Riga

Why Riga works

Riga's Art Nouveau district, mostly built between 1904 and 1914, is the largest and best-preserved collection of the style anywhere in Europe — over 800 buildings, concentrated especially on Alberta and Elizabetes streets, feature sculpted faces, peacocks, sunbursts and flowing organic ornament designed by architects including Mikhail Eisenstein, father of the filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein. The medieval Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, centres on Town Hall Square and the ornate, reconstructed House of the Blackheads, a former merchants' guild hall rebuilt after wartime destruction to its original 14th-century design. St. Peter's Church, with a distinctive spire visible across the old town, offers an elevator ride to an observation deck for the best rooftop views over Riga's red-tiled roofs and the Daugava River. The Central Market, housed partly in a set of repurposed Zeppelin hangars from the 1930s, is one of the largest markets in Europe and a genuine slice of local life alongside the tourist-facing old town. Riga's history as a Hanseatic trading port, then a Soviet-era industrial city, and now an EU capital shows in its layered architecture — medieval guild houses standing near Soviet apartment blocks and glass-fronted modern offices, a contrast the city wears without much fuss.

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