by Valerie | Jul 7, 2014 | art, childhood, General interest, history, museums, people, travel
We’ve climbed the tower which the eccentric William Beckford built so he could escape from the social whirl of early 19th-century Bath to contemplate, in solitary brooding, the hills around the city, the Mendip hills of the Neolithic inhabitants long before the... by Valerie | Jun 24, 2014 | art, General interest, history, museums, people, travel, writing a novel
Back at the start of my novel, now with a title but needing a character revision. This is the third revision, and I realise that the first chapter I always thought was so apt, isn’t at all. I need to think it out again. So I found myself contemplating roses on the... by Valerie | Jun 11, 2014 | art, General interest, history, Italy, museums, people, travel
Then the Sistine Chapel. Such is the forced direction that one enters on the wall with Michelangelo’s Last Judgement; it is the way the priests entered under Jonah, a prototype of Christ. We, the lay visitors, should have entered at the other end, to meet under those... by Valerie | Jun 7, 2014 | art, General interest, history, Italy, museums, people, travel
There was nothing for it. We had to join the relentless one-way traffic to end up in the Sistine Chapel, the goal of the masses. People are said to turn up at the museum pointing one index finger towards the other and almost shouting, ‘Where? Where?’ We could,... by Valerie | Jun 4, 2014 | art, General interest, history, Italy, museums, travel
Sarah and I had discussed whether to spend the last night in Rome. Fortunately that plan was abandoned because of the lack of accommodation available and the sky-high prices. Two popes were to be canonised. The journey into Rome proved quicker and easier than... by Valerie | May 28, 2014 | art, General interest, history, Italy, museums, people, travel
Tuscania is off the beaten track, almost a forgotten city. Not too long ago we discovered it by chance when seeking a different route from Rome to Tuscany from the usual one by Lake Bolsena. The name suggested it had been founded by the Etruscans. Inhabited since the...
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