europa 09

Well, there have been a few adventures in coffee over the first week. I will recall a few tales and show some pictures for my Ballarat friends who shouted me a coffee along my travels. Our first coffee was incredible – after an overnight flight to Kuala Lumpur we were in need of rejuvenation. Malaysia is an unlikely place to find a good coffee but we did! In the KLCC food hall we found a shiny red espresso machine and tried our luck. It was a great coffee and really provided the pick me up we needed. We weren’t up to taking photos then so imagine a smoky shopping centre food hall with us in a corner sipping coffee and inhaling the smell of fried fish and garlic!

The first photo of a coffee in Italy is at the Rome airport just before I was about to be short changed $20 after buying a ticket to the city and Colin was about to be ripped off by a money changer! I stood in the queue while Colin bought a takeaway espresso in two tiny plastic ups with a bit of al-foil on top to keep them warm! Coffee on the run is something we do quite a bit here which is not quite the tradition we are used to but we are getting the hang of it. Our second coffee in Rome was in the closest piazza to the railway station where we had to wait for three hours. It was McDonalds, partly because it was there, the location was fantastic and we could watch the world go by, and partly so we could use the toilet!

We’ve been to Dubrovnik and had Maxine’s coffee in a cosy cobblestoned alley,

although I think my favorite was on the island of Lokrum after we’d had a swim in the Adriatic and sat in the Benedictine monastery ruins over a drink.

Dubrovnik old town is massive and monumental but very wearing in its tourist hassling. The walls were wonderful to walk and much quieter, hence a day’s peacefulness on Lokrum was much appreciated.

Coffee on the Croation island of Korcula was wonderful along the town’s edge in the shade of pine trees with a view over the sea and to the mainland. It was also the place where the evening storms ricocheted violently around the streets and alleys. A little extra drama which was most befitting in the town that claims Marco Polo, the great traveller, as its own.

Ravenna is a town with mosaics at its heart and a courtyard coffee between visiting the domed cupolas was most welcome. We shared our shady spot with some other travellers and traded a few tips that benefited all of us. It is most helpful to hear the recommendations or warnings of fellow travellers and these exchanges become an interesting part of being on the road.

We have found a place which combines all of Julie’s prescribed coffees – a garden, a cultural place and when all is right with the world – as it certainly is at the Castello Galleazza. It is actually very nice to be able to make our own coffee in a stovetop percolator- you know the iconic Italian one – and take the coffee into the reading room/library, or into the gardens or up to our bed chamber of massive proportions!

These are some of the coffee tales so far. It is always a mystery to see what comes after you order – Italy is very regional and food and drink is significantly different as we move around. Finding coffee is not so difficult but finding food can be quite challenging! We have worked out some good things to buy at supermarkets as useful to have in our travel supplies. We got caught on the ship from Croatia to Italy with only a small bottle of water and no breakfast which was very surprising given the exorbitant cost of the ticket! So we now keep our water bottles filled at fountains, carry almonds, dried apricots and chocolate for emergencies, and eat and drink when we see something that suits us. We are also wary of old ladies with knives selling cheese, although we did enjoy that little bit of protein on the ferry! Leave a comment if you’d like to claim a coffee as your own! There’s a few more great towns coming up – Perugia, Assisi, the Cinqueterre….stay tuned!

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