Jurmala is not so much a single town as a string of connected settlements on the Baltic coast, around 25 kilometres west of the Latvian capital, Riga. It is the largest resort town in the Baltic states.
Wooden architecture is a distinctive feature of Jurmala.
A small network of bus services operates around the districts of Jurmala.In April 2016, I found standard single-deck buses in use on some of these services. They carried a plain white livery.
As well as single-deck buses, I also noted minibuses. Some were white...
...while at least one was dark blue.
Information about these local services within Jurmala is available in Latvian only on the Jurmala wesbite.
A number of minibus services link Jurmala with surrounding places, including Riga.
Although I have not found any site with comprehensive listings of the minibus services, a trip planner on the 1188.lv website provides point-to-point journey details.
Several longer-distance coach services pass through Jurmala, on their way between Riga and destinations in western Latvia.The trip planner on the 1188.lv website holds details for these services too.
Suburban trains also link Riga with Jurmala. These are operated by Latvijas dzelzceļš, Latvia's national rail operator.
Riga's public cycle hire scheme, provided by Sixt, extends to Jurmala, with docking points at six locations.
Finally, when is a bus not a bus? In Jurmala, the answer is "when it is a pizza". The Red Bus pizza restaurant is located close to Jurmala's main shopping street, Jomas Iela. There used to be a red double-deck bus, originally from the UK and converted for restaurant use, parked outside. The bus was nowhere to be seen when I visited Jurmala, but there is an image of a London Routemaster bus on the wall of the building.
The Red Bus name also appears on some of the minibuses which operate between Jurmala and Riga.
