by VT | Aug 23, 2018 | General interest, history, Italy, travel
A few years ago I went to the archives of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence to find out when the Tuscan mountainsides were first terraced. I had already walked through every room in the famous picture collection, hoping to find landscape replacing the gold of heaven in... by VT | Aug 10, 2018 | history, Italy
The Lombards moved south from modern-day Hungary in the 7th century A.D. to set up their kingdoms of Benevento and Spoleto. They passed by the Etruscan and later Roman hilltop city of Cortona to rule from a network of castles. Suspicious of cities, they chose to... by VT | Aug 3, 2018 | General interest, history, Italy
Some years ago young summer travellers to Scotland returned tanned on a late summer ferry from Dover to Calais. We were returning from a rainy Tuscan summer and looked at them enviously. One vivid memory was of a visit to Perugia. A host of umbrellas hurried along the... by VT | Jan 31, 2018 | General interest, history, travel
Something was missing. I was looking idly out of the car window at fields unfolding, wide skyscapes, then at the outskirts of a small town. New buildings were thrusting out into prime farmland. There’s a shortage of housing, but I can point out many brownfield sites... by VT | Sep 21, 2017 | history, Italy
Some years ago I was driving across the hills rising above the Tuscan Val di Chiana and passed a large, abandoned church. A few days later I returned to find the 10th-century Abbey of Farneta and Don Felice. The Abbey had lost most of its surrounding buildings by the...
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