Riga: what to see, where to stay and how to get around
Riga was founded in 1201 by a German bishop who arrived with crusaders, and for seven hundred years after that it was run by German merchants — the guilds, the churches and the warehouses are all theirs, and Latvian was the language of the people who were not allowed into the guild. Then the war and the Soviets took almost all of it, and much of what you walk past was rebuilt from photographs in the 1990s. Two hours, flat.
A short history of Riga
In 1201 the German Bishop Albert founded Riga at the mouth of the Daugava River as a base for the crusades against the pagan peoples of the Baltic. In 1282 the city joined the Hanseatic League, and for centuries it was ruled by German-speaking merchants. In 1621 Sweden captured it, and in 1710 it passed to Russia, where it became one of the empire's most important ports. At the beginning of the 20th century hundreds of Art Nouveau buildings were built here, and they still fill much of the centre today. In 1918 it became the capital of independent Latvia. In November and December 1941 about 25,000 Jews from the Riga ghetto were murdered in the Rumbula forest. In 1991 Latvia regained its independence.
The ten best sights in Riga
1Riga Cathedral5 euros, from 1211, and the 1884 organ was the largest in the world
2St Peter’s Church9 euros with the lift, 72 metres up, and the spire has burned down three times
3House of the Blackheads7 euros, from 1334, blown up in 1948 and rebuilt from photographs
4Riga CastleFrom outside only, from 1330, and the president lives in it
5Three BrothersFree from outside, and the oldest is from about 1490
6Swedish GateFree, from 1698, and the only city gate still standing
7Powder Tower5 euros, the war museum is in it, and cannonballs are in the wall
8St Jacob’s CathedralFree, Catholic, from 1225, and parliament sits next door
9Peitav SynagogueFrom 1905, the only one left of the city’s synagogues
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10Riga Ghetto Museum
Free, outdoors, and on the edge of where the ghetto stood
Scan with your phone camera to open the map there
What is an audio walk?
Tours in Riga →A guide in your headphones: open the walk on our site, walk from stop to stop, and at each one your phone tells its story. No guide, no group, and free. This is the first walk in Riga:
Free walking tours in Riga
A German city on a Baltic river
Riga was founded in 1201 by a German bishop who arrived with crusaders, and for seven hundred years after that it was run by German merchants — the guilds, the churches and the warehouses are all theirs, and Latvian was the language of the people who were not allowed into the guild. Then the war and the Soviets took almost all of it, and much of what you walk past was rebuilt from photographs in the 1990s. Two hours, flat.
- Riga Cathedral · Begun in 1211 by Bishop Albert, who founded the city ten years earlier, and the floor is now about two metres below street level because the ground outside has risen around it over eight centuries. The organ of 1884 had 6,718 pipes and was the largest instrument in the world when it was built.
- House of the Blackheads · The Blackheads were a guild of unmarried German merchants — you left when you married — and this was their hall from 1334. German bombing wrecked it in 1941 and the Soviets dynamited the remains in 1948; what stands now was rebuilt between 1995 and 1999 from photographs and drawings for the city’s eight hundredth birthday.
- St Peter’s Church · The wooden spire was once the tallest in Europe and it has come down three times — struck by lightning in 1666, burned in 1721 when Peter the Great himself helped fight the fire, and burned again in 1941. The one standing now is steel, finished in 1973, and there is a lift inside it.
- Cat House · A Latvian merchant was refused membership of the Great Guild, which admitted only Germans, so he had two copper cats put on his turrets with their backs arched and their tails pointed at the guild hall. The guild sued. The case ran for years, and he eventually agreed to turn the cats round in exchange for being let in.
- Three Brothers · Three houses of different centuries standing in a row, and the one on the right is the oldest dwelling in Riga, from about 1490. Its windows are tiny because window glass was taxed by area, and the stone benches either side of the door are where the merchant sat to do business without letting anyone inside.
- Powder Tower · The last of twenty-eight towers in the city wall, rebuilt in 1650 with walls three metres thick, and there are nine cannonballs embedded in the brickwork from various sieges — they were left in place deliberately when it was restored. It holds the war museum, and entry is free.
Eight hundred buildings of one style
Riga has more Art Nouveau architecture than any city in the world — around eight hundred buildings, about a third of everything in the centre, almost all of it put up between 1899 and 1914 in a fifteen-year burst while the city was the busiest port in the Russian Empire. The most extravagant facades are by Mikhail Eisenstein, a city engineer who designed buildings as a sideline and whose son Sergei went on to make films. Two hours, and it is all about looking up.
