Old Town Riga: A Baltic beauty restored
“What on earth are you going to do there for a whole week?” was something I was asked a lot before our recent trip to Riga. Aside from being a choir groupie and cheering my friends on at the World Choir Games, I couldn’t say much other than: “Get to know Riga, I suppose.” (I also got a lot of “World Choir Games? Is that like the Hunger Games?” Duh. But that’s another story.)
Visitors to the city pretty much start—and end—with Old Town Riga, a treasure box of pretty pastel buildings, winding narrow alleys, and gleaming cobblestoned streets.
The Cat House, or House of the Black Cat. Love this.
Most of Old Town Riga’s buildings were built in between the late 1800s to the early 1900s. After Latvia gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, meticulous restorations brought back the sparkle to this quaint and charming Baltic gem.
I really admire (and envy) how the Latvians were able to restore their Old Town in a little over than 20 years. Call it “prettified” or a “theme park” (well, maybe compared to the rest of Riga), but that’s infinitely better than abandoned and left to rot. Manila needs this kind of love.
Riga’s Old Town is compact and easily explored in a day or two of walking, making it perfect for a weekend city trip. Most of its highlights—particularly the touristic trifecta of St. Peter’s Church, the House of Blackheads, and the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia—are within minutes of each other.
A sobering but essential visit: the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia
A few notables:
- The restaurant at Hotel Gutenbergs serves dinner on its roof terrace overlooking the rooftops of the Old Town. A little pricey, but the view makes it special.
- Good news for the tech-addicted: wifi is everywhere! Most Old Town restaurants and cafes offer free Wifi, and you can practically hop from one network to another as you walk down the street.
- Latvian bread is incredibly yummy. I couldn’t get enough of it! The local black bread is especially tasty and makes white bread taste boring and bland in comparison.
Old Town Riga is incredibly pretty, and I’m glad the World Choir Games brought me here. I probably wouldn’t have gone all this way to visit for no reason at all—it’s not exactly one of those bucket list destinations, which makes it such an underrated jewel.
But there’s far more to Riga than its Old Town, and truth be told, it was those discoveries that made my experience of this Baltic capital memorable and complete. Stay tuned.
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