Riga in a Day

Daugavpils has exactly five trains, and all of them go to Riga. Riga, the capital city of Latvia, is around three hours away from Daugavpils, which was the perfect amount of time for an early morning nap ahead of a fun day trip.

Although my program has a planned excursion to Riga, I, along with two of my new friends in my program, wanted to take a trip on our own to explore the city in our own time. We bought our tickets and each had ideas of what we wanted to see while we were there, but otherwise did not develop a concrete plan. In my experience, traveling can be more fun and even less stressful if you have a rough outline of what you would like to do rather than try to fit everything into a rigid schedule because, of course, some things are always up to luck. I do highly recommend planning and researching, especially for potential places to eat, but you never know when you will stumble upon a wonderful opportunity (like a map store that sells old maps!).

We explored the Latvian War Museum and the Latvian National Gallery of Art, both of which were fascinating and varying ways to explore Latvian culture and history. Outside of that, we spent time walking around and exploring, making time to snap a photo of the Stalinist-style Latvian Academy of Sciences, which was the first skyscraper in Latvia.

The Latvian Academy of Sciences was the first skyscraper in the Latvian Republic.

For lunch, rather than find a restaurant, we went to Riga’s Central Market and tried different foods. I had pelmeni, which are meat dumplings topped with sour cream, and a small citron cake for dessert.

The Riga Central Market, where I ate lunch and perused the many different stalls of goods.

My final special mention from the day was going up in the Radisson for an amazing view of the city! It was entirely free as well. If you can, finding fun, free things to do even if it is just for a nice photo, is totally worth it.

The spectacular view from the top of the Radisson!

My day trip to Riga was one of the best day trips I have ever taken, and I could not have had better friends to spend it with (shoutout to Anna and Madeline)! Coordinating the public transport and navigating a new city was much less intimidating that I anticipated. Although I am in Europe and traveling to different countries is easy, it has been incredibly rewarding to explore within my host country!

An iconic church of the Riga skyline.