- Freedom Monument · Forty-two metres tall, finished in 1935, and paid for entirely by public donation — schoolchildren collected for it. The Soviets never dared pull it down, though laying flowers at it was grounds for arrest; the woman at the top holds three gold stars for the three historical regions of Latvia.
- Esplanade · The city wall ran along here until 1857, when Riga finally tore down its fortifications — the Russian empire had decided the town no longer needed them. The cleared ground became a ring of parks and boulevards, and the whole Art Nouveau boom happened on the new building plots that the demolition released.
- National Museum of Art · Built in 1905 as the first purpose-built art museum in the Baltic provinces, and the Latvian collection on the upper floor is the argument the building was made for: before the 1890s almost no painting existed in Latvian, because the painters were German and the subjects were German.
- Elizabetes iela · Number 10b is the building everybody photographs — two enormous stone faces screaming out of the facade over the top windows, with peacocks and masks below them. Eisenstein was an engineer by profession, and he was borrowing ornament from German pattern books and putting it on at a scale nobody else dared.
- Alberta iela · The street was laid out in 1901 for the city’s seven hundredth anniversary and named after the bishop who founded it, and eight of its buildings are Eisenstein’s. Nobody lived in them as showpieces — these were ordinary rented flats for lawyers and doctors, and most of them still are.
- Art Nouveau Museum · A complete flat of 1903 on Alberta iela, restored down to the wallpaper and the kitchen scales, and it belonged to Konstantīns Pēkšēns, the architect who designed more of Riga than anyone else — about two hundred and fifty buildings. The spiral staircase in the entrance hall is the thing people come for.
Hangars, warehouses and the wooden half
Riga was the third industrial city of the Russian Empire before 1914, and the working half of it is still there — a market built out of five Zeppelin hangars, a quarter of red brick warehouses, a wooden suburb across the river that burned down and was rebuilt in timber anyway, and a Stalinist tower the city nicknamed the birthday cake. Three hours, and the market is the best hour of it.
- Central Market · The five huge halls are German Zeppelin hangars. They were built at Vaiņode airbase during the First World War, bought as scrap after it, dismantled, brought to Riga by rail and re-erected over new foundations between 1924 and 1930 — the roofs you are standing under were made to hold airships.
- Spīķeri · Fifty-eight red brick warehouses went up here in the nineteenth century to hold the goods coming off the river, and thirteen survive. They were derelict until the 2000s and are now galleries, a concert hall and offices — the only quarter of industrial Riga that was converted rather than knocked down.
- Riga Ghetto Museum · The ghetto was in these streets, and almost everyone in it was taken to the Rumbula forest on two days — the thirtieth of November and the eighth of December 1941 — and shot. About twenty-five thousand people. The museum is an open yard with the names on boards, and it is free.
- Ķīpsala · An island of nineteenth-century wooden houses two minutes from the old town, and under one of them a dock worker called Žanis Lipke dug a bunker and hid Jews he smuggled out of the ghetto in a lorry — fifty-five people survived there and in villages he moved them to.
- Āgenskalns · The wooden quarter on the left bank, and it is wooden on purpose: the Russian army burned the suburbs twice, in 1812 and before, so the law forbade stone building outside the walls — anything there might have to be destroyed again in a hurry. The market hall of 1898 is the centre of it.
- Mežaparks · Laid out from 1901 as one of the first garden suburbs in Europe, with villas among pines and no two houses alike. The open-air stage in it holds the Song and Dance Festival every five years — about forty thousand singers at once, a tradition that ran through the Soviet period and became the way independence was argued for.
Getting to Riga and getting around
- Riga Airport · 10 kilometres out, bus 22 is 2 euros and takes 30 minutes
- Central Station · Trains to Jūrmala every half hour, and the market is behind it
- Coach Terminal · Buses to Vilnius, Tallinn and Warsaw, and beside the market
- Dome Square · The centre of the old town, and everything is ten minutes from it
Cheap eats in Riga
Eight counters where Riga eats standing. The national dish is grey peas with fried bacon and onion — pelēkie zirņi, eaten in winter and at Christmas, and about five euros a bowl. The bread is the other thing: Latvian rye is dark, dense, slightly sweet and sold by weight, and emigrants have it posted to them. Drink Black Balsam, a bitter herbal liqueur made here since 1752 at forty-five per cent, usually in coffee or blackcurrant juice rather than alone.
