Ventspils: the city where cows are colourful benches

Historic Hanseatic port on the Baltic, Ventspils animates its streets with dozens of colorful cow sculptures that have become the city's symbol.

The center, famous for its colored cow-shaped benches, is comfortably explored on foot.

The colored cows of Ventspils, dozens of life-size sculptures painted by local artists, enliven parks and squares as a playful symbol of the city.

A few steps away, Livonian Castle, a thirteenth-century fortress built by the Knights of the Sword, remains the most imposing historic monument in the city.

Continuing toward the port, visitors discover Ventspils Open-Air Museum, which recreates traditional Latvian rural life among windmills and wooden houses.

Toward evening, Ventspils beach, among the cleanest in the Baltic, offers a tranquil sunset before dinner.

Ventspils's colored cows, introduced as a public art project in the two-thousands, have become such a recognizable symbol of the city that they appear on official tourist promotional material.

Ventspils remains one of the northernmost ice-free ports in the eastern Baltic, an advantage that made it an important Hanseatic trading hub since the Middle Ages – a commercial role maintained today as a Latvian petroleum and grain terminal.