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Sightseeing Overview
Sightseeing is made easy in Riga by the fact that most of the sights are handily located within a compact area on one bank of the Daugava River. As the number of tourists visiting the city has grown, dedicated signs now point the way to the main attractions.

The Old Town overflows with things to see, but one of the real pleasures is just wandering around the cobbled streets, taking an architectural journey through the centuries, in a city where gothic, Renaissance and art nouveau abound, often competing for attention on the same street. Recognised sights include the voluminous religious twins of St Peter’s Church and Dome Cathedral, both worth exploring in detail.

Riga also boasts numerous museums, with the Latvian War Museum, the Occupation Museum and Mentzendorff House among many others deserving of attention. Neatly dividing the Old Town and New Town is Bastejkalns Park, with its lazy canal, cafes and walkways. In the middle of the park is the Freedom Monument, one of Riga’s and indeed Latvia’s most poignant sites, a symbol of both the nation’s fight for nationhood and the four decades of resistance to Communist rule.

Further afield there are boat cruises on the Daugava River and excursions to the Baltic Sea resort of Jurmala, with its sweeping pine flanked beaches. Jurmala, with new facilities recently opened up with overseas visitors in mind, provides the perfect escape if all that history and culture get too much.

Tourist Information
Riga Tourism Information Center (Riga Turisma Informacijas Centrs)
Ratslaukums 6
Tel: 6703 7900 (information center) or 2203 3000 (tourist hotline).
Website: www.rigatourism.com
Opening hours: Daily 1000-1900.

As well as this main office in the old town, there is also an information bureau at the airport.

Passes
The Riga Card gives visitors free use of buses, trolleybuses and trams, free train trips to Vecaki and Jurmala, free or discounted museum admission and discounts in shops, cafes, restaurants and on car hire. The card can be purchased in 24-, 48- and 72-hour variations, at the Tourism Information Center, at the airport, at selected hotels and anywhere displaying the RC sign.

Key Attractions:

Brivibas Piemineklis (Freedom Monument)
The voluminous Freedom Monument has a sacred place in the hearts and minds of every Latvian. This potent symbol of the nation was paid for and erected by the citizens of Riga in 1935 and somehow survived four decades of Soviet rule. A popular local joke during the Communist era was that the monument was really a travel agent, since laying flowers at it guaranteed a one-way ticket to Siberia. Today, the monument, the tallest of its kind in Europe, is back to its best after a major renovation, and still retains its poignancy, as well as doubling up as a favorite meeting point for the city’s youth.

Brivibas iela and Raina bulvaris

Jugendstil (Art Nouveau)
Ironically, the best place to see Jugendstil (the German-style art nouveau architecture) is in Riga, seeing as it did not suffer the same WWII devastation as many German cities. Riga quite simply has the finest and most comprehensive range of this style of architecture in Europe. The style is unmistakable, with ornate stucco swirls adorning doorways, human faces embellishing facades and outlandish towers growing from the tops of buildings. The best way for visitors to appreciate this architectural treasure-trove is just to wander through the New Town, staring upwards. One of the best examples of Jugendstil is on and around Elizabetes iela, where many of the buildings are laden with all the telltale flourishes of this ornate architectural style.

New Town, Elizabetes

Riga Doms (Riga Cathedral)
Riga Cathedral is the most photographed religious building in Riga. Its foundations were laid on St Jacob’s Day in 1211, by Albert von Buxhoeveden, who became its first bishop. The cathedral is an intoxicating collage of gothic and Romanesque styles. In the interior museum there are displays portraying Riga between the World Wars, as well as maps and postcards of Old Riga. One of the highlights is the world-famous organ, crafted in 1883-1884 by the German company Waclker & Co and decorated with wooden carvings from as early as the 17th and 18th centuries.

Doma laukums 1
Tel: 6721 3498.
Opening hours: Tues-Fri 1300-1800, Sat 1000-1400.
Free admission.

Petera Baznica (St Peter’s Church)
Another of Riga’s most striking edifices is St Peter’s Church, which is dedicated to the city’s patron saint. This unmistakable redbrick style is common throughout countries that border the Baltic, from Germany through to Estonia. The sturdy church dates back to 1408, when it was built to replace a wooden church on the same site. The wooden spire, the highest in Europe, was obliterated by German shelling in 1941. The 122m (403ft) steel replica, completed in 1973, has a lift that shuttles tourists to an observation gallery offering sweeping views of the city.

Skarnu 19
Opening hours: Tues-Sun 1000-1715.
Free admission to the church; admission charge for the tower.

