Private Riga Art Nouveau Tour

This was an amazing tour. Our tour guide, Emile, was excellent. He was extremely knowledgeable and well versed in architecture and the history of Riga. The tour was well paced and covered a variety of neighborhoods. It was not overtaxing and easy to walk. We did not know that there were so many different styles of Art Nouveau architecture styles. It was so interesting to learn about the history of this architectural style. You cannot visit Riga without taking an architecture tour. The architecture is stunning and beautiful, and so different. After the tour we were able to walk around Riga and enjoy and understand the varied styles of Art Nouveau. It is important to understand the complex history of Latvia. We would highly recommend this tour to all who visit Riga. The tour exceeded our expectations. The information was easy to understand. Emile had a unique way of explaining the details of the architecture and how it fit into the history of Riga. It was a thoughtful and well planned tour.

This was one of the more valuable tours and walking experiences ever. We booked last minute and our guide met us promptly. My sister and I had just arrived that morning in Latvia from Sweden, not having learned much about the country beforehand. We spent the day wandering the Old Town, where we were staying, and decided to look for an opportunity that would give us a greater sense of place and history. We took a rather expensive gamble on this private tour and it was worth every bit and more! (Just a small note, in the description of the tour at every stopping point the website states ‘admission included’. This does not mean you are going into any buildings as I first thought...). Our guide was incredibly gifted in presenting information and responding to our many questions about Riga, Latvia and the Baltic States as we learned about the three stages of art nouveau in Riga. His profound wealth of knowledge in the subject was astounding to experience and his ability to share the information so clearly in such beautiful English a true gift. We came away with a deeper understanding of Latvia’s past and even its current situation within the region and EU. The best money spent in a long time! If you can, we would highly recommend this tour. Unfortunately, neither my sister nor I can remember the guide’s name (a master student at the University of Riga), but he would be happy to know even the day after we can recall the three types of architecture and will never forget our evening walking through the first neighborhood built outside the city walls. I think we could even repeat the main reasons Riga became a premier home of Jugendstil in Europe, leading to its receiving the rare designation of a UNESCO World Heritage site in the 1990s. He would be proud of us! And he has left us with a strong sense of connection to Riga and this beautiful country!

Edvards was a fantastically fluent and well informed guide. He led our private group through a wonderful part of the city, explained the architectural history and the evolving styles of the period, and answered the questions we threw at him about all manner of things with aplomb. I would thoroughly recommend him if you want a comprehensive tour, and to come away feeling that you have a good appreciation of the buildings, the subject and the city.

+6

This is a wonderful walking tour of the art nouveau architecture of Riga. Not limited to where all the larger group are focused, you get an informed tour of different building types in a wider set of “new” Riga (outside the walled old town). Emils was fantastic. He studied art history and does this for fun- so he shows real interest and passion. He can recommend great food, shops, etc. It was wonderful to meet him and see an introduction to the highest concentration of Art Nouveau architecture in Europe!

Eduards is an enthusiastic and knowledgeable guide to Art Nouveau Riga. We recommend this tour whether or not you are an architecture buff.

We had a wonderful walking tour of the art nouveau district and the Central Market with Ilze, who is warm, friendly and extremely knowledgable. Thank you Santa for arranging the tours for us and Ilze for showing us around Riga, we had a wonderful time! Highly recommended.

We had a very pleasant walking tour with Santa through the Art Nouveau district. She did a good job of categorizing and describing what we were seeing and helped to put it in historical perspective. She did such a good job that the rest of our stay in Riga we were looking for more A.N. and recognizing the different categories she discussed. Excellent tour. On time. Highly recommended.

Everything was awesome, well organized and on-time. I asked for the guide to meet us at the hotel (we were in the center) and she did, with no problem, then took us on a brisk walk up to the Art Nouveau district and told us the history of every relevant building present there (let me put it this way, every building you see in the postcards). Then took us into the Art Nouveau apartment (that cost a little bit extra) and went through the apartment, telling us the history of the place. Everything was awesome, as I have already said. Well organized, well planned and well executed. One funny aside, our tour was just me, my tour guide and my pal. Through out the tour, we kept getting funny glances at much larger groups doing the same tour of Italians, Germans and Argentinians, who were in groups of twenty, twelve and thirty respectively. They were confused as to how I managed such a private tour.