Bauska is one of those small Latvian towns that hide far more than they let on. Set on a tongue of land where the Mūsa and Mēmele rivers embrace to give birth to the Lielupe, its great treasure is a double castle that sums up several centuries of Baltic military history: the ruins of a Livonian Order fortress built in the 15th century and, right next to them, an elegant Renaissance palace built by the Dukes of Courland.
It is also the gateway to Zemgale, Latvia's flattest and most agricultural region, and the natural base for visiting nearby Rundāle Palace, the 'Latvian Versailles', barely ten kilometres away. That is why most travellers visit Bauska and Rundāle on the same day, on a trip that combines medieval fortresses, Baroque splendour and the peaceful landscapes of the south of the country.
This guide covers Bauska from a practical angle: what to see in its medieval and Renaissance castle, how to climb the tower for views of the rivers, how much tickets cost, how to get there from Riga and how to plan the combined trip with Rundāle. A short but highly recommended stop for understanding the ducal past of Courland and Zemgale.
Bauska Castle was founded around the mid-15th century as a Livonian Order fortress, at a key point above the confluence of the Mūsa and Mēmele rivers, and it was in fact the last major castle the Order built in what is now Latvia. With the dissolution of the Order and the founding of the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia in 1562, the castle was extended with a Renaissance palace that served as a residence for the Kettler dukes. It suffered wars between Swedes, Poles and Russians in the 17th and 18th centuries, fell into ruin and was partly blown up, and only in modern times did its restoration as a museum begin. Today it brings together the medieval ruins and the restored Renaissance halls on a single site. We tell the full story on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The Semigallia of the warriors who held out for a century and its baroque palaces, alongside Catholic, Polish-influenced Latgale, the most distinctive region of Latvia.
Read the history of Zemgale and Latgale: palaces and the east →A local guide tells you in half an hour what no sign at the site will ever explain. We look ours up on Civitatis: guided in Spanish and booked online with no fuss. They have 11 activities in Riga. And there are free tours here: you book without paying and tip the guide whatever you think at the end, so trying one costs you nothing. Have a look below: tap any of them to see them all.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The history of Bauska is, above all, the history of a castle built on a spot that could hardly be better: the tip of a tongue of land where the Mūsa and Mēmele rivers meet to form the Lielupe. Whoever controlled that point controlled the river routes and roads of what is now southern Latvia, on the border with Lithuanian and Semigallian lands. That is why, around the middle of the 15th century, the Livonian Order (the Baltic branch of the Teutonic Order, which ruled much of present-day Latvia and Estonia) decided to build a fortress there.
Construction began around 1443 and went on for decades. Bauska Castle has one feature that makes it unique: it is considered the only castle of the Livonian Order in present-day Latvia built specifically for firearms. In other words, it was designed for the age of gunpowder and cannons, with walls and a layout adapted to artillery. It was, in fact, one of the last great castles the Order built before it disappeared.
For almost a century, this stone and brick fortress guarded the southern border of medieval Livonia. It stood at a strategic spot where the interests of the Order, the Archbishopric of Riga, Lithuania and the local peoples of Zemgale (Semigallia) all crossed. Knights, merchants and armies passed beneath its walls, and it laid the foundations of the town that would grow up at its feet.
The big turning point in Bauska's history came in the mid-16th century, when the medieval Baltic world collapsed. In 1561-1562, in the middle of the Livonian War, the Livonian Order was dissolved. Its last master, Gotthard Kettler, gave up his religious vows and became duke of a new state: the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia, a vassal of the Kingdom of Poland-Lithuania. The Order's old castles, Bauska among them, became ducal property.
The Kettler dukes turned Bauska from a military fortress into a residence. In the second half of the 16th century, a Renaissance palace was built next to the Order's old medieval fortress. It was more comfortable and more prestigious, and it served as one of the residences of the ducal family. It was fortified with bastions, walls and earthworks in the style of the time, strong enough to withstand modern artillery. That is how the double complex that makes Bauska unique today came about: the ruins of the Order's fortress and the dukes' Renaissance palace, standing right next to each other.
