BALTIC ADVENTURE: Riga and Jurmala

Riga, the capital city of Latvia, presented itself as a perfect destination for a short break during the half-term school holidays in May. The flight times – Monday early morning to Friday late evening – fitted well between two busy weekends and both the flights and the hotels were significantly cheaper than any other city we considered. It also offered plenty of historical and cultural interests both for myself and my secondary-school travelling companion.
Being my first time in a Baltic country, I did not know what to expect. Leaning onto my basic knowledge of its history of occupations by Germany and later the Soviet Union I wondered whether it would remind me of my home country. Croatia was part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and later found itself behind the Iron Curtain that divided the Capitalist West and the Communist East. Both countries gained independence in the early 1990’s, and it seemed logical that similarities would be inevitable, at least in a general sense of place. But first I need to explain to M the difference between the Balkans where her mum is from and the Baltics where we are going…
Our flight departs at 6.30 AM and we are at Stansted before 4 AM. The Security queue is running through the whole length of the departure and the arrival lobbies and snaking backwards. Nonetheless – it moves incredibly quickly. I have never seen such efficiency at the security controls at any airport. Twenty-five minutes later, we are through and in Pret-a-Manger, munching on warm chocolate croissants. I hope a strong espresso wakes me up and injects me with some desperately needed joyfulness. Nope – I remain groggy and sleepy. My companion is even worse. Never early birds, the two of us… Her Year 7 PPE exams are in a few weeks and our luggage is filled with schoolbooks, learning props and stationery. The plan is to take it easy, and reserve time each day for studying, reading and writing.


MONDAY – Rainy afternoon in the Old Town
In a collective (and successful) attempt to operate the ticket machine at the Lidosta airport bus stop, we make friends with two amazing ladies from London. One of them is Croatian and even from Istria and the other is Australian. We are staying at the same hotel, the Wellton Riverside SPA, and as we are early for check-in, we stop in café Caffeine LV. Our conversations about travelling – they are both extremely well-travelled – soon move onto unreasonable expectations of and against women in their forties. What does it mean, “time to settle down?” Women have changed since the fifties, yet the concept seems to have remained the same.
M pretends to read her book…
By the time we are ready to leave our hotel room in the late afternoon – after a rest and a PPE revision session – the city is engulfed in a thick layer of grey clouds splattering fine, yet persistent droplets of chilly rain. We walk past St. Peter’s Church, Riga Cathedral and all the way to The Three Brothers (Tris Brali), three connected buildings dating back to medieval times. The cobbled streets are deserted and the stones rather slippery. The Old Town (Vecriga) looks like a fairy-tale village with sharp church towers poking the thick cover of the dark sky, a maze of narrow streets and passages with houses hugging each other like people squeezed under a tiny umbrella. In the process of soaking in the atmosphere, we are getting soaked. And cranky. And peckish.
We quickly agree on Italian cuisine, a safe gastronomical bet for my rather-fussy nearly-teenager. In Piazza Italiana we share a slim cheese focaccia to start and then order a carbonara and a Caesar salad with prawns. The salad is rather good, and the taste of spaghetti in the carbonara sauce is not bad either but the pieces of lardons are mainly fat and lard and remain untouched on the side of M’s plate. The food is reasonably good, but the prices are rather steep. With a small bottle of sparkling water and an orange juice it comes to just over 40 euros. But then again – the priciness was mentioned in online reviews. So – no point complaining.




TUESDAY – Art Nouveau & Jurmala
The grey of the sky is darker and the rain thicker. Perfect weather for museums, I say as we put on our rather smallish raincoats. After the morning session of PPE revision, we are retracing our steps from the previous afternoon but this time we are also visiting each place. We take the lift in St. Peter’s Church to the tower’s viewing platform. It is very cold, wet and windy, and thoroughly uncomfortable. The bohemian-looking lift operator tells us that the temperature at the observatory feels ten degrees lower than on the ground floor. And down below it is scarcely 12-13 degrees Celsius today. In the few minutes that we manage to endure the extreme climatic conditions, we enjoy the 360 degrees bird’s eye view of the city; from the river Daugava and the two bridges that connect its banks, to the impressive building of the National Library and the curved pavilions of the Central Market.

Riga Cathedral offers impressive stained glass windows and a charming cloister. The Architecture Museum, located in The Three Brothers house, consists of a couple of rooms with the original features of rough walls, narrow windows, and large open fireplaces. I am not sure if other rooms are temporarily closed, or this is it. But – I don’t ask.


On our way to the Art Nouveau Museum, we walk past the embassies of Russia and Ukraine, both heavily guarded by police cars parked in front of the entrances. The support for Ukraine is visible on every corner and every façade and thousands of blue-yellow flags are scattered like wildflowers all over the city.



