Coffee and cake

Back in 1640, Venice introduced the perky joys of caffeine to the West. Like Cocoa-Cola, kahvé was initially regarded as medicine and sold only in pharmacies, until 1720, when a certain Floriano Francesconi opened Europe's first 'boutique of coffee' in Piazza San Marco, modelled on the coffee houses of Istanbul and given the proud name of Venice Triumphant, but today known as Florian's.

Like many innovations, coffeehouses were once very risqué; Bach's light-hearted Kaffee Kantata is a dialogue between a young lady who wants to go to a café and her father, who forbids it. And if he were Venetian, he would have had good cause, for they were the favourite rendezvous for extra-marital shenanigans (Florian's was one of the first, anywhere, to admit women).

Perhaps this is why, to this day, you always pay a lot more to sit down, especially at the three historic coffeehouses in Piazza San Marco: Florian's, Quadri (founded in 1775) and Lavena (founded in 1750), which have musicians to support from April to October, when pianos and occasionally even entire chamber music ensembles tinkle away on their terraces.