The Castle can be visited only in guided tours!
Excursions in Dundaga Castle should be booked at the
Tourist Information Centre in Dundaga Castle.
Excursion in the Castle: 3.00 € for adults, 0.85 € for school-children and persons with disabilities.
With advance booking – tasting of sklandrauši (a pie made of rye flour with carrot and potato filling) and pūtelis (a refreshing drink – milled wheat and rye grains mixed with kefyr).
Dundaga Castle is
biggest in the Northern Kurzeme and it is well preserved. Riga Dome Chapter of Priests started building it in the middle of the 13th century, in 1434 it was bought by Kurzeme Bishop and from the 16th to the 20th century it was owned by the Maydell and Osten-Sackeni families. The Castle burned down twice and was rebuilt several times, the last of them being in 1905 after it was burned down. Many legends are related with the Castle, the most popular of them being about the Green Maiden.
Nowadays, Dundaga Castle is the venue for celebrations, wedding parties, excursions, convenient and cheap accommodation and unused opportunities and discoveries. The Arts and Music School is also located in the Castle.
In one of the exposition rooms, the gallery of
the former owners of the Castle can be seen, as well as a small exhibition with photos and drawings describing
various stages of the construction of the Castle.
On the first floor of the Castle the permanent exhibition
«Crocodiles Nest» was opened in 2008. It is about the popular countryman who used to be a crocodile hunter and an opal digger in Australia, Arvīds Blūmentāls (1925 – 2006). He was also the prototype for the movie «Crocodile Dandy» which is more popular globally under the name of
Crocodile Harry. In addition to that - just there a meeting with almost real crocodiles.
In cooperation with the Latvian Medal Art Club —
the only permanent exposition of medals in Latvia. The permanent exposition of the collections of medal artists in the halls of Dundaga Castle was established in 2008. There are works by Jānis Strupulis, Jānis Mikāns, Vija Mikāne (1937-2004), Antra Urtāne, Inese Nātriņa and other artists, as well as gifts presented to the authors by foreign artists.
Accommodation is also available at Dundaga Castle.
Surroundings
Crocodile
The concrete sculpture by O. Skarainis was constructed in 1995 and this is a memory sign devoted to the strong men of Dundaga and a reminder about the adventures of the former Dundaga resident Arvīds Blūmentāls who was a traveller and a crocodile hunter in Australia. He hunted about 10 000 crocodiles at his place of residence and has been the prototype for the famous movie by Paul Hogan «Crocodile Dandy».
The sculpture that weights two tons is a gift to Dundaga by the Honorary Consul of Latvia in Chicago Norberts Klaucēns.
Dundaga park
The beginnings of the park date back to the 17th century when the manor was owned by the fon der Osten-Sacken family. The Northern part of the park used to be formed as a system of the avenues of regularly cut lime-trees, and the Southern part is with a free planning, opening up a view to vast fields, large oak-trees, groups of trees. There are many oak-trees, ash-trees, lime-trees and black alders. The total area of the park is 21.7 ha. There are trees representing 48 species, several secular oak-trees. During the period of the manor there the park was referred to as the «deer garden» because a high number of deer was brought there, bred and hunted for. Dundaga Park has enjoyed the protection by the state since 1957.
Kalnadārzs
Kalnadārzs is an artificial island in Dzirnavezers lake which used to be the place of an ancient settlement. There is an avenue of lime-trees all around the island.
In 1981 the archaeologists from the Latvian SSR Academy of Science History Institute carried out some inspection excavations at the island which attested that there had been a system of fortifications long ago in the past. During the excavations, remains of banks made of stones and soil were revealed, by size and by the character of construction these remind of the fortifications found at the castle mounds dating back to the Iron Age, and the found jewellery indicates that this place was inhabited following the German invasion in the 13th century.
Dundaga Evangelical Lutheran Church
The construction of the current stone church was completed in 1766 under the care by the owner of Dundaga Castle, the Prince Karl fon der Osten-Sacken (1726-1794). Until the 1920-ies it was used by both parishes - German and Latvian. It was much bigger and lighter than its two predecessors.
In 1897 the former tower was replaced by the current tall tower. The status of an architectural monument was granted to the church in 1935. In the church there is the altar piece by Janis Rozentals «Easter Morning» and the organ built in 1859 by the Latvian farmer Ansis Dinsberģis. Valuable relics are stored in the church: the Bible (1689) and the guest book presented in 1936 by Kārlis Ulmanis and bearing his inscription.
Dakterleja in Dundaga centre
A doctor's practice was established in Dundage in 1811. The name of the river bed originates from there. The actual building of the doctor's practice cannot be found there any longer, however, the pharmacy established at Dakterleja in 1883 still can be seen!
The most visible accent to Dakterleja was given by the doctor and the linguist Juris Bārs who worked there from 1844 to 1855. Besides being engaged as a doctor, he managed to perform an upturn in the Latvian linguistics by proposing new orthography eliminating double consonants and «letter groups», introducing the new form of a length mark and other language improvements. Today it would be hard to imaging the Latvian language without the reform performed by Bārs!
In Dakterleja there is a health spring popular among the local residents and guests!
Old Water Tower
The Water Tower was built in 1800 and it is 17.8 m high and its perimeter is 22.2 m. Its four floors are constructed from stone and the fifth one from wood (it has 8 corners). The wall thickness is approximately 90 cm. Doors are of a vault form, windows are square. Currently the water tower is no longer used for its original function.
