Advantages: Absolutely fantastic coffee is possible (better than any chain store). Disadvantages: Quite difficult to master, and not especially forgiving.
When a company sells a product that hasn't changed for nearly a century, and still commands one of the highest prices on the market, there is a reason. In the case of the Professional, a very good reason. LaPavoni have built their reputation on the performance of their lever driven espresso machines, which haven't changed significantly since their introduction in 1961. The Professional is the big brother to the Europiccola, and your extra £200 doubles the capacity of the boiler and adds an arguably unnecessary pressure guide to the sight level on the side of the boiler. The name Professional is somewhat misleading, as the machine is designed and intended for the domestic market.
The Professional's baby brother, the Europiccola is more widely available and as it is often seen second-hand is almost certainly a better buy than ...
Advantages: Robust engineering, excellent performance, beautiful styling Disadvantages: Heavy, hard to keep clean, very expensive
Have you ever wondered why coffee in the coffee shop is better than coffee at home? Coffee shops use freshly ground and roasted coffee, and machines that can extract the full flavour from that coffee. If you want to replicate this quality of coffee at home, you need a machine that's up to the task. LaPavoni produced the Europiccola in 1961 and, some tweaking aside, they haven't changed the design significantly since then. The machine consists of a boiling chamber sitting on a base, with a glass level on one side and some curvaceous pipe-work on the other side. It truly is a thing of beauty, available (in ascending order of price) in chrome and black, straight chrome, chrome with wooden trim, gold, or gold with wooden trim. Go to www.lapavoni.com (domestic line, lever machines) to convince yourself that this is no ordinary machine ...
Advantages: Friendly staff, modern decor, lots of handy facilities, great location Disadvantages: Rooms are a bit on the small side and cramped
the best available double room when we got to the hotel.
The hotel that we had booked was the four star 'Jolly Carlton'. I had a look on the internet and it seemed wonderful.
We were told that check in wasn't until 2pm, but when we arrived in Amsterdam in the morning, we though that we would go to the hotel to see if we could leave our luggage there so we didn't have to drag it around the city until 2pm.
The hotel is about a 15 minute walk from the central station, which we managed no problem, even with our luggage. If you don't want to walk then there are also several trams you can take, either from the central station or from the centre of the town, though it really isn't that far and it is a fairly flat road all the way, and it means you can window shop as you walk! The hotel is very easy to find and is along one of the main roads. It ...
