Riga Old Town

Riga, Latvia

Riga Old Town (Vecrīga) is the historical center of Riga, Latvia, located on the east side of Daugava River. Vecrīga is famous for its old churches and cathedrals, such as Riga Cathedral and St. Peter's church.

Vecrīga is the original area of Riga and consists of the historic city limits before the city was greatly expanded over the years. In the old days, Vecrīga was protected by a surrounding wall except the side adjacent to the Daugava river bank. When the wall was torn down, the waters from Daugava filled the space creating Riga City Canal.

In the 1980s Vecrīga's streets were closed to traffic and only area residents and local delivery vehicles are allowed within Vecrīga's limits with special permits. Vecrīga is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site listed as "Historic Centre of Riga".

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Address

Kungu iela, Riga, Latvia
See all sites in Riga

Details

Founded: 13th century
Category: Historic city squares, old towns and villages in Latvia
Historical period: German Crusades (Latvia)

More Information

en.wikipedia.org

Rating

4.6/5 (based on Google user reviews)

Interesting Sites Nearby


House of Blackheads (0,1 km)
St. Peter's Church (0,1 km)
Mentzendorff House (0,1 km)
Museum of the Occupation of Latvia (0,1 km)
Small & Great Guild Hall (0,2 km)
Riga Cathedral (0,2 km)
St. John's Church (0,2 km)
St. James's Cathedral (0,4 km)
Latvian Museum of Pharmacy (0,3 km)


Salaspils Concentration Camp (14,4 km)
Jelgava Palace (39,7 km)
St. Simeon’s and St. Anna’s Orthodox Cathedral (40,4 km)
Jungfernhof Concentration Camp (8,3 km)
Ikskile Church Ruins (28,1 km)
St. Anne's Church (40,7 km)
Vecdole Castle Ruins (13,1 km)
Daugavgriva Castle Ruins (11,9 km)

User Reviews

Patrick Lambert (15 months ago)
Excellently trained and lovely staff who made our trip very delightful! We felt very welcome from the maids to the waiters and reception.
Dominique Lugard (2 years ago)
Feels a little more like a good Novotel than a Pullman. Breakfast is good, in a bright beautiful venue. Room didn’t include a bathtub. Hotel is in a convenient location.
Max (2 years ago)
Convenient central location, modern rooms, good breakfast and nice restaurant on premises. Note that taxis can’t drop off and pick up right at main entrance (due to restricted street access for cars without special plate numbers) and you will have to walk a bit across a small park. This is the view from a pool area on the 7th floor.
Juan Ángel Martínez (2 years ago)
Hotel very closed to the old Riga town. Big rooms, very clean, and also modern furniture. Very nice Cesar salad and ice-cream offered by room service.
Erik Sanders (2 years ago)
What a great hotel. Room was amazing. Breakfast was very good and the staff is very helpful and kind. And I loved the rain shower. It is at a great location in the old city center. I think most can be done by foot. Exploring the old town was great. Loved the history and stories. One has every reason to pick this hotel when in Riga.
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Historic Site of the week

Kromeriz Castle and Gardens

Kroměříž stands on the site of an earlier ford across the River Morava. The gardens and castle of Kroměříž are an exceptionally complete and well-preserved example of a European Baroque princely residence and its gardens and described as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The first residence on the site was founded by bishop Stanislas Thurzo in 1497. The building was in a Late Gothic style, with a modicum of Renaissance detail. During the Thirty Years' War, the castle was sacked by the Swedish army (1643).

It was not until 1664 that a bishop from the powerful Liechtenstein family charged architect Filiberto Lucchese with renovating the palace in a Baroque style. The chief monument of Lucchese's work in Kroměříž is the Pleasure Garden in front of the castle. Upon Lucchese's death in 1666, Giovanni Pietro Tencalla completed his work on the formal garden and had the palace rebuilt in a style reminiscent of the Turinese school to which he belonged.

After the castle was gutted by a major fire in March 1752, Bishop Hamilton commissioned two leading imperial artists, Franz Anton Maulbertsch and Josef Stern, arrived at the residence in order to decorate the halls of the palace with their works. In addition to their paintings, the palace still houses an art collection, generally considered the second finest in the country, which includes Titian's last mythological painting, The Flaying of Marsyas. The largest part of the collection was acquired by Bishop Karel in Cologne in 1673. The palace also contains an outstanding musical archive and a library of 33,000 volumes.

UNESCO lists the palace and garden among the World Heritage Sites. As the nomination dossier explains, 'the castle is a good but not outstanding example of a type of aristocratic or princely residence that has survived widely in Europe. The Pleasure Garden, by contrast, is a very rare and largely intact example of a Baroque garden'. Apart from the formal parterres there is also a less formal nineteenth-century English garden, which sustained damage during floods in 1997.

Interiors of the palace were extensively used by Miloš Forman as a stand-in for Vienna's Hofburg Imperial Palace during filming of Amadeus (1984), based on the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who actually never visited Kroměříž. The main audience chamber was also used in the film Immortal Beloved (1994), in the piano concerto scene.

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