Latvia runs on day trips. Riga is where they start.
Which Old Town walk is worth the two hours. What the Hill of Crosses costs as a full day out. Whether the Kemeri boardwalk is worth a four in the morning alarm. Reviews of every tour you can book in Latvia.
The most booked tour in the countryRiga Old Town walking tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · from $18
Over the border, at first lightSunrise at the Hill of Crosses – 2 countries in 1 day★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · from $150
An hour west of the citySunset at Kemeri National Park★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · from $77 Lunch in the market hangars, a hill of crosses, an hour on the Daugava.
The four bookings a first week in Latvia hangs off. What each costs, and how much of the day it takes.
01Lunch in the hangarsLatvian food tasting tour at Riga Central marketFive zeppelin sheds full of smoked fish, rye bread and curd. Two hours, and you eat your way through all of it.
02The big day south2 countries! Hill of Crosses, Rundale Palace and Bauska castleBauska castle, the palace at Rundale and the crosses, over the Lithuanian border and back before dinner.
03An hour on the waterRiga Sightseeing Tour by Canal Boat with AudioguideThe canal through the park ring, out onto the Daugava and back. The cheapest way to work out how Riga fits together.- 04Sunset on the bogSunset at Kemeri National ParkCopper moss, black pools and stunted pines at Kemeri, an hour west of the city.
Every good Latvian day trip leaves Riga before nine.
The country is small enough that Rundale, Sigulda and the Lithuanian border are all a day return from the capital. Five kinds of day out, and what it costs to get on each one.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Sunrise at the Hill of Crosses – 2 countries in 1 day
The Hill of CrossesTwo countries, one minibus, a hillside of iron and wood.
Rundale PalaceRastrelli baroque and a French garden, ninety minutes south.
Sigulda and TuraidaCastle ruins, a red brick tower and the Gauja below both.
JurmalaPine, sand and wooden dachas, twenty minutes from the city.
KuldigaThe widest waterfall in Europe, and a town that ignored the last century.
Everything that leaves the city →
What travellers in Latvia actually book.
Every review on the site →The tours more people take than anything else in the country, and what each one is like once you are on it.
1
Riga Old Town walking tour
Spend about 1 hour 45 minutes walking Riga’s Old Town with an English-speaking guide such as Rita, Guna, Carlos, or Baiba. See Town Hall Square, St. Peter’s Church, Livu Square, the Cat House, and Riga Cathedral while hearing local legends, architectural facts, and practical advice for the rest of your stay.
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
Riga Old Town Walking Tour in a Small Group
from $22
8
5,5 Hour Small Group Tour to Hill of Crosses from Riga
from $90
Riga is a walking city with a market the size of a railway terminus.
Six ways to spend a day inside the city limits: the Old Town lanes, the Art Nouveau streets north of the park ring, five zeppelin hangars full of food, the canal boats, and an indoor range where you can fire a Kalashnikov.
The Old Town takes two hours. The rest of Riga takes the week.
Start on the cobbles with the guild houses and the Cat House, walk north past the facades on Alberta iela, and finish in the Central Market, where five hangars built for zeppelins sell smoked fish, curd and rye bread by the metre.
Half of Latvia is forest, and the best of it is a boardwalk over a bog.
Kemeri lays a wooden path across a raised bog that turns copper at first light. An hour the other way, the Gauja cuts a sandstone valley through the trees with a castle on each rim.
What a day out in Latvia actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs. A good share of the best Latvian days come in under fifty dollars.
Old Town walks, canal boats, bike tours and an hour at the range.
- 1Riga Old Town walking tourfrom $18
- 2Latvian food tasting tour at Riga Central marketfrom $44
- 3Discover Riga Bike Tourfrom $47
The full days out: the crosses, Rundale, Sigulda, sunrise on the bog.
Private guides and small groups with a driver who waits while you look.
Three things Latvia does that nowhere else does.
Every Baltic capital has an old town. A hill that grew its own forest of crosses, a street of screaming stone faces, and sunrise over a raised bog are not on that list.
The Hill of Crosses
Nobody planted the first one and nobody counts the rest. Pilgrims have been leaving crosses on this mound outside Siauliai since the 1830s, the Soviets bulldozed it three times, and it came back every time. It stands over the Lithuanian border, but every minibus to it leaves Riga and is back the same evening.
- 12 countries! Hill of Crosses, Rundale Palace and Bauska castle★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 225 reviews
- 2Hill of Crosses & Jelgava Highlights★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 149 reviews
- 35,5 Hour Small Group Tour to Hill of Crosses from Riga★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 127 reviews
The Art Nouveau quarter
A third of central Riga went up in a fifteen year building boom around 1900, which left the city with more Art Nouveau than any other in Europe. The facades Mikhail Eisenstein drew on Alberta iela carry screaming masks, sphinxes and peacocks, and most of the best of it sits above the second floor where nobody looks.
- 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
The Great Kemeri Bog
A raised bog is ten thousand years of moss that never rotted, and the boardwalk at Kemeri runs a couple of kilometres across it, past black pools and pines that stopped growing at head height. Go at sunrise, when the mist sits at knee height and the moss turns copper. The tours that do it leave Riga in the dark.
- 1Best of Kemeri National Park In One Day★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 61 reviews
- 2Sunset at Kemeri National Park★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 38 reviews
- 3Sunrise at Kemeri National park + Jurmala★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 37 reviews
In December Riga is dark by four. Book indoors.
Midwinter gives you about six hours of daylight and most of it is flat and grey. Locals answer it the obvious way: eat, drink and shoot indoors, and save the bog and the castles for June, when the light holds until midnight.
By where the day goes
Riga in three days, and a fourth spent leaving it.
Alberta iela
Central Market
The canalThe newest Latvian tour reviews.
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