December 2017

  • Seasonโ€™s Greetings

    Seasonโ€™s Greetings

    This Advent weโ€™ve chosen twelve different depictions of the Nativity, which we have discovered in the course of Blue Guides research trips around Italyโ€”plus one final one from our latest title in preparation. 1. The ox and the ass and the baby in the manger from an early Christian sarcophagus…

  • Christmas with the Gonzaga

    Christmas with the Gonzaga

    A wonderful time to visit Mantua and Sabbioneta is the week before Christmas. Empty of tourists and Italian school trips it is likely you will be the sole visitor to Mantegnaโ€™s famous Camera dei Sposi in Mantuaโ€™s Palazzo Ducale and, indeed, the only foreigner in this very beautiful town. The…

  • Aegean Turkey: Troy to Bodrum

    Aegean Turkey: Troy to Bodrum

    When Freya Stark was in this area in the early autumn of 1952, she was on a quest (the very word she used in the title of the book detailing her adventures: Ionia: A Quest). Armed with her Classics, she was looking for the material reality underpinning the narratives of…

Filter by Category