Riga is the capital of Latvia and the largest city in the Baltic States with 630,000 people — a UNESCO World Heritage Site (1997) for its exceptional Art Nouveau architecture (the largest and finest concentration of Art Nouveau/Jugendstil buildings in the world, 750+ buildings, the most in any city including Brussels, Vienna or Paris) and its medieval Old Town (Vecrīga) that survived WWII relatively intact. Riga was founded in 1201 by Bishop Albert of Buxhoeven as a trading port and crusader base against the Baltic pagan peoples — the German Teutonic Order and the Livonian Order controlled the city for 300+ years, leaving a legacy of German merchant culture that shaped the city into one of the great Hanseatic trading cities of the Baltic and the second-largest Hanseatic city after Lübeck. The Art Nouveau district (Quiet Centre, Alberta Street, Elizabetes Street) was built between 1896-1913 when Riga was the industrial capital of the Russian Empire — the merchant families and the Russian industrial boom created the wealth for the extraordinary Jugendstil buildings with their human faces, mythological figures, owls, sphinxes and grotesque masks as architectural decoration; Mikhail Eisenstein (father of director Sergei Eisenstein) designed the most theatrical buildings at Alberta iela 2a, 4 and 13. Latvia regained independence in 1991 after 50 years of Soviet occupation (1940-1941 by the Soviets, 1941-1944 by the Germans, 1944-1991 by the Soviets again) — the Occupation Museum (Latvijas Okupācijas muzejs) in the Old Town covers the deportations, the resistance and the Singing Revolution of 1987-1991 when 2 million Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians formed a 675 km human chain (the Baltic Way) demanding independence.
Alberta iela (Alberta Street) in the Quiet Centre of Riga has the most concentrated and spectacular Art Nouveau architecture in the world — Mikhail Eisenstein's buildings at numbers 2a (with the enormous face emerging from the façade, screaming mask, owls and sphinxes), 4 (the twin towers with Medusa heads and female figures in bas-relief) and 13 (the theatrical vertical decoration with mythological figures) were built 1903-1906 for wealthy Russian industrialists and are the most photographed buildings in Latvia; the entire street is a continuous feast of Jugendstil ornament.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Riga Old Town (Vecrīga, a medieval island between the Daugava River and the former city canal) has the House of the Blackheads (1334, the guild house of the Brotherhood of Blackheads — the guild of unmarried foreign merchants, named after their patron Saint Maurice depicted as a black African; the building was destroyed in WWII and rebuilt exactly in 1999) in the perfectly restored 14th-century Town Hall Square; the Riga Cathedral (Doma Baznīca, 1211, the largest medieval cathedral in the Baltic, with the 6,768-pipe organ, the third-largest organ in the world) and the Latvian National History Museum.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Latvian Ethnographic Open-Air Museum (Brīvdabas muzejs, 10 km northeast, 87 hectares, founded 1924) has 118 traditional Latvian wooden buildings (farmsteads, windmills, fisherman's huts, granaries, a church) relocated from across Latvia and reassembled in the pine forest — the oldest complete medieval log farmstead in Latvia (16th century), the traditional smoke sauna (pirts, the central cultural institution of Latvian rural life, now UNESCO Intangible Heritage) and the summer solstice festival (Jāņi, June 23-24) demonstration.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Riga Central Market (Centrāltirgus, 1930, the five largest zeppelin hangar buildings in Europe repurposed as market halls — the German WWI zeppelin sheds were transported from Vaiņode and reassembled) is one of Europe's largest markets (72,000 m², 3,000 traders) with the finest smoked fish, grey peas (the Latvian national dish: peas with smoked lard), rye bread (Latvian rye is dark, dense, slightly sour and is the culinary pride of the nation) and the Latvian Black Balsam (the herbal liqueur of 24 botanicals, black in colour, 45% ABV, the national spirit of Latvia, created 1752 by pharmacist Abraham Kunze).
