5 Days in Riga

Town Hall Square is the best place to understand Riga's first act. The House of the Blackheads was built in 1334 as a meeting and feasting hall for merchants, and from the 15th century it belonged to a guild of unmarried merchants, shipowners and foreigners, the Blackheads. Its Mannerist facade, all gables, clocks and stone figures, dates from the early 17th century. Riga also claims that the first decorated Christmas tree stood here in 1510.

The original didn't last. The building was bombed in June 1941, the ruins were cleared by the Soviet authorities in 1948, and the present house was rebuilt between 1996 and 2000, partly by donations of a brick each. Only the cellar is original. Inside you can see the ballrooms and the silver rooms, but for many visitors the facade is the point. Walk the square, take photos, and go in if you have the hour.

Two minutes from the Blackheads, St Peter's Church is first mentioned in 1209 and has burned down more than once. Lightning set the tower on fire in 1721, and artillery fire destroyed the whole church on 29 June 1941. It was rebuilt between 1954 and 1983, and the new steeple got a replica of the golden rooster in 1970, the seventh in the church's history.

The reason to come is the lift. It takes you up the spire to a viewing platform with the whole city in front of you: the red roofs of the Old Town, the Daugava river, the Art Nouveau district to the north. Go in the morning when the light is clear and the queue is short, because there's a single lift and it fills up fast.

For lunch, go to Pētergailis on Skārņu iela, a restaurant between St Peter's and St John's churches that has been open since 1978 and mixes modern European cooking with Latvian dishes. Ask for pelēkie zirņi ar speķi, grey peas with bacon, the plate Latvia counts as its unofficial national dish. It looks plain and tastes of smoke and comfort, usually with bacon and sour cream.

Wash it down with kvass, the sour rye bread drink, or with a beer from a Latvian brewery. If you're still hungry, look for rupjmaizes kartojums, the layered rye bread dessert with cream and berries. It sounds odd and is excellent.

A short walk west is Dome Square, the largest square in the Old Town and the site of Riga Cathedral, the largest medieval church in the Baltic states. Bishop Albert of Riga had it begun in 1211, and the building you see has been modified many times since. Its organ, built by Walcker of Ludwigsburg in 1882-83, has 6,718 pipes, and concerts are held regularly.

In late November the square turns into the main Christmas market. The traditional market on Dome Square usually runs from late November to early January, with hours from late morning to the evening. Go early in the day if you want to see the cathedral before the crowds arrive.

Walk north along Mazā Pils iela to the Three Brothers, the oldest group of dwelling houses in Riga. The one at number 17 dates from the late 15th century, number 19 has a facade of 1646, and number 21 is a narrow Baroque house from the late 1600s. Three houses, three centuries, and a good lesson in how the city grew. They now house the Latvian Museum of Architecture.

Then continue to the Swedish Gate, built in 1698 as a passage through the city wall and the only one of the old gates left. The legend says a girl who met a Swedish soldier here was walled in alive, and you can hear her at midnight. Finish at the Powder Tower on Smilšu iela, first mentioned in 1330 as the Sand Tower. The current tower dates from 1650, built on the cellar of one destroyed in 1621, and it's named after the gunpowder once stored inside.

Latvians sing, a lot. The Song and Dance Festival gathers thousands of singers, and the folk club Ala Pagrabs on Peldu iela is the casual version: a vaulted cellar where live bands play traditional music, tables fill up with locals and visitors, and people get up and dance. Nobody minds if you don't know the steps.

Eat something Latvian and drink a beer. It's loud, warm and a very good way to end a cold November day. The OSM listing gives late opening hours, from lunchtime until the small hours on weekends.

The Central Market looks like nothing else in Europe. Its five main pavilions are old German zeppelin hangars, brought from the Vaiņode air base and reused as a market that opened in 1930. Five of them survive, and they're five of the nine zeppelin hangars left in the world. The market is part of the UNESCO World Heritage listing of Old Riga, added in 1998, and is often called the largest market in Europe.

Don't just look, eat. Each pavilion has its own subject: fish, meat, dairy, and vegetables. Look for smoked fish, rye bread, pickles, honey and sklandrausis, the rye tart filled with carrot and potato custard. The Gastronomy Pavilion was renovated and reopened in 2019. Keep your bag zipped, as in any crowded market.

Fifteen minutes' walk north is the Freedom Monument, a 42-meter column of granite, travertine and copper, unveiled in 1935. It honors the soldiers killed in the Latvian War of Independence of 1918-1920, and it was paid for by private donations. At the top, a copper woman called Milda holds up three gilded stars for the historic regions of Latvia: Vidzeme, Latgale and Courland. Sculpture groups on the base show Latvian culture and history, and the name Milda is affectionate, not official.

