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For reasons best known to themselves—actually probably not even known to them but only to a faceless and not very clever algorithm—Amazon UK choose to bury Blue Guide Venice in their search results to make it unfindable. The brilliance of programming and AI might suggest that if you search on…
White smoke above the Vatican recently announced the election of Chicago-born Robert Prevost as pope, the 266th incumbent of the Chair of St Peter. He has taken the regnal name of Leo XIV. The world waits to see what kind of a pontiff he will be. Meanwhile, we look at…
Farewell and Rest In Peace to His Holiness Pope Francis, who died on 21st April 2025. The task now must be to find a successor. But how is it done? Blue Guide Rome (12th edition) describes the process as follows: Popes are elected by the cardinals, who comprise the so-called…
“Siena: The Rise of Painting” at the National Gallery, London. Exhibition review. The Background In the late 13th century, the Tuscan city of Siena grew prosperous from trade, from banking, and from its position on the Via Francigena, one of the pilgrim routes to Rome. After it made political peace with…
In the first, 1924, edition of Blue Guide Northern Italy, one of the Blue Guides best-selling titles over the 100 years that followed, the Hotel Elephant was the recommended hotel in Brixen Bressanone. Brixen is a beautiful gothic and baroque town in South Tyrol, the inn has been a welcoming guests…
An important preservative as well as sweetener, honey was an indispensable ingredient in the Classical kitchen. The honey of Hybla, in Sicily, is among the most famous. Hybla honey and the classical world Along with the bees of Mount Hymettus and Mount Ida in Greece, the wild bees of Mount…
A school of artists in the South Tyrol valley of the Pustertal. where is this valley? The valley is the Pustertal (in Italian, Val Pusteria). It lies in the South Tyrol (Alto Adige) region of Northern Italy, on the border of Italy and Austria. At first sight, it seems remote,…
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 ‘Yes,’ said Lucy. ‘They 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 as basolato. Today only a very few segments of such paving survive: along…
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 Cafés. 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,…
Venice offers a huge wealth of museums, churches, architecture and other sights to see and visit. Here, by district (“sestiere”) 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 ») sees our Blue Guide Rome, the best guide book to Rome, at the detailed and scholarly end of the…
The drama of Sicily’s history – 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 – 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…
In his famous Lives of the Artists, Giorgio Vasari describes the sculptor Alessandro Vittoria as ‘most rare in marble portraits’. From humble beginnings, Vittoria (1525–1608) went on to become one of the greatest Italian sculptors of his age. who was alessandro vittoria? Vittoria was born in Trento, a city in…
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 Molnár, now translated into English for the first time. Molnár 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. 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 – 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 – in the person of the (Austrian) counts of Tyrol – across the Alps to the north than to the papacy and principalities and…
