LITERARY CAFES IV

Following one of your comments,  here you have an entry on three cafes with sculptures of their most famous clients.

CAFÉ IRUÑA in  PAMPLONA

Founded in 1888 by a group of locals, Café Iruña was the first cafe with electric light in Pamplona, ​​"opened to the public on the eve of San Fermín” said chronicles of the time. Since then it has been a meeting place for locals and foreigners who want to follow the steps of American writer Ernest Hemingway in search of the places he went to the nine times he visited the city.

CAFÉ NOVELTY in SALAMANCA

Founded in 1905, Novelty is the oldest cafe in Salamanca. For more than a century it has been a referent in the social, political and cultural life of the city. Among its most renowned clients we can highlight writers such Miguel de Unamuno, Carmen Martín Gaite and Gonzalo Torrente Ballester, the latter having a life-size sculpture on one of its sofas.

CAFÉ A BRASILEIRA in LISBON

The Café A Brasileira is one of the oldest and most famous cafes in the old quarter of Lisbon.  It was a meeting point for intellectuals and academics in the first half of the 20^th century, including Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, the writers Aquilino Ribeiro and Alfredo Pimenta.

A bronze statue of Fernando Pessoa, by sculptor Lagoa Henriques, was eventually placed outside the cafe in 1988, even though, ironically, Pessoa considered the Café Martinho da Arcada (on the Praça do Comércio , founded in 1782), as his favorite cafe.

LITERARY CAFES III

CAFE DE L'OPERA in Barcelona

This is a historic cafe on Las Ramblas. Situated opposite the Liceu Theatre, Cafe de l'Opera has a sumptuous modernist interior with neo-classical details, and offers a relaxed ambiance for enjoying one of Barcelona's most emblematic streets.

CAFE EL COMERCIAL in Madrid

 

Founded in 1887, this cafe is the oldest continuously operating cafe in Madrid - was popular with impoverished writers and became an intellectual refuge during Franco's rule. It still retains a bohemian air.

CAFE LES DEUX MAGOTS in Paris

 

Now a popular tourist spot, Les Deux Magots is known as Hemingway's favorite spot in Paris. But the St. Germain-des-Pres cafe also served many other legendary writers and artists, including Rimbaud, Simone de Beauvoir, André Gide, Jean Giraudoux, Jean Paul Sartre, and even Picasso. It's one of the oldest cafes in Paris, and pays tribute to its old but polished heritage in its current design and character.

LITERARY CAFES II

Three other literary cafes:

CAFÉ LATINO in Ourense

An emblematic cafe at the heart of the old town that for more than 25 years has hosted concerts and art exhibitions. An ideal place to have a literary chat!

CAFÉ DERBY in Santiago de Compostela

Opened in 1929, this modernist cafe used to have renowned writers among its clients such as Valle Inclán, Dieste and Díaz Pardo.

CAFÉ MAJESTIC in Porto

Another treasury cafe. Opened in 1921, it was the first Portuguese cafe that admitted women as clients!

LITERARY CAFES

Do you like going to places with a literary background? I LOOOOVE it! Some examples that I absolutely loved... the one above, in New York, The Cornelia Street Cafe, an artists' café. Within a month of its opening, there were poetry readings and music performances; and then a tiny play written for the café; and fiction writers; and Eskimo poetry; and puppeteers; and a living portrait of James Joyce; and the Four Quartets and the entire Iliad; and mime shows on the street outside the café; and comedians; and fairy tales and storytellers and Punch and Judy shows.Nowadays, it hosts more than 300 events a year. And food is delish!

Another fave, The Café Louvre in Prague. Frequented by Einstein or Kafka.Today, you can still ascend the spacious staircase with its walls clad in marble with its Secessionist iron handrail, decorated with stylish mistletoe twigs, to the café on the first floor.

There, visitors used to be welcomed by "the great world’s beauty, emphasized by impressive electric globes” and a "black man in a tailcoat". 

Coffee and cakes are great and, you know what? They still provide notepads and paper in case the muse brings your inspiration along.

What about you all? Any places you'd recommend?