Rundale: stunning as beautiful palace is filled with authentic furniture etc; excellent iphone app + interactive screens in each space. also nice restaurant, with good food and nice ambiance. Hill of Crosses: amazing, original, but a long ride to it... Bauska: dispointing: we saw the inner court only, no visit of the interior. Driver told us, it's just medieval - and that the stop was only for climbing the tower for the view (this limitation should be highlighted in the trip explanation), but nobody was interested in the flat winter landscape and Tom did not show any enthusiasm to encourage us. The van: fine but driver could not be heard from our third row -- I told Tom this was unacceptable for an expensive trip, but he didn't take my comment seriously (easy to buy: simple portable micro and loudspeaker). Tom turned his head at my request sometimes when he spoke but, for safe driving, he looked mostly straight ahead and we didn't hear a thing! -- I was angry!! I had expected that 4 hours in the van would be richly filled with a presentation about Latvia (and Lithuania, for the Hill of Crosses!), Riga, the 3 destinations, anecdotes, etc; Tom more or less answered our questions, that's all. He did his best but he is a (bright) law student, not a guide (in all reviews that I read his name was never mentioned); he told me his van was owned by his uncle, so maybe he was just a stand-in; maybe we had been unlucky by getting the wrong subcontracting van company. Conclusion: the day trip is worthwhile on paper but we encountered 3 serious weaknesses: no professional guide, no sound system and no visit of the castle. Also: winter time was great for this trip as we had the destinations (almost) only for us!!

Awesome experience. We thought this was a “small group”….it ended up being just the two of us…..so, it was a personal experience. A little long time in the car, but that was expected since you travel from Riga all the way into Lithuania. We even stopped for fresh strawberries on the way back. We would definitely recommend this tour!! Although it says July 2024, we went in July 2022…I’m just now reviewing this trip.

We were the only couple on the buss so this was basically a private tour. Our guide was very knowledgeable and happy to share the stories of Latvia. The castle was cool as they are renovating it using the traditional methods, the Palace was stunning and the gardens there amazing. Then the hill of crosses. they don[t tell you how big it is, spread out over an acre full of rabbit trails with all the crosses commemorating various groups and people. Truly amazing.

Our family had a fabulous time privately guided by Gints of Aurora Tours. Very knowledgeable and friendly local guide speaking excellent English with lots of tips and interesting conversation. Timely pickup, very comfortable transport with extra stop at the fascinating annex car museum on our way to Bauska Castle (beautiful views and interesting restoration) and charming Rundale Palace where we had a delicious lunch. Cherry on top was the experience of driving to Lithuania to see the very unique Hill of the Crosses. Highly recommend!