The hook
The biggest of the Baltic capitals, pairing a Hanseatic old town with entire streets of extravagant Art Nouveau apartment buildings, faces and mythical beasts staring down from the façades.
01Why it's worth it
Riga's medieval core, with its guild halls, cathedral, and the ornate House of the Blackheads, is the expected part. The surprise is just outside it: when the city boomed around 1900, it built block after block in the flamboyant Art Nouveau, or Jugendstil, style, and it kept one of the richest concentrations of it anywhere, especially on Alberta Street, where the buildings drip with sculpted masks, sphinxes, and screaming faces. Down by the river, the Central Market fills a set of vast former Zeppelin hangars with food stalls. Riga was a major Hanseatic trading city and later a Soviet one, and both pasts show. It is handsome, walkable, and cheaper than Western Europe, with an easy escape to the beach suburb of Jūrmala.
02How to experience it
Do the old town, then spend real time in the Art Nouveau district around Alberta Street looking up at the façades. Browse the Central Market in the old airship hangars. Take the short train to Jūrmala's pine-and-sand beach if the weather is kind.