The monument almost didn't survive the Soviet era. Demolition was discussed more than once, but it stayed, and the authorities reinterpreted the stars as the three Soviet Baltic republics. On 14 June 1987 about 5,000 people laid flowers here to remember the Soviet deportations, the first such gathering in decades, and it's still the place where Latvians lay flowers today. Watch the honor guard change on the hour.

Cross the boulevard and follow the park along the city canal (you'll come back to it on day three), then reach the Esplanade, the big park that holds the Nativity Cathedral, the Orthodox cathedral of the city. The park was laid out in the 19th century on the open ground between the Old Town and the newer districts, and it's a good place to find your bearings.

Walk through the park, then turn north-west along Elizabetes iela into the Art Nouveau streets. Elizabetes iela is one of the two streets, with Alberta iela, where the facades are thickest.

Alberta iela is the street everyone photographs, and for good reason. It was laid out in 1901 and named after Bishop Albert, who founded Riga in 1201, and many of its apartment buildings were designed by Mikhail Eisenstein, the architect most active in Riga in those years. His facades borrow from the romantic nationalism common in northern Europe at the time, so they're full of masks, figures and ornament that looks closer to a theater set than a block of flats. Konstantīns Pēkšēns and his pupil Eižens Laube worked on the street too.

Stand in the middle of the street and look up, because that's where the detail is. Then go to the next street, Elizabetes iela, for more. The district has no ticket gates or closing time, so you can come back after dark.

The Riga Art Nouveau Museum has been at number 12 since April 2009, in the former residence of the architect Konstantīns Pēkšēns, and it lets you see what's behind those facades: a restored interior of the period.

An hour is enough, and it's the best way to make the street outside make sense. Come well before the 6pm closing, then walk back out for the facades.

Finish the day at the Latvian National Opera and Ballet, on the edge of Bastejkalns park. Riga has a long opera and ballet tradition, and the country's most famous dancer, Mikhail Baryshnikov, was born here.

Look at the program a few days ahead and book. If you don't want the full evening, the building and the park around it are worth a walk, and so is the sight of the Freedom Monument lit at night, just a few minutes away.

The Museum of the Occupation of Latvia tells the story of the 51 years between 1940 and 1991, when Latvia was occupied by the Soviet Union, then by Nazi Germany, then by the Soviet Union again. It was founded in 1993, and the permanent exhibition opened in its present form on 1 June 2022 after years of rebuilding. The black building itself was put up by the Soviets in 1971 as a museum to the Red Latvian Riflemen.

The exhibition follows the deportations, the camps, the daily life of the Soviet years and the road to independence. It can be heavy, but it's the best explanation of why Latvia looks and feels the way it does. Take the audioguide, which comes in ten languages, and plan two hours.

From the museum, walk five minutes north to Riga Castle on the Daugava embankment. It was founded in 1330, rebuilt in 1497-1515 and extended by the Swedes in 1641, and since 1938 it has been the residence of the President of Latvia, so the northern part is seen from the outside only. A fire in June 2013, during a reconstruction, destroyed part of the roof and the Red Hall, though none of the museum collections were destroyed.

You don't need long. Look at the walls, then walk along the river for a few minutes. It's a quiet pause between two heavy museums, and the castle's southern wing houses several museums if you want more.

For lunch, walk to Rozengrāls on Rozena iela, a medieval-themed restaurant in a cellar whose premises are recorded as far back as 1293, once the oldest wine cellar of the Riga city hall and a venue for celebrations. Candlelight and vaulted ceilings give you a different side of the city from yesterday's lunch, and the kitchen says it cooks from old recipes.

If you want something quicker, any Old Town bakery will have piragi, the small bacon-and-onion buns that Latvians eat at every celebration, and a coffee. Eat well, because the afternoon is the KGB building.

Take a tram or walk 25 minutes up Brīvības iela to number 61, the Corner House (Stūra māja). It was the headquarters of the Soviet security service in Latvia during the occupation, and since Riga's year as European Capital of Culture in 2014 the Museum of the Occupation has run an exhibition about the KGB here.

The tour is the point. You are led through the authentic rooms, including the cells, by a guide who explains how the system worked. It's not for children under 12 and the cells aren't accessible for people with limited mobility. The ground-floor exhibition is free.

Walk back toward the Old Town through the green belt that replaced the city's fortifications. Bastejkalns is a small hill covered in trees, with paths that run along the canal and the Old Town on one side. It's a good place to take a breath after the museum and the cells.

The canal runs through the park, and after dark, with the lamps on the water and the leaves down, it looks like a postcard from another century. Sit for a while, because the next stop is a drink.

