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Sip & Savor

The Low Roads

83 cities. Five stops each, verified in live map data, walked in the only order the city allows. Every road ends near a bed.

  1. Dublin — The Temple Bar Confession
    Five pubs, one confession: the best of Temple Bar was never on the main strip. · via DUB
  2. Bangkok — The R&R Run
    Washington Square is a Marriott now. · via BKK
  3. New Orleans — The Vieux Carré Procession
    The Quarter has been serving drinks longer than the republic has been collecting taxes on them. · via MSY
  4. Prague — The Cellar Docket
    Prague does its drinking below street level, where the beer has been settling arguments since before the New World was news. · via PRG
  5. Manila — The Ermita Reveille
    Malate and Ermita buried most of their golden age. · via MNL
  6. London — The Fleet Street Brief
    Five pubs between the courts and the old presses, where England's lies were printed and its verdicts drunk to. · via LON
  7. New York — The Village Docket
    Five rooms that survived Prohibition, developers, and improvement. · via NYC
  8. Tokyo — The Yamanote Testimony
    Four eras of Tokyo drinking, stitched together by the Yamanote line. · via TYO
  9. Singapore — The Emerald Appeal
    From the most famous bar in the East to a basement with no sign, in defiance of the heat and the prices. · via SIN
  10. Abu Dhabi — The Corniche Recess
    The capital does its drinking indoors, licensed and air-conditioned, as God and the municipality intended. · via AUH
  11. Dubai — The Creekside Retainer
    Old Dubai first, new Dubai later, dinner unlicensed and unmatched in the middle. · via DXB
  12. Kuala Lumpur — The Changkat Adjournment
    KL drinks in layers: colonial ghosts, helipads, street woks, and basements with no signage. · via KUL
  13. Paris — The Zinc Testimony
    Five zincs between the Opera and Montparnasse, in the footsteps of everyone who ever came to Paris to work on their drinking and called it writing.. · via PAR
  14. Amsterdam — The Brown Café Deposition
    Brown cafés: rooms stained by four centuries of smoke, gossip, and genever. · via AMS
  15. Barcelona — The Raval Verdict
    Barcelona eats late and judges later. · via BCN
  16. Rome — The Trastevere Motion
    Espresso above the Spanish Steps, wine by the Campo, dinner across the river. · via ROM
  17. Munich — The Bräuhaus Objection
    Munich's case law is written in litres. · via MUC
  18. Sydney — The Rocks Affidavit
    Three convict-era pubs on the Rocks, then two basements in the city. · via SYD
  19. Buenos Aires — The Bares Notables Brief
    The only city on Earth that gives its old bars legal protection, then fills them nightly to prove the law right. · via BUE
  20. Rio de Janeiro — The Boteco Absolution
    Rio forgives everything at a boteco table. · via RIO
  21. Lima — The Cordano Petition
    Start across from the presidential palace in 1905 and end in a Barranco mansion. · via LIM
  22. Mexico City — The Cantina Appeal
    The Centro's cantinas have been hearing appeals since Porfirio Díaz. · via MEX
  23. Madrid — The Cañas Verdict
    Madrid never closed anything worth keeping. · via MAD
  24. Edinburgh — The Auld Reekie Summons
    Edinburgh has been drinking on the record since the 1300s. · via EDI
  25. Vienna — The Kaffeehaus Injunction
    Vienna's cafés are listed heritage and its schnitzel is case law. · via VIE
  26. San Francisco — The Barbary Coast Docket
    Gold rush to Beats in five rooms. · via SFO
  27. Berlin — The Kneipe Precedent
    Berlin's court of drinking convenes east to west: a beer garden older than Germany, a mirrored ballroom, the last instance itself, and a barman who decides what you are having.. · via BER
  28. Ho Chi Minh City — The Quiet American Brief
    The R&R Run's sister city. · via SGN
  29. Phnom Penh — The Riverside Inquest
    The correspondents filed from here when the story was the whole world. · via PNH
