Cafe in Italy

Open on Piazza San Marco since 1720, which makes it the oldest café in Italy still trading. Sitting outside with the orchestra costs what it costs; the point is that it has been doing this for three hundred years.

Pouring wine since 1465 and serving no food at all — you bring your own from the market stalls in the alleys outside and buy the drink. Long shared tables, cash, and no concession to anything since.

Open since 1760 on Via Condotti, and the oldest café in Rome — red velvet, marble tables and two centuries of paintings. Standing at the bar costs a fraction of sitting in the rooms behind it.

A food hall behind the cathedral trading since 1883 — cheese, cured meat, pastry and a wine cellar underneath. More useful as an assembled lunch than a sit-down meal.

A tiny café facing the Consolata church, open since 1763 and still serving the drink it invented — espresso, drinking chocolate and cream in a glass, layered and not stirred. Eight marble tables and usually a wait.

Mirrors, brass and carved wood from 1875, on the corner of the Galleria Subalpina. A confectioner first and a café second — the gianduiotti are the reason to go in.

Trading since 1733 and on Piazza della Repubblica since the square was built, with a belle époque interior and a pastry counter worth the stop on its own.

Naples' grand café since 1860, on the corner of Piazza del Plebiscito, with frescoed rooms and a standing bar that is a different price and a better experience. The caffè sospeso — paying for a stranger's coffee — started in places like this.

A narrow wine bar on Via Tornabuoni, open since 1885 and famous for one thing — small truffle butter rolls, eaten standing with a glass of white.

A pasta and bread shop in the Quadrilatero, in the same family since 1868 — fresh tortellini by weight, and the place to assemble what you take into the Osteria del Sole.

A single small room off Piazza Castello, panelled in leather and marble since 1907, where the tramezzino was invented. Standing room mostly, and a good stop between the palace and the Egyptian Museum.

Rome's best-known gelateria, family-run since 1900, a few streets from the Pantheon. Pay first, take the receipt to the counter — the queue moves faster than it looks.

A coffee bar beside the Pantheon that has been roasting its own since 1946 and is still where Romans stop rather than tourists. Order at the till, drink standing.