Latvijas Okupacijas Muzeja (Occupation Museum of Latvia)
The Occupation Museum is an essential stop that many tourists tragically miss out on. Housed in a remarkably ugly Communist-era building, the museum takes visitors on a journey through Latvia’s turbulent, recent history - from the Soviet and Nazi occupations during WWII, right up to the tumultuous events that led to Latvian independence in 1991. Outside, the statue of the Latvian riflemen remains the subject of much local controversy.

Strelnieku laukums 1
Tel: 6721 2715.
Website: www.occupationmuseum.lv
Opening hours: Daily 1100-1800 (May-Sep); Tues-Sun 1100-1700 (Oct-Apr).
Free admission.

Centraltirgus (Central Market)
Visitors wanting to leave the 21st century behind them should head for the five old hulking 1930s zeppelin hangars that are now home to Riga’s Central Market. A world away from glossy shopping malls, it is still possible to rub shoulders with Riga’s locals, who come to snap up cheap fruit and vegetables. There is also a rabble of stalls outside the main hangars. This is a great place for photography but visitors should watch their camera and other valuables.

Negu 7 (next to the central station)
Tel: 6722 9985.
Website: www.centraltirgus.lv
Opening hours: Tues-Sat 0700-1800, Sun and Mon 0700-1700.

Mencendorfa Nams (Mentzendorff House)
Mentzendorff House is an impeccably restored late 17th-century merchant’s house. Ornately decorated, it still boasts the original period furniture and various historical artifacts.

Grecinieku 18
Tel: 6721 2951.
Website: www.mencendorfanams.com
Opening hours: Wed-Sun 1000-1700.
Admission charge.

Latvijas Kara Muzejs (Latvian War Museum)
The Latvian War Museum is simultaneously one of the most interesting museums in the city and also the most controversial. Within the redbrick of the 14th-century Powder Tower, there are displays illuminating the various wars that have ravaged the country. There are good sections not only on the War of Liberation (1918-20), when the Latvians fought off the Soviets and the Germans, but also on the Latvian volunteers who served with the German Waffen SS during WWII. There has been much historical debate on their role in atrocities and the surviving veterans who triumphantly parade through Riga every year are often a source of embarrassment to the government.

Smilsu 20
Tel: 6722 8147.
Website: www.karamuzejs.lv
Opening hours: Wed-Sun 1000-1800 (May-Sep); 1000-1700 (Oct-Apr).
Free admission.

Melngalvju Nams (House of the Blackheads)
This stunningly renovated gothic building on the revamped Ratslaukams dates back to the 14th century and later became the headquarters of a group of local unmarried merchants: the Blackheads. In Soviet times, it fell into decline but now it gleams by day and shines at night when it is floodlit. The building’s mighty gable rises dramatically 28m (92ft) above the square. The interior is suitably impressive with a rebuilt hall where the Blackheads would once have met.

Ratslaukums 7
Tel: 6704 4300.
Website: http://nami.riga.lv/mn
Opening hours: Tues-Sun 1000-1700 (May-Sep); 1100-1700 (Oct-Apr).
Admission charge.

Further Distractions:

Bastekalns Park
Two sides of modern Riga are on display in Bastekalns Park. On warm days, the park fills with gossiping workers, 20-somethings stuck to their mobile phones and couples taking lazy strolls along the city canal that runs through the park. In the darker background, however, stand the memorials to the five Latvians who were shot dead near here, when the Soviets tried to crush the independence movement, on 20 January 1991. The victims included two cameramen and a student.

Opening hours: Daily 24 hours.
Free admission.

Riga Churches
Just outside the Old Town walls, the Roman Catholic cathedral of Riga has been reincarnated many times. Jekaba Baznica (St Jacob’s Church) was once a Lutheran parish church, a Jesuit church and even a Swedish garrison church. But now, revelling in layers of history, it is an atmospheric place of Catholic worship. Jezus Baznica (Jesus Church), Riga’s oldest wooden church, has fought an epic battle with fire for centuries and its survival is reason alone to visit. Grebenscikova Baznica (Grebenscikova Church) is another wooden church, this time a gold-domed affair that dates back to the early 19th century. Aleksandra Nevska Baznica (Alexander Nevsky Church), named after the 13th-century Russian prince, who is a folk hero with the Russian population in Riga, is a Russian Orthodox church dating back to the 1820s.

St Jacob’s Church
Klostera 2

Jesus Church
Elijas iela

Grebenscikova Church
Krasta 73

Alexander Nevsky Church
Brivibas 56

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