  30. Kathmandu — The Thamel Debrief
    Every summit attempt since the seventies has been argued, funded or abandoned in a Thamel bar. · via KTM
  31. Mumbai — The Colaba Cross-Examination
    Colaba has been cross examining new arrivals since the Raj. · via BOM
  32. Cairo — The Khedive's Sidebar
    Khedival Cairo was built to argue in. · via CAI
  33. Istanbul — The Rakı Tribunal
    Rakı is procedure. · via IST
  34. Budapest — The Ruin Bar Amnesty
    District VII was left to fall down and the city chose to drink in the ruins instead. · via BUD
  35. Lisbon — The Ginjinha Hearing
    Lisbon acquits itself nightly, one ginjinha at a time. · via LIS
  36. Osaka — The Kuidaore Indictment
    Osaka's motto is kuidaore, eat until you fall down. · via OSA
  37. Boston — The Ward Boss Caucus
    The machine that ran Boston was oiled in taverns, and the caucus never really adjourned. · via BOS
  38. Chicago — The Green Mill Continuance
    Chicago perfected the art of delaying judgment. · via CHI
  39. Melbourne — The Laneway Deliberation
    Melbourne hid its best rooms down alleys and behind unmarked doors, then deliberated for a century about telling anyone. · via MEL
  40. Copenhagen — The Bodega Parole
    The bodega is Copenhagen's parole system: brown rooms, candle wax, bottles that open at noon, and everyone released on their own recognizance.. · via CPH
  41. Brussels — The Lambic Statute
    Belgian beer is codified law: lambic sour by statute, trappist by covenant, and Brussels keeps the oldest courtrooms. · via BRU
  42. Shanghai — The Bund Settlement
    The International Settlement wrote its own laws and poured its own whisky. · via SHA
  43. Belgrade — The Kafana Oath
    The kafana is a courtroom where everyone testifies and nobody objects. · via BEG
  44. Athens — The Plaka Apologia
    Socrates delivered the first apologia downhill from here and lost. · via ATH
  45. Havana — The Malecón Clemency
    Havana forgives everything nightly: the heat, the shortages, the century. · via HAV
  46. Stockholm — The Bellman Bench
    Bellman sang Stockholm's taverns into scripture in the 1700s and the city never quite sobered up. · via STO
  47. Helsinki — The Kallio Remand
    Helsinki drinks with intent and without small talk. · via HEL
  48. Warsaw — The Wódka Arraignment
    Warsaw was flattened and rebuilt brick by brick, and it drinks with the memory of both. · via WAW
  49. Bucharest — The Old Court Sentence
    The Old Princely Court belonged to Vlad the Impaler, who knew something about sentencing. · via BUH
  50. Sofia — The Rakia Ruling
    Sofia rules on everything over rakia and shopska, from socialist nostalgia to candlelit secrecy. · via SOF
  51. Zagreb — The Tkalčićeva Plea
    Zagreb's old drinking street runs uphill between two rival medieval towns that once threw stones at each other across a creek. · via ZAG
  52. Bratislava — The Pressburg Probation
    Pressburg crowned Hungarian kings, brewed for the coronations, and now serves probation terms of halušky and burčiak. · via BTS
  53. Ljubljana — The Dragon Bridge Inquiry
    Ljubljana is small enough to cross in an evening and deep enough to never finish. · via LJU
  54. Riga — The Black Balsam Writ
    Riga's medicine is 45 percent proof and blacker than a notary's ink. · via RIX
  55. Vilnius — The Užupis Constitution
    Užupis declared itself a republic on April Fools' Day and wrote a constitution guaranteeing everyone the right to be idle, to be happy, and to love a cat. · via VNO
  56. Tallinn — The Hanseatic Habeas
    Produce the body, preferably in the same medieval town hall square where the Hanseatic League counted its silver. · via TLL
  57. Valletta — The Strait Street Court Martial
    Strait Street was The Gut: the Royal Navy's strip of jazz, gin and trouble, court martialled into silence for decades and now pleading its way back. · via MLA
  58. Luxembourg — The Grund Gavel
