Travel
Wine, Women, and… Willpower by Kate Fuscoe November 2025 ‘A Fimmina‘ Sicily’s Mount Etna – A Muntagna (or A Fimmina, in local dialect) – is female. Maybe it’s because ‘Mamma Etna’ provides wonderfully fertile land, thanks to her rich, volcanic soil, or maybe it’s because there’s an ever-present threat of her erupting. Wine, women… Italian…
In 2020, it will be 250 years since Australia was ‘discovered’ by Captain James Cook. We now know that the land mass was already inhabited with more than 500 Aboriginal tribes. In fact, humans had been here for more than 60,000 years. The First Nations have a tradition of using fire to burn vegetation. Known…
Film director, Federico Fellini, created such masterpieces as La Dolce Vita (winner of the Palme d’Or in 1960), and 8½ (listed by Sight & Sound as the 10th greatest film of all time). And four of Fellini’s films appear in the BBC Culture’s poll to discover the 100 most popular foreign-language films. Fellini Museum In 2020, Rimini celebrated 100 years…
Thanks to its position between East and West, Estonia has often been a battleground. Over the years, Denmark, Germany, Russia, Sweden and Poland have all fought over it. In 1906, when the country was under Russian rule, Louis Kahn’s family moved to the United States. Kahn was five years old. He went on to become one…
When you consider Emilia Romagna, think food. Bologna, Parma, Modena, and Ferrara, are just some of the fabulous foodie destinations to visit. In addition, one of the best food festivals of the year is Emilia Romagna’s lesser-known town of Forlimpopoli. Festa Artusiana is a celebration of the life and works of Pellegrino Artusi, the ‘Father…
One of the best reasons for visiting Liguria (capital, Genoa) is the wonderful food. With its long coastline, the region is renowned for its excellent seafood. Then there are regional products like foccaccia, farinata (a delicious chickpea pancake), Albenga artichokes, salt cod, and, of course, pesto. Pesto championships The capital of the region, Genoa, hosts…
Tokyo, the capital of Japan, is one of the busiest cities in the world – all neon lights and skyscrapers – but hop on a bullet train and within a couple of hours you could be relaxing at an onsen (hot spring) in a green tea bath, in the middle of a forest, with nothing for company but the sound of birdsong…
Listed below (thanks to the Italian Tourist Board) are some of the most interesting Christmas markets in Italy. Naple’s San Gregorio Armeno is one of the best, and is open all year. Via San Gregorio Armeno is an entire street of workshops where you’ll find hand-carved nativity scenes, known as presepe. The wood-carving has been…
An evening with Gennaro Contaldo at Cucina Caldesi proved entertaining as well as useful. One of Gennaro’s rules is to always use seasonal products so, around about now, that includes the pumpkin – three of them in fact: The pumpkin is a member of the plant genus Cucurbita L. and includes squashes, pumpkins, courgettes and…
March 2015 From time to time, the charitable foundation, the Bulldog Trust, opens the charming Two Temple Place for excellent exhibitions. This one is no exception. ‘Cotton to Gold’ brings together some of the extraordinary collections of wealthy philanthropists who made their fortunes in the Industrial North West. The collections were generously loaned by the…