Notes on…

Extra sparkle: the best stuff is saved for the Brits

Notes on… Champagne

20 October 2016 2:00 pm

The British are notoriously cheap when it comes to wine; the average bottle price is around £6. On one wine,…

Mississippi hospitality

15 October 2016 9:00 am

Driving into Greenwood after dark, we pull into a gas station and ask directions to a late-night grocery store. ‘Sir……

‘Y’all just follow me…’

Mississippi hospitality

13 October 2016 2:00 pm

Driving into Greenwood after dark, we pull into a gas station and ask directions to a late-night grocery store. ‘Sir……

A pint of Landlord

8 October 2016 9:00 am

Down a lane in Keighley, in the old West Riding of Yorkshire, they brew the greatest ale in the world.…

Beer testing in 1937

A pint of Landlord

6 October 2016 2:00 pm

Down a lane in Keighley, in the old West Riding of Yorkshire, they brew the greatest ale in the world.…

Croatia

1 October 2016 9:00 am

Advocates of New Zealand often boast that the country is like Britain was in the 1950s. This is all well…

The Dalmatian coast: old-fashioned glamour

Croatia

29 September 2016 1:00 pm

Advocates of New Zealand often boast that the country is like Britain was in the 1950s. This is all well…

Hardy perennial: a crowd in the V&A Cast Courts

The Victoria and Albert

22 September 2016 1:00 pm

Thomas Hardy, while still married to his first wife Emma, but arranging assignations in London with Florence, his second-wife-to-be, used…

London’s lost rivers

17 September 2016 9:00 am

I found my first of London’s many lost rivers when I walked across Holborn Viaduct, looked down at the sweep…

Farringdon Road at the Holborn Viaduct, 1900

London’s lost rivers

15 September 2016 1:00 pm

I found my first of London’s many lost rivers when I walked across Holborn Viaduct, looked down at the sweep…

Don’t fear to tread: vineyards in the Douro Valley

The Douro Valley

8 September 2016 1:00 pm

They’re called quintas, Joana tells us, because the rich families who owned the land along this stretch of the Douro…

Bare ruined choirs

3 September 2016 9:00 am

We’re so used to looking at the abbeys smashed up by Henry VIII — particularly Rievaulx and Byland, in north…

Rievaulx: only swifts and pigeons break the silence

Bare ruined choirs

1 September 2016 1:00 pm

We’re so used to looking at the abbeys smashed up by Henry VIII — particularly Rievaulx and Byland, in north…

Mussolini at Lake Como

27 August 2016 9:00 am

If your destiny is to be shot dead with your mistress, where better than Lake Como, which, in the words…

Would you recognise this face? Mussolini back in 1924, on a drive with his pet lion cub, Ras

Mussolini at Lake Como

25 August 2016 1:00 pm

If your destiny is to be shot dead with your mistress, where better than Lake Como, which, in the words…

Peggy Guggenheim

20 August 2016 9:00 am

She had come a very long way from the shtetl, but Marguerite ‘Peggy’ Guggenheim was still the poor relation of…

A collector of genius: Peggy Guggenheim

Peggy Guggenheim

18 August 2016 1:00 pm

She had come a very long way from the shtetl, but Marguerite ‘Peggy’ Guggenheim was still the poor relation of…

The first favela

12 August 2016 11:00 pm

Where are you going?’ demanded the boy on the wall. A walkie-talkie clipped to his denim shorts crackled, but there…

Cabbies’ enemy: a cable car across the favela

The first favela

11 August 2016 1:00 pm

Where are you going?’ demanded the boy on the wall. A walkie-talkie clipped to his denim shorts crackled, but there…

Skye

6 August 2016 9:00 am

Glamour. It’s Marcello Mastroianni drinking negronis on the Via Veneto; it’s Audrey Hepburn, George Clooney, Sinatra on the Vegas Strip…

Sudden beauty (crowd not pictured): the Quiraing

Skye

4 August 2016 1:00 pm

Glamour. It’s Marcello Mastroianni drinking negronis on the Via Veneto; it’s Audrey Hepburn, George Clooney, Sinatra on the Vegas Strip…

Ice cream

30 July 2016 9:00 am

It was a mistake to tell us about the gelati-to-sightseeing ratio. This was the formula my father, his younger sister…

The taste of freedom and sunburnt holidays

Ice cream

28 July 2016 1:00 pm

It was a mistake to tell us about the gelati-to-sightseeing ratio. This was the formula my father, his younger sister…

The gardens of Ninfa

23 July 2016 9:00 am

I’ve just been given a personal tour of Ninfa by Monty Don. True, I had to share the thinking woman’s…

Ruins and romance (Monty Don not included)

The gardens of Ninfa

21 July 2016 1:00 pm

I’ve just been given a personal tour of Ninfa by Monty Don. True, I had to share the thinking woman’s…