All posts by Lelde Benke
Best Pizza in Riga (Updated in 2023)
There’s much more to Riga than cheap chain pizzerias! The last few years have seen a major boom in the amount of pizzerias in this Northern city whose residents seem to love gluten, melted cheese and tomato sauce. Here are some of our favourites, which serve what we think is some of the best pizza […]
Cycling In Riga: A Good Idea?
Ask any local and they’ll have an opinion on cycling in Riga. There are violent pedestrians who push cyclists off pavements, drivers who toot their horns dare a cyclist cross their path, and daredevil cyclists weaving their way through rush hour traffic without a helmet. There are also the pacifist cyclists, pedestrians and drivers who […]
Do Latvians really hate “gays”?
“You’re leaving, how delightful!!! Truly! One less perverted and degraded person! What a nice bit of news! Gives me hope.” – a comment on the Kas Jauns article ““Esmu nogurusi cīnīties.” Psiholoģe Cihanoviča kopā ar savu mīļoto sievieti pamet Latviju” (I’m tired of fighting. Psychologist Cihanovica and her beloved partner leave Latvia). When I last […]
Latvian Ice Cream Is Amazing
On 2 January, 2014 Estonia’s then-president Ilves journeyed to an unassuming Latvian town just south of the border. His goal? To buy something in euros! We’d just adopted the currency. Media followed Ilves into the local supermarket so that Latvians across the land could see him fork out on a tub of Rūjienas saldējums, the […]
Best Coffee In Riga (Updated in 2022)
So you’ve been googling ‘coffee in Riga’. Well you won’t find it at Starbucks. There are no Starbucks in Riga! The city’s home to a whole host of wonderful local roasters and age old coffee shops. We’re happy to share some of our favourites. All local businesses doing magic. Buy us a cup of coffee […]
Online Shopping in Latvia
Since moving into the new home, Alex and I have spent a LOT of time browsing both bricks and mortar furniture shops, and their online counterparts. At times I’ve been on the verge of tears – coming to a standstill mid-shop-floor surrounded by an odd mix of blinged up, faux Rococo sofa sets, plastic chandeliers, […]
Weekend Trip From Riga: Tallinn
One of the things I love the most about living in Riga is that we’re in the heart of the Baltics. Vilnius and Tallinn are just a 4 hour bus ride away and are both ideal for a weekend trip from Riga. Lux Express buses make the time fly quicker than any low cost airline. […]
Where To Buy Spices & International Food In Riga
Shock horror, your local Riga supermarket isn’t guaranteed to have an ethnic food section! And there’s no Asian supermarket as of yet. So what do you do when you crave a kickass korma or desire a decent dhal? Well, you could just visit the one-and-only Stockpot bistro that rates its food on a scale of […]
Useful Addresses In Riga: For Renovating Your Home
Renovating a property in Rīga? You’ll find there are a whole host of massive hardware stores for pretty much everything, as well as smaller specialist shops for articles like sink fittings and paint. If you live out of town and don’t have access to a bricks and mortar store, there are also a number of […]
How Latvians Earn A Living
Three conversations and events inspired this post… Then, a colleague told me a fourth story about a taxi driver that really drove the point home and made me want to write about the mad ways in which Latvians earn a living. 1) Recently, a Riga citizen journalist reported a police raid on a number of […]