---
title: "Latvia travel guide: Riga, the Kurzeme coast, the Gauja and Latgale | Wimup"
description: "Where to go in Latvia and when: Riga's Art Nouveau and its market hangars, the Gauja valley, the Kurzeme coast and Kuldīga, Rundāle in Zemgale and the Latgale lakes, plus food, months and practicalities."
url: https://wimup.com/country/latvia
type: Country guide
updated: 2026-10-05
publisher: Wimup (https://wimup.com)
---

# Latvia, the forest, the coast and the Art Nouveau capital

More than half the country is forest and roughly a third of the people live in one city. That city holds the **largest concentration of Art Nouveau architecture in the world**, and everything else (a 498-kilometre Baltic coastline, four historic regions and a lake district) sits within a morning of it.

## Quick answer

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.

## Quick facts

- **Best months:** May–Sep
- **Ideal length:** 5–7 days
- **Budget per day:** €60–130
- **Language:** Latvian, one of only two surviving Baltic languages. Russian is widely spoken and English is normal in Riga and in anything tourist-facing.
- **Getting around:** Trains and intercity coaches out of Riga reach the regional towns often and cheaply. A hire car is what opens the coast road, the Latgale lakes and the villages in between.

- **1,845,000** People
- **64,589 km²** Area
- **3** UNESCO sites

Latvia covers 64,589 square kilometres on the eastern shore of the Baltic, between Estonia and Lithuania, and the Central Statistical Bureau counted 1,845,000 residents at the beginning of 2026, which makes it one of the least densely populated countries in the European Union. Roughly a third of them live in Riga, and that concentration is the first thing to plan around: the capital is the arrival point, the transport hub and the reason most people come, and everything else in the country is a day trip or one night away from it. Riga's historic centre has been on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 1997, and the citation is not only about the medieval core. The city holds around 800 Art Nouveau buildings, the largest concentration anywhere, almost all of them raised in the boom decade between 1904 and 1914. Mikhail Eisenstein designed about twenty, and the most theatrical stand within a few hundred metres of each other on Alberta iela. Down at the river, the Central Market trades out of five former Zeppelin hangars that Germany built between 1913 and 1917; when the market opened in them in 1930 it was the largest in Europe. Vidzeme, north and east of the capital, is the walking half. The Gauja cuts a sandstone valley through the oldest and largest of the national parks, with Sigulda and its cable car at one end, the castle ruins and old town of Cēsis further up, and red cliffs and caves along the river between them. West of Riga the coast starts at Jūrmala, a line of wooden villas, pine and white sand that has been the country's beach resort since the nineteenth century, with Ķemeri National Park directly behind it: a raised bog crossed by boardwalks, established in 1997 and covering 382 square kilometres. Kurzeme carries the shore onward. Cape Kolka is where the Gulf of Riga meets the open Baltic and the two currents run into each other in a visible line, and Slītere National Park backs it, holding the twelve villages of the Livonian Coast. Inland, Kuldīga was inscribed by UNESCO in 2023 for an old town of wooden houses and red tile built between the late sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries, when it was a capital of the Duchy of Courland. The Venta Rapid at the edge of it is the widest waterfall in Europe, 249 metres across and barely two metres high. Ventspils and Liepāja close the west, one a working port with an unusually good seafront, the other a music town with the Tsarist naval quarter of Karosta still standing at the north end of it. Zemgale, south of Riga, is the flat agricultural belt, and the reason to drive it is Rundāle Palace: Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli built it for the Duke of Courland across two campaigns between 1736 and 1768, 138 rooms behind a French garden, and it is the baroque set piece of the Baltic states. Latgale, in the southeast, is the least visited region and the most different. It is lake country, predominantly Catholic where the rest of Latvia is historically Lutheran, and Latgalian is spoken there alongside Latvian and Russian. Daugavpils is the second city, built around a nineteenth-century fortress whose arsenal now holds the Mark Rothko Art Centre, opened in 2013 in the town where Rothko was born in 1903. Practically, this is a simple country to arrange. Latvia joined the European Union and NATO in 2004, the Schengen area in December 2007 and the euro on 1 January 2014. Riga airport is the largest in the Baltic states and the hub of the national carrier, trains and intercity coaches reach the regional towns cheaply and often, and a hire car is what opens the coast road, the Latgale lakes and the villages in between. Latvian is one of only two surviving Baltic languages, Lithuanian being the other; Russian is widely spoken and English is normal in Riga and in anything tourist-facing. Cards work everywhere, tap water is drinkable, and the emergency number is 112.

