From Ventspils Airport the city is easily accessed with a hire car. Once you’re there you can begin to explore the city and in some cases it’s a little unusual. In 2002 it hosted an international Cow Parade art festival with the result that in various parts of the city there are dotted around several statues and other representations of cows.
A favourite of visitors is to find each one and photograph themselves by it, collecting the whole ‘set’ In a similar vein, Ventspils is proud of its floral displays, again, often set out as pictures and statues.
Ventspils Airport Mini Guide
Based only 5km south west of the city, Ventspils Airport is one of three major sites in Latvia. The others are Liepaja and the capital Riga.
Built in 1975 and having a 1.2km runway the airport only handled sparse flights. As a result only 40 people were employed at the time. Taking AN-24, MI-2, YAK-40 and AN-2 type airplanes and only having two flights to Leningrad and Riga the airport was providing small scale air travel.
As commercial travel was not high priority, the airstrip was used for oil pipeline control flights, border control personnel and other civil uses. The Latvian government closed the airport in 1983. After much deliberation and weighing up the uses and whether reopening would be viable the rehabilitation was started in 1999. With documentation signed off and security measures in place the airport opened it's doors in 2008. The first flight was handled by AirBaltic and flights to Riga, some 202kms away, are now frequent.
The airport now houses a single terminal with departures and arrivals in the same building. There are basic amenities such as restaurants and ATM machines. Duty free shops are available for outbound passengers.
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