I grow simple in my old age. Like some travelling hero demanding to fight the three greatest warriors of a city, I have three demands from each place that I visit. Museums and sights and fancy architecture have little hold on my affections. When I go to a city, all I want to see are:

1)Your best coffee shop

2)Your best pub

3)Your best bookshop

These, for me are the true measure of any city, and my map of any place is incomplete without them. In some cities I have only 1 or 2 of these, in many I have none. It is perhaps indicative of my lack of affection for London that I find myself genuinely struggling to pick out any of the three, except perhaps the pub (The Palm Tree). When you can choose these three things, with a decisive and profound certainty, you may at last have found your home.

There are two cities I can think of that, so far, pass the test in my mind.

Sheffield

1)The Rude Shipyard

2)The Sheaf View

3)Rare and Racy

Victoria

1)Habit

2)Swans

3)Russell Books

What are yours?