The Latvian Occupation Museum (Latvijas Okupācijas muzejs, Old Town, free) covers the three Soviet and German occupations 1940-1991 — the Cheka (Soviet secret police) operations room reconstruction, the cattle wagon used for Siberian deportations (June 14, 1941: 15,000 Latvians deported in one night), the deportation stories, the Latvian partisan resistance (Forest Brothers) and the Singing Revolution (1987-1991: when Latvians used song festivals to express national identity and the Baltic Way human chain on August 23, 1989 formed 675 km from Vilnius to Tallinn demanding independence).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Latvian National Opera (1863, Neo-Renaissance, on the former moat of the old city walls) is one of the finest opera house buildings in Northern Europe — the building survived WWI, WWII and Soviet occupation and has hosted Caruso, Chaliapin and Wagner; the Riga Bourse (1855, Venetian Renaissance, the former stock exchange, now the Museum of Foreign Art) has the finest collection of Flemish and Dutch Old Masters in the Baltic states, Egyptian antiquities and Chinese decorative arts.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideJūrmala (25 km west of Riga, 30 min by suburban train — E1 from Riga, €1.60) is Latvia's most popular beach resort — 33 km of white Baltic Sea beach with Art Nouveau wooden summer villas (dachas of the Russian and Latvian elite since the 19th century), the Jūrmala City Museum in the Aspazija Villa, the pedestrian Jomas Street (the resort promenade with restaurants and cafés) and the Majori beach (the most popular central beach, calm Baltic water 18-20°C in summer, not warm but perfectly pleasant); the Baltic amber washed up on the beach is still occasionally findable.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Riga dinner — pelēkie zirņi (grey peas with smoked pork lard and fried onion, the Latvian national dish served at Latvian Song Festival celebrations), smoked eel from the Central Market fishmongers, silke ar āboliem (pickled herring with apple — the Latvian herring salad), Latvian dark rye bread (rupjmaize, dense, slightly sour, baked with molasses and caraway) with butter and the aperitif Riga Black Balsam mixed with blackcurrant juice (the local way, less bitter than straight); Restaurant Lido (the largest Latvian buffet) or Folkklubs Ala (folk music pub with Latvian food).
Rundale Palace (80 km south of Riga, 1 hr by car) is the most extraordinary Baroque palace in the Baltic — built 1736-1740 and 1764-1768 by Bartolomeo Rastrelli (the same architect who built the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg and the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoe Selo) for the Duke of Courland; the Gold Hall and the White Hall (the palace ballrooms), the restored Chinese porcelain rooms, the Duchess's bedroom and the 10-hectare formal French garden (at its most beautiful when the rose garden — 2,000+ roses — blooms in June-July).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideSigulda (50 km northeast of Riga, 1 hr by train) is Latvia's "Switzerland" — the Gauja River valley has three medieval castles (Sigulda Medieval Castle, 1207, Livonian Order; Turaida Castle, 1214, Archbishop's red brick castle with museum; Krimulda Castle ruins) within 4 km of each other; the Gauja National Park (the largest national park in Latvia, 917 km²) has red sandstone cliffs, caves (Gūtmaņala Cave, the largest cave in the Baltic with carved inscriptions since the 17th century) and the cable car across the river.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideSigulda has the only Olympic-standard bobsled and luge track in the Baltic states (built for the 1987 Soviet Winter Sports Championships) — in summer, the summer bobsled ride (a wheeled version of the bobsled run at 80+ km/h) gives the most adrenaline-inducing activity in Latvia; in winter (November-March), the track runs for bobsled and luge, and the Sigulda ski slopes (14 slopes, 1,500 m maximum run, the best skiing in the Baltic despite modest height) operate.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Riga jazz scene (one of the finest in the Baltic states, with a tradition of excellent Latvian jazz musicians since the Soviet era when jazz was a form of cultural resistance) concentrates in the Old Town bars — Kalku Varti, Taka Bar and the summer Jazz Bar in the Old Town yard concerts; the midnight Black Balsam (straight, 45%, the traditional farewell toast of Riga) with the Old Town lit up around the Dome Cathedral and the smell of the Daugava River through the medieval lanes.