Latvia

This thoroughly updated edition, rewritten by the current British Ambassador to Latvia, remains the only English-language guidebook with comprehensive coverage of the country.

Latvia is best known internationally through its capital city Riga, whose centre is a UNESCO World Heritage site combining a medieval core providing testimony of its importance as a port of the Hanseatic League and an outer centre containing the most extensive assemblage of Art Nouveau buildings in Europe.

Beyond the capital, Latvia is much larger than Denmark or Switzerland, yet with a population of under two million is one of the most verdant countries in Europe. It is a low-lying landscape of forests, lakes and marshes, offering wonderful hiking, cycling and canoeing, with an increasing range of rural tourism options. During the peak tourism season in summer, Latvia’s Baltic Sea coast comes into its own: almost 500km long, much of this pristine sandy beaches backed by dunes. Seaside options range from cosmopolitan Jūrmala, once a favoured holiday destination of the Soviet elite, to out of the way idyllic spots the visitor will have to themselves.

The legacy of Latvia's complex history is seen in a fascinating and eclectic range of tourist attractions, from medieval castles to the Baroque splendour of Rundāle Palace to a Soviet nuclear bunker. Latvian culture and identity reaches the peak of its expression in the five-yearly UNESCO-listed Song and Dance Festival, involving some 40,000 performers. If you can’t wait for that, why not uncover Latvia’s pagan roots, including the mystical stones of the Pokaiņi Forest, or relax in a combination of traditional saunas and modern spas? For something completely different, you could even visit Karosta former military prison, where the intrepid can book a night in a cell, sleeping on an iron bunk.

As the tourism agency branding puts it, Latvia is magnetic.