- Central Market · Open 7 to 5, and the outdoor rows are cheapest
- Lido · About 8 euros for a full tray, and open till ten
- Folkklubs Ala Pagrabs · A cellar with Latvian beers and live folk, and a plate is 10 euros
- Kalnciema kvartāls · Saturday farmers’ market among restored wooden houses
- Āgenskalns Market · The 1898 hall across the river, restored in 2022, and quiet
- 3 Pavāru · Three chefs, a set menu, and about 60 euros a head
- Rocket Bean Roastery · On Miera iela, they roast on site, and about 3 euros
- Black Magic · A shot is about 5 euros, and the hot chocolate is the other order
Museums in Riga
- Art Nouveau Museum · 9 euros, closed Mondays, and the staircase is free to see
- Museum of the Occupation · 5 euros, in a black 1971 block on the square, and two hours
- National Museum of Art · 6 euros, Latvian painting, and the glass roof floor is new
- Ethnographic Open-Air Museum · From 5 euros, bus 1 from the centre, and take food
- Riga Motor Museum · 10 euros, and Stalin’s armoured ZIS and Brezhnev’s crashed Rolls
- Riga Ghetto Museum · Free, an open yard with the names, and the railway wagon
- Powder Tower war museum · Free, inside the last city tower, and strongest on 1915 to 1920
- House of the Blackheads · 7 euros, and the cellars are the only original part left
Parks and gardens in Riga
When Riga pulled down its city walls in 1857 it turned the cleared ring into parks and a canal, so the old town is surrounded by a green belt you can walk right round in an hour. Everything here is free, and the sea is half an hour away by train.
- Bastejkalns · Free, and the canal boats leave from the bridge
- Esplanade · Free, the museums are around it, and chestnut blossom in May
- Vērmanes Garden · Free, from 1817, and a widow paid for it after the fire of 1812
- Kronvalda Park · Free, along the canal, and the quietest of the ring
- Mežaparks · Free, pines and villas, and the song festival stage is in it
- Botanical Garden · 4 euros, from 1922, and the palm house is warm in January
- Jūrmala · Free, 30 minutes by train, and 2 euros each way
- Ķemeri National Park · Free, an hour out, and the boardwalk is best at sunrise
Things to do in Riga with kids
- Riga Zoo · 10 euros, from 1912, in a pine wood, and two hours covers it
- Ethnographic Open-Air Museum · From 5 euros, 118 real houses to run between, and a lake
- St Peter’s lift · 9 euros, 72 metres up in a lift, and the whole city below
- Riga Motor Museum · 10 euros, and there are cars you are allowed to sit in
- Canal boats · From 12 euros, an hour round the old moat, and under nine bridges
- Lido · A wooden hall with a windmill, a playground and skating in winter
- Jūrmala · Free, shallow warm water, and the sand squeaks
- Powder Tower · Free, cannons and armour, and the cannonballs are in the wall
Live music in Riga
- National Opera · From 15 euros, and the cheap seats are genuinely cheap
- Mežaparks stage · The next festival is in 2028, and tickets go in a day
- National Theatre · From 12 euros, and Latvia declared independence inside it in 1918
- Kaņepes Kultūras Centrs · A former music school, concerts and a yard, and cheap
- Folkklubs Ala Pagrabs · Live Latvian folk most nights, and thirty beers on tap
- Spīķeri · The concert hall in the warehouses, and the chamber season
- Līvu Square · The terraces and the noise, and the stag parties are here
- Miera iela · Small bars and no crowds, and twenty minutes from the old town
Holy places in Riga
- Riga Cathedral · 5 euros, from 1211, and the organ recitals are at noon
- St Peter’s Church · 9 euros with the lift, Lutheran, and the spire is steel
- St Jacob’s Cathedral · Free, and parliament is in the building next door
- Our Lady of Sorrows · Free, Catholic, from 1785, and the Austrian emperor paid for it
- Peitav Synagogue · Ask at the door, and the service is Friday evening
- Riga Ghetto Museum · Free, outdoors, and the names fill a whole wall
- Salaspils Memorial · Free, 20 kilometres out, and a metronome beats under the concrete
- Turaida Castle · 6 euros, from 1214, and the grave of the Rose of Turaida is beside it
Frequently asked questions about Riga
What is there to see in Riga?
The top sights in Riga are Riga Cathedral, St Peter’s Church and House of the Blackheads. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.
How many days do you need in Riga?
Three to four days are enough to see the best of Riga without rushing, including at least one walking tour.
Is there a free walking tour in Riga?
Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Riga, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: A German city on a Baltic river.
How do you get to Riga and get around?
The main ways are Riga Airport, Central Station and Coach Terminal. Full details are in the transport section on this page.
Where to stay in Riga, and for how much?
sleepntrip shows only rooms in Riga that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.
Looking for a hotel in Riga for your dates?
Only rooms that meet nine conditions, up to $80 a night.