## Know before you go

- **Currency:** Euro (EUR) Latvia adopted the euro on 1 January 2014. Cards are accepted almost everywhere, contactless included, and cash is rarely needed beyond a market stall or a rural bus.
- **Language:** Latvian Latvian is the only official language, one of two surviving Baltic languages. Russian is a first language for a large minority, and English is normal in Riga and tourist places.
- **Visa:** Schengen area Latvia joined the EU in 2004 and Schengen in December 2007, so standard Schengen rules apply. Check whether your passport needs ETIAS before you book.
- **Getting around:** Trains, coaches and a hire car Trains from Riga reach Jūrmala, Sigulda and Cēsis often and cheaply. Coaches cover the rest on residents' timetables. A car makes the Kurzeme coast and the Latgale lakes practical.
- **Calling code:** +371
- **Emergency:** 112 for all emergencies
- **Power:** 230 V, 50 Hz, type C and F plugs
- **Time zone:** EET (UTC+2), EEST in summer
- **Driving:** Right-hand side
- **Tipping:** Round up, about 10% for a good meal
- **National Day:** 18 November
- **Best months:** May to September
- **Coastline:** 498 km on the Baltic
- **Population:** 1,845,000
- **Area:** 64,589 km²
- **Density:** 28.6 / km²
- **Capital:** Riga
- **Major cities:** Riga, Daugavpils, Liepāja, Jelgava
- **Tourism board:** Official site

## When to visit

- **Jan**: The coldest month and the darkest. Museums, the opera season and the sauna carry the trip.
- **Feb**: Still frozen, and the quietest the capital gets. Flights and rooms are at their cheapest.
- **Mar** (good): Light comes back fast. Birch sap starts running and the first walkable weekends arrive.
- **Apr** (good): The forests wake up and the Gauja valley is walkable again. Easter, and the coast is still empty.
- **May** (best): The best month for walking: long days, green everywhere, and nothing booked out yet.
- **Jun** (best): Longest days of the year, and Jāņi on the 23rd and 24th, when the country goes to the countryside to sing.
- **Jul** (peak): Warm and busy. The one month the Baltic is genuinely swimmable, and Jūrmala is full.
- **Aug** (peak): The other swimming month, plus festival season in Riga and on the coast. Book the coast ahead.
- **Sep** (best): The quiet reward: warm days, turning forests, mushroom season, and the capital back to itself.
- **Oct** (good): Colour in the Gauja valley and the last comfortable walking. Rain arrives late in the month.
- **Nov**: Dark, wet and cheap. Lāčplēsis Day on the 11th and Independence Day on the 18th light up Riga.
- **Dec** (peak): Cold and short on daylight, and the Christmas markets in the old town are the whole case for coming.

## 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

- **Myth:** Latvia is Riga, and Riga is a stag weekend. **Reality:** The 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.
- **Myth:** The three Baltic states are basically one country. **Reality:** Estonian 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.
- **Myth:** There is nothing to do outside the capital. **Reality:** Three 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.
- **Myth:** It is a Russian city with a Latvian flag on it. **Reality:** Half 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.
- **Myth:** Latvians are cold. **Reality:** Reserved 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.