    The EU's highest court sits on the plateau; the honest drinking happens in the ravine below it. · via LUX
  59. Nicosia — The Green Line Armistice
    The last divided capital in Europe drinks within sight of its own ceasefire. · via LCA
  60. Hong Kong — The Star Ferry Subpoena
    Served on both sides of the harbour, answerable the same night. · via HKG
  61. Seoul — The Makgeolli Mandate
    The mandate of heaven now passes through market alleys and vinyl bars. · via SEL
  62. Hanoi — The Bia Hơi Quorum
    Quorum is reached on plastic stools at the corner of Tạ Hiện, fresh beer brewed this morning and gone by midnight. · via HAN
  63. Taipei — The Rechao Rebuttal
    Taipei rebuts quietly and wins on the evidence: tea poured by dissidents' heirs, night markets older than the arguments, danzai noodles from 1895, and a bar named for a gun that only shoots music.. · via TPE
  64. Penang — The Clan Jetty Covenant
    George Town's covenant was signed by clans on stilts over the harbour and countersigned at the E&O's long bar. · via PEN
  65. Chiang Mai — The Lanna Leniency
    The old northern kingdom judges gently: khao soi instead of sentences, a Tuesday jam instead of a hearing, and the Ping river carrying every appeal downstream by midnight.. · via CNX
  66. Kolkata — The Chota Peg Chambers
    Calcutta argued the Raj to death over small whiskies and never stopped talking. · via CCU
  67. Macau — The Pataca Escrow
    Macau holds four centuries of Portugal and China in escrow and pays interest in roast pigeon and vinho verde. · via MFM
  68. Nashville — Three Chords and the Truth
    Harlan Howard's definition of a country song, walked as a night. · via BNA
  69. Memphis — The Soul Burger Subpoena
    Rock and roll, soul and the blues all filed their first papers within a mile of here. · via MEM
  70. Austin — The Live Music Affidavit
    The self-declared live music capital, sworn to under oath on a Tuesday when the room is half empty and the band plays anyway. · via AUS
  71. Detroit — The Motown Deposition
    A city that exported a sound to the world twice, in sequins and then in drum machines. · via DTW
  72. Liverpool — The Mersey Beat Brief
    Four lads walked these streets between art school and the ferry and rearranged the century. · via LPL
  73. Manchester — The Madchester Injunction
    A city that turned rain and factories into two decades of records. · via MAN
  74. Glasgow — The Barrowland Verdict
    Bands will tell you the Barrowland crowd is the best on Earth and the sprung floor is why. · via GLA
  75. Jerez de la Frontera — The Tabanco Testimony
    Flamenco was born in these streets and sherry was invented to go with it. · via XRY
  76. Kingston — The Dub Plate Hearing
    Ska, rocksteady, reggae and dub were all filed from this one small city. · via KIN
  77. Lagos — The Afrobeat Summons
    Fela built a republic out of horns and grievance, and the city still runs on the sound he left. · via LOS
  78. Ibiza — The Balearic Adjournment
    The island invented a way of playing records that the rest of the world copied badly for forty years. · via IBZ
  79. Goa — The Sunset Trance Petition
    Freaks arrived in the sixties, stayed, and by the nineties had bent electronic music into a shape named after this coast. · via GOI
  80. Aberdeen — The Granite Sessions
    A city cut from grey stone that sparkles when the sun finally bothers, built on fish, then granite, then oil. · via ABZ
  81. Wiesbaden — The Spielbank Confession
    The Kurhaus took Dostoevsky's last thaler in 1865 and he wrote The Gambler in ten weeks to square the debt. · via FRA
  82. Montreal — The Quart Amendment
    Quebec wrote its taverns into law and kept women out of them until 1986, and Montreal answered by making the tavern immortal anyway. · via YUL
  83. Seattle — The Skid Road Provision
    Skid row is a Seattle word. · via SEA
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