The Georgian town of Signagi (also written Sighnaghi) sits on a hilltop in a position that reminded me of many Italian towns. It still has signifcant remnants of its 18th-century town wall and fortifications.
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I used to smile when I heard retired people say that they didn’t know how they ever found time to work, they were so busy in their retirement. But after this September I know more than ever what they meant! I could barely fit in everything I wanted/needed to do this month even without ‘proper’ work to occupy me.
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When is a natural woodland not a natural woodland? Answer: when it has been carefully designed, landscaped and dotted with follies. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a delight to explore; quite the contrary!
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The Irish author James Joyce lived for many years in the city of Trieste, from 1904-1920 (with a spell in Zurich during WW1). During those last years of the city's Austro-Hungarian glory it was much-loved by Bohemian artists and writers such as Joyce. He moved there when he was just 22 years old and began writing some of his best-known literary works there.
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Have you ever thought about how ropes are made? Or at least, how they were traditionally made? Historically there was great demand for ropes, especially wherever there were ships. And the ropes needed to be long. To make them required space to walk, as strands of the chosen fibre needed to be spread out and twisted together.
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Perched on the top of the Colle di San Giusto near Trieste’s castle stands a tall monument in honour of the fallen soldiers of World War One. The monument, classical in style, features a group of five naked male figures in a dramatic war scene.
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Even as a child time seems to speed up as we near the end of summer; how much more so for us now as adults! It seems no time since I was writing about July; now it is almost September.
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The River Ure skirts the ancient city of Ripon on its eastern side. In the 1770s a canal was built, engineered by William Jessop, to link the river with the city centre. As canals go it was on the short side, just 2.3 miles long and with three locks.
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Every night of the year a horn is blown at the four corners of the obelisk in Ripon’s Market Place to set the ‘watch’. This ceremony has taken place for the last 1,100 years, without fail.
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Early in the 8th century the then bishop of York, John, founded a monastery. When he died in 721 his body was buried in a chapel of the monastery’s Saxon church. In 1037 he was canonised and his monastery, and the town that had grown up around it, became a place of pilgrimage.
