Jūrmala

Tags: vacation, travel, Jurmala
Posted by Twiggy


Jūrmala is a city in Latvia, about 25 kilometers west of Riga. Jūrmala is a resort town stretching 32 kilometres (20 mi) and sandwiched between the Gulf of Riga and the Lielupe River. It has a 33 km stretch of white-sand beach, and a population of 55,580, making it the 5th largest city in Latvia. While Latvia was a part of the Soviet Union, Jūrmala was a favorite holiday-resort and tourist destination for high-level Communist Party officials, particularly Brezhnev andKhrushchev. Although many amenities such as beach-houses and concrete hotels remain, some have fallen into disrepair. Jūrmala remains a tourist attraction with long beaches facing the Gulf of Riga and romantic wooden houses in the Art Nouveau style. Imants Ziedonis, one of Latvia's most important poets and folklorists of the Soviet and post-Soviet eras, was born in the Jūrmala district. Visitors can access Jūrmala from Riga in around 20 to 40 minutes either by train or bybus, or along the highway by car. Since 2008 Jūrmala and Riga airport are connected with a bus service. In publications dating from the Soviet period, the city was occasionally spelled in English as Yurmala, an incorrect back-transliteration from Russian.