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Ninfeo's Mystery
honestly the alcove thing might not be roman at all. that whole zone got chewed up in the 1880s when they were laying out Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, and a lot of odd recesses in the Ninfeo walls are just where nineteenth century builders patched around the new street grid, bricking in whatever got in the way. i walked that stretch off Via Carlo Alberto a while back and you can spot the later stuff pretty easily, the mortar's grayer and the bricks are too uniform compared to teh Severan opus.
one thing nobody mentions, check the marble revetment scars. if the alcove was ever a real feature it'll have the little clamp holes where facing slabs hung. if it's just a sealed void the interior walls are usually bare and rough. that tells u more than asking around the neighborhood.
There's a decent chance what you found is a camerino niche, not a sealed room at all. These little recesses show up all over the Severan nymphaea, and they often held a statuette or a small fountain head, then got closed once the lead piping was stripped in late antiquity. Lead was valuable, so anything with a pipe behind it tends to look deliberately hidden when really it was just looted and capped.
Check the floor level inside the niche if you can get close. If it sits noticeably higher than the surrounding pavement, that's the giveaway for a later fill, probably seventeenth or eighteenth century when the area was being reworked. Also worth a look at the Forma Urbis fragments, a couple of them sketch this zone and might show whether that recess was ever an entrance.
If your alcove is on the side facing Via Carlo Alberto, there's a decent chance it's tied to the old Acqua Felice branch that ran through this zone before the Severan layout. I've poked around that edge and the brickwork there reads differently, more irregular, with some reuse that looks like it predates the nymphaeum proper. Sealed niches in this part of Rome are often just where a later wall swallowed an earlier opening, not a deliberate concealment. Worth checking whether the mortar has pozzolana flecks matching the Severan phase or the coarser mix you see in sixteenth century patching. That comparison usually settles it faster than asking around.
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What are current tobacco prices for LM Blue or Chesterfield Blue?
tbh duty free at Riga is only worth it if you're buying cartons, single packs at the airport arent that much cheaper than teh tabaccai in Rome. also remember you can only bring a limited amount into the EU anyway so stockpiling has its limits
Chesterfield Blue usually runs around 5.50 to 6 euros a pack in Rome these days, though tabaccai prices are fixed by the state so it won't vary much shop to shop. Riga is generally cheaper for cigarettes but your layover time matters, if it's tight you might not have time to clear security and find a shop.
LM Blue in Rome is roughly the same ballpark, around 5.50 to 6 euros. One thing to keep in mind at Riga airport, the duty free selection isn't always great for specific brands like these, so if you're set on LM or Chesterfield you might strike out. I'd check what the actual duty free has before counting on it.