Jūrmala Open Air Museum

Discover Jūrmala’s coastal fisherman’s homestead from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, featuring authentic buildings and exhibits.

Planning your visit

Jūrmala is now a resort of wooden villas and pine woods along a long Baltic beach, but before that it was a string of fishing villages, and the open-air museum preserves what that life looked like. Established in 1970 at Lielupe, it holds an authentic coastal fisherman's homestead of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries — dwelling house, net sheds, smokehouse, barns and boats, arranged as a working property.

The fishing equipment is the substance: boats, nets, anchors, and the tools of a Baltic coastal economy that depended on smoked and salted fish. The dwelling interiors show how families lived in the confined, smoke-cured spaces the work produced.

The setting among pines near the river mouth is pleasant in itself, and the museum is small enough to see in an hour.

Jūrmala is around half an hour from Riga by train, and the wooden resort architecture along Jomas iela is the other reason to come. Bookable options include museum visits with Latvian snacks and tea tasting. Current availability is shown below.