Latvia,
the art-nouveau heart.
The middle country, the architectural capital, and a forest so deep that bears still pass through. Riga is the unmissable city.
Latvia, at the pace of a long read.
Latvia is the geographic and cultural middle of the three: the only one with the great Daugava cutting it open, the only one whose capital was, for a brief and brilliant decade either side of 1900, the largest city in the entire Russian empire after Moscow and St Petersburg. That short boom left Riga with the densest concentration of art-nouveau facades in the world — almost a third of the inner-city buildings, and most of the very best of them on a single five-block stretch around Alberta iela.
Beyond the capital, Latvia is mostly forest. More than half the country is wooded, the population thins out fast, and you can drive for an hour through pines and birches and see almost no one. The Gauja valley in the east is the scenic heart; the Kurzeme coast in the west is the wild one; Jūrmala, twenty minutes from Riga, is a wooden-villa beach resort that people from Moscow have been coming to for a hundred and forty years.
- Capital
- Riga
- Population
- 1.9 million
- Area
- 64,600 km²
- Forest cover
- 53% of land
- Coastline
- 498 km
- Independence
- May 4, 1990
- Art Nouveau buildings
- 750+ in central Riga
- Highest point
- Gaiziņkalns, 312 m
Why come to Latvia.
Not the postcards. The reasons our guides, who live here, would book you a ticket.
Art Nouveau, by the kilometre
Alberta iela, Elizabetes iela, Strēlnieku iela. The Eisenstein facades on a single short walk are the densest catalogue of jugendstil ornament anywhere in Europe.
Riga's Central Market
Five converted Zeppelin hangars on the Daugava, full of smoked eel, fresh dill, sauerkraut by the kilo, and the city's true breakfast counters.
The Gauja valley
Sigulda, Turaida, Cēsis. Three small towns on a slow green river, with two intact medieval castles and a prehistoric cave the locals were carving names into 800 years ago.
Jūrmala in summer
Thirty-three kilometres of wide, white-sand beach behind a wall of pines, with wooden villas you can rent for the week and a chamber-music festival in late July.
Three regions.
Travelling end to end takes a week. Travelling slowly inside one region takes the same. Both are good. Here is the country in three thirds.
Riga & the Bay,
the capital and the coast.
The Hanseatic Old Town, the Art Nouveau quarter, the Central Market, and the long pine-and-sand beach at Jūrmala — twenty minutes by suburban train.
Vidzeme & the Gauja,
the green east.
Sigulda, Turaida castle, the bobsleigh run at Mežaparks, and the medieval town of Cēsis. The country's most scenic river valley and oldest national park.
Kurzeme & the wild coast,
the windy edge.
The Liv coast, Cape Kolka where the Baltic and the Gulf meet, the white dunes at Jūrkalne, and Kuldīga's wide, low waterfall — Europe's broadest.
Smoked sprats at the Central Market in Riga.Black bread, smoke and dill.
Latvian food is the most rye-bread-centric of the three: dark, almost black sourdough loaves baked in wood-fired ovens, sliced thick, eaten with smoked sprats from a tin or a slab of cold pork and a smear of mustard. The country's quiet obsession is the smokehouse: eel, sprat, perch, mackerel, all hot- or cold-smoked over alder and juniper. In summer, kvass arrives in glasses on every café terrace, and the long white nights of June end with grilled cheese, dill new potatoes, and a bowl of sour-cream herring on every table.
The country's quiet obsession is the smokehouse: eel, sprat, perch, mackerel, all hot- or cold-smoked over alder and juniper.
When to go.
Five amber months of long light and warm sea, four blue months of dark, and three shoulder weeks at either end that quietly outshine the rest.
Tours that visit.
Each is privately guided, designed by the local team, and bookable in any week of the named season. Use them as a starting point: every itinerary can bend.
Latvia, good to know.
How many days do you need in Latvia?
Two to three days for Riga and a day trip to the Gauja Valley or the seaside at Jurmala. Add a day or two for Rundale Palace and the wilder Latvian coast.
What is Latvia best known for?
Riga holds the world's densest concentration of Art Nouveau architecture, a UNESCO World Heritage old town, and the vast Central Market in former zeppelin hangars. Latvia is also known for its forests, choral singing tradition, and Baltic coastline.
When is the best time to visit Riga and Latvia?
May to September for the warmest weather and the lively Riga terrace season. The Midsummer festival of Jani in late June is the highlight of the Latvian calendar.
Is Riga worth visiting?
Yes. Riga is the largest of the three Baltic capitals and the architectural showpiece of the region, combining a medieval core with spectacular Art Nouveau boulevards.
The practical bit.
Everything you would otherwise have to ask. The rest, your guide will know.
Stay in the middle.
Riga rewards a long weekend, the Gauja valley a slow week. Pair the two for a journey that moves from gold facades to forest castles in three hours of driving.