Zemgale Travel Guide

Explore Jelgava Jelgava’s Baroque palace - now a university - anchors broad avenues and market halls; day-trippers visit the palace, local bakeries and bike out to nearby manors and dairy farms. Explore Bauska Between two rivers, Bauska pairs a brick castle with access to Rundāle Palace nearby; tourists tour fortifications, try local farmhouse cheeses and paddle the Memele tributary. Explore Dobele Dobele sits around a ruined castle mound and a tidy town square; people come for local beer festivals, artisan markets and walks through surrounding pine forests and peat bog reserves dotted with observation towers. Explore Jēkabpils On the Daugava’s bend, Jēkabpils draws walkers to riverfront promenades, Krustpils Castle across the bridge, wooden 19th-century neighborhoods, small museums and seasonal markets - a low-key stop for Latvian history, riverside cafés and cycling along the floodplain. Explore Aizkraukle On the Daugava riverfront, Aizkraukle offers river walks, a Soviet-era dam, pine forests and summer beaches - appealing to anglers, cyclists and those passing through Latvia’s central lowlands. Explore Jelgava Palace Jelgava Palace, rebuilt after WWII, fronts the River Lielupe and houses university facilities and regional exhibitions; tourists visit the Baroque façade, central courtyard and riverside park. Explore Rundāle Palace An 18th-century Baroque palace in Bauska district with restored state rooms and formal French gardens. Explore Bauska Castle A riverside fortress in Bauska, the castle combines medieval and Renaissance elements and overlooks the Mūsa and Lielupe confluence; visitors tour restored rooms, towers and summer historical events.