Gulbene · LV

Birze

Birze is one of the little halts along the Bānītis, the beloved narrow-gauge railway that puffs between Gulbene and Alūksne in eastern Latvia's Vidzeme region. Just 4 km out from Gulbene, this request-stop is named for the quiet groves and farmland it sits among, and it is the kind of place most people discover not as a destination in itself but as one stop on a journey back in time. The Bānītis is the only narrow-gauge railway in the Baltics still carrying passengers on a daily schedule, and the line and its rolling stock are protected as a state historical monument. Riding it—and getting on or off at a rural stop like Birze—is the real attraction: a slow, scenic way to see the Vidzeme countryside from an old carriage window.