Bevagna does not climb. That is the first thing to recalibrate when you roll in from Assisi or Spello expecting another Umbrian ridge town. It sits low on the Topino floodplain, walls wrapping a flat grid, Roman stone still underfoot, and the square that holds the town together feels more like a working room than … Read more
I came to Cholet for a square of red cloth. Not a château. Not a Loire viewpoint. A mouchoir rouge, white cross on red field, still woven inside an old bleach works on the edge of town. The Musée du Textile et de la Mode sits in the former Blanchisserie de la Rivière Sauvageau, built … Read more
Berliners know Brandenburg as a state name on the S-Bahn map. Fewer of them get off the RE1 at Brandenburg Hauptbahnhof and walk toward water that actually runs through the city. I do that on purpose. Brandenburg an der Havel is not a day-trip annex to Sanssouci. It is a working Havel town split across … Read more
St Leonard's Chapel still keeps the fishermen's gate on Smeaton's Pier in St Ives Most first visits to St Ives start the same way: Porthminster sand, a queue for the Tate, a pasty on the Wharf, a photograph of the white lighthouse at the end of the pier. Fair enough. What gets skipped is the … Read more
I went to Verona for the Arena and left talking about a former slaughterhouse. That is not a complaint. Juliet’s courtyard was ten minutes of phones and elbows; twenty minutes later I was under the roof of the Mercato Coperto di Campagna Amica on Via Macello, buying a wedge of Monte Veronese and eating something … Read more
Berlin–Hannover trains treat Magdeburg as a pause between bigger names. I do the opposite. Bags drop near Breiter Weg, then I walk into the pink, crooked courtyards of the Green Citadel before I climb the Dom terrace or follow the Elbe bank. Sachsen-Anhalt’s capital sits on a broad river bend with the Gothic cathedral Otto … Read more