Reading Robert Dessaix’s 2008 travel memoir Arabesques: A Tale of Double Lives, in which Dessaix follows in the footsteps of celebrated French writer Andre Gide through the Mediterranean and North Africa, I came across the following sentence: “Cafés for me are the quintessence of travel.”
Not restaurants and not the beaches, museums, galleries, cathedrals and shopping districts highlighted in the guidebooks, but cafes. Dessaix goes on to explain:
“It’s not the cafes themselves that are essential to travel. I don’t much care about the ambiance or the quality of the coffee and cakes. It’s the act of sitting down in them that’s significant. Cafes are clearly perfect for conversation and dalliance, but more importantly, they’re where you put yourself back together again, changed but still you, after flying apart in the Prado or the Kalahari. They’re where you remember who you’re supposed to be.”
Having not been to Madrid I’m not familiar with the Prado, nor do I know much about the Kalahari Desert, but I do recognise the sentiment. I love spending time in cafes, here in Sydney, but particularly when I travel. It’s all very well to plan a day that is full of activities, but sometimes it’s the breaks you don’t plan that offer the most enjoyment. I’ve always found that pulling up a chair in a café somewhere, especially somewhere off the tourist track, isn’t just a chance to rest sore feet, it’s a chance to get a feeling for a place.
Human beings are infinitely fascinating and not more so than when you’re an "outsider” looking in. The group of Blackberry-toting “suits” discussing stock options at the next table or hipster 20-somethings hiding behind shaggy fringes will tell you more about the local culture than any guide book can. I spent a lot of last year’s visit to New York sitting in cafes around Greenwich Village people watching and enjoyed every second of it.
If you’re open to the experience you can also meet the most interesting people in cafes. One of my most memorable café experiences was sharing a table overlooking the lagoon in Venice with a Salvador Dali lookalike, complete with foppish twirled and waxed moustache. This utterly charming gentleman turned out to be a British art historian who had been leading groups of Cambridge under-graduates on art tours of Italy for 20+ years. What a life!
Another favourite memory is of whiling away a lazy hour or so in the sculpture garden café at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (below). Although possibly one of the worst cappuccinos I’ve ever had (Americans can not make coffee to save their lives), finding such a beautiful and peaceful oasis in one of the busiest cities on Earth was a joy. As a place to put myself “back together again”, I couldn’t have asked for better.
Not restaurants and not the beaches, museums, galleries, cathedrals and shopping districts highlighted in the guidebooks, but cafes. Dessaix goes on to explain:
“It’s not the cafes themselves that are essential to travel. I don’t much care about the ambiance or the quality of the coffee and cakes. It’s the act of sitting down in them that’s significant. Cafes are clearly perfect for conversation and dalliance, but more importantly, they’re where you put yourself back together again, changed but still you, after flying apart in the Prado or the Kalahari. They’re where you remember who you’re supposed to be.”
Having not been to Madrid I’m not familiar with the Prado, nor do I know much about the Kalahari Desert, but I do recognise the sentiment. I love spending time in cafes, here in Sydney, but particularly when I travel. It’s all very well to plan a day that is full of activities, but sometimes it’s the breaks you don’t plan that offer the most enjoyment. I’ve always found that pulling up a chair in a café somewhere, especially somewhere off the tourist track, isn’t just a chance to rest sore feet, it’s a chance to get a feeling for a place.
Human beings are infinitely fascinating and not more so than when you’re an "outsider” looking in. The group of Blackberry-toting “suits” discussing stock options at the next table or hipster 20-somethings hiding behind shaggy fringes will tell you more about the local culture than any guide book can. I spent a lot of last year’s visit to New York sitting in cafes around Greenwich Village people watching and enjoyed every second of it.
If you’re open to the experience you can also meet the most interesting people in cafes. One of my most memorable café experiences was sharing a table overlooking the lagoon in Venice with a Salvador Dali lookalike, complete with foppish twirled and waxed moustache. This utterly charming gentleman turned out to be a British art historian who had been leading groups of Cambridge under-graduates on art tours of Italy for 20+ years. What a life!
Another favourite memory is of whiling away a lazy hour or so in the sculpture garden café at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (below). Although possibly one of the worst cappuccinos I’ve ever had (Americans can not make coffee to save their lives), finding such a beautiful and peaceful oasis in one of the busiest cities on Earth was a joy. As a place to put myself “back together again”, I couldn’t have asked for better.
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