Gūtmaņa, cave

GUTMANA CAVE The highest cave of Latvia and the largest grotto in the Baltic: 10m high, 12m wide and 18.8m long. On the walls of the cave there are inscriptions of the 17th century. The spring that flows out of the cave used to be sacred and its water - healing. Gutmana cave is connected with the Legend of the Rose of Turaida and her tragic love. There is another popular story about the beautiful and unfaithful wife of the Liv chief Rindaugs. In anger her husband let her dig into the ground of the cave. Tears of the wife have made the spring. Baltic-Germans started to call it Gutmana cave {Good man's cave) for a local healer had lived next to the cave. He gave the water of the spring to people and treated them with various herbs. In the 30ties of the 20th century there was a suggestion to Latvianize the name of the cave and to call it Labvira cave. For all that there was no responsiveness among the Latvians.