The past is a foreign country, as even people know who have not read “The Go-Between” (or seen the movie). But whereas the opening statement of L.P. Hartley’s novel refers to past habits and customs (“they do things differently there”), one can just as easily apply the phrase to the looks and the structures of…
There is a good chance that Prato is the largest Italian town that you have never heard of. It is the second largest city in Tuscany, larger than Pisa, Livorno and Siena, and also larger than any other city between there and Rome. On top of that, it is no industrial hell-hole (you may not…
Here is a strange thing: some neighbouring cities, although physically very close to each other, have a totally different look and feel. Take Nîmes and Arles, two close neighbours in the south of France. They share, inevitably, some characteristics, but it is the differences that stick out. Arles is the quintessential small town in Provence:…
For a man of his generation and relatively modest means, the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh certainly got around a lot in Europe, spending time in Amsterdam and The Hague, Brussels, London and Paris. It is the south of France, however, which had the deepest impact on the artist’s soul and on his works. The…
To tell you the truth about our recent trip to Tuscany: Florence and the Easy Hikers did not quite hit it off this time. Florence, of course, will survive this, but so shall we. We had visited Florence before, many years ago, and still have pleasant memories from this trip. What has changed in the…
For a country with one of the longest coastlines in Europe, Italy – it has always seemed to me – has a surprisingly large number of large landlocked cities: Milan, Turin, Florence. Even Rome, strictly speaking, has no sea harbour (Ostia is more than 30 km away). What is the common secret of these places?…
Here is one point that even the grumpiest visitor of Monaco must concede: the principality is not stingy with its wealth. It provides spotlessly clean and ultra-safe streets (with police officers at every other corner and a dense array of high-tech CCTV systems), while lifts and escalators help the tired huddled masses of visitors along…
Some people find it fashionable to sneer at Monaco. There is nothing categorically wrong about sneering, I enjoy the occasional sneer as much as anybody, but for people who are travelling to see the world, it is the most counterproductive attitude you can imagine. After all, travelling is all about discoveries: about finding new things…
Serendipity is a wonderful thing. The dictionary defines it as “finding something good without looking for it”. The concept apparently has a long tradition in the history of science and discovery, but is – in my view – specifically useful as a strategy for exploring a new or even an already familiar place: instead of…
When we talk about “storied“ towns and cities, the kind of story that we have in mind involves palace intrigues and poisonous plots, riots and revolutions, blood and fury: Troy, Jerusalem, Rome. Not all municipal histories, however, unfold on such an epic scale. There is a no less interesting category of shorter and sharper morality…