RUNDALE PALACE

Rundale Palace is well worth visiting, particularly as visitors have the option of going in a group or on their own. Before you decide to go, take a look at  http://www.rundale.net/en

The key information the website lacks is that when the restoration work began in the 1970s the foundations were about the only part that was visible. What you see now is not a restoration but a total rebuild faithfully copying architectural plans and photographs of the interiors.

Unusually for a Baltic property the rooms are crammed with period furniture and art-work. This was achieved at the fraction of the cost of purchasing antique period pieces by acquiring the furniture through a network of buyers seeking unattributed furnishings (i.e. they may well be reproductions). By contrast the artwork consists of either computer generated copies (down-loaded from the Internet?), purchased copies or photocopies of attributed art or unattributed art.