Rundāle Palace

Listen for a moment. Out here on the flat farmland of southern Latvia, the loudest sound is often gravel under your shoes. Then the palace comes into view. It is long, low and pale, with rows of tall windows catching the sky. It feels a little unreal, like a piece of Saint Petersburg set down among wheat fields and quiet villages.

That feeling is not an accident. The man who designed this building was Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli. He was the Italian-born architect who later shaped some of the grandest buildings of imperial Russia, including the Winter Palace. Here at Rundāle, you are looking at his work before he reached the height of his fame. It is an early sketch, in a way, of the style that would later define a whole empire.

The palace was built for one ambitious man, Ernst Johann von Biron. He was the favourite of the Russian Empress Anna, and through her favour he rose to become Duke of Courland. Courland was a duchy covering much of what is now western and southern Latvia. Biron wanted a summer residence that matched his new status. Construction began in the 1730s, and for a few years the work moved fast.

Then politics changed everything. When Empress Anna died in 1740, Biron lost his protector almost overnight. He was arrested and sent into exile deep inside Russia. Work on the palace stopped. For about two decades, this half-finished building stood mostly empty, with bare walls and silent rooms. Here is the first surprise. A palace that looks so complete and confident spent much of its early life as an abandoned project.

Biron's luck turned again in the 1760s. Catherine the Great allowed him to return to Courland, and he came back to Rundāle as an old man. Rastrelli returned to the project too. But the age had moved on. The heavy, formal Baroque of the 1730s now felt old-fashioned. So the interiors were finished in the lighter, more playful Rococo style. Rococo means curling shell shapes, soft pastel colours, and decoration that seems to grow like vines across walls and ceilings.

As you approach, notice how the building wraps around you. The main palace and its service wings form a horseshoe shape, creating a large forecourt. Visitors arriving by carriage would drive into this embrace of walls and windows. It was designed to impress before anyone stepped inside. The service wings once held stables and kitchens — the practical machinery that kept a ducal court running.

Inside, the most famous room is the Gold Hall. This was the throne room, the space for ceremony and power. Gilded decoration covers the walls, and the ceiling carries painted scenes framed in ornate plaster. Take a moment to look up. Ceiling paintings in this palace were the work of Italian artists brought to Courland, and they turned flat plaster into open skies full of figures.

From gold, the palace moves to white. The White Hall was the ballroom, and it feels completely different. Instead of gilding, it uses pale stucco — a fine plaster that can be moulded into delicate shapes. The sculptor Johann Michael Graff created much of this work. Look closely and you will find small scenes hidden in the white relief. There are birds, flowers, little figures, even scenes of country life. This is the second surprise. A room built for formal dancing is full of tiny, almost humorous details.

Between the grand halls, the palace becomes more private. The Duke's apartments and the Duchess's rooms are smaller and warmer in scale. Here you can imagine daily life — writing letters, receiving close guests, resting after long ceremonies. Walking through them in sequence, you feel the logic of an eighteenth-century palace. Public rooms are grand and open. Private rooms grow more intimate the deeper you go.

The Duke did not enjoy his finished palace for very long. Before the end of the eighteenth century, Courland was absorbed into the Russian Empire, and the duchy disappeared from the map. The palace passed into the hands of Russian noble families. Over the next two centuries, the building lived through wars, changing borders and changing uses. In the twentieth century, its rooms served very practical purposes, far from ducal ceremony. Much of the original splendour faded or was damaged.

What you see today is the result of a long and patient restoration. A museum was established here in the 1970s, and restorers worked for decades. They studied old drawings and fragments of original paint and plaster. Craftspeople learned historic techniques again, room by room. The work continued for over forty years. So when you admire a gilded frame or a stucco flower, you are often looking at two achievements at once — the original design and the careful modern work that brought it back.

Behind the palace lies the formal French-style garden. It follows strict geometry, with straight paths, clipped hedges and long lines that lead the eye toward the horizon. From an upper window, the pattern reads like an embroidered carpet. The garden is also known for its large rose collection. In summer, the scent of roses drifts across the paths, and the air feels softer than the formal design suggests.

Walking the garden also shows you the palace from its quieter side. From the far end of the main axis, the building looks balanced and calm, its pale walls sitting low against the sky. This is a good place to slow down. Few visitors walk all the way out, so the sound of footsteps fades, and you are left with birds, wind in the hedges and the long view back.

Before you leave, turn around once more. Look at the long line of windows, the soft colour of the walls and the flat fields beyond the trees. A favourite of an empress built this place, lost it, and returned to finish it in old age. Then it was nearly lost again, and patient hands restored it. As you walk back across the gravel, listen to that sound one more time — the same quiet crunch that carriages once made arriving here.