Category: Travel

New Tricks

My train journey to Suffolk on Wednesday morning was a conspicuous success. Hitherto I took the tube to overcrowded Liverpool Street and caught the train. This time I did it differently.

A Hanging Offence

More than fifty years ago my brother stole this from, well you can guess where. He was in the habit of taking a room at the Intercontinental Hotel in the afternoons to catch up on some sleep after the revelry at Hunt Balls in Horse Show week. 

A Room with a View

Left a rainy Brexit Britain for a sunny EU Ireland on Saturday morning. Draw your own conclusions. My, hasn’t Ireland changed since I was a child. There is a condom vending machine in the Gents at Dublin Airport.

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Categorised as Travel

Pines & Needles

There is more to Rome than the churches that have featured here recently and not all of it is good.

Baroque around the Clock

We left J L-M’s exploration of Roman architecture at the Tempietto on Thursday. He chooses one more example of the Renaissance style: Palazzo Pietro Massimo alle Colonne.

The Last Stuarts

No Plan Like Yours To Study History Wisely is a useful mnemonic: Norman, Plantagenet, Lancaster, York, Tudor, Stuart, Hanover and Windsor.

Romanesque & Renaissance

James Lees-Milne fast-forwards from Early Christian (Santa Constanza) to Romanesque; Santa Maria in Cosmedin. It was built in 782 on the site of a granary and grain market. Astonishingly the church has two reminders of its mercantile past: some of the columns are incorporated into the walls and two grain measures are preserved in niches… Continue reading Romanesque & Renaissance

Two Churches and some other stuff

J L-M’s Roman Mornings kicks off with an ancient Roman masterpiece, the Pantheon. If you have been to Rome you will have seen it so we don’t need to revisit it this trip.

Roman Holiday

The picture is a detail of Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino by Turner. He had been painting Rome for twenty years and this was his last picture of the city, completed in 1839. It was sold by Sotheby’s in 2010 for £29.7 million – a record for a Turner – to the Getty Museum. But… Continue reading Roman Holiday

Quiz Answers

When you open this website sometimes you must think “I don’t want this. This is just what I don’t want. What I want is Wodehouse and I want Wodehouse now.”