Searching for snowscapes we travelled up the mountain to Ještěd at the summit of which stands a futuristic tower designed by the architect Hubáček during the Communist era in 1963 and opened in 1973. It looks like the sort of building one might find on Mars, or at this frozen time of year, perhaps Uranus. […]
bohemia, futuristic architecture, snowscape
Nemi and Lake Nemi below, are in the Alban Hills outside Rome. The village is known for its fantastic views as far as the sea, and for its strawberries both wild and cultivated. Beloved of poets such as Lord Byron and Goethe, and painters like Claude and Turner, it has been a favourite of visitors […]
Diana, Golden Bough, james Frazer
Architecture in Rome thrived under fascism although there were some shocking demolitions involved in order to clear the way for Mussolini’s new Roman Empire. Some projects were halted during the war years and only completed afterwards. Known as Italian Rationalism it is often unfairly derided as ‘fascist architecture’. The most notable building is the edifice […]
fascist architecture
The tragic Marchioness Christina Spartali Cahen Cristina Cahen died, from an overdose of chloral, possibly accidentally, aged 37, in 1884. It was a fashionable drug in artistic circles, both her sister’s husband Stillman and the painter Rossetti, were habitual users. It calmed the nerves, it was also known as a hynotic drug. Thankfully, however, after […]
Cahen, Spartali, Zambaco
The impressive ruins of the Etruscan temple of the Belvedere lie near the funicular station, bounded on one side by St Patrick’s Well and on the other by the road leading out of Orvieto to the Etruscan necropolis of the Cimitero del Crocefisso below the cliffs. Freud would have travelled this road when he visited […]
antique collecting, Freud collection
On his three visits to Orvieto, Freud always stayed in the comfortable Hotel delle Belle Arti on Corso Cavour in the town center, midway between Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele (now Piazza Repubblica) and the central clock tower, La Torre del Moro. There is a plaque. There were then 7,300 inhabitants, about three thousand more than […]
The Roman Road The Val D’Orcia is one of the most famous valleys in the world even though the name itself may not mean much. Tourists have travelled the Roman road called the via Cassia since the 16th century on the Grand Tour, but before them it was trod by pilgrims on their way to […]
Cassia, Francigena, Grand-Tour, Italian hidden treasure, medici, radicofani, Tuscany, William Turner
I started my photography career in the early 1970s so I have thousands of slides and large and medium format transparencies in my archive. Every now and again I need to pull one out and scan one for some reason. Here are a few that I have pulled out from the box. A year in […]
Egypt, transparencies, travel photography