Coffee in the Square

Chicago - New City Plan

I'm planning to go to Chicago to check out their regeneration programme.  I would recommend their Central Area Plan to anyone who wants to see how it should be done.  I can't vouch for the strategies, but they do read well on the page!

View Chacago Central Area Plan

Chelmsford - Is this all there is?

Chelmsford - Essex

-

UK

A lovely sunny day and we just need to stop somewhere on the A12 for a late breakfast coffee.  So we stop at the Wild Bean Cafe at the BP petrol station there.  As petrol stations go this one is not the worst.  In an effort to increase the all important market share petrol stations have been vying with one another to increase the quantity of goods on sale. This one sells food, papers and mags, flowers, coal, car accessories and has a little café – where the coffee is OK. And my husband

Mike

would also like to vouch for the general yumminess of the biscuits.

However I would like to ask the question; “Why can’t these service stations be better designed?”  And who decides on the use of space?  There was a lot of unexciting grass verge. But would it be so expensive to create a small eating out area?  Could there not be some better landscaping?  In the end we had to drink our coffee sitting in the front seat of the car?  Couldn’t the loos be nicer – just a bit brighter and a bit cleaner?  I’m sure they would sell more if the place was more attractive to linger in.  And lastly why is the station not linked by cycle and pedestrian routes back into the town? Don’t locals need car accessories too?

When we were in

Finland

we noticed that in the lonely north, where settlements are very sparse and spread out that the gas station had become the centre of the community.  People would walk there to get their daily papers.  The café was full of happy locals and they sold souvenirs of the region as well.  (They do this in

France

too by the way)  But the main difference was that the place was clean and well landscaped and looked distinctive.

I suspect that it has something to do with our high wages.  If  someone from BP or the Wild Bean would like to comment that would be great…and if you have been to an exceptionally good petrol station recently do tell all.

http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=2012968&contentId=2001318

Introducing Venice

At

4.00pm

, almost sun-set, on an icy but crystal clear winters afternoon I was interrupted in my quiet reading by Astrid, our mini schnauzer, who suddenly began to growl her “I spy strangers” alarm.  On nipping to the balcony I was just in time to see four sleek black boats drifting in formation – each one accommodating a well wrapped up couple.  In one an accordionist and a tenor standing in the bows were serenading their audience as the gondolas progressed down the

Grande

Canal

towards the Piazza San Marco becoming pink in the low afternoon sun.

For I was in Venice and in what other place in the world would such a beautiful and romantic event occur and not seem at best out of place and at worst tackily touristy.  But here is seemed like the most normal of mid-winter pastimes.

This web guide is partial in all senses of the word.  That is I will leave a lot out, but what I do include will be there because I have personally found it to be interesting.  Sometimes I will draw your attention to the history or to great art and architecture.  But unlike many writers I am just as interested in the modern

Venice

.  But at all times I try to highlight the authentic, whether it be serious, ancient, amusing or modern.

A tourist visiting any city will tend to be  directed to its history – and in

Venice

that history is extraordinarily rich.  But culture is a continuing process.  Of course I want to tell you about why Gondolas are the shape that they are.  Have you observed yet that they are unsymmetrical?  But I think you might also be just as interested to note how modern transport works in the city – how the rubbish is collected and how the police get around.

For in spite of being an historic city which welcomes countless tourists all year round,

Venice

is also a place where people live, work, learn, fall in love and die.  A Cup of Coffee in the Square will be a personal introduction to the cities of the world, getting beyond the normal tourist sights and giving some clues to what it might be like to live in them.