From Riga to Ērgļi: Māris Olte restores an old railway station and builds nature tourism
Biologist and former TV presenter Māris Olte moved with his family from Riga to his native Ērgļi in Vidzeme 16 years ago. In the former railway station building he has created a eatery and offers hikes and guided tours.
Māris Olte, a biologist and former creator of the Latvian television programme "Ēst ir tavā dabā" (Eating Is in Your Nature), left life in Riga with his family 16 years ago and moved to his native Ērgļi, a small town in Vidzeme, Latvia. He now runs an eatery in a former railway station building and offers nature tourism hikes. His story shows how one family's decision has also changed the tourism offer of a small town.
The decision to leave Riga
Olte says he felt unwell in Riga and compares city life to a toothache. The deciding factor was the start of his children's schooling: the family realised that if the children began school in Riga, it would stay that way for a long time. So in August, before the first school day, they decided to move.
The station comes back to life
The Ērgļi station building, once the terminus of the Riga–Ērgļi railway line, had been left without an owner. Passenger train service on the route ended in 2007, and the tracks began to be dismantled two years later. The building opened in 1937 and is one of the few remaining traces of Ērgļi before the Soviet occupation, as the place was completely destroyed during the Second World War. Olte took over the building after it had stood ownerless for five years and began by restoring it.
At first the station served coffee, and later food was added. He stresses the use of local products: burger patties from local producers, cheeses from Vecbebri, chanterelles and berries from the forest. In his view, cattle thrive in the clay hills of Vidzeme, which is why beef is part of the menu. A meal at the station costs around 20 euros.
Nature tourism
Olte also leads hikes and excursions, mostly for closed groups, including company teams. This autumn the first hike open to anyone is planned for 1 November, with a second on 8 November.
Ergļi has about 1,500 residents and two memorial museums, linked to the writer Rūdolfs Blaumanis and the Jurjāni brothers, so nature tourism had been neglected. Olte and like-minded people founded the association "Ērgļu sirds" (Heart of Ērgļi) and, together with Latvia's State Forests, began offering transparent boat trips on a lake.
