On our recent visit we stayed just around the corner from the Piazza di Santa Croce. It became the starting point for several of our walks and the focus of our evening drinking and dining. By day and night the huge basilica, the largest Franciscan church in the world, dominates its eastern side.
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We had spent two days in rather unsettled weather exploring the various sights of Florence, sights I will come back to in future posts. But when the sun appeared on our third day in the city it was time to see it from a different perspective, the far side of the River Arno.
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In the first half of the 19th century a Parisian wanting a good night out might well have headed to the village of Bercy. Ideally positioned on the banks of the Seine, this village had become the centre of the Paris wine trade and a major European market for wines and spirits.
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When you only have one day to explore a city, being ‘small enough to be easily understood’ is a real plus point. And one day was all we had, on this occasion at least. But we really took to Helsinki, so maybe in the future we’ll come back for a more in-depth look.
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Mdina, the former capital of Malta, carries the weight of its long history. Protected by its ancient walls the centre has remained largely untouched by modernity. Winding streets are lined with a mix of baroque and medieval architecture. There are churches and grand palaces interspersed with more modest homes, all of them beautiful.
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Malta’s capital is small but beautiful! Its historic heart sits on a peninsula between two harbours and is protected by a series of fortifications. Inside, the grandeur of many of its buildings reflects the wealth of the Order of Saint John whose Grand Master, Jean de Valette, founded the city to strengthen the Order's position in Malta and bind the Knights to the island.
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Randazzo is the nearest town to the summit of Mount Etna, lying on its northern slopes. Its architecture reflects its location. Many of the older buildings here are constructed from the black lava stone from Etna, giving them a very distinct appearance.
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In planning any trip most of us will have a list of must-sees, the sights that drove us to want to visit in the first place. For us, in the case of the Philippines, those sights included the rice terraces, hanging coffins and the tarsiers of Bohol. Our trip was built around these, but that left plenty of room to see much more.
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Today London is a huge metropolis, but it wasn’t always so, of course. It started as a small Roman settlement on the north bank of the River Thames, Londinium. In 200 AD a wall was built, surrounding and protecting the city. Over the centuries it grew and grew, but that Roman town remained at its heart, the original City of London.
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As in so many other places around the world, Catholicism was introduced to the Philippines by Spanish missionaries and colonisers in the 16th century. It played a crucial role in shaping the country's culture, values, and social structures during the colonial period and beyond. But it wasn’t all one-way traffic.
