Give Riga two full days: the medieval core, the Art Nouveau streets and the Central Market in its Zeppelin hangars. Then pick a region. Vidzeme is an hour by train to Sigulda, the Gauja valley and Cēsis. Kurzeme is the long one: Jūrmala, Kuldīga and the coast road to Cape Kolka. Zemgale is a half day for Rundāle Palace. Latgale needs two nights for lakes, Catholic villages and the Rothko centre in Daugavpils. Five days covers Riga and one region. A week covers three.
Fun fact
Riga holds around 800 Art Nouveau buildings, the largest concentration anywhere, and UNESCO cited them when it listed the centre in 1997. Most went up between 1904 and 1914 as apartment blocks, so the style is still lived in. Mikhail Eisenstein designed about twenty, the wildest on Alberta iela.
Stereotypes, sorted out
The realityThe stag trade peaked in the 2000s. Since then Riga has built a restaurant scene with its own Michelin Guide (2024) and reopened its art museum, and its Art Nouveau is why UNESCO listed it. Beyond lie 64,589 square kilometres of forest, coast and lake. The stag parties never left six streets.
The realityEstonian is Finnic, closer to Finnish. Latvian and Lithuanian are the last living Baltic languages and not mutually intelligible. Latvia is Lutheran with a Catholic southeast, Lithuania is Catholic, Estonia among the least religious countries in Europe. The three old towns look nothing alike.
The realityThree of the five regions carry a trip alone. Vidzeme has the Gauja, the oldest and largest national park. Kurzeme has the west coast, UNESCO-listed Kuldīga and the widest waterfall in Europe. Latgale has lakes and a Catholic, Latgalian-speaking culture. Buses are thin, so hire a car.
The realityHalf a century of Soviet occupation left a large Russian-speaking minority, and Russian is the everyday language in Daugavpils. Latvian is the only official language, the state has spent thirty years rebuilding around it, and the question is live. People here have thought about it harder than you.
The realityReserved is the better word. Strangers do not chat in queues and small talk is short. The same person will spend an hour explaining which forest mushrooms are worth picking. The national celebration is a hundred thousand people singing in four-part harmony. That is not a cold country.
How to behave
- Open in Latvian if you can (labdien for hello, paldies for thank you) and in English if you cannot. Which language a stranger prefers is not always obvious and is not a neutral question here, so let them choose, and do not default to Russian.
- Take your shoes off inside a home. This is not negotiable and slippers are usually offered.
- Bring an odd number of flowers to anything but a funeral. Even numbers are for graves, and it is the kind of rule everyone notices and nobody mentions.
- Do not treat the Soviet period as history that ended tidily. Families here have deportations in them. Take the question to the Occupation Museum in Riga or the Corner House on Brīvības iela, not to a dinner table.
- The forest is public. Picking mushrooms and berries on unfenced land is a normal weekend, and it is the closest thing the country has to a national hobby. Ask before you eat anything you picked.
- Singing is not a performance here. At Jāņi and at the Song and Dance Celebration people sing because everyone else is, and joining badly is better received than standing back politely.
- Tipping is rounding up or about ten per cent for a good meal in a restaurant. It is welcome and not expected, and it is not the practice in a bar or a bakery.
Famous Latvian faces
Mark Rothko
Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Tal
Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga
Edgars Rinkēvičs
Gidon Kremer
Mariss Jansons
Andris Nelsons
Elīna Garanča
Kristaps Porziņģis
Jeļena Ostapenko
Aspazija
Sergei Eisenstein
Māris Štrombergs
Rainis
Isaiah Berlin
Must-try Latvian food
Rupjmaize
Dense dark rye sourdough with malt and caraway. The loaf Latvians pack to go abroad.
Sklandrausis
Kurzeme rye tart of potato and carrot, the first Latvian food with EU TSG status, in 2013.
Pīrāgi
Crescent buns stuffed with bacon and onion, baked by the tray and eaten by the handful.
Jāņu siers
Caraway curd cheese pressed into a yellow wheel and eaten at midsummer with beer.
Aukstā zupa
Bright pink cold beetroot soup on kefir with cucumber, dill and egg. Summer only.
Karbonāde
Pork beaten thin, breaded and fried, with mushroom sauce. The safest order anywhere.
Riga Black Balsam
Bitter herbal liqueur from a 1752 Riga pharmacist's recipe. Neat, in coffee or sweetened.
Kvass
Fermented rye bread drink, sweet and barely alcoholic, sold from street tankers in summer.
Pelēkie zirņi ar speķi
The national dish: grey peas with fried onion and speck, essential at Christmas.
Skābeņu zupa
Sorrel soup with barley, potato and smoked ribs, egg and sour cream. Spring's first soup.
Frikadeļu zupa
Meatball soup with carrot, potato and bay. The standard weekday canteen lunch.
Rasols
Potato salad with egg, pickled cucumber and herring or sausage. On every festive table.
Rīgas šprotes
Alder-smoked Baltic sprats in oil, on buttered rye with egg: the national open sandwich.
Maizes zupa
Rye bread soup with dried fruit and cinnamon, served cold under cream. Really a pudding.
Bērzu sula
Birch sap tapped for a few weeks in early spring, drunk fresh or lightly fermented.