People come to Verona for a variety of reasons: to see its architecture, … … to attend the world’s largest outdoor opera festival, … … and, of course, for Romeo and Juliet. It is here, after all, where the most famous love story of them all is set and where the theatrical world’s best-known love…
When new administrative districts were created by the French revolutionary government in 1790, the names for these départements were nearly always based on rivers and mountains. Traditional names counted for nothing, since the idea was to avoid any references to religion or the culture of the ancien regime. Not even the département of Paris was…
In Britain, the city of Durham – about 20 km south of Newcastle – is mainly famous for two things: a bishop who did not believe in God and a university that serves posh kids who have failed their Oxbridge entry exams. We will come to both of these later but start with what Durham…
In many ways, Marrakesh appears to be caught between the demands of its ancient soul and the modernity that the professional middle classes aspire to. While parts of Marrakesh and, even more so, the countryside around it look as though little had changed over the past 100 years, … … the modernisers seem to be…
No visit of Newcastle would be complete without a trip to the famously dark rocks of the Northumberland coast … … and the historic castles that proudly stand at the North Sea’s edge – as well as the ice cream vans that are parked underneath their walls. Rocks, castles and ice cream vans are all…
Let’s play a game! Please think of famous British sights that you can name off the top of your head – three or four will do. And now please think: how many of these sights are located outside of London? I bet that for most of you the answer will be zero. That, in a…
La Spezia is that rare kind of thing: a tourist town without tourist attractions. The town is full of visitors who have travelled there halfway across Europe – some of them halfway across the world – not to visit and experience La Spezia but to use the town as a base for explorations of the…
I have always held that every town, no matter how frumpy and dull it may appear, can give you one day of good entertainment. After that, the metropolitan wheat is divided from the Palookaville chaff, but for a single day, day trippers should not struggle too hard to find what they are looking for: a…
Some countries do city tourism well, others badly or not at all. At one end of the scale, you have France, Spain and Italy. Their great cities are firm fixtures on the global tourism itinerary, and most of these countries’ regional capitals have become popular destinations in their own right. Toulouse and Strasbourg, Seville and…
Visitors who come to the UK from abroad may think that all of modern London has been cast from the same expensive mould: and up to a point, they would be right. In the centre of London, it is rare indeed to find even a small flat for under one million pounds, while houses fetch…