Let me first set the mood: the sky is gray and the air is cold. Not bitterly so, but you’d be wise to plunge your hands into your pocket as you walk the cobblestone streets in search of a coffee shop. Even before noon, restaurants and cafes, no matter their caliber, have candles burning in the windows.
Be careful when you cross the street. There is a wide bike line between cars and pedestrians on almost every street. It is filled with stylish women wearing versions of a similar outfit: flat black ankle boots, slim trousers, a shapeless, voluminous, vaguely arty coat, and a huge, nubby knit scarf looped and framing a wide, pink-cheeked, barely made-up face. Her hair is in a messy-cool top-knot. She might be toting a yoga mat or a child. I kept thinking I saw Michelle Williams.
You hustle across the street and settle into a coffee shop just slightly below street-level. On each table are small candles sitting next to little pots of herbs or a few fresh flowers. The music is good, and you drink a cappuccino and eat thick, rich yogurt out of a Duralex glass topped with oats and chopped apple. Aside from the sense in the back of your mind of a train that will carry you out of town to a castle or a cathedral or a viking ship, you feel you have all time in the world.