End the day with Latvia's national drink, Riga Black Balsam, at the Black Magic bar on Kaļķu iela. The recipe goes back to 1752 and the apothecary Abraham Kunze, and the modern version has 24 ingredients, including 17 botanicals, and is aged in oak barrels before it's blended with honey and caramel. It's bitter and dark.

Try it neat, in coffee, or in a cocktail with blackcurrant, which softens the bitterness. It started life in 1752 as a medicinal drink, so a sip does feel like medicine.

From the station, walk to the ruins of the Sigulda Medieval Castle on the edge of the valley. An open-air stage in the ruins hosts the Sigulda Opera Festival each summer, and from the walls you look down into the Gauja valley.

Sigulda is the tourist center of the Gauja valley, with sandstone cliffs and caves along the river. In November the trees are bare, but the shapes of the valley are easier to read. Allow an hour and walk the paths around the ruins.

Walk down to the cable car, which crosses the Gauja valley between Sigulda and Krimulda, high above the river. It's an ordinary cable car with an extraordinary view, and it's the quickest way to see the sandstone cliffs from above.

On the Krimulda side there are paths through the forest. Don't plan anything tight around the schedule, because winter timetables and wind closures change, and have the road as a backup.

On the way to Turaida, stop at Gutmanis Cave, the widest and highest cave in the Baltic states. It's a sandstone hollow about 19 meters deep, 12 wide and 10 high, with a spring running out of it. The walls are covered with names carved over centuries, the oldest surviving one dated 1668.

Local legend says the spring is Gutmanis' tears and that the water is healthy and lengthens life. Taste it and decide. The cave lies halfway between Sigulda and Turaida, is free according to travel listings, and takes ten minutes.

Turaida Castle is the one you came for. It was started in 1214 on the orders of Albert of Riga, the founder of the city, as a red-brick fortress on the site of a Livonian wooden castle, and the name Turaida is Livonian, tied to "Thor's garden". A fire in 1776 ended its life, and archaeologists have excavated and restored it since 1976. You can climb the main tower for a view across the valley.

The Turaida Museum Reserve around it also runs open-air exhibitions and exhibitions on the Gauja valley, so plan two hours. In winter the grounds are quiet and the red brick looks best in low light.

Sigulda is a small town, and in winter many places keep short hours, so decide where to eat when you arrive. Look for a café near the station or the old center, and order something warm: soup, piragi or a plate with potatoes and smoked meat.

A loaf of rye bread from the market in Riga makes a fine picnic, though in November a warm room wins. Finish by 3pm and head for the train back, because it's dark by 4pm.

Take an early train to Ķemeri, at the far end of the Jūrmala line, and head for the Great Ķemeri Bog Boardwalk in Ķemeri National Park. Ķemeri is the third-largest national park in Latvia, mostly forest and bog, with natural mineral springs and mud that made the area a spa destination in the 19th century. The boardwalk runs across the bog on wooden planks, with a short loop of about 1.4 km and a longer one of about 3.4 km that has an observation platform.

The bog is at its best in spring and autumn, and in the soft light of late autumn the pines, dwarf trees and dark pools look unreal. The boards are slippery when wet, and snow isn't cleared in winter, so wear shoes with grip.

Back at the station end of Ķemeri, spend a few minutes on the town side. The town grew up around the waters and the mud baths, which were used for centuries and led to many resorts, spas and sanatoriums in the 19th century. The mineral springs here, with their sulfur smell, are what first brought the resort into being.

Walk the park, then catch the train back east toward the sea. Check the timetable on the platform, because it's the last chance to warm up before the beach.

Jūrmala is a string of resorts along 33 km of white sand beach, 25 km west of Riga. Its name simply means seaside. It was a favorite holiday spot for Soviet officials and has been making a comeback since independence. Majori is the main stop, and its beach has been awarded a Blue Flag.

In November it's empty. Walk out to the sea and look at the Gulf of Riga under a low sky, with the pine dunes behind. It's calm, cold and nothing like summer, which is why some people prefer it.

Eat in Majori after the beach. In winter a fair number of seasonal places are closed, so choose from what's open on the pedestrian street near the station, and order fish. Smoked or fried fish is the local sea food, and a bowl of hot soup is welcome after the wind.

Try a kvass or a pot of tea with sklandrausis, the rye pastry with carrot filling. Don't linger too long, because the villas of Dubulti are best seen before the light goes.

The most characteristic buildings in Jūrmala are its wooden houses from the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, with carved porches, towers and verandas. Take the train one stop west to Dubulti and walk the streets between the station and the beach.

Many were built as summer homes for Baltic German and Russian families and later became Soviet sanatoriums, and a number of them are still being restored. Walk slowly and look at the details, such as the fretwork, painted shutters and glass verandas, and at the pine trees growing between the houses.