M A RT I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L
M A RT I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L A RT • A R C H I T E C T U R E • G A S T R ONO M Y • A R C H A E OLO G Y • H I S TORY • M U S I C
Voysey House, Barley Mow Passage, London, United Kingdom W4 4GF Telephone 020 8742 3355 Fax 020 8742 7766 info@martinrandall.co.uk Australia: Martin Randall Australasia, PO Box 537, Toowong, QLD 4066 Telephone 1300 55 95 95 Fax 07 3377 0142 anz@martinrandall.com.au New Zealand: Telephone 0800 877 622 Canada: Telephone 647 382 1644 Fax 416 925 2670 canada@martinrandall.ca USA: Telephone 1 800 988 6168
2015
www.martinrandall.com
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M A RT I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L A RT • A R C H I T E C T U R E • G A S T R ONO M Y • A R C H A E OLO G Y • H I S TOR Y • M U S I C
2015
& October–December 2014
M A RT I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L A RT • A R C H I T E C T U R E • G A S T R ONO M Y • A R C H A E OLO G Y • H I S TOR Y • M U S I C
Dear traveller, Most businesses aspire to be different. Not all – some seem to aspire to be like us – but a distinctive identity, recognisable and enduring, is something most of us try to nurture. Yet businesses must change, because the world around us changes. I am haunted by the prospect of waking up one day to find that what we have been creating for over a quarter of a century is oldfashioned, unappealing, fading. Meanwhile we continue to grow, the number of our clients increases and we remain the market leader in cultural tours and events. While maintaining the essentials of what we do, we constantly introduce changes. These may be new destinations – China is added to our range in 2015, after years of research and months of staff time spent there, and Latin America returns after a fifteen-year absence. Or changes may be small and scarcely noticeable adjustments to itineraries we have run before. There are around twenty tours which could be categorised as new – The Lukas Cranachs, Constable & Gainsborough, Vienna & Budapest 1900 and Palaces of Piedmont are among them – but there are over two hundred other tours which are repeats or revivals; all of them have been tweaked or amended to some degree. Some changes are superficial, merely affecting the design of our publicity material. Merely? – our brochures are widely regarded as our most distinctive asset. Eschewing photography in favour of black and white engravings was certainly innovatory. Are we putting our distinctiveness in danger this year by bursting into colour with the addition of Edwardian watercolours? An odd coincidence is worth reporting: our designer unwittingly chose for the front cover a lithograph from the set which twenty-five years ago first gave me the idea of using prints. Happy reading and even happier travelling. Yours sincerely,
Martin Randall June 2014
Front cover: Florence, the Badia, details of the portal (1495), lithograph by Valfredo Vizzotto c. 1930. Back cover: Schloss Schönbrunn, mid-20th-century etching by Luigi Kasimir. All the illustrations reproduced in this brochure are in the Martin Randall Travel collection.
Voysey House, Barley Mow Passage, London, UK, W4 4GF Telephone 020 8742 3355 Fax 020 8742 7766 info@martinrandall.co.uk
www.martinrandall.com
Australia: telephone 1300 55 95 95 New Zealand: telephone 0800 877 622 anz@martinrandall.com.au Canada: telephone 647 382 1644 canada@martinrandall.ca USA: telephone 1 800 988 6168
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Directors: Martin Randall (Chief Executive), Sir Vernon Ellis (Chairman), Ian Hutchinson, Neil Taylor, Fiona Urquhart • Registered office: Voysey House, Barley Mow Passage, London W4 4GF. Registered Company no. 2314294 England. VAT no. 527758803
Gastronomic Campania....................... 154 Peru........................................................... 175
October 2015 1– 5 The Venetian Hills (mc 479) Dr Joachim Strupp....................................118 1– 7 Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes (mc 471) Steven Desmond.......................116 1–10 Provence & Languedoc (mc 486) Dr Alexandra Gajewski............................ 76 3–10 Athens & Rome (mc 487) Professor Roger Wilson........................... 150 3–18 Eastern Turkey (mc 472) Rowena Loverance................................... 206 4–10 Art in the Netherlands (mc 488) Dr Guus Sluiter........................................ 172 5–10 Friuli-Venezia Giulia (mc 481) Dr Joachim Strupp................................... 119 5–11 Malta (mc 490) Juliet Rix....................... 165 5–12 Courts of Northern Italy (mc 476) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott...................... 125 5–13 Roman Algeria (mc 477) Anthony Sattin........................................... 16 5–16 Ancient Egypt (mc 489) Professor John Ray..................................... 41 5–17 Sicily (mc 475) Dr Philippa Joseph....... 156 5–18 The Western Balkans (mc 474) David Gowan............................................. 28 7–22 Ethiopia (mc 485) Jacopo Gnisci.............................................. 64 8–17 New England Modern (mc 478) Dr Harry Charrington............................ 209 10–21 Cliff Dwellings & Canyons (mc 480) John M. Fritz............................................ 213 12–17 Pompeii & Herculaneum (mc 484) Professor Roger Wilson......................... 151 12–19 Caravaggio (mc 482) Dr Helen Langdon................................... 147 12–20 Palestine (mc 483) Dr Felicity Cobbing...................................174 13–22 Israel & Palestine (mc 492) Dr Garth Gilmour.....................................111 14–18 Ravenna & Urbino (mc 491) Dr Luca Leoncini..................................... 127 19–25 Gastronomic Sicily (mc 499) Marc Millon.............................................. 161 19–28 Castile & León (mc 500) Gijs van Hensbergen................................ 188 19–29 Essential Andalucía (mc 501) Adam Hopkins......................................... 196 25– 2 Essential Jordan (mc 506) Sue Rollin & Jane Streetly....................... 164 Music in London....................................... 58 Paris Masterpieces................................... 69 Parma Verdi Festival............................. 131 Walking to Assisi.................................... 143 Opera in Cardiff..................................... 216
3– 8 3– 9 4–15 10–14 11–15 17–21
Connoisseur’s Rome (mc 519) Dr Kevin Childs....................................... 149 Essential Rome (mc 521) Christopher Newall................................. 145 Art in Texas (mc 520) Gijs van Hensbergen................................ 212 Valencia (mc 522) Adam Hopkins........ 194 Florentine Palaces (mc 523) Dr Joachim Strupp................................... 134 Venetian Palaces (mc 530) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott...................... 122
December 2015 We will run about seven or eight tours over Christmas and New Year. Details will be available in the spring of 2015. Please contact us to register your interest.
Section of a column designed by Andrea Palladio, engraving c. 1840.
November 2015 2– 6 2–10 2–14
MONTEVERDI’S OPERAS IN VENICE............................................. 123 Roman Algeria (mc 517) Barnaby Rogerson...................................... 16 Sicily (mc 518) Dr Ffiona Gilmore Eaves........................ 156
TOURS BY DATE
Above: monastry in Northern Greece, engraving 1891.
6–10 Connoisseur’s London (mc 445) Various lecturers & guides....................... 59 6–12 Walking Hadrian’s Wall (mc 429) Graeme Stobbs............................................ 50 7–13 French Gothic (mc 430) Dr Alexandra Gajewski............................ 67 7–13 History of Medicine (mc 431) Professor Helen King & Dr Luca Leoncini................................. 133 7–14 Bohemia (mc 426) Michael Ivory........... 36 7–14 Bilbao to Bayonne (mc 427) Gijs van Hensbergen................................ 186 7–15 Berlin, Potsdam, Dresden (mc 458) Dr Jarl Kremeier........................................ 85 7–21 The Iron Curtain (mc 432) Neil Taylor.................................................. 86 8–19 Walking to Santiago (mc 428) Adam Hopkins & Gaby Macphedran... 184 8–21 Essential China (mc 452) Dr Jamie Greenbaum................................ 30 10–13 In Churchill’s Footsteps (mc 453) Terry Charman.......................................... 58 10–15 Palladian Villas (mc 433) Professor Fabrizio Nevola....................... 120 10–16 St Petersburg (mc 438) Dr Alexey Makhrov................................. 180 12–23 Morocco (mc 466) James Brown.......... 169 13–19 Istanbul (mc 436) Jane Taylor............... 202 14–21 The Greeks in Sicily (mc 441) Professor Tony Spawforth....................... 159 14–23 Great Houses of the North (mc 437) Gail Bent..................................................... 43 15–21 Connoisseur’s Prague (mc 439) Michael Ivory.............................................. 37 15–22 The Heart of Italy (mc 448) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott...................... 142 16–20 Art in Madrid (mc 449) Gail Turner... 187 17–23 Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes (mc 440) Steven Desmond.......................116 19–28 Classical Greece (mc 435) Dr Andrew Farrington.............................. 97 21–27 Walking a Royal River (mc 450) Dr Paul Atterbury...................................... 51 21–28 Granada & Córdoba (mc 442) Dr David McGrath.................................. 199 21– 3 Sicily (mc 465) Dr Luca Leoncini......... 156 22–29 Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur (mc 434) Lydia Bauman........................... 81 22–29 Dark Age Brilliance (mc 443) Dr Ffiona Gilmore Eaves........................ 126 22– 2 Samarkand & Silk Road Cities (mc 457) Dr Peter Webb.......................................... 215 23–30 Essential Puglia (mc 446) Christopher Newall................................... 15 24– 1 Barcelona 1900 (mc 447) Gijs van Hensbergen................................ 193 26– 4 Sardinia (mc 468) Dr R. T. Cobianchi................................... 155 28– 2 THE DIVINE OFFICE........................... 52 28– 3 Pompeii & Herculaneum (mc 467) Dr Mark Grahame................................... 151 29– 7 Aragón (mc 469) Adam Hopkins......... 190 30– 4 Siena & San Gimignano (mc 470) Dr Antonia Whitley................................ 136 Haydn in Eisenstadt................................. 23
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Britain’s leading provider of cultural tours We select our lecturers through reputation, interview and audition, and provide them with guidance and training. Many of them are the leading experts in their field. Nearly all of our tours are also accompanied by a trained tour manager, one of our staff or a freelance professional.
Original itineraries, meticulously planned Rooted in knowledge of the destination and subject matter of the tour, the outcome of assiduous research and reconnaissance, and underpinned by twenty-five years of experience, our itineraries are second to none.
Leaders in the field At Martin Randall Travel we aim to provide the best planned, best led and altogether the most fulfilling and enjoyable cultural tours available. In the areas of the world where we operate – Britain, Europe, the Middle East, India, China and the Americas – we offer an unequalled range of tours and events focusing on art, architecture, music, archaeology, history, literature and gastronomy. They are designed for people with enquiring minds and a desire to learn, to understand and to enhance their appreciation. For most of our twenty-five years we have been the dominating force in intellectual travel. Inventive, pioneering and innovative – and widely imitated – we have led the way not only with new ideas and itineraries but also by setting the benchmark for customer service and administration. Martin Randall Travel is one of the most respected travel companies in the world.
First-rate lecturers Expert speakers are a key ingredient in nearly all our tours and events. Academics, curators, writers, broadcasters and researchers, they are selected not only for their knowledge but also for their ability to communicate clearly and engagingly to a lay audience. Their brief is to enlighten and stimulate, not merely to inform. And they also have to be good travelling companions. Top: Monreale Cathedral, engraving c. 1870. Centre: Paris, l’Arc de Triomphe, engraving c. 1880. Right: El Tajín, Pyramid of the Niches and pyramid at Tuxpan, engraving c. 1850.
We invest similar efforts into the selection of restaurants, menus and wines. For flights and trains we try to choose the most convenient departure times. Rail journeys are usually in first-class carriages. We can provide a holiday without the international flights or trains if you prefer, allowing you to make your own arrangements for international travel. It is also usually possible to make other variations to the package. (There is an administration fee for this, from £40.)
They are original and imaginative, well-paced and carefully balanced, while meticulous attention to practical matters ensures a smooth-running as well as an enriching experience. To our large and complex events, principally our all-inclusive music festivals, we bring organisational skills of a high order. Special arrangements for admission to places not generally open to travellers, or for access at times when they are closed to the public, are a feature of nearly all our tours. In innumerable ways, large and small, we lift our clients’ experience far above standards which are regarded as normal for tourists.
Small groups, and congenial company
Travelling in comfort
Most of our tours run with between ten and twenty participants. We strictly limit numbers, specifying the maximum in each tour description, which is rarely more than twenty-two and often fewer. Walking tours have a maximum of eighteen.
We select our hotels with great care. Not only have they all been inspected by members of our staff, we have stayed in most of them. Hundreds of others have been seen and rejected. Obviously comfort ranks high among our criteria, together with good service and warmth of welcome. We also set high priority on charm and style, and location is also an important consideration, with a preference for the historic town centre. Most of the hotels we use are rated as 4-star, with some 5-star and a few 3-star.
The higher costs of smaller numbers are outweighed by the benefits of manoeuvrability, social cohesion and access to the lecturer. The small-group principle is diluted when there are private concerts arranged by ourselves exclusively for our clients. Not the least attractive aspect of travelling with MRT is that you are highly likely to find yourself in congenial company, self-selected by common interests and endorsement of the company’s ethos.
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‘A beautifully organised, thoroughly enjoyable, culturally uplifting and educationally enriching tour: all we had hoped for and so much more!’
What is included? Included in the price for every tour: • The services of the lecturer and often a tour manager; sometimes also local guides • Hotel accommodation, as described in the brochure or on the website • All admissions to museums, galleries and sites included in the itinerary • If a music tour, good tickets to all performances listed on the itinerary (unless marked as optional) • Travel by private coach for excursions included in the itinerary and, where applicable, airport transfers • Wine or beer, water, soft drinks and tea or coffee are provided with all included meals • Gratuities for restaurant staff, porters, drivers and guides • All state and airport taxes • For tours outside the UK, return travel between London and the destination – with only the occasional exception • If you are travelling with the group, and there is a group visa arrangement, this is also included in the tour price
Care for our clients
Travelling solo
We aim for faultless administration from your first encounter with us to the end of the holiday, and beyond. Personal service is a feature. And if anything does go wrong, we will put it right or compensate appropriately. We want you to come back again and again – as most of our clients do.
We welcome solo travellers. Our tours are ideal for people who are on their own, as so many of our clients testify. Often there are several solo participants on a tour, but no one need fear feeling excluded, and the small numbers (maximum group size is 22) ensure better social cohesion and access to the lecturer. Furthermore, on the few evenings when dinner is not included there is always the option of dining with the tour manager.
We never forget our clients are responsible adults, deserving of respect and courtesy at all times.
Value for money, and no surcharges The price includes nearly everything, not only the major ingredients such as hotel, transport and the costs of the lecturer but also tips for waiters, drivers and guides, wine with meals, airport taxes and credit card charges.
Regrettably, hotels usually charge a supplement for single occupancy of a room, but we never add anything to this – indeed, most of the supplements we charge are subsidised by ourselves, sometimes by hundreds of pounds. Where we are able to, we assign those travelling on their own to rooms which are normally sold as doubles.
We do not levy surcharges for fuel price increases, exchange rate changes, additional taxes or for any other reason. The price published here is the price you pay.
Full details for each tour can also be found on our website, www.martinrandall.com.
Verona, tomb of Cansignorio della Scala, 18th-century engraving.
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‘The choice of itinerary, the lecturer and tour manager, the hotel and the administration before the tour were excellent.’
Fitness and age
Stalls in the Theatre in Athens, wood engraving from Greek Pictures, publ. 1890.
Ours are active holidays, with walking an unavoidable element. They are also group events, which means that participants need to move around together at a pace which is comfortable for the majority. The amount of walking varies. On some tours there is a lot on streets that are steep or poorly paved, on others you may need to scramble over fallen masonry and very uneven ground. More usually it is just a case of getting from one place to another within an urban area. Coaches can rarely enter the centres of historic cities or get right to the entrance of a country house or concert hall. Like a convoy, groups move at the pace of the slowest. Slow walkers reduce the time at the places everyone has come to see. Our tours should not present problems for anyone who manages everyday walking and stair-climbing without difficulty. But please consult us if you have any doubts about your ability to cope. If for any stage, including the airports, you would like the use of a wheelchair then these holidays are unlikely to be suitable for you. It is also unlikely that you would cope if you habitually use a walking stick. Age limit. We regret that applications for smallgroup tours from people who would be aged eighty-one or over at the time of the tour will not be accepted. We know this is a harsh and somewhat arbitrary rule but for fifteen years it has virtually eliminated instances of tours being spoilt for the majority because of the inability of one or two individuals to cope. There is no age limit for our own large-scale music festivals because there is more opportunity to move at your own pace, though the same fitness criteria apply. And there is no limit for our UK chamber music weekends and symposia.
Walking tours We do have some tours which are designated as walking tours and offer countryside hikes as an integral ingredient. An indication of the walking involved on each of these tours, with details about distances and terrain, is included in each tour description, and we ask that you read this carefully before making a booking. As a rough guide here are walking tours by strenuousness, with the most strenuous first: Walking to Santiago (page 184) Walking to Assisi (page 143) Walking Hadrian’s Wall (page 50) Walking the Rhine Valley (page 88) Walking in the Footsteps of Leonardo & Michelangelo (page 140) Walking the Danube (page 23) Walking a Royal River (page 51) Walking & Country Houses in Derbyshire (page 54) Literature & Walking in the Lake District (page 53) Jordan Revisited (page 162)
On all of these, participants need to be well used to country walking and have a good level of fitness and balance. There are ascents and descents, climbs over stiles and terrain which can be uneven, loose, slippery or muddy. Appropriate footwear and clothing are essential. Only in weather conditions which are so extreme as to be dangerous would a walk be cancelled.
Responsible Tourism Many of our tours feature visits to towns and villages off the beaten tourist trail, enabling you to experience local traditions and practices. We also strive to limit our impact on the environment. Our itineraries are designed to spend more time in places visited than on conventional tours; this often means there are days without travel. Martin Randall Travel contributes to Beyond Carbon, a travel industry scheme that assists development projects that encourage carbon savings (beyond-carbon.com). We make a donation to offset all the carbon in flights every time a lecturer, tour manager or member of staff takes a flight for a tour or a prospecting trip. You can choose to donate too, when you book online or pay your final invoice. Our policy is published on our website: martinrandall.com/responsible-tourism.
Financial security The Association of Independent Tour Operators. Martin Randall Travel Ltd is a member of AITO, an association of specialist travel companies most of which are independent and owner-managed.
Admission is selective, and members are subject to a code of practice which prescribes high standards of professionalism and customer care. To contact the Association visit www.aito.co.uk or call 020 8744 9280. ABTA – The Travel Association. Martin Randall Travel Ltd is a Member of the Association of British Travel Agents (membership number Y6050). ABTA and ABTA members help holidaymakers to get the most from their travel and assist them when things do not go according to plan. We are obliged to maintain a high standard of service to you by ABTA’s Code of Conduct. For further information about ABTA, the Code of Conduct and the arbitration scheme available to you if you have a complaint, contact ABTA, 30 Park Street, London SE1 9EQ. www. abta.com. ATOL. All the flight-inclusive holidays in this brochure are financially protected by the ATOL (Air Transport Operators’ Licence) scheme. When you make your first payment you will be supplied with an ATOL Certificate. Please check to ensure that everything you booked is listed on it. For more information about financial protection and the ATOL Certificate go to www.atol.org. uk/ATOLCertificate. In the unlikely event of our insolvency, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) will ensure that you are not stranded abroad and will arrange to refund any money you have paid us for an advance booking. See our booking conditions (page 218) for further details. Financial protection for holidays that do not include a flight is provided by a bond held with ABTA. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Tours by country Egypt Antiquities of Upper Egypt................................... 40 Ancient Egypt........................................................... 41
Denmark The Vikings............................................................... 41
England
Hampton Court, Great Hall, watercolour by E.W. Haslehurst, publ. 1930.
For a list of tours by date, see pages 221–223.
Algeria Roman Algeria......................................................... 16
Austria Music in Vienna at Christmas.............................. 18 Opera in Vienna....................................................... 19 Vienna’s Masterpieces............................................ 20 Connoisseur’s Vienna............................................. 21 The Ring in Vienna................................................. 22 THE DANUBE MUSIC FESTIVAL.................... 23 Summer Opera in Austria..................................... 23 Innsbruck Early Music Festival............................ 23 The Schubertiade..................................................... 23 Haydn in Eisenstadt................................................ 23 Mozart in Salzburg................................................. 24 The Iron Curtain...................................................... 86 Vienna & Budapest 1900...................................... 101
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The Iron Curtain...................................................... 86 Vienna & Budapest 1900...................................... 101 The Budapest Spring Festival.............................. 102
The Baltic States....................................................... 62
Finland
Ethiopia..................................................................... 64
The Western Balkans.............................................. 28
Finland: Aalto & Others........................................ 66 Savonlinna Opera.................................................... 67 The Sibelius Festival................................................ 67
China
France
The Western Balkans.............................................. 28
Czech Republic Bohemia..................................................................... 36 Prague Spring........................................................... 37 Connoisseur’s Prague............................................. 37 Moravia...................................................................... 39 The Iron Curtain...................................................... 86
Germany
Estonia
Flemish Painting..................................................... 25 Agincourt, Crécy & Waterloo............................... 26 Flanders Fields......................................................... 27
Croatia
Georgia....................................................................... 83 THE DANUBE MUSIC FESTIVAL.................... 23 Music in Berlin . ...................................................... 83 Berlin, Potsdam, Dresden..................................... 85 Art & Music in Dresden......................................... 86 The Iron Curtain...................................................... 86 THE RHINE VALLEY MUSIC FESTIVAL...... 88 Walking the Rhine Valley...................................... 88 Handel in Halle........................................................ 88 Mediaeval Saxony.................................................... 89 Mitteldeutschland................................................... 90 THE JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH JOURNEY.................................................... 91 Dresden & Meissen.................................................. 91 Organs of Bach’s Time............................................ 91 The Lukas Cranachs................................................ 92 Opera in Munich & Bregenz................................. 93 Munich at Christmas.............................................. 94 Baroque & Rococo................................................... 95 King Ludwig II......................................................... 96
Ethiopia
Essential China........................................................ 30 Chinese Ceramics . ................................................. 32 China’s Silk Road Cities......................................... 33 Ming & Qing Civilization...................................... 34
Georgia
Great Houses of the North.................................... 43 Great Houses of the South West........................... 44 Broughton Hall........................................................ 45 At Home in Weston Park....................................... 46 West Country Churches......................................... 47 Constable & Gainsborough................................... 48 The Age of Bede........................................................ 49 Walking Hadrian’s Wall........................................ 50 Music in the Regions............................................... 51 Walking a Royal River............................................ 51 THE DIVINE OFFICE.......................................... 52 Literature & Walking in the Lake District......... 53 Walking & Country Houses in Derbyshire....... 54 The Cathedrals of England.................................... 54 CHAMBER MUSIC WEEKENDS...................... 56 The Endellion String Quartet I Fagiolini The Leonore Piano Trio A Weekend of Mozart Easter at The Castle SYMPOSIUM: Nineteen-Fourteen..................... 57 In Churchill’s Footsteps ........................................ 58 Music in London...................................................... 58 Connoisseur’s London .......................................... 59 London’s Masterpieces........................................... 60 LONDON DAYS...................................................... 61 The London Backstreet Walk Stained Glass
Belgium
Bosnia & Herzegovina
Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur........................... 81 Opera in Marseille & Lyon.................................... 82 Bilbao to Bayonne.................................................. 186
Agincourt, Crécy & Waterloo............................... 26 French Gothic........................................................... 67 Mediaeval Art in Paris........................................... 68 Paris Masterpieces................................................... 69 History of Impressionism...................................... 69 Ballet in Paris........................................................... 70 Brittany...................................................................... 71 Poets & The Somme................................................. 72 The Western Front................................................... 73 Mediaeval Burgundy...............................................74 Roman & Mediaeval Provence.............................. 75 Provence & Languedoc........................................... 76 Cave Art of France................................................... 78 Gardens of the Riviera............................................ 79
book online at www.martinrandall.com
Greece Classical Greece....................................................... 97 Central Macedonia.................................................. 99 Minoan Crete.......................................................... 100
Guatemala Lands of the Maya................................................. 167
Hungary
India Essential India........................................................ 103 Painted Palaces of Rajasthan.............................. 105 Indian Summer...................................................... 107 The Indian Mutiny................................................ 109 Assam by River....................................................... 109 Temples of Tamil Nadu........................................ 109 Sacred India............................................................ 109
Iran Persia........................................................................ 110
Israel Israel & Palestine....................................................111
Italy Palaces of Piedmont.............................................. 113 Opera & Art in Turin & Milan........................... 113 Gastronomic Piedmont.........................................114 Genoa & Turin........................................................ 115 Opera in Genoa.......................................................116 Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes................116 The Venetian Hills..................................................118
‘The tour exceeded our exceptions and we are recommending MRT to our friends.’
Friuli-Venezia Giulia............................................ 119 Palladian Villas...................................................... 120 Verona Opera......................................................... 121 Venice & Florence.................................................. 121 Venetian Palaces.................................................... 122 MONTEVERDI’S OPERAS IN VENICE....... 123 Venice Revisited..................................................... 124 The Information Revolution............................... 124 Courts of Northern Italy...................................... 125 Dark Age Brilliance.............................................. 126 Ravenna & Urbino................................................. 127 Gastronomic Emilia-Romagna.......................... 128 The Po Valley.......................................................... 130 Parma Verdi Festival............................................ 131 Florence................................................................... 131 History of Medicine.............................................. 133 Leonardo da Vinci................................................. 133 Florentine Palaces................................................. 134 Florence Revisited................................................. 135 Siena & San Gimignano....................................... 136 Lucca......................................................................... 137 Torre del Lago......................................................... 138 Walking in Southern Tuscany............................ 138 Walking in the Footsteps of Leonardo & Michelangelo............................... 140 Piero della Francesca............................................ 141 The Heart of Italy................................................... 142 Walking to Assisi................................................... 143 Art in Le Marche.................................................... 143 Trasimeno Music Festival.................................... 144 Opera in Macerata & Pesaro............................... 144 Essential Rome....................................................... 145 Gardens & Villas of Campagna Romana......... 146 Caravaggio.............................................................. 147 Ancient Rome......................................................... 148 Connoisseur’s Rome............................................. 149 CHAMBER MUSIC WEEKENDS.................... 149 Athens & Rome...................................................... 150 Pompeii & Herculaneum..................................... 151 Naples....................................................................... 151 Normans in the South.......................................... 152 Essential Puglia...................................................... 153 Gastronomic Campania....................................... 154 Sardinia.................................................................... 155 Sicily......................................................................... 156 Palermo at Christmas........................................... 158 The Greeks in Sicily............................................... 159 Gastronomic Sicily................................................ 161
Malta Malta......................................................................... 165 Valletta Baroque Festival..................................... 166
Mexico Lands of the Maya................................................. 167
Morocco Morocco................................................................... 169 Andalusian Morocco............................................ 170
Netherlands THE RHINE VALLEY MUSIC FESTIVAL...... 88 Walking the Rhine Valley...................................... 88 Art in the Netherlands......................................... 172 The Renewed Rijksmuseum................................ 173
Oman Oman........................................................................ 173
Palestine Israel & Palestine....................................................111 Palestine...................................................................174
Peru Peru........................................................................... 175
Portugal Lisbon Neighbourhoods...................................... 176 Gardens of Northern Portugal........................... 177 The Douro............................................................... 178
Romania Monasteries of Moldavia...................................... 179
Russia St Petersburg........................................................... 180
Scotland Ardgowan................................................................ 182 Edinburgh Festival................................................ 182
Slovenia Spain
Lithuania
Switzerland
Jordan Jordan Revisited..................................................... 162 Essential Jordan..................................................... 164
Latvia
The Baltic States....................................................... 62
Istanbul.................................................................... 202 Classical Turkey..................................................... 203 Gallipoli................................................................... 204 Central Anatolia.................................................... 204 Eastern Turkey....................................................... 206
USA East Coast Galleries.............................................. 208 New England Modern........................................... 209 Frank Lloyd Wright.............................................. 210 Art in Texas............................................................. 212 Cliff Dwellings & Canyons.................................. 213
Uzbekistan Samarkand & Silk Road Cities........................... 215
Wales Opera in Cardiff..................................................... 216 Snowdonia & Anglesey......................................... 217
The Lucerne Piano Festival................................. 201 The Lucerne Summer Festival............................ 201
Booking details Making a booking......................................218 Booking Conditions..................................218 Booking Form............................................219
This brochure was produced in-house. Most of the text was written originally by Martin Randall and all staff were involved in editing and proofing, as was Julia MacRae. Lecturers also contributed. It was designed by Jo Murray. Derek Brown (Harvest Media Ltd.) prepared this brochure for our printers (Purbrooks, Wimbledon).
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tours by country
The Baltic States....................................................... 62
Art in Japan............................................................. 162
Turkey
The Iron Curtain...................................................... 86 The Road to Santiago............................................ 183 Walking to Santiago............................................. 184 Bilbao to Bayonne.................................................. 186 Art in Madrid......................................................... 187 Castile & León........................................................ 188 Aragón..................................................................... 190 Gastronomic Catalonia........................................ 191 Barcelona 1900....................................................... 193 Valencia.................................................................... 194 Extremadura........................................................... 195 Essential Andalucía.............................................. 196 Andalucía................................................................ 198 Granada & Córdoba.............................................. 199 Gastronomic Andalucía....................................... 200
Japan
A buddhist shrine in Japan, watercolour by Ella Du Cane, publ. 1913.
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Our lecturers Tom Abbott. Specialist in architectural history from the Baroque to the 20th century with a particular interest in German and American modern. Studied Art History in the USA and Paris and has a wide knowledge of the performing arts. Since 1987 he has lived in Berlin. Professor James Allan. Expert in Islamic art and architecture. He read Arabic at Oxford, worked as a field archaeologist in Jerusalem and at Siraf, and spent most of his career in Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, where he also lectured for the Faculty of Oriental Studies. He retired in 2011. Charles Allen. British writer and historian born in India where several generations of his family served under the British Raj. He has published numerous books, most recently Ashoka: The Search for India’s Lost Emperor, and in 2012 filmed a documentary for National Geographic entitled Unearthing the Bones of the Buddha. ©Bill Knight
Dr Paul Atterbury. Lecturer, writer and broadcaster specialising in the art, architecture and design of the 19th and 20th centuries. He has published widely on pottery, porcelain, canals, railways, and the Thames. He curated the V&A exhibitions Pugin and The Victorian Vision and is an expert on BBC’s Antiques Roadshow.
Helena Attlee. Writer and lecturer with an expert knowledge of Italian gardens. Among her books are Italian Gardens: a Cultural History and most recently The Land Where Lemons Grow. She was Writer in Residence at the University of Worcester from 2009–2012 and is a Consultant Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund. Dr Paul Bahn. Archaeologist and Britain’s foremost specialist in prehistoric art. He led the team which discovered Britain’s only known Ice Age cave art at Creswell in 2003 and his books include Prehistoric Rock Art, Journey Through the Ice Age and Images of the Ice Age (forthcoming). Dr Amira Bennison. Reader in the History and Culture of the Maghrib and a Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge. She gained her doctorate in Moroccan history from SOAS and her books include Jihad and its Interpretations in Precolonial Morocco. She has written widely on the culture, society and politics of Islamic Spain and Morocco.
Gail Bent. Expert on British architectural history and historic interiors. She studied at Toronto and Leeds Universities, where she has also taught, and Edinburgh College of Art. She lectures for The Art Fund, The National Trust, NADFAS and has acted as an expert on country houses for BBC television. Raaja Bhasin. Author, historian and journalist. He has published several books on the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh and its capital Shimla and is a recognised authority on both. He is the state Co-convenor of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage. Dr Flavio Boggi. Art historian specialising in mediaeval and renaissance Italian art. He trained both in Scotland and Italy and is now head of the department of Art History at University College Cork, Ireland. He has published on the artistic culture of Tuscany and has co-written two books on Lippo di Dalmasio. Monica Bohm-Duchen. Lecturer, writer and curator specialising in 20th-century art. She obtained her MA in Art History from the Courtauld and has lectured for the National Gallery, Tate, Royal Academy, Courtauld, Sotheby’s and Birkbeck College. Her latest book Art and the Second World War was published in 2013.
our lecturers
Dr Xavier Bray. Art historian specialising in Spain. He is Chief Curator of Dulwich Picture Gallery where his recent exhibitions include Murillo & Justino de Neve: The Art of Friendship. He was formerly at the National Gallery, London, where he curated Velázquez and The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting and Sculpture 1600–1700.
Left: from The Foreign Tour of Brown, Jones & Robinson, publ. 1904.
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‘The lecturer’s knowledge of the subject of the tour is encyclopaedic and this with his engaging manner made the tour a wonderful cultural experience.’ James Brown. Historian specialising in Morocco with a wider interest in the history of the Muslim world. He studied at Oxford, Cambridge and SOAS and has worked as a journalist and teacher. His current research is on the relations between Morocco and Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. Polly Buston. Art historian specialising in Venetian art. She obtained her MA from the Courtauld and lectured at their Summer School for several years. She works for art history publishers as editor and picture researcher and was co-author of Titian’s Venice, a multi-media project accompanying the 2003 National Gallery exhibition. Professor Ian CampbellRoss. Historian and lecturer. He is Emeritus Professor of EighteenthCentury Studies and a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin. He has written widely on literature, cultural history, and travel, most recently Umbria: a Cultural Guide (2013). He was made a Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia in 2007.
©Bill Knight
Dr Harry Charrington. Architect and Principal Lecturer in architecture at the University of Westminster with a focus on modernism. He read architecture at Cambridge and obtained his PhD from the LSE. He wrote the award-winning Alvar Aalto: the Mark of the Hand. In September he becomes Head of Architecture at Westminster.
Dr Felicity Cobbing. Executive and Curator of the Palestine Exploration Fund in London. She has excavated in Jordan with the British Museum, and worked throughout the Middle East. Widely published on the archaeology in the Levant, she is co-author with Dr Raouf Sa’d Abujabber of Beyond the River – Ottoman Transjordan in Original Photographs. Dr R. T. Cobianchi. Art historian and lecturer. He completed his PhD at Warwick University, was a Rome Scholar at The British School in Rome and was fellow of both the Biblioteca Hertziana, Rome, and Villa I Tatti, Florence. His research includes iconography and patronage of the late Middle Ages to the Baroque. Peter Cormack. Art historian and curator. He is the Honorary Curator of William Morris’s Oxfordshire home, Kelmscott Manor, and was formerly Keeper of the William Morris Gallery, London. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and Vice-President and Honorary Fellow of the British Society of Master Glass-Painters. Major Gordon Corrigan mbe. Military historian and former officer of the Royal Gurkha Rifles. The latest of his numerous books is Waterloo – A New History of the Battle and its Armies.
Imogen Corrigan. Specialist in Anglo-Saxon and mediaeval history. She spent twenty years in the army, retiring in the rank of Major, then obtained a firstclass degree in Medieval History from the University of Kent, and has been studying and lecturing ever since. Imogen is currently researching a PhD at the University of Birmingham. Steven Desmond. Landscape consultant, architectural historian and a specialist in the conservation of historic parks and gardens. He broadcasts for the BBC, advises the National Trust, writes for Country Life, lectures at Buckingham and Oxford universities and is a Fellow of the Institute of Horticulture. Misha Donat. Writer, lecturer and senior music producer for BBC Radio 3 for more than 25 years. He writes programme notes for Wigmore Hall and other venues, and CD booklets for many labels. Currently he is working on a new edition of the Beethoven piano sonatas being published by Bärenreiter. Dr Michael Douglas-Scott. Associate Lecturer in History of Art at Birkbeck College, specialising in 16th-century Italian art and architecture. He studied at the Courtauld and lived in Rome for several years. He has written articles for Arte Veneta, Burlington Magazine and the Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes. Dr Michael Downes. Director of Music at the University of St Andrews. He is a reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement and his publications include a study of British composer Jonathan Harvey. He has an interest in opera both as conductor and writer, and has lectured for companies including the Royal Opera and Glyndebourne.
our lecturers
Terry Charman. Senior Historian at the Imperial War Museum where his many projects and exhibitions include The Churchill Museum, Holocaust exhibition, and D-Day to Victory exhibition. He gives frequent lectures and is an authority on the Battle of Britain and the Blitz.
Dr Kevin Childs. Writer and lecturer on culture and the arts with a focus on the Italian Renaissance. He obtained his doctorate from the Courtauld and has been a Fellow of the Dutch Institute in Florence and the British School in Rome. He blogs for Huffington Post and has published in The New Statesman.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society and a Member of the British Commission for Military History.
©Bill Knight
Jon Cannon. Writer, lecturer and broadcaster whose research focuses on English cathedrals. He teaches in the Art History department at Bristol University and co-wrote and presented the BBC’s How to Build a Cathedral. His book The Secret Language of Sacred Spaces was published in 2013.
Professor Dawn Chatty. Professor of Anthropology and Forced Migration at the University of Oxford. She has long been involved with the Middle East as a university teacher, development practitioner, and advocate for indigenous rights. She has carried out research among Bedouin sheep herders in Syria and Lebanon and camel nomads in Oman.
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Dr Andrew Farrington. Assistant Professor in Ancient History at the Democritus University of Thrace, Komotini, in northern Greece. He also teaches for the Greek Open University and previously held academic posts in Australia and New Zealand. His specialism is the sporting life of the ancient Greeks, especially under the Roman empire. Dr Frances Fowle. Senior Curator of French Art at the Scottish National Gallery where she has curated several exhibitions including the 2014 show American Impressionism. She is Reader in History of Art at the University of Edinburgh and her publications include Monet and French Landscape: Vetheuil and Normandy and Symbolist Landscape in Europe 1880–1910. ©Bill Knight
John M. Fritz. Archaeologist, writer and Consulting Scientist at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. He investigated prehistoric cultures of Arizona and New Mexico in the 60s and 70s and since 1981 has co-directed research at Hampi. His joint publications include Where Kings and Gods Meet: the Royal Centre at Vijayanagara and Hampi, a Story in Stone. Lucia Gahlin. Teaches Egyptology at Exeter and Bristol and is a Research Associate at UCL’s Institute of Archaeology. She is closely involved with the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology and has worked on excavations at Amarna in Egypt. Her publications include Egypt: Gods, Myths and Religion. Dr Alexandra Gajewski. Architectural historian and lecturer specialising in the mediaeval. She obtained her PhD from the Courtauld and has lectured there and at Birkbeck College. She is currently in Madrid researching ‘The Roles of Women as Makers of Medieval Art and Architecture’.
our lecturers
Dr Ffiona Gilmore Eaves. Read Archaeology at Cambridge and obtained her PhD from Nottingham. Her special interest is in the Adriatic and she is the co-author of Retrieving the record: a century of archaeology at Porec. She has lectured extensively in adult education, especially for the WEA, and for various extra-mural departments.
Dr Garth Gilmour. Biblical archaeologist based at Oxford University. His interests include eastern Mediterranean trade in the Late Bronze Age and the archaeology of religion in ancient Israel. He has excavated at the Philistine sites of Ekron and Ashkelon and is currently researching the Palestine Exploration Fund’s excavation in Jerusalem in the 1920s. Jacopo Gnisci. Art historian specialising in Ethiopian and early Christian art. He is a PhD researcher at SOAS. He edits the journal of the Anglo-Ethiopian Society and has published several papers, and has given lectures on the country’s heritage. He has travelled extensively in Ethiopia, winning several awards for his research. David Gowan. British Ambassador in Belgrade, 2003–6, and Minister and Deputy Head of Mission in Moscow, 2000–3. He was Kosovo War Crimes Co-ordinator in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1999 and has published papers on Serbia and Kosovo. Dr Angus Graham. Archaeologist and researcher. He is a Wallenberg Academy Fellow at Uppsala University, Sweden, and Honorary Research Associate at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL. He is the Field Director of the Theban Harbours and Waterscapes Survey and has worked on archaeological projects at Giza, Memphis, Karnak and Edfu. Dr Mark Grahame. Archaeologist and lecturer, whose research interests focus on Roman Pompeii. He has taught courses on the archaeology and history of the Roman Empire including for Cambridge University’s Institute of Continuing Education.
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Dr Jamie Greenbaum. Historian specialising in Ming dynasty cultural history. He is a Visiting Fellow in the School of Culture, History & Language at the Australian
National University and lectures at the Renmin University, Beijing. He has published books on the late-Ming literary world and the early twentieth-century political figure Qu Qiubai. Angus Haldane. Art consultant and dealer, lecturer and writer. After studying Classics at Oxford, and Byzantine and Renaissance art at the Courtauld, he worked for many years in the Impressionist and 19thCentury Department at Christie’s and in the British Paintings Department at Sotheby’s. Sheila Hale. Writer and lecturer, with a focus on the Italian Renaissance. Among her books are Titian: His Life and the Golden Age of Venice and Verona: An Architectural History. She has contributed to newspapers including New York Times and London Review of Books. Michael Hall. Expert on British architecture and design. He was architectural editor of Country Life, editor of Apollo magazine. Books include The Victorian Country House and Waddesdon Manor: The Biography of a Rothschild House. His book on the great Victorian architect George Frederick Bodley is published in late 2014. Professor Norman Hammond. Leading expert on Maya civilization. He is a Senior Fellow at Cambridge University and Professor Emeritus of Archaeology at Boston University. His many books include Ancient Maya Civilization, Nohmul: a Prehistoric Maya Community in Belize and Cuello: an early Maya community in Belize. He is Archaeology Correspondent for The Times. Gijs van Hensbergen. Art historian and author specialising in Spain and the USA. His books include Gaudí, In the Kitchens of Castile and Guernica. He studied Art History at the Courtauld and is a Fellow of the Cañada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies at the LSE.
‘Both the lecturer and the tour manager were very well informed, communicated well and organised very discreetly and flexibly.’
Caroline Holmes. Garden historian, author and consultant. She lectures for Cambridge University’s ICE, NADFAS and the Landmark Trust and her books include Monet at Giverny, Follies of Europe – architectural extravaganzas and Impressionists in their Gardens. She is a regular contributor to BBC television and radio. Adam Hopkins. Journalist and author, now living in a mountain village in Spain. He studied at King’s College, Cambridge, and has contributed extensively to national newspapers in Britain on Spanish culture and travel. Among his books: Spanish Journeys: a Portrait of Spain. Henry Hurst. Emeritus Reader in Classics at Cambridge University. His special interest is the archaeology of ancient cities and he has been an excavating archaeologist – working at Carthage for many years and more recently in Rome. He has travelled widely in Greece and Turkey. Michael Ivory. After studying modern languages at Oxford, he qualified as a town planner and landscape architect. He taught these subjects at university level and now works as a writer and translator, specialising in Central Europe. His publications include guides to Prague and the Czech Republic, including the Michelin Green Guide Prague.
Neil Johnstone. Archaeologist and lecturer. He works in North Wales on Lottery-funded heritage projects and his work on the royal courts of the Welsh princes and related excavations have shed new light on the archaeology of mediaeval Gwynedd. He is vice chairman of Segontium Roman museum and a Member of the Institute of Field Archaeologists.
John Keay. Journalist, author and lecturer who has been travelling to India for forty years. His India: A History and The Honourable Company: A History of the East India Company are considered standard texts; The Great Arc on the mapping of India was a best-seller. Professor Hugh Kennedy. Professor of Arabic at SOAS. He studied at the Middle East Centre for Arab Studies in Beirut, and read Arabic and Persian at Cambridge. He is author of The Early Abbasid Caliphate, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates, Crusader Castles and Muslim Spain and Portugal. Sir Nicholas Kenyon. Managing Director of the Barbican Centre and former Director and Controller of the BBC Proms. He has been music critic for The New Yorker and The Observer, music editor of The Listener and editor of Early Music. He is the author of the Faber Pocket Guide to Bach and edited Authenticity and Early Music. Dr Rose Kerr. She graduated in Chinese studies and spent a year as a student in China during the last year of the Cultural Revolution, 1975–1976. She is Honorary Associate of the Needham Research Institute in Cambridge, having retired as Keeper of the Far Eastern Department at the V&A. Professor Helen King. Professor of Classical Studies at The Open University and Visiting Professor at the Peninsula Medical and Dental School (Exeter and Plymouth), and at the University of Vienna. Books include
Greek & Roman Medicine and Midwifery, Obstetrics and the Rise of Gynaecology: Uses of a Sixteenth-Century Medical Compendium. Dr Jarl Kremeier. Art historian specialising in 17th- to 19th-century architecture and decorative arts. He teaches Art History at the Berlin College of Acting and Berlin’s Freie Universität. He is a contributor to Macmillan’s Dictionary of Art and author of Die Hofkirche der Würzburger Residenz. Dr Helen Langdon. Art historian and author. She studied at Cambridge and the Courtauld and was a Research Fellow at the Getty Institute, LA, and Visiting Fellow at Yale. Her books include Claude Lorrain, Caravaggio: a Life and most recently Vision & Ecstasy: Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione’s St Francis. Professor Richard Langham Smith. Music historian, broadcaster and writer with a particular interest in early music and 19th- and 20th-century French music. He coauthored the Cambridge Opera Guide on Pelléas et Mélisande and has published widely on Debussy and Bizet. He is currently Research Professor at the Royal College of Music, London. Dr Luca Leoncini. Art historian specialising in 15th-century Italian painting. His first degree and PhD were from Rome University followed by research at the Warburg Institute in London. He has contributed to the Macmillan Dictionary of Art and has written on Mantegna and Renaissance drawings. Dr Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones. Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Edinburgh and a specialist in the history and culture of ancient Iran, the Near East and Greece. His books include Ctesias’ History of Persia, Creating a Hellenistic World and King and Court in Ancient Persia. Dr Rosie Llewellyn-Jones. An authority on colonial India. Her books include Engaging Scoundrels: True Tales of Old Lucknow, Lucknow: City of Illusion and The Great Uprising in India, 1857–58. She lectures for the Asian Arts course at the V&A and is Secretary of the British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
our lecturers
James Johnstone. Organist specialising in the Baroque and Professor of early keyboards at Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Trinity College of Music. He has performed and recorded as a soloist, with the Gabrieli Consort & Players and with Florilegium. He re-formed the chamber group Trio Sonnerie.
Dr Philippa Joseph. Author, lecturer and reviews editor for History Today. For twenty years she published journals and books for societies including Association of Art Historians, The Historical Association and Society for Renaissance Studies. Her current research looks at late mediaeval and early modern societies in Andalucía and Sicily.
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Rowena Loverance. Byzantine art historian specialising in sculpture, mosaics and icons. She studied History and Archaeology at Oxford and was Head of e-learning at the British Museum and a Visiting Research Fellow at King’s College, London. Her publications include the illustrated history Byzantium and Christian Art.
Patrick Mercer obe. Military historian. He read History at Oxford and then spent 25 years in the army, achieving the rank of colonel, and subsequently worked for BBC Radio 4 as Defence Correspondent and as a journalist. He was MP for Newark from 2001 to 2014 and is the author of two books on the Battle of Inkerman.
Gerald Luckhurst. Landscape architect and garden historian involved in both historic restoration and contemporary garden design. Expert on subtropical and Mediterranean garden flora, his books include The Gardens of Madeira and Sintra: a landscape with villas.
Dr Jeffrey Miller. Art historian specialising in architecture of the Middle Ages. He obtained his MA from the Courtauld and his PhD from Columbia University where he is now a Core Lecturer. He has contributed to the forthcoming Cambridge History of Religious Architecture of the World.
Dr Alexey Makhrov. Russian art historian and lecturer. He graduated from the St Petersburg Academy of Arts and obtained his PhD from the University of St Andrews followed by post-doctoral work as a Research Fellow at Exeter. He now lives in Switzerland where he teaches courses on Russian art. Andrew Martin. Journalist, novelist, historian and author of Underground Overground: a Passenger’s History of the Tube (2012). During the 1990s he was ‘Tube Talk’ columnist for the Evening Standard. Dr David McGrath. Writer, translator and an expert on Spanish literature and culture. He completed his PhD in Hispanic literature at Queen Mary, London University, and is a Visiting Research Fellow in Spanish at King’s College, London. His current projects include a translation of Jusepe Martínez’s seventeenthcentury treatise on the Noble Art of Painting.
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John McNeill. Architectural historian and a specialist in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. He lectures at Oxford University’s Department of Continuing Education and is Honorary Secretary of the British Archaeological Association. Publications include the Blue Guide: Normandy, Blue Guide: Loire Valley and Romanesque and the Past.
Barry Millington. Chief Music Critic for London’s Evening Standard and founder/editor of The Wagner Journal. He is the author/editor of eight books on Wagner, including Wagner, The Wagner Compendium and Richard Wagner: the Sorcerer of Bayreuth. He has acted as dramaturgical adviser at international opera houses and is known as a broadcaster and lecturer. Marc Millon. Wine, food and travel writer. Born in Mexico, raised in the USA he then studied English Literature at the University of Exeter. He owns a business importing Italian wines from family estates and is author of The Wine and Food of Europe, The Wine Roads of Italy and The Food Lover’s Companion to Italy. Dr Anna-Maria Misra. Lecturer in Modern History at Oxford University and a specialist on Indian history and the British Empire. She has published widely including Vishnu’s Crowded Temple: India since the Great Rebellion and she wrote and presented the Channel 4 series An Indian Affair. David Mitchinson. Former Head of Collections and Exhibitions at the Henry Moore Foundation. He has written extensively on Moore’s life and work including Henry Moore:
book online at www.martinrandall.com
Unpublished Drawings, Celebrating Moore and most recently Henry Moore: Prints and Portfolios. Dr Andrew Moore. Writer and curator, and a specialist in the study of country houses and their art collections. He is Keeper of Art at Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery and recently co-authored a reassessment of Sir Robert Walpole’s art collection at Houghton. Dr Robert Morkot. Specialist in north-east Africa. He read Ancient History at University College London and postgraduate studies in Berlin. He has contributed to the Oxford Classical Dictionary and The Black Pharaohs: Egypt’s Nubian Rulers. Dr Oswyn Murray. Classics Fellow at Balliol College, Oxford, for almost forty years, widely travelled in the Mediterranean and a specialist on Greek drinking customs and the history of pleasure in general. Among his books: Early Greece, The Greek City and In vino veritas and he is a regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement. Professor Fabrizio Nevola. Chair and Professor of Art History and Visual Culture at Exeter University. His research focuses on urban and architectural history of Early Modern Italy. He has published widely including award-winning Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City. Christopher Newall. Art historian, lecturer and writer. A specialist in 19th-century British art he also has a deep interest in southern Italy, its architecture, politics and social history. He studied at the Courtauld and has curated various exhibitions including John Ruskin: Artist & Observer at the National Gallery of Canada and Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Dr Charles Nicholl. Honorary Professor of English at Sussex University and author of several books of biography, history and travel. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and recipient of the Hawthornden prize, the James Tait Black prize for biography and the
‘Lecturer was superb! A fount of knowledge, completely on top of the subject matter.’
Crime Writers’ Association ‘Gold Dagger’ award for non-fiction. Professor Geoffrey Norris. Writer and broadcaster on BBC Radio 3 and for many years Chief Music Critic of The Daily Telegraph, for which he still writes. He is Emeritus Professor at the Rachmaninoff Music Academy in Russia and his publications include Rachmaninoff and contributions to the New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians. Dr Cathy Oakes. Lecturer in History of Art at Oxford University with a focus on the mediaeval. She worked previously in the Education Department at the V&A and ran the art history programme for the Department for Continuing Education at Bristol. She has published on French and English Romanesque and on Marian iconography. Alan Ogden. Travel writer and historian. His books include Fortresses of Faith: the Kirchenburgen of Transylvania, Revelations of Byzantium: the monasteries and painted churches of N.E. Moldavia and Moons and Aurochs: Romanian journeys. He has written four histories of the Special Operations Executive covering Eastern Europe, Italy, Greece and the Far East.
Jane Pritchard mbe. Curator of Dance for the V&A and co-curater of the exhibition Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes 1909–1929. She was Archivist for Rambert Dance Company and English National Ballet and her publications include Anna Pavlova: Twentieth-Century Ballerina. Professor John Ray. Herbert Thompson Professor of Egyptology at the University of Cambridge, where he has taught since 1977. His publications concentrate on the Persian and Hellenistic periods of Egyptian history. He is a Fellow of Selwyn College Cambridge, of the Society of Antiquaries of London and of the British Academy. Simon Rees. Writes programme articles and surtitles for many British opera companies, and reviews for Opera, Opera Now, Musical Opinion, Early Music Today, Bachtrack and a range of other publications. A novelist, poet and librettist, from 1989 to 2012 he was dramaturg at Welsh National Opera. Mary Lynn Riley. Specialist in 19th- and 20th-century modern and contemporary art. She lives on the Côte d’Azur where she teaches art courses at the Musée Bonnard in Le Cannet and the Espace de l’Art Concret at MouansSartoux. Previously she worked at the Smithsonian in Washington DC.
Barnaby Rogerson. Writer and publisher with a particular interest in North Africa. Among his numerous works are North Africa, A Biography of the Prophet Muhammad and guide books to Morocco, Tunisia, Cyprus and Istanbul. He also runs Eland Books, home to over 100 great classic travel books of the world. Sue Rollin. Archaeologist, interpreter and lecturer, widely travelled in the Middle East and India. Her linguistic repertoire includes three ancient Near-Eastern languages and several modern European ones. She has taught at UCL, SOAS and Cambridge, interprets for the EU and UN and is coauthor of Blue Guide: Jordan and Istanbul: A Travellers’ Guide. Professor Andrew Sanders. Emeritus Professor of English at Durham and Past President of the Dickens Fellowship. Author of five books on Charles Dickens, most recently Charles Dickens’s London. He has worked widely on 19th-century literature and culture. Anthony Sattin. Writer and journalist. His books include The Pharaoh’s Shadow, The Gates of Africa and Young Lawrence. He co-wrote the Lonely Planet guide to Algeria and has contributed to numerous broadsheets. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, sits on the editorial board of Geographical Magazine and is a contributing editor to Conde Nast Traveller.
our lecturers
Ian Page. Conductor and Artistic Director of Classical Opera Company. He performs regularly at Wigmore Hall, Cadogan Hall, the Barbican and Sadler’s Wells and recently embarked on a new project to record all the Mozart operas. He is also a professor at the Royal College of Music in London.
Lesley Pullen. Art Historian, and lecturer at SOAS, University of London. She completed her Postgraduate Diploma in Asian Art and Masters at SOAS and worked at Asia House in London for two years. She is currently pursuing her PhD at SOAS researching the ‘Representation of Textiles on Indonesian Sculpture: 9th to 14th century’.
Juliet Rix. Writer and broadcaster with a particular interest in the history of Malta. She studied History of Art at Cambridge and is the author of the Bradt Guide: Malta and Gozo. Her career in journalism has involved working for the BBC and writing for British national newspapers, magazines and online media.
©Jasmin Bell
Dr Sophie Oosterwijk. Researcher and lecturer and an expert on the Middle Ages, Netherlandish and Dutch art. She has taught at the universities of Leicester, Manchester and St Andrews, and regularly lectures at Cambridge. She is a former editor of the journal Church Monuments and has published widely.
Asoka Pugal. Historian and lecturer. Born in Tamil Nadu, he graduated in History from the University of Madras followed by postgraduate studies at Madras Law College. He has been working in the tourist industry for the past thirty years as well as in television producing documentaries.
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Professor Timon Screech. Professor of History of Art and Head of the School of Arts at SOAS, University of London. He is an expert on the art and culture of the Edo period, including its international dimension, and has published widely on the subject including Sex and the Floating World and Obtaining Images.
Dr József Sisa. Head of Department at the Research Institute for Art History at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest. He specialises in the 19th century, in particular public buildings, country houses, Gothic revival and garden history. A native Hungarian with fluent English, he lectures in the UK, across Europe and the USA and co-edited The Architecture of Historic Hungary.
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Professor Jan Smaczny. Hamilton Harty Chair of Music at Queen’s University, Belfast, and an authority on Czech music. An author, broadcaster and journalist, he has published books on the Prague Provisional Theatre, Dvořák’s Cello Concerto, Music in 19th-century Ireland and Bach’s B-minor Mass. Professor Tony Spawforth. Historian, broadcaster, lecturer and writer specialising in Greek and Roman antiquity and in rulers’ courts. Books include The Complete Greek Temples, Greece: An Oxford Archaeological Guide (with C. Mee), and Versailles: A Biography of a Palace. He is Emeritus Professor of Ancient History at Newcastle University.
Dr Susan Steer. Art historian and lecturer specialising in Venice. Her PhD was focused on Venetian Renaissance altarpieces, followed by work as researcher and editor on the National Inventory of European Painting, the UK’s online catalogue. She has taught History of Art for university programmes in the UK and Italy. Graeme Stobbs. Archaeologist with over 20 years experience in the field and an expert on Hadrian’s Wall. He is Assistant Curator of Roman Collections of English Heritage’s Hadrian’s Wall Museums and until recently worked as Archaeological Project Officer for Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums. Professor Richard Stokes. Professor of Lieder at the Royal Academy of Music. His books include Complete Cantatas of J. S. Bach and The Book of Lieder. He has lectured at the Edinburgh Festival, given masterclasses at Aldeburgh, and was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for services to German culture.
book online at www.martinrandall.com
Jane Streetly. Travel writer and interpreter. She is the co-author of Blue Guide: Jordan and Istanbul: A Traveller’s Guide and is a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society. She has travelled widely throughout Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. Dr Joachim Strupp. Art historian and lecturer. He lived in Venice and Florence for several years and specialises in the sculpture of the Italian Renaissance, though his interests include German and Italian art of most ages. He lectures at the V&A and organises adult art history courses and tours. Tim Tatton-Brown. Archaeologist and architectural historian. He is Consultant Archaeologist for St George’s Chapel, Windsor, and Westminster School and is Vice-President of the Royal Archaeological Institute. His numerous books include Great Cathedrals of Britain, The English Cathedral and Salisbury Cathedral, the making of a Medieval Masterpiece. Jane Taylor. Writer, photographer, television producer and long-term resident of Amman. She studied Mediaeval History and Moral Philosophy at the University of St Andrews and her books include Imperial Istanbul, Petra & the Lost Kingdom of the Nabataeans, Jordan Images from the Air and Beyond the Jordan (with Isabelle Ruben). Neil Taylor. Leading expert on the former communist world. He read Chinese at Cambridge and has worked in tourism in China, the USSR and many developing countries. His publications include The Bradt Guide: Estonia, The Bradt Guide: Tallinn, The Bradt Guide: Baltic Cities and A Footprints Guide to Berlin.
©Bill Knight
Dr Guus Sluiter. Art historian and Director of the Dutch Funeral Museum in Amsterdam. He has worked for the Mauritshuis in The Hague and the Royal Palace in Amsterdam. He has published widely in the Netherlands and Italy and is a Research Fellow of the Dutch Institute for Art History in Florence.
Professor Gavin Stamp. Architectural historian with an interest in 19thand 20th-century British architecture. He has published on Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson, the Gilbert Scott dynasty and Sir Edwin Lutyens. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland and the RIBA, and Honorary Professor at the universities of Glasgow and Cambridge.
©Bill Knight
Dr Diane Silverthorne. Art historian specialising in late-19th and 20th-century art, design and architecture. She completed her PhD at the Royal College of Art, lectures at Birkbeck, University of London, and has published papers on modernism.
Andrew Spooner. Military historian specialising in the Great War. He runs his own battlefield tours and organises specialist study days for colleges and museums throughout the country. He is a regular visiting lecturer at the Imperial War Museum Duxford and has appeared in documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4.
Dr Lars Tharp. Ceramics specialist who appears regularly on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow. He was director of the Foundling Museum and is now its Hogarth Curator as well as vice-chairman of The Hogarth Trust. He is a member of the English Ceramics Circle and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.
‘The lecturer was once again an excellent choice: informative, constructive, witty, helpful and good company.’
Dr Giles Tillotson. Writer and lecturer on Indian architecture, art and history. His books include Taj Mahal, Jaipur Nama: Tales from the Pink City, and the novel, Return to Bhanupur. He is a Fellow, and the former Director, of the Royal Asiatic Society and was Chair of Art & Archaeology at SOAS. Dr Thomas-Leo True. Art historian specialising in Renaissance and Baroque architecture. He received his doctorate from Cambridge and studied at the British School in Rome, where he was a Rome Scholar. He has lived in le Marche and is currently writing his first book on the Marchigian Cardinals of Pope Sixtus V. Gail Turner. Art historian, lecturer and artist with a special interest in Spanish history and art. She read Modern History at Oxford and completed her MA at the Courtauld. She lectures for the National Trust and Art Fund, and teaches on courses at the V&A and the Courtauld Institute Summer School. Dr Geoffrey Tyack. Architectural historian with a particular interest in the 18th to 20th centuries in Britain and Europe. He is Fellow of Kellogg College, University of Oxford, and is the author of John Nash: Architect of the Picturesque. He is Editor of the Georgian Group Journal.
Professor Stephen Walsh. Music writer and broadcaster. He is the author of a major biography of Stravinsky, and, most recently Mussorgsky and his Circle. Former deputy music critic of The Observer he remains a contributor to other broadsheet newspapers. He currently holds a personal chair in the School of Music at Cardiff University.
Giles Waterfield. Independent curator and writer, Director of Royal Collection Studies and Associate Lecturer at the Courtauld. He has curated exhibitions including The Artist’s Studio and his publications include Soane and After, Palaces of Art, Art for the People and Art Treasures of England. Dr Peter Webb. Arabist and historian, specialising in early and mediaeval Islam. He has travelled extensively in the Middle East and Central Asia and has taught at SOAS and the American University of Paris. He is currently a Fellow at the Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin, researching Mamluk Cairo. Dr Antonia Whitley. Art historian and lecturer specialising in the Italian Renaissance. She obtained her PhD from the Warburg Institute on Sienese society in the 15th century and has published on related topics. She has lectured for the National Gallery, organises adult education study sessions and has led many tours in Italy.
Richard Wigmore. Music writer, lecturer and broadcaster for BBC Radio 3. He writes for BBC Music Magazine and Gramophone and has taught classes in Lieder history and interpretation at the Guildhall, Trinity College of Music and Birkbeck College. His publications include Schubert: the complete song texts and Pocket Guide to Haydn. Professor Roger Wilson. Professor of the Archaeology of the Roman Empire and Director of the Centre for the Study of Ancient Sicily at the University of British Columbia. Former posts include Professor of Archaeology at the University of Nottingham. His publications include Piazza Armerina and Sicily under the Roman Empire. Dr Matthew Woodworth. Art historian with a focus on mediaeval architectural history. He obtained his MA from the Courtauld and completed his PhD on Beverley Minster at Duke University, North Carolina. He has published articles on English Gothic architecture, French Gothic sculpture, and the re-use of Gothic in the post-mediaeval period.
our lecturers
Dr David Vickers. Author, journalist, broadcaster and lecturer. He is coeditor of The Cambridge Handel Encyclopedia and is preparing new editions of several of Handel’s music dramas. He is a critic for Gramophone and BBC Radio 3 and an essayist for many record labels. He teaches at the Royal Northern College of Music.
Venice, by Louis Moran, from Pen Drawing & Pen Draughtsmen, 1897.
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Roman Algeria Outposts of Empire 13–21 October 2014 (mb 152) This tour is currently full 29 October–6 November 2014 (mb 186) 9 days • £3,270 Lecturer: Anthony Sattin 5–13 October 2015 (mc 477) 9 days • £3,320 Lecturer: Anthony Sattin 2–10 November 2015 (mc 517) 9 days • £3,320 Lecturer: Barnaby Rogerson Tipasa, Djemela & Timgad: three of North Africa’s most exceptional Roman sites, often void of tourists, let alone groups. Charming city of Algiers, Alger La Blanche, with its nineteenth and early twentieth-century European architecture and authentic Casbah. Outstanding selection of mosaics in museums throughout. Three nights in Constantine, Algeria’s most alluring city. Algeria is at the heart of any understanding of North Africa, or indeed of our modern world. The fearsome eight-year long battle for its independence stands beside the Vietnam War and Suez as one of the watersheds of late twentieth
century realpolitik, while the decade-long Algerian emergency of the 1990’s increasingly reads like a preface to what is now happening in Egypt and Syria. Fascinating though this recent history is, especially when viewed through a largely intact if crumbling backdrop of French colonial architecture, it is the aesthetic lodestone of the ruins built by the armies of Rome that lures the traveller into the Algerian hinterland. The magnificently complete city ruins of Djemela and Timgad are very different in mood, though not in culture. One was built on the edge of the Kabyle mountains, the other on the margin of the arid steppe, though both were established as colonies for discharged veterans of the III Augusta Legion planted into the Berber landscape. They stand together as incontrovertible tactile proof of the Golden Age of the Roman Empire. For these are not Imperial capitals designed to dazzle the world but provincial cities built solely for the use of their citizens. That these are the two best preserved out of the six hundred that once stood proudly throughout the breadth of Roman North Africa is a matter of chance, though nurtured by their romantic isolation. But this allows their nearly intact libraries, fountains, their painterly profusion of triumphal arches, choice of market squares, their theatres, baths, mosaics, processional ways and squares to speak to us in a very direct and moving way. Nothing can quite match this tangible eloquence of carved stone, though the little Roman mountain hamlet of
Lambessa, wood engraving 1865 from The Illustrated London News.
algeria 16 book online at www.martinrandall.com
Tiddis, the ruins of Hippo that were watched over by St Augustine and the coastal ruins of Tipasa, so beloved by Camus, all have their own haunting and beguiling charm. To give variety to our antique palette we have added walks through the vibrant, ever fascinating cities of Algiers, Constantine and Annaba. Evening talks and discussions will open up windows into Carthage and Berbers, French Orientalist artists and writers, Islam and Arabs, Barbary Corsairs and travellers ancient and modern.
