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The art of the Renaissance or the art of food? Do we go to Florence for the food or for the art? Has gastronomy replaced Giotto on the Florence bucket list? how it began โYes,โ said Lucy. โThey are lovely. Do you know which is the tombstone that is praised…
A look at how the streets of Rome are paved. All roads lead to Rome. And Rome still leads the world in roads. The streets of the ancient city were paved in huge, irregular blocks of stone known asย basolato. Today only a very few segments of such paving survive: along…
The Seuso Treasure is one of the finest hoards of Roman silver ever discovered. what is the seuso silver treasure? The Seuso Roman silver Treasure, in the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest, consists of 14 stunning pieces of late imperial Roman tableware: Four huge platters, variously decorated; a washbasin; five…
We asked author Robin Saikia to explain which bars he recommends in his invaluable Drink & Think Venice – The Story of Venice in Twenty-Six Bars and Cafรฉs. Here are his descriptions of 10 of them: Each chapter of Drink & Think Venice begins with an introduction to one of…
A fully revised new 2025 edition of this popular Blue Guide, by Sicily resident and tour guide Ellen Grady, will be available shortly. Now presented in the Blue Guides new, full-colour format, with stunning photographs and award-winning Blue Guides mapping. The guide retains the Blue Guides’ traditional focus on architecture,…
On art and culture in the post-Napoleonic ageโand how this relates to society today. โBiedermeier Lifestylesโ is the title of an exhibition currently running at the Hungarian National Gallery in Budapest. It is a title that will possibly need explanation. In Hungary, people know what Biedermeier means. It is a…
On 15 December 2024, the annual major timetable revision by European railway operators was announced. This is when new routes and schedules for 2025 are published, essential knowledge for planning rail travel in Europe in speed and comfort. Mark Dudgeon, the Blue Guides rail correspondent, highlights the main changes and new services…
Venice offers a huge wealth of museums, churches, architecture and other sights to see and visit. Here, by district (โsestiereโ) are the highlights selected in Blue Guide Venice, the definitive guide to the Most Serene City: 1. SESTIERE OF SAN MARCO Some highlights of the sestiere of San Marco. For much more detail…
“Exuberantly impractical” may be overstating it, but we are happy that Liam Callanan (author of When in Rome) in a round-up of great books on Rome (in the Week, here ยป) sees our Blue Guide Rome, the best guide book to Rome, at the detailed and scholarly end of the…
Islam Issa: Alexandria: The City that Changed the World. Sceptre Books, 2023 Islam Issa, the author of this expansive history of Alexandria, spent his childhood in his native city. His Alexandrian descent through the male line was unequalled. His fatherโs โancestry test revealed a staggering 97.5 percent near to the…
The drama of Sicilyโs history โ frequently fabulously prosperous, sometimes desperately poor, devastated by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, overrun by Ancient Greeks, invaded by Romans, Byzantines, Moors and Normans, then shuffled between powerful powerful European dynastic interests: Swabian, Angevin, Aragonese, Savoyard, Bourbon โ risks overshadowing appreciation of the peace, prosperity…
Catherine Fletcher: The Roads to Rome, A History, The Bodley Head, London, 2024, reviewed by Charles Freeman Simone Quilici, one of my former pupils (when I taught the International Baccalaureate History programme), is now director of the Via Appia, which stretches in its original paved state outside Rome. I was…
Carol von Pressentin Wrightโs classic Blue Guide to New York City, relied on by tour guides, residents and visitors alike since its first edition in 1983, is available in a special reprint edition from Amazon in the UK and US. You might not guess it, Amazon make the correct edition almost impossible…
โNow you see usโ is the title of an exhibition running at Tate Britain until October. It aims to place before us the output of British women artists over the course of half a millennium, from 1520 to 1920. Along the way, it plucks many names from oblivion and it…
Ian Mortimer, Medieval Horizons: Why the Middle Ages Matter, The Bodley Head, 2023. Reviewed by Charles Freeman When do the Middle Ages begin and end? I think AD 500 is a good starting point, following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476. Many studies do not get going…
The Pustertal (in Italian, Val Pusteria) is a valley in the mountainous South Tyrol region of Northern Italy, the region on the border of Italy and Austria and known in Italian as Alto Adige. Until the end of the First World War, this was territory that belonged to the Empire…
The latest title in the Blue Danube imprint, which focuses on literature, history and travel in Central Europe, is Venetian Angel, a short novel by Ferenc Molnรกr, now translated into English for the first time. Molnรกr was a famous pre-war dramatist whose many plays included one on which the Rodgers…
The life of Josef Mayr-Nusser (1910-1945) is a chapter in the complicated story of South Tyrol.ย Born in Bolzano Bozen, he was an active German speaking Catholic, contributor to the subversive young Catholic newssheet Tiroler Jugendwacht (subversive because the Italian government banned use of the German word Jugendwacht โ literally…
(and some news from Rome and Florence) by Alta Macadam The long-discussed entrance restrictions to Venice are finally to become operational on 25th April. The system is designed to limit the numbers of day-trippers, who come to the city for just a few hours (often as part of a tour…
Historically Bolzano was a semi-independent merchant city state and sometimes part of the Trento prince-bishopric, with its allegiance more to the (Germanic, Habsburg) Holy Roman Empire โ in the person of the (Austrian) counts of Tyrol โ across the Alps to the north than to the papacy and principalities and…