How to time travel your way back to Renaissance Florence
The first patrons to pit Raphael and Michelangelo directly against each other were the wealthy Florentine fabric merchant Agnolo Doni and his new young wife, Maddalena Strozzi. Soon after he came to Rome, they commissioned Raphael to paint their portraits against an idyllic Tuscan landscape. At the same time, they commissioned Michelangelo to make what […]
How to explore the ‘lost’ waterways of the Midlands
You should never be in a hurry on the canals. I had nowhere particular to be before nightfall, as long as it offered a pleasant rural view and relative peace. In the end I moored not far above the locks, the M1 a white noise in the background, with a view of fields and oak […]
How to be the sort of tourist Italians love
A friend who lives in the centre of Florence came to dinner the other evening. We got to talking about tourists. “I can’t take it anymore,” she blurted out. “Just getting out of the front door has become an issue… then you queue for ages just to buy a loaf of bread, the prices are […]
How to get a lovely hotel room in Europe for under £150 a night
But it’s not just good food and good times here. Cofoco is serious about its sustainability efforts too. All its restaurants and the hotel are powered from a huge solar park it built out of town, planting a tree for every stay and offering 10 per cent off for guests who arrive by bike. Book […]