Speedy Boarding with Constanze Price

On learning to ski, Vienna and Dublin with the writer of Coffee w/ Constanze

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Sep 12, 2024

Victor-Gabriel Gilbert, *Le déjeuner du chat*, 1879.

Welcome back to Speedy Boarding, a bi-weekly series on Tom Fish Is Away that is great news for those of you who are getting sick of me. That’s because it’s a series where I ask some of my favourite writers on Substack eight quick-ish questions about travel. So, the vast majority of the words you’re about to read weren’t written by me but by someone else.

This week the questions are being answered by

constanze price

. Constanze is a writer, poet, and former barista in her mid-twenties. She currently resides on the Carolina coast with her fiancé (husband by the time you’re reading this), works as a remote editor by day, and aims to spend as much time as possible in cafés (also by day). She recently lived in Dublin while attending Trinity College, and now very much misses the seagulls, bookstores, and pub conversation over freshly-poured Guinness.

Mrs. Price writes Coffee w/ Constanze, a publication chronicling her travel mishaps, close connections, and reflections on coffee, culture, and mindful living. At this exact moment, she’s up in the Dolomites on her honeymoon with a pen at the ready - subscribe to watch her destiny unfold.

Right, let’s get to the questions.

Where is the best place you’ve ever been and why?

As an avid café-goer, I’d be remiss not to make this impossible question a two-parter.

The best coffee house I’ve ever visited is Salzburg’s Café Tomaselli. Once Mozart’s favourite (allegedly), it’s a 150-year-old institution just a short walk from the house he was born in. In under two hours, I learned the majesty of a true coffee house environment and how to enjoy all it has to offer.

It offered a lot. A tall rack of newspapers, each issue secured to its own handy newspaper holder, featured German and English language editorials; sharply-dressed and seasoned waiters circled the dining room while making breezy conversation with guests that I could only assume were regulars by the obvious ease of their movements. Over a remarkably satisfying bircher muesli and cappuccino, I immersed myself in articles of the New York Times and the Salzburg Nachrichten to the point where Tomaselli’s charming atmosphere dissolved around me.

The setting was exquisite, too: I even had a window seat.

As someone who wants to own a bustling and exquisite coffee shop of my own someday, this spot provided a blueprint for my dream.

The best place I’ve ever been (though Bergamo and Dublin are so close) is up in the Rocky Mountains, skiing alongside my husband, S. I learned to ski two years ago through the most unpredictable of circumstances, and I’m so thankful that I did. I’m not normally an adrenaline junkie, but the sport brings a thrill-seeking spirit out of me.

Skiing is somehow both peaceful and fiercely exhilarating at once, and on blindingly-white ‘powder days’, it feels like I’m moving through a dream.

Living in the same ski town for months before our first date, S and I skied past each other dozens of times without knowing it. During those months I felt the trails had an inherently magical quality to them, like a ceaselessly loving presence in the air, and I think it’ll stay that way forever.

Where is the place you most want to visit?

I’ve wanted to see Japan for 15 years now. My best friend growing up was Japanese, and she took regular family vacations to Kyoto. When she’d return and walk me through her days, the food she ate, and the places she went, I’d be completely mesmerised.

I’d love to try the cuisine, learn about the culture, and take in the island’s nature. I heard they’re even known for their skiing–S was already on board, but especially with that last detail, we’re hoping to visit by 2027.

Who's your dream travel companion?

If I’m conjuring up a travel partner from scratch, I’d engineer a companion who loves carrying heavy loads uphill, has an encyclopaedic knowledge of each café we should stop at, as well as every must-see site hiding around us (all off the beaten path, of course). And they must never, not even once, get tired of my humour along the way.

Realistically, I prefer a partner with a respect for community, a willingness to explore destinations leisurely (ideally on foot or by bike) and someone that collects + appreciates the easy-to-miss details around them.

The people I’m closest to happen to travel this way: my friends Cecelia and Lily love navigating cities by foot, and always lend the most insightful observations. They’re deeply optimistic and love to chat with passers-by just as much as I do.