‘What distinguishes Martin Randall from other tour operators is the participants it attracts; always congenial, welleducated, more eager to learn than indulge.’ Itinerary Day 1: London to Algiers. Fly at c. 8.40am (British Airways) from London Gatwick for the 21/2 hour flight to Algiers. Lunch at the hotel before a walking tour of Algiers revealing the city’s beautiful architecture including the Grande Poste and the whitewashed Rue Didouche Mourad with brilliant blue balconies and intricate stucco work, a testament to the city’s colonial
history. We then visit the city’s most prominent landmark, Martyrs’ Monument, commemorating Algerian resistance fighters. First of three nights in Algiers. Day 2: Tipasa, Cherchell. Drive west to the picturesque Roman site of Tipasa. Stop en route at the immense circular Numidian Tomb with spectacular views of the surrounding countryside and coast. Visit the recently renovated Cherchell archaeological museum before lunch in Tipasa and spend a full afternoon exploring one of North Africa’s most picturesque Roman sites. Founded by the Phoenicians and located on the shores of the Mediterranean, it was once a flourishing commercial centre. Overnight Algiers. Day 3: Algiers. Morning walk through the narrow and colourful alleys of the city’s Casbah, surely the most authentic in North Africa. After lunch in the old port visit the National Museum of Antiquities and the Bardo Museum before a reception in the British Embassy, itself a 19th-century French villa (subject to last-minute cancellation). Overnight Algiers. Day 4: Djemela. Early start through the Tel-Atlas Mountains and fertile plains to the town of Setif. Visit the museum at Djemela (Curculum) with its exceptional display of Roman mosaics and artefacts from the surrounding area. Lunch on-site before an afternoon spent at the unesco World Heritage site of Djemela, a remarkably well preserved Roman town originally established as a colony of soldiers. Continue to Constantine for the first of three nights. Day 5: Constantine, Tiddis. The picturesque City of Bridges (Constantine) sits high above the Rhumel Gorge and makes for a fascinating walking tour (some bridges may not be suitable for vertigo suffers) which includes impressive colonial architecture, the Palace of Ahmed Bey and the Constantine Museum. The afternoon is spent visiting the concentrated site of Tiddis (Castellum Tiditanorum) and the curious tomb of Quintus Lollius Urbicus, the Governor of Britain under the emperor Antoninus Pius. Return to Constantine for dinner in the infamous Cirta Hotel. Overnight Constantine.
Tipasa
Algiers
Constantine Setif
c. 200 km
Lambaesis
Annaba Guelma
Timgad
Tunisia
Morocco
Algeria
Day 8: Annaba. Morning walk along the Cours de la Révolution observing the city’s colonial architecture and sea-side atmosphere. Visit the Basilica of St Augustine, Annaba’s most prominent landmark, completed in 1881. After lunch continue to the ruins of Hippo Regius and the archaeological museum, home to some impressive mosaics. Overnight Annaba. Day 9: Fly from Annaba to Algiers with Air Algerie to connect with the British Airways flight to London, arriving Gatwick c. 2.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £3,270 (2014), £3,320 (2015) (deposit £300). Single supplement £320 (2014), £340 (2015) (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £3,010 (2014), £2,980 (2015).
Libya
Included meals: 8 lunches and 8 dinners with wine (where available). Visas. British citizens and most other foreign nationals require a tourist visa. This is not included in the price of the tour because you must obtain it yourself. Please contact us for details. Accommodation: Djazair Hotel (formerly the St George), Algiers: established in 1889 and located in a quiet district not far from the city centre with excellent views of the Mediterranean. Novotel, Constantine (accorhotels.com): a modern business style hotel in the city centre. Hotel Majestic, Annaba (hotelmajestic.dz): a simple but clean establishment within walking distance of the Cours de la Révolution. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
Day 7: Guelma, Annaba. Visit the Roman theatre of Guelma, wonderfully restored by the French in 1908. A feature is the selection of fine original statues. After lunch drive to ancient city of Annaba, formerly Hippo Regius. Founded by the Phoenicians and developed by the Romans, Annaba became an important centre for Christianity. St Augustine, the most important theologian of the western Church was bishop here ad c.395–430. First of two nights in Annaba.
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Day 6: Timgad, Lambaesis. An early start to the immense site of Timgad (Colonia Marciana Trajana Thamugas), its scale and state of preservation making it one of the most impressive Roman sites to be found anywhere. A short drive away are the interesting and rare ruins of the headquarters of the 3rd August Legion, Lambaesis. Lunch in Batna. Visit also the Numidian Tomb, similar to that in Tipasa but earlier. Final night in Constantine.
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Algiers, copper engraving c. 1800. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
Music in Vienna at Christmas Art, architecture & music in the Habsburg capital 20–27 December 2014 (mb 218) 8 days • £3,210 Lecturer: Dr Jarl Kremeier Comprehensive overview of Vienna’s art and architecture, including a day dedicated to the Secession movement. Led by Dr Jarl Kremeier, an art historian specialising in 17th- to 19th-century architecture and decorative arts. Perfectly located 5-star heritage hotel. Four music performances: Rinaldo (Handel and G. Rossi) at the Kammeroper, Handel’s Messiah at the Musikverein, Rigoletto (Verdi) and The Magic Flute (Mozart) at the Staatsoper. Vienna was once the seat of the Habsburgs, the centre of the Holy Roman Empire and capital of a multinational agglomeration of territories which encompassed much of Central and Eastern Europe. Today she is an imperial city without an empire. She is a relic, but a glorious relic, and one of the world’s foremost centres of art, architecture and music. The Kunsthistorisches Museum ranks with the best of Europe’s art collections, and the Court Treasury is without peer for its display of historic regalia and objets d’art. The great Gothic cathedral bears witness to the city’s status in the Middle Ages as the most important city in Danubian Europe; the Church of St Charles and numerous Baroque palaces demonstrate that by the beginning of the eighteenth century Austria had become one of the great powers.
During the nineteenth century, when the Empire reached a peak of extent and prestige, a splendid range of historicist buildings was added, notably on the Ringstrasse, the grand boulevard which encircles the mediaeval core. Around the turn of the century there was an explosion of artistic and intellectual activity which placed Vienna in the forefront of Art Nouveau – here known as Secession – and the development of modernism. Not all is on a grand scale. Tucked behind the imposing palaces and public buildings are narrow alleys and ancient courtyards which survive from the mediaeval and Renaissance city. In Vienna the magnificent mixes with the unpretentiously charming, imperial display with the Gemütlichkeit of the coffee houses. As home for Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Mahler and countless other composers, Vienna is pre-eminent in the history of music. Musical activity of the highest order continues and we hope to include four performances (tickets have been requested and are due to be confirmed late summer 2014) . As with all our tours, careful planning to take account of seasonal closures enables us to provide a full programme of visits. There will be some special arrangements to see places not generally accessible.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 9.00am from London Heathrow to Vienna (Austrian Airlines). Drive (25 minutes) to the city centre and check-in to the hotel. After lunch the lecturer leads an afternoon walk in
Vienna, Am Hof, lithograph c. 1850.
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and around the Hofburg, the Habsburg winter palace, a vast agglomeration from six centuries of building activity. Within the complex are the Great Hall of the library, one of the greatest of Baroque secular interiors, and the collection of precious regalia in the Treasury. Adjacent is the court church of St Augustine. Day 2. Drive to the outskirts to see buildings by Otto Wagner, the richly decorated apartment blocks in the Linke Wienzeile, the emperor’s personal railway station at Schönbrunn and the hospital church ‘Am Steinhof’, the most beautiful example of Secessionist art and architecture. After a break for lunch visit the decommissioned railway station pavilions by Wagner and Olbrich and the Secession building, built in 1898 as an exhibition hall for avant-garde artists, with Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze. Evening opera at the Kammeroper: Rinaldo (Handel), Rubén Dubrovsky (conductor), cast to be confirmed. Day 3. Morning visit to the recently reopened winter palace of Prince Eugene, begun in 1969 by Fischer von Erlach and expanded into one of the finest Baroque aristocratic palaces in Vienna by Lukas von Hildebrandt. The Museum of Applied Art has international and Viennese collections, strikingly displayed, and the Baroque Jesuit church has outstanding illusionistic ceiling paintings. Evening performance at the Musikverein: Messiah (Handel) with the Lautten Compagney Berlin, Arnold Schoenberg Choir, Erwin Ortner (conductor), Karina Gauvin (soprano), Sonia Prina (alto), Benjamin Hulett (tenor) and Florian Boesch (bass).
Opera in Vienna
Donizetti, Mozart, Offenbach, Strauss Day 4. Morning coach excursion to Klosterneuburg Abbey, once the seat of the Babenbergs. Largely Romanesque and Gothic, the church contains an altarpiece by Nicholas of Verdun, one of the greatest surviving metalworks of the middle ages. Return to the centre of Vienna for a free afternoon. An evening at the Staatsoper: Rigoletto (Verdi), Franz Welser-Möst (conductor), Piotr Beczala (Duke of Mantua), Simon Keenlyside (Rigoletto), Valentina Nafornita (Gilda), Elena Maximova (Maddalena). Day 5, Christmas Eve. Spend the morning in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, one of the world’s most important art collections, particularly rich in Italian, Flemish and Dutch pictures. An afternoon walk through some of the loveliest of Vienna’s streets and squares passes various imposing palaces and, on the Ringstrasse, the Gothic Revival Town Hall and the Neo-Classical Parliament. Christmas dinner. There are several musically embellished midnight masses. Day 6, Christmas Day. The morning is free, though Mass at St Augustine’s is recommended, and some museums are open. Spend the afternoon in the Museumsquartier, a recently developed arts centre in the former imperial stables, whose most interesting museum is the Leopold Collection of Secessionist art. An evening at the Staatsoper: The Magic Flute (Mozart), Adam Fischer (conductor), Franz-Josef Selig (Sarastro), Benjamin Bruns (Tamino), Kathryn Lewek (Queen of the night), Genia Kühmeier (Pamina), Markus Werba (Papageno). Day 7. Visit the Church of St Charles, the Baroque masterpiece of Fischer von Erlach. See the palace and garden of Schloss Belvedere, built on sloping ground overlooking Vienna for Prince Eugen of Savoy, which constitutes one of the finest residential complexes of the 18th century. It now houses the Museum of Austrian Art with paintings by Klimt and Schiele. Visit the Stephansdom, the magnificent Gothic cathedral adorned with fine paintings and sculpture. Day 8. Private visit to the magnificent Liechtenstein Palace which was built at the turn of the 17th & 18th centuries by the richest family in the Habsburg Empire and houses the princely art collection. Time for a leisurely lunch before driving to the airport for the flight to London Heathrow, arriving c. 6.45pm.
Practicalities
Included meals: 3 lunches, 5 dinners with wine. Music: tickets (first category) for 4 performances are included, costing c. £580. Accommodation: Hotel Bristol (bristolvienna. com): a 5-star hotel in a superb location on the Ringstrasse near the opera house, traditionally furnished and decorated. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Music in Berlin at New Year, 29 December–4 January (page 83).
8–13 April 2015 (mb 276) 6 days • £2,930 (including tickets to 4 performances) Lecturer: Professor Jan Smaczny Two performances at the Staatsoper, one of the world’s greatest opera houses, one at the Volksoper, the premier stage for operetta, one at the historic Theater an der Wien. Pariser Leben (Offenbach), Anna Bolena (Donizetti), Le Nozze di Figaro (Mozart) and Der Rosenkavalier (R. Strauss). Daily talks by a musicologist, and a programme of walks and visits in the city. Based at a venerable and very comfortable hotel perfectly located beside the Staatsoper. Not content with being the most important city in the history of western music, Vienna continues to nurture an exceptionally active cultural life of a high level of excellence. Music and opera are cherished (and paid for) by government and citizens perhaps more than anywhere else in the world. Vienna is notoriously wedded to tradition, and Staatsoper productions are generally not what could be called progressive by standards prevalent in the German-speaking world. But stagecraft, stage design and dramatic portrayal are of the highest order, and the house continues to attract the world’s finest singers and conductors. And of course it enjoys the supreme skills and sumptuous sound of the Vienna Philharmonic, the orchestra in residence. Highly sophisticated audiences and critics give no quarter to complacency or laziness; opera at the Staatsoper is a fairly safe bet. Meanwhile, the Volksoper guards the flame of
the very Viennese tradition of operetta. Lifeless museum pieces should not be feared, however, for the house has been refreshed in the last decade by staging a wide range of opera with a number of adventurous directors and conductors. Here we see Offenbach’s Pariser Leben, one of the earliest of the genre (1866), and one of the greatest. The impresario who first staged Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Emanuel Schikenader, ten years later built the Theatre an der Wien. This opera in this theatre is a near perfect match therefore. Each day there is a session of talks and discussions about the evening’s opera. There are also guided tours on foot to a choice selection of Vienna’s art and architecture and musical heritage, but also plenty of free time for rest, recuperation and preparation for the next performance.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 2.45pm from London Heathrow to Vienna (British Airways). Arrive at the hotel in time to settle in before dinner. Day 2. A talk on the music is followed by a visit to the Hofburg, the sprawling Habsburg palace where we see inter alia the splendid library hall and imperial apartments. Evening operetta at the Volksoper: Pariser Leben (Parisian Life, Jacques Offenbach) at the Volksoper. Cast to be confirmed. Day 3. A morning walk through the centre of the inner city includes the Stephansdom, the great Gothic cathedral, the Baroque church of St Peter and an apartment where Mozart lived. There is some free time before a late-aftenoon talk, an early dinner and an evening at the Staatsoper: Anna Bolena (Donizetti), Andriy Yurkevych (conductor), Luca Pisaroni (Henry VIII), Anna Netrebko (Anne Boleyn), Ekaterina Semenchuk Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Price: £3,210 (deposit £300). Single supplement £330. Price without flights £3,040.
Vienna, Theater an der Wien, a late 19th-century wood engraving after an 1826 copper engraving.
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Opera in Vienna continued
Vienna’s Masterpieces Art collections of an Imperial capital
(Jane Seymour), Celso Albelo (Lord Percy), Margarita Gritskova (Smeton). Day 4. The daily talk precedes a visit to the Kunsthistorisches Museum, one of the world’s greatest art galleries. Then walk through a series of gardens to a restaurant for lunch. Free time afterwards, or visit an apartment lived in by Beethoven. Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro, Mozart) at the Theater and der Wien (1801), with Marc Minkowsi (conductor), Stéphane Degout (Count Almaviva), Christine Schäfer (Countess Almaviva), Marl Eriksmoen (Susanna), Alex Esposito (Figaro), Marienna Crebassa (Cherubino), Peter Kalman (Bartolo) and the Arnold Schoenberg Choir. Day 5. The morning walk studies monuments to composers – Beethoven, Schubert, Bruckner and Johann Strauss – and examines these images in the light of the subject’s posthumous reputations. This finishes near the excellent Museum of Applied Arts, especially rewarding for Secessionist (Art Nouveau) furniture and design. Free time is followed by a talk, dinner and an evening at the Staatsoper: Der Rosenkavalier (R. Strauss), Adam Fischer (conductor), Martina Serafin (the Marschallin, Princess Marie Thérèse von Werdenberg, Wolfgang Bankl (Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau), Elīna Garanča (Octavian), Erin Morley (Sophie von Faninal). Day 6. The final morning is free before the journey to the airport. The flight to Heathrow arrives at c. 3.30pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,930 (deposit £300). Single supplement £270. Price without flights £2,710. Included meals: 1 lunch, 4 dinners with wine. Music: tickets (1st category) for 4 operas are included, costing c. £570. Tickets are due to be confirmed in the autumn. Accommodation. Hotel Bristol (bristolvienna. com): a 5-star hotel in a superb location on the Ringstrasse near the opera house, traditionally furnished and decorated. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: The Heart of Italy, 14–21 April (page 142).
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Professor Jan Smaczny Hamilton Harty Chair of Music at Queen’s University, Belfast, and an authority on Czech music. An author, broadcaster and journalist, he has published books on the Prague Provisional Theatre, Dvořák’s Cello Concerto, Music in 19thcentury Ireland and Bach’s B-minor Mass. He also leads Prague Spring (page 37).
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All lecturers’ biographies can be found on pages 8–15.
Vienna, watercolour by Donald Maxwell, publ. 1932.
16–20 August 2015 (mb 416) 5 days • £1,960 Lecturer: Angus Haldane Focuses on the best of the art in the city – painting, sculpture and decorative arts. Also the key architectural monuments and characteristic streetscape. Perfectly located 5-star heritage hotel. Vienna possesses one of the most significant concentrations of great art to be found anywhere in the world. There are Old Master paintings of the highest quality, indigenous early-modern art and design of the highest importance, furnishings and decorative arts from many civilizations, precious regalia and goldwork without peer – and much else besides. This tour includes all of the main art museums and many of the smaller or less-visited ones. There is also more than a passing glance at the most important works of architecture, and the lecturer’s input touches on the fascinating and turbulent history of Austria and her empire. The seat of the Habsburgs, pre-eminent city of the Holy Roman Empire and capital of a vast multinational agglomeration of territories, Vienna is appropriately equipped with
book online at www.martinrandall.com
magnificent buildings and broad boulevards. But cheek by jowl with grandiloquent palaces and trumpeting churches are narrow alleys and ancient courtyards which survive from the mediaeval city. In Vienna the magnificent mixes with the unpretentiously charming, imperial display with the Gemütlichkeit of the coffee houses. Diversity and delight.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 9.15am from London Heathrow to Vienna (Austrian Airlines) and drive to the hotel in the heart of the city. After a light lunch, walk to the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Art History Museum), one of the world’s greatest collections of Old Masters. For this first visit concentrate on the northern schools, especially the early Netherlandish school, the famous Bruegels, Rubens, Rembrandt and Vermeer. Day 2. The splendid Belvedere Palace houses the national collection of Austrian art, mediaeval, Baroque, Biedermeier and Secessionist – Klimt and Schiele. An afternoon walk around the Roman and mediaeval core of the city takes in the Cathedral, the greatest of Gothic buildings in the Danubian lands, distinguished for its late mediaeval sculpture, and the Hofburg, the sprawling winter palace of the Habsburgs.
Connoisseur’s Vienna
Art, architecture, music & private visits The precious regalia and objets d’art in the Schatzkammer (Treasury) are some of the best of their kind. Day 3. In a park a few minutes from the hotel see the Art Nouveau former metro stations by Otto Wagner and the great Baroque Church of St Charles. The excellent Vienna Museum traces the city’s history through art and artefacts. In the afternoon visit the Secession Building which contains Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze, the magnificent Great Hall of the Court Library and the excellent if small gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts. Among its holdings is a masterpiece by Hieronymus Bosch. Day 4. Another walk through picturesque streets and squares passes private palaces and public buildings such as the Gothic Revival city hall and the Neo-Classical Parliament. The Leopold Collection comprises excellent examples of the arts from the turn of the nineteenth century. The afternoon is spent in the Kunsthistorisches Museum again, this time concentrating mainly on Italian pictures – Bellini, Titian, Bellotto. There is also the recently re-displayed Kunstkammer here, an outstanding collection of metalwork and sculpture. Day 5. Take a tram around the Ringstrasse, a boulevard encircling the inner city lined with magnificent palaces and institutions of the later 19th century. Visit the Museum of Applied Arts, an outstanding collection from all eras and places, well displayed. Walk back to the hotel through further enchanting streetscape. Leave the hotel at 3.00pm and return to London Heathrow at c. 6.40pm.
Practicalities Price: £1,960 (deposit: £200). Single supplement £250 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,750. Included meals: 1 lunch, 3 dinners with wine.
15–21 June 2015 (mb 361) 7 days • £2,770 (including tickets to 3 performances) Lecturer: Dr Jarl Kremeier Art, architecture, music: the main sites as well as lesser-known ones. Several special arrangements for out-of-hours visits or private buildings. Perfectly located heritage hotel. Three included performances at world class venues: Don Giovanni (Mozart) at the Staatsoper, Philharmonia Schrammeln with Angelika Kirschlager at the Musikverein and the Chiaroscuro Quartet and Kristian Bezuidenhout at the Wiener Konzerthaus. With visits to the chief sights as well as lesser ones and little-visited treasures, with privileged access to places not normally accessible and three musical evenings, this tour provides an exceptionally rich and rounded cultural experience. Whether or not you have been to the city before, it will present Vienna in a truly memorable way. Grandiloquent palaces and labyrinthine mediaeval streets; broad boulevards and quiet courtyards; at times embattled on the frontier of Christendom, yet a treasury containing some of the greatest of European works of art; an imperial city without an empire: Vienna is a fascinating mix, a quintessentially Central European paradox. The seat of the Habsburgs, pre-eminent city of the Holy Roman Empire and capital of a vast multinational agglomeration of territories, Vienna is magnificently equipped with buildings which were created by imperial and aristocratic patronage. But the history of Vienna is shot through with diversity, difference and dissent, and some of the choicest items we see were
created in defiance of mainstream orthodoxy. A feature of this tour is the number of specially arranged visits to private palaces or institutions which are not generally open to the public or are off the beaten track. Because of the privileged nature of these visits we can only name a few of them here, but they include Baroque palaces, nineteenth century halls, pioneers of modernism, churches and a synagogue. And then there is the music. As home for Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Mahler and countless other composers, Vienna is pre-eminent in the history of music. We have chosen to include an opera at the Wiener Staatsoper, and two concerts - one at the Wiener Konzerthaus and another at the Musikverein.
Itinerary This is only a summary of the visits; there are many more which are not mentioned here. Day 1. Fly at c. 9.30am from London Heathrow to Vienna (Austrian Airlines). An afternoon walk in and around the Hofburg, the Habsburg winter palace, a vast agglomeration from six centuries of building activity. See the incomparable collection of precious regalia and objets d’art in the Treasury, and the church of St Augustine. Day 2. Drive around the Ringstrasse, the boulevard which encircles the old centre and is the locus classicus of historicist architecture. The Secession building, built in 1898 as an exhibition hall for avant-garde artists, contains Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze. Visit the Piaristenkirche, a Rococo church. Evening concert at the Musikverein: Philharmonia Schrammeln and Angelika Kirschlager (mezzo soprano) perform a selection of works by Schubert. Day 3. Walk through the Roman and mediaeval core to see a cross-section of architecture including Gothic and Baroque churches and some of Vienna’s most enchanting streetscapes.
Accommodation. Hotel Bristol (bristolvienna. com): a 5-star hotel in a superb location on the Ringstrasse near the opera house, traditionally furnished and decorated. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
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Vienna & Budapest 1900, 4–9 September 2015. See page 101. Opera in Munich & Bregenz, 21–27 July 2015. See page 93.
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Vienna, Hofburg, steel engraving c. 1860. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
Connoisseur’s Vienna continued
The Ring in Vienna
Wagner in the heart of Central Europe A tour of the Parliament building, a splendid example of enriched Neo-Classicism, and visit a late-19th-century town house on the Ringstrasse. In the afternoon see the magnificently displayed collection of imperial tableware and the glorious library hall by Fischer von Erlach. Visit to and dinner at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, one of the world’s greatest art collections. Day 4. See the hospital church ‘Am Steinhof’, the finest manifestation of Viennese Secessionism, designed by Otto Wagner, the leading turn-ofthe-century architect. Visit the Museumsquartier, an art centre in the imperial stables, including the Leopold Collection of Secessionist art. Day 5. Guided tour of the Synagogue (Josef Kornhäusel, 1824), followed by a visit to a private chapel. Another special arrangement to see a grand 18th-century hall. The Liechtenstein collection in the family’s great Baroque palace is perhaps the finest private one in private hands in Europe, currently not open to the public. An evening at the Staatsoper: Don Giovanni (Mozart) with Cornelius Meister (conductor), Adam Plachetka (Don Giovanni), Hibla Gerzmava (Donna Anna), Benjamin Bruns (Don Ottavio), Olga Bezsmertna (Donna Elvira), Alessio Arduini (Leporello), Aida Garifullina (Zerlina). Day 6. The Jesuit church was spectacularly refurbished c. 1700 by the master of illusionist painting, Andrea Pozzo. Visit the great hall of the Academy of Art and the magnificent Liechtenstein Palace which was built at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries by the richest family in the Habsburg Empire. Evening concert at the Wiener Konzerthaus: The Chiaroscuro Quartet and Kristian Bezuidenhout (piano). Programme: Mozart, Divertimento in F, K.138, Piano Quartet in E flat, K.493; Haydn, String Quartet No.26 in G minor, Hob.III:33; Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 12 in A, K.385. Day 7. On sloping ground overlooking Vienna lie the palaces and gardens of Schloss Belvedere, one of the greatest Baroque ensembles. The Museum of Austrian Art here ranges from mediaeval to Secessionist. The flight arrives at London Heathrow at c. 6.30pm. Because the itinerary is dependent on a number of appointments with private owners, the order and even the content of the tour may vary.
Practicalities austria
Price: £2,770 (deposit £300). Single supplement £380 (double room for sole occupancy). Price without flights £2,580. Included meals: 2 lunches, 4 dinners with wine. Music: tickets for 1 opera and 2 concerts are included, costing c. £280. To be confirmed in autumn 2014. Accommodation. Hotel Bristol (bristolvienna. com): a 5-star hotel in a superb location on the Ringstrasse near the opera house, traditionally furnished and decorated.
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The Rhine Maidens, a lithograph by Henri Fantin-Latour, 1886.
May 2015 10 days • Price to be confirmed, c. £5,000 Details available in September 2014 Contact us to register your interest No great achievement of European culture has excited such passionate controversy as Richard Wagner’s four-part music-drama, The Ring of the Nibelung. Since its first complete performance in 1876, it has never lost its relevance for an understanding of the human condition and the modern world. And where better to gain access to all its beauty, complexity and profundity, than the best opera house in Europe – the Vienna Staatsoper – and to hear its matchless score played by the best orchestra in the world – the Vienna Philharmonic? Sir Simon Rattle needs no introduction as one of the world’s greatest conductors and a master of The Ring, which he has conducted at Salzburg and Berlin but not yet at Vienna.
Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. book online at www.martinrandall.com
Programme Day 1. Das Rheingold: Simon Rattle (conductor), Sven Eric Bechtolf (director), Michael Volle (Wotan), Herbert Lippert (Loge), Tomasz Konieczny (Alberich), Elisabeth Kulman (Fricka), Janina Baechle (Erda). Day 2. Die Walküre: Christopher Ventris (Siegmund), Mikhail Petrenko (Hunding), Michael Volle (Wotan), Martina Serafin (Sieglinde), Evelyn Herlitzius (Brünnhilde), Elisabeth Kulman (Fricka). Day 6. Siegfried: Stephen Gould (Siegfried), Evelyn Herlitzius (Brünnhilde), Michael Volle (Der Wanderer), Herwig Pecoraro (Mime). Day 9. Götterdämmerung: Stephen Gould (Siegfried), Falk Struckmann (Hagen), Evelyn Herlitzius (Brünnhilde), Boaz Daniel (Gunther), Caroline Wenborne (Gutrune). We anticipate that this tour will attract a lot of interest. It is possible to reserve a space by calling and making an advance deposit of £500. This deposit will be fully refundable should you choose not to go ahead once full details are published at the end of summer 2014.
The Danube Music Festival Private concerts in historic buildings 20–27 August 2015 Details available in October 2014 Contact us to register your interest Concerts with music of the Austro-Hungarian empire in some of the region’s finest palaces, churches and country houses. World-class artists, both well established and up-and-coming. John Gilhooly, director of Wigmore Hall, is the artistic director. For 2015, the twenty-second edition of the festival, there will be a Schubert theme. Exclusive to an audience of approximately 120 who take a package which includes accommodation on a river cruiser, meals, lectures and much else besides as well as the concerts. There is also a hotel-based alternative with country walks for an additional 18 participants. This festival combines music and architecture in a singularly beguiling way. The palaces, churches, abbeys, country houses, concert halls and theatres in which the concerts take place are among the most magnificent or delightful buildings along the Danube. But the value of the juxtaposition goes deeper than visual attraction. The buildings are generally of the same period as the pieces performed in them, and in some places there are specific historical associations between the two. Matching music and place – that is the governing principle of this festival. 2015 will be its twenty-second year. The audience is small – no more than 140 – which when taken with the relatively intimate size of most of the venues results in a rare intensity of musical experience. To this exceptional artistic experience is added a further pleasure, the comfort and convenience of a first-class river
Grein, steel engraving c. 1840.
cruiser which is both hotel and principal means of travel. There is also the option for up to 18 participants to stay in hotels along the route, attending concerts and taking country walks through upland country overlooking the Danube.
‘A most wonderfully organised trip in every way. Everything went smoothly, every detail had been thought of and planned – and worked.’ ‘We are in awe of what you achieved presenting the festival. ‘
Music tours in Austria still to come in 2015:
The Schuber tiade
August 2015 Details available in December 2014 Contact us to register your interest
June 2015 Details available in July 2014 Contact us to register your interest
Innsbruck Early Music Festival
Haydn in Eisenstadt
August 2015 Details available in September 2014 Contact us to register your interest
September 2015 Details available in September 2014 Contact us to register your interest
Joseph Haydn, 19th-century engraving.
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Summer Opera in Austria
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Mozar t in Salzburg The annual winter festival
Salzburg, Neues Schloss, woodcut c. 1920 by Frank Seidl.
in B minor ‘The Unfinished’; Mozart, Symphony No.40 in G minor. Day 2. As on most mornings the day starts with a lecture in the hotel. Morning concert at the Mozarteum: Cappella Andrea Barca, András Schiff (pianist and conductor): Beethoven, Piano Concerto No.1 in C; Schubert, Symphony No.5 in B; Mozart, Piano Concerto No.22 in E flat. In the afternoon, walk through the heart of the old city with a local guide and visit the museum in the Mozart family home. Day 3. Morning recital at the Mozarteum: Mitsuko Uchida (piano): Mozart Piano Sonatas in F, K.280; in C, K.330; in D, K.576; Schubert, Four Impromptus, D935. In the afternoon there is the option to participate in a private guided tour of the Mozarteum’s Autograph Vault, containing original letters and manuscripts. Dinner before a concert at the Mozarteum: Camerata Salzburg, Juraj Valcuha (conductor), Piotr Anderszewski (piano): Schubert, Symphony No.3 in D; Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 17 in G; Symphony No.36 in C, ‘Linz’. Day 4: Bad Ischl, Salzburg. After a lecture depart for an excursion through the ravishing landscapes of the Salzkammergut to Bad Ischl, with lunch here. Return to Salzburg for a free afternoon. Evening concert at the Mozarteum: Les Musisiens du Louvre Grenoble, Marc Minkowski (conductor), Thibault Noally (violin), Francesco Corti, (piano): Mozart, Piano Concerto No.23 in A; Violin Concerto No.5 in A; Schubert, Symphony No.8 in C.
24–29 January 2015 (mb 230) 6 days • £2,990 (including tickets to 7 performances) Lecturer: Richard Wigmore Daily attendance at the Mozartwoche, the annual festival celebrating the composer’s work in the town of his birth. An outstanding programme, primarily Mozart, performed by leading orchestras, chamber groups and soloists. The best-preserved Baroque city in northern Europe in a wonderful alpine setting.
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Five-star hotel close to the Mozarteum. Led by Richard Wigmore, music writer, lecturer and broadcaster for BBC Radio 3. Salzburg is that rare thing, a tiny city with world-class standards in nearly everything the discerning visitor – and resident – would want. It is miraculous that such charm, and such grandeur, and, above all, such unparalleled weight of musical achievement, should be concentrated in so small a place. A virtually independent city-state from its origins in the early Middle Ages until its absorption into the Habsburg Empire in the nineteenth century, Salzburg’s days of glory had
all but slipped into the past by the time Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born there. He became the unwitting instigator, post-mortem, of Salzburg’s transformation from minor ecclesiastical seat to the world’s foremost city of music festivals. There are five of them. The Mozartwoche (Mozart Week) held in January every year celebrates Salzburg’s most famous son with musicians famed worldwide for their Mozart interpretations. Our tour allows the concerts to be interspersed with a gentle programme of walks and an excursion to some of the finest art and architecture and scenic beauty in the region. But there is also plenty of free time to relax and gather energies for the performances, and for individual exploration of the city. The city has several museums – a recent addition is a Museum of Contemporary Art in a cliff-top location overlooking the city, and the city’s principal museum has been re-established in a part of the Archbishop’s palace known as the Neue Residenz.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 9.45am from London Gatwick to Salzburg (British Airways). Afternoon visit to Mozart’s birthplace and an early dinner before a concert at the Großes Festspielhaus: the Vienna Philharmonic, Lorin Maazel (conductor): Mozart, Symphony No.29 in A; Schubert, Symphony No.7
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Day 5. Morning Lieder recital at the Mozarteum: Christine Schäfer (soprano), Daniel Sepec (violin), Eric Schneider (piano): songs by Mozart and Schubert. Afternoon visit to the Alte Residenz, a complex dating back to the 16th century, housing a sequence of a dozen impressive state rooms, of which several were redesigned in the Baroque style by Erlach and Hildebrandt. The adjoining Residenzgalerie contains a collection of 16th– 19th-century European painting, including works by Rembrandt and Rubens. Evening concert at the Mozarteum: the Vienna Philharmonic, Andrés Orozco-Estrada (conductor), Gautier Capuçon, (cello); Schubert, Symphony No.1 in D; Sonata in A minor; Mozart, Symphony No.1 in E flat; Elliott Carter, Symphony No.1. Day 6. The flight from Salzburg arrives at London Gatwick c. 12.45pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,990 (deposit £300). Single supplement £270. Price without flights £2,840. Included meals: 1 lunch, 4 dinners with wine. Music: tickets (first category) for 7 performances are included, costing c. £860. Accommodation: Hotel Bristol (hotel.bristolsalzburg.at): 5-star family-run hotel, located two minutes walk from the Mozarteum and across the river from the Festspielhaus (600 metres). Group size: between 12 and 22 participants.
Flemish Painting
From van Eyck to Rubens: Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, Brussels 2–5 September 2015 (mc 462) 4 days • £1,380 Lecturer: Dr Sophie Oosterwijk Immersion in the paintings of the Golden Age in the beautiful, unspoilt cities in which they were created. The main centres of Flemish art: Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, Brussels and Louvain. Based in Ghent, which is equidistant to the other places on the itinerary. First-class train travel from London.
Day 3: Antwerp. The great port on the Scheldt has an abundance of historic buildings and museums and churches of the highest interest. Four of Rubens’s most powerful paintings are in the vast Gothic cathedral, joined for the first time since 1799 by a dozen major altarpieces dispersed by Napoleon. The house and studio Rubens built for himself are fascinating and well stocked with good pictures, and the Mayer van der Bergh Museum has a small but outstanding collection including works by Bruegel. Day 4: Brussels, Louvain. Thriving in the 19th and 20th centuries, Brussels nevertheless retains splendid historic townhouses and guildhouses around the Grand Place. The Fine Arts Museum is one of the best in Europe, and presents a comprehensive collection of Netherlandish painting as well as international works. The attractive university city of Louvain
has a splendid Gothic town hall and the Institution of the Sacrament by Dirck Bouts, still in the chapel for which it was painted. Return to Brussels for the train to London St Pancras, arriving at c. 6.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £1,380 (deposit £150). Single supplement £80. Price without Eurostar £1,180. Included meals: 1 lunch, 3 dinners with wine. Accommodation: Hotel NH Gent Belfort, a comfortable 4-star hotel, excellently located beside the town hall. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
Dr Sophie Oosterwijk Researcher and lecturer and an expert on the Middle Ages, Netherlandish and Dutch art. She has taught at the universities of Leicester, Manchester and St Andrews, and regularly lectures at Cambridge. She is a former editor of the journal Church Monuments and has published widely. All lecturers’ biographies can be found on pages 8–15.
Bruges, watercolour by W.L. Bruckman, publ. 1900.
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Western art began in the southern Netherlands. In the context of 40,000 years of human artistic endeavour, painting which gives primacy to the naturalistic depiction of the visible world was an eccentric digression. But the illusionistic triad of solidity, space and texture first came together early in the fifteenth century in what is now Belgium, and dominated European art for the next five hundred years. The Flemish cities of Bruges and Ghent were among the most prosperous and progressive in mediaeval Europe. Brussels and Antwerp peaked later, the latter becoming Europe’s largest port in the sixteenth century. All retain tracts of unspoilt streetscape which place them among the most attractive destinations in northern Europe. Jan van Eyck and his brother Hubert stand at the head of the artistic revolution. Their consummate skill with the hitherto unexploited technique of oil painting resulted in pictures which have rarely been equalled for their jewellike brilliance and breathtaking naturalism. The tradition of exquisite workmanship was continued with the same tranquillity of spirit by such masters as Hans Memling in Bruges and with greater emotionalism by Rogier van der Weyden in Brussels and Hugo van der Goes in Ghent, while Hieronymus Bosch was an individualist who specialised in the depiction of human sin and hellish retribution. The sixteenth century saw a shift towards mannerist displays of virtuoso skill and spiritual tension, though the outstanding painter of the century was another individualist, Pieter Bruegel. A magnificent culmination was reached in the seventeenth century with Peter Paul Rubens, the greatest painter of the Baroque age. His works are of an unsurpassed vigour and vitality, and are painted with a breadth and bravura which took the potential of oil painting to new heights. This tour presents one of the most glorious episodes in the history of art.
Day 2: Bruges. With its canals, melancholic hues and highly picturesque streetscape, Bruges is one of the loveliest cities in northern Europe. A major manufacturing and trading city in the Middle Ages, decline had already set in before the end of the 15th century. The Groeninge Museum has an excellent collection by Flemish masters including Jan van Eyck, and the mediaeval Hospital of St John contains major paintings by Hans Memling. Also seen are the market place with its soaring belfry, the Gothic town hall and the Church of Our Lady, where Michelangelo’s marvellous marble Madonna and Child is located.
Itinerary Day 1: Ghent. Depart at c. 11.00am from London St Pancras by Eurostar for Lille, and from there drive to Ghent. Check into the hotel before visiting the cathedral to see the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb polyptych by Hubert and Jan van Eyck, one of the greatest masterpieces of Netherlandish painting. Visit briefly the Museum of Fine Arts, principally to see a work by Hieronymus Bosch.
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Agincour t, Crécy & Waterloo
Two anniversaries, 1415 & 1815, with a 1346 bonus of the longbow over knights in armour. The battlefield has changed little in topography and planting in 650 years. Overnight Montreuil. Day 2: Agincourt. Similarly remote and rural, the little-altered terrain helps explain how Henry V and his exhausted followers brought catastrophe to the much larger French army. However, the traditional national myth and Shakespearean spin veils a more complex and controversial reality. After a brief visit to the visitors’ centre, have lunch in the vicinity before driving across Flemish France and Walloon Belgium to Waterloo. First of three nights in Waterloo.
‘The Morning of Agincourt’, watercolour after Sir John Gilbert publ. 1920.
6–10 July 2015 (mb 390) 5 days • £1,760 Lecturer: Major Gordon Corrigan 2–6 September 2015 (mc 459) 5 days • £1,760 Lecturer: Major Gordon Corrigan Trumpeter: David Hendry A study of three of the best-known battles in British history, and of their remarkably well preserved battlefields. Led by an outstanding military historian who has published on both periods. Replicating the bugle calls at Waterloo is a unique feature of our tours.
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The Battle of Waterloo in 1815 terminated twentythree years of fighting and ushered in ninety-nine years of relative peace and political equilibrium. Waterloo can also be seen as marking Great Britain’s coming of age as a superpower. The event became absolutely key for British selfidentity, epitomising the championship of liberty over tyranny, victory of the weaker over the stronger, and the value of the virtues of courage, composure, discipline and perseverance. Despite its far-reaching consequences, Waterloo was far from being the biggest battle of the Napoleonic Wars, or the bloodiest, or even, in terms of imbalance of casualties, the most decisive. It was not even a particularly British victory – two-thirds of the allied army was German, Dutch and Belgian, and that is without including the Prussians, whose intervention late in the day ensured victory. Much of the enduring fascination of the battle – probably the most written-about in history – derives from these controversies and because it was ‘the nearest run
thing you ever saw in your life’. Wellington’s ‘infamous army’, though of similar size to Napoleon’s, contained a high proportion of inexperienced troops and citizen militia, and some who only a year previously had been marching under the imperial eagle. But they stood their ground tenaciously and finished the day in triumph. This was Wellington’s ultimate test, his chance to measure his abilities against Napoleon, whom he had never met in battle before. His generalship proved to be the superior. A special feature of these tours is that the bugle commands will be sounded at the appropriate moments during the lecturer’s discourse as the narrative of the battle unfurls. For this we have secured the services of David Hendry, one of the leading exponents of the natural trumpet and soloist with many period instrument ensembles. Amazingly, fortuitously, all three battlefields are very well preserved. Crécy (1346) and Agincourt (1415) were also scenes of British victories over superior French forces and are major ingredients in the fading national myth. But it is not jingoism which brings these three battles together in this tour, but the contingency of geographical proximity – that and their fame. As a trio of events in British (pre-Victorian) history, their combined resonance is unsurpassed. A proper study of the battlefields leaves little room for partiality; ‘Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.’
Itinerary Day 1: Crécy. Take the Eurostar at 11.00am from St Pancras to Lille. Drive south through rolling countryside to the village of Crécy-en-Ponthieu. It was here in August 1346 that an English army commanded by Edward III and the Black Prince inflicted a crushing defeat on a numerically superior French and international force, victory
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Day 3: Quatre Bras, Ligny. The Wellington Museum is in the inn where the Duke spent the nights before and after the battle. During the day of 16th June some of the scattered allied contingents converged at Quatre Bras, but numerical inferiority led to a well fought defensive engagement and, on the 17th June, an orderly withdrawal admirably screened by cavalry. At the same time a much bigger battle was taking place 7 miles to the East at Ligny where the Prussians were badly defeated by Napoleon; this proved to be his last victory. Day 4: Waterloo. All day is spent walking the battlefield, with stops for talks at key positions. Among the highlights are the farmstead of Hougoumont, held by the Guards throughout the day during the fiercest fighting, and the sweep of terrain across which the British cavalry drove back the advance of the French but exhausted themselves in the process. Also visit the panoramic painting of the battle (1912) and climb the Lion Mound. Finish the day by walking the course taken by Napoleon’s Guards towards the allied lines before they turned and fled in the face of deadly fire and bayonet charges. Day 5: Plancenoit, Waterloo. Prussian troops entered the village of Plancenoit south of the battlefield and soaked up Napoleon’s reserves; the fighting was so fierce that little of the village survives. Visit the Napoleon museum in the house where he spent the night before the fateful battle. Return to London by Eurostar from Brussels arriving St Pancras c. 5.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £1,760 (deposit £150). Single supplement £220. Price without Eurostar £1,560. Included meals: 1 lunch, 4 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Hermitage, Montreuilsur-Mer (hermitage-montreuil.com): a 19th-cent. building in the centre of Montreuil converted into a 3-star hotel. Superior bedrooms are of a good size, the décor is modern. Martin’s Grand Hotel, Waterloo (martins-hotels.com): located close to the battlefield, this 4-star hotel is in a converted 19th-cent. sugar refinery. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Mitteldeutschland, 26 June–4 July 2015 (page 90), French Gothic, 7–13 September 2015 (page 67).
Flanders Fields
Walking the battlefields of World War I 4–7 June 2015 (mb 352) 4 days • £1,240 Lecturer: Andrew Spooner In depth look at one of The Great War’s most infamous battlegrounds. Tracing personal wartime tales and exploring lesser known events. Led by military expert Andrew Spooner. There were four major battles at Ypres between October 1914 and April 1918. The first was a powerful German offensive to take the town during the last week of October and the first week of November 1914 in an attempt to thrust towards the channel ports. The Second Battle of Ypres began on 12th April 1915 with a strong German attack to the north; the British replied with an attack successfully capturing Hill 60. On 22nd April the Germans used poisonous gas for the first time on the Western Front. The lull between June 1915 and June 1917 was in fact an artillery duel, with both sides attempting to destroy the other’s defensive positions. The consequence was the almost total destruction of the magnificent town, in the Middle Ages a leading centre of cloth manufacture. On June 7th 1917 the Third Battle of Ypres commenced. Known today as ‘Passchendaele’, this series of limited objective attacks on the German positions, using lessons learned from the attacks on the Somme in 1916, saw Ypres finally being relieved from threat. The Battle of Messines started this offensive with the exploding of nineteen huge mines under the German lines. On November 6th the Passchendaele Ridge was finally cleared by British and Canadian troops. The cost of victory was extremely high as visits to Tyne Cot Cemetery, Langemark and the Menin Gate will illustrate. In 1918 the Germans, in one last effort to achieve victory, swept through this area in a matter of days, and although they advanced as far as Kemmel, Ypres managed to hold out. This tour studies trench warfare and follows the fronts of both Allied and German forces.
Through walking the scarred landscape of Ypres, personal and moving stories of individuals caught up in the war, whether as soldiers or civilians, are uncovered and expertly recounted by Andrew Spooner, a military historian with over twenty years experience of leading tours to the region.
line. Experience the direct contrast of the German Cemetery at Langemark before visiting Essex Farm and exploring the medical and evacuation services. Return late afternoon to the hotel in order to attend the Menin Gate Ceremony (there will be an opportunity to lay a wreath of poppies). Final night in Lille.
Itinerary
Day 4: Kemmel, Poperinge. Morning visit of Kemmel to investigate the practice of execution for deserters before visiting Talbot House, the sanctuary established by Gilbert Neville for soldiers seeking peace and rest from the Great War. Drive to Calais for the Eurotunnel journey to London, arriving c. 7.00pm.
Day 1: Spanbroekmoelen, Bayenwald. Travel by coach at 7.30am from central London to Folkestone for the 35-minute Eurotunnel crossing to Calais. Walk the battlefield, including Spanbroekmoelen and Bayenwald, for an introduction to the landscape and environment. Continue to Lille for the first of three nights. Day 2: Zonnebeke, Potijze, Zillebeke. Early visit of the museum at Zonnebeke followed by Hussar Farm, a former 19th-centfarmhouse concreted over by the Royal Engineers and used as an artillery post. The rest of the morning is spent at Hell Fire Corner on the Menin Road and walking the original frontline from Spoilbank Cemetery towards the Bluff. After lunch continue the walk towards Caterpillar, Hill 60 and Larch Wood. Day 3: Zonnebeke, Broodseinde, Langemark, Boezinge, Ypres. Walk from Zonnebeke Railway Station to the Tyne Cot Military Cemetery observing examples of the change from rigid trench warfare to defence by following an Australian Battalion along the former railway
Practicalities Price: £1,240 (deposit £150). Single supplement £140 (double for single occupancy). Included meals: 3 lunches, 3 dinners with wine. Accommodation: Novotel Centrum, Ypres, (accorhotels.com): a 3-star hotel located near the Menin Gate. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Great Houses of the South West, 9–16 June 2015 (page 44).
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Military historian specialising in the Great War. He runs his own battlefield tours and organises specialist study days for colleges and museums throughout the country. He is a regular visiting lecturer at the Imperial War Museum Duxford and has appeared in documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4. Andrew Spooner also leads Poets & The Somme, 4–7 September 2015 (page 72). All lecturers’ biographies can be found on pages 8–15.
A ruined church outside Ypres, drawing by Muirhead Bone from The Western Front. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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The Western Balkans
Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina & Montenegro 6–19 October 2014 (mb 151) This tour is currently full 4–17 May 2015 (mb 312) 14 days • £4,110 Lecturer: David Gowan 5–18 October 2015 (mc 474) 14 days • £4,110 Lecturer: David Gowan A ground-breaking journey through one of the most politically complex and fissiparous yet fundamentally similar regions of Europe. Led by a former British ambassador in Belgrade, David Gowan. Rural villages, little-visited towns, imposing capitals; magnificent mountainous landscapes; little tourism. Exquisite Byzantine wall paintings in the fortresslike monasteries of Southern Serbia, Ottoman mosques, Art Nouveau architecture.
This journey takes us to borderlands where, for much of their history, the South Slavs have been divided by competing empires and cultures. In Serbia, the Nemjana dynasty flourished from the twelfth until the fourteenth centuries and built monasteries that combined Byzantine and Romanesque influences. But from the early fifteenth century (following the defeat of Prince Lazar in 1389) until the mid-nineteenth century, the Ottoman Turks ruled Serbia, Bosnia and much of Slavonia. Meanwhile, the Habsburg Empire reached south into Croatia, and Venice dominated the cities of the Adriatic coast. The modern politics and structure of the Western Balkans were defined by the Congress of Berlin in 1878; the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, which created the first Yugoslavia; the Second World War, which ravaged the region and gave birth to Tito’s Yugoslavia; and, most recently, the maelstrom of the 1990s and the emergence of the present seven independent states. What are the Western Balkans like now? There has been a major change in the past decade. The capitals and main cities that we shall visit are all lively and welcoming, but each retains a distinct character. Croatia is prosperous and joined the
Mostar, Bosnia, from Balkan Sketches by Lester G. Hornby, 1926.
EU in the summer of 2013. Its historic links to Vienna and Budapest can be seen clearly in Zagreb and Osijek. Our other destinations are more complex and multi-layered. Belgrade is historically the extension of a strategic Ottoman citadel overlooking the Danube and Sava. It has fine and varied architecture (including some from the Art Nouveau period) and a cosmopolitan feel. Sarajevo combines mosques, Orthodox churches, squares and kafanas in a mountainous setting. Its troubled history is not far below the surface. The smaller Bosnian towns on our route (Višegrad, Mostar and Trebinje) have great charm. Kotor – in Montenegro – is a small fortified Venetian port city with a Romanesque cathedral on the shore of a fjord. Visits to the old capital, Cetinje, and the coast will offer insights into Montenegro’s history and strongly independent national character. One particular feature of this journey is that it takes in remote and functioning Serbian Orthodox monasteries that are of exceptional architectural and artistic interest, and include unesco World Heritage sites. This tour is emphatically a journey, with some long days and much driving through hilly terrain. The late-spring and summer departures will show the magnificent countryside at its best.
Itinerary Day 1: Zagreb. Fly at c. 9.00am (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Zagreb. Lunch is served upon arrival followed by an orientation walk, including a visit to the State Archives. First of two nights in Zagreb (Croatia). Day 2: Zagreb. The westernmost place on this tour, the capital of Croatia ranks with the loveliest cities of Central Europe. The MeŠtrović Atelier displaying the works of the renowned Croatian sculptor, private viewing of the Golden Hall,, the Gothic Cathedral of the Assumption. Walk to the upper town, the Kaptol district, via the bustling market. After lunch there is free time to visit the Modern Art Gallery and Museum of Arts and Crafts. Overnight Zagreb.
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Day 3: Zagreb, Osijek. Drive through Croatia’s rustic north-eastern region of Slavonia via lunch at a vineyard to Osijek. Located on the River Drava amid gently undulating countryside, Osijek is the administrative centre of Slavonia. There is a remarkably unspoilt 18th-century quarter built by the Austrians as their military and administrative headquarters when they pushed back the Turks, with cobbled alleys and fortress walls. Overnight Osijek (Croatia). Day 4: Ilok, Novi Sad. Pass through Vukovar, the Croatian town worst damaged by the 1991 war. Stop near Ilok, a picturesque fortified settlement on a bluff high above the Danube. Cross the river into Serbia and spend the afternoon in Novi Sad. This has a picturesque core with buildings from the 18th century. Onwards and, across the Danube, the massive fortress of Petrovaradin which was pivotal in Prince Eugene’s wars with the Turks. First of two nights in Belgrade (Serbia).
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Day 5: Belgrade. With its broad avenues and imposing public buildings, Belgrade is unmistakably a capital and instantly recognisable as a Balkan one. After Diocletian divided the Roman Empire in ad 295 it became the westernmost stronghold of the eastern portion. Its kernel is a citadel on a hill above the meeting of the Danube and Sava rivers which holds the record for the number of times it has changed hands between hostile powers. The bulk of its architecture dates from the late 19th century onwards. Liveliness is provided by the café culture typical of the Balkans. Final night in Belgrade.
Day 7: Studenica, Sopoćani. This includes a drive through spectacular mountain scenery. We visit two more superb mediaeval monasteries, Studenica and Sopoćani. Both are located in remote and beautiful valleys, both have amongst the finest 13th-and 14th-century Byzantine frescoes to survive anywhere. We stop briefly near the Bosniak town of Novi Pazar in the Sandžak. Day 8: Višegrad, Sarajevo. Cross from Serbia to Bosnia-Herzegovina. Stop at the beautiful late 16th-century Višegrad bridge before continuing to the capital, Sarajevo. First of two nights in Sarajevo. Day 9: Sarajevo. Famously squeezed by high treeclad hills at the head of a river valley, Sarajevo was founded in the 15th century by the Ottoman Turks in the wake of their steady conquest of the Balkan Peninsula. The various assorted mosques, churches and synagogues highlight the pluralist nature of the city. It is possible to stand where Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand; in the adjacent museum it is strangely moving to see the trousers of the man who started the First World War. Final night in Sarajevo.
Day 11: Stolac, Trebinje, Kotor. This is wine country, and after a stop in the quiet Ottoman town of Stolac lunch is at a winery in Trebinje, the southernmost city of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Walk around the historic walled town and a country market. In the afternoon cross from BosniaHerzegovina to Montenegro and descend into
Romania Osijek
Croatia
Novi Sad
Ilok
Belgrade
Bosnia & Herzegovina Sarajevo
Serbia Višegrad
Stolac
Montenegro
Adriatic Sea
Trebinje Perast Cetinje
c. 100 km
‘The lecturer was truly excellent: besides giving us the benefit of his experiences as a diplomat in the region, he demonstrated a clear love and broad knowledge of all the countries we visited. In addition, he was a most kind and charming tour leader.’ the Bay of Kotor. First of three nights in Kotor (Montenegro). Day 12: Kotor, Perast. Kotor nestles at the foot of high hills, a harbour on a sheltered fjord off the Adriatic. This diminutive city retains its fearsome ramparts, much unspoilt streetscape and an astonishing Romanesque cathedral incorporating Roman columns. In the later afternoon drive around the fjord to Perast, perched between towering mountains and the water, with large mansions, mediaeval to Baroque. A short boat ride allows a visit to an island church, Our Lady of the Rock, before lunch on the water’s edge. Day 13: Cetinje, Budva. A mountain drive to the Cetinje which until the end of the First World War was the capital of Montenegro, and still retains the echo of uniforms, a royal court and Balkan diplomacy. Visit the Palace of King Nikola, the Art and History Museum andformer embassies. In the afternoon visit the historic old town of Budva on Montenegro’s Adriatic coast. Final night in Kotor.
Sopoćani
Kosovo
Kotor Italy
Kraljevo Studenica
Mostar
Dubrovnik
Manasija
Albania
ia
Macedonia
Practicalities Price in 2015: £4,110 (deposit £400). Single supplement £380 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £3,880. Included meals: 9 lunches, 10 dinners with wine. Visas: are not required for British citizens. Citizens of Australia and the US do not require visas for tourist stays of up to 90 days. Accommodation. The Regent Esplanade Hotel, Zagreb (esplanade.hr): grand 5- star hotel within walking distance of the city centre. Hotel Osijek, Osijek (hotelosijek.hr/en): a modern and comfortable high-rise hotel on the bank of the river Drava. Hotel Moskva, Belgrade (hotelmoskva.rs): a well-located and comfortable hotel built in 1926 with a great deal of character, recently renovated. Hotel Crystal, Kraljevo (hotelcrystal.rs): simple but adequate and with welcoming service, the only acceptable hotel in a region with little tourism. Hotel Europe, Sarajevo (hoteleurope.ba): a centrally located 5-star hotel, the best in the city, built in the late 19th century but comprehensively renovated. Hotel Bristol, Mostar (bristol.ba/en) a modern business hotel within walking distance of the historic centre. Hotel Cattaro, Kotor (cattarohotel.com): located within the old city walls, this hotel provides an excellent base from which to explore. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Samarkand & Silk Road Cities, 19–29 May 2015 (page 215), Gastronomic Sicily, 19–25 October 2015 (page 161).
Day 14: Kotor. Fly from Dubrovnik, arriving London Gatwick at approximately 3.00pm.
bosnia & herzegovina
Day 10: Mostar. Driving over the mountains that encircle Sarajevo and following the Neretva river, we arrive in Mostar in the late morning. A thriving trading town since Herzegovina came under Ottoman rule in 1482, this is BosniaHerzegovina’s most picturesque town, an openair museum with narrow cobbled streets and original Ottoman architecture. At its heart is the Old Bridge, shelled until it collapsed in 1993 and rebuilt in 2004. Overnight Mostar (Bosnia-Herzegovina).
Virovitica
Zagreb
Bulg ar
Day 6: Belgrade, Manasija. Free morning in Belgrade. Then begin three days visiting what Serbia does best, mediaeval Orthodox monasteries. Tucked in a wooded valley, Manasija is ringed by surely the highest and stoutest walls of any monastery anywhere, built in the early 15th century in expectation of the inevitable Turkish assault. Frescoes of the highest quality – a late flowering of Byzantine art – survive well. First of two nights in Kraljevo (Serbia).
Hungary Slovenia
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Essential China
A selection of the most celebrated sights in China 8–21 September 2015 (mc 452) 14 days/ 12 nights • £5,870 Lecturer: Dr Jamie Greenbaum Planned as an introduction to China featuring many of China’s most fascinating places. Six unesco World Heritage Sites are included. Beijing, Xi’an and Shanghai: more time in these three main centres than on most tours, and a selection of small-town and rural sites. Talks on history, society, literature, art and present-day China by Dr James Greenbaum, Beijing-based Sinologist and author.
For the average westerner, learning about China’s past is a progressively more astonishing journey, and a humbling one. Much that we regard as constituting the fundamentals of civilization were prevalent in China two or even three millennia ago: skills artistic and technological, laws and governance humane and commonsensical, mastery of the arts of war and the arts of peace, building and engineering projects of staggering magnitude, and the possibility, for some, of a life devoted to the pursuit of beauty and intellectual refinement. And then there is the fascination of present-day China, likely soon to be the world’s largest economy and destined to have an impact on all of our lives. The most important Chinese capitals have always been in the north. Xi’an is where the imperial story began, and for centuries it was the
capital of the great empire in the east, hosting the grandiose designs of the first emperor with his terracotta warriors and later anchoring one end of the Silk Road. Beijing has been the grandest city on the planet for much of the past 800 years since Khubilai Khan made it the capital of his China-centric empire. When the Mongols were finally expelled by the Chinese Ming dynasty, Beijing soon became the most perfectly planned cosmological capital, one that would serve the Ming and Manchurian Qing dynasties for over 500 years. Hangzhou brings us to the lands of rice and fish, where the climate is gentle and the land generous. The Yangtse Valley breadbasket first supported numerous northern governments and later bestowed its cultural riches and leisure
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20th-century Chinese woodcut. book online at www.martinrandall.com
activities throughout the entire empire. Marco Polo was enchanted by the grace and charm of Hangzhou, and in the surrounding hills monks developed some of the finest tea plantations in China. Hangzhou lives on today as a locus of relaxation and culture with profound cultural resonances for the Chinese. Shanghai, by contrast, is a law unto itself: originally a small fishing village, it began its rise with the foreign settlements that followed the first opium war in the mid-nineteenth century. A capitalist machine, it has also been the home of much political radicalism and was where the Chinese Communist Party came into being. These sometime conflicting and irreconcilable roles give Shanghai a vibrancy and timbre like no other Chinese city.
Itinerary Day 1: London to Beijing. Fly at 4.45pm from London Heathrow to Beijing (British Airways, c. 10 hours). Day 2: Beijing. Arrive at Beijing Airport at c. 9.30am and drive to the hotel where rooms will be ready for rest before lunch. The afternoon visit is to the Capital Museum, a striking modern building containing a selection of art and artefacts including wonderful ancient Buddhist statues and an exceptionally fine collection of porcelain. First of four nights in Beijing. Day 3: Beijing. The Forbidden City is at once enthralling and imposing; past the formidable walls and moat are vast courtyards punctuated with terraced pavilions, palaces and gardens. Marble paving and bridges and finely-carved balustrades mark the imperial way along which lie three ceremonial halls; beyond these are the comparatively closeted living quarters. There is special access (subject to confirmation) to the Shufang Zhai, where banquets and operas were held. Afternoon visits include the 17th-cent. Lama Temple, formerly an imperial residence before its conversion to a Buddhist place of worship, and a Confucian temple founded during the Yuan dynasty. Overnight Beijing.
Day 5: Jinshanling, Beijing. Morning excursion to a particularly spectacular (though relatively little visited) stretch of the Great Wall at Jinshanling. Walk along a section where it climbs and plunges over hilly terrain. Return to Beijing in the afternoon for some free time. Overnight Beijing.
Historian specialising in Ming dynasty cultural history. He is a Visiting Fellow in the School of Culture, History & Language at the Australian National University and lectures at the Renmin University, Beijing. He has published books on the late-Ming literary world and the early twentieth-century political figure Qu Qiubai. All lecturers’ biographies can be found on pages 8–15. Day 6: Beijing, Xi’an. The massive National Museum in Tiananmen Square has superb collections of early Chinese artefacts, Zhou bronzes, painting and the whole range of porcelain from Tang (ad 618–907) to Qing (ended 1911). Fly in the afternoon (Air China) to Xi’an. First of four nights in Xi’an. Day 7: Xi’an. Full day excursion east and north of the city. The tomb of the first emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi, is yet to be excavated but his legacy was secured in 1974 when farmers digging a well discovered his terracotta army of infantry, cavalry and civil servants. There may be 20,000 of them, over 1.5 metres tall; only a relatively small part of the site has been uncovered, but it is nevertheless one of the most spectacular archaeological finds of all time. The pottery warriors at the later tomb of the fourth Han emperor, Liu Qi, display striking attention to detail; some eunuch figures have been found here, providing the earliest known evidence of this phenomenon in China. Overnight Xi’an. Day 8: Xi’an. The Shaanxi History Museum explains the history and culture of the province, the heartland of ancient Chinese civilisation. The Beilin Museum displays a collection of stone stelae, engraved with classic texts and masterpieces of calligraphy, and a fine collection of Buddhist statues. The day ends with a walk through the winding streets of the city’s Muslim Quarter. The Great Mosque, one of the largest in China, was originally built in ad 742 although the present fabric dates from the Qing Dynasty. Overnight Xi’an. Day 9: Luoyang. Day trip by high-speed train to Luoyang to see the Longmen Caves, an extraordinary collection of statuary carved into the hillside that runs along the western bank of the Yi River. Begun by the Buddhist Northern Wei rulers (ad 386–534) and added to during the later Sui and Tang dynasties. There are over 100,000 statues clustered in 2,000 caves and crevices. Overnight Xi’an.