In Zvaigzne kafejnica we stop for a quick coffee and a homemade bounty cake. Oh, I do like the name kafejnica for a coffee shop! In Croatian we have kavana, in Serbian there is kafana and in Bosnian kahvana. All words no doubt originate from the Turkish word kahvehane (coffeehouse) but the Latvian word has some additional softness to it, as if talking to a child with devoted affection and intimacy.
Kafejnica…



Riga is known as the Art Nouveau capital of Northern Europe. The main characteristics of the style are colourful façades decorated with motifs from nature and fancy and playful interiors. The Art Nouveau Centre, located at 12 Albert Street, consists of an interactive digital display of the lifestyle of the epoch in the basement and an Art Nouveau apartment. We are greeted by women dressed in long vintage skirts, shirts with embroidered details and embellished hats. Ooh, I do like hats and go gaga over the assortment of headgear available for visitors to try on and take photographs in the Art-Nouveau-style tableau. M pretends she doesn’t know me. The display flat has retained the authentic design of the epoch, including a chamber pot sticking out from the maid’s bed. The most impressive feature of the place is its spectacular spiral staircase. And yes, the other floors in the buildings are regular apartments.
When one hour later we leave the museum, it feels like stepping into another climate: the sky is bright and clear as if rain had never existed. We are also hungry but as my young travelling partner does not show much interest in beetroot or cabbage soup, stroganoff, or other delicacies of the local cuisine, we seek something more international. In no time we find Lido, a buffet style self-service restaurant that offers a large choice of culinary options. We order a portion of grilled chicken with chips and one of turkey meatballs in carrot sauce with roast potatoes and vegetables. The food leaves us perfectly satisfied. And our bank too – it costs us €13.

The day is long in the Baltics in May, the sun is shining and there are no threatening clouds in sight, and we decide to go to Jurmala beach. The train journey from Riga Central to Majori takes 30 minutes. Once we leave the centre, we encounter views of unfinished building projects and deserted construction sites. Every station on this line is an interesting example of architecture. The 20 mile long white-sand beach was once a string of fishing villages that the introduction of a train line from Riga transformed into a popular summer resort. According to my Latvian neighbour in London, this place was particularly attractive to Russians and high-level communist officials. Apparently, Leonid Brezhnev and Nikita Khrushchev were regulars.

We head straight to the beach, with its small waves and a far horizon. Preparations for some elite sand volleyball tournament are taking place and we stop to watch a female team during their coaching session. Apart from the athletes and us there are not many ramblers on the beach. Cafés and bars are closed in expectation of the heights of the summer season. From the beach we meander through a leafy street with charming wooden summer houses, some of them in desperate need of repair, and to the centre of the resort.
Jomais iela, the main street of Jurmala, is a pedestrianised promenade adorned with cafés, souvenir shops, boutiques and – I guess – night clubs in summer. It runs from the station of Majori to the Orthodox church Icon of Our Lady of Kazan. The wind is picking up and the threat of rain is slowly materialising. Nevertheless, we still stop for a coffee and eclairs, a pistachio and a chocolate one. Delicious.


WEDNESDAY – KGB and the local ready-to-wear
After our morning routine of an eclectic – and unhealthy – breakfast in the hotel and a couple of hours of revision, we walk up to the KGB headquarters. The Corner House is a grey and unremarkable building, and we walk past it – twice. I guess it makes sense that the KGB offices are hidden in plain sight. Only two rooms are open to visitors; one cramped with informational posters about KGB operations in Latvia and other with a screen showing harrowing stories of people captured, interrogated and incarcerated by the Cheka and KGB. The cells and torture chambers in the basement appear to be available only as part of an organised tour.
The clothing shop Sidonas transports me back to department stores of my young years in Yugoslavia. The colours, the materials and the simplicity of the design of the ready-to-wear confectionery are exactly the same as the ones I remember from decades ago. And yes – I do buy a green dress. For nostalgic reasons. And to help the local economy.
We walk through the park and by the canal with the aim of visiting Riga Castle but – we fail to find it. The place that our map indicates as the castle is heavily guarded by police and it also has a Greek flag. A political event has probably cut off the access to castle, which is the official residence of the president of Latvia.
On the way to the hotel, we find another Lido self-service and pop in for a quick dinner. I opt for sauerkraut and a slice of pork and my young companion for a chicken kebab, roasted potatoes and a savoury pancake. But the pieces of chicken have skin and fat tissues and my fussy companion eats the pancake only. Ah well…


THURSDAY – Hats, trains and buses
The weather in Riga is more unpredictable and extreme than in London. Four seasons chase each other as if in a competition worthy of The Guinness Book of Records. One second the thick clouds are engulfing the city and the next they vanish into thin air, leaving behind perfectly formed white cotton wool against the azure sky.
Today we head to the Museum of Hats. The signs for places in Riga are non-existent. So far we could not find the KGB house and Riga Castle. Not sure how one can miss a castle, but we managed. Another characteristic of this city are the dangers of crossing roads. Once outside the pedestrianised Old Town, zebra crossings and underpasses are scarce, and the traffic is fast and frightening. We are constantly taking long detours to get to the other side of the road.
The museum is located in a second floor flat in a residential building. We are the only visitors and the chatty custodian tell us all about the origins of this collection. Thousands of headgear items, mostly from indigenous tribes in Africa and South America and rural areas of Soviet Union, are confined into three rooms. My travel companion is fascinated with the colours, the textures and stories of the headwear and takes hundreds of photos. And I am impressed with the three ethnic Croatian hats that are included in the display.