These core preferences are mirrored and inspired by S. Working as a consultant, he spent six years travelling for work along the East Coast and lived almost exclusively in hotels. He has a knack for finding the best hole-in-the-wall, cash-only, family-run establishments, even in cities he’s never been to before–not to mention parks, botanical gardens, and truly must-see side-quests. I always know we’ll have a fantastic time whenever we travel, and not only for the pure joy of being near him.

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Great news! I'm going to buy you a hat. The catch is that you have to wear this hat on every future travel trip at all times. What kind of hat would you like?

Thank you, Tom! Though my curly hair makes it difficult to embrace hat-wearing in general, I’ve always appreciated 1920s hat fashion–cloche hats in particular–and enjoy bucket hats for their functionality. I humbly request a cross between these, in either red or black.

Where is the place you never want to go back to?

The only place I can think of is my Dublin flat, as formative and significant as that little structure was. It’s taken on a nostalgic glow ever since I’ve left, one that covers the many difficulties of living there, and to see it from the inside again would effectively rip my golden-era viewpoint into smithereens.

It’s the place where I learned to be a writer, really. It’s where I grew a spine; where I fed and nurtured a long-distance relationship that truly went the distance. It’s also where I was privileged enough to make so many valuable memories with Lily, ones we never could’ve dreamed of sharing when we first met in CO.

For instance, on the last Thursday of November that year, we bussed around Dublin hunting for ingredients, construction paper, and decorations to patch together a Thanksgiving dinner for our friends. Lily’s boyfriend Mark brought vegetables and herbs from his garden, and we centred the meal, not around turkey, but (just as tasty) Tesco chicken. We introduced a table of our European guests to the childlike fun of drawing hand-turkeys with marker (our seasonally-coloured construction paper doubling as placemats) and concluded the night by sampling homemade apple, pumpkin, and pecan pies. Meanwhile, our gym-bro roommate down the hall chose to do all his laundry in our apartment’s communal washing machine that evening (located in our kitchen). The washer had the same pitch and volume of an aeroplane taking off.

But it didn’t matter–it was still one of the best nights of my life, partly for the charm of it being a completely un-replicable time and place. My entire stay was; it’d be so disheartening to be reminded of that by returning.

You've been given a million pounds to live your best life in one destination for a year. The problem is - you're trapped there and can't leave for the year. Where would you go?

I would live in Vienna, spend as much time as possible in coffee houses, and maybe, finally, stand a chance at perfecting my German. I’d treat myself to Wiener schnitzel and apple strudel weekly, become a regular at Porgy & Bess, and exclusively buy groceries at the Naschtmarkt.

How do you decide where to visit next?

During my time at Trinity, I took significant advantage of the fact that Dublin was a Ryanair hub. London, Vienna, Athens, Rome, and Milan were only a handful of destinations I visited through them (the budget pricing of which my American mind couldn’t comprehend.) I learned a lot about myself through this freedom alone: when I travel solo, I let myself geek out.

I visit places of nostalgic and historical significance: places that I told myself during dreary middle and high school years that I’d take myself once I finally escape my terrible hometown (insert more irrational teenage angst here). The first solo trip of my Dublin era, I went to Liverpool to pay homage to my middle-school era obsession with The Beatles. I went to Athens for my younger self’s love for Greek archeology and mythology, to Rome for the artwork in the Vatican, and to Crema for my love of the movie Call Me By Your Name. It was all very worth it, but travel is one of those beautiful things I never regret. Right now, I’m wrestling the urge to check out Salem, Massachusetts – did anyone else go through a witch trials phase as a kid?

And finally, what's the one thing you never leave home without when travelling?

The fun answer: a film camera. A phone camera is acceptable, but there’s a specific charm to Polaroids and developed film that feels so much more personal and intimate. The physical photographs of places I know intimately–or that I’m not sure I’ll ever return to–are profoundly valuable to me.

The less-fun answer: reliable walking shoes. My favourite part of travel, solo or otherwise, is to explore destinations on foot. I love when I’m sore at the end of the day, and bummed if the rain or car-centric city layouts stop me.

Speedy Boarding with Constanze Price

On learning to ski, Vienna and Dublin with the writer of Coffee w/ Constanze

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