As those among you who are blessed with the gift of observation may have noticed, we are quickly approaching the climax of the festive season. And it was in the spirit of Christmas that I, on our last visit to Genoa, decided to fulfil myself a long-held wish, descending from the train in the suburb…
Granted: not many famous writers have come from the Riviera. Writers, however, have always loved to travel to the southern coast of France, sometimes only to relax and to have fun, but sometimes also to work and – eventually – to write about it, in one form or the other. The list of visiting great…
One key difference between London and Paris is the pace at which these two largest cities in Europe change their face: in Paris, any such change is slow. Very slow. When I see photos of Parisian street scenes from the years before WWI, more often than not I can recognize the location. In London, conversely,…
Manchester was the world’s first industrial town, the cradle of the global manufacturing economy. Today‘s Manchester, however, is no museum: busy and forward-looking, it seems prouder of its soccer clubs and its modern-day prosperity – a rare thing in Britain’s troubled north – than of any past glories. There is little in the streets of…
The great thing about Genoa is that it keeps on giving. No matter how many times you have visited, there is always something new to discover. In the Old Town, you never know what you will find when you turn the next corner in its dark and narrow maze: there is the multicultural mix of the…
No country in the world is entirely made of one piece: wherever you go, you will always find differences between individual regions. It is equally clear, however, that some countries are more homogeneous than others, and I have always found that the band of cultural variety is particularly narrow in Italy. There is a certain…
There are many more walks in the Lower Rhine Plains between Krefeld and the Dutch-German border other than the two that we introduced here over the past two weeks. The European Long Distance Trail GR8, for example, will take you from Nijmegen to Kalkar or Xanten and beyond, while an extensive network of picturesque foot…
Art in the public arena: this has been the overriding topic of all Skulptur Projekte exhibitions in the West German town of Münster since 1977. Every ten years – the event coincides with every other documenta at Kassel, modern art’s most famous regular showcase – cutting-edge sculptures are put on display across the historic Old…
In Tuscany, landscape and urbanity are so closely interwoven that they create one large tapestry of culture which is governed by consistent aesthetic, economic and historical principles. While the Renaissance town palazzi reflect the pride and the wealth of the landowning families (it is said that Florentine rulers never ate or served anything in their…
Finding the essence, the true spirit or soul of a place: this is perhaps the most difficult thing to attempt on one’s travels. It is certainly the most frequent source of frustrations. We travel to a place where we have never been but of which we have heard, seen and fantasized a lot about, and…