Day 11: Hangzhou. Start the day at the Lingyin Temple, one of China’s largest though now much reduced. Just outside the complex are dozens of Buddhist sculptures carved into the rock face, many dating back to the 10th century. Drive out of the city to Longjing (Dragon Well) Village, source of one of China’s most famous varieties of green tea. The scenic tranquillity of the West Lake has been immortalised by countless poets and painters over the centuries. Overnight Hangzhou. Day 12: Hangzhou to Shanghai. By train to Shanghai (luggage is sent separately by van). For its density, vibrancy and extent, both horizontal and vertical, Shanghai is the city of cities. Despite frenetic building activity (the world’s tallest building will reach completion here in 2014) enclaves of low-rise structures remain in the centre, though there is little here that is more than a hundred years old. Visit the Shanghai Museum, outstanding for porcelain, jade, furniture and, in particular, Shang and Zhou bronzes. Overnight Shanghai. Day 13: Shanghai. Walk along the Bund, Shanghai’s iconic riverside stretch of Art Deco and Neoclassical buildings, symbolic of the city’s burgeoning wealth in the 1920s and 1930s. See also the city’s finest traditional garden. The Long Museum showcases an enormous private collection of Chinese art in a variety of media, Northern Song to Qing, Communist era and modern – China is a world leader for contemporary art. Overnight Shanghai. Day 14: Shanghai to London. Fly at 11.00am from Shanghai to London, arriving at c. 4.30pm (c. 12.5 hours).
Practicalities Price: £5,870 (deposit £500). Single supplement £790 (double for single occupancy). Price without international flights £5,060. Included meals: 10 lunches, 7 dinners with wine. Visas: required for most foreign nationals, and not included in the tour price. Accommodation. Waldorf Astoria, Beijing (waldorfastoria.hilton.com): recently-opened, 5-star luxury hotel in the city centre. Westin Hotel, Xi’an (starwoodhotels.com/westin): modern, comfortable and well-run 4-star hotel, located in the south of the city. Sofitel West Lake Hotel, Hangzhou (sofitel.com): 4-star hotel, located on the east side of the West Lake (rooms do not have lake views). Yangtze Boutique Hotel, Shanghai (theyangtzehotel.com): 4-star, Art Deco hotel ideally situated close to the Shanghai Museum.
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Day 4: Greater Beijing. The Ming Tombs in countryside outside the city are the final resting place of 13 of the 16 Ming emperors. The tomb of Emperor Yongle (1402–1424) consists of a 7-km Sacred Way flanked by stone animals and courtiers, a succession of courts with ceremonial gateways and a man-made hill concealing the tomb itself. Lunch by the Summer Palace, a peaceful setting popular with the emperors since the Jin, periodically enlarged and embellished; after its destruction in 1860 Empress Dowager Cixi expended vast sums in constructing her pleasure palace here. Overnight Beijing.
Dr Jamie Greenbaum
Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
Day 10: Xi’an, Hangzhou. Adjacent to the hotel stands the Great Goose Pagoda, first built in ad 452 for the monk Xuanzang to house the sutra he brought back from his pilgrimage to India. Fly to Hangzhou (Hainan Airlines), capital of the Southern Song Dynasty 1138–1279. First of two nights in Hangzhou.
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Chinese Ceramics
Collections, kiln sites and trade routes in China & Taiwan 18–28 April 2015 (mb 292) 11 days/ 9 nights • £4,430 Lecturer: Dr Lars Tharp A celebration of Chinese porcelain, a sweep through China’s material culture and landscapes. Includes the world’s greatest collection of Chinese art, the National Palace Museum in Taiwan. Three nights in historic Jingdezhen, porcelain capital of the world. Led by cultural historian and ceramics specialist Lars Tharp, author, film-maker and broadcaster. Chinese porcelain has been called the first globally traded luxury. For centuries its magical whiteness and translucency, its vibrant blues and later its gorgeous colour painting held princes and aesthetes in its spell. It was not until a whole millennium after its emergence in China that the secret of its manufacture was discovered in
Europe in the early eighteenth century. In ad 1004 the reigning Song emperor conferred his name upon the porcelain-making city of Chang-Nan, later known as Jingdezhen. It supplied the imperial household in Beijing, transporting its wares along the Yangtze and the Grand Canal, while other river and laborious overland routes were established to fulfil orders from Persia and later from foreign merchants in Java, Macao and Shanghai. To this day Jingdezhen continues as a major centre for ceramic production with a happy co-existence of ancient traditions and modern processes. The journey from Jingdezhen to Hangzhou passes ancient villages nestling in landscapes first revealed to Europeans in depictions on vases and tea services. The Southern Song capital of Hangzhou is the southern terminus of China’s – and one of the world’s – greatest civil engineering achievements, the Grand Canal. Begun in ad 612 it ran north-west to Beijing via Luoyang. Across the straits in Taipei, capital of Taiwan, the fabled imperial treasures are on display at the National Palace Museum. Amassed over centuries by the emperor-collectors of the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, it is the world’s finest collection of Chinese art. In 1949, as the war between Nationalist and Communist forces neared its conclusion, Chiang Kai-shek ordered that the collection be shipped to Taiwan to prevent the treasure falling into the hands of the victorious Communists. There it remains, a collection so large that the NPM rotates 3000 of its exhibits every three months.
For the devotee of Chinese porcelain this tour provides a unique opportunity to study some of the finest examples in the context of its manufacture, trade, cultural framework and proximate landscapes. For the merely interested, it is likely to bequeath a lifelong capacity to delight in one of the world’s most intensely beautiful artforms.
Itinerary Day 1: London to Shanghai. Fly at around noon from London Heathrow to Shanghai (British Airways, c. 11 hours). Day 2: Shanghai. Arrive in Shanghai at c. 6.00am and drive to the hotel to rest and freshen up before lunch. A relatively young city by Chinese standards, Shanghai is now the nation’s largest and most dynamic. There is an afternoon walk along the Bund, the imposing and well preserved riverside stretch of Art Deco and Neoclassical buildings from the period when Shanghai was one of the world’s greatest financial centres. Overnight Shanghai. Day 3: Shanghai. The world-class Shanghai Museum is home to an extensive collection of masterpieces of Chinese arts from the Neolithic period to the Qing dynasty. The fabulous ceramics galleries offer a superb narrative foundation for the days ahead. There is time for independent exploration of the museum’s superb bronze, painting, jade and furniture collections. The 16th-century Yu Garden is visited in the afternoon, an excellent example of classical garden design. Overnight Shanghai. Day 4: Jingdezhen. Fly (Shenzhen Airlines) to Jingdezhen. The National Porcelain Museum displays wares predominantly from the Song, Minga and Qing periods, as well as some of the finer creations produced since the establishment of the PRC in 1949. Traditional manufacture is demonstrated at the Ancient Kiln Complex. Overnight Jingdezhen. Days 5 & 6: Jingdezhen. Two days are spent in and around Jingdezhen. In these hills around lay the once secret resource of kaolin clay, which, when processed in the water-powered mills, formed the potters’ basic material. There are visits to the Porcelain Institute, a research centre for the development of production and decoration, and to the studios of working potters Felicity Aylieff and Takeshi Yasuda. Overnight Jingdezhen.
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Day 7: Jingdezhen to Hangzhou. Drive through the southern tip of Anhui province, dominated by spectacular mountain scenery, stopping for lunch in Shexian County (formerly Huizhou). Reach Hangzhou in time for supper. Overnight Hangzhou.
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20th-century Chinese print. book online at www.martinrandall.com
Day 8: Hangzhou. The scenic tranquillity of the city’s West Lake has been immortalised by countless poets and painters over the centuries. See the excavated imperial dragon-kiln site of Guan wares, one of China’s most treasured wares. Visit the Grand Canal Museum before crossing over the historic waterway into the neighbouring traditional village area. Overnight Hangzhou.
China’s Silk Road Cities The Northern Route through Shaanxi, Gansu & Xinjiang Dr Lars Tharp Ceramics specialist who appears regularly on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow. He was director of the Foundling Museum and is now its Hogarth Curator as well as vicechairman of The Hogarth Trust. He is a member of the English Ceramics Circle and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. All lecturers’ biographies can be found on pages 8–15. Day 9: Hangzhou to Taipei. Fly at 9.30am (Air China) from Hangzhou to Taipei. After lunch visit the Confucius Temple, the only such temple in Taiwan with southern Fujian-style ceramic adornments. Overnight Taipei. Day 10: Taipei. Spend a full day at the National Palace Museum for a detailed study of its comprehensive ceramics collection. There is also time for independent exploration of the other, equally impressive, collections in the museum. Overnight Taipei. Day 11: Taipei to London. Fly at c. 10.45am (Cathay Pacific) from Taipei to London Heathrow via Hong Kong. Arrive at London Heathrow at 8.30pm.
Beijing, gardens of the Imperial Palace, 19th-century steel engraving.
Practicalities Autumn 2015 Full details available July 2014 Contact us to register your interest
Included meals: 9 lunches, 6 dinners with wine.
In the second century bc, imperial envoy Zhang Qian was sent on a mission to the West, beyond the outer limits of ancient China, to obtain some of the legendary Ferghana horses for Han emperor Wudi’s cavalry. The mission failed on the equine front but Zhang Qian returned to Chang’nan (today’s Xi’an) with stories of the riches he saw and this soon led to the development of trade between China and the alien world beyond its western frontier. Myriad commodities – as well as religious beliefs and cultural attitudes – traversed the land from China, through Central Asia and Persia to the Mediterranean. The formidable Taklamakan Desert, an arid wasteland of shifting sand dunes,
Visas: required for most foreign nationals, and not included in the tour price. Accommodation. Yangtze Boutique Hotel, Shanghai (theyangtzehotel.com): 4-star, Art Deco hotel ideally situated close to the Shanghai Museum. Zijing Hotel, Jingdezhen (jingdezhenhotels.com): the best hotel in town but décor is dated and service can be brusque. Sofitel West Lake Hotel, Hangzhou (sofitel.com): 4-star hotel located on the east side of the West Lake (rooms do not have lake views). Landis Hotel, Taipei (taipei.landishotelsresorts.com): centrally located, 4-star, Art Deco-style hotel.
posed one of the biggest threats to travellers, who skirted its northern and southern edges, finding respite in the many thriving oasis towns. The instability brought about by the fall of empires and the establishment of sea routes saw the decline of these trading corridors and the region disappeared into obscurity until the turn of the 20th century, when tales of lost cities filled with treasure drew foreign explorers into an international race of rediscovery. Today, evocative ruins, chaotic markets and Buddhist cave paintings remain to be seen, while the museums are filled with the many treasures and mummified remains unearthed along the route. Despite relentless modernisation cities such as Kashgar retain their ancient charm, while the enormity of these perilous journeys is conveyed by sight of the vast expanses of landscape that make up China’s last great wilderness.
Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
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Price: £4,430 (deposit £400). Single supplement £510 (double for single occupancy). Price without international flights (London to Shanghai, Taipei to London via Hong Kong) £3,760.
Planned for 2016 in China – contact us to register your interest
Essential China Buddhist China The Ar ts of China
The Emperor’s River : The Grand Canal China’s Architecture Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Ming & Qing Civilization
The art, architecture & history of the culminating dynasties 5–17 May 2015 (mb 316) 13 days/ 11 nights • £4,780 Lecturer: Dr Rose Kerr Focuses on the five centuries when China reached its greatest extent, greatest unity and longest periods of peace. Ruling from 1368 to 1911, the Ming and Qing dynasties bequeathed the most spectacular imperial buildings in China. Porcelain, painting and garden design reached a peak of perfection; this tour sees many of the best surviving examples of all the arts. Led by Dr Rose Kerr, leading sinologist and expert in Chinese porcelain. Former Keeper of the Far Eastern Department at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Under the two last imperial dynasties, which together spanned 543 years, China reached her peak of territorial extent, political power, of riches, of peace. Most of the country’s greatest surviving historic architecture dates to this period – 1368 to 1911 – and much of that precious and beautiful heritage is seen on this tour. Imperial patronage produced palaces, tombs and temples, consolidating the steady evolution of standard designs to reach immutable perfection. Integral to the architecture is ornamentation of exquisitely carved stone and wood, often gaily painted, and brightly glazed ceramics. Painting
of the era achieved its classic, ineffable form, but it is for porcelain that Ming is popularly a byword for perfection, and deservedly, yet under the eighteenth-century Qing emperors porcelain also reached sublime heights of beauty. Some of the finest examples from the imperials kilns are seen on this tour. The classical Chinese garden – an art form as highly esteemed by contemporaries as any other – also took shape here in the sixteenth century, and, astoundingly, a dozen or so excellent examples survive in something approaching their original state in Suzhou. The tour begins at Suzhou, an appropriate place to recover from the flight and ease into this astonishing country. Though a rapidly growing industrial hub (a third of the world’s silk is produced here), the extensive historic centre retains its pre-modern scale and texture with two- or three-storey buildings of whitewashed walls, grey tiles and upturned eaves – whether old or new. Ancient canals still thread between narrow streets which are lined with camphor trees. Suzhou was home to the four founding fathers of the Ming and Qing tradition of painting, and it is no coincidence that garden design is so prominent here. Nanjing was the base of the Ming clan before they conquered the Yuan dynasty of Mongol emperors in 1368, and the city became capital of a reunited China. The first Ming emperor, Hongwu, rebuilt the walls; 20 miles long and 40 feet high, for size they have never been surpassed. But his successor, Emperor Yongle, moved the capital to Beijing in 1403. The palace he built
Beijing, Summer Palace, engraving c. 1840.
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there, the Forbidden City, has against the odds survived numerous vicissitudes and is one of the world’s most extensive and fascinating royal residences. The last hundred years of Qing rule was a period of decline, of humiliation by foreign aggressors and of internal dissension. Glory sank into misrule and tragedy – and most of the twentieth century can be similarly characterised. In these circumstances it is perhaps surprising that much of aesthetic worth or delicacy survived at all, but plenty does, certainly enough to demonstrate that the era of the Ming and Qing dynasties constituted one of the great civilizations in world history.
Itinerary Day 1: London to Shanghai. Fly at midday from London Heathrow to Shanghai (British Airways, c. 11 hours). Day 2: Suzhou. Arrive in Shanghai c. 6.00am. Rooms are reserved in a nearby hotel for a few hours rest. After lunch, drive to Suzhou (21/2 hours). With its low-rise buildings and camphor trees flanking streets and canals, the historic centre is an endearing place to begin after the journey. Upon arrival there is a walk and a visit to a garden. First of three nights in Suzhou. Day 3: Suzhou. Clustered in a corner of the city are a 12th-cent. bridge, a 5th-cent. pagoda and a sophisticated Ming era gateway in the ramparts which allows admission by water or by land.
The Master of the Nets Garden is a masterpiece featuring all essential elements in garden design. Designed by the Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei and opened in 2006, the Suzhou Museum blends beautifully with the historic architecture and contains a choice collection of porcelain, painting and other arts. Overnight Suzhou. Day 4: Tongli, Suzhou. There is a morning excursion to Tongli, a well-preserved and atmospheric ‘water town’ with Ming and Qing residences and numerous bridges across the narrow canals. In Suzhou, a short boat ride leads to the Humble Administrator’s Garden, largest and best known of the Ming gardens here, with carefully composed vistas of water, rocks, plants and pavilions. Overnight Suzhou. Day 5: Suzhou, Nanjing. Suzhou remains a centre of silk production; witness silk embroidery at the Embroidery Research Institute. By train (luggage is sent separately) to Nanjing, capital of China under the first three Ming emperors (and again 1912–49). Much of the centre is of a manageable scale and plane trees line the busy streets. The tomb complex of the first Ming emperor, on a wooded hill just outside the walls, constitutes a summation of past traditions and set the pattern for subsequent imperial burials. Overnight Nanjing.
highest achievements of Ming designers. Further Ming buildings guard the south of Tiananmen Square, a vast space which is the location of National Museum. This has superb collections of early Chinese artefacts, Zhou bronzes and the whole range of porcelain from Song to Qing. Similar collections, with a Beijing bias, are in the modern Capital Museum. Overnight Beijing. Day 10: Beijing, Jinshanling. Free morning in Beijing. Leave at 12.45pm and drive out to a particularly spectacular stretch of the Great Wall at Jinshanling which was rebuilt during the Ming Dynasty and regularly saw action. Walk along a section where it climbs, descends and winds over the steep-sided hills. Surrounded by mountains, Chengde was the summer resort of the Qing emperors and is consequently the location of
Sketch by Mortimer Menpes, publ. 1909.
Day 9: Beijing. Set in a tranquil park, the buildings of the Temple of Heaven are among the
All lecturers’ biographies can be found on pages 8–15.
Practicalities Price: £4,780 (deposit £450). Single supplement £620 (double for single occupancy). Price without international flights £4,190. Included meals: 8 lunches, 8 dinners with wine.
Accommodation. Scholar’s Hotel, Suzhou (pingjiangpalace.com): well-equipped hotel, quiet and centrally located. Mandarin Garden Hotel, Nanjing: large hotel located in a vibrant part of the city centre, comfortable but dated. Waldorf Astoria Hotel, Beijing (hilton.com): recently opened, 5-star luxury hotel in the city centre. Yun Shan Hotel, Chengde (cdyunshan.com): the best hotel in town but the décor is dated and service can be brusque. Hilton Hotel Beijing Capital Airport, Beijing (hilton.com): executive hotel with spacious rooms located a short shuttle bus ride from the terminal. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
some of the greatest 18th-cent. architecture in China. First of two nights in Chengde. Day 11: Chengde. The imperial villa begun by Emperor Kangxi in 1703, essentially Manchurian, consists of single-storey timber buildings around courtyards in a 590-hectare park. There are several 18th-cent. Buddhist temples in Chengde. Puning Si is still an active Buddhist monastery; the many buildings of Putuozongcheng Temple rise to a multi-storey block which is a replica of Lhasa’s Potala Palace, formidable externally, with gaily painted galleried courtyards inside. Overnight Chengde.
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Day 8: Beijing. The Imperial Palace is as impressive and enthralling as one expects (though no longer justifying the epithet, The Forbidden City). Its origins lie with Kublai Khan, but its current form is Ming and Qing. It is a vast rectangular compound surrounded by a formidable wall and a moat with innumerable courts and pavilions, 800 buildings in total. Despite the depredations of the last 150 years, it survives remarkably well, and has quite outstanding collections of arts and precious artefacts. Overnight Beijing.
Rose graduated in Chinese studies and spent a year as a student in China during the last year of the Cultural Revolution, 1975– 1976. She is Honorary Associate of the Needham Research Institute in Cambridge, having retired as Keeper of the Far Eastern Department at the V&A.
Visas: required for most foreign nationals, and not included in the tour price.
Day 6: Nanjing, Beijing. Twenty miles long, the city wall built by the first Ming emperor became the longest in the world; much remains, and the Zhonghua barbican is a formidable structure with three courtyards. Nanjing Museum, largely newly built, is one of the best in China, with the complete range of arts – bronzes, jades, porcelain, textiles, painting and furniture. Fly at 5.00pm (China Eastern) to Beijing, to which Emperor Yongle removed in 1403 and which became the capital of all subsequent Ming and Qing regimes. First of four nights in Beijing. Day 7: Beijing and environs. The Ming Tombs 30 miles outside the city are the final resting place of 13 of the 16 Ming emperors. After a 7-km Sacred Way flanked by stone-carved animals and officials, the tomb of Yongle (died 1424) consists of a succession of courts with ceremonial gateways, a great hall and a man-made hill concealing the tomb itself. Returning to Beijing, visit the Summer Palace, an extensive compound of ceremonial halls, temples and walkways around Kunming Lake, repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt in the late 19th cent. Overnight Beijing.
Dr Rose Kerr
Day 12: Chengde, Qingdongling. Some free time in Chengde before visiting Qingdongling, the Eastern Tombs, burial place in a remote rural setting of five of the ten Qing emperors and the largest tomb complex in China. The Sacred Way has the full panoply of archways, bridges and sculpted guardian figures; one tomb has underground chambers with beautifully carved white marble walls. Spend the night in a hotel near Beijing Airport. Day 13: Beijing to London. Fly at 11.15am, arriving at Heathrow at c. 3.15pm (c. 11 hours).
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Bohemia
Art, architecture, history & landscape at the heart of Europe great charm, it possesses a wonderful cathedral, perhaps the greatest Gothic building in Central Europe, the creation sequentially of Bohemia’s two finest mediaeval architects. Set in a landscaped park, the country house at Kačina is a marvellous classical design of the early 19th century with a circular library, theatre, and a sequence of fine rooms. Overnight Liblice. Day 3: Nelahozeves, Troja. Nelahozeves is a magnificent house of the mid-16th century, externally retaining the aspect of a fortress but internally embodying Italianate Renaissance elegance. Restituted to the Lobkowicz family, the furnishings and works of art are excellent. Dvořák’s birthplace museum is in the village. Built as a riverside retreat, Villa Troja is a fine 17th-century Italianate mansion with painted hall and delightful formal French garden. Overnight Liblice. Day 4: Karlštejn, Zvíkov. Drive to South Bohemia via two castles. Karlštejn was built by Emperor Charles IV, whose reign (1346–78) saw Bohemia reach its apogee. A chapel embedded in the impregnable keep, with its walls of semi-precious stones, gilded vault and 130 panel paintings is the most opulent surviving mediaeval interior. Above the confluence of two gorges, Zvíkov has a unique two-storey, 13th-century arcaded courtyard. First of three nights in Hluboká nad Vltavou.
Trebon, Czech woodcut c. 1920
7–14 September 2015 (mc 426) 8 days • £2,720 Lecturer: Michael Ivory A selection of the finest places with the most densely packed heritage in Central Europe. Beautiful historic town centres, architecture from Gothic to Art Nouveau, distinctive Bohemian schools of painting and sculpture. The lecturer, Michael Ivory is a landscape architect and writer specialising in the Czech Republic. Passes through enchanting, rolling countryside. Can be combined with Connoisseur’s Prague, 15–21 September 2015 (see opposite page).
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Draw two lines across a map of Europe, from Inverness to Istanbul and from Málaga to Moscow: the place where they cross is Bohemia. The heart of Europe thus crudely determined turns out to be a region whose exact whereabouts and current political description may challenge not a few of you, and which is synonymous with a decorously dissolute lifestyle. Yet there were times when Bohemia was a significant European power, enjoyed a thriving economy and marched in the vanguard of political, social and cultural developments. (In one of these expansionist moments, over three hundred years before A Winter’s Tale, it acquired a coast.) But Fate seems to have decreed that each rise was soon to be followed by a fall. The most recent was a double fall – dismemberment and desecration by the Nazis was followed by a fortyyear incarceration behind the Iron Curtain. Paradoxically, Communist rule helped to
preserve a wonderful architectural patrimony, the most abundant in Central Europe. Ideologically inspired contempt for and neglect of its heritage was constrained by lack of means to modernise, rebuild or demolish (thanks to a baleful economic model), a mixture that acted like a mildly corrosive aspic: there was deterioration but little destruction. But since the Velvet Revolution of 1989, a surge of restoration and rehabilitation has transformed both the architectural set pieces and the humbler buildings. The built environment and the art of Bohemia have never looked better. There are towns with streets and squares with façades from every century from the fifteenth to the early twentieth; a remarkable variety of castles and country houses, most retaining fine furnishings and pictures; magnificent churches and abbeys, mediaeval and Baroque; distinctive works of art in excellent galleries. And the landscape is enchanting, mostly gently hilly, sometimes rugged, much of it wooded interspersed with fertile fields of pasture or arable, large tracts surprisingly empty. The River Vltava is a recurring feature, cutting a curvaceous course from south to north, and so are the many small lakes, most formed in the Middle Ages for the cultivation of fish.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 11.00am from London Heathrow to Prague. Drive to Zámek Mělník before settling in at a country-house hotel near Liblice in time for an introductory talk before dinner. The next three nights are spent here. Day 2: Kutná Hora, Kačina. In the Middle Ages, the silver mines at Kutná Hora made the city wealthy. Now a small provincial town of
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Day 5: Hluboká, Český Krumlov. Summer home of the Schwarzenbergs, dominant dynasty of South Bohemia, the Gothic Revival mansion of Hluboká is sumptuously furnished. The adjacent regional art collection has good mediaeval and 20th-century Czech works. Clustered around a bend in the upper reaches of the Vltava, Český Krumlov is a highly picturesque little town. The hilltop castle was largely rebuilt in the 16th and 18th centuries; among its treasures are a hall painted with masked revellers, an excellently preserved theatre and a formal garden. Overnight Hluboká. Day 6: Jindřichův Hradec, Třeboň. Jindřichův Hradec is a pretty little town whose extensive aristocratic residence is notable for its Renaissance parts, in particular a beautiful rotunda. At the heart of a district of lakes formed in the Middle Ages to cultivate fish, Třeboň is another delightful little town, still partly walled. Overnight Hluboká. Day 7: Kratochvíle, Plzeň, Kladruby. Secluded within a walled garden amid particularly lovely countryside, Kratochvíle is the finest Renaissance villa in the country. Continue to West Bohemia. The centre of the city of Plzeň adheres to its 13thcentury grid plan; Gothic cathedral, the world’s third largest synagogue (1880s) and varied street frontages. The Baroque-Gothic monastery church at Kladruby (1720s) is a masterpiece by Bohemia’s most original architect, Giovanni Santini. Overnight Mariánské Lázně. Day 8: Mariánské Lázně (Marienbad). For most of the 19th century and into the 20th, Marienbad was one of Europe’s most fashionable spas, with patronage from monarchs (Edward VII) to mavericks (Marx, Chopin, Wagner). White,
Connoisseur’s Prague
Art, architecture & design, with privileged access yellow and ochre, from serene classicism to riotous ‘Renaissance’, the hotels and spas gather around a lovely landscaped park. Fly from Prague Airport, arriving Heathrow c. 5.00pm.
15–21 September 2015 (mc 439) 7 days • £2,660 Lecturer: Michael Ivory
Practicalities
Includes inaccessible and hidden glories as well as the main sights of this endlessly fascinating and beautiful city.
Price: £2,720 (deposit: £250). Single supplement £110. Price without flights £2,520. Included meals: 3 lunches, 6 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Château Liblice, near Liblice (chateau-liblice.com): 4-star hotel and conference centre converted from an 18th-cent. country house. Hotel Stekl in Hluboká nad Vltavou (hotelstekl.cz): a 4-star hotel converted from an auxiliary building belonging to the neighbouring mansion. The Hotel Villa Butterfly, Mariánské Lazně (villabutterfly-hotel.com): a modern hotel in the centre of town. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
Combining ‘Bohemia’ with ‘Connoisseur’s Prague’ 14th September. At the end of Bohemia, the coach continues to Prague with anyone who is combining the tour with Connoisseur’s Prague, which begins tomorrow. The rest of the day is free. Overnight Prague. 15th September. Morning walking tour with a local guide. Connoisseur’s Prague begins at c. 3.45pm at the hotel.
Practicalities Price for combining the two tours. You pay the price of Bohemia with flights (£2,720) and the price of Connoisseur’s Prague without flights (£2,460), unless of course you are arranging your own flights. To both these figures you need to add single supplements if you are booking a double room for sole occupancy.
The lecturer Michael Ivory is a landscape architect and writer specialising in the Czech Republic. Special arrangements and private visits are major features. Museums and galleries have been transformed in recent years, and new ones added. Particular focus on art and architecture around the turn of the 19th century. Can be combined with Bohemia, 7–14 September 2015 (see opposite page). This is an experience of Prague like no other. The capital of Bohemia needs no introduction as the most beautiful city in Central Europe, with plenty to delight the cultural traveller for a week or more. Yet many a façade screens halls and rooms and works of art of the highest interest which can scarcely ever be seen except by insiders. Other fine places are open to visitors but hard to get to. Gaining access to the inaccessible is a major strand of this tour. Pursuing the private and straying off the beaten track will not be at the expense of the well-known sights, among which are some of the most fascinating buildings and artworks. But here
participants are enabled to focus on the essentials and as far as possible to visit when crowds have subsided. Prague enjoys an unequalled density of great architecture, from Romanesque to modern, but it is the fabric of the city as a whole rather than individual masterpieces which make it so special. The city has the advantage of a splendid site, a crescent of hills rising from one side of a majestic bend in the River Vltava with gently inclined terrain on the other bank. A carapace of red roofs, green domes and gilded spires spreads across the slopes and levels, sheltering marvellously unspoilt streets and alleys and magically picturesque squares. Though the whole gamut of Czech art and architecture is viewed, the tour has an emphasis on the period from the 1870s to the 1920s. The spirit of national revival and the achievement of independence (in 1918) inspired a ferment of creativity among artists, writers and composers. A bewildering variety of styles drew on earlier Bohemian traditions, led Art Nouveau into highly innovatory directions and pioneered some radical and unique features at the dawn of modernism. Another high point in Prague’s history was the fourteenth century, when Kings of Bohemia were also Holy Roman Emperors and the city became one of the largest in the western world. The Gothic cathedral rising from within the precincts of the hilltop Royal Castle is one of the many monuments of that golden age, and the exquisite panel paintings from this era, now excellently displayed in the Convent of St Agnes, are among the chief glories of the city. Subordination within the Habsburg Empire from the sixteenth century curtailed Bohemia’s
Prague, Charles Bridge, watercolour by B. Granville Baker, publ. 1923.
Price of the additional night in Prague. We have arranged a special rate at the hotel of £120 per person sharing a room, or £140 for a double room for sole occupancy, including breakfast. This also includes the walking tour on the morning of 15th September.
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Please let us know on your booking form if you would like to take up this option.
Prague Spring 19–25 May 2015 Lecturer: Professor Jan Smaczny Details available autumn 2014 Contact us to register your interest
Looking for Croatia? See page 28 for The Western Balkans. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Connoisseur’s Prague continued
Fair) Palace of 1928 now houses fascinating Czech art of the 19th and 20th centuries., a remarkable holding of modern French art and Alphons Mucha’s 20 vast canvases of his ‘Slav Epic’, which ranks as the concluding episode in the 400-year European tradition of history painting. Return to the Castle District to see the delicately arcaded Belvedere in the Royal Gardens, the finest Renaissance building in Prague, and the cathedral of St Vitus, a pioneering monument of High Gothic, richly embellished with chapels, tombs, altarpieces and stained glass. Day 5. The Klementinum is a vast Jesuit complex with library halls and chapels. See also in the Old Town the church of St James, a Gothic carcass encrusted with Baroque finery after a fire in 1689. Walk across 14th-century Charles Bridge, the greatest such structure in Europe, wonderfully adorned with sculptures. In the Lesser Town visit the Wallenstein Palace, a rare example of a 1630s residence (now the Senate), and St Nicholas, one of the finest of Baroque churches in Central Europe. Free afternoon. Day 6. Sunday morning traffic enables efficient mopping up by coach of treasures south of the centre, among them St John Nepomuk ‘on the Rock’, a little Baroque masterpiece (rarely accessible), the bizarre phenomenon of Cubist houses and the fortress of Vysehrad, rising high above the river and enclosing a cemetery with the graves of many great Czechs. There is a special tour of the National Theatre (1869–83) to which all the leading Czech artists of the time contributed, and a quick visit to the Prague City Museum to see the extraordinarily detailed model of the city made in the 1830s. A riverside country retreat, Villa Troja is a 17th-century Italianate mansion with a French formal garden.
Acafé in Prague, 20th-century.
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power but not its wealth or architectural achievements: some of the finest Renaissance buildings in Central Europe arose here. In the eighteenth century, some of the richest landowners of the Baroque age built palaces here. In the city where Mozart had his most enthusiastic audiences and where Smetana and Dvořák reached fulfilment, there is still a rich musical life in a range of beautiful historic opera houses and concert halls. There will be the opportunity to attend performances. The itinerary given below does not list by any means all that you see. Nor does it indicate all the slots for free time, which is necessarily a feature of a tour of such richness and variety.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly from London to Prague at c. 10.30am. After settling into the hotel, there is a first exploration of the ancient core of the city on the right bank of the Vltava. A dense maze of dazzlingly picturesque streets and alleys converges on Old Town Square, surely the prettiest urban space in Europe, with shimmeringly beautiful façades – mediaeval, Renaissance, Baroque and Art Nouveau. Then a special visit to the Obecní dům (‘Municipal House’) to see the glorious suite of assembly
rooms created 1904–12, a unique and very Czech mélange of murals and ornament. Day 2. Continue the tour of the Old Town with the Gothic Týn church, at the heart not only of Prague but also of Czech history. There follows the 13th-century Convent of St Agnes, where one of the world’s greatest collections of mediaeval painting is brilliantly installed. A walk in and around Wenceslas Square, threading through a succession of arcades, takes in some outstanding turn-of-the-century architecture and decoration and early modernist masterpieces. Day 3. Drive up to Prague Castle for a first visit to this extensive and fascinating hilltop citadel, residence of Dukes and Kings of Bohemia from the 10th century and now of the President. The Old Royal Palace rises from Romanesque through Gothic to Renaissance, the chief glory being the largest stone hall in Europe and its extraordinary vaulting. There follows privileged access to a wonderful sequence of halls not open to the public, dating from the 1570s to the 1930s (state occasions permitting). Walk through a sequence of delightful gardens on the south slope down to the Lesser Town. Day 4. Begin with the Moorish style Jubilee Synagogue of 1908 and the rare Rondo-Cubist Legion’s Bank of the 1920s. The Veletržni (Trade
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Day 7. Strahov Monastery has commanding views over Prague and two magnificent library halls, which by special arrangement we enter. Then walk down the hill, passing the formidable bulk of the Černín Palace and the delightful façade of the Loreto Church, for some free time at the Castle. There is an excellent museum of Czech 19th-century art, the Lobkowicz Palace with Canaletto’s paintings of London, and the Treasury of St Vitus. The flight returns to London Heathrow at c. 5.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,660 (deposit £250). Single supplement £360 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,460. Included meals: 4 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Although elsewhere in Europe unlikely to be rated more than a 4-star, the Grand Hotel Bohemia (worldhotels.com/en) is a 5-star hotel very well located in the Old Town. Group size: between 10 and 19 participants.
The Iron Cur tain, 7–21 September 2015 (see page 86).
Moravia
Town & country 2–9 June 2015 (mb 350) 8 days • £2,640 Lecturer: Dr Jarl Kremeier A little-known corner of Europe with a fascinating architectural patrimony. Unspoilt historic towns, Renaissance palaces, extraordinary Baroque churches. Led by Dr Jarl Kremeier, specialist in 17th- to 19th-century architecture and decorative arts. Enchanting landscape and historic gardens. For a couple of decades in the ninth century the Great Moravian Empire encompassed not only Czech and Slovak lands but also parts of what are now Austria, Hungary and Poland. This agglomeration of territories rapidly disintegrated, and neighbouring Bohemia began to take shape and take priority. Ever since then Moravia has been the lesser member in an enduring partnership with Bohemia. Yoked together, they fell together under Habsburg suzerainty in 1526, emerged together in 1920 to form (with Slovakia) the new Czechoslovakia, and stayed together in 1993 to form the Czech Republic (shorn of Slovakia). It may have been politically provincial but it was a prosperous area and quite close to the chief metropolis of Central Europe, Vienna. Its rich architectural and artistic patrimony includes fine Renaissance country houses, outstanding Baroque palaces and churches, bizarre buildings by Jan Santini-Aichel, historic gardens both formal and landscaped, galleries of fine and decorative art, much beautiful streetscape in towns and villages, and rolling landscape. Moravia gets better every year. Architectural conservation proceeds apace, towns are smartened up, hotels and restaurants are improving, and more and more museums and historic buildings are refurbished and better presented. In spite of these developments Moravia is much less on the tourist track than Bohemia and remains fairly unspoilt.
around elegant, arcaded courtyards; a jewel of the Northern Renaissance. Rajhrad monastery was built in the eighteenth century on a vast scale, and has a magnificent church by Santini-Aichel, the genius of Bohemian Baroque. First of five nights in Brno. Day 4: Slavkov, Lednice. Alias Austerlitz, Slavkov gave its name to Napoleon’s 1805 victory against Austro-Russian armies. After surveying the battlefield, visit the imposing Baroque mansion, which contains a fine art collection. On a vast estate straddling the Austrian border once owned by the Liechtensteins, the richest magnates in the Habsburg Empire, Lednice has a superbly crafted Gothic Revival mansion, magnificent Baroque stables and a landscaped park dotted with architectural follies. Day 5: Brno. The present capital of Moravia, and the second largest Czech city, Brno has a wealth of Gothic and Baroque churches and fine architecture of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. A walk includes the mediaeval town hall, the fine Gothic church of St James and the Baroque Minorite church, among other treasures. Villa Tugenhadt is a superb house by modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Day 6: Bucovice, Kromeriz. Bucovice has a splendid Renaissance mansion with arcaded courtyard and stucco interiors of a quality virtually without equal in northern Europe. The Bishop’s Palace at Kromeriz with magnificent Rococo hall and fine art collection (Titian, van Dyck, Brueghel). The 17th-century walled garden with pavilion and immense colonnade is an astounding survival.
Day 7: Plumlov, Olomouc. The rumbustious 17th-century mansion at Plumlov has probably the richest façade columnation of any building in Europe. Olomouc, former capital of Moravia, has many fine churches, a Romanesque episcopal palace and Renaissance town hall. Several magnificently sculpted fountains are spread through a large tract of highly attractive historic townscape, surely the loveliest little city in Europe which is not yet on the tourist trail. Day 8: Zd’ár nad Sázavou. Drive to the pilgrimage church at Zd’ár nad Sázavou, a Baroque-Gothic creation by the maverick architect Santini-Aichel and among the most bizarre and fascinating buildings of the 18th century. Continue to Prague for the flight to Heathrow, arriving c. 9.15pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,640 (deposit £250). Single supplement £260. Price without flights £2,440. Included meals: 4 lunches, 6 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel U Hraběnky (hoteluhrabenky.cz/en) is the only 4-star hotel in Telč. The Hotel Barceló Brno Palace (barcelo.com) was an exclusive apartment block in the 19th century, now converted into a contemporary 4-star hotel. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Courts of Northern Italy, 25 May–1 June 2015 (page 125).
Lednice, after Josef Vaic (1884–1961).
Itinerary
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Day 1. Fly at c. 9.50am from London Heathrow to Prague and drive south into Moravia. Telč is a tiny town with the loveliest square in the Czech Lands, lined with Renaissance and Baroque façades above a meandering Gothic arcade. First of two nights in Telč. Day 2: Vranov nad Dyji, Jaromerice. Perched high above a gorge close to the Austrian border, the great oval Hall of Ancestors at Vranov is one of the most impressive Baroque creations in Central Europe, the creation of the greatest architect and greatest painter in the region at the time. The splendid mansion at Jaromerice sprawls irregularly, but contains some wonderful 18th-century interiors and an enormous chapel. Overnight Telč. Day 3: Telč, Rajhrad. The castle in Telč was extended in stages during the 16th century with a series of halls of brilliant, eccentric decoration
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Antiquities of Upper Egypt Highlights of Luxor & Aswan
and level of preservation unrivalled. Across the river is the West Bank; home to some of the most striking monuments in antiquity: the Valley of the Kings, the Temple of Hatshepsut, the mortuary temple of Ramses III and, as if standing guard to them all, the immense Colossi of Memnon. South of Luxor is the strategically important city of Aswan, a frontier town that lies between Egypt and Nubia. An important source of granite for the Pharaohs, the majority of the monuments that remain are testament to the later Ptolemaic and Roman periods. With less monuments than Luxor, Aswan’s charm lies in its location, the warmth and colour of its people, and the pace of life. This tour explores two cities on the edge of a river that gave rise to one of the most fascinating and enduring civilizations of all. It aims to do so at a leisurely pace, using just two hotels – both of which are of exceptional quality and benefit from a calm and tranquillity not often easy to find. Egypt’s monuments remain, in spite of the political upheaval witnessed in the last three years: they have seen far greater threats in the millenniums since they were built; civil wars, natural disasters, religious fanaticism (not a new concept). The Arab Spring is the latest of a long list and it is unlikely to be the last.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 3.00pm (Egypt Air) directly from London Heathrow to Luxor, arriving c. 10.15pm (time in the air: c. 4 hours 45 minutes). First of three nights in Luxor. Day 2: Luxor. Free morning. Afternoon visits include the vast temple complex of Karnak including the spectacular temple of Amun and the open-air museum. Luxor temple, another great temple to Amun intimately connected to Karnak through a national festival. Overnight Luxor.
Karnak, after C. Werner, oileograph 1874.
New Year departure: 29 Dec. 2014–4 Jan. 2015 (mb 225) 7 days • £3,170 Lecturer: Lucia Gahlin denmark, egypt
13–19 April 2015 (mb 283) 7 days • £3,170 Lecturer: Dr Robert Morkot Six days spent in two of Egypt’s most beautiful cities at a relaxed and comfortable pace. Some of the most extraordinary sites in antiquity, many free from the usual crowds. Led by experts in Egyptian archaeology.
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Exceptional hotels in both destinations; in Luxor stay on the tranquil West Bank, in Aswan at The Old Cataract.
Upper Egypt, the green fertile strip that splits the desert from the base of the Delta to the First Cataract was considered one half of the Two Lands that comprised Ancient Egypt. Represented by the White Crown, the inhabitants were dependent on the River Nile, their lives determined by its annual flooding and the enrichment it brought the land. The surrounding deserts or Red Lands, despite being influenced by the god of chaos and destruction Seth, also provided mineral wealth and it was in Upper Egypt that exotic goods from tropical Africa would have passed. The town of Thebes, known to the ancient Egyptians as Waset but renamed by the Greeks, was an important Upper Egyptian city, reflected in the abundance of monuments and royal construction projects that continued throughout Egypt’s dynasties. On the East Bank the immense pylons and courtyards of the temples of Karnak and Luxor dominate the modern town, their scale
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Day 3: Luxor. Full day visiting the Theban West Bank. Visit the Tombs of the Nobles containing exquisite reliefs and painted festival and funeral scenes. The temple of Hatshepsut, one of ancient Egypt’s most intriguing rulers, with the reliefs depicting her expeditions to Punt, and the exquisite mortuary temple of Ramses III, Madinet Habu. Final night in Luxor. Day 4: Luxor & Aswan. The morning is free to visit further sites on the West Bank or enjoy the serene hotel gardens. After lunch transfer to Aswan by coach in time for a sunset felucca ride on the Nile. First of three nights in Aswan. Day 5: Aswan. Full day visiting Aswan including Philae Temple, dedicated to the goddess Isis, reconstructed on a landscaped island following the flooding of the original island. Visit the ancient granite quarries where a flawed obelisk dating to the 18th Dynasty lies unfinished. The Nubian Museum, one of the best in Egypt, recounts the city’s ancient past as well as the story of the High Dam and the relocation of monuments. Overnight Aswan.
Ancient Egypt
From Cairo to Abu Simbel Day 6: Aswan. After a free morning, see one of the city’s least visited sites, Kalabsha Temple. Although first settled during the reign of Amenhotep II, the temple today, on the shores of Lake Nassar, was dedicated to the local Nubian god Mandulis dating to the Roman period. Final night in Aswan.
The Sphinx, engraving from Le Sculpture by Charles Blanc, 1923.
Day 7. An early morning start. Fly from Aswan, arriving Heathrow, via Cairo, at c. 1.30pm.
Practicalities Price: £3,170 (deposit £300). Single supplement £420 (double for single occupancy). Price without international flights £2,590. Included meals: 4 lunches, 5 dinners with wine. Visas: required for most foreign nationals. If you are flying with the group we will arrange for it to be issued on arrival (the cost is included in the tour price); if you are flying independently we can arrange a visa on arrival, with a transfer, for a charge. Passports must be valid for 6 months from entry into Egypt. Accommodation. Al Moudira, Luxor (moudira. com): tranquil 5-star retreat on the West Bank of the Nile with individually designed rooms. The Old Cataract, Aswan (sofitel.com): perched on the banks of the Nile with fine views this is one of the finest hotels in Egypt, recently refurbished. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
5–16 October 2015 (mc 489) 12 days • £3,880 Lecturer: Professor John Ray A comprehensive introduction to Pharaonic Egypt visiting the principal sites from Giza to Abu Simbel. Led by Professor Ray, leading authority on Ancient Egypt. A full and busy tour but it avoids rush and allows time to contemplate and absorb.
Denmark
The Vikings June 2015 Details available in September 2014 Contact us to register your interest
Egypt has fascinated European travellers from the time of Herodotus, who wrote the first surviving account of the ancient land. The sheer antiquity and breadth of Egyptian civilization cannot but reduce the visitor to awe, whether it be Napoleon with his famous exhortation to his troops in front of the Pyramids that forty centuries looked down upon them, or the more humble modern traveller exploring the tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Nearly two thousand years separate King Menes (Narmer), the unifier of Upper and Lower Egypt around 3100 bc, and Rameses II, the builder of Abu Simbel, and it was yet another thousand years before Egypt became a province of Rome. Throughout this time Egypt has also been a fertile source of legend. The fifty daughters of Danaus fled from a marriage threat by the fifty sons of Aegyptus, as recounted by Aeschylus; and if Euripides is to be believed, Helen of Troy may have sojourned on the banks of the Nile. Biblical references abound of a land of both oppression and refuge. Patriarchs found sustenance in Egypt, Moses led his people forth, and the Holy Family fled there from the wrath of Herod. Egypt was the first major country to be subdued by the forces of Islam, and the line
Itinerary Day 1: Luxor. Fly at c. 3.00pm (Egypt Air)directly from London Heathrow to Luxor, arriving c. 9.30pm (time in the air: c. 4 hours 45 minutes). First of five nights in Luxor. Day 2: Luxor. A leisurely day with talks by the lecturer outlining the main themes of the tour. Morning visit to Luxor Museum. Free afternoon. Overnight Luxor. Day 3: Luxor. Full day visiting the Theban West Bank, the city of the dead and the Valley of the Kings, where the New Kingdom pharaohs are buried in magnificently decorated rock cut tombs, the vast royal mortuary temples erected as Houses of Eternity for the cult of the king. Visit the Tombs of the Nobles containing exquisite reliefs and painted festival and funeral scenes Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Watercolour publ. 1920.
A well-planned land tour makes much better use of time than a Nile cruise.
of conquerors reached a turning-point with Napoleon, who brought an army not only of soldiers but also of scholars. He left both groups to continue without him, and the scholars laboured throughout the land to produce the monumental Description de L’Égypte. The vast detective work of deciphering hieroglyphic script was commenced through the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799, thereby eventually producing the key to our present understanding of ancient Egypt. Nowhere in the world have so many monuments survived for so long, on such a scale and in such good condition. The magnificence of Egypt’s standing monuments, Pharaonic, Coptic and Islamic, is supplemented by an unrivalled series of tomb sculptures and paintings and by superb collections of jewellery and artefacts in the Egyptian museums. And through the midst of the land, with its origins in the deep south, flows the Nile, which with its annual inundation was the source of all that has made Egyptian civilisation great.
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Ancient Egypt continued
Engraving c. 1880.
the flooding of the original island. The ancient granite quarries where a flawed obelisk dating to the 18th Dynasty lies unfinished. A free afternoon. Final night Aswan. Day 9: Abu Simbel, Cairo. Fly to Abu Simbel to visit the dramatic twin temples of Ramesses II and his great royal wife, Nefertari, on the shores of Lake Nasser. Transfer by air to Cairo for the first of three nights. Day 10: Giza, Cairo. On the edge of Cairo at Giza is the largest and most renowned complex of Pyramids, the solar boat museum and the Sphinx. Afternoon visit to the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities to view the richest collection of Pharaonic art in the world, including treasures from the tomb of Tutankhamun. Overnight Cairo.
and the village of the workmen, Deir el Medina, who built and decorated the royal tombs, a rare settlement site, with their beautifully decorated tombs with perfectly preserved colour. Overnight Luxor. Day 4: Luxor. The ancient site of Thebes and the vast temple complex of Karnak including the spectacular temple of Amun and the open-air museum. Free afternoon. Evening visit to Luxor temple, another great temple to Amun intimately connected to Karnak through a national festival. Overnight Luxor. Day 5: Denderah. Morning visit to the wellpreserved and roofed Ptolemaic-Roman Temple of Hathor at Denderah. Return to Luxor experiencing the rural landscape of Upper Egypt providing reflections of ancient times. Overnight Luxor. Day 6: Edfu, Kom Ombo, Aswan. Drive south through the agricultural landscape and view the desert edge of Southern Upper Egypt to see the Temple of Horus at Edfu, the most complete of the Egyptian temples. At Kom Ombo visit the remains of the unique double temple to Sobek and
Haroeris (Horus the elder), teetering on the banks of the Nile. First of three nights in the ancient border city of Aswan. Day 7: Kitchener’s Island, St Simeon, nobles’ tombs. Travel by boat to the Old and Middle Kingdom tombs cut into the rock high on the West Bank. Island of Plants (Kitchener’s Island), a lush botanical garden with tropical vegetation imported by the eponymous British soldier. Optional visit by camel to the lonely seventhcentury ruined fortress-monastery of St Simeon, situated on the edge of the desert. Alternatively, take a bird watching trip through the cataract at Aswan on a motor boat, accompanied by an ornithologist. The Nubian Museum has excellent collections of Nubian life from the Neolithic to the present. Overnight Aswan. Day 8: Temple of Philae, High Dam. The High Dam is one of the engineering wonders of the world. View in the distance the brooding hulk of Kalabsha temple, relocated to the banks of Lake Nasser as the High Dam was built. Between the High Dam and the Old Dam, the Temple of Philae, dedicated to the goddess Isis, reconstructed on a landscaped island following
Watercolour by Phoebe Allen, publ. 1913.
Day 11: Dahshur, Saqqarah, Cairo. Drive to the Dahshur pyramid field to view and visit the pyramids predating the Giza pyramids, the cathedral-like interior of the Red Pyramid is an engineering marvel. Saqqarah, the necropolis of the ancient capital city of Memphis. The Step Pyramid complex contains the earliest pyramid and Egypt’s first building in stone, the pyramid of Teti, containing the Pyramid Texts relating the king’s ascent to the stars. The Mastaba of Mereruka has detailed and finely rendered painted scenes of daily life. Overnight Cairo. Day 12: Cairo. Fly to Heathrow, arrive c. 1.30pm.
‘So impressed with the smooth movement of sixteen individuals around three hotels in three cities and innumerable ancient sites.’ Practicalities Price: £3,880 (deposit £350). Single supplement £460 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £3,350. Included meals: 6 lunches (some are picnics) and 7 dinners with wine.
egypt
Visas: required for most foreign nationals. If you are flying with the group we will arrange for it to be issued on arrival (the cost is included in the tour price); if you are flying independently we can arrange a visa on arrival, with a transfer, for a charge. Accommodation. The Sofitel Winter Palace, Luxor (sofitel.com): a locally rated 5-star hotel on the banks of the Nile with delightful gardens. The Old Cataract, Aswan (sofitel.com): perched on the banks of the Nile with fine views this is one of the finest hotels in Egypt, recently refurbished. Kempinski, Cairo (kempinski.com): a 5-star boutique hotel, centrally located. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Essential Andalucía, 19–29 October 2015 (page 196), Castile & León, 19–28 October 2015 (page 188).
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Great Houses of the Nor th
Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Durham, Northumberland 14–23 September 2015 (mc 437) 10 days • £3,180 Lecturer: Gail Bent The finest country houses and gardens in northern England, from mediaeval to Victorian, with an emphasis on the eighteenth century. Unhurried: there is plenty of time to rest, relax and absorb. Only two hotel changes. Some of the most glorious countryside in England, plus a few items other than houses. Excellent hotels and good food. Led by Gail Bent, an expert on British architectural history and historical interiors. The country house is Britain’s most distinctive contribution to the world’s cultural heritage. Other countries have them of course, but none in such profusion, such variety, and in such a state of completion and preservation. Cutting a swathe through the northern half of England, from Derbyshire to Northumberland, this tour includes a remarkable number of the greatest and grandest. One feature of the English country house is that it usually resides in the country; on the Continent the town often presses around the forecourt. And the countryside in England is among the loveliest in the world, and the most varied; on this tour you pass by gently rolling farmland with green fields, ancient hedges, majestic trees and contented livestock, and by the rugged beauty of upland moors. All aspects of the country house are studied – architecture, furniture, decoration, works of art; gardens and parks; historical context and daily life; conservation and custodianship. Many of the houses have marvellous gardens. The leisurely pace is a distinctive feature, with an average of fewer than two houses per day and the inclusion of a few items other than country houses. Time is allowed for relaxing and reflecting and exploring on one’s own. Special arrangements comprise another significant feature with many out-of-hours openings and access to parts not normally seen by visitors.
Itinerary Day 1: Kedleston (Derbys). The coach leaves Derby railway station at 1.45pm. One of the supreme monuments of Classical architecture and decoration in England, recreating the glories of Ancient Rome in the foothills of the Peak District, Kedleston Hall (1759–65) was the creation of Sir Nathaniel Curzon and, initially, three architects, of whom Robert Adam emerged the victor. The sequence of grand rooms for entertainment and show are homogeneous and complete (with furnishings designed by Adam), an impeccable manifestation of aristocratic wealth, education and taste. Spend the first of three nights near Chatsworth. Day 2: Chatsworth, Haddon (Derbys). The home of the Duke of Devonshire, Chatsworth House was rebuilt in the 1690s with the scale and sumptuousness of a palace and further augmented in the 1820s. The steady acquisition of furniture, sculpture and pictures created one of the finest private art collections in the world. ‘The most perfect English house to survive from the Middle Ages’, Haddon Hall evolved from c. 1370 to the 17th century after which nearly 300 years of disuse preserved it from alteration. The gardens are exceptionally lovely. Overnight near Chatsworth. Day 3: Hardwick, Bolsover (Derbys). Hardwick Hall (1590) is the finest of all Elizabethan great houses, a highpoint of the English Renaissance, the façade famously more glass than stone. The unaltered interiors are decorated with stucco reliefs and filled with contemporary textiles and furniture. Bolsover Castle is an elaborate Jacobean folly, a splendid late-Renaissance sequence of rooms in mediaeval fancy dress. Overnight near Chatsworth.
Day 4: Harewood (W Yorks). Harewood House is one of the grandest and most beautiful of English country houses, architecture by John Carr (1772) and Charles Barry (1843), interiors by Adam, furniture by Chippendale and park by ‘Capability’ Brown. There are excellent paintings, Italian Renaissance to modern. First of three nights in York. Day 5: Burton Agnes (E Yorks), Castle Howard (N Yorks). Burton Agnes Hall is a final flourish of the Elizabethan age, red brick and cream stone, topiary, marvellous carving and plasterwork, Impressionist and modern paintings: ‘the perfect English house’. Designed by John Vanbrugh in 1699, Castle Howard is one of the few major Baroque buildings in England and the most palatial house on the tour. Excellent works of art and park with famous temples and follies. Overnight York. Day 6: Newby, York (N Yorks). A William-andMary house (1693), Newby Hall was subject for the next two centuries to refurbishment and extension of the highest quality, one set of rooms (by Adam) designed to house a collection of Roman sculpture. 25 acres of fine gardens. Some free time in York. Private dinner at Fairfax House in York, a Georgian town house. Overnight York. Day 7: Raby, Auckland (Co. Durham). Within the formidable 14th-century fortifications of Raby Castle are suites of rooms of the 18th and 19th centuries. There are good paintings, furniture and Meissen animals and a deer park. Excellent art collections in a vast building in the guise of a French château make the Bowes Museum one of the surprises of the north. Grandest of English episcopal palaces, Auckland Castle was refitted in Neo-Gothic style and contains 12 superb paintings by Zurbarán. First of three nights in Newcastle.
Castle Howard, engraving based on Colen Cambell’s Vitruvius Britannicus, 1720s.
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Great Houses of the South West The finest houses in six counties
Day 8: Belsay, Wallington (Nthumb). After Sir Charles Monck’s return from Greece in 1805 he built Belsay Hall in a severely Grecian style. Delightful woodland gardens lead to a mediaeval castle. Wallington Hall dates to 1688 but was refurbished in the mid-18th and mid-19th centuries, the latter resulting in an arcaded two-storey hall with scenes of Northumbrian history painted by William Bell Scott. Overnight Newcastle. Day 9: Seaton Delaval, Cragside (Nthumb). On a cliff-top site outside Newcastle, Seaton Delaval was the last of Vanbrugh’s magnificent mansions. Innovatory management has followed its acquisition by the National Trust in 2009. A wonderful sequence of late-Victorian taste and technology, Cragside is a romantic Tudor-style pile (1869–84) designed by Norman Shaw for William Armstrong, inventor and manufacturer. Overnight Newcastle. Day 10: Alnwick (Nthumb), Newcastle. Since 1309 the seat of the Percys, Dukes of Northumberland, Alnwick Castle externally remains a striking mediaeval fortress while the interiors are a lavish exercise in Victorian mediaevalism. There is a superb painting collection and a new 12-acre garden. The coach takes you to Newcastle railway station by 3.30pm.
Practicalities Price: £3,180 (deposit £300). Single supplement £370 (double room for single occupancy. National Trust: members (with cards) will be refunded c. £43. English Heritage: members (with cards) will be refunded c. £15. Included meals: 7 dinners with wine. Accommodation. The Cavendish Hotel, near Chatsworth (cavendish-hotel.net): located on the Chatsworth Estate it has been an inn for centuries. The Grange, York (grangehotel.co.uk): ten minutes on foot from the Minster, it has been beautifully converted from a Georgian town house. Jesmond Dene House, Newcastle (jesmonddenehouse.co.uk): a 19th-century mansion in a quiet wooded suburb. Group size: between 12 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: In Churchill’s Footsteps, 10–13 September 2015 (page 58).
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Ardgowan, 18–23 June 2015, a country house weekend in Scotland (see page 182).
Dunster, Watercolour by Walter Tyndale, publ. 1913.
9–16 June 2015 (mb 359) 8 days • £3,110 Lecturer: Anthony Lambert Great country houses, historic gardens and parks in Wiltshire, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Dorset and Devon. Major examples of a huge range of styles from the twelfth century to the twentieth. Many houses contain outstanding picture collections and exceptional furniture. Special arrangements and out-of-hours visits. Hotels in former country houses. Led by Anthony Lambert who has worked with the National Trust for nearly 30 years and writes regularly for the Historic Houses Association. The landscapes seen on this tour are immensely varied and endlessly alluring – the noble chalk downs of Wiltshire, the evocative Levels of Somerset, the enchanting patchwork fields of Devon, the verdant hidden valleys of Exmoor, the little hills of Dorset. The houses seen are equally varied. Lacock and Longleat and Montacute are among the finest of Henrician and Elizabethan mansions in England. The Stuart era is superbly represented by the incomparable Wilton House, star of the first phase of Palladian classicism in England, and by the Dutch classicism of Dyrham, while the eighteenth century is wonderfully exemplified at Stourhead and by the delicious Adam interiors at Saltram. Victoria’s reign has a magnificent ambassador in Tyntesfield, and the Edwardian continuation is beautifully if eccentrically demonstrated at Castle Drogo. Real castles are
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represented by the extraordinary Berkeley, still a family home, and, if now more picturesque than defensive, at Dunster. A first-rate country house is more than a house. Clustering around are gardens, auxiliary buildings and a park – at Stourhead, perhaps the most influential one in the world – and beyond lie working farms and enterprises of all sorts. And of course inside the houses there are furnishings and works of art and gadgets and utensils and curios: in many of the houses on this tour these moveables are of a quality and a quantity which surpass the collections of all but a couple of dozen of Britain’s museums. Corsham and Kingston Lacy in particular are renowned for their picture collections. Word must be added about the hotels on this tour, all three of which are excellent, and two of which are former country houses.
Itinerary Day 1: Stratfield Saye. Leave London at 11.00am and drive to Hampshire, arriving at Stratfield Saye in time for lunch. The prize for the Duke of Wellington’s victory at Waterloo, it is still lived in by his descendants today. Built in the early 17th century by an early member of the Pitt dynasty, the house has a relatively modest exterior, belying splendid interiors and an excellent art collection. Spend the first of three nights in a country-house hotel in the village of Bishopstrow, Wiltshire. Day 2: Wilton, Kingston Lacy. Inigo Jones contributed to the design of Wilton House, the outstanding achievement of the first phase of Palladianism in England. The double-cube room, with paintings by Van Dyck, is the most sumptuous English interior of the Stuart period. Also of the 17th century, Kingston Lacy is
noted for its lavish interiors and outstanding art collection of Spanish, Italian and Flemish Old Masters. Both houses have important gardens and parkland. Overnight Bishopstrow.
is mild Baroque in golden Bath stone, and inside exquisitely Anglo-Dutch with pictures and furnishings to match. Return to central London at c. 4.30pm.
Day 3: Longleat, Corsham. Longleat was one of the largest and architecturally most progressive of Elizabethan houses, and is set in a ‘Capability’ Brown park. Corsham (Wiltshire) is an Elizabethan mansion enlarged in the 18th century and again in the 19th to display a collection of Old Master paintings, still in situ. Overnight Bishopstrow.
Note that some appointments cannot be confirmed until November 2014.
Day 4: Stourhead, Montacute. Though built in two phases, 1720s and 1790s, Stourhead is the perfect classical villa. The landscaped park of the 1740s is the most important of its kind, with a lake, temples, careful planting and contrived, if seemingly natural, vistas. Montacute is a magnificent Elizabethan house with the longest long gallery in England. An outstation of the National Portrait Gallery, it is hung with 16thand 17th-century pictures. Garden layout and architecture survive. First of two nights in Taunton.
Included meals: 1 lunch and 5 dinners with wine.
Practicalities Price: £3,110 (deposit £300). Single supplement £320. National Trust members (with cards) will be refunded c. £85. Accommodation. Bishopstrow House (bishopstrow.co.uk) dates from the early 19th century and has been a hotel for 35 years. The Castle Hotel, Taunton (the-castle-hotel.com): an award-winning family-run hotel, pleasingly decorated and with excellent service. Lucknam Park Hotel, Colerne, Wiltshire (lucknampark. co.uk): this 5-star hotel is a fine example of a
country-house hotel, set in 500 acres of parkland and with a Michelin-starred restaurant. Group size: between 12 and 22 participants.
Broughton Hall July 2015 Full details available in September 2014 Contact us to register your interest Stay as guests at Broughton Hall, an 18th-century house with Italianate grounds which remains the private home of the Tempest family. Country houses, gardens and parks in Yorkshire and Lancashire. Special arrangements and out-of-hours visits.
Day 5: Saltram, Castle Drogo. Drive across Devon to Saltram, a largely 18th-century house with lavish Robert Adam interiors and fine pictures and furnishings. There are dramatic views of the Plym Estuary. A rugged Dartmoor setting overlooking the Teign Gorge matches Sir Edwin Lutyens’s imaginative exercise in mediaevalism at Castle Drogo, though inside there are all the latest in early 20th-century comforts. The castle is undergoing a 5-year restoration programme and whilst some rooms may be closed, it has meant the National Trust has opened rooms not normally available for public viewing. Fine Arts & Crafts garden. Overnight Taunton. Day 6: Dunster, Tyntesfield. Drive between the Quantocks and Exmoor to the famously picturesque village of Dunster. Atop a wooded hillock, the castle of Norman origin long ago domesticated its defensive features, notably in the Carolean age. The great Gothic Revival mansion of Tyntesfield has hardly changed since the nineteenth century, caught in a time warp and stuffed with the authentic bric-a-brac of a Victorian country house. First of two nights in a country-house hotel in Colerne, Wiltshire.
Day 8: Dyrham. Transformed from a Tudor mansion at the end of the 17th century and scarcely changed since, Dyrham Park externally
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Day 7: Berkeley, Lacock. The keep of Berkeley Castle dates to 1117, the bulk of the rest to 1340–61. Little has been altered since, and yet it is still the private home of its builders, a family that served Edward the Confessor. The contents – tapestries, paintings, furniture – are magnificent. In one of the loveliest villages in England, Lacock Abbey retains a cloister from the nunnery dissolved by Henry VIII and given to a courtier. There are Georgian modifications and being the home of William Fox Talbot, a window which was the subject of the first ever photograph. Overnight Colerne.
