Two days in Riga, then everything is a day trip.
Which Old Town walk covers the Blackheads and the market in one go. What the minibus south really costs. Reviews of the tours you can book in Latvia.
A walk, a market lunch, one long drive south and a bog at first light.
Four bookings that carry a first Latvian week between them. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The first morningRiga Old Town walking tourCobbles, the Blackheads facade and the Swedish Gate in two hours. Do it before anything else so the rest of the city makes sense.
02Lunch, sortedLatvian food tasting tour at Riga Central marketThrough the five zeppelin hangars of the Central Market, tasting as you go, finishing on Black Balsam.
03The long day southHill of Crosses & Jelgava HighlightsOver the Lithuanian border to a hillside carrying a hundred thousand crosses, with Jelgava on the way back.
04The quiet oneSunset at Kemeri National ParkRaised bog, boardwalk, black water and low pines at the end of the day. Ninety minutes from the Old Town.
Six places worth giving a whole day to.
Riga is compact enough to see on foot, so the calendar fills with what sits around it: a baroque palace on the Zemgale plain, a crossing into Lithuania, a bog on a boardwalk, castle ruins above the Gauja, and pine and sand a half hour west.
Every good day here starts with a minibus leaving Riga at eight.
Four kinds of day out, sorted by how far they go and what they cost per head. The palace and the crosses are often sold together, which is why that one runs longest.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2 countries! Hill of Crosses, Rundale Palace and Bauska castle
The crossesTen hours, two countries, a hillside nobody forgets.
Rundale and BauskaGilt rooms, formal gardens, a ruined castle on a river bend.
The Gauja valleyRed brick towers, a cable car over the river, cave walls carved since 1668.
Kuldiga and VentaThe widest waterfall in Europe, ankle deep, walkable in summer.
All 12 days out of the city →
Riga: one walk covers the guild houses, the market and the KGB corner.
Every Riga walk →
The Old Town is twenty minutes end to end, so the guide is the whole product. These three take more travellers than anything else in the city.
Alberta iela, an hour north of the cobbles
A third of central Riga went up between 1899 and 1914, and the Eisenstein facades on Alberta iela are the loudest of it. Screaming masks, sphinxes and peacocks, all above head height, which is why a guide helps.
The Central Market, then the Balsam
Five German airship hangars, one each for meat, fish, dairy, vegetables and bread. Smoked eel, grey peas with bacon, rye that eats like cake, and a shot of Black Balsam at the end to explain the taste.
The corner house and the bunker
The KGB building on Brivibas iela kept its cells and its corridor doors. Guides here grew up under the occupation or were taught by people who did, and the tone is plain rather than theatrical.
The tours most travellers in Latvia end up on.
Every Latvian tour we have reviewed →More people book these than anything else in the country, and each one earns the slot for a different reason.
1
Riga Old Town walking tour
Walk Riga’s Old Town from Town Hall Square to Dome Square with a local English-speaking guide. Hear stories about St. Peter’s tower, the blue flowers of Livu Square, the Cat House, Gothic churches, Latvia’s past, and modern life. Guides such as Rita, Guna, Carlos, Baiba, and Karlis have led engaging tours, though larger groups can make hearing difficult.
From · $18
Read our review →
2
Latvian food tasting tour at Riga Central market
from $44
3
2 countries! Hill of Crosses, Rundale Palace and Bauska castle
from $157
4
Discover Riga Bike Tour
from $47
5
Hill of Crosses & Jelgava Highlights
from $54
6
Riga Gun Range: shooting with Winchester, Glock17, & Kalashnikov
from $66
7
Best of Riga Walking Tour – Highlights and Hidden Gems
from $154
8
Riga Old Town Walking Tour in a Small Group
from $22
Jurmala: pine, white sand and a train that takes half an hour.
Twenty five kilometres of beach west of the city, wooden summer houses under the pines, and water shallow enough to walk out fifty metres. The Baltic is cold until July and nobody there pretends otherwise.
Every coast day →
The light goes at four, so the evening is the plan.
Midwinter gives Riga about six usable hours of daylight. Walks and bog boardwalks happen before lunch; after that the city moves indoors, into cellars, ranges and tasting rooms. Book the outdoor day first and hang the rest off it.
What a day out in Latvia actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Riga is the cheap part; the distance south is what you pay for.
Old Town walks, the market tasting, the canal boat and the bike loops along the Daugava.
