Travel theme: Meeting Places

Posted on July 25, 2014 by ailsapm

My recent post about the history of Guinness got me thinking about places where we meet. In England and Ireland pub culture is strong so it comes as no surprise that pubs are one of the most commonly suggested places to meet, but there are plenty of other options around. Over the course of a Christmas vacation in Dublin I wrote about some of the more popular meeting places in the city, past and present, and very few of them were pubs. I’ve always adored the Parisian Left Bank coffeehouse culture that provided the breeding ground for some of history’s most distinguished painters and writers. Here are a few more meeting spots from my travels. In New York City, the most romantic of rendezvous points – under the clock in Grand Central.

The fountain in the middle of Antigua‘s Parque Central. There’s always something going on, so even if your friend is late, chances are you won’t even notice because you’ll be too busy enjoying a street performance.

In Rome, the venerable Antico Caffè Greco has been the meeting place of the literati since 1760.

rome, italy, travel, literati, grand tour, photography, travelogue, travel, ailsa prideaux-mooney, antico caffe greco, coffee

ANTICO CAFFE GRECO ON VIA DEL CONDOTTI

Still in Rome, I spotted these policemen congregating at their own favourite meeting place.

Are you ready to meet up with this week’s challenge and share some of your favourite rendezvous points? If you would like to join in (everyone’s welcome) here’s what to do:

Create your own post and title it Travel theme: Meeting Places
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xxx Ailsa

The stage is not merely the meeting place of all the arts, but is also the return of art to life. – Oscar Wilde

Twitter is my bar. I sit at the counter and listen to the conversations, starting others, feeling the atmosphere. – Paul Coehlo

I can’t tell you what art does and how it does it, but I know that art has often judged the judges, pleaded revenge to the innocent and shown to the future what the past has suffered, so that it has never been forgotten. I know too that the powerful fear art, whatever its form, when it does this, and that amongst the people such art sometimes runs like a rumour and a legend because it makes sense of what life’s brutalities cannot, a sense that unites us, for it is inseparable from a justice at last. Art, when it functions like this, becomes a meeting-place of the invisible, the irreducible, the enduring, guts and honour. – John Berger

About ailsapm

Hi there! I’m Ailsa Prideaux-Mooney. I’ve lived in many places, and travelled to many more. I had a lot of fun getting there and being there, wherever there happened to be at the time. I climbed a castle wall in Czesky Krumlov, abseiled down cliffs to go caving in the west of Ireland, slept on the beach in Paros, got chased by a swarm of bees in Vourvourou (ok that wasn’t fun, but it was exciting), learned flower arranging in Tokyo, found myself in the middle of a riot in Seoul, learned to snowboard in Salzburg, got lost in a labyrinth in Budapest and had my ice cream stolen by a gull in Cornwall. And I’m just getting started. If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read so far, I’d love you to follow my travelogue - wheresmybackpack.com - and remember, anyone who tries to tell you it’s a small world hasn’t tried to see it all.

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