Berkeley Castle, etching from Historic Houses of the United Kingdom, 1892. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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At Home in Weston Park
Historic Houses in Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Shropshire 13–18 May 2015 (mb 320) 6 days • £2,710 Lecturer: Anthony Lambert Stay in a 16th-century coaching inn and then as guests at Weston Park, a 17th-century house set in 1,000 acres of ‘Capability’ Brown landscape. Country houses, gardens and parks in four counties in the West of England. Important examples of a range of styles from the twelfth to twentieth centuries, many with fine pictures, furniture, silver and porcelain. Special arrangements and out-of-hours visits. Led by Anthony Lambert who has worked with the National Trust for nearly 30 years and writes regularly for the Historic Houses Association. There is no single supplement. Along the Welsh borders are some of the most enchanting landscapes in Britain, largely unspoilt thanks to being beyond the reach of metropolitan commuters. Its agriculture remains small in scale, family farms and artisan food producers maintaining earlier field systems with hedges and an abundance of trees. The houses visited illustrate the evolution of taste over many centuries. Hellens perfectly demonstrates the adaptation of a small monastery
into one of Britain’s most atmospheric houses, deeply rural yet playing its part in national affairs. Ragley is the only surviving example of a country house designed by the polymath Robert Hooke, colleague of Sir Christopher Wren. Classicism shaped Hanbury, Shugborough and Attingham. Eastnor combines Norman and Gothic Revival elements while Madresfield’s many reconstructions have produced a house resembling a moated Elizabethan mansion but, like Wightwick, it is celebrated for its Arts & Crafts interiors. Important parks surround some of the houses: Weston Park has one of the few remaining ‘Capability’ Brown pleasure grounds, several are by Repton and the magnificent group of mostly Greek-inspired monuments in the park at Shugborough is a landmark in 18th-century architecture. A very special feature of this tour is that participants stay for three of the five nights in one of these houses. Weston is basically a late seventeenth-century mansion filled with fine paintings – Holbein, Van Dyck, Gainsborough, Reynolds, Stubbs – and furniture and other arts. Formerly the property of the Earls of Bradford, it belongs to a private charitable trust. It is not a hotel, but caters for high-end special events. Our group has exclusive access, and while there this great country house is your home. You are free to wander through the house and grounds at leisure.
Eastnor Castle, chromolithograph c. 1880.
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Itinerary Day 1: Eastnor Castle. The coach leaves Gloucester Railway Station at 12.00 noon. Spectacularly situated above a lake, early-19thcentury Eastnor is a splendid example of the Norman and Gothic revival, with a drawing room by Pugin. The sumptuous and beautifully restored interiors are hung with paintings by Van Dyck, Reynolds, Romney and Watts. First of two nights in Broadway. Day 2: Hellens, Madresfield Court. Transformed from a monastery into a fortress in 1292 by Mortimer, Earl of March, Hellens has been lived in ever since by his descendants. Edward the Black Prince dined in the stone-flagged hall and the Tudor, Jacobean and Stuart additions contain paintings and heirlooms from the Civil War, fine 17th-century woodwork and Cordoba leather wall hangings. The novelist Evelyn Waugh was a frequent guest at Madresfield, where the oldest part is the 12th-cent. Great Hall. Rebuilt in the 16th, 19th and 20th cents., the house is famous for its Arts & Crafts chapel and library. Overnight Broadway. Day 3: Ragley Hall, Hanbury Hall. Of several great houses designed by the scientist and architect Robert Hooke, Ragley is the sole survivor, though it was not completed until long after his death with additions by James Gibbs
West Country Churches
Mediaeval art & architecture in the South West and James Wyatt. There are good paintings, ceramics and furniture and a modern sculpture park. Described as ‘every Englishman’s idea of a substantial squire’s red brick home of the age of Wren’, Hanbury was built c. 1700 and decorated with wall- and ceiling-paintings by Sir James Thornhill. The garden and orangery were designed by George London. First of three nights at Weston Park. Day 4: Weston Park. Today is spent at Weston Park with its curator Gareth Williams. The basically 17th-cent. house has an excellent picture collection, outstanding furniture, including choice pieces by Chippendale, and good ceramics. An in-depth tour includes items not usually on display. There is time also to explore at leisure and walk in the ‘Capability’ Brown park. Overnight Weston Park. Day 5: Wightwick Manor, Shugborough. Wightwick Manor is one of the finest examples of the Victorian penchant for an ‘Old English’ amalgam of stone, brick, half-timbering and tile-hanging, but it is also distinguished by its collection of pre-Raphaelite paintings and William Morris furnishings. Shugborough has all the elements of a substantial country estate: a magnificent Georgian house with a fine collection of paintings, silver and ceramics; Grade I-listed parkland peppered with classical monuments; a working model farm; and a lively family history. Overnight Weston Park. Day 6: Attingham Park. Set in parkland designed by Humphry Repton, Attingham has magnificent Regency interiors and one of the first picture galleries to be built in a country house. It is filled with the collection of Italian furniture, paintings and silver formed by the diplomatist 3rd Lord Berwick. The tour ends at Shrewsbury Railway Station by 3.20pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,710 (deposit £250). There is no single supplement. Included meals: 3 lunches, 4 dinners with wine.
Group size: between 12 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Classical Greece, 2–11 May 2015 (page 97), Palaces of Piedmont, 19–24 May 2015 (page 113).
6–10 July 2015 (mb 392) 5 days • £1,160 Lecturer: John McNeill Bristol, Wells & Exeter cathedrals and a cluster of architecturally eminent parish churches Based in Wells, a lovely country town. Led by renowned architectural historian and tour leader John McNeill. The mediaeval architecture of the English West Country, particularly in the great arc of land between Bristol and Exeter, is rightly celebrated for the regional distinction and inventiveness of its major monuments, qualities which endured throughout the Middle Ages. This imaginative originality was also extended to its parish churches and, most remarkably, can be traced back to a period from which little survives in south-western England, the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The buildings we visit range from the late Anglo-Saxon to the early Tudor, though it would be foolish not to play to the region’s strengths, and the majority belong to the later Middle Ages. The pre-eminent buildings are, of course, Bristol, Wells and Exeter cathedrals, each of them
variously extended, refurbished and embellished between the late thirteenth and mid-fifteenth centuries, and each retaining much of their mediaeval statuary, furniture and stained glass. Each also belongs to wider precincts, that at Wells exceptionally well preserved, in whose vicar’s close and various gates one might glimpse some of the most influential structures of mediaeval England. Wells is in many ways the ideal place to stay, for it sits towards the middle of an unusual concentration of parish churches of national importance, a significant theme of the tour. And with the buildings of the calibre of Lullington, Isle Abbots, Compton Martin and Steeple Ashton we will not want for masterpieces of parish church design.
Itinerary
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Accommodation. The Lygon Arms, Broadway (pumahotels.co.uk): a 16th-century coaching inn; some parts date back to the 14th century. Situated in the high street of Broadway. Weston Park, Weston under Lizard (weston-park.com): set in 1,000 acres of ‘Capability’ Brown parkland. A country house where one may stay, rather than a hotel, offering the experience of being a guest while the family is away.
Wells Cathedral, Chapter House, early 19th-century steel engraving.
Day 1: Bristol. The coach departs at 2.00pm from Bristol Temple Meads railway station for the drive to Bristol Cathedral. A breathtaking hall church which stands among the most innovative early 14th-century buildings in Europe. Cross the river to the great mercantile parish church, St Mary Redcliffe, a dazzling amalgam of eye-catching porches, fancy vaults and decorated detailing.
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West Country Churches continued
Constable & Gainsborough Stour Valley Landscapes & London Galleries
Day 2: Exeter, Ottery St Mary, Glastonbury. South-west to Exeter Cathedral, a building whose contemporary liturgical furnishings and western image screen constitute one of the most complete ensembles of mediaeval work still to be found in a northern European city. Visit Bishop Grandisson’s collegiate foundation at Ottery St Mary and the stunning 12th–14th-century ruins at Glastonbury Abbey. Day 3: Wells, Compton Martin. A morning at Wells Cathedral beginning with the cloisters, progressing through the nave, west front, chapter house and that marvellous sequence of contrasted spaces that make up the east end; architecture, sculpture and stained glass to the fore. The afternoon is spent at St Cuthbertand then over the Mendips to visit the Romanesque church of St Michael at Compton Martin. Day 4: Isle Abbots, Muchelney, Huish Episcopi. A leisurely morning in south-east Somerset: Isle Abbots, an unusually heterogeneous and satisfying late mediaeval parish church; Muchelney, an important ruined Benedictine Abbey with surviving abbot’s lodging; Huish Episcopi, greatest of the Somerset church towers. A free afternoon. Day 5: Lullington, Steeple Ashton, Bradford on Avon. The morning is spent hugging the borders of Somerset and Wiltshire. Lullington, a virtually intact Romanesque parish church with exceptional sculpture, Steeple Ashton, superb late 15th-century church with extravagant wooden vault and Bradford on Avon, accomplished and enigmatic late Anglo-Saxon chapel of St Laurence. Return to Bristol Temple Meads station by 4.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £1,160 (deposit £100). Single supplement £60. Included meals: 1 lunch and 3 dinners with wine. Accommodation. The Swan, Wells (swanhotelwells.co.uk ): a 3-star hotel in a 15thcentury building close to the cathedral. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Literature & Walking in the Lake District, 29 June–2 July 2015 (page 53), Constable & Gainsborough, 13–16 July 2015 (see to the right).
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‘The Honourable Mrs Graham, engraving after Thomas Gainsborough.
13–16 July 2015 (mb 395) 4 days • £1,040 Lecturer to be confirmed Visit sites associated with both Constable and Gainsborough in London and the Stour Valley. Travel through beautiful unspoilt scenery that both artists would still recognise. Visits to major London collections which house the largest density of each artist’s oeuvre. Stay all three nights in the charming village of Dedham. The idyllic pastoral landscape of the Stour Valley was the birthplace and inspiration for two of Britain’s best known and most influential artists: Thomas Gainsborough and John Constable. Tractors may have replaced peasant workers but the gently undulating countryside checkered with hamlets and fields where livestock graze remains
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largely unchanged from the time both artists studied it. Thomas Gainsborough, although primarily known as a portrait artist, was greatly moved by this scenery and its influence can be seen in the background of his most famous works. He always maintained that he preferred landscape painting and consequently produced numerous studies of the Suffolk countryside. Many of these are on display at Gainsborough House in his home town of Sudbury, which holds the largest collection of his works outside London. The majority of John Constable’s seminal works were studied and sketched along a three mile stretch of the river Stour where he lived and worked between 1816 and 1821. The works he produced here include The Hay Wain, one of Britain’s most recognisable paintings. Little has changed in the small hamlets of Dedham, Flatford and East Bergholt since Constable lived there, allowing the viewer to explore the scenes immortalised in paint to this day. The bucolic landscape plays a central role in
The Age of Bede Anglo-Saxon Northumbria
Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Durham Cathedral is the last resting place of Cuthbert and Bede. In the opinion of some the finest Romanesque church in Europe, its massiveness and defensibility express the often tenuous hold on the region by institutions representing southern-based royal government.
the tour, sandwiched between visits to the major galleries in London first to view and digest the great masterpieces of each artist’s oeuvre and then to explore the landscapes that inspired them.
Itinerary Day 1: London, Dedham. Meet in Central London at 10.00am and visit the National Gallery, the location of many of Constable’s and Gainsborough’s most famous works including The Hay Wain and Mr and Mrs William Hallett (The Morning Walk). Continue to Tate Britain to view drawings not normally on display, as well as the permanent collection. Drive to ‘Constable Country’. Day 2: East Bergholt, Flatford, Dedham. A day exploring the three charming villages in which Constable lived and worked. St. Mary’s Church in East Bergholt has changed little since he painted The Church Porch. The site of his family home and his studio are also here. The hamlet of Flatford, seat of the family business, provided a convenient location for Constable to study and is the inspiration for many of his most famous works. Lecture and lunch in Flatford Mill, now a field studies centre. Walk a waymarked footpath, a level, grassy trail following the River Stour to Dedham (1½ miles). View Constable’s Ascension in Dedham Church. Day 3: Sudbury, Ipswich. Drive to Gainsborough House in Sudbury, the artist’s birthplace and family home, now a museum holding the largest collection of his works outside London, with particular focus on his Suffolk works. Images include: Mrs Mary Cobbold with her daughter Anne in a landscape with a lamb and ewe and Portrait of Harriet, Viscountess Tracy. Continue to Ipswich to visit the Wolsey Art Gallery, a recently opened wing of Christchurch Mansion designed specifically to house the town’s collection of works by Constable and Gainsborough. Day 4: London. Return to London and visit the print collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum which holds the largest collection of Constable’s prints and drawings in the country. The tour ends in central London by 3.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £1,040 (deposit £100). Single supplement £120.
Accommodation. Milsom Hotel, Dedham (milsomhotels.com) a modern hotel located on the banks of the river Stour, overlooking Dedham Vale. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: West Country Churches, 6–10 July 2015 (page 47).
Anglo-Saxon illuminated letter, engraving c. 1860.
4–7 July 2015 (mb 388) 4 days • £910 Lecturer: Imogen Corrigan Examines the remarkable efflorescence of culture and learning in Anglo-Saxon northern England. Jarrow, Monkwearmouth, Holy Island, Hexham and other Anglo-Saxon sites. Studies also Durham Cathedral, perhaps the greatest Romanesque building in Europe, with special arrangements. Imogen Corrigan, a specialist in Anglo-Saxon and mediaeval history, leads the tour. For a few decades around ad 700, a handful of monasteries in Northumbria became beacons of culture and learning in a Britain that was largely tribal, warlike and unstable. Within a century Viking raiders extinguished these fragile flickers of civilization, and destruction and division again ruled the land. England – as it can now be called – steadily recovered, and on the eve of the Norman Conquest had become one of the best-governed and most prosperous territories in Europe. But in the two decades after 1066 the ever-troublesome north was again laid waste. The tour visits some of the most significant Anglo-Saxon remains in the area – Jarrow and Monkwearmouth, the two-campus monastery to which the Venerable Bede was attached; church architecture at Escomb and Hexham; and sites of powerful resonance, of the royal court at Yeavering and Lindisfarne, now known as Holy Island. The tour introduces a cast of remarkable men – Benedict Biscop, Aiden, Cuthbert, Bede, characters of extraordinary tenacity, learning, piety and courage. One of the great intellectuals of the Middle Ages, the Venerable Bede (673–735) wrote on science and the measurement of time and on languages and literature as well as compiling a work of inestimable value, The
Day 1: Jarrow and Monkwearmouth. The coach leaves the hotel in Durham (where all three nights are spent) at 1.30pm. The monasteries at Monkwearmouth and Jarrow, ten miles apart but one institution, were founded in 674 and 681 by Benedict Biscop, whose five journeys to Rome resulted in a unique network of international contacts and awareness of European artistry. Parts of the original chapels survive, with stained glass and stone carvings. ‘Bede’s World’ is an excellent museum, with a living Anglo-Saxon farm adjacent. Day 2: Durham. All day is spent in and around Durham Cathedral, one of the greatest Romanesque churches in Europe and one of the most impressive of English cathedrals. Mighty towers rise above the encircling river Wear, while the interior cannot but move with its power and piety. The bulk of the building is little altered since the forty-year building campaign begun in 1093. There is the opportunity to attend Evensong here. Day 3: Yeavering, Holy Island. On the journey to Lindisfarne visit Yeavering, evocative site of a royal settlement. The monastery on the little island of Lindisfarne (later ‘Holy Island’) was founded in ad 635 by an Irish monk from Iona, St. Aidan, and became an important centre for scholarship and missionary activity. A place of remarkable charm and tranquillity, there are Anglo-Saxon fragments, ruins of the Norman priory, and a castle, turned into a home by Edwin Lutyens. Day 4: Escomb, Hexham. The tiny Saxon church at Escomb was built c. ad 675, a rare survival. A lovely market town on a bluff above the Tyne, Hexham grew around a monastery founded by in 671 by St Wilfrid. The magnificent mediaeval church is post-Conquest except for the crypt, the largest surviving expanse of Anglo-Saxon architecture in England. The coach sets down at Newcastle Central Railway station before 3.00pm and returns to Durham before 3.30pm.
Practicalities Price: £910 (deposit £100). Single room supplement £100.
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Included meals: one lunch and three dinners with wine.
Itinerary
Included meals: 1 lunch and 2 dinners with wine. Accommodation. The Radisson Blu Hotel, Durham (radissonblu.co.uk/hotel-durham) is a modern hotel situated on the river and is about 15 minutes on foot from the town centre. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Literature & Walking in the Lake District, 29 June–2 July 2015 (page 53). Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Walking Hadrian’s Wall
Roman civilization at the edge of an Empire 11–17 May 2015 (mb 308) 7 days • £1,910 Lecturer: Graeme Stobbs 6–12 September 2015 (mc 429) 7 days • £1,910 Lecturer: Graeme Stobbs The archaeology and history of the largest Roman construction in northern Europe. The most spectacular stretches accessible only on foot, this is also a walking tour through some of the most magnificent scenery in England. Excursions from coast to coast include all the major Roman sites and relevant museums. One hotel throughout, the best in the region. Lecturer Graeme Stobbs is Assistant Curator of Roman Collections for the Hadrian’s Wall Museums. Traversing England from the Tyne estuary to the Solway Firth, the Wall was conceived and ordered by Emperor Hadrian in ad 122 to mark and control the northernmost limit of the Roman Empire. The ambition was extraordinary,
from radically different climes elsewhere in the Empire, including Syria, Libya, Dalmatia, Spain and Belgium. A populous penumbra of supply bases and civilian settlements grew up nearby. As a feat of organisation, engineering and willpower, Hadrian’s Wall ranks among the most extraordinary of all Roman achievements. Its story does not end with its completion within Hadrian’s reign because for the remaining three centuries of Roman control there were constant changes both to the fabric and to its administration and occupation. A study of the Wall leads to an examination of practically every aspect of Roman civilization, from senatorial politics in Rome to the mundanities of life for ordinary Romans – and Britons – who lived in its shadow. But the Wall itself remains the fascinating focus, and the subject of endless academic debate. For the modern-day visitor the Wall has the further, inestimable attraction of passing some of the most magnificent and unspoilt countryside in England. Happily, archaeological interest is greatest where the landscape is at its most thrilling, and it is in this central section, furthest from centres of population, that the tour concentrates. The principal excavated sites can be visited with no more exertion than on an average sightseeing outing, but to see the best
miles. The slow progress is in part due to stops to examine the archaeology and to take in the wonderful views. But also the terrain is often quite rough, and periodically there are rises and falls, sometimes quite steep, though rarely of more than 50 metres and often aided by roughhewn stone steps recently made for the Hadrian’s Wall Path. It is not a tough trek but nevertheless it should only be attempted by people whose regular country walks include some uphill elements. A coach takes you to the start of each walk and meets you at the end, eliminating the need to retrace steps or carry much except water and waterproofs. Each day has been planned to provide a balanced mix of archaeology, more general sight-seeing and cross-country trekking, and for this reason the walks do not constitute a linear progression. On most days you return to the hotel by 5.00pm, allowing plenty of time to relax before dinner.
Itinerary Day 1: Housesteads. The coach leaves Newcastle Central Station at 2.15pm (or from the hotel, Matfen Hall, at 1.30pm) and takes you straight out to Housesteads. With standing remains of up to 10 feet, this is the best preserved of the Wall’s forts and evocatively reveals the usual panoply of perimeter walls and gateways, headquarters building, commander’s palatial residence, granaries, hospital, latrines. Remote and rugged, there are superb views. Day 2: walk Steel Rigg to Cawfields; Corbridge. The first walk is perhaps the most consistently rugged as it follows long, well-preserved stretches of the Wall through moorland above the cliffs of the Whinsill Crag; a thrilling walk (23/4 miles, up to 21/2 hours). Pub lunch. Corbridge began as a fort in the chain built by Agricola c. ad 85 but left to the south by Hadrian’s Wall it became a supply depot and then a largely civilian town.
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Day 3: walk Housesteads to Steel Rigg; Chesters. Again for much of the route the Wall rides the crest of the faultline of dolerite crags, dipping and climbing. There are spectacular stretches, excellently preserved milecastles, staggering views: moorland, lakes, conifer forests to the north, richly variegated greens, plentiful livestock, distant vistas to the south (31/2 miles, up to 23/4 hours). Pub lunch. Chesters, the most salubrious of the forts (lavish bath house), built for 500 Asturian cavalrymen, in enchanting river valley setting.
The Wall near Housesteads, wood engraving c. 1888.
its fulfilment – far from the pool of skills and prosperity in the Mediterranean heartlands of the Empire – astonishing: a fifteen-foot-high wall 73 miles long through harsh, undulating terrain with 80 milecastles, 161 intermediate turrets and flanking earthwork ditches and ramparts. Fifteen or sixteen forts, many straddling the Wall, housed a garrison of 12–15,000 soldiers
surviving stretches of the Wall, and to appreciate the vastness of the Roman achievement, to view many of its details and to immerse fully in the scenic beauties, there is no substitute for leaving wheels behind and walking along its course. How strenuous are the walks? On each of the five full days there is a walk of between two and three hours, covering between two and four
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Day 4: Vindolanda, Newcastle. The fort and town of Vindolanda is the site of ongoing excavations which are revealing everyday artefacts including, famously, the ‘postcard’ writing tablets which uniquely document details of everyday life. In Newcastle the Great North Museum has the best collection of objects excavated along the Wall. Day 5: walk Gilsland to Birdoswald; Chesters, Brocolitia. Walk through low-lying and pretty farmland with streams and wild flowers. The only mile with both milecastles and turrets visible, and good lengths of Wall (2 miles, 1 hour). Pub lunch followed by a couple of archaeological remains,
Walking a Royal River
Art, architecture & history along the Thames the Mithraic temple at Brocolitia and the bridge abutments across the river from Chesters. Day 6: walk Walltown to Cawfields; Carlisle, Bowness-on-Solway. The final walk is spectacularly varied, from rocky hilltops to lowland pasture (31/2 miles, 21/2 hours). Great Chesters fort has good remains of gates and other structures, with lengths of the Wall up to two metres high. Drive to Carlisle to see the Wall collections in the Tullie House Museum, and continue to the evocative estuarial landscape of the Solway Firth. The Wall ended at the remote village of Bowness-on-Solway. Day 7: South Shields, Wallsend. At South Shields Arbeia is a fine reconstruction of a fort gateway, as well as reconstructions of a soldier’s barrack block and an opulent house belonging to the Commanding Officer. At aptly named Wallsend and now engulfed in the Tyneside conurbation, Segedunum was the most easterly of the forts, the layout clearly seen from a viewing platform. The coach takes you to Newcastle railway station by 2.30pm.
Practicalities Price: £1,910 (deposit £200). Single supplement £140. Accommodation. Matfen Hall Hotel (matfenhall. com) a 19th-century Jacobean-style mansion, Matfen Hall is a fine country-house hotel offering excellent service. How strenuous? You should not consider this tour unless you possess a well-used pair of walking boots, are more than averagely fit, have good balance and a head for heights. Group size: between 10 and 18 participants. Combine this tour with: Ravenna & Urbino, 6–10 May 2015 (page 127), Palaces of Piedmont, 19–24 May 2015 (page 113), Great Houses of the North, 14–23 September 2015 (page 43).
Music in the Regions
21–27 September 2015 (mc 450) 7 days • £2,380 Lecturer: Dr Paul Atterbury Walk between two and five miles a day along stretches of the towpath from the source of the Thames to Hampton Court, and through the gentle hills which flank the valley. Visit villages, churches, country houses, gardens and palaces with regal connections from the Middle Ages to the present day. Can be combined with The Divine Office: a Choral Festival in Oxford, 28 September–2 October 2015 (see page 52). Led by Dr Paul Atterbury who specialises in the art, architecture and design of the 19th and 20th centuries. ‘The Thames is no ordinary waterway. It is the golden thread of our nation’s history.’ It is not to disparage Churchill’s irresistibly orotund metaphor to assert nevertheless that, by comparison with the other great rivers of the world, the Thames is puny. But therein lies its enchantment. While in its lower reaches the river passed through what was for a couple of centuries the largest city in the world and host to its largest port, above the tidal limit at Teddington it was too narrow, too shallow and too meandering to contribute much to the industrial or commercial might of Britain in the early modern era. A vital channel of communication when oars and poles were the locomotive forces – not least to transport rulers and courtiers to their country retreats
upstream of the capital – for much of its length the Thames is now a bucolic backwater. This tour selects some of the most attractive stretches of the river to walk along, but it does not follow a linear journey from one end to the other. While resorting regularly to the towpath (now a designated long-distance trail, the Thames Path), it also ranges through varied countryside and gentle hills, and includes a representative spread of the best of the buildings, artefacts and art in the region. As much as anything, this tour is an exploration of the English village. The numerous examples are as well-preserved as they are various. Parish churches and Iron Age forts, manor houses and major mansions, rapturous gardens and leafy churchyards, mediaeval, classical and railway-era bridges, associations with artists and writers, and of course quintessential riverine landscapes: these are chief among the attractions of the tour. It omits the larger towns and the more frequented sights. As a travel writer put it in 1910, ‘You cannot rusticate at Reading’. Even Oxford is by-passed; to cram the city into an afternoon would be cruel, and besides, the timing of this tour allows participants to segue into The Divine Office, our five-day festival of music in college chapels.
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May 2015 Details available in October 2014 Contact us to register your interest
Cookham Church, watercolour by Ernest W. Haslehurst, publ. 1930.
Itinerary Day 1: Thames Head. Leave The Swan Hotel, Bibury, at 2.15pm or Kemble Railway Station at 3.00pm. The tour begins with the source of the Thames. A soaring rockface, a majestic spurt: an awesome spectacle. Actually, no. A damp patch, Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Walking a Royal River continued
1440 by King Henry VI). Eton College is currently undergoing extensive renovations and is unable to confirm a visit this far in advance. Dinner at a Michelin-starred restaurant near Marlow. Day 7: Hampton Court Palace, London or Oxford. Hampton Court was begun by Cardinal Wolsey, enlarged by Henry VIII and 150 years later partly rebuilt by Christopher Wren for William III and Mary II. The most sumptuous of surviving Tudor palaces is joined to the most magnificent of 17th-cent. buildings in Britain; great interiors, fine works of art, beautiful gardens, a formal park. Drive to London, arriving by c. 3.00pm. Those attending The Divine Office have a separate transfer to Oxford.
Practicalities Price: £2,380 (deposit £250). Single supplement £320 (double room for single occupancy). Kelmscott Manor, after a drawing by Charles G. Harper from Thames Valley Villages, 1910.
Included meals: 1 lunch and 4 dinners with wine.
the trickle varying with yesterday’s weather, reached by walking across three fields. Total walk: 2 miles on grassy, level paths. First of three nights in Bibury.
Accommodation. The Swan, Bibury (cotswoldinns-hotels.co.uk): a former 17th-century coaching inn in the heart of the village. The Compleat Angler, Marlow (macdonaldhotels. co.uk): well-positioned beside the Thames with excellent views.
Day 2: Inglesham, Lechlade, Great Coxwell. Begin the day with Inglesham church, a beautifully isolated church dating to Saxon times. Continue on foot and walk c. 3 miles along the river to Lechlade-on-Thames, a vibrant small town with a fine Gothic church and a handsome bridge. Visit the masterful medieaval barn at Great Coxwell, which King John gave to the Cistercian monks in 1203 as part of the Manor of Faringdon. Return to Bibury with a 2-mile walk along grassy paths and through woodland from Coln St Aldwyns. Day 3. Buscot, Kelmscott. Begin the walk at Buscot, whose church has a Burne Jones window, and continue c. 2½ miles on a level, grassy path beside the Thames. Visit Kelmscott Manor, the Tudor house acquired by William Morris, founder of the Arts and Crafts movement. In the afternoon visit Buscot Park, a Palladian mansion with Burne Jones paintings and outstanding gardens.
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Day 4: Wittenham Clumps, Dorchester, Ewelme. Begin at the river at Shillingford and then walk up to Wittenham Clumps, a pair of hillocks with views over a particularly attractive stretch of the Thames Valley. Descend through woods and across farmland, passing an Iron Age fort, to Dorchester-on-Thames. Total walk: c. 4½ miles. Visit the abbey church here, one of the finest mediaeval buildings in Oxfordshire, where St Birinus baptised King Cynegils of Wessex in 635. Continue to Ewelme, site of a Saxon palace, and today a unique complex of 15th-century church, almshouses and school, all still functioning. First of three nights in Marlow. Day 5: Hardwick, Henley-on-Thames, Cliveden. Hardwick House is a grand, gabled Tudor residence: Elizabeth I and Charles I once stayed there. Now privately owned, it is open by special arrangement. See the River and Rowing
Museum at Henley-on-Thames, with its extensive collection of art, photographs and boats relating to river history. Cliveden’s magnificent formal gardens and woods beside the Thames have been admired for centuries. Cliveden was once the glittering hub of society, visited by virtually every British monarch since George I, home to Waldorf and Nancy Astor in the early 20th century and renowned for its parties and political gatherings.
Group size: between 12 and 18 participants. Combine this tour with: The Divine Office, 28 September–2 October 2015 (see below).
Day 6: Cookham, Eton. Walk from the hotel beside the river (4½ miles on a level path along tarmac or grass) to Cookham, life-long home of painter Stanley Spencer (1891–1959); there is a gallery of his work and a fine parish church. Tour the buildings of Eton College (founded
The Divine Office Choral music in Oxford 28 September–2 October 2015 Details available in November 2014 Contact us to register your interest A celebration of choral music, largely liturgical, with mediaeval and Renaissance plainchant and polyphony prominent. Centrepiece of the festival is the Divine Office, the eight Offices of the Hours, sung at the appropriate times of day and night. Takes place in college chapels, including Christ Church, Magdalen, Merton and Queen’s and the University Church of St Mary. The best of Oxford’s choirs perform together with some of Britain’s leading specialist choirs including The Tallis Scholars and Stile Antico. Access is limited to those who take a package which includes all the concerts and services and accommodation in hotels or colleges.
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Magdalen Tower, by Yoshio Markino, publ. 1910.
Literature & Walking in the Lake District Following Wordsworth & Ruskin in spectacular countryside 29 June–2 July 2015 (mb 380) 4 days • £1,190 Lecturer: Dr Charles Nicholl Wordsworth, Ruskin and Beatrix Potter, their homes and surrounding countryside, combined with four country walks. Stay all three nights in a country-house hotel overlooking Lake Windermere. There is no single supplement.
Itinerary Day 1. The coach leaves Oxenholme Lake District Railway Station at 2.20pm (c. 2 hours 40 minutes from London on the West Coast line). Set in 17 acres above Windermere, Holehird Gardens are some of the finest gardens in England and home to the national collections of Astilbe, Hydrangea and Polystichum Ferns. Walk a total of 2 miles along grassy paths through fields, with steep ascents in places up to Orrest Head, at 784 feet above sea level, with magnificent views of Lake Windermere. Drive to Merewood Country House hotel where all three nights are spent.
Day 2. Drive to the pier at Coniston for the passenger ferry across Lake Coniston, the setting for Arthur Ransome’s novel Swallows & Amazons, and the best way to arrive at John Ruskin’s home from 1872 to 1900. The house has an extensive literary history and a major collection of Ruskin’s drawings, paintings, and scientific collections; it also contains his original furniture and his boat and Brougham carriage are displayed in outhouses. An afternoon walk of 4 miles mostly level on footpaths and country tracks, easy underfoot, with a short ascent from Brantwood through Monks Coniston and the restored walled garden to Coniston. Day 3. A full day in the footsteps of Wordsworth. Beginning at Rydal Mount, the Wordsworth family home from 1813–50, this elegant house and fine gardens welcomed many literary visitors. Walk along the ‘Coffin Route’: coffin bearers used this path from Grasmere to St Mary’s Church in Rydal before the main road was built and heavy flattened stone slabs still intermittently line the path. Visit Dove Cottage, the Wordsworths’ first Lakes home which subsequently belonged to Thomas de Quincey. Walk to the thriving town of Grasmere for independent exploration, rich with literary connections. Return to Rydal Mount along Loughrigg Terrace, a raised footpath which traverses the slope of Loughrigg Fell above Rydal Water. Total for both walks along footpaths and country lanes of 5½ miles, moderate–strenuous in places with some uneven ground and two short climbs. Day 4. Visit Hill Top, Beatrix Potter’s 17thcentury farmhouse, before driving to Hawkshead to see Wordsworth’s grammar school. There is
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For over two hundred years, tourism, agriculture and industry have enjoyed a synergy in the English Lakes thanks in part to its rich and diverse geology. The striking contrasts between fell and dale are apparent to all visitors, the result of glacial action during the last few thousand years, when the snow and ice melting around very hard rocks formed lakes in the valleys left below. This sheer natural splendour caught the attention of the wider world by two revolutions in the late 18th and early 19th centuries; firstly artistic, as learned English gentlemen travelled to the Lake District to see the ‘picturesque’ landscapes of European masters like Poussin, Lorraine and Rosa, and secondly industrial. A network of roads was built to improve communications, and by 1768 a road north through Westmorland and Cumberland had been built, providing open road to privatelyowned carriages. The idea of touring the Lakes for artistic purposes took hold – the poet Thomas Gray travelled between Keswick and Lancaster in late 1769, observing and commenting on the scenery. His account, published in 1775, was received to great acclaim and the region soon became a popular destination for the ‘touring’ classes, particularly as travelling to continental Europe was impossible. William and Dorothy Wordsworth returned to their childhood roots (he was born in Cockermouth and educated at Hawkshead) when they moved to Dove Cottage in Grasmere in 1799. From this modest two-storey house he spent many hours walking: to and from Rydal, to Ambleside and to Keswick, the home of Coleridge and Robert Southey. Dorothy recorded his many walks in her Journal; indeed the day that they first saw those daffodils on the shores of Ullswater Lake in April 1802 is immortalised with her diary entry: ‘I never saw daffodils so beautiful’. Wordsworth’s poetry and essays had a deep impact on other artists, notably John Ruskin. His long poem The Excursion, an essay on the virtues of mankind, and in particular Wordsworth’s social concern and eagerness to promote respect between humans and the rural landscape, chimed with Ruskin’s conservationist views. Ruskin had visited the Lakes many times before making his home at Brantwood on Coniston Water, from where he would observe the colour of the sky and bemoan changes to the rural idyll that he attributed to human intervention through the local quarrying industry. The arrival of the steam engine and the first railway into the Lakes in 1847 vexed both men, and as the tourist numbers accumulated year on year, they became increasingly vocal about man-
made structures damaging and destroying what they considered the delicate balance between man and nature that defined the Lake District. Beatrix Potter also championed traditional artisanship, and after settling in Hawkshead in the 1900s, used the proceeds from her books to buy properties and land to save them from development. A large part of her estate was left to the National Trust, which was co-founded by her friend H.D. Rawnsley in the 1880s. The Lake District became one of the UK’s first National Parks in 1951, after nearly a century of campaigning. Today its enduring beauty and rich history continue to attract many visitors, but the vast landscapes ensure there is space for reflection and rejuvenation for everyone. This short tour picks the region’s literary highlights and intersperses them with moderate walks, no more than four miles in distance, and with limited ascents, so that it can be enjoyed by everyone who is used to country walks of up to three hours.
Dove Cottage (Wordsworth’s house), watercolour by Francis S. Walker, publ. 1907. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Literature & Walking in the Lake District continued
The Cathedrals of England Ten of the greatest buildings in the country
Dr Charles Nicholl Honorary Professor of English at Sussex University and author of several books of biography, history and travel. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and recipient of the Hawthornden prize, the James Tait Black prize for biography and the Crime Writers’ Association ‘Gold Dagger’ award for non-fiction. All lecturers’ biographies can be found on pages 8–15.
also the opportunity to visit the Beatrix Potter gallery. Return to Oxenholme train station by 3.00pm.
1–9 October 2014 (mb 147) This tour is currently full 22–30 April 2015 (mb 300) 9 days • £2,580 Lecturer: Jon Cannon A study of ten of Britain’s greatest buildings – their history, architecture, sculpture, stained glass and current life. Built between the Norman Conquest and Henry VIII’s Reformation, with Coventry Cathedral a moving exception. Organ recitals exclusively for us, and many other special arrangements. Five hotels and quite a lot of driving, but the itinerary is uncrowded with time for rest and independent exploration.
This is an architectural journey that would be hard to equal for intensity of aesthetic delight. As a way into the minds and lives of the people of the Middle Ages, likewise it would be difficult to surpass. Personalities of extraordinary capability and vision will be revealed, and the thought processes and techniques used by craftsmen of genius revealed and decoded. The tour ranges across England – north, south, east and west – to see some of the most glorious mediaeval architecture to be found anywhere. Connoisseurs may carp at the omissions, but logistics exclude only a couple of cathedrals of comparable beauty, magnificence and interest. With an average of little over one cathedral a day, there is plenty of time at each to really get to know them, to assimilate, appreciate and contemplate. All but one are mediaeval, Norman (as Romanesque is generally called in Britain) and Gothic. It is easy to underestimate the length of time the Middle Ages encompasses: the span from the earliest work we see on the tour to the latest, from the Norman Conquest to the Reformation, equals that from the Reformation to the present day. There was huge variety in the
Practicalities
Led by Jon Cannon, writer, lecturer and broadcaster and author of Cathedral: the Great English Cathedrals and the World that made them.
Price: £1,190 (deposit £150). There is no single supplement.
Winchester Cathedral, Bishop Fox’s Chapel, wood engraving c. 1880.
Included meals: 1 lunch and 3 dinners with wine. Accommodation. The Merewood Country House Hotel (lakedistrictcountryhotels.co.uk/ merewood-hotel), is an early 19th-century manor house, located to the east of Windermere lake in 20 acres of woodland and landscaped gardens. Group size: between 10 and 18 participants. Combine this tour with: The Age of Bede, 4–7 July 2015 (page 49).
Walking & Country Houses in Derbyshire June 2015 Details available in October 2014 Contact us to register your interest england 54 book online at www.martinrandall.com
building arts and historical circumstances during those 460 years. The one non-mediaeval cathedral on the itinerary is Coventry. Rebuilt after the Second World War, not only is it a treasure house of mid-twentieth-century art but it is a moving monument to rebirth and reconciliation. There are many special arrangements to enable you to see more than most visitors. Organ recitals are being organised for us at some cathedrals. There are also opportunities to hear some excellent choirs at Evensong. Cathedrals come with cities, and many of these were relatively little changed during the era of industrialisation and now rank among the loveliest in England. Much beautiful countryside is traversed as well. For centuries, British scholars and critics laboured under an inferiority complex, believing English Gothic to be a defective derivative of the thoroughbred French version, inferior according to the degree to which it departed from the soaring, clean-limbed and impeccably rational paradigms across the Channel. That cultural cringe has all but evaporated in the last couple of generations, not least because evidence has been piling up that masons and architects in England had entire confidence in their inventiveness and deliberately chose to shun French conventions in favour of England’s own distinctive and fascinating imaginative universe.
Itinerary Day 1: Ely. The coach leaves King’s Cross, London at 9.30am for Ely, a surprisingly remote and rural location for one of England’s greatest cathedrals. The mighty Norman nave and transepts (c. 1110–30), with their thick walls, tiers of arches and clusters of shafts, leads to the crossing and its unique 14th-century octagonal lantern, a work of genius. The detatched Lady Chapel, also in the Decorated style, is the largest and perhaps the finest in the country; the Early English quire a ravishing setting for the lost shrine to St Etheldreda. Overnight Lincoln.
Day 3: Durham. By train to Durham (40 mins), where the topography and riverside walk provide the most exciting approach to any English cathedral. Massive towers rise above the trees which cling to the steep embankment, a defensible bulwark in the frequently hostile North. Largely completed in the decades from 1093 and little altered since, the nave and quire with their great cylindrical pillars, distinguished by their engraved patterns, constitute one of the world’s greatest Romanesque churches. Overnight York.
to the cathedral’s exceptional allure. The strainer arches supporting the sagging tower are among the great creations of the Middle Ages. Overnight Wells.
York Minster, watercolour by Gordon Home, publ. 1935.
Day 4: York. York Minster is the largest of English mediaeval cathedrals. Above ground it is all Gothic, from Early English to Perpendicular but predominantly 14th-century, demonstrating an exceptional knowledge of the latest French Rayonnant ideas. It is a treasure trove of original stained glass, and the polygonal chapter house is without peer. The city retains its mediaeval walls and an exceptional quantity of historic buildings. Overnight York. Day 5: Coventry. Coventry Cathedral is perhaps internationally Britain’s best-known 20th-cent. building. Built to designs by Sir Basil Spence beside the ruins of its predecessor destroyed in 1940, it is both a showcase for some of the best art of the time (Graham Sutherland, John Piper, Jacob Epstein). In the evening, a walk through Stratford-upon-Avon, which has retained many buildings Shakespeare would have known. Overnight Stratford. Day 6: Gloucester, Bristol. The procession of tall cylindrical pillars in Gloucester’s nave is unadulterated Norman, but, following the burial of Edward II in 1327, the eastern parts are exquisitely veiled in the first large-scale appearance of Perpendicular architecture. The east window, which retains its mediaeval stained glass, is one of the largest in Europe. Bristol cathedral is a much-overlooked gem with fine work of every era, from the lavishly patterned walls of the Romanesque chapter house to G. E. Street’s great Victorian nave. But its highlight is the east end, among the most innovative and beautiful of early-14th-cent. buildings. First of two nights in Wells. Day 7: Wells. An exceptionally unspoilt little city, Wells has a fortified bishop’s palace, 14th-cent. houses of the vicar’s choral and much else of charm and interest. The cathedral was one of the first in England to be built entirely in Gothic style. Its screened west front, eastward march of the nave, sequence of experimental contrasted spaces of the Decorated east end, serene chapter house and Perpendicular cloisters all contribute
Day 8: Salisbury. One of the most uplifting experiences in English architecture, Salisbury is unique among the Gothic cathedrals in England in that it was built on a virgin site and largely in a single campaign, 1220–58. To homogeneity are added lucidity of design and perfection of detail. Completed a century later, the spire at 404 feet is the tallest mediaeval structure in Britain. The close is the finest in the country, and the town beyond has an extensive expanse of historic fabric. Overnight Winchester. Day 9: Winchester. Winchester Cathedral is one of Europe’s longest churches, reflecting the city’s status intermittently from the 9th to the 17th centuries as a seat of English government. The transepts are unembellished early Norman (1079), raw architecture of brute power, whereas the mighty nave was dressed 300 years later in suave Perpendicular garb. The profusion of chantry chapels constitutes an enchanting collection of Gothic micro-architecture. Wall paintings, floor tiles, the finest 12th-cent. Bible. Return to Tothill Street in central London by 4.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,580 (deposit £250). Single supplement £310. Included meals: 1 lunch and 6 dinners with wine. Accommodation. The Castle Hotel, Lincoln (castlehotel.net): a historic building close to the cathedral. The Grange, York (grangehotel. co.uk): also in a historic building with a new wing within walking distance of the city centre. The Stratford (Q Hotels), Stratford on Avon (qhotels. co.uk): a modern hotel, located on the edge of the historic centre of the town. The Swan, Wells (swanhotelwells.co.uk): in a building of 15th-cent. origin in a narrow street close to the cathedral. The Wessex, Winchester (mercure.com): excellently located overlooking the cathedral in a 1960s building. Rooms at all the hotels, being city-centre historic properties, vary in size and outlook.
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Day 2: Lincoln. Also largely by-passed by modern urban development, Lincoln’s hilltop site above the broad Witham valley renders this enormous cathedral even more imposing. Largely rebuilt from 1192, it has always been revered as one of the finest of Gothic cathedrals, its fascinations enhanced by myriad minor inconsistencies and variations which reveal the struggle for solutions at the frontiers of artistic fashion and technological capability. The steep streets of the ancient town are a delight. First of three nights in York.
‘Excellent cultural content, outstanding competence, extremely high comfort level (accommodation, transportation, food) – made this trip a fantastic experience for me. Thank you.’
Group size: between 12 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: The Heart of Italy, 14–21 April 2015 (page 142) or Classical Greece, 2–11 May 2015 (page 97).
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Chamber Music Weekends
At The Castle Hotel, Taunton & Jesmond Dene House, Newcastle The Endellion String Quar tet Schuber t & Haydn
24–26 October 2014 (mb 183) The Castle Hotel, Taunton £690 (Garden Room £820) 2 nights • 4 concerts Speaker: Professor Geoffrey Norris
I Fagiolini
A Tale of Four Cities • Venice, London, Paris ... & Ingatestone 30 January–1 February 2015 (mb 235) Jesmond Dene House, Newcastle From £750 2 nights • 4 concerts
The Leonore Piano Trio Beethoven Trios & Sonatas
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A music weekend arranged by Martin Randall Music Management is a very special experience. There is the pleasure, first, of hearing music performed by artists of the highest calibre, and who are all among the very best in their fields. Some come from mainland Europe, many from the UK. Second, the music is performed in an intimate setting, a small hall little bigger than a large drawing room – just the sort of size which composers used to have in mind for chamber music. The audience is rarely more than a hundred, and consists mainly of those who stay throughout the weekend and attend all concerts. Third, the weekends take place in one of two outstanding hotels. The Castle Hotel in Taunton and Jesmond Dene House in Newcastle are both among the most agreeable and comfortable in England. We often have exclusive use of the hotels during these music weekends, and there is the added opportunity for artists and audience to mingle at dinner. While these events are undeniably indulgent and leisurely retreats, they are also intended to stimulate the mind and enchant the aesthetic sensibilities. Within an over-arching theme, the music is carefully chosen and programmed to provide an illuminating sequence – while each concert is satisfyingly self-sufficient. Some weekends include pre-concert talks. The 2014–2015 season begins in October 2014 with The Endellion String Quartet, one of the finest and most established chamber ensembles in the world, who have just celebrated their 35th anniversary. In January 2015 I Fagiolini provide a series of four concerts, based around the theme of four cities. February sees the Leonore Piano Trio presenting some of Beethoven’s best trio and sonata works over the course of six concerts. In
March, an entire weekend devoted to Mozart’s music, including lieder, piano trios and piano duets, performed by some of the UK’s best artists. We conclude in April with The Mandelring Quartet and Quartetto di Cremona performing Mendelssohn’s Octet as the centrepiece to five concerts over the Easter weekend. There have been music weekends at The Castle since 1977, and Martin Randall Music Management have been organising them since 2003. The first music weekend at Jesmond Dene House in Newcastle took place in 2011. The price covers almost everything, from the concerts and talks to interval drinks, via luxurious accommodation, extravagant afternoon teas and memorable dinners. Even gratuities for hotel staff are included. Tickets to individual concerts are also available to purchase for those who live locally. Those who join for just one or two concerts are also welcomed to join the same interval drinks (included in the ticket price) as those staying in the host hotels.
Photographs from top left, clockwise: The London Bridge Ensemble (©Operaomnia), The Mandelring Quartet, Mary Bevan (©Tina Haldane), Alasdair Beatson, The Leonore Piano Trio (©Eric Richmond).
Contact us for the full details or visit www.martinrandall.com
book online at www.martinrandall.com
20–22 February 2015 (mb 244) The Castle Hotel, Taunton £690 (Garden Room £820) 2 nights • 6 concerts Speaker: Richard Wigmore
A Weekend of Mozar t
Quar tets, Duets, Solos & Song 13–15 March 2015 (mb 254) The Castle Hotel, Taunton £720 (Garden Room £860) 2 nights • 4 concerts Speaker: Richard Wigmore The London Bridge Ensemble: Daniel Tong (piano), Tamsin Waley-Cohen (violin) & Kate Gould (cello); Michael Gurevich (viola); Alasdair Beatson (piano); Mary Bevan (soprano)
Easter at The Castle
Mendelssohn’s Octet & More 3–6 April 2015 (mb 274) The Castle Hotel, Taunton £960 (Garden Room £1,130) 3 nights • 5 concerts The Mandelring Quartet & Quartetto di Cremona
Nineteen-Four teen
The origins of the First World War – a symposium in Canterbury 14–16 November 2014 (mb 197) 3 days • price from £360
Drawing by Muirhead Bone from The Western Front.
Speakers: Professor Vernon Bogdanor Major Gordon Corrigan Charles Emmerson Dr Annika Mombauer Dr Catriona Pennell Professor Gary Sheffield Chaired by Paul Lay Nineteen-Fourteen: The Origins of the First World War is a residential weekend of lectures held at the Cathedral Lodge in Canterbury and run in conjunction with the UK’s most authoritative history magazine, History Today, whose editor, Paul Lay, chairs the talks. Accommodation is offered in a range of three hotels to cater for different budgets. Between 3.15pm on Friday and 2.45pm on Sunday, six outstanding scholars give twelve talks on the origins of the First World War. In addition there are discussion sessions and opportunities for informal interchange during refreshment breaks and lunches. Also included is a private drinks reception in the Beaney Museum followed by dinner in restaurants in the centre of the city.
Programme Friday, 14 November 2014 The conference begins in the Clagett Auditorium, Canterbury Cathedral Lodge at 3.15pm: Dr Annika Mombauer: The July Crisis of 1914. Charles Emmerson: From Buenos Aires to Winnipeg: The European World in 1913.
Vernon Bogdanor, Gordon Corrigan, Charles Emmerson, Annika Mombauer, Catriona Pennell, Gary Sheffield.
Free time 3.00–6.30pm.
The Package
A drinks reception in the Beaney Museum is followed by dinner in selected Canterbury restaurants. (Programme continued overleaf.) Morning session 9.30am–12.15pm:
The package includes room and breakfast for two nights, admission to all talks and discussion sessions, refreshments at the conference and two buffet lunches (Saturday and Sunday), drinks reception and Saturday dinner. The price varies according to hotel and room category.
Prof. Gary Sheffield: From Mobility to Deadlock: The Armies on the Western Front, 1914.
Major Gordon Corrigan: The Indian Army in 1914 – Professional Reinforcement for a tiny BEF
Hotels & prices – in brief
The session ends at 6.50pm.
Prof. Vernon Bogdanor: Could and should Britain have stayed out of the War?
Tea break. Dr Catriona Pennell: For King and Country: Volunteering for the British Army and Responses to the Outbreak of World War One, August to December 1914.
Saturday, 15 November 2014 Morning session 9.30am–12.20pm:
Dr Catriona Pennell: The Contradictions of War and Empire: 1916 in Ireland and the Hejaz. Refreshment break. Prof. Gary Sheffield: The Spirit of 1914 Revisited: How the Home Fronts Endured.
Refreshment break. Dr Anniker Mombauer: The Hundred Year Debate of the Origins of the First World War. Buffet lunch in the Kentish Barn. Afternoon session 1.15-2.45pm: Major Gordan Corrigan: Myth and Reality in the Great War. Panel discussion.
Buffet lunch in the Kentish Barn. Afternoon session 1.30–3.00pm: Prof. Vernon Bogdanor: Did Britain draw the wrong lessons from 1914? Panel discussion.
Contact us for the full details or visit www.martinrandall.com
A. Economy: Premier Inn, Canterbury City Centre (premierinn.com). Prices from £360 per person. A low-cost hotel, a 15-minute walk along a busy main road from the conference centre. Bedrooms are plain but comfortable. B. Comfortable: Canterbury Cathedral Lodge (canterburycathedrallodge.org). Prices from £530 per person. 4-star conference facility located inside Canterbury Cathedral’s walls; it is here that the lectures take place throughout the weekend. Service is very friendly and helpful.
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Charles Emmerson: Constantinople – Jerusalem – Tehran: Cities of the Middle East on the Brink.
Sunday, 16 November 2014
C. Superior: The Abode Canterbury (abodecanterbury.co.uk). Prices from £570 per person. Luxury hotel located on the pedestrianised High Street, a 5-minute walk from the conference centre. The original building was constructed in the 12th century.
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In Churchill’s Footsteps Oxfordshire, London & Kent
about Churchill?’ he asked. ‘Oh,’ replied Nancy Astor with a scornful little laugh, ‘he’s finished.’ Detractors were legion for much of his political career, the years of his wartime premiership being no exception. A steady flow of revisionist historians have followed suit. Churchill was more right about more things than an average handful of statesmen put together. It is also true that his judgement was intermittently badly flawed, the consequence perhaps of the huge range of matters to which he turned his attention, his exceptionally long political career, his boundless energy, his boldness and his ambition. Anti-Churchill myths are strangely tenacious (no, he didn’t order troops against the strikers at Tonypandy), but on most of the major issues of his time, not only was his judgement sound but it was frequently in defiance of prevailing wisdom, and often demonstrated almost preternatural foresight. The use of ‘human being’ in both the quoted encomia is striking: alternative substantives are inadequate for such a towering – and humane – personality. Compassion was the virtue he ranked highest, a belief in decency the bedrock of his political life, liberty his goal. Yes, he was possibly the greatest war leader the world has known; but for the quantity and impact of progressive social legislation he shepherded through Parliament he was probably unsurpassed by any other British politician of the twentieth century. He had a will of iron, colossal courage and the intellect of a genius, but he was lovable and approachable, easily moved to tears by the sight of suffering or forbearance. His famous wit was rarely acerbic and never cruel. This unique tour illuminates Churchill and his tumultuous times through visits to places which played a key role in his life. Photograph publ. 1942.
10–13 September 2015 (mc 453) 4 days • £1,970 Lecturer: Terry Charman Visit places key to Churchill’s life in the company of Churchill historian Terry Charman. Several out-of-hours visits and special arrangements.
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Two nights in a country house in Oxfordshire where Churchill regularly stayed and one night in central London. ‘Winston Churchill was the greatest Englishman and one of the greatest human beings of the twentieth century, indeed of all time.’ So Max Hastings began Finest Years: Churchill as Warlord (2010). Roy Jenkins concluded his 2001 biography with the verdict that Churchill was ‘the greatest human being ever to occupy 10 Downing Street’. These are the views of first rate historians, not of hagiographers or eccentrics, and are shared by millions around the globe. It has not always been thus. In 1932 a British delegation in Moscow was being questioned by Stalin about contemporary politics. ‘What
Itinerary Day 1: London, Harrow. Meet in central London by 9.50am and visit the Churchill Museum in Whitehall, an excellent presentation of his life. Next visit Harrow School, where he spent five years with famously mixed fortunes. Churchill stayed at Ditchley Park in Oxfordshire for 15 weekends 1940–42 when the moon was high (Chequers being feared visible to the Luftwaffe). Built in the 1720s, it is one of the finest country houses of its time. Two nights are spent here.
Day 4: London, Chartwell. On the way to Kent, digress via Sidney Street of ‘Siege’ fame (1911). Then to Chartwell, his beloved family home in the country from 1924 to the end of his life. ‘I love the place – a day away from Chartwell is a day wasted.’ The house, studio, gardens and outhouses are maintained as during the Churchill occupancy with photographs, sound recordings and numerous memorabilia. Return to central London by 5.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £1,970 (deposit £200). Single occupancy supplement £130. Included meals: 3 lunches, three dinners with wine. Accommodation. Ditchley Park, Oxfordshire (ditchley.co.uk): built in the 1720s by James Gibbs and William Kent, Ditchley Park is now used for discreet political conferences. Not a hotel, visitors are treated as house guests and take advantage of several drawing rooms and extensive grounds. The Royal Horseguards, London (guoman.com): a 5-star hotel in the heart of Whitehall adjacent to the National Liberal Club. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Poets & the Somme, 4–7 September 2015 (page 72) or Great Houses of the North, 14–23 September 2015 (page 43).
Music in London October 2015 Details available in October 2014 Contact us to register your interest
Day 2: Blenheim, Bladon, Ditchley. Blenheim Palace, Churchill’s birthplace, is the grandest house in Britain. It was given by the nation in 1705 to John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough. We have a special out-of-hours visit to the WSC collection and state apartments followed by time to enjoy the gardens and the ‘Capability’ Brown park. Then visit the nearby church at Bladon where WSC was buried (1965). Second night at Ditchley. Day 3: London. Designed by Barry and Pugin, the House of Commons is one of the most richly ornamented Victorian buildings. Walk around Whitehall passing key Churchill sites including the Admiralty, Downing Street, St Margaret’s and Westminster Abbey (for evensong). A private visit to the Cabinet War Rooms. Overnight London.
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From Highways & Byways in London, 1903.
Connoisseur’s London
Less accessible & lesser known treasures Itinerary One: 6–10 September 2015 (mc 445) 5 days • £1,870 Itinerary Two: 11–15 August 2015 (mb 412) 5 days • £1,810 Lecturers and guides: various specialists Great art and architecture and places of interest off the beaten track, not generally accessible or simply overlooked amid London’s vast riches. Several different lecturers and specialist guides and many special arrangements. Most evenings are free. Participants will be offered theatre or concert tickets. Very centrally located 5-star hotel. Would work well linked to another tour. London’s riches of art and architecture are both multitudinous and widely dispersed. Has even the most assiduous of Londoners seen everything that merits a visit? Surely not, so the good news for visitors and short-term residents is that there are plenty of delights awaiting discovery. These tours are intended for those who have some familiarity with the main sights and museums but have seen fewer of the innumerable lesser-known or out-of-the-way treasures. In each case a major item is included – St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey – but special arrangements lift the visit above the ordinary. During planning, themes emerged, unintended but helpful to differentiate the two tours from each other. Many of the places visited on Itinerary One turned out to be houses and homes, among them the wonderfully eccentric Soane Museum, the Palladian perfection of Chiswick House, Wellington’s Apsley House and the newly restored Kenwood House on Hampstead Heath. The recurring feature of Itinerary Two is proximity to the Thames, the river Winston Churchill described as ‘a golden thread in the national tapestry’. Most days are over between 4.30 and 5.30pm, giving opportunity to attend a concert or play. We will buy a few tickets for choice events as they come on sale and offer them to participants.
Itinerary One (September 2015)
Day 2: The City. London’s Livery Halls constitute a unique group of secular buildings of splendour and interest, and we visit one of the grandest. The Guildhall Art Gallery has a little-visited collection of largely 19th- and 20th-cent.
paintings and, recently discovered below, evocative remains of the Roman amphitheatre. The visit to St Paul’s Cathedral, Sir Christopher Wren’s greatest work and one of the great classical buildings of the world, includes parts not generally open to visitors. There is opportunity to attend Choral Evensong at 5.00pm. Day 3: Holborn, Westminster. Sir John Soane’s Museum is one of the most extraordinary in the world: adjacent town houses adapted by the eponymous architect and filled with his eclectic art collections. At the Wallace Collection the holding of French 18th-century painting, furniture and porcelain is second only to the Louvre, and there are great works by Titian, Rembrandt, Velasquez and others. The
Banqueting House in Whitehall, the first truly classical-style building in Britain, designed by Inigo Jones in 1619, the ceiling painted by Rubens in 1636. Day 4: Hampstead, Bloomsbury. Kenwood House on Hampstead Heath is a very fine 18thcent. mansion by Robert Adam with a marvellous picture collection, re-opened in 2013 after restoration. Hampstead is perhaps the loveliest of London’s villages; visit 17th-cent. Fenton House and its collection of keyboard instruments before descending to the Georgian squares of Bloomsbury and the Foundling Museum. With Handel and Hogarth as benefactors, the art here is remarkable. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Day 1: Chiswick, Kensington. Leave the hotel near Whitehall at 11.00am by coach. Chiswick House in west London is a key work in the history of English architecture, a jewel-like Palladian villa of the 1720s in gardens of comparable historical importance. Then visit the mansion Lord Leighton built for himself in Kensington which is of a lavishness surprising even for the leading establishment artist of his day.
St Paul’s from Ludgate Circus, lithograph c. 1880.
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Connoisseur’s London continued
Apsley House and the entrance to Hyde Park, steel engraving c. 1850.
Day 5: Whitehall, Hyde Park Corner. The day begins with a walk through parks and quiet streets from the hotel to Hyde Park Corner, viewing historic buildings and monuments along the way. Apsley House is the magnificent home of the Dukes of Wellington and possesses one of the finest art collections in England. There follows lunch at one of the grandest of London’s historic clubs as guests of a member. The tour ends at the Whitehall hotel at c. 3.00pm. Note that appointments for some visits cannot be confirmed until January 2015.
Practicalities – Itinerary One Price: £1,870 (deposit £200). Single supplement £360 (double for single occupancy). Included meals: 2 lunches, 1 dinner with wine. Accommodation. The Royal Horseguards, London (guoman.com) is a 5-star hotel in the heart of Whitehall. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
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Combine this tour with: Flemish Painting, 2–5 September 2015 (page 25).
Itinerary Two (August 2015) Day 1: Whitehall, Strand. Leave the hotel at 11.00am for a two-hour walk around Whitehall and Strand. After lunch there is a tour of Somerset House, a magnificent classical building designed by Sir William Chambers in 1776 to house civil servants and learned societies. It is now the home of the Courtauld Gallery, an amazing collection renowned for its Impressionists and Post-Impressionists but also including Old Masters and decorative arts. Day 2: Westminster, Syon Park. Westminster Abbey is not only one of Britain’s greatest mediaeval churches, displaying all the arts of the era as well as architecture, but also burial place of 17 monarchs and other great names in British history. As a museum of sculpture it has no parallel. Drive out to Syon Park, situated beside the Thames on the western outskirts of the city, whose remodelling by Robert Adam bequeathed some of the finest 18th-cent. interiors in England.
architecture. Details of the day will be announced nearer the time (August closures are decided closer to the time) but the itinerary will include a range of art and architecture both old and new, with some special access. Day 5: Greenwich. Take the water bus downstream to Greenwich. The Old Royal Naval College, founded by Queen Mary in 1692, is claimed by unesco to be the ‘finest and most dramatically sited architectural and landscape ensemble in the British Isles’. Wren is again one of the architects, others include Inigo Jones, Hawksmoor and Vanbrugh. The Queen’s House, a brilliant remnant of the royal palace (1616), houses the picture collection of the National Maritime Museum. Among other sights are the Cutty Sark, a tea clipper, and the Royal Observatory. The tour finishes at the Whitehall hotel by 4.00pm. Note that appointments for some visits cannot be confirmed until January 2015.
Day 3: Dulwich, Chelsea. Opened in a building designed for it by Sir John Soane in 1817, Dulwich Picture Gallery was Britain’s first public art gallery. The Old Master collection remains one of the best in the country. Chelsea Physic Garden, an enchanting oasis, was established for medicinal purposes in 1673. Also in Chelsea, the Royal Hospital was instituted by Charles II as a home for retired soldiers, a function which continues. Sir Christopher Wren designed the splendid buildings on a site beside the Thames.
Practicalities – Itinerary Two
Day 4: The City. London’s Roman and mediaeval core has become a major financial centre, resulting in a fascinating mix of narrow streets and alleys, historic parish churches and livery halls, ornamented Victorian office and warehouse façades and a dazzling array of recent
Combine this tour with: Vienna’s Masterpieces, 16–20 August 2015 (page 20).
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Price: £1,810 (deposit £200). Single supplement £360 (double for single occupancy). Included meals: 3 lunches, 1 dinner with wine. Accommodation. The Royal Horseguards, London (guoman.com) is a 5-star hotel in the heart of Whitehall. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
London Days
Non-residential events to inform & inspire London Days explore the art, architecture and history of the most varied and exciting city in the world. They are led by carefully chosen experts who provide informative and enlightening commentary, and they are microcosms of our longer small group tours. Our usual meticulous planning is applied, with special arrangements and privileged access a feature. You can book with a credit or debit card over the telephone, or online at www.martinrandall.com.
Stained Glass
The London Backstreet Walk
Tuesday 16 September 2014 (lb 157) Price: £195 Lecturer: Peter Cormack
Tuesday, 7 October 2014 (lb 158) Price: £180 Lecturer: Giles Waterfield
Post-mediaeval stained glass is the most unfairly neglected of the pictorial arts in Britain. Few people give it a second glance, even fewer invest the time necessary to allow a window to reveal its meaning and its full beauty. Yet some examples in the medium made between the middle of the nineteenth century and the First World War are among of the finest works of art of the time. Present in nearly every church in the land, the very ubiquity of stained glass windows militates against attention, especially as the majority, as with any art form, scarcely merit close attention. The choice for this day is determined by artistic quality, by variety of type and authorship and, though this hardly seems a rational criterion, proximity to the District Line. Fortuitously, this does not compromise the other two criteria at all. This is a glorious day of iridescent beauty, in eight churches between Putney Bridge and Monument Stations. There is one fine sixteenth-century window and several from the later twentieth century but late Victorian and Edwardian work predominates. This period witnessed a peak of technical accomplishment and artistic – and chromatic – brilliance. Stained glass was rarely in the vanguard of artistic development. Much of its allure lies in its post-Pre-Raphaelite sweetness and poignancy, Aesthetic Movement yearning and graceful naturalism, innocent of the visceral primitivism beginning to be introduced by leading Continental painters, though it later proved to be very well suited to abstraction. The lecturer is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a Vice-President and Honorary Fellow of the British Society of Master Glass Painters. His forthcoming (2015) book Arts & Crafts Stained Glass was written while he was a Research Fellow at the V&A Museum.
Wednesday, 15 October 2014 (lb 167) Price: £180 Lecturer: Professor Gavin Stamp
Practicalities
Start: 9.00am, Hyde Park Corner, Wellington Arch. Finish: Tower Hill Station at c. 5.45pm. Price: £180. This includes refreshments and lunch, admission charges and donations. Group size: maximum 18 participants.
