There is a moment, most evenings in the Dolomites, when the grey rock catches fire. The peaks that stood pale and severe all afternoon turn rose, then coral, then a deep burning red, and for a few minutes the whole…
Verona – Letters for Juliet
There is a small courtyard in the middle of Verona where several hundred strangers stand at any one time, shoulder to shoulder, looking up at a balcony and thinking about love. It is the Casa di Giulietta, Juliet’s house, though…
Venice – A Candle On The Water
I came into the light rather than out of it, which somehow seems the right way to arrive at an evening in Venice. It was late afternoon, that hour when the sun stops climbing and simply leans, and the whole…
Victoria’s Complete Guide to Venice
There are cities you visit and cities you surrender to, and Venice has only ever belonged to the second kind. It sits on the water as if it had been dreamed rather than built, a hundred and more small islands…
A Candle, and Then the Music – Verona
I had not meant to cry at the opera, and I am fairly sure I was not the only one caught out. We came into Piazza Bra in the last of the evening, when the sky had gone the colour…
Victoria’s Complete Guide to Verona
There are cities that ask you to admire them and cities that simply take you in, and Verona has always belonged, for me, to the second and rarer kind. It sits in a slow bend of the River Adige on…
