Riga Art Nouveau walking tour

We were traveling with Svetlana, an old, very well-read lady who knew a lot of interesting and varied things to report. In terms of Art Nouveau, she had focused on two important roads: the Elizabetes iela and the Alberta iela. Certainly you can already get a good impression of Art Nouveau buildings there. However, we had subsequently visited the Brivibas iela, the Terbatas iela, the Caka iela and the connecting cross streets on our own and thus got an even more comprehensive picture of Art Nouveau buildings (and also of traditional wooden houses) in Riga.

We took a guided tour of the Liberty district, where about 800 Art Nouveau buildings have been restored. Worth visiting, we then visited a small museum where an apartment describes the art and the interior with stucco and furniture of the time.

+3

We wanted to take this tour, but some our hotel neighbours told us about their experience and suggested to come to Opera hose at 2pm and to take free walking art nouveau tour provided by free Riga tours by locals. We agreed because day before we had an old Riga tour with their guide and were right. The tour provided by Tomas was amazing. A lot of information in very easy and memorable way with funny stories.

This was an incredibly disappointing customer service experience. I booked this tour the day of, and it showed confirmed on the app. I received the Viator countdown notifications til my tour. But when I showed up at the meeting spot, there was no one there. I tried reaching out to the tour company, but could not and live chatted with Viator. They advised that the tour company had canceled my booking because there were not enough people booked and that they’d reached out via email. I don’t typically check my email when on vacation and instead was relying on checking the app verifying that the booking was confirmed. This tour company didn’t cancel my reservation with Viator, which is why Viator still showed the tour confirmed. I lost a precious vacation afternoon and an opportunity to book another tour because they left the tour as confirmed rather than initiating the cancellation with Viator. The lost time and experience is something that can’t be gotten back.

We signed up for a private tour, but they had planned to add another couple and did not inform us until day before. They did ask our permission and dropped the €70 fuel fee. We agreed because we were helping out another couple. When they admitted this was know for a while I feel taken advantage of. If I had know it would not be private I would not have agreed to a charge of over €300.

We feel let down by Riga Trips as the guide did not show up on the date booked. We did not receive a cancellation email either, Spam folder also checked. The company's management shot themselves in a foot by claiming the tour has been rearranged in two days, on Sunday, when we called following the no show-up. The other people also waiting for the tour were told the IT systems failed them, the tour was closed for booking. This is inconsistent with the initial explanation that the cancellation emails were sent to 8 clients, why would you send an email if IT system does not allow to book it and where would you get an email from. The communication following the review was terrible and made things even worse for them. This is not a customer oriented company you can count on.

Guide never showed up. Very disappointing. No communication either. Don’t waste your time. We did a self guided free tour instead.

Riga is a city with its own flavor blending its Germanic and Hanseatic roots with impregnations of its Russian neighbors.

+24

The tour didn't take place at all, but the very short notice cancellation didn't reach us, so we waited at the meeting point for nothing. Very poor communication

Diana did a very fine job of introducing us to the excellent art nouveau architecture of old town Riga. She was articulate and engaging, covering a lot of ground, literally and figuratively in a short amount of time. We had a sudden brief downpour and she promptly adjusted her talk to accommodate our 'downtime' under a portico while we waited for it to stop - the sign of an experienced guide. I would highly recommend the tour to other visitors.