- 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**: Painter born in Daugavpils in 1903, whose art centre opened in its fortress in 2013.
- **Sergei Eisenstein**: Film director born in Riga in 1898. Battleship Potemkin rewrote what montage could do.
- **Mikhail Baryshnikov**: Riga-born dancer who defected in 1974 and became the classical dancer everyone could name.
- **Mikhail Tal**: The Magician from Riga, world chess champion in 1960 at twenty-three on wild sacrifices.
- **Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga**: President from 1999 to 2007, the first woman to lead a post-Soviet European country.
- **Edgars Rinkēvičs**: President since July 2023. In 2014 he became Latvia's first openly gay senior politician.
- **Gidon Kremer**: Riga-born violinist who founded Kremerata Baltica from young players of all three states.
- **Mariss Jansons**: Conductor born in Riga in 1943 who led the Concertgebouw and Bavarian Radio Symphony.
- **Andris Nelsons**: Born in Riga in 1978, a former opera-pit trumpeter, now music director in Boston.
- **Elīna Garanča**: Riga-born mezzo-soprano booked for Carmen and Dalila on the world's big stages.
- **Kristaps Porziņģis**: Liepāja-born seven-foot-three shooter who reached the NBA in 2015.
- **Jeļena Ostapenko**: Won the 2017 French Open unseeded, the first Latvian grand slam singles champion.
- **Māris Štrombergs**: BMX racer, Olympic champion in Beijing in 2008 and in London in 2012.
- **Rainis**: Poet and playwright of Fire and Night, whose politics sent him into Siberian exile.
- **Aspazija**: Poet and playwright, Rainis's wife, who put women at the centre of Latvian drama.
- **Isaiah Berlin**: Riga-born philosopher whose Two Concepts of Liberty still frames the argument.

## Must-try Latvian food

- **Pelēkie zirņi ar speķi**: The national dish: grey peas with fried onion and speck, essential at Christmas.
- **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.
- **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.
- **Karbonāde**: Pork beaten thin, breaded and fried, with mushroom sauce. The safest order anywhere.
- **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.
- **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.
- **Bērzu sula**: Birch sap tapped for a few weeks in early spring, drunk fresh or lightly fermented.

## FAQs

### When is the best time to visit Latvia?

May to September, and the shoulders of that range are the good part. June has the longest days of the year and Jāņi on the 23rd and 24th, which is the biggest date in the calendar and effectively shuts the country down for two days of bonfires. July and August are the warm months, the only ones when the Baltic is worth swimming in, and the busiest on the coast. September is the quiet reward: the forests turn, the mushroom season starts and Riga empties out. Winter is cold and dark, and the case for it is the Christmas market season in the capital plus cheap flights.

### How many days do you need?

Two nights in Riga is a city break, not a country trip. Five nights is the honest minimum: two days for the capital, then one region done properly. A week gets you Riga plus two regions, which is usually the Gauja valley and the Kurzeme coast, and ten days reaches Latgale in the southeast without hurrying. If you only have a weekend, spend it entirely in Riga and take the train to Sigulda for one of the days.

### Do you need a car?

For Riga, Jūrmala and Sigulda, no. Trains run from Riga central station to all three often and cheaply, and Cēsis is on the same line. Beyond that the answer changes. The Kurzeme coast road, Cape Kolka, Kuldīga, Rundāle Palace and the Latgale lakes are all reachable by intercity coach but on timetables built for residents, which usually means one useful bus each way. A hire car for the second half of a week is the standard compromise.

### Which language should I use?

Latvian is the only official language and English works for almost everything a visitor does in Riga and in tourist-facing places elsewhere. Russian is a first language for a large minority and the everyday language in Daugavpils and much of Latgale. Which language to open in is not a neutral choice here after fifty years of occupation, so the courteous move is to start in Latvian or English and follow whatever the other person switches to.

### Is Latvia expensive?

It is the cheapest of the three Baltic states and considerably cheaper than the Nordic countries across the water, and it is no longer the bargain it was a decade ago. Riga restaurant prices are close to a mid-sized western European city; everything outside the capital is noticeably less. Trains and coaches cost very little, museums are modestly priced, and accommodation is where the range is widest. The obvious saving is the set lunch, a national institution.

### Is it safe, given where it is?

Latvia is a member of NATO and the European Union and is a normal, low-crime European country to travel in, with the usual pickpocketing in the tourist streets of Riga and nothing unusual beyond it. The eastern border with Russia and Belarus is a real border with a real security posture, and the practical advice is the same as anywhere: do not photograph border installations, do not attempt to walk into a frontier zone, and check your own foreign ministry's current advice before booking.

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Part of [Europe](https://wimup.com/europe.md)

## Sources

- [Tourism board](https://www.latvia.travel/en?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral)
- Rankings are Wimup editorial picks. Prices, durations and budgets are editorial estimates, not live quotes; check the official site before you go.