Austria to Italy coffee tour: The pilgrimage every coffee hipster should do

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Austria to Italy coffee tour: The pilgrimage every coffee hipster should do

By Belinda Jackson
The church of St. Antonio Thaumaturgo situated at the northern end of the Canal Grande, Trieste.

The church of St. Antonio Thaumaturgo situated at the northern end of the Canal Grande, Trieste.

Long before Australians started riding the third wave of coffee, which sees the black brew celebrated as an artisanal product, the coffee houses of Europe had created their own elegant traditions. Now, hipster baristas can undertake a pilgrimage and offer thanks to the rulers of the Habsburg Empire, who extracted coffee beans from thwarted Turkish invaders as a spoil of war in the 1680s.

On the Trail of the Habsburgs is a new self-guided rail journey from the empire's heartlands in Austria to Italy, leaving the foothills of the Alps for the shores of the Adriatic Sea. The tour is bookended by the elegant coffee houses of Vienna and Trieste, with their traditions of free newspapers on boards, timber bistro chairs and their role as salons for the glitterati and the literati, the military and the artists. In between, Austria's second city, Graz, and the Slovenian capital, Ljubljana, offer a more familiar, contemporary cafe scene, exploring organic and fair-trade beans.

For an old-school shot, the tour's designer, Inntravel's Alison Temple recommends Vienna's historic Cafe Sperl and nearby Cafe Museum – a favourite of racy Viennese artists Klimt and Schiele – and a farewell cup in Trieste's finest: the 19th-century Caffe San Marco or the 180-year-old Tommaseo Cafe, a Belle Epoque favourite of writers Franz Kafta and James Joyce.

An elegant coffee house in Vienna.

An elegant coffee house in Vienna.Credit: Wien Tourismus

Cafes aside, tour highlights also include a train ride on Europe's first alpine railway, the UNESCO-listed Semmeringbahn, built in the 1850s, and a walking tour through underrated Trieste. In 2019, the north Italian city celebrates 300 years since it was declared a tax-free port, its wharves once loaded with beans from the most distant ends of the earth to meet Mitteleuropa's demand for a cuppa.

Tours run from April 1 until October 31, 2019, and cost from £995 per person, twin share. Includes eight nights' accommodation, rail travel and walking notes with cafe recommendations steeped in Habsburg history. See inntravel.co.uk

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