Lombardia Area
Pasticceria Colombo
My first review for the coffee shops in Vigevano starts with one of the pastry shops in the famous square of the city, Piazza Ducale.
When you enter the square, you see lots of attractive options for coffee and snacks! As the locals suggest, I recommend to make a turn around the square area to see the best places according to your taste. Or as I do, you can try one by one to check all of them 🙂
For the first review, I wanted to start with one of my favorite pastry and coffee shops. Since the offering for both sweets and coffee-based drinks is so varied, if you become a regular you can try limitless combinations!
Another benefit of becoming a regular is of course the opportunity to benefit from the warm welcome of the staff.
Some key information about the coffee
- The coffee brand that they use is Illy.
- I have seen at their door a statement that they have good evaluation for the coffee preparation Since the place is usually full, I can imagine that the coffee is quite fresh with respect to the average shop.
The cappuccino is quite fluffy J you feel the smooth taste of coffee ugh milk and not coffee dominated.
If you want your coffee to last longer and if you enjoy the taste of the milk in your coffee, I recommend you to order latte macchiato, which is served in a bigger glass.
During the good weathers, it is a very good idea to with outside (be aware that you need to pay more when you sit outside or inside. This is a common rule in Italy) and enjoy the view of square, old church and castle.
If you already have hurry and just want to enjoy a good coffee and continue to walk around, the coffee at the desk can be also a good option.
WHERE: Vigevano, Northern Italy, 35 km (21 miles) South-West of Milan
HOW: the town is connected to Milan (Porta Genova station) by a railway arriving at a short distance from the square. Parallel to the railway there is a road, allowing you to reach the town by car
WHEN: Spring, Summer and Autumn allow to benefit from perfect conditions outside. Sunny Winter days are also a good choice. The town deserves at least half a day visit.
My Journey to explore coffee
As a regular coffee drinker, I have always been thinking to addend a coffee course, to increase my awareness on the drink that i love. At last I had time and opportunity to do that! I can say that it was a wonderful opportunity and it turned out to be the best way to begin gathering info and experience!
It started with cupping, sensory training and the transformative journey of the coffee beans, from the plant to our cups.
During the training, I realized again that even though coffee looks quite a regular and simple drink, a lot of complicated factors intervene to change its quality and taste, since the blossoming of a plant in the plateaus of tropical countries till the final serving in some coffee house .
I also learnt that a lot of the coffee that we drink is actually low quality and poor taste compared to the potential of the drink itself.
- The source of the beans, the degree of the roasting, the fresh grinding just before you drink and how you brew is very important and it can completely alter the taste of the coffee that we are drinking.
When we were going back home after the coffee course, we had quite different emotions about the fresh information that we received. From one side it provided us with more awareness and indications to explore more about the drink but from time to time I think that ‘ignorance is bliss’. Because the more you think about the taste of a good coffee, the less you enjoy your daily coffee. That is why we decided to seek for alternative solutions to improve our daily coffee drinking. I am dedicated to seek enjoyable coffee shops with good coffee and ambiance.
I am sure it will be a long and enjoyable journey for me, but I am happy to start my discoveries, with coffee as a companion 😊
A Renaissance of Coffee
It is very rare to have the opportunity to experiment a coffee-based drink, right where it was invented!
Yet we had such luck today: at Caffè Colombo, in Vigevano, they proudly show a poster remembering their creation: Caffè Cremino – or “Caffè Cremino®” to be precise! 🙂
According to the poster, it was created in 1997. The exact recipe is of course a well-kept secret whose details are unknown, but after tasting it once, we decided it will not be a sacrifice to try it again in the future, in the attempt of understanding more about it!
The fluffy milk foam, with fragments of chocolate and the horizontal layers of different components resemble marocchino (which was invented just a few km away in the nearby town of Alessandria). However, the taste is noticeably different. And definitely good. Kudos to the creator!
Enjoying it in the local piazza is a perfect experience of “coffee dolce vita”, under the shadows of the umbrellas which protect us from the Summer sunrays and together with a gorgeous gelato.
Even the Duke of Milan, which had the Piazza built 500 years ago, was unfortunately unable to experience such perfect combinations! We feel so lucky to have our own small private Renaissance of taste, and rest a bit before heading back home, through the heat 🙂
Ancient architects, painters with vivid colors, ice cream and coffee makers – all of them contributing to a perfect moment which will stay in our memory!
As a Fresh Start! :)
Coffee is a drink most of us happily enjoy every day (at least, I do 🙂 )
Some time ago I started to pay attention while enjoying, to understand which types of coffee I like most. Starting from simple the fact that, while at a café, sometimes I liked the coffee, sometimes I didn’t. From this simple fact, my curiosity started to awaken, so I started to taste different coffee at different places, to experiment.
Being a student abroad was very important, allowing me to have both freedom to spend my time at cafés and be detached enough from the local reality to experience my feelings without preconceived ideas 🙂
As a daily coffee drinker, I wanted to also share all these experiences that I am collecting in order to create my coffee diary and have the opportunity to learn more from other people during my journey.
Coffee culture has a long history behind and as I read, I can say that the journey of the coffee itself through time and space is fascinating, too. I intend to follow this evolution and learn more about it.
I hope you also enjoy when you read my explorations and I will be waiting to learn from you.
As we find written in the Adrian Johns’s Nature of the Book: ‘If we can’t share a cup of coffee, what can we share?’ 🙂
COFFEE MAPPING 