Glory & accomplishment
Fitness: there is a considerable amount of walking between stations and churches and travelling throughout is by underground which is crowded and standing may be necessary.
This walk is predicated on two beliefs. The first, platitudinous if rarely put to the test, is that the centre of London is not so large that people of ordinary fitness couldn’t walk everywhere. The second would perhaps be greeted in some quarters with scepticism: that one can traverse the capital from Hyde Park Corner to the Tower of London without walking along main roads for more than a couple of hundred yards in total. This is London seen from parks, gardens, alleys, backstreets and pedestrian zones. As the crow flies, it is exactly 3⅓ miles, but as avoiding traffic requires some circuitous deviations the distance covered is nearer 6 miles. This may be a tiring day, but with three refreshment breaks and a lunch it but it is not really strenuous. The route – which is far from obvious, as may be understood – is laced with delights and surprises. Many famous buildings are passed or glimpsed, but largely the interest lies in unexpected clusters of pre-20th-century architecture, picturesque vistas and intriguing alleys, patches of parkland and well-tended gardens, recent architectural behemoths and mediaeval street patterns. Some special arrangements have been made to enter a few buildings en route. Champagne at the Savoy and lunch in the grandest Elizabethan hall in England are among the treats. But the main point of the day is to provide the satisfaction of accomplishing a unique and fascinating journey through the heart of the most vibrant, varied and fascinating city in Europe.
Practicalities
Fitness: you should be able to walk at about 3 mph for at least an hour at a time. The terrain is fairly flat but there are steps (including one flight of 57 steps). Stout shoes are of course advisable – but no trainers please: they are specifically forbidden at the lunch venue.
Watercolour by E.W. Haslehurst. publ. 1924.
Details of London Days are released throughout the year, as and when they are launched and sent out to all registered enthusiasts in a booklet which is updated quarterly. If you have not already done so, please contact us to register your interest. Itineraries for the autumn and winter:
Sculpture in London Seven Churches & a Synagogue The Italian Renaissance Ancient Greece London’s Underground Railway London’s Great Railway Termini Caravaggio & Rembrandt Mediaeval Art in London The London Backstreet Walk Arts & Crafts The Genius of Titian The Complete London Hogarth
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Start: Westminster Underground Station, 9.15am or St Margaret’s Westminster, 9.30am. Finish: Southwark Cathedral c. 5.45pm. Price: £195. This includes refreshments and lunch, travel by underground railway and donations to the churches visited. Group size: maximum 16 participants.
From Hyde Park to The Tower
Stained Glass Arts of India Chinese Ceramics The Shakespeare Walk John Nash Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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The Baltic States Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania 9–22 August 2015 (mb 411) 14 days • £3,480 Lecturer: Neil Taylor Three countries with different languages, diverse histories and distinct cultural identities. The lecturer, Neil Taylor is a leading expert on the Baltic States. An extensive legacy from German, Polish, Russian and Swedish occupations. The focus of the tour is history, politics and general culture, rather than art and architecture. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania: the regaining of independence in 1991 by these three states was a happy outcome of the demise of the Soviet Union. Of all the fragments of that former super-power, the Baltic States are perhaps the countries with the brightest future and the least clouded present. Though geographical proximity leads the countries to be conventionally thought of together as a single entity, the degree of difference between them is surprisingly great in terms of ethnicity, language, historical development and religion. The Estonians are of Finno-Ugric origin and their language has nothing in common with their Latvian or Russian neighbours.
Lithuanian history has for much of the postmediaeval era been linked with Catholic Poland, whereas Estonia and Latvia were early recipients of Protestantism. In the eighteenth century these states succumbed to the bear-hug of the Russian Empire – and only after the First World War did they achieve full independence. In 1940, with the annexation by the Soviet Union, they once more fell under Russian rule. Between 1941 and 1944 they had the additional suffering of the German Occupation. Yet the Baltic States were always among the most prosperous and liberal of the Soviet republics, and among the most independent-minded. Surprise ranks high among the responses of the visitor now – surprise that there is so much of interest and beauty, and surprise that the Iron Curtain was indeed so opaque a veil that most of us in the West could remain so ignorant of these countries and their heritage. Surprise, perhaps, that on the whole the region functions with considerable efficiency and sophistication.
Itinerary Day 1: Tallinn (Estonia). Fly at c. 10.20am from Heathrow to Tallinn via Helsinki. First of three nights in Tallinn.
Tallinn, the Upper Town, lithograph c. 1840.
estonia 62 book online at www.martinrandall.com
Day 2: Tallinn. The upper town has a striking situation on a steep-sided hill overlooking the Baltic with views over the city. Among the mediaeval and classical buildings are the Toompea Palace (Parliament), Gothic cathedral and late 19th-century Russian cathedral and the 15th-century town hall (visit subject to confirmation). Continue through the unspoilt streets of the lower town with its mediaeval walls, churches and gabled merchants’ houses and see the church of the Holy Ghost and the City Museum. Visit St Nicholas, a Gothic basilica with a museum of mediaeval art. Overnight Tallinn. Day 3: Lahemaa National Park (Estonia). Drive east into an area now designated as a national park. The charming manor houses of Palmse and Sagadi have full 18th-century classical dress disguising the timber structure. Lunch is in a roadside inn, with wooden buildings – a former postal service station on the road to St Petersburg. Overnight Tallinn. Day 4: Tartu (Estonia). Drive through a gently undulating mix of woodland and fertile fields, with traditional vernacular farmsteads. Tartu is in some ways the cultural capital of Estonia, the university having been founded in 1632. There are fine 18th- and 19th-century buildings, especially the town hall and university and there is a visit to the restored Jaani church. First of two nights in Tartu.
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Day 5: Tartu, Lake Peipsi. After a free morning in Tartu drive to the shores of Lake Peipsi. Visit Mustvee, Raja, Kolkja and Varnja, all villages which provided refuge for the Old Believers, persecuted for their disaffection with the Orthodox Church. Overnight Tartu.
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Day 6: Cesis (Latvia). Enter Latvia travelling through hilly landscape renowned for its beauty. Cesis is an historic and well-preserved small town with church and ruined castle. Its manor house Ungurmuiza (about 10 miles out of town) is constructed in wood with a baroque façade and interior. The drive continues via Straupe, another attractive village. First of three nights in Riga.
Tartu
‘The lecturer was excellent. He is a genial, efficient, erudite tour leader who added greatly to our enjoyment of the trip.’
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Cesis Riga
Day 7: Riga (Latvia). Explore Latvia’s capital on foot. The Art Nouveau district is a residential quarter of grand boulevards, with classical, historicist and outstanding façades. Within the extensive Old Town there are mediaeval streets, Hanseatic warehouses, Gothic and Baroque churches and 19th-century civic buildings. There are visits to the Menzendorff House, a restored merchant’s house and now a museum, Gothic St Peter with its distinctive tall spire and the cathedral, which is the largest mediaeval church in the Baltic States. Overnight Riga. Day 8: Riga. A drive via the market, formerly Europe’s largest, situated in five 1920s Zeppelin hangars, followed by a visit to the fascinating
Lahemaa National Park
Latvia
Rundale
Siauliai
Lithuania Kaunas
Belarus
Pazaislis Vilnius
c. 50 km
Poland
outdoor museum of vernacular buildings. Free afternoon when possibilities include the Occupation Museumor the Jewish Museum. Overnight Riga. Day 9: Rundale (Latvia), Siauliai, Kaunas (Lithuania). Rundale was one of the most splendid palaces in the Russian Empire, built from 1736 by Rastrelli for a favourite of Empress Anna. Lunch is in the palace restaurant. Lithuania is entered via the town of Bauska and there is a stop in Kedainiai to visit the regional museum. First of two nights in Kaunas. Day 10: Kaunas (Lithuania). A diverse historic town with a wealth of architecture. Near the central square are a number of churches and the Town Museum. The Ciurlionis Art Museum has works of Lithuania’s most famous composer and artist. Other afternoon visits include the Resurrection Church and the Synagogue. Overnight Kaunas.
Day 12: Vilnius. Walk to the Gates of Dawn, the Carmelite church of St Theresa, the former Jewish ghetto, the cathedral and the exquisite little Late-Gothic church of St Anne. Visit the church of Saints Peter and Paul with outstanding stucco sculptural decoration and see the Museum
Day 13: Vilnius. Kazys Varnelis House Museum is an eclectic private collection of art and maps. Visit the Church Heritage Museum. Free afternoon when suggestions include the Genocide Museum, Vilnius Picture Gallery or the Theatre and Music Museum. Overnight Vilnius. Day 14: Vilnius. Fly from Vilnius to London Heathrow, via Helsinki, arriving c. 3.15pm.
Practicalities Price: £3,480 (deposit £350). Single supplement £450 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £3,030. Included meals: 5 lunches, 8 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Savoy Boutique Hotel, Tallinn (boutiquehotelestonia.com): a small stylish hotel in a turn-of-the-century building. The London Hotel, Tartu (londonhotel.ee): modern, centrally located with a good restaurant; decor is quite bright. Radisson Blu Ridzene, Riga (radissonblu.com): a modern well-located hotel with views over the park. Hotel Daugirdas, Kaunas (daugirdas.lt): a 19th-century mansion with modern features. Radisson Blu Astorija, Vilnius (radissonblu.com): an elegant and comfortable hotel in an excellent location.
estonia
Day 11: Pazaislis, Vilnius (Lithuania). At Pazaislis is a magnificent Baroque nunnery and pilgrimage church, one of the architectural gems of Eastern Europe. Continue to Vilnius which, far from the sea, has the feel of a Central European metropolis, with Baroque the predominant style. Afternoon walk to the bishop’s palace (now the Presidential Palace), the university, and the Church of St John. First of three nights in Vilnius.
of Applied Arts. The recently opened National Gallery houses 20th and 21st-century Lithuanian art. Overnight Vilnius.
Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
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Ethiopia
Tracing one of Africa’s most fascinating histories Christianity became the official religion even before it enjoyed that status in the Roman Empire, and churches carved from solid rock preserve the sanctified atmosphere of a land where, in Gibbon’s words, ‘the Aethiopians slept near a thousand years, forgetful of the world by whom they were forgotten’. Sites visited include the ancient temple at Yeha, the first Christian capital at Aksum, the complexes of rock-hewn churches at Lalibela and their less well-known counterparts in eastern Tigray. Here three days are spent exploring these remarkable places of worship. The lonely monasteries on the islands of Lake Tana and the imperial capital at Gondar, visited by James Bruce in the eighteenth-century, are also included. The result is a journey which balances comprehensiveness with selectivity, which sees nearly all the outstanding buildings and artworks without cramming the days to excess. The modern bustle of the multicultural capital Addis Ababa is also sampled while – and this can scarcely be overstated – providing a sequence of some of the grandest landscapes in the world.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 8.00pm (Ethiopian Airlines)from London Heathrow for the 7-hour flight to Addis Ababa (the only direct flight from London). Day 2: Addis Ababa. Touch-down c. 7.15am. The rest of the morning is free; hotel rooms are at your disposal and breakfast and lunch are served. Visit Entoto, Menelik’s capital prior to the establishment of Addis Ababa and the scene of his coronation in 1882. Overnight Addis. Painting capturing the excitement of the arrival of an Italian plane over Ethiopia in 1935. Brahane, Italian-African Institute, Rome.
8–23 October 2014 (mb 155) 16 days/ 14 nights • £5,140 Lecturer: Jacopo Gnisci 11–26 February 2015 (mb 240) 16 days/ 14 nights • £5,180 Lecturer: Jacopo Gnisci 7–22 October 2015 (mc 485) 16 days • £5,180 Lecturer: Jacopo Gnisci ethiopia
Journeying through the most striking landscapes Africa has to offer. Three days exploring the remote and littlevisited rock-hewn churches of eastern Tigray, the country’s best kept secret. Lalibela: a new Jerusalem in Ethiopia, one of the wonders of Africa. We spend three nights here. A full day on the beautiful and eerie Lake Tana, with visits to secluded monasteries.
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A more measured pace than is the norm for Ethiopian tours, and maximum 18 participants.
Ethiopia is always a surprise to the first-time visitor. Much of it comprises an isolated plateau, riven by deep gorges, that has ensured its physical separation both from its African neighbours and from the lands across the Red Sea. Its peoples and their cultures are also distinct; and for thousands of years this has been reflected in their history and art. Much of Ethiopia is highly fertile. Its farmers exploit a unique range of crops, some of which are cultivated nowhere else on earth. In rural areas one can still see ox-ploughing, hand-reaping, and threshing and grinding using techniques that have been practised for millennia. Yet the country is now modernising itself with enormous rapidity, only a few decades after some areas were first penetrated by outsiders. Roads are being built into areas previously inaccessible, hydroelectric schemes are bringing electricity to many settlements previously without, and daily flights take visitors to sites that until fairly recently required travelling for more than a week on the back of a mule. The itinerary concentrates on the country’s northern highlands, with Lake Tana and the headwaters of the Blue Nile, where there have been three thousand years of literate civilisation.
book online at www.martinrandall.com
Day 3: Addis Ababa, Hawzien. Fly c. 7.00am to Mekele and drive to Hawzien. Visit Abraha-waAtsbaha church en route. Early afternoon arrival in the hotel for some rest. First of three nights in Gheralta. Day 4: Gheralta. The Teka Tesfai church cluster, including one of the finest churches in the area, Medhane Alem Adi Kasho. Picnic lunch in the countryside. Overnight Gheralta. Day 5: Gheralta. Eastern Tigray is big sky country, mountain peaks like ragged teeth, and arid plains. Scattered throughout this dramatic scenery are several isolated churches, many of them unknown to the outside world until very recently. The day is spent exploring a selection of these, still the focus of worship by the surrounding communities just as they were hundreds of years ago. Final night in Gheralta. Day 6: Axum. Leaving early, our destination is Axum but we visit Yeha to see the 7th-century bc temple and adjacent church of Maryam. Continue past the ‘Teeth of Adwa’, scene of Emperor Menelik II’s victory over the Italian army in 1896. Time permitting we will visit the monastery of Abba Garima before arriving in Axum early evening. First of two nights in Axum. Day 7: Axum. The stelae field in Axum is home to some of the world’s largest free-standing stone monuments. Each sculpted from a single piece of rock and intricately decorated, these massive
structures highlight the city’s prestige in the ancient world when Axum was a flourishing, powerful capital. After seeing the museum, we visit the tombs of Kings Kaleb and Gebre Meskel, the Ezana inscription and the Cathedral of Tsion Maryam – the most sacred Christian site in Ethiopia and, according to local belief, the resting place of the Ark of the Covenant. Day 8: Axum, Lalibela. Fly c. 11.00am to Lalibela and the remarkable hidden rock-hewn churches, their scale testament to the faith and devotion of early Christian followers. After lunch at the hotel we visit the south-eastern cluster including the fortified twin churches of Gabriel and Rafael, Beta Merkurios (dedicated to the saint martyred in the third-century) and the impressive Beta Emmanuel and Beta Abba Libanos, reputedly built overnight with the help of a host of angels. First of three nights in Lalibela. Day 9: Lalibela. This day is dedicated to the north-eastern cluster where the sophistication and sheer scale managed by the craftsmen is best exhibited. Lalibela’s largest church, Beta Madhane Alem (Saviour of the World), as well as Beta Maryam, acknowledged as Lalibela’s oldest and most elaborate, are incorporated. Beta Masqal, Beta Danagel, Beta Mika’el and Beta Golgotha complete the complex. Day 10: Lalibela. Choice between two visits in the morning: the monastery of Nakuto or the remote but remarkable church of Imrahanna Kristos, located in a cave of Mount Abuna Yosef (the drive is uncomfortable and not suitable for those prone to motion sickness). There is some free time in the afternoon before a sunset visit to Lalibela’s most well-known and breathtaking church, Beta Giyorgis. Final night in Lalibela. Day 11: Lalibela, Gondar. Fly c. 12noon to Gondar. The seat of the royal family in the 17th and 18th centuries, the town of Gondar is home to some important sites, most notably the royal enclosure of Emperor Fasilidas (a unesco World Heritage site) where Indian, Turkish and Portuguese influences are apparent. Fasilidas’ pool, the location for one of Ethiopia’s most colourful Timkat (Epiphany) celebrations, is also visited. Overnight Gondar.
Day 13: Bahir Dar. Through the early morning mist, we take a boat to the Zegie Peninsula. Under a lush green canopy are the round churches of Ura Kidane Mehret and Beta Maryam. Complete with thatched roofs, ostrich egg-adorned crosses and brightly coloured murals, they are the focus for the local community as well as a sanctuary for the abundant plant and bird life. In the afternoon there is an optional visit to one of the lake’s more remote churches, Narga Selassie, built in the 18th-century on the island of Dek for the Princess Mentewab (weather permitting).
Art historian specialising in Ethiopian and early Christian art. He is a PhD researcher at SOAS. He edits the journal of the Anglo-Ethiopian Society and has published several papers, as well as given lectures on the country’s heritage. He has travelled extensively in Ethiopia, winning several awards for his research. All lecturers’ biographies can be found on pages 8–15.
Day 14: Bahir Dar, Addis Ababa. After a drive through some wild and unspoilt countryside, we walk over the 17th-century bridge to a view point of the spectacular Blue Nile Falls (during the February departure the water level will be low). The afternoon is free; suggestions include the local market and the Blue Nile outflow from Lake Tana. Flight c. 9.30pm to Addis Ababa. Day 15: Addis Ababa. The Institute of Ethiopian Studies, an ethnographic museum in Haile Selassie’s palace, is dedicated to Ethiopia’s rich mix of ethnic groups and includes an impressive collection of manuscripts and icons. There is free time in the afternoon to visit Addis’s sprawling market, the Mercato. Overnight Addis Ababa.
houses. Yeha Hotel, Axum (yehahotelaxum.com): the best hotel in the town with excellent views over the stelae park and church. Roha Hotel, Lalibela (rohahotels.com): a former governmentowned hotel in close proximity to the church complexes, quiet and comfortable. Goha Hotel, Gondar (gohahotel.com): located high above the town, this hotel has spectacular views of Gondar and the surrounding countryside. Kuriftu Resort and Spa, Bahir Dar (kurifturesortspa.com): situated on the shores of Lake Tana this newly opened 5-star lodge has the best accommodation available and includes a spa and health centre. How strenuous? This is a very demanding tour and a good level of fitness is essential. Much of the tour is at a high altitude (approx. 8,900ft) which can exacerbate fatigue. Group size: between 10 and 18 participants. Working in partnership with The Ethiopian Heritage Fund. The Ethiopian Heritage Fund, a UK registered charity, was set up in August 2005. Working together with the Ethiopian Church and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in Ethiopia, their aim is to promote and organise the conservation of early Ethiopian churches and their contents and to provide advice on their maintenance. Combine this tour with: Temples of Tamil Nadu, 26 January–8 February 2015 (contact us for the full details or visit www.martinrandall.com).
Day 16. Fly from Addis Ababa to London arriving Heathrow c. 5.30pm (via Rome, February) or c. 9.15am (direct, October 2014 and 2015).
‘A great and memorable trip.’
Adua, wood engraving c. 1875.
‘The tour was certainly very well put together and presented and I thoroughly enjoyed it.’ Practicalities Price: £5,140 (2014), £5,180 (2015) (deposit £500). Single supplement £560 (2014), £610 (2015) (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £4,380 (all departures). Included meals: all lunches (including 3 picnics) and 13 dinners with wine.
ethiopia
Day 12: Gondar, Bahir Dar. Morning visit to the church of Debre Birhan Selassie (Mountain of the Enlightened Trinity) displaying some of the most beautiful examples of ecclesiastical art in Ethiopia. In the afternoon, drive along the shores of Lake Tana to the quiet and picturesque town of Bahir Dar. First of two nights in Bahir Dar.
Jacopo Gnisci.
Visas. British citizens and most other foreign nationals require a tourist visa. This is not included in the price of the tour because you have to obtain it yourself. We will advise on the procedure but you will need to submit your passport to the Ethiopian Embassy in your country of residence prior to departure. Accommodation. Addis Ababa Hilton, Addis Ababa (hilton.com): a smart, modernised, centrally-located 5-star hotel. Gheralta Lodge, Hawzien (gheraltalodgetigrai.com): spectacular scenery, accommodation in local style stone
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Finland: Aalto & Others 20th-century architecture & design
Finnish tar boats, after a drawing by V. Blomstedt 1900.
houses a collection of brilliant National Romantic pictures. Afternoon tour of the National Pension’s Institute (Aalto, 1952–56), considered by many members of the Aalto atelier to be its finest construction. On the coast at Seurasaari the open-air museum shows the whole history of Finnish vernacular building. Overnight Helsinki. Day 3: Otaniemi, Helsinki. Begin at Aalto’s Technical University in Helsinki’s Otaniemi area. Continue to The Aalto House, the family home and office, completed in 1936, followed by a guided tour of Aalto’s Finlandia Hall (1961–1975). Kiasma holds Finland’s main contemporary art collection in a building by Steven Holl (2000). Dinner in the Savoy Restaurant designed by Aalto. Overnight Helsinki. Day 4: Tuusula, Helsinki. In the morning visit Tuusula Lake with its turn of the century villa for Sibelius as well as the Kokkonen Villa by Aalto. Afternoon boat trip to Suomenlinna, a cluster of islands off Helsinki converted into a massive fortress in the 18th century, now with several museums. Overnight Helsinki.
25 June–3 July 2015 (mb 377) 9 days • £3,160 Lecturer: Dr Harry Charrington Journey through Finland surveying the works of Alvar Aalto, ‘the poet of International Modernism’. See also major buildings by other twentiethcentury Finnish architects and look at other areas of design and art. Led by Dr Harry Charrington, an architect who lived in Finland and worked in Aalto’s office, and author of Alvar Aalto: the Mark of the Hand. Design is as associated with Finland as bacon with eggs. It is extraordinary what impact such a small country – which only gained independence in 1917 – has had on the look of things in the twentieth century.
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Finland was a late starter. From its time at the periphery of European civilization and the following period as a remote part of the Swedish empire, there is not much to show other than vernacular domestic architecture and castles. Only in 1812, when the territory became a Russian grand duchy, did Helsinki acquire a spacious and monumental Neo-Classical centre to rank among the most impressive. Really interesting art and architecture begins in the later nineteenth century with National Romanticism, a manifestation of aspiration towards national self-determination. The music of Sibelius is well enough known, but the architecture of Eliel Saarinen deserves much wider acclaim, and the brilliant, haunting
paintings of Albert Edelfelt and Akseli GallénKallela will come as a revelation. These are not isolated figures, for the turn of the century was a highly productive time. But one name stands out: Alvar Aalto. Revered by architects around the world, it is not inconceivable that he will come to be regarded as the greatest architect of our era. His designs differ radically from mainstream mid-twentieth-century modernism architecture in that they are imbued with humanity and an organic beauty. His employment of curved forms and concern with colour and texture provide a spectrum of beauties forbidden to hard-line modernists, and his buildings have a strong sense of place, exemplified by widespread use of that very un-modern but quintessentially Finnish material, wood. Aalto is the poet of International Modernism. Some of the twentieth century’s finest furniture, glass, ceramics and textiles have been created in Finland, much of it inspired by the principles which imbued Aalto’s work.
Day 5: Säynätsalo, Muuratsalo, Jyväskylä. Drive north into the increasingly scenic Finnish Lakeland. See Aalto’s town hall at Säynätsalo (1952), perhaps his greatest synthesis of a vision of European civic life and the immediacy of the Finnish forest landscape. At nearby Muuratsalo, his summer house (also 1952) is beautifully set in woodland on the shores of a lake. Overnight Jyväskylä. Day 6: Jyväskylä, Petäjävesi, Seinäjoki. Aalto went to school in Jyväskylä and set up his first independent practice here. Representative of his early, ‘pre-functionalist’ buildings is the Trade Union Club (1923–5), his first important commission. The Teachers’ Training College (1952–7, now university), is one of the finest manifestations of his ‘red’ period, with warmhued bricks. Visit the Alvar Aalto Museum with a display of Aalto’s life and works. See the unescolisted wooden church by Leppanen in Petäjävesi. Overnight Seinäjoki. Day 7: Seinäjoki, Noormarkku, Turku. Seinäjoki has a striking complex by Alvar Aalto (1960–68): the Cross of the Plains church which dominates the townscape, parish hall, town hall-cumtheatre, clad in dark blue tiles, and library. In the afternoon a special arrangement to see the Villa Mairea (1939) in Noormarkku, the most beautiful of Aalto’s private houses. First of two nights in Turku.
Day 1: Helsinki. Fly at c. 10.20am (Finnair) from London Heathrow to Helsinki. Begin with a walk through the Neo-Classical heart of the city: Senate Square, the domed cathedral and the colourful Market Square by the old harbour. First of four nights in Helsinki.
Day 8: Turku, Paimio. Morning walk through Turku, Finland’s oldest city, including the market square and mediaeval cathedral. Visit to the cemetery by Aalto’s contemporary Erik Bryggman. In Paimio is Aalto’s Sanatorium (1929–33), a classic of modern architecture for which he designed widely-imitated timber furniture. Overnight Turku.
Day 2: Helsinki, Seurasaari. Morning walk including the Art Nouveau Katajanokka district, Saarinen’s Railway Station (1919) and Aalto’s Rautatalo office building (Iron House; 1951–55). The Ateneum, Finland’s foremost art museum,
Day 9: Hvitträsk, Helsinki. Drive to Hvitträsk, Saarinen’s home and studio built in 1903, with pretty gardens overlooking a lake. Continue to Helsinki airport and fly to Heathrow, arriving at c. 5.15pm.
Itinerary
book online at www.martinrandall.com
French Gothic
Cathedrals of Northern France Practicalities Price: £3,160 (deposit £300). Single supplement £320. Price without flights £2,870. Included meals: 6 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Haven, Helsinki (hotelhaven.fi): smart, boutique hotel close to the harbour. Boutique Hotel Yöpuu, Jyväskylä (hotelliyopuu.fi): small, friendly, traditional. Sokos Hotel Vaakuna, Seinäjoki (sokoshotels. fi): simple, bland, but well-located. Radisson Blu Marina Palace Hotel, Turku (radissonblu.fi/ hotelli-turku): comfortable hotel overlooking the river. All hotels have a local 4-star rating. Group size: between 12 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Mediaeval Saxony, 15–23 June 2015 (page 89), Ardgowan, 18–23 June 2015 (page 182) or The Johann Sebastian Bach Journey, 5–11 July 2015 (page 91).
Savonlinna Opera July 2015 Details available in August 2014 Contact us to register your interest
The Sibelius Festival 31 August–6 September 2015 Details available in November 2014 Contact us to register your interest
8–14 June 2015 (mb 354) 7 days • £2,110 Lecturer: Dr Matthew Woodworth 7–13 September 2015 (mc 430) 7 days • £2,110 Lecturer: Dr Alexandra Gajewski The cradle of Gothic, northern Europe’s most significant contribution to world architecture. Nearly all the most important buildings in the development of Early and High Gothic, with an entire day at Chartres. Unparalleled examples of stained glass, sculpture and metalwork. Can be combined with Mediaeval Art in Paris, 4–6 September 2015 (see page 68). Gothic was the only architectural style which had its origins in northern Europe. It was in the north of France that the first Gothic buildings arose, it was here that the style attained its classic maturity, and it is here that its greatest manifestations still stand. From the middle of the twelfth century the region was the scene of unparalleled building activity, with dozens of cathedrals, churches and abbeys under construction. Architects stretched their imaginations and masons extended their skills to devise more daring ways of enclosing greater volumes of space, with increasingly slender structural supports, and larger areas of window.
But Gothic is not only an architectural phenomenon. Windows were filled with brilliant coloured glass. Sculpture, more life-like than for nearly a thousand years yet increasingly integrated with its architectural setting, was abundant. The art of metalwork thrived, and paint was everywhere. All the arts were coordinated to interpret and present elaborate theological programmes to congregations which included both the illiterate lay people and sophisticated clerics. Nearly all the most important buildings in the development of the Early and High phases of Gothic are included, and the order of visits even follows this development chronologically, as far as geography allows. A whole day is dedicated to the cathedral at Chartres, the premier site of the building arts of the mediaeval world.
Itinerary Day 1. Travel by Eurostar at c. 1.00pm from St Pancras to Lille. Continue by coach to Laon and the hotel, in an attractive lakeside setting. First of three nights near Laon. Day 2: Noyon, Laon. One of the earliest Gothic cathedrals (c. 1150), Noyon’s four-storey internal elevation marks the transition from the thickwalled architecture of the Romanesque to the thin-walled verticality of Gothic. Laon is spectacularly sited on a rock outcrop. Begun c. 1160, the cathedral is the most complete of Early Gothic churches and one of the most impressive, with five soaring towers.
Flying buttresses at Beauvais, etching by A. Hugh Fisher c. 1910.
Celebrating 150 years since the composer’s birth. All seven symphonies by Sibelius performed by the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Conductors include Osmo Vänskä, Sakari Oramo, Okko Kamu and Jukka-Pekka Saraste.
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French Gothic continued
Day 3: Reims, Soissons. Reims Cathedral, the coronation church of the French monarchy, begun 1211, is a landmark in the development of High Gothic with the first appearance of bar tracery and classicising portal sculpture. At the church of St Rémi the heavy Romanesque nave contrasts with the light Early Gothic choir. Soissons Cathedral is a fine example of the rapid changes which took place in architecture at the end of the 12th century. Day 4: St Denis. On the outskirts of Paris, the burial place of French kings, St Denis was an abbey of the highest significance in politics and in the history of architecture. In the 1140s the choir was rebuilt, and the pointed arches, rib vaulting and skeletal structure warrant the claim that this was the first Gothic building. 100 years later the new nave inaugurated the Rayonnant style of Gothic with windows occupying the maximum possible area. First of two nights in Chartres. Day 5: Chartres. The cathedral at Chartres, begun in 1145 and recommenced in 1195 after a fire, is the finest synthesis of Gothic art and architecture. Sculpture and stained glass are incorporated into an elaborate theological programme. The full day here provides time for unhurried exploration of the building and space to reflect and absorb. See also the church of St Pierre. Day 6: Mantes-la-Jolie, Beauvais, Amiens. Visit the 12th-century collegiate church at Mantes-laJolie. Beauvais Cathedral, begun 1225, was, with a vault height in the choir of 157 feet, the climax in France of upwardly aspiring Gothic architecture and the highest vault of mediaeval Europe. Overnight Amiens.
Mediaeval Ar t in Paris 4–6 September 2015 (mc 454) 3 days • £1,280 Lecturer: Dr Matthew Woodworth The finest collections in the world of the arts and crafts of the Middle Ages, and some major buildings. Led by mediaevalist Dr Matthew Woodworth. Timed to enable participants to combine it with French Gothic (7–13 September 2015, see page 67), its ideal companion. Architectural achievements of the Middle Ages remain in abundance – cathedrals, churches and castles are among the most prominent features on the topography of Europe. By contrast, first-rate portable artworks are exceedingly rare. Masonry constructions provide for most people the default mental image of the Middle Ages – magnificent, astonishingly accomplished, but some shade of grey or brown, dull of hue and dark of tone. Colour was omnipresent, however – brilliant pigments in glass, paint and textile, glowing gold, shining silver and polished precious stones. Consummate workmanship and miniaturistic virtuosity were allied to this chromatic richness. The inner sancta of the mediaeval world were of a sumptuousness of effect which is practically beyond imagining, given the scarcity of examples and at least five centuries of wear and decay. More than anywhere else, Paris is the place where some of this richness can be experienced. The Cluny Museum is acknowledged as having the greatest display of mediaeval arts and
Day 7: Amiens. The cathedral in Amiens is the classic High Gothic structure, its thrilling verticality balanced by measured horizontal movement. Drive to Lille for the Eurostar to London St Pancras, arriving c. 7.00pm.
artefacts in the world, but it is rivalled by the recently and splendidly refurbished galleries in the Louvre – which nevertheless receive a tiny fraction of the numbers who flock to see the Mona Lisa and the Raft of the Medusa.
Itinerary Day 1. Leave London St Pancras for Paris by Eurostar at c. 10.30am. Examine Notre-Dame, one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture, built to rival the Abbey of neighbouring St Denis. Check into the hotel and have an early dinner before going to the Louvre for its weekly late-evening opening for a first visit to its superb mediaeval galleries. Day 2. Ste Chapelle, built in the 13th century as a shrine for Christ’s Crown of Thorns, is an exquisite example of the Rayonnant Gothic Style which retains its spectacular stained glass. The neighbouring Conciergerie was the residence of the kings before the Louvre, and became the city’s first prison in the late 14th century. The Musée de Cluny, the National Museum of the Middle Ages, contains the 15th-century tapestry cycle The Lady and the Unicorn as well as outstanding sculpture, carved woodwork and precious metalwork. In the afternoon drive to three of Paris’s finest mediaeval churches, St Etienne du Mont, St Martin des Champs and St Eustache. Day 3. A second visit to the Louvre to see more of the extensive mediaeval collections. The church of St Pierre de Montmartre is one of the oldest churches in Paris, built on the site of a Roman temple. Take the afternoon Eurostar from the Gare du Nord, arriving at London St Pancras at c. 5.45pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,110 (deposit £200). Single supplement £190 (double for single occupancy). Price without Eurostar £1,960.
france
Price combined with Mediaeval Art in Paris: £3,410. Single supplement £520. In addition to the elements included in the price of this tour and Mediaeval Art in Paris, this includes one additional night’s accommodation in Paris on 6th September and first class rail travel from Paris to Lille on 7th September. Included meals: 5 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hôtel du Golf de l’Ailette, Chamouille (ailette.fr): a comfortable 3-star located a short drive from Laon, next to a lake. Hotel Le Grand Monarque, Chartres (legrandmonarque.com): a centrally located 4-star hotel. Hotel Mercure Amiens (mercure. com): a modern 3-star hotel near to the cathedral. Group size: between 12 and 22 participants.
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Also possible to combine this tour with: Mediaeval Saxony, 15–23 June 2015 (page 89). book online at www.martinrandall.com
Enamelled shrine in the Museum of Cluny, engraving c. 1875 from The Arts in the Middle Ages.
History of Impressionism Paintings & places in Paris & Normandy Those combining this tour with French Gothic have 24 hours independent time in Paris before taking a train on 7th September at c. 1.15pm to Lille, where the tour begins. This part of the tour is unescorted. See below for prices.
The Seine near Vernon, etching by H.C. Delpy, 1904.
Practicalities Price: £1,280 (deposit £150). Single supplement £220 (double for single occupancy). Price without Eurostar £1,140. Included meals: 2 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Westminster, Paris (warwickwestminsteropera.com): a comfortable 4-star hotel located near the Opéra Garnier. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Price combined with French Gothic: £3,410. Single supplement £520. In addition to the elements included in the price of this tour and French Gothic, this includes one additional night’s accommodation in Paris on 6th September and first class rail travel from Paris to Lille on 7th September.
Paris Masterpieces October 2015 Lecturer: Dr Michael Douglas-Scott Details available in September 2014 Contact us to register your interest
The finest collections of Impressionism in France and places associated with the artists. Led by Dr Frances Fowle, Senior Curator of French Art at the National Gallery of Scotland. First-class rail travel by Eurostar from London and good hotels in Paris and Rouen. Far more Impressionist pictures can be seen in the region covered by this tour than in any other territory of comparable size. This should be no surprise, as this is the region where Impressionism was born and where it was most practised, and the tour visits some of the key sites in that development. Attention is also paid to the precursors – Pre-Impressionists such as Eugène Boudin and Jongkind – and to some PostImpressionist successors. As it was for mainstream artists, so it was for rebels and innovators: throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, Paris was the centre of the art world. All the French Impressionists spent time here, many lived here for most of their lives. Yet the essence of their art – the recording of the world about them as it presented itself to their eyes in its immediate, transitory aspect – required them to spend time in the countryside. And the countryside they frequented most was in the north and north-west of Paris, the broad valley of the meandering Seine and of its tributaries the Oise and the Epte, and on to the coast. This can be illustrated by the case of Claude Monet, the most consistent exponent of Impressionism. He was born in Paris in 1840
and was brought up from 1845 in Le Havre on the Normandy coast before returning to Paris to study painting. Though Paris remained the centre of his artistic world, he made frequent painting expeditions to river and sea, and from 1871 he made his homes in the suburbs, progressively further downstream at Argenteuil, Vétheuil, Poissy and finally, in 1883, at Giverny. Impressionism was developing at the same time as seaside tourism on France’s northern coast (the Mediterranean was not a holiday destination until later) and the relationship between the two is fascinating. Water, fresh or salt, was an important ingredient of Impressionist pictures, its fleeting, changing, evanescent qualities similar to the characteristics of light they sought to capture on canvas. The Impressionist emphasis on the importance of painting en plein air makes a tour that includes sites where painters set up their easel particularly rewarding. Most of the world’s greatest collections of Impressionism are located in this region, and many of the art museums visited have been refurbished and extended.
Itinerary Day 1: Paris. Leave London St Pancras at c. 10.30am by Eurostar. In Paris visit the Musée Marmottan which, through a donation by Monet’s son, has one of the world’s largest collections of Impressionists including Impression: Sunrise. Continue to Rouen in Normandy where four nights are spent. Day 2: Honfleur, Le Havre. Honfleur is an utterly delightful fishing village at the mouth of the Seine, now crammed with art galleries and antique shops. In the museum are many Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Watercolour by Donald Maxwell, publ. 1932.
19–24 April 2015 (mb 294) 6 days • £2,270 Lecturer: Dr Frances Fowle
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History of Impressionism continued
Ballet in Paris
Paris Opera Ballet & St Petersburg Ballet Theatre works by Eugène Boudin, a major influence on the Impressionists. Cross the Seine estuary to Le Havre. After a recent donation and refurbishment, the Musée André Malraux has become the second largest collection of Impressionists in France. Day 3: Giverny. The morning is devoted to the premier site in the history of Impressionism, Monet’s house and garden at Giverny where he lived from 1883 until his death in 1926, designing and tending the gardens which grew in size as his prosperity increased. Also at Giverny is the newly reconstituted Musée des Impressionismes (formerly Le Musée d’Art Américain) with fine temporary exhibitions. Return in the midafternoon for some free time in Rouen, perhaps to study the cathedral, the subject of over 30 of Monet’s paintings. Day 4: Rouen, Étretat. Spend the morning in Rouen at the Musée des Beaux Arts, which has some good Impressionist paintings in its permanent collection. Either spend a free afternoon in Rouen, architecturally and scenically one of France’s finest cities, or join an excursion to Étretat, a little seaside town flanked by dramatic chalk promontories scooped into arches by wind and sea, painted by Monet and many others. Overnight Rouen. Day 5: Auvers, Paris. Auvers-sur-Oise was a popular artists’ colony, frequented by Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. See sites associated with Van Gogh, who spent the last few weeks of his life here, and the studio of Daubigny. Return to Paris for an optional visit of the Musée des Beaux Arts in the Petit Palais, an under-appreciated collection for which space has recently been expanded. Overnight Paris. Day 6: Paris. Walk through the Tuileries Gardens to the Orangerie where an excellent collection of Impressionists, Monet’s famous water-lilies and 20th-century paintings are housed. Cross the river to the Musée d’Orsay; here are displayed not only the world’s finest collection of Impressionism but also masterpieces by important precursors such as Courbet and Millet. Return to London by Eurostar, arriving St Pancras at c. 5.30pm.
Practicalities
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Price: £2,270 (deposit £250). Single supplement £260 (double for single occupancy). Price without Eurostar £2,100. Included meals: 1 lunch, 4 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Mercure Rouen Centre Cathédrale (mercure.com): a modern and functional 4-star hotel in the historic centre. Hotel Westminster, Paris (warwickwestminsteropera.com): a comfortable 4-star near the Opéra Garnier with traditional décor. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
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Combine this tour with: Gastronomic Catalonia, 13–18 April 2015 (page 191) or Gardens of Northern Portugal, 13–18 April 2015 (page 177).
Palais Garnier, by Y. Markino, publ. 1908.
11–15 March 2015 (mb 251) 5 days • £2,410 (including tickets to 4 performances) Lecturer: Jane Pritchard mbe Two performances by the Paris Opera Ballet: Das Lied von der Erde at the Palais Garnier and Swan Lake at the Opéra Bastille with original choreography by Rudolf Nureyev. Two performances by the St Petersburg Ballet Theatre at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées: La Bayadère and Romeo & Juliet, with Anna Samostrelova and Irina Kolesnikova. The lecturer is Jane Pritchard, Curator of Dance at the Victoria & Albert Museum. From the pageantry of Italian Renaissance courts, ballet emerged in its earliest, most recognisable form, with an emphasis on participation. As an exclusively royal entertainment, the early development of ballet was heavily influenced by the aristocracy to fulfil personal and political agendas, but it was in France during the reign of Louis XIV that the art form became formalised and performance-focused, progressing from the court to the stage. Louis XIV was a great patron of the arts and had a particular passion for ballet, founding the Académie Royale de Danse in 1661 and later, the Académie Royale de Musique. Today, the Paris Opera Ballet is the oldest national ballet company, and one of the most preeminent in the world, attracting the finest dancers and choreographers. On this tour the company perform two ballets by choreographers who have made their mark with daring interpretations of well-known classics. Das Lied von der Erde (‘Song of the Earth’) sees the American John Neumeier choreographing to Gustav Mahler, one of his favourite composers, in a production that marks thirty-five years of collaboration with the Paris Opera Ballet. It is performed in the opulent surroundings of the Palais Garnier. The comparatively modern Opera Bastille is the
book online at www.martinrandall.com
setting for the company’s performance of Swan Lake. Rudolf Nureyev’s choreography for the Paris Opera Ballet was his last staging of the Tchaikovsky ballet in which, typically (to serve his own performing interests) he made Rothbart (who here is also Wolfgang, the Prince’s tutor) more than usually dominant. It is a fascinating tightly-structured, clean production with equal emphasis on dance and drama. The programme is completed by two performances by the St Petersburg Ballet Theatre, a Russian touring company operating independently of state funding, which focuses on presenting excellent versions of the classics. The Company has built up a strong following in the West with the stunning prima ballerina Irina Kolesnikova at its helm. Their La Bayadère, a tale of deception and murder in an exotic Indian setting, is a fine production of the seminal Petipa’s ballet while Leonid Lavrovski’s three-act Romeo & Juliet to Prokofiev’s score preserves the original Soviet choreography of the ballet inspired by Shakespeare’s young lovers.
Itinerary Day 1. Take the Eurostar from London St Pancras to Paris at c. 10.30am. Lecture and dinner before the opera-ballet at the Palais Garnier: Das Lied von der Erde (Mahler), Paris Opera Orchestra and Ballet. John Neumeier (chor.) Patrick Lange (cond.), Burkhard Fritz (tenor), Paul Armin Edelmann (baritone). Day 2. Attend a morning lecture followed by a guided tour of the opulent Palais Garnier. Evening ballet at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées: La Bayadère (Léon Minkus), St Petersburg Ballet Theatre and Orchestra. Marius Petipa (chor.), Konstantin Tachkin (cond.), Vadim Nikitin (director), Anna Samostrelova (principal). Day 3. Morning lecture followed by a free day. We make an appointment at the Louvre so you can avoid the queue. Evening ballet at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées: Romeo & Juliet (Prokofiev), St Petersburg Ballet Theatre and Orchestra. Leonid Lavrovski (chor.), Konstantin Tachkin (cond.), Vadim Nikitin (dir.), Irina Kolesnikova (principal). Day 4. Morning lecture. In the afternoon drive to Porte de la Villette to visit the music museum at the Cité de la Musique. Ballet at the Opéra Bastille: Swan Lake (Tchaikovsky), Paris Opera Orchestra and Ballet. Rudolf Nureyev (original choreographer, 1984), Simon Hewett (cond.). Day 5. The Eurostar to London arrives c. 2.45pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,410 (deposit £250). Single supplement £390 (double for single occupancy). Price without Eurostar £2,280. Included meals: 1 lunch and 2 dinners with wine. Music: tickets (first category) for 4 ballets are included, costing c. £300. Accommodation. Hotel du Louvre, Paris (parishoteldulouvre.hyatt.com): a 5-star hotel in an excellent location. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
Brittany
Megaliths to Monet 8–14 May 2015 (mb 313) 7 days • £2,260 Lecturer: Caroline Holmes Brittany’s landscapes captured and cultivated: gardens, châteaux and historic towns. Beautiful Belle-Ile, with an optional coastal walk. The lecturer is Caroline Holmes, a garden historian with close family ties to Brittany. Some of the finest prehistoric sites in Europe. The inspiration for colonies of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists. The landscapes of Brittany are variously dramatic, fertile and rugged, framed by jagged coasts or broad sands. The granite bedrock can be seen carved into poignant sixteenth-century churchyard calvaries and piled high in Quimper’s two spires. The wealth of stone tools that have been found confirm the early agricultural skills of prehistoric Bretons. Armorica stems from Ar Mor, literally land of the sea, to distinguish Brittany’s coasts from the forested interior, Ar Goat, that sheltered wolves, boar and deer as well as Druidic rites. Over the centuries the fruits of its sea, fields, orchards and gardens fed their bodies and souls with a robust simplicity. Large tracts remained remote from and almost untouched by metropolitan France. In the late nineteenth century avant-garde artists came to see Brittany as an inspirational rural idyll and flocked from Europe, America and Australia. It was already popular when in 1888 Paul Sérusier, Emile Bernard and Paul Gauguin formed the School of Pont-Aven. Nearby, Monet painted the wild seas and rocks off Belle-Ile and met the critic who was to become his lifelong friend and biographer, Gustave Geffroy. Australian Impressionist John Peter Russell married Marianna Antoinetta Mattiocco, Rodin’s favourite model, and in 1889 built a house at Port Goulphar where they entertained Sisley, Matisse and numerous other artists. In 1894 Sarah Bernhardt took up summer residence in the Fort; her guest list was to include Edward VII. This tour presents a broad sweep of history, prehistory, art and landscape.
selection of faïencerie, archaeological finds, Breton costumes, lacework and furniture. The cathedral of St Corentin is the finest example of Gothic architecture in Brittany, with a sumptuous modern high altar in gilded and enamelled bronze. Day 3: around Quimper. An excursion to three very different gardens. Those of the Parc Botanique de Cornouaille were started in 1983 by M. Gueguen, a plant collector who worked for Hilliers in England. The setting of indigenous oak and pine trees provides a backdrop to a global collection of trees and shrubs. The Parc de Boutiguéry extends to 15 hectares along the banks of the River Odet where the owner has hybridised and bred new rhododendrons with colours infused with ‘warmth’. At the Manoir de Kérazan sweet chestnuts grow alongside pines, palms and flowering shrubs. The house is a showcase of Breton workmanship: fine collections of the Quimper faïencerie, Bigouden furniture and paintings by local artists. Day 4: Pont-Aven, Carnac. Towards the end of the 19th century, Pont-Aven was almost overrun by avant-garde and aspiring artists. Above it the chapel of Trémalo still harbours the 16thcent. polychrome statue that inspired Gauguin’s Le Christ Jaune. The newly extended Musée des Beaux Arts is due to reopen in spring 2015 with works by Gauguin, fellow members of the school of Pont Aven and other artists spanning the period 1850–1950. Drive south to Carnac for a guided tour of the extraordinary wealth of orthostats (upright stones) and menhirs (standing stones) dating to c. 4600 bc. Overnight Carnac. Day 5: Ile de Gavrinis, Locmariaquer. The 23 orthostats in the Cairn de l’Ile de Gavrinis have a wealth of symbolic patterns unmatched elsewhere. There are other stones at the Table des Marchands at nearby Locmariaquer. Catch
the late afternoon ferry to Belle-Ile. Two nights are spent on the island: the hotel is on the site of Australian painter John Russell’s house and retains the views which inspired him to live, paint and host here for twenty years. Day 6: Belle-Ile. Optional morning walk along the beautiful northern Côte Sauvage (c. 5 km), including a visit to the Musée Sarah Bernhardt and the fort that was her summer home at the Pointe des Poulains. Lunch in the small port of Sauzon. Return to the hotel for tea via the Jardin la Boulaye that nestles in the sheltered heart of the island. Afternoon walk in the footsteps of Monet to view the jagged Aiguilles de Port-Coton. Visit the contemporary Jardin la Boulaye that nestles in the sheltered heart of the island. Overnight Belle-Ile. Day 7. Return by ferry to mainland France and transfer by coach to Nantes airport via the mediaeval walled city of Guérande, centre of the Fleur du Sel Guérande industry dating back 1,500 years. The flight from Nantes to London City Airport arrives at c. 7.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,260 (deposit £200). Single supplement £260 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,040. Included meals: 5 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Best Western Hôtel Kregenn, Quimper (hotel-kregenn.fr): a functional 4-star hotel five minutes from the cathedral and museums. Hotel Tumulus, Carnac (hoteltumulus.com): a 3-star hotel with an excellent restaurant. Hotel Castel Clara, Belle-Ile (castelclara.com) is a spa hotel, with fine coastal views. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
Itinerary
Day 2: Quimper. The Musée des Beaux Arts has an exceptional collection of French paintings and drawings with a special emphasis on Brittany, the Pont Aven School, Max Jacob and Breton landscape and domestic scenes. In 1690 JeanBaptiste Bousquet created the first faïencerie or pottery in the Locmaria district on the banks of the Odet. Visit the church and mediaeval inspired garden. Afternoon visit to Musée Départemental Breton in the old Bishop’s Palace to see a fine
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Day 1. Fly at c. 11.00am from London City Airport to Brest (City Jet). Drive to Quimper via the Abbaye de Daoulas with a good Romanesque cloister and monastically inspired herb gardens. First of three nights in Quimper.
Pont-Aven, from Breton Folk, publ. 1880.
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Poets & The Somme
Poetry of the Great War in battlefield context 4–7 September 2015 (mc 451) 4 days • £1,360 Lecturer: Andrew Spooner First World War poetry in the context of the Battle of the Somme. A presentation of the poetry through a study of events, landscapes and the wartime lives of individual poets. An actor reads the poems. Led by military historian Andrew Spooner. Blending history and poetry, this tour reveals the true landscape of war: locations, topography, events, but also hope, fear, anger, pain and love, all viscerally manifest in the poetry of the First World War. The opening day of the Battle of the Somme, 1st July 1916, is taken as the starting point for the tour, with an exploration of the front line area and a study of the events of that day and subsequent weeks. A sprinkling of poetry from 1914 and 1915 adds to the modern contextual understanding of the enormous sense of loss. During 1917 and 1918, other war poets became embroiled in later battles and their poetry will be placed into context on ‘the old 1916 battlefield’. This leads on to a wider examination of the nature of trench warfare and of the course of the war as a whole. Much has survived: trenches, shell holes and mine craters. The tangible remains of warfare and the pattern of cemeteries are now woven into the fabric of the modern landscape. What sets this tour apart is the parallel exploration of the lives of those regular soldiers, volunteers and civilians who bequeathed to us the most emotionally potent body of poetry
in English literature. This is not an exercise in literary analysis, however, but poems are placed in the context of the battlefield and of the lives (and deaths) of the many and varied individuals who wrote them. Led by the military historian who devised the tour, Andrew Spooner, it is also accompanied by an actor who reads the poems – sometimes at the site where they were composed (often identifiable to within a few yards), sometimes at the scene of the poet’s grave, sometimes at the place of his death or disappearance. The tour is very much ‘in the field’ with a series of short walks on each day, averaging from a few hundred metres to a maximum distance 1.5 miles, and set to follow the events on particular sections of the front line. The fourteen miles of front line are neatly divided by the Roman road from Albert to Bapaume. Poets whose works are included are (in alphabetical order) Richard Aldington, Lawrence Binyon, Edmund Blunden, Vera Brittain, Eric Chilman, Eleanor Farjeon, Wilfred Gibson, Sir Alan P. Herbert, William Noel Hodgson, Roland Leighton, Frederick Manning, Lucy Gertrude Moberley, Wilfred Owen, Margaret Postgate Cole, John Edgell Rickwood, Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfried Sassoon, Alan Seeger, Charles Sorley, Hugh Steward Smith, John William Streets, Edward Thomas, Alec Waugh, May Wedderburn Cannan.
Itinerary Day 1: Foncquevillers, Pozières. Travel by coach at 9.00am from central London to Folkestone for the 35 minute Eurotunnel crossing. Continue by coach arriving in the field mid-afternoon. Drive the length of the front line for an initial
orientation of the Somme battlefield, identifying the exact positions of the opposing trenches. The lecturer gives an introduction at the windmill site at Pozières, the highest part of the battlefield, and the first poem is read; Alec Waugh’s Albert to Bapaume Road. Visit preserved trenches and a military cemetery. Continue to the hotel in Arras. Day 2: Serre, Mesnil, Thiepval. Explore to the north of the Albert to Bapaume Road. Start at the village of Serre, site of the left flank of the main attack on 1st July where many of the assault battalions were known as ‘pals’, reflecting their recruiting centres based in the large urban cities of the Midlands and the North. Move along the line through Auchonvillers, along the Ancre Valley, with Edmund Blunden, Wilfred Owen and A.P. Herbert. At Thiepval is the Memorial to the Missing, the most monumental of the many Great War memorials, which bears over 72,000 names. Today’s poems include A Soldier’s Funeral by John William Streets, read at his graveside, Binyon’s For the Fallen and, at Thiepval, Charles Sorley’s When they see the millions of the mouthless dead / Across your dreams in pale battalions go. Day 3: Péronne, Longueval, Mametz. Start at the ‘Historial de la Grande Guerre’ museum at Péronne, then to the area south of the Albert to Bapaume Road where some battalions were more successful and gained their objectives on the first day, before the arduous struggle of attrition moved into the ‘Horseshoe of Woods’. The site of Siegfried Sassoon’s HQ dugout is near the village of Fricourt, ‘while time ticks blank and busy on their wrists’. At Mametz, on William Noel Hodgson’s ‘familiar hill’, read Before Action: ‘Must say goodbye to all of this / By all delights that I shall miss, / Help me to die, O Lord.’ Day 4: Agny, Contay, Louvencourt. Stray behind the lines, visiting areas associated with the Casualty Clearing Stations. The village of Agny for Edward Thomas and Eleanor Farjeon, Louvencourt for Vera Brittain and Roland Leighton, and Contay as an appropriate location for the choice of women’s poetry, May Wedderburn Cannan and Margaret Postgate Cole. At La Boisselle, astride the Roman road, follow the fortunes of two battalions of the 34th Division. The poetry of Wilfred Owen, Edward Thomas and Alan Seeger features (I have a rendezvous with death). Final lunch before driving to Calais for the Eurotunnel journey home, arriving in central London at c. 7.30pm.
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Practicalities Price: £1,360 (deposit £150). Single supplement £140 (double for single occupancy). Included meals: 3 lunches, 3 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hôtel de l’Univers, Arras (univers.najeti.fr) a traditional 3-star hotel in Arras, installed in a 16th-century building, with a good restaurant. Group size: between 12 and 22 participants.
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British troops on the Western Front, photograph 1916 in World War 1914–1918: A Pictured History. book online at www.martinrandall.com
Combine this tour with: In Churchill’s Footsteps, 10–13 September 2015 (page 58).
The Western Front
WWI’s theatre of war 100 years on 25–29 June 2015 (mb 375) 5 days • £1,770 Lecturer: Major Gordon Corrigan
From Modern Masters of Etching, publ. 1932.
21–25 July 2015 (mb 403) 5 days • £1,770 Lecturer: Major Gordon Corrigan Concise but comprehensive study of the main scenes of action by British and Empire forces 1914–1918. Military history in its broadest sense, from study of the details of the terrain to the broad strategic and political background. Led by a military historian, ex-soldier and author of acclaimed Mud, Blood & Poppycock.
Australia, New Zealand and South Africa), French, American and German, and will ask whether there was another way, or was a series of long, slogging, bloody battles of attrition the only way to prevent a German Europe?
Itinerary Day 1: Lille, Loos. Take the Eurostar at c. 11.00am from London St Pancras to Lille (light lunch on board). The Battle of Loos in September 1915 involved the largest number of British troops yet deployed in this war. It saw the first use of poison gas by the British, with mixed results, and amongst the British dead were three major generals commanding divisions. Some free time before first evening lecture. First of two nights in Lille. Day 2: Ypres. Full day visiting the Ypres Salient or ‘Wipers’ to the British who held it for most of the war, and to examine the battles of 1914 and 1915 when the Germans were trying to break through to the Channel Ports. In the evening we attend the Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate, where the British dead have been regularly remembered ever since 1928. Overnight Lille. Day 3: Ypres, Neuve Chapelle. The second day in Ypres examines the highly successful capture of Messines Ridge by British, Australian and New Zealand troops in 1917, followed by the Third Battle of Ypres, the results of which are still controversial. Then travel south, visiting Neuve Chapelle, where in March 1915 the Indians and Gurkhas were the first to break the German line, en route to the hotel in Arras. First of two nights in Arras. Day 4: The Somme. A day spent studying the opening of the Somme offensive on 1st July 16,
considered one of the most traumatic days in modern British history. Overnight Arras. Day 5: The Somme, Amiens, Vimy Ridge. Continue the tour of the Somme battlefields, this time looking at the later operations and the end of the battle in November 1916. Visit the scene of the August 1918 Battle of Amiens, the beginning of the final Allied offensive which three months later brought the war to an end. On the return to Lille, pause at Vimy Ridge, scene of the significant Canadian advance of 1917. The Eurostar arrives London St Pancras at c. 5.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £1,770 (deposit £150). Single supplement £190 (double for single occupancy). Price without Eurostar £1,590. Included meals: 4 lunches, 4 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hôtel Hermitage Gantois, Lille (hotelhermitagegantois.com): a 5-star hotel in a converted 15th century hospice. Décor is traditional with a modern twist. Hôtel de l’Univers, Arras (univers.najeti.fr): a traditional 3-star hotel in Arras, installed in a 16th century building. Rooms vary in size and decoration. There is a good restaurant.
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The First World War was the first and only conflict in modern British history when nearly all of the British army was fighting the main enemy (Germany) in the main theatre (the Western Front) for the whole of the war. Unlike the armies of France and Germany the pre-war British army was composed of long service professionals – compulsory military service on the European pattern would have been regarded as an unacceptable infringement of the rights of a free born Briton – but it was very small. Having made the decision to declare war in support of France on land as well as at sea, the British had to create a mass army, which grew from just four infantry divisions and a cavalry division in 1914 to seventy divisions in 1918, from 100,000 men to two and a half million, initially from volunteers and then, from the middle of 1916, from conscripts. As the junior partner on land it was not for British politicians or British generals to dictate the course of the war, and until at least the spring of 1917 it was the French who directed operations on the Western Front. Thus, the rationale of much of what the British army did may be difficult to understand when viewed solely through Anglo-centric eyes, but makes complete sense when looked at in the context of the war as a whole. It is only possible to understand the Somme when one comprehends what was happening at Verdun 120 miles to the south, and Haig’s insistence on continuing the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) is fully justified only when the state of the French armies is taken into consideration, with the absolute necessity of drawing the Germans onto the British front and away from the French. There is probably more myth and legend surrounding the Great War than any other aspect of Britain’s long military history: an unnecessary war (so why was pre-war Germany furiously building a blue-water navy?); bungling generals sitting safely in châteaux far behind the lines (so why were so many killed in action?); the loss of a generation (but 74% of all the men who went over the top in the Battle of the Somme came out without a scratch) and there are many more. But for all that, the war cost Britain 700,000 dead. This tour visits the battlefields and examines not only what happened but why; it will consider the performance of generals and privates, British (and the empire forces of India, Canada,
Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
Agincour t, Crécy & Waterloo, September & July 2015. Page 26. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Mediaeval Burgundy
Abbeys & churches of the high Middle Ages 23–30 May 2015 (mb 338) 8 days • £2,360 Lecturer: John McNeill Superb collection of Romanesque and early Gothic buildings. Exceptionally well-preserved historic towns. Rural drives through beautiful landscapes. Led by architectural historian John McNeill. First-class rail travel.
The key to understanding mediaeval Burgundy is its situation, a cradle of wooded hills drained by three great river systems flowing, respectively, to the north, south and west. Not only did this lend the area the status of a lieu de passage, but it guaranteed its importance, ensuring that the mediaeval duchy was open to the forms and traditions of far-flung regions. Remarkably, much of Burgundy’s mediaeval infrastructure survives. Even extending back as far as the ninth century, for in the interlocking spaces of the lower church at St-Germain d’Auxerre one might catch a glimpse of western Carolingian architecture and painting, a glimpse that presents this most distant of periods at its most inventive and personal. It is equally the case that while the great early Romanesque basilicas which once studded the underbelly of the Ile-de-France are now reduced to a ghost of their former selves, what survives in Burgundy is sublimely impressive, as one might see in that great quartet of crypts at Dijon, Auxerre, Flavigny and Tournus. As elsewhere, the twelfth century is well represented, though the depth of exploratory work undertaken here cannot fail to impress. The fundamental Romanesque research was probably conducted to the south, at Cluny and in the Brionnais, but the take-up in central Burgundy was immediate, and in the naves of Vézelay and Autun one might see two of the most compelling essays on the interaction of sculpture and architecture twelfth-century Europe has produced. Nor were Cistercians slow to tailor Burgundian architecture to suit their needs, and though her great early monasteries have now perished at least Fontenay survives, ranking among the most breathtaking monastic sites of
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Tournus, engraving c. 1880.
mediaeval France. Gothic also arrived early, and there began a second wave of experimentation, tentative at first but blossoming in the centre (where the new choir at Vézelay is the first intimation we have that Gothic architecture had a future outside northern France) into perhaps the most lucid of all architectural styles. It is thus no surprise that the thirteenth century saw the region at the cutting edge of Europe. At Auxerre a definitive account of space as illusion took shape, and at Semur-en-Auxois a theatre of stone clambered aboard the church. Moreover, the patrons invested heavily in glass. No thirteenth-century church was without it and most have retained it, blazing the interior with a heady combination of light, meaning and colour. This sublime vigour even continued into the later middle ages, where under the Valois dukes of Burgundy Dijon became a major artistic centre, attracting artists of the calibre of Rogier van der Weyden and Claus Sluter.
Itinerary Day 1. Take the Eurostar at c. 9.30am from London St Pancras to Paris and then onwards by TGV (high-speed train) to Mâcon. Continue by coach to Tournus where two nights are spent. Day 2: Cluny, Berzé-la-Ville, Tournus. Cluny is the site of the largest church and most powerful monastery in mediaeval France. Study the magnificent remains of the church and monastic buildings. The tiny chapel at Berzé-la-Ville was perhaps built as the abbot of Cluny’s private retreat, and is embellished with superb wall paintings of c. 1100. At Tournus see the striking and influential early 11th-century monastery. Day 3: Beaune, Autun, Dijon. The 15thcentury Hôtel-Dieu in Beaune houses Rogier van der Weyden’s Last Judgement. The stalwart Romanesque church of Notre-Dame has fine tapestries. At Autun the cathedral of St Lazare is celebrated for its sublime sequence of Romanesque capitals and relief sculptures by Gislebertus. First of three nights in Dijon. Day 4: St Thibault, Semur-en-Auxois, Fontenay. The church of the market town of St Thibault has a 13th-cent. choir that is the most graceful Burgundian construction of the period. The fortified hill town of Semur-en-Auxois has a splendid Gothic collegiate church. The tranquil abbey of Fontenay is the earliest Cistercian church to survive and has an exceptionally wellpreserved monastic precinct. Day 5: Dijon. A day dedicated to Burgundy’s capital and one of the most attractive of French cities with many fine buildings from 11th to 18th centuries. St Bénigne has an ambitious early Romanesque crypt. Notre-Dame is a quite stunning early Gothic parish church. The palace of the Valois dukes now houses a museum with extensive collections of work from the period of their rule (1364–1477). Day 6: Saulieu, Avallon, Vézelay. Visit the Basilique St-Andoche in Saulieu, with carved capitals depicting flora, fauna and biblical stories. Drive north to Avallon, whose fine Romanesque
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Roman & Mediaeval Provence The south of France in the middle ages John McNeill Architectural historian and a specialist in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. He lectures at Oxford University’s Department of Continuing Education and is Honorary Secretary of the British Archaeological Association. Publications include the Blue Guide: Normandy, Blue Guide: Loire Valley and Romanesque and the Past. John McNeill also leads Normans in the South (page 152), Sicily (page 156), The Po Valley (page 130), West Country Churches (page 47) and The Road to Santiago (page 183). All lecturers’ biographies can be found on pages 8–15.
church is spectacularly situated above the river Cousin. Vézelay, a picturesque hill town whose summit is occupied by the abbey of La Madeleine, was one of the great pilgrimage centres of the Middle Ages, and has one of the most impressive of all 12th-century churches for both its architecture and its sculpture. First of two nights in Auxerre. Day 7: Auxerre. The morning includes the magnificent Carolingian crypt of St Germain and the cathedral, a pioneering 13th-century building with exceptional glass and sculpture. The afternoon is free. Day 8: Sens. The striking cathedral of Sens is among the earliest Gothic churches of Europe, housing important glass and an exquisitely carved 12th- and 13th-century west front. The diocesan museum also houses an extensive collection of Roman and mediaeval antiquities. Take the Eurostar from Paris arriving at London St Pancras c. 6.30pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,360 (deposit £250). Single supplement £320 (double for single occupancy). Price without Eurostar and TGV £2,170. Included meals: 6 dinners with wine.
Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Possible linking tours: Cave Art of France, 1–8 June 2015 (page 78), Art in Le Marche, 1–8 June 2015 (page 143), or Walking to Santiago, 2–13 June 2015 (page 184).
17–23 October 2014 (mb 174) 7 days • £2,110 Lecturer: Dr Alexandra Gajewski The many fine Roman remains had a decisive impact on mediaeval architecture and sculpture. Truly great secular buildings, including the papal palace at Avignon, and pre-eminent Romanesque churches. Led by Dr Alexandra Gajewski, specialist in mediaeval architecture. Based throughout at a 4-star hotel in Avignon. A natural setting of exceptional attractiveness. Famed for its natural beauty, its wealth of Augustan and second-century monuments, and the quality and ambition of its mediaeval work, Provence can seem the very essence of Mediterranean France. But its settlement was – historically – surprisingly concentrated, and the major Roman and mediaeval centres are clustered within the valleys of the Durance and Rhône. This is the area which was marked out for development in the first and second centuries ad, and the range and quantity of Roman work which survives at Orange, St-Rémy and Arles is impressive. Indeed, as one moves into the Late Antique period it is precisely this triangle which blossoms – and in Arles one is witness to the most significant Early Christian city of Mediterranean Gaul. This Roman infrastructure is fundamental, and the pre-eminent Romanesque churches of Provence may come as something of a surprise, being notable both for a predilection for sheer wall surfaces and an indebtedness to earlier
architectural norms. But it is above all the sculpture which is most susceptible to this sort of historicising impulse. The Romanesque sculpture of Provence is more skilfully and self-consciously antique than any outside central Italy, and is often organised in a manner designed to evoke either fourth-century sarcophagi, or Roman theatres and triumphal arches. The façade of St-Trophime at Arles is a well-known example of this, but it is a theme we also encounter in many of the smaller churches – places such as Pernes-les-Fontaines and Montmajour – where exquisite friezes of acanthus and vinescroll are used to both elaborate and articulate exteriors of stunning delicacy. For once the truly great late mediaeval buildings we see are secular – René d’Anjou’s superb donjon and château at Tarascon and, supremely, the mighty papal palace at Avignon.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 1.15pm (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Marseille. Drive to Avignon, where all six nights are spent. Day 2: Avignon. The Palais des Papes is the principal monument of the Avignon papacy, one-time site of the papal curia and by far the most significant 14th-century building to survive in southern France. The collections of late Gothic sculpture and painting in the Petit-Palais act as a splendid foil to the work at the papal palace, while the cathedral houses the magnificent tomb of Pope John XXII. Day 3: Pernes-les-Fontaines, Vaison, Venasque. Gentle stroll through Pernes, a delightful fortified river town with an important Romanesque church and 13th-century frescoed tower. At Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Accommodation. Hôtel Le Rempart, Tournus (lerempart.com): a 4-star hotel formerly a 15thcentury guard house, located on the ramparts of the town. Hostellerie du Chapeau Rouge, Dijon (chapeau-rouge.fr): a centrally located, comfortable 4-star hotel furnished to a high standard. Hôtel Le Parc des Maréchaux, Auxerre (leparcdesmarechaux.com): a 4-star hotel in a delightful 18th-century hôtel particulier.
Tarascon, René d’Anjou’s château, lithograph c. 1880.
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Roman & Mediaeval Provence continued
Provence & Languedoc Art & architecture in the Midi
1–10 October 2015 (mc 486) 10 days • £3,120 Lecturer: Dr Alexandra Gajewski
Vaison-la-Romaine the sublime late Romanesque cathedral is attached to a northern cloister. Drive in the late afternoon over the Dentelles de Montmirail to the stunning early mediaeval baptistery at Venasque.
Led by Dr Alexandra Gajewski, specialist in mediaeval architecture and resident of the Languedoc.
Day 4: Villeneuve, Orange, Tarascon, Pont-duGard. A day spent mostly within sight of the Rhône, beginning with Pope Innocent VI’s now ruined Charterhouse at Villeneuve-lez-Avignon. The day’s real star is Orange, site of the greatest of all Roman theatres to survive in the West. In the afternoon visit René d’Anjou’s mighty riverside château at Tarascon and that astonishing feat of engineering that brought water over the River Gardon at the Pont-du-Gard.
Fine Roman remains that had a decisive impact on mediaeval architecture and sculpture. Truly great secular buildings, including the papal palace at Avignon, and pre-eminent Romanesque churches. Superb modern art at the Musée Granet in Aix-en-Provence and at the Fine Arts Museum in Marseille.
Day 5: St-Rémy-de-Provence. Drive along the northern flank of the Alpilles to St-Rémy-deProvence, Glanum of old, and proud possessor of one of the truly great funerary memorials of the Roman world, the cenotaph erected by three Julii brothers in honour of their forebears. Free time.
A natural setting of exceptional attractiveness.
Day 6: Montmajour, Arles. Explore the superlative complex of churches, cemeteries and conventual buildings that once constituted the abbey of Montmajour. In Arles the amphitheatre is a justly famous early 2nd-century structure of a type developed from the Colosseum. The Romanesque Cathedral of St-Trophime is home to one of the greatest cloisters of 12th-century Europe. The Musée Départmental Arles Antique houses a quite spellbinding collection of classical and early Christian art. Day 7: Silvacane, Aix-en-Provence. At Silvacane, a major late-12th-century Cistercian abbey, the monastic buildings descend a series of terraces down to the River Durance. Finally visit Aix, where the cathedral provides an enthralling end to the tour, with its extraordinary juxtaposition of Merovingian baptistery, Romanesque cloister, 13th-century chancel and late mediaeval west front. Fly from Marseille, arriving at London Heathrow at c. 5.45pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,110 (deposit £200). Single supplement £240 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,960. Included meals: 4 dinners with wine.
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Accommodation. Hôtel Cloître Saint Louis (cloitre-saint-louis.com) is a 4-star hotel in Avignon in a converted 16th-century convent. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: The Endellion String Quartet, 24–26 October 2014 (page 56).
Avignon, mid-20th-century etching. book online at www.martinrandall.com
The picture of Mediterranean France as an exotic land subject to a wide range of foreign influences is borne out by a glance at the region’s complex history. This tour traces the wide-ranging influences on Provence and eastern Languedoc throughout the centuries. Provence was the first province established by the Romans outside Italy and impressive Roman work survives at Nîmes, St-Rémy and Arles. In Arles, as one moves into Late Antiquity, one is also witness to the most significant Early Christian city of Mediterranean Gaul. This Roman infrastructure is fundamental, and the pre-eminent Romanesque churches of Provence may come as something of a surprise. The sculpture is more skilfully and selfconsciously antique than any outside central Italy, and is often organised in a manner designed to evoke either fourth-century sarcophagi or Roman theatres and triumphal arches. The Italian connection was strengthened when, for much of the fourteenth century, the papacy came to reside in Avignon, one of the loveliest cities in France. We spend five nights here. The complete circuit of walls is an impressive survival from this time, as is the Palais des Papes, perhaps the finest Palace to have survived from the Middle Ages, and several Gothic churches. Despite the upheavals of the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when Provence lost its independence and the whole region was riven by religious wars, local patrons, such as the Duke of Uzès, began to employ artists capable of creating Italian Renaissance motifs. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, at Nimes and Aix, Parisian Baroque architecture became the dominant model. The intensity of the light, the brightness of the colours and the raw beauty of the Midi purified palettes, dissolved form and changed the course of western art. Van Gogh and Gauguin sojourned in Arles in 1888, Cézanne returned to his birthplace, Aix-en-Provence, in 1886. Signac, Matisse, Derain, Marquet, Camoin, Dufy, Bonnard and Braque also set up in productive propinquity along the coast and their art has remained in the region’s collections. Time is spent in Aix, the attractive old capital of Provence and the new capital, Marseille,
Aix-en-Provence, Cathedral of St Sauveur, watercolour by A.H. Hallam Murray, publ. 1904.
handsome and vibrant and at times gritty. Oscillating between small provincial town and big city, Marseille was propelled into the 21st century by Norman Foster, Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid who all contributed to the civic improvements and architecturally striking new museums for its year as European Capital of Culture in 2013.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 1.15pm (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Marseille. Drive to Aix-enProvence for two nights. Day 2: Aix-en-Provence. Morning walk through the old town, including the Cathedral of St Sauveur with 5th-cent. baptistry, cloisters and a 15th-cent. triptych of The Burning Bush by Nicolas Froment. The Musée Granet has a good permanent collection of French painting from the 16th-cent. onwards and a room dedicated to works by Cézanne. Cézanne’s studio remains as he left it on his death in 1906, and a short drive away is a fine view of the Mont Sainte-Victoire, the most recognisable motif in modern art. Overnight Aix-en-Provence. Day 3: Les Baux, St Rémy. Morning walk through the delightful mediaeval and Renaissance town of Les Baux, whose citadel sits on top of a rocky spur in the Alpilles. Continue to St Rémy, Glanum of old, and proud possessor of one of the truly great funerary memorials of the Roman world, the cenotaph erected by three Julii brothers in honour of their forebears. See also the former monastery where Van Gogh was hospitalised, including the Romanesque cloister and scenes that he painted. Continue to Avignon for the first of five nights. Day 4: Avignon. The Palais des Papes is the principal monument of the Avignon papacy, one-time site of the papal curia and by far the most significant 14th-cent. building to survive in southern France. The collections of late Gothic sculpture and painting in the Petit-Palais act as a splendid foil to the work at the papal palace, while the cathedral houses the magnificent tomb of Pope John XXII.
developed from the Colosseum. The Romanesque Cathedral of St-Trophime is home to one of the greatest cloisters of 12th-cent. Europe. During his 15 months residing in Arles, Van Gogh created around 200 paintings and the Van Gogh Foundation, opened in April 2014, presents a small selection alongside works by contemporary artists (dependent on changing exhibitions). The Musée Départmental Arles Antique houses a quite spellbinding collection of classical and early Christian art. Overnight Avignon. Day 8: Villeneuve-lez-Avignon, Marseille. In the morning see Pope Innocent VI’s now ruined Charterhouse at Villeneuve-lez-Avignon and the Musée Pierre de Luxembourg, displaying works from the 14th–17th cents. in a former Cardinal’s palace. Continue to Marseille. Visit first the Basilique St Victor, which has a 5th-cent. crypt. First of two nights in Marseille.
Day 6: Nîmes, Uzès, Pont du Gard. Nîmes has two of the most famous of Roman monuments: the amphitheatre and the Maison Carrée, a perfectly preserved temple. The Jardin de la Fontaine is a beautiful 18th-cent. garden around the terminus of an aqueduct – the water brought here across the Pont du Gard, an astonishing feat of engineering over the River Gardon. The Romanesque tower of Uzès cathedral sits against a backdrop of picturesque mediaeval streets and baroque houses. Overnight Avignon.
Day 9: Marseille. Morning walk through the Vieux Port and Panier districts, including the remains of the city’s ancient Greek then Roman port at the Jardin des Vestiges and La Vieille Charité, 17–18th cent. almshouses with a fine Baroque chapel. The Musée des Docks Romains illustrates the importance of Marseille in Mediterranean maritime trade. In the afternoon visit the Musée des Beaux Arts, where the highlight is a fine collection of 19th-cent. French art.
Day 7: Arles. The amphitheatre at Arles is a justly famous early 2nd-cent. structure of a type
Day 10: Marseille. Free morning. Suggestions include the modern and contemporary collections
Practicalities Price: £3,120 (deposit £200). Single supplement £460 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,980. Included meals: 7 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Grand Hotel Roi René, Aix-enProvence (mgallery.com): 4 star, centrally located. Hôtel Cloître Saint Louis, Avignon (cloitre-stlouis.com): 4 star hotel in a converted 16thcent. convent. Grand Hotel Beauvau, Marseille (mgallery.com): 4 star in the old port area with sea views. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur, 22–29 September 2015 (page 81).
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Day 5: Pernes-les-Fontaines, Vaison, Venasque. Gentle stroll through Pernes, a delightful fortified river town with an important Romanesque church and 13th-cent. frescoed tower. Continue over the Dentelles de Montmirail to the stunning early mediaeval baptistery at Venasque. Free afternoon in Avignon.
of the Musée Cantini or the new Musée des Civilisations d’Europe et de la Méditerranée, containing collections previously at the former Musée des Arts et Traditions Populaires in Paris. Fly from Marseille, arriving at London Heathrow at c. 5.45pm.
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Cave Ar t of France Prehistory in the Dordogne
more than a century of research, we still only know about 400 such sites in Eurasia, and only a small fraction of these are open to the public, because of difficulties of access or conservation concerns. As such, they constitute a very limited and finite resource, and yet visitors can approach these original masterpieces extremely closely, an experience unparalleled in major art galleries. Unlike a visit to the Louvre or the Prado, in entering a cave you are seeing the images precisely where they were created, you are standing or crouching just where the artists did. In many cases the journey to the cave entrance and the route through the chambers give your experience a sense of immediacy, purity and vividness. Entering a world far removed from one of commerce, of art-dealers and of critics enhances a feeling of connection with the artists. There is nothing like a stalactite dripping on your head to remind you that you are in a pristine and natural setting.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 7.00pm (British Airways) from London Gatwick to Bordeaux. Overnight in Bordeaux. Day 2: Bordeaux, Pair-non-Pair. The Musée d’Aquitaine provides a perfect introduction to the archaeology and art of the Ice Age in southwest France; a particular highlight is the ‘Venus of Laussel’ bas-relief carving. The cave of Pairnon-Pair is small but filled with wonderfully deep engravings of animals – and with no electrical installations provides a more authentic experience. Continue into the Dordogne to Les Eyzies for four nights. Day 3: Les Eyzies. The National Prehistory Museum, now housed in an ultra-modern building at the foot of the cliffs, has one of the world’s greatest collections of Ice Age material. In addition to the wealth of stone and bone tools, there is fantastic jewellery and portable art objects, as well as the finds from the cave of Lascaux. Font-de-Gaume is one of the greatest of all Ice Age decorated caves, with remarkable polychrome bison and other animals, skilfully placed to take full advantage of the rock shapes. Cap Blanc is the greatest sculpted frieze from the Ice Age that is open to the public.
Pyrenean landscape, wood engraving c. 1890.
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8–15 June 2015 (mb 355) 8 days • £2,680 Lecturer: Dr Paul Bahn This tour encompasses some of the most important Prehistoric caves in Europe including Lascaux II, Pech Merle and Niaux. Great art, whatever its function or the ‘artist’s’ intention, in an area of outstanding natural beauty with charming villages. Led by Britain’s leading specialist in Prehistoric art, Dr Paul Bahn.
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Visiting the Ice Age decorated caves of Europe may be a pilgrimage, in homage to the region’s
artists of 30,000–10,000 years ago, or it may simply be curiosity. But while one’s interest may have been triggered by books, television or lectures, there is simply no substitute for seeing the sites themselves, some of humankind’s greatest artistic achievements in their unusual, evocative and original settings. In addition, the caves of the Perigord and Quercy are in regions of outstanding beauty, famed for their wine and cuisine. Four nights are spent in the capital of Prehistory, Les Eyzies, a village filled and surrounded by famous Ice Age dwellings, its spectacular limestone cliffs giving it one of the most beautiful and striking landscapes in the world. Whatever your motivation or interest, a visit to an Ice Age cave is a tremendous privilege. After
book online at www.martinrandall.com
Day 4: Lascaux II. The extremely accurate facsimile of Lascaux II is now the public’s only chance to see the wonders of the most famous and most beautiful of all decorated caves. The park at Le Thot contains many of the animal species which were familiar to Ice Age people: aurochs, bison, horses, deer and ibex, as well as a robotic mammoth. Rouffignac is a unique experience; a decorated tunnel-like cave so vast that one travels around it in a train. Its art is hugely dominated by drawings of mammoths. The Abri Pataud is the best possible way to see what a major Ice Age excavation site looks like, while the small museum next door still has a carving on its ceiling. Overnight Les Eyzies. Day 5: Beynac, Cougnac. Perched high above the river and with breathtaking views of the
Gardens of the Riviera In & around Menton & Nice surrounding landscape Beynac Castle is an impressive mediaeval fortress; see the bedroom of Richard the Lionheart. The Grotte de Cougnac is one of the most beautiful of all decorated caves, not only for its art, but also and especially for its natural formations of stalagmites and stalactites. Day 6: Pech Merle, Cahors, Toulouse. Pech Merle is among the greatest of the decorated caves. It is huge and has spectacular natural formations and a wide variety of artistic techniques, including the famous spotted horse panel. Some free time is spent in Cahors on route to Toulouse, where two nights are spent. Day 7: Niaux, Toulouse. The tour ends with Niaux, a fitting climax as the long walk into this Pyrenean mountain leads one to the ‘Salon Noir’ with its stunning drawings of bison, horses and ibex, and its extraordinary acoustics. The afternoon is free in Toulouse; suggestions include the Musée Saint-Raymond and the cathedral. Day 8. Catch the late morning flight to London Heathrow, arriving c. 12.20pm. Note that this tour departs from Gatwick and returns to Heathrow.
Practicalities Price: £2,680 (deposit £250). Single supplement £360 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,490. Included meals: 1 lunch, 4 dinners with wine.
18–24 March 2015 (mb 270) 7 days • £2,140 Lecturer: Caroline Holmes Inspiring historic gardens in spectacular settings, with exceptional growing conditions. Includes visits to some gardens not normally open to the public. Led by gardens expert Caroline Holmes. Based in Menton throughout. When Tobias Smollett arrived on the Riviera in 1763, he found himself ‘enchanted’ by a landscape ‘all cultivated like a garden’. A century later Dr Bennett’s discovery of the miraculous winter climate at Menton established the town as a haven for prosperous foreigners in need of climatic therapy. By 1900 this narrow strip of land between the Maritime Alps and the Mediterranean had been transformed into a paradise of villas, palatial hotels, seafront promenades and exotic vegetation. The migratory nature of the moneyed population meant that the region developed a character quite separate from local cultural traditions. In a landscape of olive and lemon groves, the villa gardens seem an eclectic collection, disconcerting for those who look for patterns of continuity, but best viewed as separate incidents taking advantage of the exceptional
growing conditions. The Hanbury family famously made the steep Italian cliffs of La Mortola a garden of beauty and experiment. Lawrence Johnston, the maker of Hidcote, established himself in the hills above Menton where his romantically sited garden at La Serre de la Madone provided a home for his huge collection of exotics. The gardens of the villas in Garavan continue to evince the private pleasures of past and present owners of many nationalities and design persuasions. The French have added their own distinctive contribution to this artificial enclave. Renoir found new inspiration, as well as some relief from pain, in his garden at Cagnes-sur-Mer. Marguerite and Aimé Maeght established a magnificent modern art collection in a garden setting at St-Paul-de-Vence. Art of a different character adorns the rooms of the Villa Ephrussi Rothschild at St Jean-Cap-Ferrat where the gardens take advantage of an incomparable setting, viewing the Mediterranean through a filter of pines, palms and cypresses. Charles, Vicomte de Noailles, made a garden drawing together a rich variety of cultural influences at the Villa Noailles, looking out over the wooded hills near Grasse.
Itinerary Day 1: Cagnes-sur-Mer, Menton. Fly at c. 12.00 noon from Gatwick to Nice (British Airways). Renoir spent his last years in the farmhouse at
Accommodation. Best Western Etche-Ona, Bordeaux (bordeaux-hotel.com): a central 3-star hotel with renovated rooms. Hotel Le Centenaire, Les Eyzies (hotelducentenaire.com) a small 3-star hotel in a good location. Grand Hotel de l’Opéra, Toulouse (grand-hotel-opera.com) a central 4-star hotel in a converted 17th-century convent, set back from the Place du Capitole; good Brasserie. Group size: between 10 and 19 participants. Combine this tour with: Flanders Fields, 4–7 June 2015 (page 27), Ardgowan, 18–23 June 2015 (page 182).
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French Riviera, watercolour by Donald Maxwell, publ. 1932. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Gardens of the Riviera continued
Les Collettes near Cagnes-sur-Mer, painting and sculpting from the olive terraces around the little garden. Transfer by coach to Menton where all six nights are spent.
bougainvillea, perfumed parterres, pergolas, exotic pavilions and citrus orchards adorn this garden paradise on a private headland.
Day 2: Menton. Lawrence Johnston’s great garden La Serre de la Madone was made between the wars, and though much of the detail has gone, a romantic atmosphere still pervades the dramatic layout. The garden at Clos du Peyronnet is still owned by an Englishman who continues to develop it, blending plants from around the world in a setting of terraces, pools and pergolas.
‘Caroline Holmes was the perfect lecturer and guide – hugely knowledgeable with an intimate knowledge of each garden visited.’
Day 3: St Jean-Cap-Ferrat. Still a secluded haven for the fortunate, the gardens at the Villa Ephrussi Rothschild, established by Beatrice de Rothschild, are rich and varied, and take full advantage of the exceptional position. The house contains a varied art collection. Les Cèdres is a great forest of exotic planting around a luxurious house built for Leopold III of Belgium and landscaped by Harold Peto. Four generations of the present owner’s family have brought the garden to its state of magnificent maturity. Day 4: Monaco, La Mortola (Italy). The astonishing outdoor collection of cacti and succulents at the Jardin Exotique in Monaco overlooks the Principality and the sea from its clifftop walks. The Hanbury Botanic Gardens at La Mortola have been famous since their establishment in the 19th century. An unparalleled collection of specimens festoon the steep site. Curtains of plumbago and
Day 5: Menton. Perched on the hillside villa quarter of Garavan, Val Rahmeh is an early 20th-century villa surrounded by gardens of exceptional richness created by Maybud Campbell in the 1950s. Optional visit to Fontana Rosa whose tiled benches still evoke the ‘Writers’ Garden’ created in 1921 by Vicente Blasco Ibaňez, successful playwright and novelist of Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse fame. Literary threads are drawn in from across the world, the surviving rotunda decorated with 100 tiles illustrating Cervantes’s Don Quixote encapsulates the mood perfectly. Alternatively spend some independent time in Menton; a chance to see the Musée Cocteau or his Salle des Mariages. Day 6: Grasse, St-Paul-de-Vence. The gardens of the Villa Noailles were made during the postwar years in a distinctive style blending English, classical and other influences in a refreshing rural setting. The Fondation Maeght near St-Paul
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Nice, steel engraving c. 1860. book online at www.martinrandall.com
provides a rare opportunity to view modernism in a garden context. There is a remarkable collection of paintings and sculpture. Day 7: Menton, Nice. Visit a private garden in Menton, not normally open to the public (details will be provided). Transfer to Nice for some free time in the old town before the flight to London Gatwick, arriving at c. 5.00pm. Some of these gardens can only be visited by special arrangement and the order of visits may vary. A couple are subject to confirmation.
Practicalities Price: £2,140 (deposit £250). Upgrade to sea view £90 per room (shared room). Single supplement £210 (double room for single occupancy), with sea view £290. Price without flights £1,970. Included meals: 1 light lunch and 5 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Napoléon, Menton (napoleon-menton.com), a modern and comfortable 4-star hotellocated near the border with Italy. Sea view rooms have balconies but suffer some noise from the busy coastal road. Rooms at the rear are quieter. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Possible linking tours: Granada & Córdoba, 9–16 March 2015 (page 199).
Modern Ar t on the Côte d’Azur Christmas departure: 20–27 December 2014 (mb 219) 8 days • £3,110 Lecturer: Monica Bohm Duchen
Antibes, oiliograph c. 1870.
17–24 March 2015 (mb 256) 8 days • £2,540 Lecturer: Mary Lynn Riley 22–29 September 2015 (mc 434) 8 days • £2,680 Lecturer: Lydia Bauman Europe’s greatest concentration of classic modern art in the idyllic Mediterranean setting where it was created. Old and new collections, with outstanding work by Renoir, Bonnard, Braque, Léger, Miró, Giacometti, Cocteau, Chagall, Matisse, Picasso. The lecturers are experts on 19th- and 20thcentury art. Visits to the coastal towns and villages which inspired the artists. Stay in Nice throughout.
Itinerary
The Maeght Foundation at St-Paul-de-Vence is renowned for its collections (Picasso, Hepworth, Miró, Arp, Giacometti – not all works are shown at once) and for its architecture and setting.
Day 1: Nice. Fly at c. 12.00 midday (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Nice. There is an afternoon visit to the Musée des Beaux Arts Jules Cheret, concentrating on their 19th- and early 20th-century holdings.
Day 7: Villefranche, Menton. In Villefranche is the small Chapelle St-Pierre, decorated by Cocteau. Along the coast to Menton, the last French town before Italy, is a new Cocteau museum (opened in 2011) and the Salle des Mariages, also painted by Cocteau.
Day 2: Nice, Vence. The Marc Chagall Museum has the largest collection of the artist’s works, notably the seventeen canvases of the Biblical Message, set in a peaceful garden in a salubrious Nice suburb. At Vence see the Chapel of the Rosary, designed and decorated by Matisse. Renoir’s house at Cagnes-sur-Mer is set amidst olive groves, a memorial to the only major Impressionist to settle in the south. Day 3: Antibes, Vallauris. Most of the paintings Picasso produced in his studio in the Château Grimaldi in 1946 have been donated to the town of Antibes. Vallauris is a centre of contemporary pottery revived by Picasso, whose masterpiece War and Peace is here. Day 4: St-Tropez, Biot. Drive west to St-Tropez, which has been popular with artists since Paul Signac settled here in 1892. The Musée de l’Annonciade is one of France’s finest collections of modern art (Signac, Maillol, Matisse, Bonnard, Vlaminck, Braque). Continue to Biot and visit the Musée National Fernand Léger, built to house the artist’s works bequeathed to his wife. Day 5: Le Cannet, Nice. The first museum dedicated to the works of Bonnard opened in Le Cannet in 2011. The afternoon is free in Nice or there is an optional visit to the Musée d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain with its excellent collection of post-war art. Day 6: Cap Ferrat, St-Paul-de-Vence. Drive east to St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat to see the paintings, sculpture and furniture of the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild, a mansion set in attractive gardens.
Day 8: Nice. The Musée Matisse unites a wide range of the artist’s work; sculpture, ceramics, stained glass as well as painting. Fly from Nice arriving at London Heathrow at c. 5.00pm. In recent years, renovation work has led to museum closures. At the moment all visits listed are possible but we cannot rule out the possibility of changes.
Practicalities Price: £3,110 (Christmas), £2,540 (March), £2,680 (Sept.) (deposit £300 (Christmas), £250 (March, September)). Single supplement £390 (Christmas), £250 (March), £380 (September) (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,820 (Christmas), £2,310 (March, September). Included meals: 5 dinners with wine. Accommodation (Christmas). Hotel La Pérouse (leshotelsduroy.com/en/hotel-la-perouse) is a stylish 4-star hotel partially built into the cliff and overlooking the Promenade des Anglais.
france
Natural resources and climate have drawn invaders and visitors to Nice and its surroundings from the Greek colonists of classical times to the jet-set of today. But from the late nineteenth century a special category of visitor – and settler – has transformed the Côte d’Azur into the greatest concentration of modern art in Europe. Monet first visited Antibes in 1883; Signac bought a house in the fishing village of St-Tropez in 1892. Matisse’s first visit to the Midi in 1904 transformed his art, and from 1918 he spent more time on the Côte d’Azur than in Paris. Matisse, Chagall and Picasso are merely among the most illustrious of the artists who chose to live in the South of France. Many of their fellow modernisers followed suit: Braque, Bonnard, Dufy, Picabia. This tour is an extraordinary opportunity to see how modernity relates to the past as well as the present, and how gallery displays can be centred on the art, the location or the patron/collector. In Matisse’s Chapelle du Rosaire at Vence, traditional arts and crafts have been revived by a modern genius, as in the monumental mosaic and glass designs of Léger which can be seen at Biot. There are also echoes of collecting habits of earlier eras in the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild. The mixture of past and present and the juxtaposition of the Goût Rothschild with the beauty of its location are breathtaking. (Graham Sutherland drew exotic flowers and plants in the extraordinary gardens.) At Antibes the Picasso Museum is housed in the Château Grimaldi, lent to Picasso as studio space in 1946 where he produced life-affirming paintings. Old and new galleries abound, such as the Fondation Maeght, St-Paul-de-Vence, whose building (designed by José Luis Sert, 1963) makes it a work of outstanding sympathy to its natural
surroundings, in gardens enlivened by Miró’s Labyrinthe and other sculptures.
Accommodation (March, September). Hotel Le Beau Rivage (hotelnicebeaurivage.com), a modern 4-star located in Nice’s old town, a very short walk from the Promenade des Anglais. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
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Opera in Marseille & Lyon Puccini, Gluck, Schreker
Floria Tosca, herself a famous diva. This is a new production by Louis Desiré. In Lyon see Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, one of the most important pieces in operatic history. Premiered in Vienna in 1762, it is the first in his series of ‘reform operas’, which sought to replace the complexities and conventions of opera seria with a more direct and realistic form of musical storytelling. For many generations Glück’s operas were much more familiar to musical historians than to audiences, but in recent decades opera houses have rediscovered their beauty and emotional force, a process accelerated by the tercentenary of the composer’s birth in 2014. This production by the young Hungarian director David Marton, known for his innovative work in both the spoken and musical theatre, promises an intriguing new take on this archetypal narrative. By comparison with the other two operas in the programme, Schreker’s Die Gezeichneten (the title may be loosely translated as ‘The Stigmatised’) is a real rarity, but one eminently worthy of rediscovery. Franz Schreker was one of the leading opera composers in the Vienna of Mahler and Strauss, and arguably only his Jewish ancestry – which led to his music being banned in 1933, a year before his untimely death – prevented him from achieving a greater worldwide reputation in his lifetime. Die Gezeichneten was based, like Berg’s Lulu, on a play by Frank Wedekind and premiered in Frankfurt in 1918. Its central role – the hunchbacked but altruistic nobleman, Alviano Salvago, whose true beauty of soul is perceived by the beautiful young female painter, Carlotta – is a tour de force for tenor, sung here by the American Charles Workman.
Itinerary
Orpheus & Eurydice, engraving c. 1880 after the painting by G.F. Watts (1817–1904).
17–21 March 2015 (mb 257) 5 days • £2,080 (including tickets to 3 performances) Lecturer: Dr Michael Downes france
In Marseille: Tosca with Adina Aaron, Giorgio Berrugi and Carlos Almaguer. In Lyon: Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice conducted by Enrico Onofri and Schreker’s Die Gezeichneten with Charles Workman. The lecturer is Dr Michael Downes, director of music at the University of St Andrews.
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Marseille and Lyon are two fine French cities becoming increasingly renowned on the international opera scene, attracting performers of the highest calibre. Marseille is handsome, vibrant and at times gritty. Oscillating between small provincial town and large city, it was
propelled into the twenty-first century by Norman Foster, Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid who all contributed to the civic improvements and architecturally striking new museums for its year as European Capital of Culture in 2013. France’s second city by size, Lyon was the most important city in Roman Gaul and boasts substantial remains, a delightful old town and significant museums such as the Musée des Beaux Arts and the Textile Museum (it was – and remains – the leading producer of luxury silk cloth). If Marseille can be described as both vibrant and gritty, then the opera we see there shares some of the same characteristics. Set in Rome at the turn of the nineteenth century its lurid plot – including torture, murder and suicide – has led some critics to doubt its merits (the late Joseph Kerman famously dismissed it as a ‘shabby little shocker’). However, audiences have invariably appreciated its dramatic power and the thrilling arias Puccini composed for the title character,
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Day 1: Marseille. Fly at c. 11.15am (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Marseille. Visit the recently renovated Musée des Beaux Arts in the 19th-cent. Palais Longchamp where the highlight is a fine collection of 19th-century French art. First of two nights in Marseille. Day 2: Marseille. Morning lecture. A walk in the Old Port area with a local guide includes the remains of the city’s ancient Greek then Roman port at the Jardin des Vestiges and La Vieille Charité, 17–18th cent. almshouses with a fine Baroque chapel. Free afternoon before the evening performance at the Opéra de Marseille: Tosca (Puccini) Fabrizio Maria Carminati (conductor), Louis Désiré (director), Adina Aaron (Tosca), Giorgio Berrugi (Mario Cavaradossi), Carlos Almaguer (Scarpia). Day 3: Lyon. Catch a morning TGV train (first class) from Marseille to Lyon (c. 2 hours), arriving in time for lunch and an afternoon lecture. Evening performance at the Opéra de Lyon: Orfeo ed Euridice (Glück), Enrico Onofri (conductor), David Marton (director), Christopher Ainslie/Franz Mazura (Orfeo), Elena Galitskaya (Euridice). First of two nights in Lyon. Day 4: Lyon. Morning lecture. Visit the alleys and Renaissance courtyards of Vieux Lyon, including the Cathédrale St Jean, with a local guide. Free afternoon, perhaps to visit the Fine Arts Museum.
Music in Berlin at New Year Dr Michael Downes
29 Dec. 2014–4 Jan. 2015 (mb 224) 7 days • £3,380 (including tickest to 5 performances) Lecturer: Tom Abbott
Director of Music at the University of St Andrews. He is a reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement and his publications include a study of British composer Jonathan Harvey. He has an interest in opera both as conductor and writer, and has lectured for companies including the Royal Opera and Glyndebourne.
Includes tickets to five performances: L’elisir d’amore (Donizetti); Swan Lake (Tchaikovsky); The Barber of Seville (Rossini); concert with the Berlin Philharmonic and Menahem Pressler (piano), conducted by Sir Simon Rattle; concert with the Staatskapelle Berlin and Lisa Batiashvili (violin), conducted by Daniel Barenboim.
All lecturers’ biographies can be found on pages 8–15.
Numerous excellent collections of fine and decorative arts and first-rate architecture.
Installed in a monumental 18th-cent convent, it is one of the more important French provincial galleries. Evening performance at the Opéra de Lyon: Die Gezeichneten (Schreker), Alejo Perez (conductor), David Boesch (director), Charles Workman (Alviano), Magdalena Anna Hofmann (Carlotta), Simon Neal (Tamare), Markus Marquardt (Duc Adorno), Michael Eder (Podestà Nardi).
A day excursion to Potsdam to see Frederick the Great’s Sanssouci.
metropolis. The two halves have been knitted together and cleaning and repair have revealed the patrimony of historic architecture to be among the finest in Central Europe. The art collections, formerly split, dispersed and often housed in temporary premises, are now coming together in magnificently restored or newly-built galleries. Berlin possesses international art and antiquities of the highest importance, as well as incomparable collections of German art. The number and variety of museums and the quality of their holdings make Berlin among the world’s most desired destinations for art lovers. With three major opera houses and several orchestras, Berlin is a city where truly outstanding performances can be virtually guaranteed.
Berlin Staatsoper, an early 19th-century engraving.
Day 5. Take the lunchtime flight to London Heathrow, arriving c. 1.15pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,080 (deposit £200). Single supplement £340 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,940. Included meals: 1 lunch and 3 dinners with wine. Music: tickets (first category) for 3 operas are included, costing c. £190. Tickets are not confirmed until July 2014. Accommodation. Grand Hotel Beauvau, Marseille (mgallery.com): a comfortable 4-star hotel with traditional décor, near the old port and the opera house. Hotel Le Royal, Lyon (lyonhotelleroyal.com): a stylish 5-star hotel, well situated on the Presqu’île. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Ballet in Paris, 11–15 March 2015 (page 70).
Early summer 2015 Details available in autumn 2014 Contact us to register your interest
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 12.30pm from London Heathrow to Berlin Tegel (British Airways). An orientation tour by coach passes landmarks such as the Reichstag, Brandenburg Gate, Pariser Platz and Unter den Linden. Visit the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. Day 2. A morning walk passes some fine 18thcentury buildings including the arsenal, opera house, royal palaces and cathedrals, en route to the ‘Museums Island’, a group of major museum buildings. Visit the Alte Nationalgalerie which superbly displays European painting of the 19th century including the finest collection of German Romantics. Then walk through the oldest part of the city, the Nikolaiviertel. Free afternoon. Evening concert at the Philharmonie: Berlin Philharmonic, Sir Simon Rattle (conductor), Menahem Pressler (piano): Rameau, Suite from ‘Les Indes Galantes’; Mozart, Piano Concerto in A, K.488; Kodály, ‘Háry János Suite’ (Excerpts); Dvořák, ‘Slavonic Dances’ (Selection). Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
georgia, germany
Georgia
Berlin possesses some of the finest art galleries and museums in the world and offers the highest standards of music and opera performance. It is endowed with a range of historic architecture and is the site of Europe’s greatest concentration of first-rate contemporary architecture. Once again a national capital, it is also one of the most exciting cities on the Continent, recent and rapid changes pushing through a transformation without peacetime parallel. One of the grandest capitals in Europe for the first forty years of the last century, it then suffered appallingly from aerial bombardment and Soviet artillery. For the next forty years it was cruelly divided into two parts and became the focus of Cold War antagonism, a bizarre confrontation between an enclave of western libertarianism and hard-line Communism. Since the Wall was breached in 1989 the city has been transformed beyond recognition. From being a largely charmless urban expanse still bearing the scars of war, it has become a vibrant, liveable city, the very model of a modern major
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Music in Berlin at New Year continued
Day 3, New Years Eve. Excursion to Potsdam which in the 18th century developed into Brandenburg-Prussia’s second capital and acquired fine buildings, parks and gardens. Sanssouci, created as a retreat from the affairs of state by Frederick the Great, is among the finest 18th-century complexes of gardens, palaces and pavilions to be found anywhere. Visit his single-storey palace atop terraces of fruit trees, the Chinese Tea House and the orangery, and see the city centre with its Dutch Quarter and NeoClassical buildings. Return to Berlin for some free time before a performance at the Deutsche Oper: L’Elisir d’Amore (Donizetti), Nicholas Carter (conducter), Irina Brook (director), Seth Carico (Dulcamara), Davide Luciano (Belcore), Dimitri Pittas (Nemorino), Olga Peretyatko (Adina), Alexandra Hutton (Giannetta). Day 4, New Year’s Day. Visit the Jewish Museum in the celebrated and expressive building by Daniel Libeskind. Ballet at the Deutsche Oper: Swan Lake (Tchaikovsky). Cast to be confirmed. Day 5. Schloss Charlottenburg, the earliest major building in Berlin, is an outstanding Baroque and Rococo palace with splendid interiors. Free afternoon before an evening at the Staatsoper im
Schiller Theatre: The Barber of Seville (Rossini), Domingo Hindoyan (conductor), Michele Angelini (Count Almaviva), Bruno de Simone (Bartolo), Katharina Kammerloher (Rosina), Jan Martiník (Basilio), Adriane Queiroz (Berta), Alfredo Daza (Figaro), Maximilian Krummen (Fiorillo), Florian Eckhardt (Ambrogio).
of Europe’s major collections of Old Masters. Potsdamer Platz, for 50 years an even greater expanse of wasteland, became in the 1990s Europe’s greatest building project with an array of international architects participating. Fly at c. 4.30pm, arriving at Heathrow at c. 5.30pm.
Day 6. Return to Museum Island to visit the Neues Museum, the stunning new home to the Egyptian Museum (among others), restored and recreated by British architect David Chipperfield. Also visit the Bode Museum, home to a splendid, comprehensive collection of European sculpture, including works by Riemenschneider, as well as Byzantine art. Concert at the Schiller Theater: Staatskapelle Berlin, Daniel Barenboim (conducter), Lisa Batiashvili (violin): Tchaikovsky, Violin Concerto in D, Op. 35; Debussy: ‘Ibéria’; ‘La Mer’. Dinner is in the roof-top restaurant in the Reichstag, with the opportunity to walk around Foster’s dome.
Practicalities
Day 7. Explore the ‘Kulturforum’, developed before 1989 on wasteland close to the Wall as the site for several major museums, the State Library and Philharmonie (concert hall by Hans Scharoun). Visit the Gemäldegalerie, one
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Berlin Royal Palace (demolished 1953, being rebuilt), engraving c. 1895. book online at www.martinrandall.com
Price: £3,380 (deposit £300). Single supplement £410. Price without flights £3,190. Included meals: 1 lunch, 5 dinners with wine Music: tickets for 5 performances are included costing c. £470. Tickets have been requested but are not confirmed until the summer. Accommodation. Regent Hotel (theregentberlin. de): an elegant hotel decorated in Regency style, close to Unter den Linden. Rooms are of a good size and excellent standard. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Music in Vienna at Christmas, 20–27 December 2014 (page 18) or Munich at Christmas, 20–27 December 2014 (page 94).
Berlin, Potsdam, Dresden
Art & architecture in Brandenburg & Saxony 7–15 September 2015 (mc 458) 9 days • £2,790 Lecturer: Dr Jarl Kremeier
Berlin, Unter den Linden, watercolour by E.T. Compton, publ. 1912.
Chief cities of Brandenburg-Prussia and Saxony, rich in fine and decorative arts. Internationally important historic and contemporary architecture. Rebuilding and restoration continues to transform the cities. Led by Dr Jarl Kremeier, an art historian specialising in 17th- to 19th-century architecture and decorative arts.
Itinerary Day 1: Dresden. Fly at c. 10.45am from London Heathrow to Berlin (British Airways) and drive to Dresden. Introductory lecture before dinner. First of four nights in Dresden. Day 2: Dresden. Take a walk around the old centre of Dresden. Visit the great domed Frauenkirche, the Protestant cathedral. The Zwinger is a unique Baroque confection, part pleasure palace, part arena for festivities and part museum for cherished collections. Visit the excellent porcelain museum and the fabulously rich Old Masters Gallery, particularly strong on Italian and Netherlandish painting. Day 3: Dresden. Start at the Hofkirche, the catholic church commissioned by Frederick Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, to counterbalance the building of the Frauenkirche. The Green Vault of the Residenzschloss displays one of the world’s finest princely treasuries. Some free time for independent exploration before an afternoon visit to the New Masters Gallery in the Albertinum. Day 4: Dresden, Pillnitz. Take a boat trip to Pillnitz, a summer palace in Chinese Rococo style, with park, gardens and collections of decorative art. Drive back to Dresden for an afternoon visit of the Palais im Großen Garten, the first major Baroque building in the city. Day 5: Dresden, Berlin. Stroll in DresdenNeustadt on the right bank of the Elbe, little damaged in the War, taking in amongst others the Baroque Quarter around Königsstrasse, a Japanese Palace and the Dresden Museum for Romanticism. After lunch travel to Berlin by coach. Survey the historic architecture along and around Unter den Linden: the Arsenal, Schinkel’s Guardhouse, Frederick the Great’s Opera House,
the Gendarmenmarkt with twin churches and concert hall. First of four nights in Berlin. Day 6: Berlin. Spend the morning on ‘Museums Island’: the Altes Museum, a major Neo-Classical building by Schinkel, displays the collection of Classical antiquities; the Alte Nationalgalerie houses an excellent collection of 19th-century paintings and sculptures; the Neues Museum (elaborately restored under the direction of British architect David Chipperfield) is the new home of the Egyptian Museum (famous for the bust of Nefertiti); the Bode Museum, houses a splendid, comprehensive collection of European sculpture, including works by Riemenschneider, as well as Byzantine art. Day 7: Potsdam. The enclosed park of Sanssouci was created as a retreat from the affairs of state by Frederick the Great. It consists of gardens, parkland, palaces, pavilions and auxiliary buildings. In the afternoon, visit his relatively modest single-storey palace atop terraces of fruit trees, the exquisite Chinese teahouse and the large and imposing Neues Palais. Drive through Potsdam town centre with its Dutch quarter and cathedral by Schinkel. Day 8. Berlin. Drive to Schloss Charlottenburg, the earliest major building in Berlin, an outstanding summer palace built with a Baroque core and Rococo wings, fine interiors, paintings by Watteau, extensive gardens, pavilions and a mausoleum. The Berggruen Collection of Picasso and classic modern art is also here and has recently reopened after extensive renovation works. In the evening visit Norman Foster’s glass dome capping the Reichstag and have dinner in the roof-top restaurant. Day 9: Berlin. In the 1990s Potsdamer Platz was Europe’s greatest building project and showcases an international array of architects (Piano, Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
germany
Berlin is an upstart among European cities. Until the seventeenth century it was a small town of little importance, but by dint of ruthless and energetic rule, backed by the military prowess for which it became a byword, the hitherto unimportant state of BrandenburgPrussia became one of the most powerful in Germany. By the middle of the eighteenth century, with Frederick the Great at the helm, it was successfully challenging the great powers of Europe. Ambitious campaigns were instituted to endow the capital with grandeur appropriate to its new status. Palaces, public buildings and new districts were planned and constructed. At nearby Potsdam, Frederick’s second capital, he created the park of Sanssouci, among the finest ensembles of gardens, palaces and pavilions to be found anywhere. Early in the nineteenth century Berlin became of international importance architecturally when Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the greatest of Neo-Classical architects, designed several buildings there. Berlin has museums of art and antiquities of the highest importance. The Pergamon Museum and Gemäldegalerie are among the best of their kind and the recently opened Neues Museum, designed by David Chipperfield, provides an excellent setting for the Egyptian collection. The reunited city is now one of the most exciting in Europe. A huge amount of work has been done to knit together the two halves of the city and to rebuild and restore monuments which had been neglected for decades. Dresden was the capital of the Electorate of Saxony. Though it suffered terrible destruction during the War, rebuilding and restoration allow the visitor to appreciate once again something of its former beauty. The great domed Frauenkirche has now been triumphantly reconstructed. Moreover, the collections of fine and applied arts are magnificent. The Old Masters Gallery in Dresden is of legendary richness, the Green Vault is the finest surviving treasury of goldwork and objets d’art, and the Albertinum reopened in 2010 to display a fine collection of nineteenth and twentieth-century art.
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Berlin, Potsdam, Dresden continued
The Iron Cur tain The Cold War & after
Isozaki, Rogers, Moneo). Scattered around the nearby ‘Kulturforum’ are museums, the State Library and the Philharmonie concert hall (Hans Scharoun 1956–63). The Gemäldegalerie houses one of Europe’s major collections of Old Masters. Choose between the Neue Nationalgalerie (changing exhibitions in a Mies van der Rohe building) or the Museum of Musical Instruments. Fly from Berlin to Heathrow, arriving c. 5.45pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,790 (deposit £250). Single supplement £310 (double room for sole occupancy). Price without flights £2,550. Included meals: 2 lunches, 5 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Radisson Blu Gewandhaus Hotel, Dresden (radissonblu.de): a traditional 5-star hotel in a reconstructed Baroque building. Regent Hotel, Berlin (theregentberlin.de): an elegant hotel decorated in Regency style, located close to Unter den Linden. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
Ar t & Music in Dresden May 2015 Details available in August 2014 Contact us to register your interest
Graz, photograph by G.F. Randall, October 1945.
7–21 September 2015 (mc 432) 15 days • £4,340 Lecturer: Neil Taylor A unique and exciting journey from the Baltic to the Adriatic.
germany
Criss-crosses between west and east, assessing the impact of the Iron Curtain on both sides while having time for the main sights.
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Led by Neil Taylor, a historian, writer and leading expert on the former communist world
Dresden, Hoftheater, by Paul Hey c. 1908.
The shape of post-war Europe was determined at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences in 1945 – unwittingly, to some extent, because the reality of division between East and West was much more profound, more brutal and more permanent than had been envisaged by the western leaders. A year later, when the Soviet Union was officially and popularly still the heroic ally in the victorious war against Hitler, Winston Churchill
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in his Fulton speech stated that an ‘Iron Curtain’ had descended across Europe; rarely has a statesman bestowed on language a phrase which was to have such widespread and potent use. Quite suddenly, and to most observers quite unexpectedly, the Iron Curtain vanished in the autumn of 1989. The barbed wire came down, minefields were cleared, watchtowers disarmed. But this removal of the physical barrier was merely symptomatic of profound changes in the lands behind the Iron Curtain, where governments and institutions collapsed and the lives of tens of millions of people were fundamentally changed. Soon free elections were held, Germany was united and market economics prevailed, binding ‘East’ Europe – which we have now learnt again to call Central Europe – to the rest of the free world. This tour is a study of one of the most fascinating and bizarre episodes in recent European history in the form of a thousand-mile journey through the heart of Europe from Lübeck on the Baltic to Trieste on
ducal palace (with picture collection), the ‘Herder’ church, the Bauhaus Museum and Goethe’s house. Continue south from Thuringia (E) to Bavaria (W). Overnight Coburg.
Halberstadt, Town Hall, watercolour by E.T. Compton, publ. 1912.
Lübeck
The designation after place names (W) or (E) refers to their location west or east of the Iron Curtain.
Hamburg
Day 9: Cesky Krumlov, Trebon. Drive through South Bohemia, a region of rolling hills, woods and lakes. Since the Middle Ages there had been a Germanspeaking majority in the area until they were expelled after the War. Visit the Baroque theatre at Cesky Krumlov (E) and continue to Trebon (E), a Bohemian town built around arcaded squares. Overnight Trebon.
Marienborn Halberstadt
Quedlinburg
G e r m a ny
Weimar
Coburg
Cheb Mariánské Lázne
c. 50 miles
Czech Republic Trebon Cesky Krumlov
Slovakia
Vienna Bratislava
Austria Graz
Switzerland Kobarid Trieste
Hun
g
C ro a t i a
Day 5: Quedlinburg, Halberstadt. In the Harz are some lovely and unspoilt small towns. The Romanesque church at Quedlinburg possesses a marvellous treasury, key pieces of which had been purloined by GIs and were returned some years ago. Visit the mediaeval town of Halberstadt (E). Overnight Quedlinburg. Day 6: Weimar. Remote from warring factions in the big cities and redolent of the great names of German culture (Bach, Goethe, Schiller, Liszt), Weimar (E) gave its name to the constitution which ineffectively governed Germany for 14 years after the First World War. There is free time in the afternoon: select from the
Day 10: Vienna, Bratislava. Enter Austria and cross the Danube for one of the briefest visits to Vienna (W) in the history of tourism. Visit Schloss Belvedere, built for Prince Eugene, occupied by Heir Apparent Archduke Franz Ferdinand (assassinated at Sarajevo in 1914), and scene of the 1955 treaty which saw the withdrawal of the Soviets from Austria. Drive to Bratislava (E) in Slovakia, the ‘youngest’ capital city in Europe. Overnight Bratislava. Day 11: Bratislava, Eszterháza. Bratislava (Pressburg), has a sequence of restored streets and squares but also retains something of a pre-1989 feel. Enter Hungary and visit the bridge at Andau, site of the escape of many Hungarian refugees through Austria to the West. Drive on to the great country palace of Esterháza (E), built by Prince Nicholas (Haydn’s employer). Overnight Sopron. Day 12: Sopron, Ják, Köszeg. There is some free time in Sopron (E), which has an attractive historic centre. Spend much of the day driving through Hungary close to the border, scene of the flight of 200,000 refugees after the 1956 uprising, stopping to visit the Romanesque church
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Venice
a eni
y
Italy
v
Sopron Esterhazá Koszeg Ják
ar
Day 4: Marienborn. Drive to Marienborn for a guided tour of the zonal border, here the marshalling yard of East-West traffic; though abandoned to weeds, it retains the extensive installations of border control and there is now also a fascinating border museum. Overnight Quedlinburg (E).
Wismar Schwerin
Po l a n d
Day 1: Lübeck. Fly at c. 1.30pm from London Heathrow to Hamburg (British Airways). Drive to Lübeck (W), the great port on the Baltic, leader of the Hanseatic League and home of Thomas Mann. One of the loveliest cities in Germany, there are mediaeval gateways, Gothic churches and splendid merchants’ houses. First of three nights in Lübeck.
Day 3: Wismar, Schwerin. Cross the Iron Curtain to see two major historic cities which, despite war damage and Cold War neglect, are now fast catching up with Lübeck: Wismar (E), another Hanseatic city which was Swedish for over a century; and Schwerin (E), the seat of the Bishops and Dukes of Mecklenburg, has a mediaeval cathedral and houses, a 19thcentury Schloss and a good art collection. Overnight Lübeck.
Day 8: Mariánské Lázne. Spend a leisurely day in Mariánské Lázne (E), once (as Marienbad) one of the most fashionable spa towns in Europe. With opulent 19th-century hotels, apartments and parks, and set among pine-clad hills, it exudes a melancholy grandeur. Now in the former Habsburg Empire, there is a new range of historical perspectives to consider, including the impact of the 1938 German occupation of the Sudetenland. Overnight Mariánské Lázne.
‘Involved a judicious selection of the many possible places en route without being over-taxing.’
Itinerary
Day 2: Lübeck. A leisurely morning exploration of the city includes St Mary, the largest of brick Gothic churches, and the town hall. Afternoon at leisure to explore the mediaeval town, with the St Annen Museum of mediaeval art and furnishings, and the Buddenbrooks House. Overnight Lübeck.
Day 7: Coburg, Cheb. The ducal house of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha supplied an amazing number of consorts to royal houses throughout Europe. In Coburg (W) see the Ehrenburg, home of Prince Albert, and the formidable mediaeval fortress above the city (good art collection). In the afternoon cross into the former Kingdom of Bohemia, now in the Czech Republic, and visit the charming town of Cheb (E). First of two nights in Mariánské Lázne.
Slo
the Adriatic, more or less along the line of the Iron Curtain. Of the divide itself scarcely a trace remains, but we visit places affected by the division and by its ending, and those in which the history expressed by the Iron Curtain was made. There are side expeditions to places significant in the history and life of this great swathe of Europe. The principal themes of the tour are history and contemporary affairs, and it is on these that the lecturer’s discourse will concentrate. But the tour does nevertheless provide an extraordinary range of visual pleasures. Passing through seven countries, there is much to see in a variety of towns, cities and villages. Having been on the road to nowhere for most of the post-war period, many places escaped disfiguring over-development, and now energetic restoration is doing wonders to the areas formerly in the East. Moreover, the journey for most of the way is scenically enthralling. The obvious concomitant are long coach journeys, an average of 100 miles per day.
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The Iron Cur tain continued
The Rhine Valley Music Festival
at Ják (E), and small town of Köszeg. Cross into the Austrian province of Styria from where Cossack troops were forcibly repatriated in 1945. First of two nights in Graz (W). Day 13: Graz. A day at leisure. An enchanting streetscape with outstanding buildings across undulating terrain makes Graz one of the loveliest towns in Central Europe. Among the sights are the Gothic cathedral, the Baroque Habsburg mausoleum, Renaissance Landhaus and the Museum Joanneum in the tranquil setting of Schloss Eggenberg, just outside town. Overnight Graz. Day 14: Kobarid. Most of the day is spent in Slovenia (E), until 1918 known as the Duchy of Carniola and until 1991 the most progressive and independent part of Yugoslavia. Visit the town of Kobarid (Caporetto) on the Italian border and drive towards the Adriatic and cross into Italy (W). Overnight Trieste. Day 15: Trieste. During six hundred years of Austrian rule, Trieste (W) became the largest seaport in the Mediterranean, and was bitterly disputed between Italy and Yugoslavia in the immediate post-war years. Overlooking city and sea, the citadel has Roman remains, fortress and Byzantine mosaics. Grand streets and squares with Neo-Classical buildings give rise to the epithet ‘Vienna-on-Sea’. Return to London Gatwick from Venice at c. 7.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £4,340 (deposit £400). Single supplement £460. Price without flights £4,160. Included meals: 1 lunch, 11 dinners with wine.
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Accommodation. Radisson Blu Senator Hotel, Lübeck (senatorhotel.de): a modern, 4-star hotel just outside the old city gates. Wyndham Garden Stadtschloss, Quedlinburg (wyndhamgardenquedlinburg.com): a centrally located hotel in a converted 16th-century castle. Romantik Hotel Goldene Traube, Coburg (goldenetraube.com): a comfortable 4-star historic hotel. The Falkensteiner Grand Spa Hotel, Mariánské Lázne (falkensteiner.com): a modern hotel in the centre of town. Hotel Zlatá Hvezda, Trebon (zlatahvezda.cz): a 3-star hotel in an old building in the centre. Radisson Blu Carlton, Bratislava (radissonblu.com): a modern, 4-star hotel on one of the old town squares. Hotel Wollner, Sopron (wollner.hu): an old, established hotel in the centre, some rooms are furnished with antiques. Hotel zum Dom, Graz (domhotel. co.at): a 4-star hotel in a 16th-century building with galleried courtyard (now roofed). Grand Hotel Duchi d’Aosta, Trieste (duchi.eu): an excellent, centrally-located 4-star hotel. Group size: between 12 and 22 participants.
Bingen c. 1840.
20–27 June 2015 Details available July 2014 Contact us to register your interest The 2015 Rhine Valley Music Festival will include around eight private concerts, all taking place in historic palaces, churches, concert halls and country houses along the Rhine Valley. All of the concerts are private, admission being exclusive to the 140 people who take a package that also includes accommodation, flights, meals, talks, coach transfers and much else besides. Most of the audience stays aboard a luxury river cruiser for the duration of the festival, travelling from Basel to Amsterdam. A small number stays in hotels and mixes attendance at the concerts with country walks along selected stretches of the Rhine Valley and its hinterland. The spoken word plays an important role in the festival. There will be talks on the music by Stephen Johnson, a regular speaker on BBC radio, and on the history of the region by Richard Evans, Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge.
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Walking the Rhine Valley with concer ts from The Rhine Valley Music Festival 19–27 June 2015 Details available July 2014 Contact us to register your interest
Handel in Halle June 2015 Details available in September 2014 Contact us to register your interest
Mediaeval Saxony
Carolingian, Ottonian, Romanesque 15–23 June 2015 (mb 362) 9 days • £2,350 Lecturer: Dr Alexandra Gajewski One of the most fascinating areas of early mediaeval art and architecture. Straddling the former border between East and West Germany and still relatively unfrequented. Some delightful landscape and attractive towns. Led by Alexandra Gajewski, specialist in mediaeval architecture. In amassing territory which stretched from the Atlantic to Bohemia and from the Baltic to central Italy, Charlemagne believed that he was recreating the ancient Roman Empire. Vivid expression was given to this belief by the attempts to emulate Roman forms by the builders and artists who worked on his innumerable projects of construction and embellishment. Few of these survive, but some of the most enlightening are to be seen in Saxony. The election of Henry of Saxony in 919 to the royal throne of Germany brought to an end a century of disunity and baronial misrule and ushered in a period during which the Saxon kings – two Henrys and three Ottos – achieved a partial reconstitution of Charlemagne’s empire and brought about the emergence of a nation state, arguably the first in Europe. ‘Old’ Saxony, which comprised the Harz mountains and the undulating plains to the north, became the most powerful of the German duchies as well as forming the kernel of the German nation. Subsequently the region gradually lost its pivotal role in national and international affairs; even the name slid across the map to denominate another part of Germany. A consequence of the region’s central importance in the early Middle Ages is that Old Saxony has no peers in northern Europe for the wealth of Ottonian and early Romanesque architecture, sculpture, precious metalwork and other arts. A consequence of subsequent decline is that much of this heritage is situated in some amazingly lovely and unspoilt little towns amidst a largely rural landscape of wooded hills and rolling farmland. Split after the war between West and East, the region is still far from recovering the popularity it had with travellers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
the most important of surviving Carolingian buildings. Drive to Hildesheim to stay for the first of two nights. Day 3: Hildesheim. Hildesheim is of enormous importance in the history of Romanesque art and architecture. The cathedral has some of the earliest and best bronze sculpture of that era and the treasury is one of the finest in Germany; both are due to reopen in August 2014 after extensive renovations. A pinnacle of Ottonian achievement embodying many influential innovations, the sixtowered church of St Michael was begun in 1010. Overnight Hildesheim. Day 4: Hildesheim, Goslar. Goslar is a lovely little town with outstanding Ottonian art and architecture, of which the palace is a rare secular survival. Artworks including a bronze altar are in the museum. First of five nights in Quedlinburg. Day 5: Quedlinburg, Gernrode. Quedlinburg is not only a wonderfully preserved mediaeval town but has the authentic feel of a place not spruced up for the tourist trade. The castle hill is crowned by the collegiate church of St Servatius, begun 1070, and contains another of Germany’s finest treasuries. The Wipertikirche has a 10thcentury crypt. St Cyriakus at Gernrode is a church of exceptional beauty; begun 961, it is the
oldest large-scale Ottonian building surviving. Overnight Quedlinburg. Day 6: Halberstadt. Halberstadt was a major city in the Middle Ages. The Romanesque Church of Our Lady contains life-size reliefs of apostles. The cathedral is the largest French-style Gothic church in Germany after Cologne, and has a very rich treasury, being particularly good for mediaeval textiles. The rest of the afternoon is free in Quedlinburg. Day 7: Magdeburg. Magdeburg was the favoured residence of Otto the Great. The cathedral, standing on a bluff above the River Elbe, is the first Gothic building in Germany and a veritable museum of mediaeval sculpture. Day 8: Königslutter. Königslutter am Elm has a very fine church and cloister from the abbey founded in 1135 and built by Lombard masons; the sculpture is superb. Visit the Monastery and church of St Pankratius in Hamersleben, a hidden gem of Romanesque architecture. Day 9: Braunschweig. Braunschweig (Brunswick) was residence of Henry the Lion, one of the most powerful princes in 12th-century Europe. The Romanesque cathedral has extensive frescoes of c. 1220, a rare survival. Opposite stands Henry’s castle; now a museum, it displays the Lion Monument, the first free-standing monumental bronze sculpture since Roman times. Fly from Hanover and arrive at Heathrow at c. 9.30pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,350 (deposit £250). Single supplement £220. Price without flights £2,170. Included meals: 1 lunch, 5 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel zur Mühle, Paderborn (hotelzurmuehle.de): a modern 3-star hotel in the city centre. Van der Valk Hotel, Hildesheim (hildesheim.vandervalk.de): a modern 4-star hotel with a historical facade looking onto the market square. Romantik Hotel am Brühl, Quedlinburg (hotelambruehl.de): a restored heritage building near the historical heart, comfortably furnished. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
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Itinerary Day 1: London to Hanover. Fly at c. 5.30pm from London Heathrow to Hanover (British Airways). There will be a snack in your hotel room on arrival. Overnight in Paderborn. Day 2: Paderborn, Corvey. At Paderborn are the fascinating archaeological remains of Charlemagne’s palace and a modern reconstruction of the Ottonian replacement. The 13th-century cathedral has a western tower and spire similar to its pre-Romanesque predecessor. See also the treasury in the Diocesan Museum. The westwork of the Abbey at Corvey is among
Hildesheim, wood engraving c. 1880. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Mitteldeutschland
Weimar & the towns of Thuringia & Sachsen-Anhalt 26 June–4 July 2015 (mb 378) 9 days • £2,380 Lecturer: Jeffrey Miller A trawl through little-known and largely unspoilt towns at the heart of Germany. Great mediaeval churches, Baroque and NeoClassical palaces, enchanting streetscape, fine art collections, beautiful countryside. Sachsen-Anhalt and Thuringia, the Länder in the middle of Germany, are predominantly rural, with rolling hills, deciduous woodland, compact red-roofed villages and ancient small-scale cities. Only patchily affected by the ravages of war and industrialisation, much of the historic architecture remained intact throughout the twentieth century. Forty years in the chill embrace of the East German state further impeded ‘progress’. The result is that at the heart of Europe’s richest and most modern nation is
a region which feels strangely provincial and archaic. Thuringia was one of the five major states of early mediaeval Germany, but by the end of the Middle Ages it had fragmented into numerous little statelets and free cities. The history of Sachsen-Anhalt was similar: during the tenth century ‘Old’ Saxony was the most powerful of the German duchies and formed the kernel of the German nation, but loss of pre-eminence was followed by subdivision. From the sixteenth century both Länder consisted of innumerable principalities and independent cities, and were political and economic backwaters – though in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Bach family dominated music making here. And one small dukedom in particular made a quite exceptional contribution to art and thought. Weimar played host to J.S. Bach, Goethe, Schiller, Herder, Liszt, Nietzsche, Richard Strauss, Walter Gropius and many other great names. For those who knew East Germany before 1991, the subsequent changes appear little
Quedlinburg Schloss, after a drawing 1920.
short of miraculous – major upgrading of the infrastructure, transformation of the built environment through cleaning, painting and wholesale restoration, recrudescence of commercial and social life. But those who come to the territory for the first time might be less enamoured. It is as if the region hasn’t fully awoken from a half-century sleep, a corrosive slumber which allowed much of the historic fabric of the towns and villages to slide into desuetude and dereliction. Yet in an odd sort of way the dilapidation contributes to a powerful sense of the past, and an air of authenticity which can be lost in places more thoroughly spruced up emanates from this fascinating, constantly surprising, frequently beautiful and richly-endowed region.