Bauska became a centre of power in ducal Semigallia. In fact, the castle is the only partly preserved residence of the Kettler dukes of Courland and Semigallia. That gives it enormous historical value for understanding that small but fascinating Baltic state, which under Duke Jacob even had overseas colonies in the Caribbean and Africa.
The strategic position that had made the castle so valuable also doomed it to sit at the centre of every war that swept through the Baltic in the 17th and 18th centuries. During that period the region was a battlefield again and again for the great powers of the north: the Kingdom of Poland-Lithuania, the Swedish Empire and Tsarist Russia fought over Courland and Semigallia time after time.
Bauska changed hands several times and went through sieges and occupations during the Polish-Swedish wars and, above all, during the Great Northern War (1700-1721), which pitted Sweden against Russia and its allies. Russian troops took the castle, and in the early 18th century its fortifications were partly blown up and dismantled so the enemy could never use it as a stronghold again, which was common practice at the time. The Renaissance palace was damaged and the medieval fortress was left in ruins.
When the Great Northern War ended, Russia tightened its grip on the region. In 1795, when the Russian Empire annexed the Duchy of Courland, Bauska lost its political role altogether. The castle then went through a long period of neglect. Throughout the 19th century and much of the 20th it was just another romantic ruin in the Zemgale landscape, while the small town of Bauska carried on with life in the shadow of its old walls.
While the castle fell into ruin, the town of Bauska grew into the main town of its district in southern Zemgale. It sits where roads and rivers cross, and for centuries it worked as a farm market and service centre for a flat, fertile region known as Latvia's 'breadbasket'. As in so many Baltic towns, its people were a mix of Latvians, Baltic Germans, Jews and others.
The 20th century hit Bauska hard, as it did the whole country. The First World War brought the Eastern Front and German occupation, followed by independence under the first Republic of Latvia (1918-1940). The Second World War was especially tragic. It brought Soviet occupation in 1940, then Nazi occupation from 1941, when Bauska's Jewish community was murdered in the Holocaust, like those of so many Latvian towns. Soviet rule returned in 1944-1945, after fighting that left new scars on the region. Under Soviet occupation, Bauska was a quiet provincial town in the Latvian SSR.
Latvia regained its independence in 1991, and a new chapter began. Bauska became the main town of its Zemgale district once again and turned to its heritage to attract tourism, helped above all by being close to Rundāle Palace. Today the town lives on farming and trade, on being a stop on the Riga-Vilnius route and, more and more, on cultural tourism.
Bauska Castle spent much of the 20th century as a set of ruins. From the middle of the century, though, work began to study it, protect it and, in the end, restore it. Archaeological and architectural research was already carried out in Soviet times, and after Latvia's independence the restoration project gained momentum as part of a wider effort to bring the national heritage back to life.
The restoration focused mainly on the dukes' Renaissance palace. It was rebuilt on the basis of historical research to bring back its 16th-17th century appearance, with halls, exhibitions and a tower you can climb today to look out over the meeting of the rivers. The ruins of the Livonian Order's medieval fortress were stabilised and opened to visitors, so a single visit takes in both periods of the castle. Today the castle museum (Bauskas pils muzejs) has collections on ducal life, with exhibitions such as 'Clothing and Jewellery in the Duchy of Courland, 1562-1620', and on the fortress's military history.
Today Bauska Castle is one of the main sights in Zemgale. Together with nearby Rundāle Palace, it makes up the must-see pair of southern Latvia: the military fortress and the pleasure palace, the two faces of the Duchy of Courland. Climbing its tower, walking through its ruins and watching the rivers meet below means looking back over more than five centuries of Baltic history, from the knights of the Order to today's independent Latvia.
