Tourism
The Vatican
The sun has only just risen in Rome and we are standing bleary-eyed in a short queue outside the Vatican.…
Venice
I arrived in Venice believing it would reek of sewage. It didn’t. The walk into the centre went through cobbled…
Cornish and pasty
Mousehole is a charming name; it is almost a charming place. It is a fishing village on Mount’s Bay, Cornwall,…
Signs of contempt
Why do we ruin beautiful places to make them appeal to those who’ll never visit anyway?
Rebooting the Snail
L’Escargot, or the Snail, is a famous restaurant on Greek Street, Soho, opposite the old Establishment club; the oldest French…
Letter from Tel Aviv
‘There’s a dark cloud rising from the desert floor/ I packed my bags and I’m heading straight into the storm/…
Old Harry’s game
Harry’s Bar is a dull pale box. This is remarkable in Venice, which is a hospice for dying palaces, held…
Diary
My wife and I spent the winter in Worcestershire. This allowed me to tell everyone back home in the States:…
How to save elephants
The Duke of Cambridge deserves credit for bringing his influence to bear on the growing tragedy of the elephant, whose…
The lure of Europe
A tour of the Continent was a prerequisite for young Jacobean noblemen training for statesmanship — provided they resisted its corrupting influence, says Blair Worden
Sir Viv and me
Sir Vivian Richards came to watch me play cricket the other day. That’s the sort of sentence you wait a…
Notes on…Normandy
There are some, I know, who for whom Normandy means the three Cs — cider, cream and calvados. But if,…
