Riga in December is absolutely worth it. The old city and its cobbled streets is a joy to wander through. You’ll find lots of interesting market halls, a Christmas market, and some great restaurants, 26 of which are recommended by Michelin. You won’t regret going!
We Nordic travelers spend surprisingly little time with our Baltic neighbors, and our Viking ancestors probably visited more often than we do. They would have envied the flight time. It takes one hour and 35 minutes to fly from Oslo to Riga, exactly as long as to Berlin.
In December the city slows down, the old town goes quiet under the cathedral spires, and everything of interest is within walking distance.
The Old Town Christmas Market
The Old Town Christmas Market fills Dome Square. It opens in late November and runs until 3 January, so it carries on well past Christmas Day. There are also stalls at Līvu Square and in Vērmanes Garden. Come for the crafts, the amber and the hot drinks. I skipped the regular mulled wine in favor of hot gin with blackcurrant juice. Strong stuff! Maybe not recommended before ambling off to a Michelin restaurant (which is what I did).
Riga’s Christmas history is part of the charm. In 1510 the Brotherhood of the Blackheads, a merchants’ guild, decorated a tree in the town square, danced around it and set it on fire. A plaque in the cobblestones marks the spot, in eight languages.
A table for the matriarch
Winter in Riga is for restaurants. At Ferma, the cocktails are a craft and the desserts belong in a museum. At Le Dome in the old town, the presentation and the flavors were memorable. Both are still in the Michelin Guide, which now lists 27 restaurants in Riga.
We had lunch at Gutenbergs Terase, on the fifth floor of Gutenbergs Hotel, entrance from the little cobbled street Mūku. Over a glass of wine we looked out on the church spires of the old town, then ate fresh mushroom ravioli, grilled tuna and crème brûlée. At the other end of the room, a local Latvian family was celebrating the birthday of their matriarch with songs and speeches. I understood nothing, but it was quite an enjoyable spectacle.
For something more on the casual side, Kaļķu vārti on Jauniela serves modern Latvian food (ceviche and duck confit share the menu) in a medieval building.
The Grand Poet Hotel by Semarah makes a good base, a stone’s throw from the Freedom Monument and ten minutes on foot through a park to the old town, with a pool in the spa for when you come home after a day of wandering in the snow. It’s on the Michelin Guide’s hotel list.
Herring and Stalin’s birthday cake
The food markets work in any weather. Āgenskalna tirgus is the trendy one, three tram stops from the center, full of delicacies. The most famous one is Riga Central Market, whose halls are on the UNESCO World Heritage list. After a long wander we stopped at the little café Silkites un Dillites for a winter lunch: pickled herring, fish soup and Riga champagne, which is bubbly with a crown cap. From the market you can see the Academy of Sciences tower, known locally as Stalin’s birthday cake.
White sand, salt room
Jūrmala is under an hour from the center by car. In summer thousands descend on its 33 kilometers of white sand. In December the beach is white with snow and the whole town is quiet like a library (don’t go in winter if you want buzz and lots of people).
The shopping street was empty, but Hotel Jūrmala Spa was open, with sauna, massage and every treatment you can think of. There we were led to sit for an hour in the salt room, where the walls, ceiling and floor are covered in salt, to clear our lungs before a one-hour massage. Not sure my health improved much, but I did sleep well that night.
Verdi good
I’m an opera lover, so back in Riga I walked five minutes from our hotel to the Latvian National Opera for Aida.
The opera house dates from 1863 and the main hall is intimate. Ilmārs Blumbergs designed the sets, and they look like one enormous painting.
The production is still in the repertoire, with performances on 24 October and 11 December this year, and again in April.
During the last interval, an older woman smiled at me and burst out: “Isn’t this wonderful? At home in Germany they make everything so modern and incomprehensible. Here I understand everything that’s happening!”
Ornament
Riga has one of the best preserved art nouveau collections in Europe, around 800 buildings, most in the center.
I started at the Riga Art Nouveau Centre on Alberta iela and spent the day on a photo safari: mythical creatures, flowers and stern stone faces on the facades and wrought iron.
Between walks there are parks, the National Museum of Art, and the surprising Riga Motor Museum, with odd Soviet cars, souped-up sports cars from the 1960s and sleek limousines from between the wars.
A decade earlier I had one day in Riga, a stopover on the way from Oslo to Moscow. The city I walked through in December was a different place.
Next time I won’t wait ten years. I’m actually pining to go back soon and see more!
