Exploring the city through its coffee shops
One way, indeed the ideal way, to explore a city is through its coffee shops.
I cannot say I explored Athens this way, I like to wander around Plaka and Monastiraki, take me where my feet go, I do not need a guide.
But I also decided to explore its coffee shops. And through doing so, I walked through parts of Athens I would not have otherwise found.
Below The Acropolis, tucked behind the Acropolis Museum down a side street, Little Tree, a wonderful Bohemian bookshop cum coffee shop.
Had I not set off in search of Taf, I would not have walked through Exarchia, graffiti covered shops fronts, side streets barricaded off to create calm urban space.
Marianna Chrzanowska-Hunt has the same idea, starting with Bath, discover the city, one coffee shop at a time. In doing so, she created a Bath coffee trail, one tweet at time.
Often this will take you down side streets you have not explored before.
In Winchester, I explored parts of the city, side streets I had not visited, in search of Copper Joes and Flat Whites.
In Lincoln, the best way to explore the historic old part is to follow the Lincoln coffee trail (starting in the High Street where the River Witham flows through the town centre): Stokes on High Bridge, turn left before The Stonebow for Coffee Aroma, retrace steps pass through The Stonebow and up the High Street to Madame Waffle, a little diversion to Stokes at The Collection, half way up Steep Hill a welcome rest at Makushi, then Bookstop Cafe, Imperial Teas and Pimento tea rooms, Castle Hill, Lincoln Cathedraland Lincoln Castle, walk through Lincoln Castle or through Bailgate to Stokes at The Lawn.