From there we walk over the Vanšu Bridge. The wind is cold and strong and the Daugava River appears grey and agitated. After a large detour we reach the Railway Museum. The carriages in the courtyard are locked and we can only admire their exterior. The indoor gallery offers a historical insight into the importance of trains in Riga and Latvia. M is fascinated with the gigantic model railway, and we patiently wait for it to spring into action and for the miniature passenger and goods trains to slide across the tiny scenery of hills, forests, tunnels and bridges.

By the time my sister D arrives from Rome and checks in, the sofa has been turned into a bed and another set of towels added to the bathroom. This is no doubt one of the friendliest hotels I have stayed in. When I asked about the practicalities of adding another person to our room for a night, they sorted it out with an easy no-problem-at-all approach.
D’s birthday is a few days away and she wants to celebrate it in a Georgian restaurant. Alaverdi has fantastic reviews and it does not disappoint. We over-order: two kinds of khachapuri bread, veal dumplings, chicken satsivi, a salad with avocado and pomegranate and paprika-coated chips. This is the best food we have during our stay in Riga.
Now we fancy some shopping and for a full experience we opt for a retail park called Akropole. Getting there does not seem too complicated. We find the stop for bus 15 and – convinced that’s possible to buy tickets on the bus – we just hop on. But, of course one cannot buy the bus ticket on the bus itself. The driver shrugs his shoulders in a lethargic and I cannot care less manner and drives off with us on board without a ticket. There is a code to download the application. I eventually download the application, but of course the application does not accept a UK mobile number. By now 15 minutes, and at least the same number of stops, have gone by and we have exhausted all options of buying a ticket using a UK mobile phone and a local application, and we exit at the next stop. Later we find out that there are ticket machines at occasional stops, but the driver could not be bothered to tell us or simply indicate one.
After all that drama, we are now not too far from the Akropole Centre, and we decide to walk the remaining two miles. We find ourselves in a depressing and run-down suburbia with derelict wooden houses and communist era flats. It reminds me of Croatia from 25-30 years ago. It feels like a new country looking for a direction and struggling to find it. I wonder what is the leading industry of Latvia. Shortly after Croatia became an independent country and the civil war finished, it became a popular tourist destination. Nevertheless, I cannot see Latvia surviving on stag and hen weekend tourism…
By now we are desperate for the toilet and as soon as we spot a small café behind a rather empty car garage, we walk in and ask if we can use the facilities. The woman smiles at us and shows to the tualete to the right of the bar. She is very tall with a round face and a welcoming smile. Although we do not understand each other’s language, we understand that universal need of women in desperate need of using a toilet. There are two older women sitting in the café with short permed hair and dressed in nearly identical tweed skirts and similar shirts; one is wearing white and the other yellow. They turn towards us and also smile. And in this small café with low ceilings, empty white walls and a miniature menu I feel closer to my own past than in any other place in Riga. This café could have been in any of the cities that I lived in a quarter of a century ago. Communism might have failed as a system, but it left behind some kind of idealistic nostalgia that connects the people who lived through it.
Akropole is a large shopping centre with international brands like Zara and Mango. The prices are too expensive even for Rome and London. Not surprisingly there are not many shoppers around. The central part of the three-storey building is an ice-skating rink, and we watch figure skaters followed by ice hockey training.
“This is so cool!” shouts our youngest traveller.
In the miniature post office that unlike the rest of the place still looks like it is from another political system, I send a postcard to my best friend. I glance at the birthday cards on display: photos of large roses in any colour, shape and arrangement. Yes – that’s very communist.


FRIDAY – Before heading back
Friday morning and everything seems to liven up in Riga; a large group of visitors is waiting at the reception to check in, the city centre is full of movement, noise and languages. We walk through the park that runs across the city and take a few photos at the Monument of Freedom and the Opera house before heading to the market.
The Central Market is a large complex of buildings with shops selling just about everything: from ethnic and modern clothes, fruits and vegetables, meats and fish, to bunches of oak and juniper trees (not sure what one can do with those…) The smells of pickles, sauerkraut and smoked fish are too much to bear for the youngest member of our travelling crew and we head back to the Old Town.
Fine and nearly invisible rain is descending on the city as we sit in café Caffeine LV – the same one where we stopped on the day we arrived – and wrap up our stay in this fascinating city before heading to the airport…
Ardievu Riga.