Itinerary Day 1: London to Hannover. Fly at c. 5.30pm from London Heathrow to Hannover (British Airways). Drive to Quedlinburg. First of three nights in Quedlinburg. Day 2: Quedlinburg, Gernrode. Quedlinburg is a wonderfully preserved mediaeval town. The castle hill is crowned by the church of St Servatius, begun 1070, and contains one of Germany’s finest treasuries. See also the Gothic church of St Benedict in the market square and the Wipertikirche with its 10th-cent. crypt. At nearby Gernrode is one of the oldest churches in Germany, and one of the most beautiful, St Cyriakus, begun ad 961. Overnight Quedlinburg. Day 3: Halberstadt, Blankenburg. Halberstadt was a major city in the Middle Ages, and the cathedral is the largest French-style Gothic church in Germany after Cologne; the treasury is exceptional. Blankenburg is an idyllic little spa town in the foothills of the Harz mountains with two Baroque palaces, the creation of a younger son of the Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel dynasty who made Blankenburg his capital.
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Day 4: Mühlhausen. A morning drive across the Harz mountains to Thuringia, passing forested vistas, half-timbered hamlets and patches of pasturage. Mühlhausen is astonishing, one of the most delightful and evocative towns in northern Europe, preserving its complete mediaeval wall, an abundance of half-timbered buildings and six Gothic churches. Walk along a section of the wall, visit the soaring, five-aisled church of St Mary, and St Blasius, the church where Bach was organist 1707–08. Overnight Mühlhausen. Day 5: Gotha, Arnstadt. A Residenzstadt within the principality of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Gotha is dominated by Schloss Friedenstein, which has fine interiors, a picture collection and a Baroque theatre. Walk down a processional way to the Hauptmarkt with its Renaissance town hall. Arnstadt, the oldest town in eastern Germany, has fine streetscape on a sloping site with the church where Bach was organist 1703–7; the Early Gothic Church of Our Lady and a palace which illustrates social hierarchy from the court’s perspective. First of four nights in Weimar.
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The Johann Sebastian Bach Journey Day 6: Weimar. Two centuries of enlightened patronage by members of the ducal family enabled the little city-state of Weimar to be home to many great writers, philosophers, composers and artists. Today, visit the Stadtkirche, the main church with an altarpiece by Cranach, Goethe’s house, a beautifully preserved sequence of interiors and garden, the ducal Schloss, with NeoClassical interiors and a fine art museum, and an English-style landscaped park with Goethe’s summer house. Overnight Weimar. Day 7: Erfurt. Capital of Thuringia, Erfurt well preserves its pre-20th-century appearance with a variety of streetscape and architecture from mediaeval to Jugendstil. Outstanding are the Krämerbrücke, a 14th-century bridge piled with houses and shops, and the cathedral, framing Germany’s largest set of mediaeval stained glass. See also the Severikirche, the friary of St Augustine where Luther was a monk, the Predigerkirche which retains its late mediaeval appearance intact, and the 17th-cent. hilltop citadel. Overnight Weimar. Day 8: Weimar. A walk includes Haus am Horn and Van de Velde’s School of Arts and Crafts from which the Bauhaus emerged. Free afternoon in this beautiful little city. Among many museums to choose from are the Bauhaus Museum, the 18th-cent. Wittumspalais and the Schiller House. An excursion to Buchenwald concentration camp can be arranged. Overnight Weimar. Day 9: Naumburg. Architecturally, Naumburg Cathedral is an outstanding embodiment of the transition from Romanesque to Gothic, but its great importance lies in its 13th-century sculpture, including statues of the founders, among the most powerful and realistic of the Middle Ages. Fly from Berlin, arriving London Heathrow at c. 8.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,380 (deposit £250). Single supplement £240. Price without flights £2,220. Included meals: 1 lunch, 5 dinners with wine.
Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: The Johann Sebastian Bach Journey, 5–11 July 2015 (page 91).
5–11 July 2015 Details available August 2014 Contact us to register your interest A pilgrimage to the places where Johann Sebastian Bach lived and worked. Several private concerts in different venues with world-class artists and ensembles. Talks on the music by Sir Nicholas Kenyon, director of the Barbican Centre, formerly head of music at BBC Radio 3 and director of the Proms, biographer of Bach. Journeying to the places where Johann Sebastian Bach lived and worked is an experience as near to pilgrimage as is offered by the history of music. And hearing his music in buildings which he frequented, or even where it was first performed, must rank among the highest delights available to music lovers. This unique festival provides the opportunity. Concerts in several different venues present a comprehensive range of Bach’s output, alongside works by his contemporaries and predecessors. We are engaging artists and ensembles who are world leaders in performance of the repertoire.
‘Very high standard enhanced by the venues and a growing understanding of the significance of the pieces to the development of Bach’s own musical journey.’ The distances travelled are not great, but the event is emphatically a journey, with three changes of hotel. It starts, as Bach did, in the little towns and cities of the principality of Thuringia, and finishes, again like Bach, in the free city of Leipzig. The audience stays in Mühlhausen, Weimar and Leipzig, and the concerts take place here and in three other towns. Admission to the concerts is exclusive to those who take a complete package which includes hotels, flights from the UK, travel by private coach, dinners and lectures. Except in Mühlhausen, where the only hotels are of 3-star standard, a range of hotels from 3-star to 5-star is offered, enabling a choice between four different price bands.
Dresden & Meissen
Organs of Bach’s Time
July 2015 Offered as a pre-festival tour to The Johann Sebastian Bach Journey
July 2015 Offered as a pre-festival tour to The Johann Sebastian Bach Journey
Details available August 2014 Contact us to register your interest
Details available August 2014 Contact us to register your interest Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Accommodation. Romantik Hotel am Brühl, Quedlinburg (hotelambruehl.de): a restored heritage building near the historical heart, comfortably furnished. Brauhaus ‘Zum Löwen’, Mühlhausen (brauhaus-zum-loewen.de): a converted brewery in the centre of the town; characterfully rustic dining area and bar, simple but spacious rooms. Dorint Am Goethepark, Weimar (hotel-weimar.dorint.com): a modern hotel, situated by the park and on the edge of the town centre.
Gotha, lithograph c. 1840.
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The Lukas Cranachs
Art, religion, courts and towns in the heart of Germany 11–15 May 2015 (mb 317) 5 days • £1,740 Lecturer to be confirmed Celebrates the art of the Cranachs, father and son, in the attractive but little-visited towns where they lived and worked. Several special exhibitions mark the quincentenary of the birth of Lukas Cranach the younger (1515). As well as art history, a study of Renaissance and Reformation, ducal courts and urban citizens, the development of modern Germany. Lukas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553) was a painter, printer (he published Luther’s Bible), general businessman, city counsellor (repeatedly mayor of Wittenberg) and one of the town’s highest tax payers. He was also a friend and intimate of three Saxon Electors and of Martin Luther, the leading figure of the Reformation. But mainly he was a painter, and ran one of the biggest workshops in sixteenth century Europe, providing memorable imagery of the Lutheran
Germany, where the Ernestine branch of the House of Saxony ruled as Dukes and Electors. The territory was divided by the Iron Curtain, as is still evident, but most of the towns are very attractive, well stocked with historic architecture and picturesque streetscape. Landscape in parts is equally lovely. Ostensibly a study of two painters, the tour is more than that, provoking thoughts about religion and reform, courts and citizens the development of Germany through the centuries.
Itinerary Day 1: London to Weimar. Fly at c. 2.00pm from London Gatwick Airport to Erfurt (Germania Airlines) and drive (30 mins) to Weimar. There is an introductory lecture before dinner. First of two nights in Weimar. Day 2: Wittenberg, Dessau. In the sixteenth century Wittenberg was the principal seat of the Electors of Saxony, location of Germany’s largest university and, as home to Luther and Melanchton, one of the leading centres of the Reformation. The so-called Reformation Altar by
Coburg, watercolour by E.T. Compton, publ. 1912.
Museum. In the afternoon drive to Neustadt an der Orla, an attractive small town where in the Church of St John there is the only Cranach altarpiece unaltered and in its original position. Continue into the lovely landscape of Franconia to Coburg where the next two nights are spent. Day 4: Coburg, Kronach. The magnificent castle on the heights above Coburg has large and varied collections including several paintings by Cranach and contemporaries. Walk down through a park to the lovely town centre for a little free time before the afternoon excursion. One of the largest fortresses in Europe, Rosenberg rises above the small town of Kronach and houses an outstation of the Bavarian National Museum devoted to German art of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The several Cranachs here will be augmented by an exhibition. Overnight Coburg. Day 5: Gotha. The town of Gotha is dominated by the Schloss Friedenstein, the first of the great early Baroque residences in Germany. Cranachs from the princely collection are displayed in the adjacent art gallery which will house an exhibition, Cranach in the Service of Court and Reformation. Travel from here by rail to Frankfurt Airport and then to London Heathrow (Lufthansa), arriving at c. 6.30pm. Note that the tour departs from London Gatwick and returns to London Heathrow.
Practicalities Price: £1,740 (deposit £200). Single supplement £80 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,490. Included meals: 4 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Dorint Am Goethepark, Weimar (hotel-weimar.dorint.com): a modern hotel, situated by the park and on the edge of the town centre. Romantik Hotel Goldene Traube, Coburg (goldenetraube.com): a comfortable 4-star historic hotel, conveniently located. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
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Reformation. His son Lukas (1515–1586) continued the business. Plying their craft on the cusp between the Middle Ages and the modern world, they lived through turbulent times. There are some indications of this in their paintings and woodcuts, but many of their works exude a strange stillness and depict a world of mannered beauty and exquisitely crafted realism. The quincentenary of the birth of the younger Cranach falls in 2015 and will be marked by several exhibitions examining the life and times as well as the art of the family. These are scattered through little towns and cities in Thuringia and Franconia, the heart of
both Cranachs is in the Church of St Mary. There are temporary exhibitions in the artists’ house and workshop and in the monastery where Luther lived for 38 years; here also is Cranach’s Ten Commandments Altarpiece. In the St John’s at Dessau there are two major paintings by the son, including The Last Supper, and one by the father. Overnight Weimar. Day 3: Weimar, Neustadt an der Orla. The morning is spent in Weimar looking at paintings by both Cranachs in the Church of SS Peter & Paul, in the museum in the Schloss, which has a good collection, and in a special exhibition which is split between the Schloss and the Schiller
book online at www.martinrandall.com
Opera in Munich & Bregenz 21–27 July 2015 (mb 404) 7 days • £3,110 (including tickets to 4 performances) Lecturers: Dr David Vickers & Tom Abbott Three operas at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich, one of the world’s most dependable houses: Lucia di Lammermoor (Donizetti), L’Orfeo (Monteverdi) and Don Carlo (Verdi). Bregenz offers perhaps the most spectacular productions of any open-air festival – in 2015 it is Turandot (Puccini). Accompanied by two lecturers – musicologist David Vickers and art historian Tom Abbott. Munich is perhaps the most attractive of Germany’s cities, and has always been a major centre for opera. The Nationaltheater is at the moment enjoying a reputation as one of the finest houses in Europe: ‘La Scala may be grander…, Vienna more stately, the Metropolitan more prestigious… but for all-round excellence in pretty well every department, Munich’s Nationaltheater… has the edge, both in matters of creature comforts and sheer dedication to the art’. Opera apart, Munich is widely considered to be the most agreeable city in Germany in which to live, and ranks only with Berlin for wealth of art and historic architecture. The thrilling eccentricity of the Bregenz Opera Festival is that the main stage, the Seebühne, sits on an island a few yards from the shore of one of Europe’s largest lakes. From a seat in Austria, the mise-en-scène is framed by the vast expanse of Lake Constance from which rise hills in Germany and Switzerland as well as Austria. Even though night gradually shrouds this backdrop, it requires performances of exceptional potency to compete with nature’s spectacle. In recent years this requirement has been amply fulfilled, for Bregenz has developed a tradition of immensely exciting productions unconstrained by the conventional limitations of walls and roof. Musical quality is not sacrificed to visual effects, however: that Bregenz is the summer venue of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra is adequate indication of that. The investment necessitates that each production runs for two successive seasons. The offering for 2015 will be the first year of Turandot.
Day 1: London to Munich. Fly at c. 12.45pm from London Heathrow to Munich. Tour the city by coach to see much of the best of Munich’s historic architecture: Neo-Classical Königsplatz, historicist Ludwigstrasse, Jugendstil houses and the modern Gasteig Arts Centre. The first of four nights in Munich. Day 2: Munich. In the morning there is a walk to see more of the city’s treasures, including the vast Gothic cathedral and the Asamkirche, a Baroque gem. Free time in the afternoon. Evening at the Nationaltheater: Lucia di Lammermoor (Donizetti), Stefano Ranzani (conductor), Barbara
Wysocka (director), Fabio Maria Capitanucci (Lord Enrico Asthon), Diana Damrau (Lucia), Pavol Breslik (Sir Edgardo di Ravenswood), Emanuele D’Aguanno (Lord Arturo Bucklaw), Alexander Tsymbalyuk (Raimondo Bidebent), Francesco Petrozzi (Normanno). Day 3: Munich. Drive out to Nymphenburg, summer retreat of the ruling Wittelsbachs. Set in an extensive park there is a Baroque palace and several delightful garden pavilions, the apogee of Rococo. In the afternoon there is an opportunity to visit more of Munich’s many outstanding art collections. Evening at the Prinzregenten Theater: L’Orfeo (Monteverdi), Christopher Moulds (conductor), Christian Gerhaher (Orfeo), Mária Celeng (Eurydice), Anna Bonitatibus (the messenger / Proserpina), Tareq Nazmi (Caronte), Goran Jurić (Plutone), Dean Power (Apollo). Day 4: Munich. In the morning a second walking tour which culminates in a visit to the Alte Pinakothek, one of the world’s greatest Old Master galleries. The afternoon is again free, though a visit to Residenz with its exquisite Rococo Theatre by Cuvillies is recommended. At the Nationaltheater: Don Carlo (Verdi), Asher Fisch (conductor), Jürgen Rose (director), René Pape (Philip II), Ramón Vargas (Don Carlos), Simon Keenlyside (Rodrigue), Anja Harteros (Élisabeth de Valois), Anna Smirnova (Princess Eboli), Eri Nakamura (Thibault), Francesco Petrozzi (Count of Lerma). Final night in Munich. Day 5: Ottobeuren, Bregenz. Journey by coach through the lovely landscape of Upper Bavaria, skirting the Alpine foothills before entering the Vorarlberg region of Austria. Break the journey at the little town of Ottobeuren to see
the magnificent monastery, one of the greatest achievements of German Baroque. Arrive at Bregenz where two nights are spent. Day 6: Bregenz. Strung out along the edge of Lake Constance, Bregenz is the attractive little capital of the Vorarlberg, the western-most province of Austria. A guided walking tour in the morning begins in the historic Upper Town and then descends to the lake and the museum. Free afternoon before an evening opera on the lake stage: Turandot (Puccini), cast to be confirmed. Day 7: Zurich to London. Drive to Zurich and fly to London Heathrow, arriving at c. 3.45pm.
Practicalities Price: £3,110 (deposit £300). Single supplement £190 (in Munich: room with a single bed, in Bregenz: double room for single occupancy) or £360 (double room for single occupancy throughout). Price without flights £2,920. Included meals: 5 dinners with wine. Music: tickets (first category) for 4 performances are included, costing c. £610. In the event of bad weather in Bregenz, your ticket permits you to attend an indoor performance in a nearby theatre.
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Itinerary
From Pen Drawing & Pen Draughtsmen by Joseph Pennell, 1897.
Accommodation. Hotel Torbräu, Munich (torbraeu.de): a family run 4-star hotel 10–15 minutes on foot from the Nationaltheater. Hotel Germania, Bregenz (hotel-germania.at): a spacious and characterful 4-star in the centre of Bregenz, 15 minutes’ walk from the stage. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
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Munich at Christmas
Bavaria’s magnificent capital & its environs government, a magnificent sprawl of buildings, courtyards, state apartments and museums of every period from Renaissance to the end of the 19th century. There are fine works of art and sumptuous interiors of the highest importance, especially the Rococo interiors and the Cuvilliés Theatre (subject to confirmation as the theatre can close for rehearsals at short notice). An afternoon walk includes the vast Gothic cathedral and the pioneering Renaissance church of St Michael. There will also be the opportunity to visit the Christmas markets. Day 4. By coach to see the architecture and monuments on the fringes of the old city, including the monumental Ludwigsstraße, Jugendstil houses and the English Garden. Disembark at Königsplatz, a noble assembly of Neo-Classical museums, and visit the Glyptothek, an outstanding collection of Greek and Roman sculpture. After lunch visit the excellent collections of sculpture and decorative arts at the Bavarian National Museum. Day 5, Christmas Eve: Regensburg. Drive to Regensburg, one of Germany’s finest mediaeval cities, with a Gothic cathedral and parliament of the Holy Roman Empire. Return to Munich in plenty of time for Christmas dinner. There are several musically embellished midnight masses.
Munich, Frauenkirche, watercolour by E. Harrison Compton, publ. 1912.
20–27 December 2014 (mb 220) 8 days • £2,590 Lecturer: Tom Abbott A wide range of art and architecture in the magnificent Bavarian capital. Two full-day excursions to some of the most special sights in Bavaria – the beautifully preserved mediaeval town of Regensburg, and the outstanding Baroque church at Wies. Very centrally located five-star hotel. Led by Tom Abbott, cultural historian resident in Germany who has led many tours there.
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Munich is everyone’s favourite German city. Not only is it the most prosperous in the country, but the attractiveness of the cityscape, the abundance of cultural activity, the relatively relaxed lifestyle and generally amenable ambience make it the most sought-after place to live and work in Germany. The seat of the Wittelsbachs, who ruled Bavaria from 1255 until 1918 as Counts, Dukes, Electors and, from 1806, as Kings, Munich was a city which grew up around a court, not one spawned by trade or industry. Consequently, artistically and architecturally it is still one of the best-endowed centres in Europe. There are fine buildings of every period, and it is also a city of museums. The Alte Pinakothek
has one of the finest collections of Old Masters in the world, and the Treasury in the Residenz and the classical sculpture in the Glyptothek are among the best collections of their kind. There are two full-day excursions through beautiful countryside to some of the greatest sights in Bavaria – Regensburg, Linderhof Palace and the Wieskirche. The accompanying lecturer, Tom Abbott, is a cultural historian with a wide range of knowledge and a deep understanding of contemporary Germany.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 12.40pm from London Heathrow to Munich (British Airways). After settling in to the hotel, a lecture is followed by dinner. Day 2. Begin with a visit to the Alte Pinakothek, one of the world’s greatest collections of Old Masters. After lunch continue to the Neue Pinakothek, which houses paintings from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. Some free time; you may choose to also visit the Brandhorst Museum, which opened in 2009, the Pinakothek der Moderne or join a guided tour of the Art Nouveau Villa Stuck, a museum and historic house dedicated to the works of the Bavarian painter, Franz Stuck. Day 3. The Residenz in the centre of the city was the principal Wittelsbach palace and seat of
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Day 6, Christmas Day. Free morning (a couple of museums are open, and there are many church services to choose from). In the afternoon visit the Church of St Peter and the Asamkirche, built and decorated by Egid Quinn Asam. The recently reopened Lenbachhaus has an outstanding collection of German Expressionist painting. Day 7. Linderhof Palace, Wies. Travel by coach towards the Bavarian Alps to Ettal, site of Linderhof Palace, commissioned by the legendary ‘Swan King’ Ludwig II. The lavish interiors are in Renaissance and Baroque styles and gardens include grottos and Oriental adornments. Continue to the 1740s church at Wies by Dominikus Zimmerman, one of the finest of all Rococo churches. Day 8. Morning excursion to Nymphenburg, the summer palace of the Wittelsbachs, and see the exquisite Amalienburg Pavilion, an apogee of secular Rococo interiors. Fly from Munich, returning to London Heathrow at c. 5.20pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,590 (deposit £250). Single supplement £420. Price without flights £2,380. Included meals: 2 lunches, 5 dinners with wine Music: we will send participants details of any concerts and opera in advance, and endeavour to obtain tickets as requested. Accommodation. The Four Seasons/Vier Jahreszeiten (kempinski.com): 5-star hotel located on Maximilianstraße. Décor is classical in style and rooms face the inner courtyard. Bathrooms have showers only. Group size: between 10–22 participants.
Baroque & Rococo In Southern Germany 5–13 August 2015 (mb 410) 9 days • £2,530 Lecturer: Tom Abbott Some of the most uplifting and spectacular buildings in the world. Glorious countryside, unspoilt towns and villages. Led by Tom Abbott, a specialist in architectural history from the Baroque to the 20th century. Baroque and Rococo reached a triumphant fulfilment in the churches and palaces of southern Germany, and the styles are manifested in the region. It is astonishing that these marvels are not better known, but the artistic heritage of Germany continues to be sadly undervalued. Moreover, many of the choicest items on this tour are not easily accessible, being situated deep in the countryside. Around the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there was something of an economic miracle in the German lands, accompanied by a frenetic upsurge in building activity. This followed nearly a whole century which was blighted by wars and economic collapse. At the end of it the Catholic Church emerged revitalised, wealthier than ever and triumphant in its defeat of Protestantism. In the temporal sphere, the creed of absolutism, which imposed few constraints on the power of the prince or local lord, was at its height. The Baroque style was the perfect expression both for the Church Triumphant and for the temporal ruler who, taking his cue from Louis XIV at Versailles, wished to overawe his subjects and impress on all visitors the might and magnificence of his person. The Rococo, which arrived in Germany in the 1730s, was delicate and light-hearted by comparison with the imposing magnificence of High Baroque, but produced some of the most exquisite interiors in the history of art.
brothers, is of astounding beauty. First of three nights in Munich. Day 4: Munich. Visit the Italian-built Theatinerkirche, one of the first Baroque churches north of the Alps. The little church of St John Nepomuk, created by the Asam brothers for their own use. The Residenz, palace of the Electors of Bavaria, with sumptuous Rococo interiors and recently restored theatre by the architect Cuvilliés. Free afternoon. Overnight Munich. Day 5: Nymphenburg, Augsburg. On the outskirts of Munich, the palace, pavilions and gardens of Nymphenburg, summer residence of the Electors of Bavaria; the Amalienburg pavilion is the apogee of secular Rococo interiors. Continue to the magnificent Schaezlerpalais in Augsburg. Its sumptuous gilded, mirrored, ballroom, built between 1765–70, has survived in its original condition. Overnight Munich. Day 6: Weltenburg, Rohr, Pommersfelden. Two abbey churches by the Asam brothers: Rohr, with the altar of The Assumption, highpoint of Baroque sculpture, and Weltenburg, with controlled lighting and rich decoration suggestive of transcendental theatricality. Take a short cruise along the Danube. Visit Schloss Pommersfelden, a splendid country house with one of the grandest of Baroque staircases. First of two nights in Bamberg. Day 7: Bamberg. One of the loveliest and least spoilt of German towns, Bamberg has fine streetscape, riverside walks and picturesque upper town around the Romanesque cathedral. The Diocesan Museum has outstanding
mediaeval textiles, the Baroque former town hall built on a bridge houses a porcelain collection. Free afternoon. Overnight Bamberg. Day 8: Bayreuth, Vierzehnheiligen. An enchanting version of Rococo decoration developed in Bayreuth in the town palace and at the Hermitage, a complex of gardens, palaces and pavilions and the wonderful Baroque opera house (by Giuseppe Bibbiena). Visit the pilgrimage church of Vierzehnheiligen (Balthasar Neumann), perhaps the greatest of Rococo churches. Overnight Bamberg. Day 9: Würzburg. Visit the Residenz in Würzburg, the Baroque Archbishop’s palace, the finest of its kind in Germany, designed by Balthasar Neumann with frescoes by Tiepolo. Fly from Frankfurt, arriving Heathrow c. 5.45pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,530 (deposit £250). Single supplement £380. Price without flights £2,340. Included meals: 1 lunch, 6 dinners with wine Accommodation. Hotel Altdorfer Hof, Weingarten (altdorfer-hof.de): a quiet 4-star hotel with a good restaurant. Hotel Torbräu, Munich (torbraeu.de): a well-located 4-star, traditional in style and decor. Hotel Villa Geyerswörth, Bamberg (villageyerswoerth.de): 4-star hotel, elegant and quiet. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
‘Rocaille’ cartouche, engraving c.1750.
Itinerary
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Day 1: Zwiefalten, Steinhausen. Fly at 8.45am (German Wings) from London Heathrow to Stuttgart. Visit two pilgrimage churches: the double-towered church of Zwiefalten by J.M. Fischer and the oval church at Steinhausen, built and decorated by the Zimmermann brothers. First of two nights in Weingarten. Day 2: Weingarten, Bad Schussenried, Birnau. Visit the magnificent Baroque basilica of Weingarten Abbey, ‘the St Peter’s of Germany’, and continue to the glorious library hall at Bad Schussenried convent with abundant imagery. Finally, to Birnau, among vineyards above Lake Constance and one of the most delectable of Rococo churches. Overnight Weingarten. Day 3: Ottobeuren, Wies. A pinnacle of Baroque and Rococo emotional power is achieved at J.M. Fischer’s church and abbey at Ottobeuren. The pilgrimage church of Wies in the foothills of the Alps, created by the Zimmermann
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and the Wittelsbach palaces of Bavaria 7–12 July 2015 (mb 393) 6 days • £2,360 Lecturer: Tom Abbott Explore eight royal palaces and castles set against the breathtaking backdrop of Germany’s most beautiful state. Learn about the lives, loves and legacies of King Ludwig II and the House of Wittelsbach, rulers of Bavaria for over 700 years. Art and architecture from the Renaissance through to Late Romanticism, much of it opulent and theatrical. Includes a performance of Wagner’s Tristan & Isolde at the Bavarian State Opera. Led by Tom Abbott, specialist in architectural history from the Baroque to the 20th century with a wide knowledge of the performing arts.
Germany’s large and beautiful south-eastern state of Bavaria is an established destination for Martin Randall Travel, with a number of tours over the years dedicated to a variety of themes. This tour has a different focus, that of the legendary ‘Swan King’ Ludwig II and the House of Wittelsbach from which he hailed, and his extraordinary architectural and cultural legacy. Architecturally and artistically, the tour encompasses outstanding examples of Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Neo-Classical and Romantic styles as well as Ludwig’s fairytale follies. Historically it examines the eccentric world of one of Europe’s most controversial monarchs and the story of what, until German unification, counted as one of the continent’s most important little states. It is true that Ludwig II’s predilection for aesthetic absorption over political and legal leadership gained him fierce opposition and criticism, but this handsome young king and his elaborate castles are responsible for a considerable proportion of Bavaria’s appeal today. Ironically, the dream world into which the sovereign retreated in order to escape the responsibilities of state now benefits Ludwig’s former kingdom in a way it never did when he inhabited it.
Linderhof, wood engraving from The Magazine of Art 1887.
Was he, to quote one of his more defamatory labels, insane? Or simply weak, of solitary disposition, and therefore tragically unsuited to the role imposed upon him at a time of Bavaria’s considerable political fragility and conflict with Prussia, Austria and France? Once deposed in 1886, what was the cause of his untimely death? Was it suicide, or did it take place at the hand of murderous detractors? Or was it mere accident? Was he an impotent and irresponsible sybarite or a luminous benefactor of the arts?
‘The itinerary was excellent. We went to the sites in the right order for the development of Ludwig’s life and work.’ Itinerary Day 1. Schleissheim, Munich. Fly at c. 9.00am from London Heathrow to Munich (Lufthansa). Between airport and city, the palace and garden at Schleissheim form a rare ensemble of Baroque taste from an early 17th-century retreat, through the 1684 Lustheim pavilion at the far end of a canal of absolutist straightness, to the magnificent Neues Schloss, begun 1701 but whose progress continued haltingly into the Rococo period. There is a gallery of Baroque art, sculpted stucco of exceptional quality in the state apartments, Hofgarten (Court Garden) and a collection of Meissen porcelain in Schloss Lustheim. First of two nights in Munich. Day 2. Munich. The Residenz in the centre of the city was the principal Wittelsbach palace and seat of government; a magnificent sprawl of buildings, courtyards, state apartments and museums of every period from Renaissance to the end of the 19th century. There are fine works of art and sumptuous interiors of the highest importance, especially the Rococo interiors and the Cuvilliés Theatre (subject to confirmation as the theatre can close for rehearsals at short notice). Evening performance of Wagner’s Tristan & Isolde at the Bavarian State Opera.
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Day 3. Nymphenburg, Linderhof, Murnau. Drive to the city’s outskirts and the palace and park of Nymphenburg, birthplace of Ludwig II. An extensive complex including bathhouses and the Rococo Amalienburg lodge. After lunch drive to Ettal, site of the only one of Ludwig II’s commissioned castles to have been completed. 1870s Linderhof was reputed to have been the King’s favourite castle; it draws, like Herrenchiemsee, on French influences, lavish interiors in Renaissance and Baroque styles, extravagant terrace gardens including grottos and Oriental adornments. First of three nights in Murnau am Staffelsee. Day 4. Hohenschwangau, Neuschwanstein. Drive south to Hohenschwangau Castle, site of Ludwig II’s childhood, owned by his parents Maximilian II of Bavaria and Princess Marie
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Classical Greece
The Peloponnese, Attica & Athens of Prussia. Majestic lakeside Alpine location, and frescoes featuring medieval SwanKnight Lohengrin which led to Ludwig II’s obsession with Wagner. Continue onwards to Neuschwanstein, the famous fairytale turreted castle ordered by Ludwig II in homage to Wagner though never completed. Day 5. Herrenchiemsee. In the countryside southeast of Munich and surrounded by a park, woodland and a great lake, Schloss Herrenchiemsee is a copy of Versailles. Ludwig II’s megalomaniac hymn of homage to the absolutism of Louis XIV, his final folly, brought the Bavarian state to the brink of bankruptcy. Day 6. Berg, Starnberg. Leave Murnau, drive to Berg and the mock Gothic castle to which Ludwig II retreated from his ministers, and where he was placed under house arrest after his forced abdication in 1886 on grounds of insanity. Lake Starnberg surrounds the castle and is the scene of Ludwig II’s death and that of his doctor, officially by drowning. Visit the Memorial Chapel and have lunch in Starnberg. Fly from Munich, returning to London Heathrow at c. 5.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,360 (deposit £250). Single supplement £190 (in Munich: room with a single bed, in Murnau: double room for single occupancy) or £270 (double room for single occupancy throughout). Price without flights £2,180. Included meals: 1 lunch, 4 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Torbräu, Munich (torbraeu.de): a well-located 4-star hotel, traditional in style and decor. Hotel Alpenhof, Murnau (alpenhof-murnau.com): a rambling 5-star hotel on the outskirts of Murnau with a country house feel. Group size: between 12 and 22 participants.
Athens, Acropolis, watercolour by Jules Guérin, publ. 1913.
2–11 May 2015 (mb 310) 10 days • £3,240 Lecturer: Dr Oswyn Murray
A comprehensive survey of the principal Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic sites in mainland Greece. Highlights include Mycenae, Olympia, Delphi. The lecturers both have expert knowledge of ancient Greece In Athens, a full day on the Acropolis and in the ancient Agora.
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19–28 September 2015 (mc 435) 10 days • £3,240 Lecturer: Dr Andrew Farrington
The Ancient Greeks had far greater influence on western civilization than any other people or nation. For two and a half millennia, philosophy and ethics, the fundamentals of science and mathematics, prevailing notions of government and citizenship, literature and the visual arts have derived their seeds, and a large amount of their substance, from the Greeks. In the words of H.D.F. Kitto ‘there gradually emerged a people not very numerous, not very powerful, not very well organized, who had a totally new conception of what human life was for, and showed for the first time what the human mind was for.’ Whatever the depth of our Classical education, there is a deep-seated knowledge in all of us that the places visited on this tour are of the greatest significance for our identity and way of life. A journey to Greece is like a journey to our homeland, a voyage in which a search for our roots is fulfilled.
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In no field is the Greek contribution to the modern world more immediately evident than in architecture. The grip upon the imagination that the Greek temple has exerted is astonishing, and in one way or another – ranging from straightforward imitation of the whole to decorative use of distorted details – has dominated nearly all monumental or aspirational building ever since. A striking and salutary conclusion, however, which inevitably emerges from participation on this tour, is that the originals are unquestionably superior. This is also true of sculpture.
blocks of masonry, and Mycenae, reputedly Agamemnon’s capital, with Treasury of Atreus (finest of beehive tombs) and Acropolis (Lion Gate). There are spectacular views from the 18thcentury Venetian Fortress of Palamidi. Day 3: Corinth, Epidauros. The site of Ancient Corinth has the earliest standing Doric temple on mainland Greece, and a fine museum with evidence of its first large-scale pottery industry. Epidauros, centre for the worship of Asclepios, god of medicine, where popular magical dream cures were dispensed, remains here and includes the best-preserved of all Greek theatres.
Mycene, the Lion Gate, from Greek Pictures by J.P. Mahaffy, 1890.
sculpture. Some free time amidst the austere beauty of the valley. Day 7: Hosios Loukas, Athens. Visit the Byzantine monastery of Hosios Loukas in a beautiful setting in a remote valley, one of the finest buildings of mediaeval Greece with remarkable mosaics. Walk in the Plaka district of Athens. First of three nights in Athens. Day 8: Athens. The Acropolis is the foremost site of Classical Greece. The Parthenon (built 447–438 bc) is indubitably the supreme achievement of Greek architecture. Other architectural masterpieces are the Propylaia (monumental gateway), Temple of Athena Nike and the Erechtheion. At the Theatre of Dionysos plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides were first performed. The Acropolis museum has superb Archaic and Classical sculpture, including some by Phidias and his assistants. The Agora (market place) was the centre of civic life in ancient Athens, with the small Doric Hephaisteion, the best-preserved of Greek temples. Day 9: Athens. Kerameikos Cemetery was where Athenians were buried beyond the ancient city walls. The refurbished National Archaeological Museum has the finest collection of Greek art and artefacts to be found anywhere. The vast Corinthian Temple of Olympian Zeus was completed by Hadrian 700 years after its inception. Some free time. Day 10: Athens. Drive to the 5th-century Temple of Poseidon at Sounion, overlooking the sea at the southernmost tip of the Attic peninsula, visited by Byron in 1810. Fly from Athens, arriving Heathrow c. 3.30pm.
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This tour includes nearly all of the most important archaeological sites, architectural remains and museums of antiquities on mainland Greece. It presents a complete picture of ancient Greek civilization beginning with the Mycenaeans, the Greek Bronze Age, and continuing through Archaic, Classical and, to a lesser extent, Hellenistic and Roman Greece. It also provides a glimpse of the spiritual splendour of Byzantine art and architecture. It is a full itinerary, but the pace is manageable. Plenty of time is available on the sites and in the museums, allowing opportunity both for adequate exposition by the lecturer and time for further exploration on your own.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at midday (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Athens. The little port of Nauplion is one of the most attractive towns in mainland Greece. Arrive here in time for dinner. First of three nights in Nauplion. Day 2: Nauplion, Tiryns, Mycenae. The day’s theme is the Mycenaean civilisation of the Argolid Plain, the Greece of Homer’s heroes (16th–13th centuries bc). Visit Tiryns, a citadel with massive Cyclopean walls of enormous
Day 4: Arcadia, Bassae. Drive across the middle of the Peloponnese, through the beautiful plateau of Arcadia and past impressive mountain scenery. A stunning road leads to the innovatory and well-preserved 5th-century Temple of Apollo (in a tent for protection) on the mountain top at Bassae (3,700 feet) and through further breathtaking scenery to Olympia. Overnight Olympia. Day 5: Olympia. Nestling in a verdant valley, Olympia is one of the most evocative of ancient sites; never a town, but the principal sanctuary of Zeus and site of the quadrennial pan-Hellenic athletics competitions. Many fascinating structures remain, including the temples of Hera and Zeus, the workshop of Phidias and the stadium. The museum contains fragments of pediment sculpture, among the most important survivals of Classical Greek art. First of two nights in Delphi. Day 6: Delphi. Clinging to the lower slopes of Mount Parnassos, Delphi is the most spectacularly evocative of ancient Greek sites. Of incalculable religious and political importance, the Delphic oracle attracted pilgrims from all over the Hellenic world. The Sanctuary of Pythian Apollo has a theatre and Athenian Treasury, and the Sanctuary of Athena has a circular temple. The museum is especially rich in Archaic
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Price: £3,240 (deposit £300). Single supplement £310 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,960. Included meals: 2 lunches, 7 dinners with wine. Visas. UK citizens do not require a visa, not do citizens of Australia for tourist stays of up to 90 days. Citizens of other non-EU countries should check visa requirements with relevant consulates. Accommodation. Hotel Ippoliti, Nauplion (ippoliti.gr): a small comfortable hotel in a converted 19th-century mansion situated near the harbour. Best Western Hotel Europa, Olympia (bestwestern.com): a characterful hotel outside the town. Hotel Amalia, Delphi (amalia.gr/ delphi-hotel): a modern hotel a short coach ride from the archaeological site. Electra Palace Hotel, Athens (electrahotels.gr): a smart hotel near the picturesque Plaka quarter. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
Athens & Rome, 3–10 October 2015. See page 150).
Central Macedonia Thessaloniki & northern Greece 4–11 October 2014 (mb 154) 8 days • £2,420 Lecturer: Dr Oswyn Murray
port joined to hills behind by a massive Ottoman aqueduct. Depending on ferry times, there may be a visit the archaeological museum. Overnight Kavala.
16–23 May 2015 (mb 325) 8 days • £2,610 Lecturer: Dr Oswyn Murray
Day 3: Philippi, Amphipolis. Philippi is known (courtesy of Shakespeare) for the battles in 42 bc which led to the victory of Octavian and Anthony over Brutus and Cassius, and as the place where St Paul established the first Christian community in Europe. Striking ruins of a theatre, agora and Early Christian basilicas are situated in an attractive valley. Amphipolis was an important and prosperous city from its founding as an Athenian colony in 437 bc until its demise in the 8th/9th century. The gymnasium is the best preserved in Greece. First of five nights in Thessaloniki.
Hellenistic and Roman architecture, art and archaeological sites in the home territory of Alexander the Great. Byzantine churches and artefacts of the highest importance in Thessaloniki, second only to Constantinople. Led by an eminent ancient Greece historian. Agricultural and mountainous landscapes in a little-visited part of Greece. To the Classical Greeks the Macedonians were barbarians. Hailing from beyond Mount Olympos, only relatively recently had they abandoned nomadism for settled agriculture and life in cities, and they persisted with the ‘primitive’ political system of hereditary kingship. But it served the Macedonians well, with territorial expansion proceeding steadily under a succession of Temenid kings, accelerating dramatically under Philip II (who conquered most of Greece) and achieving legendary scale under his son, Alexander the Great, conqueror of the known world. Meanwhile, mainstream Classical Greece gained several footholds on the islands and coastal areas in the form of colonies, before succumbing to the Macedonians in the fourth century bc, and in the second century the whole region became part of the Roman Empire. Athenian snobbishness not withstanding, the Macedonians became thoroughly Hellenised (Euripides and Aristotle, among others, graced the royal court). The treasures from the Royal Tombs at Vergina and elsewhere are among the most startlingly accomplished and beautiful artefacts to have survived from the ancient world. St Paul established the first Christian community in Europe in Macedonia, at Philippi, and later Thessaloniki (Salonica) became a major cultural and religious centre in the Byzantine empire, second only to Constantinople. Several impressive churches from the fifth century to the fifteenth centuries survive, with frescoes, furnishings and mosaics, despite earthquake, sack and billeting.
Day 1. Fly at c. 8.30am from London Gatwick to Thessaloniki (British Airways). From there drive eastwards via the newly constructed Egnatia motorway to the harbour town of Kavala. First of two nights in Kavala. Day 2: Thasos, Kavala. Reached by ferry, Thasos is a very attractive island, rugged and densely forested. The remains of the ancient city include one of the best-preserved agora complexes in Greece. The old part of Kavala, crowned by a Byzantine castle, sits on a promontory above the
Day 7: Thessaloniki. Most of the significant Roman remains date to the time of Emperor Galerius (ad 305–311): parts of his palace, the Arch of Galerius and the impressive bulk of the Rotonda, which was probably built as his mausoleum. It was later converted into the Church of St George and contains superb mosaics. Free afternoon. Overnight Thessaloniki.
Thessaloniki, engraving from Byzantine & Romanesque Architecture, 1920.
Day 4: Thessaloniki. Start the day with a walk in the upper town along the ramparts, the Vlattadon Monastery and the little church of Hosios David with early Byzantine mosaics. Visit three great churches: the Archeiropoietos, an extraordinarily well preserved 5th-century basilica, Agios Demetrios, a centre of pilgrimage since the 6th century, and 8th-century Agia Sophia with beautiful wind-blown capitals. Among the smaller places seen are the exquisite little monastery church of Agios Nikolaos Orphanos with 14th-century wall paintings. Overnight Thessaloniki. Day 5: Pella, Lefkadia, Vergina. From the 5th century Pella was the luxurious capital of Macedonia, birthplace of Philip II and his son Alexander the Great. The extensive but only partly excavated site has good floor mosaics, and there are excellent finds in the little museum. A Macedonian tomb at Lefkadia has extremely rare high-quality paintings. Vergina is the site of the tombs of Philip II and members of his family. Only fairly recently discovered, the astonishing grave goods are among the finest survivals from the ancient world. Overnight Thessaloniki.
Day 8: Thessaloniki. The excellent Museum of Byzantine Culture, winner of a European prize in 2005, well presents outstanding material. Drive from here to the airport and return to London Gatwick at c. 4.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,420 (2014), £2,610 (2015) (deposit £250). Single supplement £290 (2014), £360 (2015) (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,270 (2014), £2,460 (2015). Included meals: 5 lunches, 5 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Egnatia Hotel, Kavala (egnatiahotel.gr): a modern hotel well located with fine views. Daios Hotel, Thessaloniki (daioshotels.com): a newly constructed 4 star hotel on the waterfront.
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in rolling farmland, provide a rare chance to walk the residential streets of a Classical Greek city and provides the best evidence there is for Greek houses of the late 5th and early fourth century. Back in Thessaloniki, the Archaeological Museum is an excellent, extensive and well presented collection. Overnight Thessaloniki.
Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Minoan Crete, 4–13 May 2015 (see next page).
Day 6: Olynthos. The most important of the Greek colonies on the fertile peninsula of Chalkidiki, Olynthos never recovered after destruction by Philip II (348 bc). The ruins, set
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Minoan Crete History & archaeology 4–13 May 2015 (mb 321) 10 days • £2,640 Lecturer: Dr Alan Peatfield Concentrates on the extraordinary civilization of the Minoans, but also pays due attention to Classical and later cultures. Dr Alan Peatfield is an archaeologist specialising in the Minoan Bronze Age civilisation of Crete. Plenty of time for Knossos and the main sites and includes many remote and little-visited ones. Wonderful, contrasting landscapes at a beautiful time in the island’s calendar. ‘Land of contrasts’ is the king of clichés, but for Crete it is difficult to avoid, not only because of the variety of natural environments but also because of the influence these have had on the built environment and the history of the island. The contrasts in the landscape, vegetation and people are dramatic. Crete has its ‘deserts and jungles, its arctic and its tropics’. The high mountains and upland plains are bleak and remote; the gorges in the highly erosive limestone are lush. The west provides a retreat from the more developed stretch of north coast between Iràklion and Agios Nikolaos. The south is difficult of access, scored by gorges and with the Asterousia mountains dropping sharply to the sea. The Sphakia region further west on the south coast is one of the most culturally distinct regions. Lying between Europe, Africa and the Near East, variety also marks the island’s cultural legacy. The tour will focus primarily on the Bronze Age civilization of the Minoans. Flourishing in the second millennium bc, the Minoans created the first great palace civilization of Europe. Their art is wonderfully expressive,
and its influence spread throughout Greece, Egypt and the Near East. Pottery, sealstones, frescoes and architecture reached peaks of excellence unforeseen in the prehistoric Aegean. Mycenaean, Hellenistic, Classical Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Venetian and Turkish domination followed. The books written on the island’s World War II history alone fill a bookshelf. And yet throughout these millennia of foreign occupation and domination, Crete remained strong and proud and retained its own unique and captivating character.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 12.15pm from London Heathrow to Iràklion via Athens (Aegean Airlines). First of four nights in Iràklion. Day 2: Knossos, Iràklion. The capital of Minoan Crete and centre of the Bronze Age Aegean, Knossos is shrouded in myth both ancient and modern. At its peak it comprised a magnificent palace with courts, religious buildings and mansions. Excavated by Sir Arthur Evans at the turn of the century, his reconstructions not only protect the excavated remains but grandly illustrate the splendour of palatial civilization. Visit the Archaeological Museum which houses the island’s largest collection of Minoan art. Day 3: Gortyn, Phaestos, Agia Triada, Matala. A day in the Mesara, a rich agricultural plain along the south coast. Gortyn was the Roman capital of Crete; a famous 5th century bc inscription has details of Greek law. On a ridge Phaestos is the second largest Minoan palace. Agia Triada, interpreted as the summer resort for Phaestos, has beautifully sited and architecturally elaborate villas. Visit the charming town of Matala, a harbour of Roman Gortyn, with rock-cut tombs in a cliff nearby.
Crete, wood engraving c. 1890.
Day 4: Arhanes, Vathypetro, Iràklion. Another pretty town, Arhanes possesses remarkable archaeological remains and one of the best excavated cemeteries on Crete, Phourni (this is a closed site and permission for access can be withdrawn). The town also has a beautiful museum. Another ‘villa’ site, Vathypetro is situated in verdant farmland overlooking the Pediadha district of Central Crete. Day 5: Malia, Agios Nikolaos. At Malia visit the Minoan Palace and houses belonging to the Minoan town. The Archaeological Museum at Agios Nikolaos houses a fine collection of Minoan art. First of three nights in Sitia. Day 6: Sitia, Toplou, Zákros. The museum at Sitia has a good collection of artefacts from eastern sites of the island. Positioned in the barren low hills of east Crete, Toplou monastery has a history of fierce resistance to the island’s various invaders. Káto Zákros, at the foot of the Gorge of the Dead, is an excavated Minoan palace. Day 7: Gournia, Vasiliki. The largest excavated Minoan town, Gournia’s over seventy cramped houses lie dotted about the hillside with a mini-palace at the top. Situated on the Ierapetra isthmus, Vasiliki shows the beginnings of palatial architecture in its use of a west court. Day 8: Knossos, Hania. Second visit to Knossos and a private visit of outer-lying buildings. Drive to Hania, the spiritual capital of Crete, a beautiful town with delightful restaurants and good craft shops. First of two nights in Hania. Day 9: Aptera, Hania. One of the most powerful Graeco-Roman city states, Aptera is a huge site with Roman ruins, a theatre and a Turkish fort. See the British war cemetery at Souda Bay. Moni Agias Triadas on the Akrotiri peninsula above Hania was founded in 1630 by Venetian nobles and has some of the finest monastic architecture on the island. Day 10. Fly to London Heathrow via Athens, arriving c. 3.30pm. The opening of sites on Crete is arbitrary and can be influenced by the politics at the time of the tour. This may mean that at short notice not all sites listed can be visited.
Practicalities
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Price: £2,640 (deposit £250). Single supplement £200 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,360. Included meals: 4 lunches, 5 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Lato Boutique Hotel, Iràklion (lato.gr): family-run 3-star hotel with small but well-appointed rooms. Good location by the Venetian port. Sitia Beach Hotel, Sitia (sitiabeach. com): Large, 4-star resort hotel on the edge of the town. Kydon Hotel, Hania (kydon-hotel.com): 4-star hotel well located close to the old town and port. Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.
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Guatemala? See page 167 for Lands of the Maya. book online at www.martinrandall.com
Combine this tour with: Central Macedonia, 16–23 May 2015 (see previous page).
Vienna & Budapest 1900 ‘Fin de siécle’ art, architecture & design 4–9 September 2015 (mc 461) 6 days • £2,420 Lecturer: Dr Diane Silverthorne Two of the cities best endowed with Art Nouveau art, design and architecture. Study similarities and differences within the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the context of contrasting cultural developments and nationalistic aspirations. Led by specialist art historian Dr Diane Silverthorne.
Itinerary Day 1: Vienna. Fly at c. 10.00am from London Heathrow to Vienna (British Airways) and drive to the Gallery of Austrian Art in the Belvedere Palace. Here amidst Baroque magnificence is a
From a Bavarian cartoon of 1910.
splendid collection of paintings by Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka and contemporaries. First of three nights in Vienna. Day 2: Vienna. The stunning Secession Building was designed by Joseph Maria Olbrich (1898) to exhibit artists ‘seceding’ from academy system; Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze is housed here. The Leopold Collection possesses an excellent collection of paintings and drawings by Egon Schiele and by most of his peers. Otto Wagner successfully straddled establishment and progressive patronage and became the most influential designer in Vienna; works by him include colourful apartment façades, his villa in the suburbs and the Kirche am Steinhof, a hilltop hospital church of refulgent beauty, the apogee of Secessionism. Day 3: Vienna. A walk in the inner city looks at turn-of-the-century buildings and interiors including the notorious gentleman’s outfitters in Michaelerplatz by Adolf Loos and the Post Office Savings Bank by Wagner. There is a superb collection of furnishings of the era at the Museum of Applied Arts, and paintings and interiors in the Vienna Museum. Two former metropolitan railway pavilions, white and gold, by Wagner and Olbrich, epitomise the modernity and beauty of Viennese Secessionism. Day 4: Vienna to Budapest. By rail to Budapest (2¾ hours). In the last third of the 19th cent. the population tripled and prosperity peaked so major Art Nouveau buildings of all sorts abound in Pest on the north bank of the Danube – offices, department stores, government institutions, banks, apartments. The afternoon walk passes many including the Parisian Court with a façade enriched with Gothic and Eastern motifs, the Klotild and Matilde Palaces, office blocks faced with glazed tiles, and the Philanthia Florist, which continues its original function. First of two nights in Budapest.
Day 5: Budapest. Its façade open to the Danube, József Vágó’s Gresham Palace (1907) is as monumental as Art Nouveau gets. Other places seen in the morning include the former Stock Exchange by Ignác Alpár and the Post Office Savings Bank by the leading architect of the time, Ödön Lechner. Across the Danube in Buda, the National Gallery houses a magnificent collection of Hungarian art. Return to the hotel in Pest by the funicular and walk back to the hotel. Dinner is in a restaurant with an art nouveau interior. Day 6: Budapest. The Museum of Applied Arts (1893–6) and the Geological Institute (1896–99) are two of Ödön Lechner’s most radical and memorable buildings, elaborated with forms from Hungarian folk art and Asia with symbolic references to Attila the Hun in a determined attempt to create a national style. The Calvinist Church by Aladar Arkay (1913) is a ceramicclad synthesis of German, Scandinavian and American Art Nouveau with stained glass windows by Miksa Roth – international in inspiration therefore. Fly from Budapest to Heathrow, arriving c. 6.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,420 (deposit £250). Single supplement £290 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,100. Included meals: 2 lunches, 4 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Bristol, Vienna (bristolvienna.com): a 5-star hotel in a superb location on the Ringstrasse near the opera house, traditionally furnished and decorated. Intercontinental Hotel, Budapest (budapest. intercontinental.com): a modern, international 5-star hotel excellently situated beside the Danube in Pest and close to the Chain Bridge. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Art Nouveau and its innumerable variants and synonyms never quite became mainstream, didn’t thrive for long and in some places was never much more than a cheeky decorative affectation, but it spread like wildfire to practically every corner of Europe. It was a movement rather than a style, being amazingly diverse in its forms and applications and, particularly in the Habsburg Empire, encompassing painting, sculpture and architecture as well as the decorative arts. Defining Art Nouveau is a challenge; one universally applicable feature is a negative, that it abandoned the imitation of historical styles, but another is a positive, if vague in the extreme: that whatever other impulses and motivations there may have been, the pursuit of beauty was paramount. Vienna and Budapest are among the halfdozen cities where the largest quantity of Art Nouveau art and design can be found. And, more than in most places, in each there was originality and a fecund variety of forms. But particularly striking is the sharp difference between the Austrian and the Hungarian variants. In Vienna, as in many places, ‘Secessionism’ developed in opposition to artistic orthodoxy and social conservatism; in Budapest, ‘Eclecticism’ was all this but additionally a manifestation of Magyr resentment of the cultural and political dominance of their Austrian overlords. Both countries were within the Habsburg empire, and the Emperor of one was the King of the other. Even though since 1867 Hungary enjoyed a large measure of independence, the crescendo of national revivalism led increasingly to a desire to identify difference and express nationalist aspirations through the plastic arts. Artists rummaged among ancient myth and modern anthropology to develop specifically Hungarian forms and symbols. The social and cultural roots of turn-of-thecentury art and design in these two capitals are fascinating and illuminating, and an understanding of the nationalistic and political undercurrents is illuminating. But above all, this tour is a study of an artistic phenomenon which is of astonishing diversity, prolixity and, let it be said, exquisite beauty.
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The Budapest Spring Festival Music in the Hungarian capital
Budapest, late-20th-century etching by F. Conrad.
April 2015 Details available in August 2014 Contact us to register your interest Performances in four excellent venues.
The beauties of Budapest probably need no introduction. Straddling the Danube, the ancient citadel of Buda is ensconced on an outcrop on the right bank, while the broad boulevards and grand buildings of Pest spread across the flatter terrain of the left bank.
World class musicians. Accompanied by a musicologist, with walks and visits with a city guide.
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Spring in the context of the Budapest Festival is more metaphorical than seasonal, musical rather than meteorological. The selection of this early-bird slot from the outset was cunningly intended to sidestep serious competition on the international festival circuit, and to increase the number of visitors in a lean month for tourism. The festival need fear no competition now. It is indubitably international in stature and artistic quality, and by virtue of the origins of many performers. And yet it retains a highly distinctive flavour through the preponderance of Central European music and musicians. Thus appropriateness and a sense of place amplify qualities which are more purely musical. And the experience of the place itself is likewise heightened by the musical experience. book online at www.martinrandall.com
There are some mediaeval and Renaissance survivals (though much was obliterated by Turkish occupation and the struggle for liberation), much Baroque and a splendid array of nineteenth century architecture, the result of the burst of prosperity which accompanied growing Magyar demands for national self-determination. The opera house, opened in 1884, is one of the most sumptuous in Europe, and rivals Vienna and Prague, even Paris. This tour will look in particular at the distinctive turn-of-the-century architecture and design, when political and nationalistic impulses came into play alongside artistic ones – just as with music.
Left: engraving from The Art Journal, 1887.
Essential India
Hindu temples, Rajput palaces & Mughal tombs 14–28 November 2014 (mb 198) 15 days • £5,670 Lecturer: Dr Anna-Maria Misra 20 February–6 March 2015 (mb 245) 15 days • £5,670 Lecturer: Dr Giles Tillotson Includes some of India’s most celebrated sites and also lesser-known but quintessential places. Arrangements for special access a feature. Spends more time at the centres visited than most mainstream tours, and free time is allowed for rest or independent exploration. Varanasi, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, and the most sacred in India; the Hindu temples of Khajuraho; Rajput and Mughal forts, palaces and funerary monuments. Seven unesco World Heritage Sites visited. In November 2014, led by Dr Anna-Maria Misra who lectures at Oxford and researches the history of India and the British Empire. In February 2015, led by Dr Giles Tillotson, a leading expert in Mughal and Rajput history and architecture.
Itinerary Days 1 & 2: London to Delhi. Fly from London Heathrow (British Airways) at around noon and after a 5½ hour time change reach the hotel in New Delhi at c. 3.00am. Free morning followed by lunch in the hotel. The severely beautiful 15th-cent. tombs of the Sayyid and Lodi dynasties are located in the serene Lodi Gardens, close to the hotel. Humayun’s striking tomb, with its high-arched façades set in a walled garden, is an important example of early Mughal architecture. Overnight Delhi. Day 3: Delhi. Visit the imposing Red Fort, founded in 1639 under Shah Jahan. Exquisite pietra dura work remains intact in the throne pavilion. Together with the fort, the Jami Masjid, India’s largest mosque, dominates Old Delhi with its minarets and domes. Rickshaw through the labyrinthine streets near Chandni Chowk. After lunch, visit New Delhi where Lutyens, Baker and other British architects created a grand city with unique designs. Baker’s Secretariat buildings on the Raisina hill are Classical buildings at first glance but closer attention reveals Mughal motifs. Subject to special permission, it may be possible
‘The Prince visits the Glory of India’ by Donald Maxwell (1877–1936).
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The rich and fertile riverine plains of northern India have long formed a corridor allowing migrations and invasions to spread across the Subcontinent. The result is an area of fascinating cultural diversity. Like the Ganges and the Yamuna, the sacred rivers of Hindu lore, this tour runs through the modern state of Uttar Pradesh and neighbouring Madhya Pradesh. But these geo-political boundaries do not restrict it thematically. Participants are treated to a comprehensive overview of the history of the Subcontinent, from the emergence of Hinduism and Buddhism to the decline of the Mughal Empire, the last Islamic power before the British Raj of the nineteenth century. Located on the banks of the Ganges, Varanasi is India’s most sacred place and claims to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. Founded by Lord Shiva, the city is mentioned in scriptures dating from the early Vedic period, in the second millennium bc. It was known as Kashi, the Luminous, during the life of the Buddha who visited on several occasions on his way to Sarnath nearby where he preached his first sermon. Pilgrims still flock here to wash away their sins in the holy Ganges. The modern Varanasi is also a place of learning and culture, with the first Hindu university in India. The Chandelas of Khajuraho and the Bundelas of Orchha are two Rajput clans tracing lineage to the Lunar Dynasty from Varanasi, a commonly used device to claim political authority. The eleventh-century Chandelas built intricately carved temples in Khajuraho, today celebrated (and often misunderstood) for their sensual carvings. They are superb examples of the Nagara or northern style of sacred architecture, with its linear succession of halls leading to the sanctum, topped by a Sikhara, or mountain-peak tower. Later Bundela Rajputs built impressive palaces
and temple-like cenotaphs in the lush landscape of northern Madhya Pradesh. Their palaces bring together elements borrowed from both the Rajput and Mughal traditions, while their funerary architecture asserts their dynastic authority. The buildings and arts of the Mughals in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are often regarded as the apex of India’s artistic achievements, a prestige due no doubt in no small part to its best-known representative, the Taj Mahal, a creation which hovers somewhere between architecture, jewellery and myth. White marble is typical of the late period, while earlier buildings are of red sandstone – the deserted capital of Akbar at Fatehpur Sikri, and the Red Forts of Agra and Delhi. Delhi is among a rare elite of the world’s cities which have been capital of several successive regimes. With most new ruling powers establishing their headquarters on a site adjacent to its predecessors, the architectural legacy ranges from a monumental thirteenthcentury minaret to the majestic expansiveness of Lutyens’s New Delhi. Empire succeeds empire; eighteen years after the Viceroy took up residence in Government House it was handed over to an independent India.
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Essential India continued
building clad in white marble inlaid with pietra dura inlay. A stroll in Mehtab Bagh, a former Mughal garden by the Yamuna river, is rewarded with a view of the Taj Mahal; any anxiety about it failing to live up to it reputation for sublime beauty is misplaced. Overnight Agra.
After a painting by Mortimer Mempes. publ. 1905 in India.
Day 13: Agra, Fatehpur Sikri. Rise early to visit the Taj Mahal in the first light of day. It was commissioned by Shah Jahan in memory of his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal, and completed 1648. Breakfast at the hotel. The magnificent Red Fort was built by Akbar and is the best preserved of the palaces built during his reign. Drive out to Fatehpur Sikri, a new capital built by Akbar (1570) but abandoned after a mere fifteen years. The palace complex consists of a series of courtyards and beautifully wrought red sandstone pavilions. Overnight Agra.
to visit the manicured gardens and interior of the vast Rashtrapati Bhavan, the former Viceroy’s residence. Overnight Delhi. Day 4: Delhi to Varanasi. Fly from Delhi to Varanasi (Jet Airways) at c. 10.30am. After lunch in the hotel, drive to Shivala Ghat to visit the hidden shrines of the old town and experience the busy life along the river. Ends at Dasaswamedha Ghat, named after the ancient ten horse sacrifice which took place here in mythical time. A boat ride along the Ganges ends with the evening prayer ceremony (Aarti), a ritual going back to the Vedic Age. First of three nights in Varanasi. Day 5: Sarnath, Varanasi. Buddha preached his first sermon at Sarnath and the site remains an active Buddhist centre. The Dhamek stupa in the Deer Park marks the spot where the Buddha sat to preach. The museum houses the 3rd-cent. bc lion capital which has become the symbol of modern India since independence. Afternoon visit to the Bharat Kala Bhavan, the university museum. Overnight Varanasi.
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Day 6: Varanasi. An early morning boat ride to witness the morning prayers and ablutions of the devout is followed by a walk amongst the sacred temples and holy ponds of the south part of the city, near the Assi Ghat. Breakfast on the ghats (stepped embankments). Some free time in the afternoon. Overnight Varanasi. Day 7: Varanasi to Khajuraho. Fly to Khajuraho (Jet Airways) in the morning. After lunch, visit the spectacular western group of temples built during the Chandela Rajput dynasty, famous for the beautifully carved erotic scenes. The aweinspiring 11th-cent. Kandariya Mahadev Temple is one of the finest examples of North Indian temple architecture, richly embellished with sensuous sculptures depicting the god’s heavenly abodes. Nearby, the Jagadambi Temple contains excellent carvings of Vishnu. First of two nights in Khajuraho.
Day 8: Khajuraho. In the morning, visit the eastern group of temples with the intricately carved Jain Temple. The Chaturbhuj Temple is unique in its absence of any erotic depictions. The afternoon is free with the option of revisiting the western group of temples. Overnight Khajuraho.
‘We were very pleased with the itinerary as it not only included the iconic cities of Delhi, Agra and Varanasi, but also less touristy cities of Gwalior and Orchha.’ Day 9: Khajuraho to Orchha. Drive to Orchha, located close to the Betwa River on dramatic rocky terrain. Its former glory as capital of the Bundela kings is evident in the multi-chambered Jehangir Mahal with lapis lazuli tiles and ornate gateways. The Raj Mahal palace contains beautiful murals with religious and secular themes. Elegant Royal Chhatris (cenotaphs) line the ghats of the Betwa. Overnight Orchha. Day 10: Orchha. A walk in the old town includes the high-ceilinged Chaturbhuj Temple; the cross plan represents the four-armed Vishnu. The Lakshmi Temple incorporates fortress elements and its 19th-cent. frescoes depict scenes of the 1857 Mutiny. Afternoon journey from Jhansi to Gwalior by train. First of two nights in Gwalior. Day 11: Gwalior. Athwart a steep-sided hill, the formidable Gwalior Fort is lavishly embellished with cupolas and blue tiles; inside are superb 9thand 11th-cent. temples. The afternoon is at leisure with the option of a visit to a nearby palace. Overnight Gwalior. Day 12: Gwalior, Agra. Drive to Agra and in the afternoon visit the Itimad ud Daula (c. 1628), an exquisite garden tomb and the first Mughal
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Day 14: Sikandra, Delhi. Drive to Delhi via Akbar’s mausoleum at Sikandra, built on his death in 1605. Set in a traditional char-bagh, it has no central dome unlike other Mughal mausolea. In Delhi, visit the Qutb Minar, site of the first Islamic city of Delhi, established in 1193 on the grounds of a defeated Rajput fort. The towering minaret and its mosque survive as testament to the might of the invaders. Overnight Delhi. Day 15: Delhi. Fly from Delhi in the morning (British Airways), arriving at London Heathrow in the early afternoon.
