What's the must-see thing in Riga?

Alberta iela, not the Old Town. Every first-timer gravitates toward Vecrīga, the medieval center, and it deserves a walk. But Tallinn, Prague, and Kraków all have medieval old towns. Only Riga has Alberta iela. Between 1903 and 1906, Mikhail Eisenstein covered this residential street in screaming faces, Egyptian sphinxes, and peacock-tail stucco that still smells faintly of lime plaster on warm afternoons. The buildings at numbers 2a, 4, 6, 8, and 13 carry the densest Jugendstil ornamentation outside Vienna. Stand across the street from number 4 around 9am. The low Baltic sun throws shadows across every cornice, and the carved faces seem to track you as you move. By noon, direct sunlight flattens the 1903 plasterwork into pale walls. The street runs about 400 metres. Budget 30 minutes on foot, 90 if you enter the Riga Art Nouveau Museum at number 12 (€9, open 10am-6pm daily except Mondays).

Riga Cathedral, founded in 1201, sits at the western edge of Doma laukums, the largest public square in Vecrīga. The building has gone through at least 7 major reconstructions. Romanesque brick from the 1200s layers under Gothic vaulting from the 1400s and a Baroque wooden spire rebuilt in 1776. The organ, installed by the Walcker firm in 1884, holds 6,768 pipes. Weekday noon recitals cost €10 and run 20 minutes. The bass fills the nave with enough low-end vibration to rattle your ribcage, resonating off stone that has absorbed candle smoke since the 1300s. The side chapels carry the cool, waxy smell of 8 centuries of beeswax. Mind you, the cathedral floor doubles as a medieval graveyard. Tombstones of German merchants from the 14th and 15th centuries lie set into the flagstones, worn glassy-smooth by 600 years of foot traffic.

The Museum of the Occupation of Latvia opened in 1993 at Strēlnieku laukums 1, two years after independence. It covers 51 years of Soviet and Nazi rule from 1940 to 1991. The ground floor opens with deportation lists from 1941 and 1949. The archival documents list Latvian names, Siberian destinations, cattle-car numbers. The room temperature feels 2-3 degrees cooler than Riga's streets, and the lighting stays deliberately low. One section reconstructs a Soviet communal apartment at 14 square metres per family, with plywood partition walls maybe 3 centimetres thick. Some visitors to Riga skip this museum because the material is heavy, and that's a mistake. The Singing Revolution of 1988-1991, the 300,000 people at the Latvian Song Festival in Mežaparks, the Baltic Way human chain of 23 August 1989 stretching 675 kilometres from Tallinn through Riga to Vilnius, none of it lands without this building. Entry is free, donations suggested. Budget 60-90 minutes. Closed Mondays.

The Freedom Monument on Brīvības iela, unveiled in 1935, draws a military honour guard who change position every hour. Worth a 3-minute stop. The walk from Alberta iela to Vecrīga covers about 900 metres. Riga Castle on Pils laukums dates to 1330 and currently serves as the Presidential residence. You can photograph the exterior from the Vanšu Bridge in 5 minutes, but the interior is closed to visitors. Skip the Riga Radio and TV Tower on Zaķusala island. At 368 metres it's the tallest structure in the EU, but the observation deck has been closed for renovation since 2022. To be fair, Vecrīga itself is compact enough to cover on foot in 2-3 hours. The Central Market, built inside 5 repurposed Zeppelin hangars from 1930, sits a 10-minute walk south at Nēģu iela 7. The smoked fish pavilion alone might keep you for 45 minutes.