Walking Around Buda Castle Hill: Enjoying the Urban Landscape of Budapest
The streets of the Buda Castle Hill were eerily silent, the only sounds the clattering of our feet on the cobbles and the occasional swish of a street cleaner’s brush. It was too early in the morning for many visitors to be about, so we had the old winding streets to...
Five Reasons to Visit Trento Now
The city of Trento, capital of the Trentino province of northern Italy, is not well known to tourists. However, according to a recent article by Forbes, it is one of the five most underrated Italian cities, and they advise you to visit before it is discovered by...
Exploring Tridentum, the Roman City of Trento, Italy
Trento, in northern Italy, is best known as a Renaissance city. However, the area has been settled since ancient times, most notably by the Romans, who arrived in the 1st century BC. They founded a city which they named Tridentum and, if you look hard enough,...
The Frescoes of Trento, The Painted City
Italy is well known for its frescoes, but I’ve never seen so many in one place as in Trento, in the far north of the country. The pictures are everywhere, clinging to the sides of buildings like a kind of Renaissance street art. They are inside the buildings, too,...
Castel Roncolo, Bolzano: A Romantic Hilltop Castle
The South Tyrol region of Italy is full of medieval castles – more than 800 of them! Often perched on hilltops, with commanding views of the countryside, they were ideal for defence in the turbulent Middle Ages. But many were really grand country houses, the homes of...
The Gorge of Ponte Alto and its Man-Made Waterfalls
The Gorge of Ponte Alto, near Trento in the far north of Italy, has been a tourist attraction since the 1800s. It is easy to see why: two tall waterfalls cascading noisily through a narrow ravine. The view is spectacular, but it is not entirely a natural phenomenon....
Can the New Venice Tourist Tax Combat Overtourism?
At the end of 2018 the Venice city council announced that it would be introducing a new entry fee, a tax on every tourist entering the city. This is partly a response to overtourism, and partly a way of bringing in much needed revenue. But what precisely is the...
In Search of the Old Telephone Kiosks of Copenhagen
Walking around Copenhagen I was intrigued to notice several Art Nouveau style structures. Some were selling coffee; others were abandoned. Surely, I thought, there must be some story behind them? I later discovered that these were the former telephone kiosks of...
Freetown Christiania: Copenhagen’s “Independent Republic”
Last time I was in Christianshavn, the lively canals and islands area of Copenhagen, I saw a man with an iguana draped over his shoulder. I was on my way to Freetown Christiania, a self-styled independent republic. It is the sort of place where you can expect the...
Books to Read Before You Visit Italy
Italy is a major destination for British and American tourists, and there is no shortage of books for the curious traveller. So my problem in compiling this post was not what to put in, but what to leave out. The choice that follows is just a small selection of books...
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