- 1Riga Old Town walking tourfrom $18
- 2Latvian food tasting tour at Riga Central marketfrom $44
- 3Discover Riga Bike Tourfrom $47
The full days: the crosses, Rundale, the Gauja castles, a range morning with three rifles.
Private drivers, husky teams in the snow, and the two country days bolted into one.
An hour inland the country turns into sandstone and river bends.
Latvia has no mountains, so the Gauja valley does the work: red cliffs, a castle ruin at Sigulda, Turaida brick above the trees, and Gutmanis cave, whose walls carry names cut into them since the seventeenth century. A cable car crosses the whole thing.
- 1Private Full-Day Trip to Turaida, Sigulda, and Cesis
- 2Full-Day Private Trip to Cesis, Sigulda and Turaida from Riga
- 3Sigulda & Turaida Legends Group Tourfrom $144
Three things you can only really do in Latvia.
Cathedrals and old towns are everywhere on the Baltic. A bitter drink kept secret since 1752, a Soviet armoury you may fire, and a street of screaming stone faces are not.
Riga Black Balsam
Forty five percent, twenty four ingredients, and a recipe the distillery has never published. Riga has drunk it since 1752, usually cut into hot blackcurrant juice or coffee rather than straight, and the tasting tables in the Central Market pour it beside smoked eel and grey peas. The first sip tastes medicinal because it was.
- 1Latvian food tasting tour at Riga Central market★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 241 reviews
- 2Riga Central Market★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 35 reviews
- 3Medieval Experience: Guided Sightseeing and Food Tasting★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 11 reviews
The Riga ranges
Indoor ranges a tram ride from the Old Town let you put rounds through a Kalashnikov, a Winchester and a Glock in one hour, with an instructor beside you for every magazine. It is the most booked wet-weather hour in the city and the only one where nobody checks the weather at all.
- 1Riga Gun Range: shooting with Winchester, Glock17, & Kalashnikov★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 148 reviews
- 2Riga Shooting Range : the Winchester, Glock 17, and Kalashnikov★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 38 reviews
- 3Real gun shooting experience! Extremely fun indoor activity in Riga!★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 11 reviews
Alberta iela
Riga holds more art nouveau than any other city in Europe, most of it built in fifteen years of boom before the first war. Mikhail Eisenstein put screaming masks, sphinxes and peacocks across facades on Alberta iela and Elizabetes iela. His son Sergei grew up here and went on to make films.
- 1Riga Art Nouveau walking tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 27 reviews
- 2Old Town And Art Nouveau Walking Tour Of Riga★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 15 reviews
- 3Small Group Art Nouveau walking tour 2h★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 6 reviews
Four Latvian bookings that will not wait until you land.
Most of Riga can be sorted the night before over a beer. These four run on snow, sunrise, border distance and a single daily departure.
- 01Husky Dog Sledding Tour From RigaSledding needs snow and the teams are small, so the season is short and the dates go long before the snow does.
- 02Sunrise at Kemeri National park + JurmalaThe bog is shot at first light, which means a pickup in the dark and a van with six seats in it.
- 032 countries! Hill of Crosses, Rundale Palace and Bauska castleTen hours and a border crossing for a single daily departure. Miss it and the next one is tomorrow.
- 042 countries! Hill of Crosses, Rundale Palace and Bauska castleThe palace closes its state rooms out of season and tours run to the opening hours, not to yours.
By place, city first then country
Riga, the coast, the Gauja, then the long day south.
Central MarketThe newest Latvian tour reviews.
The rest of this month’s reviews →
Ultimate Art Nouveau Experience in Riga – Private Tour
Read our review →
Tour from Riga to Vilnius: Bauska Castle, Rundale Palace and The Hill of Crosses
Read our review →
Fun Walk Private Tour Around Central Market Riga
Read our review →
Hiking Adventure in Gauja National Park – 7 Days
Read our review →
Private Snowmobile or ATV Safari with Riga Black Balsam Tasting
Read our review →
Latvia’s Switzerland and Gauja National Park Tour
Read our review →
Go on a pilgrimage from Riga – visit Siluva and Hill of Crosses!
Read our review →
Full Day Gauja National Park Ultimate Hiking & Sightseeing Trip
Read our review →
From Riga to Sigulda Bobsleigh Ride with Pickup and Drop Off
Read our review →
Private Full-Day Hiking Tour in Sigulda and Gauja National Park
Read our review →