We took a house for a stretch of the Dolomite days, an old South Tyrolean maso high on the meadows with the peaks standing over it, and I understood almost at once that we had been doing the trip backwards….
Dolomites – The House Under the Mountain
Dolomites – The Warm Lake Under the Sciliar
There is a kind of August day up here that the guidebooks do not quite prepare you for, because they are so busy warning you that the Dolomites are cold. High summer on the Alpe di Siusi is not cold….
My Days in Assisi
I did not plan to fall for Assisi. I came for the frescoes and stayed for the stone, which is the sort of thing you only understand once you are standing inside it. The whole town is cut from Monte…
The Complete Guide to Assisi
Assisi is one of those rare hill towns that lives up to the postcard and then quietly undoes you anyway. It rises in pale pink and cream stone off the flank of Monte Subasio, looking out over the Umbrian valley,…
Venice – One More Crossing
Venice diary, entry 5 of 5 Venice, a last morning, mid-August. The heat was already in the stones by eight, and I left the room with the shutters half-open behind me, the way you do when you mean to come…
My Days in Pisa and Lucca
I arrived in Pisa prepared to be unimpressed, which is a foolish way to arrive anywhere. It is the traveller’s small vanity, this wish to be above a thing that everyone else has already loved, and Pisa punishes it gently….
