Photo: Jorge Franganillo from Barcelona, Spain (CC BY 2.0)
A self-guided audio walking tour of Vecrīga, Riga's Old Town, from Riga Castle on the Daugava out to the Freedom Monument and back to Town Hall Square. It starts at the castle of the Livonian Order, raised between 1497 and 1515 and today the official residence of the President of Latvia, in a town founded in 1201 when Bishop Albert moved the seat of his bishopric here. It passes the Three Brothers, St James's and the Saeima, goes through the Swedish Gate, cut through the wall in 1698 and the only one of the old town gates left standing, and follows the town wall to the Powder Tower. On Bastejkalns, low stones mark where the dead of the OMON attack of 20 January 1991 fell, and the Freedom Monument, unveiled on 18 November 1935, was paid for entirely by public donations. Back inside the old town come the Cat House of 1909, the two guild halls, the Stock Exchange and Riga Cathedral, founded in 1211, then Konventa sēta, St George's, St John's and St Peter's, Town Hall Square and the House of the Blackheads, built in 1334. The walk ends past the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, which tells the occupations from 1940 to 1991, the merchants' houses of 1695 and 1696 and the Art Nouveau Peitav Synagogue of 1903 to 1905. The cruise terminal on Eksporta iela is about ten minutes' walk from the castle.
27 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 186 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 100 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Riga Castle, Lielais Kristaps, The Three Brothers, St James's Cathedral, Saeima Building, Swedish Gate, Town Wall and Jacob's Barracks, Powder Tower.
Bastejkalns and the 1991 Memorial Stones, Freedom Monument, Latvian National Opera, Cat House, The Great and Small Guilds, Līvu Square, Riga Stock Exchange, Riga Cathedral.
Konventa sēta, St George's Church, St John's Church, St Peter's Church, Town Hall Square and Roland, House of the Blackheads, Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, Latvian Riflemen Monument, Mentzendorff House, Dannenstern House, Peitav Synagogue.
Cut through the town wall in 1698, under Swedish rule, and built into the houses already on the wall; the only one of Riga's old gates left standing.
Kārlis Zāle's monument, unveiled on 18 November 1935 where a statue of Peter the Great once stood, and paid for entirely by public donations.
The Doms, founded beside the Daugava in 1211 when Bishop Albert consecrated its foundations; Romanesque, with Gothic and Baroque additions.
The church whose tower has dominated Riga's skyline for centuries, with parts of its thirteenth-century outer walls and pillars still in place.
Built in 1334 as a hall for the town's public organisations, the Brotherhood of Blackheads' own from 1713, and rebuilt after the war.
A Soviet building of 1970 that since 1993 has told the history of Latvia's occupations from 1940 to 1991.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 27 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 27 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Riga — the Old Town (Vecrīga), each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
27 narration points, including Riga Castle, The Three Brothers, St James's Cathedral, Swedish Gate and Powder Tower. That is about 22 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~1–2 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 27 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.