"A midsummer idyll in Latvia" Latvia by CatherineReichardt

We were lucky enough to visit Latvia in early summer, at a time when the countryside is probably at its prettiest. Spring comes late to the Baltic, and in early June (having left London in a heatwave), it still felt delightfully fresh and cool. Each village still awash with lilac blossom in every possible shade of mauve from white to deepest purple – the beauty of which we came to take so much for granted that we were horrified to realise later that we hadn’t taken a single photograph of it!

The Latvian countryside is delightfully picturesque, comprising alternating forests, rolling agricultural land dotted with small, neat villages and pristine white beaches. In my purist opinion, it’s too flat to be truly beautiful, but it is lovely nonetheless and reminiscent of how much of the rest of Europe must have been before mass urbanisation. One particularly charming little town springs to mind – whose name we have long since forgotten – which was nestled in a series of hillocks and hollows around two small round lakes. Despite it only being late afternoon, its cobbled streets were curiously deserted and it was for all the world as if time had stood still.

One of the most striking features of the Baltic shore is that along most of the coastline the forest grows down to within metres of the sea. I can only surmise that this is because of the low tidal range. The beaches - long a secret well kept by Latvian and German tourists - are beautifully white and sandy but were almost deserted.

Travelling around Latvia by hire car was an absolute pleasure and I would highly recommend it to people who are thinking of visiting, and want to see something outside the urban centres. I think that probably the most laudable of the European Union's initiatives has been to fund the upgrading of road infrastructure in new member states, and the roads were beautiful! Although half the population live in and around Riga, ultimately Latvia is a society whose roots are rural, and I feel that not seeing the countryside would be to miss out on experiencing the soul of the country.

Given the strong Hanseatic influence, it is not surprising that Latvia feels Nordic rather than Slavic. It isn’t hard to imagine that Latvia would have fit uncomfortably in the Soviet bloc – their language, even their alphabet was so at odds with the rest of the USSR, and it is clear that even at the height of Communism, their separatist tendencies must have simmered very close to the surface. Obviously it's a generalisation, but we found Latvians reserved yet welcoming, and willing to help us adjust to the challenges of travelling with a toddler.

On a more facetious note, it seems as though every occupying force – and there were many in this part of the world – took pleasure in renaming Baltic towns. My German husband was certainly in his politically incorrect element and revelled in using the old German colonial names!

• Pros:Charmingly picturesque, clean, orderly and low key
• Cons:Flat!
• In a nutshell:A 'bite sized' country that is big enough to be interesting and small enough to feel intimate