Spa, Black Balsam and a chocolate factory in Riga

A wedding day should of course be properly celebrated and this year we chose to direct the celebration towards the capital of Latvia, Riga.

We probably expected a beautiful and quite traditional city, but it turned out to be a fantastic mix of new and old with many exciting restaurants and lots to see and do. Since the price level is significantly lower than what we are used to at home in Sweden, you could also spend that little extra without getting ripped off. We chose to stay at the Grand Poet Hotel, which is centrally located next to the old town and perfectly within walking distance of everything you want to do. It was an incredibly good hotel that also has a beautiful spa with luxurious treatments. The fact that they upgraded us to a cozy suite up in one of the towers when they heard we were celebrating our wedding anniversary wasn't too bad either. We are a bit of a Tripadvisor geek when we travel but this time we had the hotel recommend a number of restaurants for us and we got some really good tips, more on this later.

Riga is a relatively small city that is good for a weekend, although the areas outside Riga should also be nice. Among other things, the seaside resort of Jurmala is said to be a good summer destination. If you live in the center like we did, you can walk everywhere and we spent most of the time just strolling around the city and looking at all the beautiful buildings. By the way, the Old Town is on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

If you want a beautiful view of the whole town, a visit to the Radison Blu Skybar is recommended. Good drinks and a great view! The drink menu is structured as a taste matrix where you can find the perfect drink for you. For those who instead want a more traditional drink, we recommend (not?) Black Balsam, or Riga balsam as it is also called. The balm was once produced as a medicine and it is said that among others Catherine the Great was a devoted consumer of this drink. It actually tastes quite decent, but it's still fun to try. If you want to try the drink in an authentic environment, you should go to the Black Magic bar. The bar is located in an old pharmacy and it feels like you have been transported to the world of Harry Potter. In addition to Black Balsam, they also serve hot chocolate and heavenly pralines.

The days in a cozy city go by quickly and in the end the choice was between visiting the Occupation Museum and the Chocolate Museum. The Occupation Museum is a war history museum about the period from 1940 to 1991 with the occupations of Latvia by Germany and the Soviet Union. An interesting time in the country's history, but we chose anyway Laima chocolate factory and museum. Laima is Latvia's answer to Marabou and has been making chocolate since the 1870s. After the Second World War, the company was nationalized when Latvia became part of the Soviet Union. However, the factory and its employees managed to keep the recipe for their most popular chocolate a secret from the Soviets throughout the occupation. A nice museum where you can learn both about Laima's history and about chocolate in general. They also have chocolate classes for both adults and children.

Riga is also known for its many spas and spa hotels. Our hotel had its own fantastic spa where we had booked to celebrate our wedding anniversary. We got both a quiet moment in the beautiful pools and a luxurious treatment. Other famous spa facilities are the Dome and Espa Spa. We didn't have the opportunity to visit these, but they must be really nice and luxurious.

The food then? We might have expected a lot from the hearty traditional food that is often found in Eastern Europe. However, it turned out that Riga offered really exciting food experiences, often quite traditional food but with a modern touch.

If you want to eat traditional Latvian meatballs with a beautiful view of the opera house, we recommend Kolonãde, which also has an extensive wine list.

If it is instead a completely different taste experience you are looking for, you should visit 3 Pavaru Restorans, The Three Chefs Restaurant. As an appetizer before the meal, a work of art was painted directly on the table (well, some kind of baking paper was in between) with various sauces and mixes eaten with bread. For dessert we chose balsamic-marinated chanterelles with caramel and peanuts. Unbelievably good!

Being the Italy lovers that we are, we naturally had to look up an Italian and the hotel suggested Portofino. The restaurant is a little out of the way and the outside honestly doesn't look like much to the world, but the food was really good and even though it was really full when we turned up, they quickly managed to get us a table. I'm usually skeptical of pasta out in a restaurant as I usually think it's creamy and overcooked, but here they could certainly cook pasta. Their homemade ravioli with truffles and hazelnuts was amazing. A brownie with raspberry sorbet for dessert complemented the dinner perfectly.

So much to see and do in this beautiful city. We didn't manage to do everything we had planned and in hindsight we found out that Riga even has a Depeche Mode cafe, just one thing!