Mangiare, bibere
Back in chilly old Edinburgh, after a week's glorious respite from the chill and the work and the mainly bad coffee, in the home of good coffee, Italy.

Coffee seems like a good place to start - it was definitely one of the highlights of our hols. No matter where you ordered it, the coffee was consistently quick (none of these 10 min long Pret waits) and consistently excellent. The best coffee, though, was at Sant' Eustachio -reputedly the best coffee in Rome. Their gran caffe is a real treat - sweet but perfectly balanced (I don't normally like sugar in coffee at all), and with a good centimetre of crema. Bellissima! Coffee is generally less that a euro for an espresso, about 1.20-1.30 for a cappuccino (no chocolate on top, smallish cup, not too much froth, more like a good NZ flat white), but that totally depends where you drink it and whether you stand or sit. Most expensive in Rome was Caffe Greco at 5.20 for a cappuccino (but in good company - once the favoured hangout of Casanova, Goethe, Wagner, Stendhal, Baudelaire, Shelley and Byron) and an interior of faded, comfy opulence.

In Venice we took things up a notch again, with coffee for 7 euros at Caffe Florian - admittedly, even more fabulous, and with an equally illustrious clientele (again Byron, Goethe, Casanova, as well as Proust, Dickens and Stravinsky - but now I'm just surname-dropping!).

In Florence we went more for cioccolato caldo (hot choc) - thick, slightly bitter, and served out of big urns. I bought some to make at home but the instructions are in illegible Italian, so the results might be interesting!

Food was good too - great pizza (thin and woodfired, tasty minimal toppings), pasta, pastries, pancetta, provlone, all the P foods are good. And of course gelato - in every flavour imaginable, handmade, delicious. I'm making myself hungry just writing about this.

Weirdest meal experience was defininitely a wee place in Rome called da Alfredo e Ada - run by 3 old Roman mamas who wanted to be your mama too. When we arrived front of house mama asked if we wanted wine, and if we liked cheese. That was the extent of the ordering system! Wine was white and from a big tap in the kitchen (but actually quite tasty), plenty of bread and pasta, and for our main course, she brought out 3 dishes and we got to choose which 2 we wanted (but could have the third too if we were still hungry!). Dessert was endless home-baked cookies, and some kind of port-y wine to dunk them in. No menu, no coffee, no prices, just food and wine as it comes. A low-stress, homely dining experience.