR,” Miloš revealed when I bumped into him on the beach. “So beautiful.”)
We dined at the super trendy 36Line restaurant and developed a taste for Latvia’s much loved Black Balsam liqueur (a taste we later learnt that was shared by the young British pianist and festival soloist Martin James Bartlett).
Then we returned to the Dzintari concert hall, strolling along the sea-facing promenade beforehand, as we had been encouraged to do by our Jurmala-born guide, Aleksandra, who herself liked nothing better than to dress up a little and to soak up the atmosphere and to smile and to wave and to be enraptured.
All too soon, like the concerts themselves, our stay was over. But we left with uplifted spirits and a new song in our hearts.
“Come back next year. It will be even better then,” said Zane. It’s tempting.
The essentials
Adrian Bridge was a guest of Air Baltic (airbaltic.com) which flies to Riga from Gatwick, Manchester and Aberdeen, the Riga Jurmala Music Festival and the local tourist authorities.
This year’s festival – which will include performances by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and also Sir Andras Schiff – will run on weekends of July 10-12 (Riga); July 17-19 (Jurmala); Aug 14-16 (Riga); Aug 28-30 (Jurmala). See riga-jurmala.com for concert details and tickets
The Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art is running concurrently (rigabiennial.com).
More details at visitjurmala.lv/en and liveriga.lv
Source link : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/latvia/riga-jurmala-music-festival/
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Publish date : 2020-03-03 08:00:00
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