An unabashed tourist and her family explore the world one holiday at a time.
Isn’t it wonderful when travel serendipity conspires to bring you an unexpectedly memorable day? Gareth and I had such a day when we visited the Pantheon while in Rome during a three-week trip to Italy. Not only did we get to see one of the oldest temples in the Eternal City, another relic from Emperor Hadrian’s time, circa 125 AD, but...
One of the stops on our self-guided Demons & Angels tour of Rome, Castel Sant’Angelo has been on my must-see list since the first time I set foot in the Eternal City. The round fortress dominates its surroundings by sheer size and antiquity and I’ve always wanted to know what was going on inside its impressively fortified walls. Built between...
The third book in Lonely Planet’s fantastic travel series, Great Escapes, is just as much of a treat as its two predecessors, Great Journeys and Great Adventures, were. Its subtitle states “Enjoy the world at your leisure”, and that’s exactly what this book is about – short escapes, usually no longer than a week or long weekend getaway, that you can either...
Gareth and I both enjoyed Dan Brown’s bestselling novel Angels and Demons and we’re huge fans of the Tom Hanks film as well. So when we visited Rome, we went out of our way to see some of the Eternal City’s featured sights. Here’s what we found (there might be some spoilers below for those of you unfamiliar with the...
Rome is a crazy, busy, noisy city. But step onto the ancient Via Sacra, past the Arch of Constantine and into the Roman Forum, and you will leave all of that behind. If your imagination is active enough, and you choose one of the side paths not trampled by the hordes of tourists, it is almost like taking a step...
Our first experience of the Colosseum left much to be desired. It was the very first thing we went to see when we arrived in Rome. At 10:00 in the morning, the queue already stretched outside and around the building. Not having bought prepaid tickets, there was nothing for...
Peter Ackroyd’s sumptuous book Venice: Pure City is both evocative and mesmerising. It is a masterpiece of intellectual writing that manages to entertain and inform at the same time and is a wonderful read for anyone interested in the history of the iconic lagoon city. Starting from its very origins when Venice was nothing more than a desolate marsh, Ackroyd paints...
It’s that time of the year again when people tend to sit back and ponder the inevitable passing of time, where we wonder where 2015 went in such a hurry and why we never got the time to do anything we had planned for the year. Inevitably, we still make lists about things we want to do in 2016. With...
The Doge’s Palace, or Palazzo Ducale, is one of the iconic landmarks of the Piazza San Marco in Venice. For years I’ve been appreciating its Gothic architecture from the outside, but this year Gareth and I finally toured the interior as well. If you don’t mind queuing, you...
What does wold-renowned fictional archaeologist Indiana Jones and Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci have in common? As it turns out, the church of San Barnaba in Venice, it seems. Gareth and I, film buffs that we are, wanted to find where X marks the spot in one of our favourite movies, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, so when we had...