Unwary travellers lured into Rīga's winding cobbled streets are transfixed by swirling Art Nouveau architecture and warm bars with candles flickering in the windows. Just as you can't take the Old Town's beauty any longer, you look up to a bewitching skyline of castle turrets and church steeples.

The Baltic climate is generally temperate, but on the cool and damp side. Rīga's climate is influenced by its closeness to the Baltic Sea. July and August, the warmest months, are also wet, with days of persistent showers. The average temperature in July is 17°C (62.6°F). At these northern latitudes, summer days are long, with up to 19 hours of daylight at midsummer. Winters are comparatively warm with frequent thaws (average temperature in Jan is -3°C/26.6°F). Snow cover forms in the middle of December and remains until March, but some recent winters have been much milder with no lasting snow cover. Coastal waters average between 16°C (60.8°F) and 21°C (69.8°F) in summer. In winter the Gulf of Rīga occasionally freezes over.