Practicalities Price: £5,670 (deposit £500). Single supplement £840. Price without flights £5,000. Included meals: 11 lunches, 9 dinners with wine. Visas: required for most foreign nationals, and not included in the tour price. Accommodation. Taj Mahal Hotel, New Delhi (tajhotels.com): 5-star, centrally located. Taj Gateway Ganges Hotel, Varanasi (tajhotels. com): comfortable 4-star outside the centre. Lalit Temple View Hotel, Khajuraho (thelalit.com): modern, within walking distance of the main sites. Hotel Amar Mahal, Orchha (amarmahal. com): the most basic on the tour, but this 3-star equivalent is conveniently located. Usha Kiran Palace Hotel, Gwalior (tajhotels.com): former palace converted into a charming hotel. Oberoi Trident Hotel, Agra (tridenthotels.com): modern 4-star close to the main sites. The Leela Palace Hotel, Gurgaon–Delhi (theleela.com): modern 5-star, close to the airport. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Assam By River, 1–11 December 2014 (contact us for full details or visit www.martinrandall.com).
Painted Palaces of Rajasthan Jodhpur, Nagaur, Bikaner, the Shekhawati & Jaipur 24 November–7 Dec. 2014 (mb 201) 14 days • £5,720 Lecturer: Dr Giles Tillotson A chronological survey of the remarkable phenomenon of architectural paintings. Architecture of forts and palaces, from the grimly defensible to filigree finesse. Includes places rarely visited by tourists, and lingers longer in well-known places. Private visit of the painting gallery of Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur. Led by Dr Giles Tillotson, a leading expert in Rajput and Mughal history and architecture. Rajasthan has long been famous for the great forts and palaces built by the Rajputs. These Hindu maharajas first resisted Muslim expansion in North India but then became co-architects of the Mughal empire. Their fine cities have been magnets for tourists and travellers since the days of Pierre Loti and Rudyard Kipling. Some have ancient origins, but in the more settled times of the heyday of the Mughals and of the period of British rule, they built increasingly elaborate and delicately ornamented palace apartments within the embattled forts of their forebears. These deservedly rank among the most visited and admired of Indian sites.
More recently rediscovered are the exquisite painted mansions built by the merchant classes in some of the smaller towns of the region. The Rajput rulers represent the warrior class, the people who carved out kingdoms and asserted the right to rule by force of arms. Powerful as they were, they could never work alone and they looked to other communities – to the priests and the merchant classes – to provide the administrative brains and business acumen that ensured their states were well governed and prosperous. The most successful people among these groups developed their own styles of architectural opulence. This unusual tour of Rajasthan presents both aspects of the state, combining relatively short travel distances with maximum cultural impact. The three forts of Mehrangarh (in Jodhpur), Ahichhatragarh (in Nagaur) and Junagadh (in Bikaner) include some of the finest painted interiors in all of Rajasthan, dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The stylistic starting point is the composite culture that the Rajputs developed with their Mughal contemporaries; but in these interiors that style is invigorated by elements drawn from Rajasthan’s distinctive folk culture. There are also exquisite
gardens, especially the extensive and recently restored garden complex in Nagaur. And with the later palace buildings of Jodhpur, the Sufi shrine of Nagaur and the temples of Bikaner, these three cities have much else to offer besides. The second part of the tour takes us through the best preserved towns in the area known as Shekhawati. Here especially, the merchant communities constructed elegant palatial homes or courtyard houses known as havelis. In the arid landscape these buildings appear like a colourful pageant celebrating the muralists’ art. Even the exterior walls are covered with lively scenes drawn from religion, folklore and everyday life. Ironically some of the leading patrons never got to live in these homes. With the rise of British power in the nineteenth century, they migrated to Calcutta, where the greater business opportunities lay. They continued to remit funds in generous quantities to the towns of their origins, funding public welfare schemes as well as their own estates – all undertaken against the day of eventual return, which has still not come to pass. The tour begins in Delhi, India’s capital, where the Mughal and British monuments place
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Jaipur, the Amber Palace, from Indian India, As Seen by a Guest in Rajasthan by C.W. Waddington, 1933. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Emperor Akbar in 1570, has some original floral murals, while the Hadi Rani Mahal houses some 16th-cent. murals in shades of green depicting daily and courtly scenes. The rest of the day is free. Overnight Nagaur. Day 7: Nagaur, Bikaner. In the morning, drive to Bikaner for lunch at the Laxmi Vilas Palace, a masterpiece of Indo-Saracenic architecture designed by Sir Swinton Jacob (1902). The Jain Bhandasar Temple is said to be older than the city itself, although the current building dates from the 15th cent. and has fine paintings. First of two nights in Gajner, near Bikaner, in the former royal hunting lodge. Day 8: Bikaner. Unlike most Rajput strongholds, Junagadh Fort is not built on a hill. Founded in 1588, it displays a variety of painting styles, from traditional Rajput motifs to early 20th-cent. depictions of trains. The Monsoon Palace has some highly unusual paintings of rain clouds and lightning, while the Diwan-i-Khas, the hall of private audience, is profusely decorated with gold leaf. There is a special opening of the Phool Mahal, the oldest part of the palace. Options for the rest of the day include bird watching and a 4x4 excursion. Overnight Gajner. Day 9: Bikaner, Mandawa (Shekhawati). The desert villages of the Shekhawati region of northern Rajasthan are celebrated for their painted havelis (merchants’ mansions), which go back to the 18th century. The Nand Lal Devra haveli in Fatehpur has some newly restored examples. A leisurely walk in Mandawa reveals some interesting depictions of flying machines and other modern appliances. First of two nights in Mandawa. After a painting by Mortimer Mempes. publ. 1905 in India.
the various phases of our Rajasthani odyssey in the larger imperial context; and ends in Jaipur, the celebrated capital of Rajasthan, built according to the Vastu Shastra, the architectural treatise from the Vedic age which enjoyed a revival under the Hindu rulers of Rajputana in the eighteenth century.
Itinerary
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Day 1: London to Delhi. Fly from London Heathrow to Delhi at c. 12 noon (British Airways), and after a 5½-hour time change reach the hotel in New Delhi c. 2.00am. Day 2: Delhi. Nothing is planned before a prelunch talk. In the afternoon visit the National Museum’s impressive and well-displayed collection of miniature paintings, from both Mughal and Rajput traditions, studying their differences and similarities. Overnight Delhi. Day 3: Delhi, Jodhpur. Fly from Delhi to Jodhpur in the morning (Jet Airways). Presiding over the capital of one of the largest Rajput states in western Rajasthan is the magnificent Mehrangarh Fort. Described by Kipling as the ‘work of angels, fairies and giants’, it was built in 1459 and has some of the most imposing fortifications in the
world. Private dinner in the fort’s garden. First of two nights in Jodhpur. Day 4: Jodhpur. Created in resplendent white marble, Jaswant Thada is the large 19th-cent. memorial of Jaswant Singh II and cremation ground of the Marwar rulers. The visit to Mehrangarh examines the painting tradition of the Marwari Rajputs, with special admission to the gallery led by the curator. The buildings of the lively Old City are painted in a variety of blues, originally the colour denoting the homes of Brahmins. Overnight Jodhpur. Day 5: Mandore, Nagaur. Mandore was the capital of the Marwari state until 1895 when it moved to Jodhpur. On the ancient cremation grounds, the royal cenotaphs are unique in Rajasthan as they resemble Hindu temples. In the afternoon, drive through the desert to Nagaur, one of the earliest Rajput settlements and an important Sufi centre. First of two nights in Nagaur. Day 6: Nagaur. Ahichhatragarh Fort (linked to the hotel by a corridor) was founded in the 4th cent. and developed and embellished in the 18th. Pre-Mughal and Mughal architecture is well preserved in the palace chambers; the Akbari Mahal, built to commemorate the visit of the
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Day 10: Parasrampura, Nawalgarh. The simple 18th-cent. cenotaph of Sardur Singh possesses some of the earliest paintings in the region. The ochre monochromes are typical of the early period. The equally modest Gopinath temple nearby has unfinished medallions, which provide insight into the creative process. The Morarka and Podar havelis are two of the finest in Nawalgarh, with a clearly delineated pictorial programme. Overnight in Mandawa. Day 11: Mandawa, Jaipur. The 4-hour coach journey to Jaipur drives through the scenic Aravalli range. The dramatically located site of Galta outside Jaipur features temples, leisure pavilions, sacred water spring and tanks. Founded in the 18th cent. by the prominent Rajput ruler Sawai Jai Singh, the design of Jaipur demonstrates its creator’s obsession with mathematics and science. First of two nights in Jaipur. Day 12: Jaipur. The City Palace contains an unsurpassed collection of paintings and artefacts. The Jantar Mantar, the 1730s observatory is equipped with massive astronomical instruments that are astonishingly accurate. A walk takes in the many-windowed façade of the pink sandstone Hawa Mahal (Palace of Winds) and attractive havelis. Athwart a natural ridge, the magnificent yellow walls of the 18th-cent. Amber Palace conceal fine craftsmanship – mirrored
Indian Summer
Delhi, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Shimla Dr Giles Tillotson Writer and lecturer on Indian architecture, art and history. His books include Taj Mahal, Jaipur Nama: Tales from the Pink City, and the novel, Return to Bhanupur. He is a Fellow, and the former Director, of the Royal Asiatic Society and was Chair of Art & Archaeology at SOAS. Giles Tillotson also leads Essential India (20 February–6 March 2015 – contact us for full details or visit www.martinrandall.com). All lecturers’ biographies can be found on pages 8–15.
chambers, latticed windows, carved alabaster. Overnight Jaipur. Day 13: Jaipur, Delhi. Fly to Delhi around lunchtime (Jet Airways). Stay overnight near the airport. Day 14: Delhi to London. The direct flight (British Airways) is scheduled to arrive at Heathrow early afternoon.
Practicalities Price: £5,720 (deposit £500). Single supplement £1830. Price without flights £5,070.
30 March–11 April 2015 (mb 272) 13 days • £5,320 Lecturer: Raaja Bhasin A fascinating selection of places which have the common feature of relating to the last years of the Raj. Led by Raaja Bhasin, historian, author, lecturer and Shimla resident. Shimla, the grandest hill station, the buildings a hotch-potch of bastardised European styles. Reached by the famous mountain ‘toy train’. Chandigarh, the modern ideal city built by Le Corbusier. Both the high noon of the British Empire in India and its closing years were played out in the city of Delhi and in the ‘summer capital’, Simla (now Shimla), dubbed by many the grandest outpost of the Pax Britannica. Tracing the ebb and flow of the Raj in two imperial capitals, this tour covers architecture, events, lifestyles, landscapes of the Western Himalaya and numerous stories of places and people. Amritsar is part of this story, and Chandigarh provides a glimpse into Indian Utopia after Independence. Built, destroyed and rebuilt a dozen times, Delhi is one of the oldest cities in the world, and also one of the most multilayered. It is home to some fifteen million people and its heterogeneous population has genetic strands that span the
Indian subcontinent, Central Asia and several other parts of the world. Today, towers of chrome and steel stand side by side with centuries-old monuments built by the Mughal rulers. Between the two, the immense architectural momentum of the Raj culminated in the creation of New Delhi, still the core of this fast-expanding city. Up in the hills of the Western Himalaya, Simla was the summer capital of British India, the grandest of the British hill stations. For around a century, a fifth of the human race was ruled from its heights for the better part of every year. The architecture is practically a gazetteer of western styles, but often with a twist, a nod to the heritage of the subcontinent. The town created an enigmatic way of life and the steamier side of its social world gave inspiration to Rudyard Kipling, who as a young correspondent spent some summers amidst the cedars. Many decisions that shaped India and the region were made within sight of the snow-clad Himalayas. Today it is the capital of the state of Himachal Pradesh and many of the grander buildings, bungalows and streets still evoke the heyday of a past age. West of it lies the fertile ‘Land of Five Rivers’, the Punjab. Here is the sacred city of Amritsar, site of the Golden Temple, the most sacred shrine of the Sikh faith. This was also where the Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place in 1919, when a crowd of unarmed civilians was fired upon. The event totally altered the face of Indian nationalism. Even Winston Churchill was moved
Included meals: 9 lunches, 9 dinners with wine. Visas: required for most foreign nationals, and not included in the tour price. Accommodation. Taj Mahal Hotel, New Delhi (tajhotels.com): a 5-star centrally located hotel. Hotel Raas, Jodhpur (raasjodhpur.com): a boutique hotel within the walled city. Hotel Ranvas, Nagaur (ranvasnagaur.com): a 17thcentury palace converted into a luxury hotel. Gajner Palace Hotel, Gajner (hrhhotels.com): a lake-side hotel on the edge of the Thar desert. Hotel Vivaana, Mandawa (vivaana.com): painted haveli converted into a comfortable hotel. Jai Mahal Palace, Jaipur (tajhotels.com): a 5-star city centre hotel. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
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Amritsar, the Golden Temple, wood engraving from Across India at the Dawn of the 20th Century, 1898. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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enough to remark, ‘It is an extraordinary event, an event which stands in singular and sinister isolation’. The border with Pakistan is close to Amritsar, and with belligerence which is almost histrionic, the sundown ceremony of lowering the flags and closing the gates is played out daily. Nearby is the former princely state of Kapurthala where the Francophile ruler, Jagatjit Singh, completed a palace in 1908, loosely modelled on Versailles. He tried to introduce French as his court language. When the Punjab was divided between India and Pakistan in 1947 the state capital Lahore was replaced in the Indian portion by a brand new city, Chandigarh. Its building in the 1950s was a deliberate break with the past. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru called it ‘a new city of free India, totally fresh and wholly responsive to the future generations of this great country.’ Led by Le Corbusier, the city design and urban elements were unabashedly modern and western. Still admired and criticized in equal measure by planners, architects and urban historians, it is yet rated as among the best cities in India in which to live.
Itinerary Days 1 & 2: London to Delhi. Fly from London Heathrow at c. 9.30am and, after a 5½-hour time change, reach the hotel in New Delhi early the following morning. Nothing is planned before a pre-lunch talk. In the afternoon, visit Old Delhi for a short walk on The Ridge, taking in Flagstaff Tower, a safe haven for the British during the Mutiny of 1857. The Mutiny Memorial commemorating those killed in action is a NeoGothic spire with elements of Indian design. First of three nights in New Delhi. Day 3: New Delhi. New Delhi was created 1912–31 by Lutyens, Baker and others as a
Amritsar, The Porcelain Dome, Mortimer Menpes, publ. 1905.
uniquely grand and spacious city. The Secretariat buildings on Raisina Hill are Classical at first glance, but closer inspection reveals Buddhist and Mughal motifs. Subject to special permission, it may be possible to visit the interior of the vast Rashtrapati Bhavan, the former Viceroy’s residence. The fortress-like garrison church of St Martin, designed by Arthur Shoosmith (1930), has been called one of the great buildings of the 20th century. Overnight New Delhi.
Sikhism’s holiest shrine, the Golden Temple. The sacred lake surrounding the temple dates from this period but the current form of the temple is 18th-cent., and the gilt early 19th-cent. Jallianwala Bagh was the scene of the massacre of demonstrators against British rule in 1919 and now is a moving memorial garden. In the afternoon, drive to Wagah for the theatrical sunset closing ceremony of the border with Pakistan. Overnight Amritsar.
Day 4: Delhi to Amritsar. The Teen Murthi Bhavan was built in Classical style in the 1930s as Flagstaff House before becoming the home of the first Indian prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Today, it is a museum dedicated to one of the fathers of modern India. Fly from Delhi to Amritsar at c. 2.00pm. First of two nights in Amritsar.
Day 6: Kapurthala, Chandigarh. In the morning, drive to Kapurthala, where the local ruler, an ardent francophile, built his palace (1900–1908) loosely modelled on the palace of Versailles and the chateau of Fontainebleau. Now a boys’ school, the interior is lavish, while the gardens are embellished by fountains and statuary in the traditional French style. Continue to Chandigarh to arrive at the hotel in time for dinner. First of two nights in Chandigarh.
Day 5: Amritsar, Wagah. Amritsar was founded by the 4th Sikh guru in 1579 and is home to
Shimla, steel engraving 1845.
Day 7: Chandigarh. The joint capital of the states of Haryana and Punjab emerged from the partition of the Punjab in 1947. Conceived by Le Corbusier and Maxwell Fry following the principles of the International Modern movement, it is laid out on the grid principle. The Capital Complex is the home of the administrative buildings, the ‘head’ of the city and some of Le Corbusier’s most ambitious planning. Overnight Chandigarh.
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Day 8: Chandigarh, Shimla. Transfer to Kalka in the foothills of the Himalayas to board the ‘toy train’ to Shimla. The Kalka–Shimla Railway has been operating daily since 1903 and is a remarkable feat of engineering. After a 5-hour ride through stunning scenery, transfer to the hotel. First of three nights in Shimla. Day 9: Shimla, Mashobra. The former summer capital of British India, Shimla is set in the lush pine and cedar forests of the Himalayan foothills. Its impressive colonial architecture is best admired through walks along the Mall. Viceregal Lodge, the summer residence of the British viceroy is probably Shimla’s best-known building. Built in 1888, the grey sandstone structure retains the British royal coat of arms on its façade. After lunch at Wildflower Hall, visit Bishop Cotton
108 book online at www.martinrandall.com
INDIA, 2014–2015 Raaja Bhasin
Return from a Hunt’, lithograph c. 1840.
Author, historian and journalist. He has published several books on the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh and its capital Shimla and is a recognised authority on both. He is the state Coconvenor of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage. All lecturers’ biographies can be found on pages 8–15.
School, Shimla’s oldest educational institution, founded in 1859. Overnight Shimla. Day 10: Shimla. Walk eastward along The Mall towards Christ Church. The Gaiety Theatre was built in 1887 as the original Town Hall. The Gothic building has been the centre of Shimla’s social life for over a century. The tower of Christ Church (1857) dominates Shimla’s skyline from the Ridge, above the town. Time for independent exploration in the afternoon. Overnight Shimla. Day 11: Kasauli, Chandigarh. Morning drive to Kasauli via Dagshai, scene of the Connaught Rangers’ Mutiny in 1920. The Central Jail (1849) is where the executions took place. The pretty hill station of Kasauli has some interesting 19thcent. buildings such as Christ Church and the Kasauli Club. Afternoon drive to Chandigarh. Overnight Chandigarh. Day 12: Chandigarh to Delhi. In the morning, fly to Delhi. Coronation Park in north Delhi was the location of the 1911 Durbar, at which George V announced the shift of the British capital from Calcutta. Following Independence, it became the resting place of the statues of kings and officials of the British Raj. Overnight New Delhi.
The Indian Mutiny
Temples of Tamil Nadu
Day 13: Delhi to London. Rise early for the flight, arriving London Heathrow at c. 1.00pm.
28 October–10 Nov. 2014 (mb 185) 14 days • £4,830 Lecturer: Patrick Mercer
26 January–8 February 2015 (mb 232) 14 days • £4,790 Lecturer: Asoka Pugal
Practicalities
Essential India
Sacred India
Price: £5,320 (deposit £500). Single supplement £760. Price without international flights £4,610. Included meals: 8 lunches, 8 dinners with wine.
Accommodation. Taj Mahal Hotel, New Delhi (tajhotels.com): 5-star centrally located hotel. Ranjit Svaasa, Amritsar (svaasa.com/ htmlwebsite): colonial mansion converted into a characterful boutique hotel. Taj Chandigarh, Chandigarh (tajhotels.com): modern 4-star city hotel. The Oberoi Cecil, Shimla (oberoihotels. com): landmark 19th-cent. building, converted into a luxury hotel in the 1930s. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
14–28 November 2014 (mb 198) 20 February–6 March 2015 (mb 245) See page 103 for full details
Painted Palaces of Rajasthan
24 November–7 Dec. 2014 (mb 201) See page 105 for full details
Architecture, sculpture & ancient rituals
Ancient religious ar t & architecture 2–15 March 2015 (mb 250) 14 days • £5,430 Lecturer: Charles Allen
Indian Summer
Delhi, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Shimla
Assam by River
30 March–11 April 2015 (mb 272) See page 107 for full details
1–11 December 2014 (mb 207) 11 days • £4,370 Lecturer: Lesley Pullen
For full details of any of these tours, visit www.martinrandall.com or contact us.
Tribal India along the Brahmaputra
Our 2015–2016 season will be available to book in December 2014. Please contact us to register your interest. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Visas: required for most foreign nationals, and not included in the tour price.
Delhi, Meerut, Lucknow, Gwalior, Agra
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Persia
Ancient & Islamic Iran and the cultural heritage that includes not only outstanding architecture but also the poetry of Hafez, Sa’di, Ferdowsi and Omar Khayyam.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 11.25am from London Heathrow (Turkish Airlines) to Shiraz (via Istanbul), arriving early the following morning. Day 2: Shiraz. Arrive Shiraz airport at c. 2.30am and drive to hotel where rooms will be ready for a rest before lunch. In the afternoon explore the city of gardens and poets. Naranjestan Palace, a 19th-cent. town house and garden of a wealthy patrician. Eram Gardens, the evocative tombs of Hafez and Sa’di, delightful mosques, madrassas and bazaars. First of three nights in Shiraz. Day 3: Persepolis. Excursion to Persepolis, the spectacular Achaemenid ceremonial city built by Darius I and Xerxes in the 5th and 4th cents. bc. In the afternoon continue to the Achaemenid royal tombs cut into the cliffs at Naqsh-e-Rustam. Overnight Shiraz. Day 4: Firuzabad. Full day excursion beginning with the scenic drive past the large salt lake of Maharlu and the impressive Qalh Dokhtar that is perched on a cliff top. Visit the large Sassanid palaces and the ancient city of Ardashir Khurreh, known as Gur. Final night in Shiraz.
Above: low relief sculpture from Persepolis, engraving 1803.
23 April–7 May 2015 (mb 384) 14 nights • £4,370 Lecturer: Dr Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones 4–18 September 2015 (mc 455) 14 nights • £4,370 Lecturer: Dr Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones A selection of the most interesting cities, major buildings and archaeological sites in this vast and varied country. Three full days to explore Isfahan; three full days in Tehran; ample time in Shiraz and Yazd.
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Suitable either for first-time visitors or for those with some familiarity already. The successive civilizations of Persia were among the most potent and creative in Asia, and have provided the West with some of our most evocative images – of distant caravanserais and immense vaulted bazaars, of poets and rose gardens, of turquoise domes and priceless carpets. The very names of the cities breathe magic: Shiraz, Persepolis, Isfahan. But the images are no mere symbols of a distant past. Historic Persian ways of life and the monuments which sheltered and articulated them are alive in Iran today. The fabulous mosques
of Isfahan, the bustle of great bazaars, immense armies of nomads on the move or the magic of classical gardens bring Persia’s civilization vividly to life. But it was virtually hidden from foreigners for some years after the 1979 revolution. Iran underwent cataclysmic upheavals: a national uprising against one of the strongest rulers in the world, a revolution with repercussions that still reverberate to this day, and one of the most destructive wars of the twentieth century. From these trials, triumphs and tragedies the Iranians have emerged much changed, but they are eager to show their country to the traveller once more. Visitors to Iran can see some of the greatest sights in all Asia, such as Shah Abbas’s astonishing royal city of Isfahan, one of the great monumental cities of the world, or the silent ruins of Pasargadae and Persepolis, still much as Alexander’s destructive fury left them thousands of years ago. But equally interesting are the lesser-known splendours of Iran’s immensely rich heritage revealed by exploration of the old desert cities such as Yazd. The friendliness and welcome which visitors receive come as a surprise after three decades of less than agreeable newspaper headlines. Whilst the revolution has brought about great changes, the essentials remain unchanged: the timeless landscapes, the villages, the great cities
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Day 5: Pasargadae, Yazd. At Pasargadae, see the ruins of the first Persian capital built by Cyrus the Great, whose tomb is situated in the windswept upland plain surrounding the city. Arrive Yazd for the first of two nights. Days 6: Yazd. An ancient caravan city on the edge of the desert with unique traditional architecture and some of the earliest fully-tiled monuments in Iran. Islamic monuments include the 14th and 15th-cent. Friday Mosque with its spectacular tiled entrance portal, the highest in the country. The centre of the ancient Zoroastrian religion, Yazd has one of the largest surviving of such communities in Iran. Visit the fire temple and funerary Towers of Silence. Overnight Yazd. Day 7: Maybod, Mohammediye, Na’in, Isfahan. Visit the citadel in the traditional pottery-making centre of Maybod. Stop at Mohammediye to see traditional wool-weaving. In Na’in, the geographical heart of Iran, visit the mosque which retains 10th-cent. features. Drive to Isfahan, where four nights are spent. Days 8, 9 & 10: Isfahan. Three full days in Isfahan to experience the sights of the monumental capital of Safavid Persia (17th and 18th cent.). Opportunity to visit all the main monuments beginning with the great rambling Friday Mosque, a classic work of Persian art and a veritable textbook of Islamic architecture, incorporating most periods and styles. The great works of the royal city laid out by Shah Abbas include the tiled bridges and the palace pavilions of Chehel Sutun and Hasht Behesht. Surrounding the vast Imam Square (formerly Royal Square) are the Ali Qapu Pavilion, the Shaikh Lutfollah Mosque with near perfect dome, the monumental entrance to the grand bazaar and the immense
Israel & Palestine
Archaeology, architecture & art in the Holy Land tiled bulk of the Imam Mosque (formerly Royal Mosque). Some free time in Isfahan, to shop in the famous bazaars or relax in a teahouse. Day 11: Natanz, Kashan, Tehran. Drive via Natanz to see the Friday Mosque and the Shrine of Sheikh Abdul-Samad. In Kashan visit Bagh-é Fin, perhaps the most beautiful of classical Persian gardens. First of four nights in Tehran. Day 12: Tehran. Visit the Gulistan Palace, a jewel of Qajar-period architecture. The Abguineh Glass and Ceramics Museum is one of the most impressive in Tehran, not least for its architecture from the Qajar period. The Reza Abbasi Museum houses a fine collection of ceramics, fabrics and decorative arts and a very fine collection of Achaemenid and Sassanian gold and silver. End the day at the Malek Museum which has many excellent paintings and carpets. Overnight Tehran. Day 13: Tehran. Morning visit to the State Jewels Museum. The archaeological section of the National Museum of Iran contains items from many of the places visited on the tour. In the afternoon visit the Carpet Museum and the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. Overnight Tehran. Day 14: Tehran. In the morning a visit to the Saad Abad Palace complex with its many museums and onto the Niravan palace, the home of the last Shah and the Empress Farah. End with a visit to the beautiful adjacent Niravan park. Final night in Tehran. Day 15: Morning flight to London Heathrow, arriving at c. 3.15pm.
Practicalities Price: £4,370 (deposit £400). Single supplement £530 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £3,850. Included meals: all meals with soft drinks (alcohol is banned throughout Iran). Visas: required for most foreign nationals and we will advise on obtaining these. Accommodation. The best available, and all are graded as 5-star apart from in Yazd which has a 3-star rating. The local star ratings do not necessarily correspond to western categories, standards of maintenance vary. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
21–30 October 2014 (mb 166) 10 days • £4,210 Lecturer: Dr Garth Gilmour 24 March–2 April 2015 (mb 261) 10 days • £4,280 Lecturer: Dr Garth Gilmour 13–22 October 2015 (mc 492) 10 days • £4,430 Lecturer: Dr Garth Gilmour Some of the most significant and evocative archaeological sites in the western hemisphere. Ancient and mediaeval and modern architecture, from Herod to Bauhaus – Judean, Roman, Christian and Islamic. Dr Garth Gilmour is a Biblical archaeologist who has lived and worked in Israel. Enthralling vernacular building in ancient walled towns; varied landscapes, from rocky deserts to verdant valleys. Several days in Jerusalem – surely the most extraordinary city on earth? Ancient Canaan, the bridge between Egypt, Phoenicia, Syria and Mesopotamia; land of the Patriarchs, home to the Philistines, the Jebusites and the tribes of Israel. A land where the kingdom of David triumphantly rose around 1000 bc and where the splendour of Solomon’s Temple was created. Jews, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans and Turks all made their mark; the history of the land is characterised by conquest and exile. Herod the Great (37–4 bc) was one of the greatest builders of the ancient world. Christianity brought a new wave of construction after Emperor Constantine and his mother, St Helena, in the fourth century ad consecrated the sites associated with Jesus. The final monotheistic religion to arrive was Islam when in ad 637 Caliph Omar conquered Jerusalem. Another
religion, and yet another monumental building, this time the Dome of the Rock. The Crusaders instigated another burst of building activity, planting European Romanesque and Gothic churches and castles tempered by local techniques. Mamluks and Ottomans trampled and rebuilt, and after the First World War, with Jewish immigration accelerating, the British were left to hold the rope until the establishment of Israel in 1948. Jerusalem is the most extraordinary city in the world. Within the walls – and the complete circuit survives, the current edition being sixteenth-century – it is a vibrant, authentic Middle Eastern city, but one with sharply distinct communities and largely composed of ancient and mediaeval masonry. Nowhere else is the historical interpretation of archaeological remains so crucial to current political debate. Israel and Palestine are extraordinary places where Biblical names on road signs demonstrate the closeness of the distant past and where history, politics and religion are impossible to separate. The tour is led by an archaeologist who uses the remains to illuminate peoples and civilizations of the past. It is not a pilgrimage tour in that buildings and sites are selected for intrinsic aesthetic or historical merit rather than religious association. The tour ranges across two countries, and in none: strictly speaking, the old walled centre of Jerusalem is neither Israel nor Palestine.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 8.15am (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Tel Aviv, and then drive to Jerusalem, reaching the hotel c. 5.30pm. Four nights are spent here. Day 2: Jerusalem. The buildings in the Old City and around (the walled kernel has shifted over the millennia) comprise an incomparable mix of ages and cultures from the time of King David to the present day, while continuing to be a thriving, living city. The massive stones and underground tunnels of Herod’s Temple Mount are highly Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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At the time of writing there is no British embassy or consulate in Iran and the Foreign Office advises against travel to the country. Unless these circumstances change we will not run this tour. However, there are signs that relations are improving and that the British embassy will reopen in Tehran soon. Meanwhile we are taking bookings and will make a final decision about whether the tour can go ahead or not towards Christmas. If not, we will of course refund your deposit in full.
Jerusalem, Mosque of Omar, watercolour by Phoebe Allen, publ. 1913.
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impressive survivals from the ancient world. In the afternoon a walk along a section of the ramparts leads to further Roman-era structures in the Ecce Homo Convent and the Bethesda Pools, and to the Crusader church of St Anne. View the seeming panorama of belfries, domes, minarets and city wall from the Mount of Olives. Overnight Jerusalem.
‘Splendid. A plethora of fascinating, exceptional places were visited.’ Day 3: Jerusalem, Bethlehem. The intact 7thcent. Dome of the Rock stands majestically in the vast Haram ash-sharif complex, complete with Umayyad and Mamluk buildings and the El-Aqsa Mosque, all on the site of Solomon’s Temple. Drive through the ‘Separation Wall’ into occupied territory on the West Bank. On the edge of the Judaean Desert, the Herodion is a remarkable fortified palace and tomb complex built by King Herod. The 4th/6th-century Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem is one of the greatest buildings of its era, and probably the oldest church in continuous use for Christian worship. Overnight Jerusalem.
where pilgrims from all over the world share the sites and view the magnificent mosaics. See the remains of the fishing village of Capernaum, Jesus’s most permanent residence and site of a 5th-century synagogue. Take a boat on the Sea of Galilee, and overnight Tiberias. Day 8: Akko, Caesarea. Akko (Acre) was the principal city of the Crusaders, though the vaulted halls surviving from that period lie below an enthralling maze of narrow streets, Ottoman khans and modern suqs. Drive beside the Mount Carmel range to Caesarea, founded by Herod the Great and capital of Judaea for over 600 years. Once the largest city of the eastern Mediterranean, remains include the Herodian theatre, Byzantine residential quarters and a Crusader church. First of two nights Tel Aviv. Day 9: Tel Aviv, Jaffa. Tel Aviv began as an English-style garden city suburb of Jaffa, sprouted a Bauhaus extension (the ‘White City’, a unesco Heritage Site) and grew remorselessly in the later 20th century. The Museum of Art has Impressionists and Post-Impressionists and we visit various other exhibits. Jaffa was a port city from the time of Solomon and remains a charmingly picturesque enclave. Overnight Tel Aviv.
Day 10: Jerusalem. Drive back to Jerusalem to visit the excellent Israel Museum. This incorporates, among other collections, the Shrine of the Book which houses the Dead Sea Scrolls and the outstanding archaeological collection. Fly in the afternoon from Tel Aviv, returning to Heathrow at c. 8.30pm.
Practicalities Price in 2014: £4,210 (deposit £400). Price without flights £3,890. Price in 2015: £4,280 (March), £4,430 (October) (deposit £400). Single supplement £710 (March), £760 (October). Price without flights £3,880 (March), £3,800 (October). Included meals: 6 lunches, 7 dinners with wine. Visas: are obtained on arrival at no extra charge for most nationalities. Small group: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Athens & Rome, 3–10 October 2015 (page 150).
Day 4: Jerusalem. Mainly Constantinian and Crusader, but confusingly complex, compartmentalised and embellished with later ornamentation, a proper study of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre reveals a deeply fascinating building. Among the items seen during the rest of the day are the Roman colonnaded Cardo, the largely 13th-century Armenian Cathedral, and a 17th-century synagogue. Free time is an alternative, possibly with a visit to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum. Overnight Jerusalem. Day 5: Masada, Ein Gedi. Drive through Israel to the Dead Sea Valley, the lowest place on earth. Rising high above the Judaean desert, Herod’s fortified palace of Masada, last redoubt of the Jewish rebellion against Roman occupation, is one of the most impressive archaeological sites in the Levant. A little to the north lies the oasis of Ein Gedi, where there is time to enjoy the botanical gardens or for a swim in the Dead Sea. One night is spent at Ein Gedi.
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Day 6: Qumran, Jericho, Galilee. Re-enter occupied Palestinian Territories. Qumran is the site of the settlement of the Essenes, a Jewish sect, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. The palmshaded oasis of Jericho is the world’s most lowlying town and perhaps its oldest continuously inhabited one, the Tell as-Sultan dating back 10,000 years. Nearby, Hisham’s Palace is a remarkably well preserved 8th-century Umayyad palace. Continue north, re-enter Israel and spend the first of two nights in Tiberias. Day 7: Sea of Galilee, Tzefat. Visit first the archaeological site of Tell Hazor, and then ascend the Galilean highlands to the mediaeval synagogues and cobbled streets of the town of Tzefat. The churches of the Heptapegon (known today as Tabgha) are locations of Jesus’s ministry
Jerusalem, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, wood engraving c. 1880.
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Palaces of Piedmont
Courtly splendour in & around Turin 19–24 May 2015 (mb 332) 6 days • £2,080 Lecturer: Dr Luca Leoncini Based in Turin, a lively city developed on a grand scale in the 17th and 18th centuries. Magnificent castles and royal residences, with other treats such as Romanesque abbeys, Gothic frescoes and fine paintings. A richly endowed and scenically attractive region, unaccountably neglected by tourists. Led by Dr Luca Leoncini, expert art historian specialising in 15th–17th-century Northern Italian paintings.
Turin, engraving from The Illustrated London News, 1861.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 1.30pm (British Airways) from London Gatwick to Turin and reach the hotel in time for dinner. All five nights are spent in Turin. Day 2: Turin. Begin with a walk through the beautiful, arcaded Piazza San Carlo. The Palazzo Carignano has a remarkable curvaceous facade by Guarini. Piazza Castello is splendid, the greatest of the buildings being Palazzo Madama by Filippo Juvarra (1721), now housing the art gallery. Palazzo Reale, the principal royal residence, is largely of the late 17th cent. but has interiors of the 18th and 19th cents. and the Chapel of the Holy Shroud, Guarini’s masterpiece (1694). Housed here are masterpieces from the Galleria Sabauda. Day 3: Staffarda, Manta, Racconigi. Drive south to the Abbey of Staffarda which retains an impressive Romanesque church with cloister and chapter house. Continue to the castle of Manta which has an early 15th-cent. fresco cycle, the Fountain of Youth, an important and beautiful example of secular International Gothic painting. The Castello di Racconigi was one of the summer residences of the Savoys; the front overlooking the park is by Guarini (1676).
is one of the best-preserved royal residences in Piedmont. Nestling in an isolated rural setting, the small Romanesque Abbey of Vezzolano is outstanding for its architecture, stone carvings and frescoes. Day 6, Stupinigi, Venaria. The Palazzina di Caccia di Stupinigi is a royal hunting lodge built to a fascinating ground plan by Filippo Juvarra in 1730. Lavish interiors, fine gardens. The Venaria Reale (Amedeo Castellamonte 1660, Juvarra 1714–28) is the largest of the suburban palaces, a magnificent complex which reopened in 2007 after comprehensive renovation. Drive from here the short distance to the airport; return to Gatwick at c. 5.45pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,080 (deposit £200). Single supplement £310 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,890. Included meals: 3 lunches, 3 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Grand Hotel Sitea, Turin (grandhotelsitea.it): a 4-star hotel, comfortable, elegantly furnished and very central. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
Day 4: Superga, Turin. The basilica of Superga (1731), a votive church and burial place of the royal family with a magnificent hilltop location just outside the city, is Juvarra’s finest work. Though altered in the 18th cent., the Villa della Regina (1620) is a good example of an early Baroque residence. The afternoon is free; there is plenty to do and see in Turin, equally it is a good place in which to relax.
Combine this tour with: Courts of Northern Italy, 25 May–1 June 2015 (page 125).
Day 5: Agliè, Masino, Albugnano. The Castello di Agliè to the north of Turin was rebuilt as a ducal palace in 1646 and further refurbished in the 18th and early 19th cents. With a similarly long history of embellishment, but with the 18th cent. predominant, the Castello di Masino
February or March 2015 Details available in August 2014 Contact us to register your interest
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First emerging as an independent territory in the eleventh century, Savoy from the middle of the sixteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth grew from a minor duchy to a prosperous and powerful little kingdom. Straddling Alpine territory in what is now France, Switzerland and Italy, and adding Sardinia in 1720, it became larger than modern Belgium and was a significant player in European affairs. The capital moved from Chambéry to Turin in 1563, enabling extensions to be built on relatively unencumbered terrain, planned in accordance with Renaissance and, later, Baroque principles. Italy has little else to match the grandeur and homogeneity of its sequence of squares, boulevards and palaces dating to this period. The city looks, and is, as much French and Central European as Italian, and has always impressed visitors with its orderliness, regularity and magnificence. The capital was not the only material manifestation of Baroque culture in Piedmont. The House of Savoy and their courtiers created a constellation of residences and hunting lodges, gardens and parks around their capital which constitute as fine a group as is to be found anywhere in Europe. The patrons were fortunate in their choice of architects, especially Guarino Guarini (1624–83) and Filippo Juvarra (1678– 1736). Guarini was a priest, a mathematician and creator of the some of the most original and beguiling architectural forms of the Baroque era. Juvarra trained in Rome and developed an international practice but his best works are in Piedmont, perfecting the easeful magnificence characteristic of the dying decades of the Age of Absolutism. Despite its cultural and linguistic orientation towards its western and northern neighbours, Savoy became the vanguard of the unification of Italy and the expulsion of foreign rulers, providing the firepower and diplomatic clout which facilitated the success of the Risorgimento in 1861. It also provided the kings of a newly united Italy. Shorn of the territories west of the Alps, France’s reward for assistance, the Italian residue of Savoy came to constitute the region of Piedmont, one of Italy’s most progressive and prosperous but unaccountably neglected by tourists.
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Gastronomic Piedmont Some of the finest food & wine in Italy 11–17 October 2014 (mb 162) 7 days • £2,780 Lecturer: Marc Millon One of the most celebrated gastronomic regions in Italy, centre of the ‘Slow Food’ revolution. Wine and food production studied at source, including visits to Alba, white truffle capital of the world, and a number of Barolo wineries. Superb restaurants, from simple trattorias to the Michelin starred. Beautiful landscapes: upland pasture, rolling hills, sloping vineyards and hazelnut woods. The lecturer is Marc Millon; wine, food and travel writer, and author of The Food Lover’s Companion to Italy. Gastronomically, Piedmont is undoubtedly one of Italy’s most interesting regions. Its wines are superb, the food produced there is varied and the delicious cooking ranges from traditional country fare to creatively modern cuisine. Moreover, the region is the centre of the Slow Food revolution which is transforming gastronomy in Italy and beyond.
There is also another winning feature: many Piedmontese in the food and wine business have a desire to share their passion, and welcome interested visitors with generous amounts of their time and produce. In part this may be because visitors are relatively few, despite the high reputation which Piedmont enjoys. For this tour we have bypassed Turin in favour of spending time in the countryside, seeing the origins of the food and wine and meeting the producers. This bucolic exile is not at the expense of culinary excellence; you will find superb restaurants, from simple rustic trattorias where Granny’s recipes are still gospel, to Michelinstarred and innovative establishments, all serving some of Italy’s finest food. The study and enjoyment of wines is a large part of the tour. Barolo is the dominant wine – noble, austere and complex, and the Nebbiolo grape is used for the elegant, tarry Barbaresco, and various other DOCs. We meet makers, chosen as much for their charm and communicativeness as for their wines, in some cases study their vines and the wine-making process, and taste the results. Among the foods we investigate, truffles are significant – Alba is something of a truffle capital – but the mountain cheeses such as Tomino and Castelmagno make
The Val Lucerne, Piedmont, steel engraving after William Brockedon (1787–1854).
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an equally powerful impression. Landscape is another of the great pleasures of the tour. As its name suggests, Piedmont reaches from high pastures to alluvial plains, and much of it is used for agriculture (or small family-run farms). The Langhe hills are among the most beautiful in Italy, the flanks almost entirely carpeted with vineyards, the summits sporting castles, little mediaeval towns or ancient farmsteads.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 9.20am from London Gatwick to Genoa (British Airways) and drive north to Bra, an attractive market town with some fine architecture, and where the first four nights are spent. In the evening study the local wine-making process at the Ascheri winery next to the hotel. Day 2: Alba, La Morra. Drive to Alba, chief town of the Langhe, for a truffle seminar and lunch. In the afternoon there is a tasting at Rocche Costamagna, a winery in the hilltop village of La Morra which has been in the family for 300 years, a well-known producer of Barolo and other Nebbiolo and Barbera wines. Dinner is at a Slow Food restaurant.
Genoa & Turin Palaces & galleries
‘Our lecturer was exemplary in all aspects of the role – this was one of the most enjoyable tours overall I have done with you.’
Day 3: Piozzo, Monforte d’Alba. The landscape between Dogliani and Murazzano is a patchwork of vineyards and rumpled hills, woods and pasturage. There is a truffle hunt (real, not simulated) this morning in the woods around Piozzo, then a wine tasting and lunch at a small, family-run estate. Day 4: Asti. The lovely little city of Asti, centre of another famous wine and food area, is set amidst the gently undulating Monferrato hills. Barbera and Dolcetto grapes predominate, but white wines are also produced, including the sparkling Moscato d’Asti. Visit a nougat producer and there is time to see something of the town: narrow, twisting mediaeval streets, the grand Gothic cathedral, tower houses and 18th-century palaces. Lunch is at an outstanding restaurant. Day 5: Bra, Serralunga d’Alba. Choose from three options this morning: a wine tasting in the Ascheri winery, visit a traditional sausage maker, or take a guided walk of c. 5 km through orchards, vineyards and hazelnut groves. Lunch is at a restaurant in Serralunga d’Alba at a Michelinstarred restaurant. In the castle at Manta there are some marvellous mediaeval frescos. Continue to Cuneo where the last two nights are spent. Day 6: Castelmagno, Sampeyre, Cuneo. The steep-sided valley of the river Grana is the sole source of one of Italy’s finest cheeses, Castelmagno. Visit a farm to see aspects of its production. Continue to Sampeyre in the mountains for lunch and a cooking demonstration with one of Italy’s rising stars. Day 7: Rivoli. Drive to Castello di Rivoli, one of the palaces of the royal house of Savoy established in hunting grounds around Turin. Rebuilt in the 18th century, though never finished, a museum of contemporary art has been installed here. Lunch here at one of the best restaurants in Piedmont, Combal Zero. Fly from Turin, arriving London Gatwick at c. 5.45pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,780 (deposit £250). Single supplement £170 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,590. Included meals: 6 lunches, 4 dinners with wine.
Group size: between 10 and 22 participants Combine this tour with:Walking in Southern Tuscany, 20–27 October 2014 (page 138).
Genoa, Cathedral of S. Lorenzo, watercolour by G.T.G. Formilli, publ. 1927.
13–19 April 2015 (mb 286) 7 days • £2,310 Lecturer: Dr Luca Leoncini Two cities, often unaccountably overlooked. One, a leading republic of mediaeval Italy and birthplace of Columbus; the other developed on a grand scale in the 17th and 18th centuries. Magnificent palaces and churches, from mediaeval to Baroque. Exceptional picture collections with particularly fine examples of Van Dyck and Rubens. Led by Dr Luca Leoncini, expert art historian specialising in 15th–17th-century Northern Italian paintings. ‘Secret cities’ would have been an absurd subtitle for two such major places, but did seem to suggest itself because of the rarity with which Britons find themselves there. But every art lover should go. The prevailing images are perhaps still predominantly commercial and industrial, but not only do both Genoa and Turin have highly attractive centres but both are distinguished by the preservation of a large number of magnificent palaces and picture collections. Genoa lays claim to the largest historic centre of any European city. It was one of the leading maritime republics of mediaeval Italy (with Marseilles it remains the largest port in the Mediterranean), and enjoyed a golden age during the seventeenth century. In the 1990s civic improvements and building restorations were undertaken to prepare the city for celebrations connected with the quincentenary of Columbus’s first voyage to the Americas, and the cultural momentum has continued. In the earlier seventeenth century, Genoa was artistically the equal of almost anywhere in Italy except for Rome and Naples. More than any other Italian school of painting, the Genoese was
Itinerary Day 1: Genoa. Fly at c. 9.15am (British Airways) from London Gatwick to Genoa. In the afternoon see palaces in the Via Balbi, one of the grandest streets in Europe, including the Palazzo Reale which has a magnificent stairway, splendidly furnished rooms and a fine collection of pictures. First of three nights in Genoa. Day 2: Genoa. Visit some of the main monuments of mediaeval Genoa. The Cathedral of S. Lorenzo, built 12th–16th centuries, possesses many works of art and a fine treasury. Palazzo Spinola has good pictures, Van Dycks in particular. Visit the church of S. Luca with its beautifully decorated interior and the churches of Il Gesù and San Donato. Day 3: Genoa. See the Via Garibaldi, lined with magnificent palazzi, most from the 16th century. Palazzo Rosso has fine furnishings and excellent pictures. See also the adjacent church of the Annunciation, the Villa del Principe with Perin del Vaga frescoes and the Piazza S. Matteo, formed by the imposing palaces of the Doria family, which overshadow the small family church of S. Matteo. Free time in the afternoon. Possible visits include the refashioned dock area (architect: Renzo Piano). Day 4: Cherasco, Turin. Leave Genoa and take a cross-country route through the beautiful countryside and wine-producing area of Le Langhe. Stop in Cherasco which has a 14thcentury Visconti castle for a typical Piedmontese lunch. See the magnificent royal hunting lodge of Stupinigi (Filippo Juvarra, 1730) en route to Turin. First of three nights in Turin. Day 5: Turin. A walk through beautiful Piazza S. Carlo, with arcades and 18th-century churches. Visit the Royal Palace, built 1660, with interiors from the 17th–19th centuries, and the Galleria Sabauda, housed in the Palace, an excellent picture collection. In the afternoon visit the little church of S. Lorenzo, a Guarini masterpiece, the cathedral (with Guarini’s Chapel of the Holy Shroud under restoration for the foreseeable Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Accommodation. Albergo Cantine Ascheri, Bra (ascherihotel.it): a 4-star hotel 10 minutes walk from the city centre, refurbished to a modern design. Hotel Palazzo Lovera, Cuneo (palazzolovera.com): an excellently situated 4-star just off the ancient arcaded Via Roma, with tasteful, traditional décor.
indebted to the Flemish school: Rubens made a prolonged visit to Genoa in 1605 and Anthony Van Dyck was based there from 1621 to 1627. Many of his paintings remain here. Turin, the leading city of Piedmont, was formerly capital of Savoy and later of the kingdom of Sardinia. Developed on a grand scale in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the historic centre is laid out on a regular plan with broad avenues and spacious piazze. Architecture is mainly Baroque and classical. Guarino Guarini and Filippo Juvarra, among the best architects of their time, worked here for much of their lives.
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Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes
future), and the sumptuous Consolata church. Day 6: Turin. Visit the votive church of Superga, a magnificent hilltop structure by Juvarra, and the Pinacoteca Giovanni and Marella Agnelli at Lingotto which has a small but excellent quality collection in a building designed by Renzo Piano. Some free time in Turin. Day 7: Turin, Venaria. Morning visit to the Palazzo Madama in the centre of Piazza Castello, now housing the City Art Museum. Outside Turin is the magnificent royal palace of Venaria (Amedeo Castellamonte, 1659) reopened in 2007 following extensive renovation work. Fly from Turin, returning to Gatwick c. 5.45pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,310 (deposit £250). Single supplement £340 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,010. Included meals: 3 lunches, 4 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Grand Hotel Savoia, Genoa (grandhotelsavoiagenova.it): a 5-star hotel close to the Palazzo Reale. Grand Hotel Sitea, Turin (grandhotelsitea.com): a 4-star hotel, comfortable, elegantly furnished and very central. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Palladian Villas, 7–12 April 2015 (page 120), Pompeii & Herculaneum, 20–25 April 2015 (page 151), Villas & Gardens of Campagna Romana, 20–25 April 2015 (page 146).
Opera in Genoa Spring 2015 Details available in November 2014 Contact us to register your interest
Lake Maggiore, watercolour by Ella du Cane, publ. 1905.
2–8 October 2014 (mb 148) 7 days • £2,780 Lecturer: Steven Desmond 9–15 April 2015 (mb 278) 7 days • £2,960 Lecturer: Steven Desmond 17–23 September 2015 (mc 440) 7 days • £2,960 Lecturer: Steven Desmond 1–7 October 2015 (mc 471) 7 days • £2,960 Lecturer: Steven Desmond Among the loveliest and most romantic spots on earth – the summer retreat of the wealthy, aristocratic and intellectual since the time of Pliny. Some of the finest gardens in Europe, glorious in their design and range. Led by Steven Desmond, landscape consultant and architectural historian, specialist in the conservation of historic parks and gardens.
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Sublime mountain scenery, the inspiration of Bellini and Stendhal. Historic lakeside hotels.
Drawing by Count Eugen Ledebur.
The gardens of the Italian lakes fall into two categories: formal, terraced, parterred, allegoried and enclosed summer residences of native landowners, and the expansive, landscaped villa grounds of the rich and splendid. Some are small, others huge; some ostentatious, others retiring; some immaculate, others picturesquely mouldering. Many are the former homes of Austrian aristocrats, Napoleonic grandees, bel canto composers or British seasonal emigrants.
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All respond to the setting, gazing out across bays and peninsulas, or up to mountain scenery of heroic dimensions. The tour is divided between Lake Como and Lake Maggiore. Lake Como, the home of Pliny, is intensely romantic: Shelley, Bellini and Stendhal found inspiration here on the shores of a long and slender lake divided in three parts. The little town of Bellagio surveys all three from its glittering headland, and provides a convenient (and luxurious) base for visiting the lakeside villa gardens. Lake Maggiore is altogether broader and more open, extending northwards into Switzerland, with the air of an inland sea. The great western bay includes the famous Borromean Islands, among them the contrasting garden retreats of Isola Bella and Isola Madre. As early as 1686 Bishop Burnet gushed that these were ‘certainly the loveliest spots of ground in the World, there is nothing in all Italy that can be compared to them’. Our tours are scheduled at times of the year when there is the possibility of clear, brilliant sunshine. Each lake, each shore, each promontory and island, has its own character, but everywhere is pervaded by the abundance of light, perfume and natural beauty.
Itinerary Day 1: Bellagio. Fly at midday (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Milan. Drive to Bellagio on Lake Como. First of three nights here. Day 2: Bellagio. The neoclassical Villa Melzi at Bellagio was built in 1810 for Francesco Melzi d’Eril, vice-president of Napoleon’s Italian Republic. It overlooks the lake in an undulating English landscape park, richly planted and decorated with ornamental buildings. The Villa Serbelloni, probably built on the site of one of Pliny the Younger’s two villas on Lake Como, occupies the high ground above Bellagio. The woods offer magnificent views to all parts of the lake. The mediaeval remnants, 16th-century villa and later terraces are the setting for planting schemes in a backdrop described by Stendhal as ‘a sublime and enchanting spectacle’. Day 3: Lake Como. Villa Carlotta on the western shore of Lake Como, built as a summer residence for a Milanese aristocrat, combines dramatic terracing, parterre and grottoes with an extensive landscape park and arboretum. The house contains notable collections from the Napoleonic period. The Villa Balbianello occupies its own headland projecting into the middle of Lake Como. This glorious site is terraced to provide sites for lawns, trees, shrubs and a chorus of statuary. The villa stands among groves of oak and pine. Day 4: Renaissance villa gardens. At the Villa Cicogna Mozzoni at Bisuschio, north of Varese, the 16th-century house and garden are thoroughly intertwined; the courtyard of pools and parterres leads to a water staircase, grottoes and giochi d’acqua. Lunch is served at the villa. The Villa della Porta Bozzolo, tucked away in a mountain valley near Lake Maggiore, is a hidden treasure of a garden, shooting straight
up a dramatic hillside from the village street of Casalzuigno. The beautiful 17th-century villa is unexpectedly set to one side to increase the visual drama. First of three nights in Pallanza. Day 5: the Borromean Islands. Isola Bella is one of the world’s great gardens (and correspondingly popular), a wedding cake of terraces and greenery floating improbably in Lake Maggiore. The sense of surrealism is enhanced by the symbolic statuary and the flock of white peacocks. Isola Madre is the ideal dessert to follow Isola Bella: a relaxed, informal landscape garden around a charmingly domestic villa. Visual entertainments include the marvellous plant collection, revitalised by Henry Cocker in the 1950s, the chapel garden, puppet theatre and ambulant aviary. Day 6: Pallanza, Stresa. The Villa Taranto at Pallanza is an extravagant piece of 20th-century kitsch created by Henry Cocker for his patron, the enigmatic Neil McEacharn. The alarmingly gauche design is superbly planted and maintained with loving zeal by the present staff. Free afternoon, with an optional visit to either the Giardino Botanico Alpinia (April) or the Villa Pallavicino (September/ October). Day 7. Fly from Milan to London Heathrow, arriving at c. 5.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,780 (2014); £2,960 (2015) (deposit £250). Single supplement £240 (2014), £280 (2015) (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,540 (2014), £2,640 (2015). Included meals: 1 lunch and 4 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio (villaserbelloni.com): situated on the edge of the lake, a historic 5-star hotel with lavishly decorated public rooms and wellappointed bedrooms (varying in size). Grand Hotel Majestic, Pallanza (grandhotelmajestic.it): a recently renovated, privately owned 4-star Belle Epoque hotel with lakeside gardens; bedrooms vary in size and in 2015 all have lake views. Rooms with a lake view at the Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni are available on request and for a supplement. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine the October 2014 departure with: Gastronomic Piedmont, 11–17 October 2014 (page 114). Combine the April 2015 departure with: Pompeii & Herculaneum, 20–25 April 2015 (page 151), Villas & Gardens of Campagna Romana, 20–25 April 2015 (page 146).
Steven Desmond Landscape consultant, architectural historian and a specialist in the conservation of historic parks and gardens. He broadcasts for the BBC, advises the National Trust, writes for Country Life, lectures at Buckingham and Oxford universities and is a Fellow of the Institute of Horticulture. All lecturers’ biographies can be found on pages 8–15. Combine the September 2015 departure with: Palladian Villas, 10–15 September 2015 (page 120), Sardinia, 26 September–4 October 2015 (page 155). Combine the October 2015 departure with: Dark Age Brilliance, 22–29 September 2015 (page 126), Essential Puglia, 23–30 September 2015 (page 153).
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Lake Como, mezzotint by J. Alphege Brewer c. 1910. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
The Venetian Hills
Renaissance art in the foothills of the Dolomites Day 3: Pieve di Cadore, Belluno. Titian was born in the little town of Pieve di Cadore; see here the family home and the parish church with paintings by Titian and family. In the afternoon drive north along the valley of the Piave into an ever more dramatic mountain landscape. Sitting athwart a promontory looped by the Piave, Belluno is a beautiful little city with a Renaissance cathedral and Venetian-style palaces. Among the fine paintings is an exquisite Madonna & Child by Cima in the Museo Civico. Day 4: Bassano, Feltre. Bassano del Grappa is a highly attractive town in the foothills of the Dolomites with a series of picturesque squares with painted façades. Home of the prolific Bassano family of painters, there are several of their works in the art gallery. Stacked up along the ridge of a hill, Feltre is another architectural outpost of Venice with striking buildings in various styles. See the Rizzarda collection of early 20th-century arts and crafts and the 1802 theatre in the town hall.
The Dolomites and the Cadore Valley, wood engraving 1893 after John McWhirter.
1–5 October 2015 (mc 479) 5 days • £1,780 Lecturer: Dr Joachim Strupp Combine this tour with Friuli-Venezia Giulia, 5–10 October 2015. Ravishingly beautiful landscapes from vine-clad foothills to the peaks of the Dolomites. Altarpieces and frescoes by Venetian masters, mediaeval to Rococo. Some of the loveliest hill towns in Italy, including the birthplace of Titian. The lecturer is Dr Joachim Strupp, an expert in Italian art.
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‘Hills’ and ‘Venice’ are not accustomed to finding themselves in the same sentence; sited on (and sometimes under) an estuarial lagoon, elevation above (or below) sea level in Venice is measured in centimetres. But on a clear day a range of hills can be seen rising to the north. On a very clear day the snowy peaks of the Dolomites come into view. Towards the end of the Middle Ages the proud little communities which populated these hills one by one submitted to the rule of La Serenissima, as did much of northern Italy. Political hegemony was followed by cultural influence, clearly manifested still in the disorientating sight of Venetian-style Renaissance palazzi set against precipitous pine-clad hillsides. But the cultural forces did not flow only in one direction. As is often the case with an artistically flourishing metropolis, many of the creators were outsiders. Titian was born in the rugged Cadore mountains, Cima from the gentler hillside town of Conegliano, Marco Ricci from hilltop Belluno.
These and many other artists enjoyed successful careers in Venice, but most kept in contact with their natal towns, accepting commissions for, or donating paintings to, their parish church. These hill towns are among the loveliest in Italy, and they are set in ravishing landscapes which range from vine-clad foothills to soaring limestone peaks. Most of them are quite small, but the architectural ambitions of their inhabitants were otherwise: the historic centres are dense with fine buildings and arcaded streets which give protection from mountain downpours and summer sun. The ostensible theme of this tour is painting of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but other aspects of the art and history of the region will not be ignored. The base is Follina, a tiny community which grew up around a monastery in the mountains.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 1.00pm (British Airways) from London Gatwick to Venice. Drive through the hills to Follina where all four nights are spent. Day 2: Vittorio Veneto, Conegliano. The tiny city of Serravalle (now joined with Cèneda to form Vittorio Veneto), occupying a gorge scoured by the River Meschio, has a fine group of mediaeval and Renaissance buildings, 15th-century frescoes in the chapel of S. Lorenzo and a Titian in the cathedral. In the church of Santa Maria in Cèneda there is an exquisite Annunciation by Previtali. Drive to the birthplace of Giambattista Cima del Conegliano, the lovely town from which the artist took his name, that spreads down a hillside below the remains of a castle. Visit Cima’s house and the cathedral to see one of his greatest works (1492).
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Day 5: San Fior. Descend to San Fior, a little town on the densely populated plain at the foot of the hills. Riven by canals and streams, San Fior has an altarpiece by Cima. Once an important fortress city, Treviso has a fine historic centre with imposing public buildings and many painted façades. Selective visits here include the extraordinary frescoes of learned monks in the chapter house of St Nicholas by 14th-cent. painter Tommaso da Modena. Fly from Venice airport, arriving at Gatwick c. 6.45pm.
‘This tour gave me access to places that I would never have seen on my own. This was a strong point for me’ Practicalities Price: £1,780 (deposit £200). Single supplement £70 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,600. Included meals: 2 lunches, 2 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel dei Chiostri (hoteldeichiostri.com): a 4-star hotel in the hill town of Follina, installed in a former abbey. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Apart from Friuli-Venezia Giulia, this tour can be combined with: Dark Age Brilliance, 22–29 September 2015 (page 126), Essential Puglia, 23–30 September 2015 (page 153), Courts of Northern Italy, 5–12 October (page 125).
Friuli-Venezia Giulia
The border lands of northeast Italy 5–10 October 2015 (mc 481) 6 days • £1,680 Lecturer: Dr Joachim Strupp Combine this tour with The Venetian Hills, 1–5 October 2015. A wide variety of Italian art and architecture: Roman, Byzantine, Gothic, Renaissance, Palladian. The lecturer is Dr Joachim Strupp, expert in Italian art. Tiepolo is a predominant theme and the tour is based in Udine where he worked early in his career.
with 14th-century frescoes, and a castle courtyard with painted façades. Snaking through Pordenone an arcaded street widens towards the town hall and cathedral, which contains fine paintings including some by G.A. Sacchis, called Il Pordenone.
Day 3: Aquileia, Grado. See two of Italy’s best early-mediaeval churches, the Basilica at Aquileia, rebuilt in the 11th century but retaining a 4thcentury mosaic floor, and S. Eufemia at Grado with mosaics, pulpit and silver altar frontal. Aquileia was a major Roman city and seat of the patriarchate while Grado was its outer port.
Day 6: Cividale is in the hills bordering Slovenia. Founded by Julius Caesar and capital of the first Lombard duchy in Italy, the Tempietto Longobardo possesses the finest 8th-century sculpture to survive in Europe. Fly from Venice, arriving at London Gatwick at c. 6.15pm.
Day 4: Trieste. Before 1919 Trieste was the principal seaport of the Habsburg Empire and the busiest port in the Mediterranean, and its broad straight streets and 19th-century buildings have a distinctly Viennese cast. After a troubled 20th century its fortunes have revived since 1989. This is demonstrated through grand seafront architecture and the Museo Revoltella, the wellstocked mansion of a 19th-century financier. Towering above, the ancient Capitol has remains of the Roman forum, castle and the cathedral of S. Giusto, an agglomeration of buildings from the 5th century onwards with Byzantine mosaics.
Practicalities
Day 5: San Daniele, Spilimbergo, Pordenone. Three towns in the broad valley of the River Tagliamento. The Renaissance frescoes by Pellegrino di San Daniele in the church of Sant’Antonio at San Daniele are the finest in the region. Spilimbergo has a Gothic cathedral
Price: £1,680 (deposit £200). Single supplement £120 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,420. Included meals: 3 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Astoria Hotel Italia, Udine (hotelastoria.udine.it): a well established four-star hotel in one of the principal squares of the centre of town. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Apart from The Venetian Hills, this tour can be combined with: Sardinia, 26 September–4 October 2015 (page 155), Pompeii & Herculaneum, 28 September–3 October 2015 (page 151), Siena & San Gimignano, 30 September–4 October 2015 (page 136), Caravaggio, 12–19 October 2015 (page 147).
Cividale, by F. Hamilton Jackson 1906.
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Cumbersome by name, complex by history, the region of Friuli–Venezia Giulia is tucked within the north-eastern borders of Italy and bound by Austria, Slovenia, the Veneto and the Adriatic. Much of the region was ceded to Italy by Austria only after the First World War; a border dispute with Yugoslavia rumbled into the 1970s. Understandably, it is marked by variety – ethnic, linguistic, cultural, gastronomic and topographical. The south and centre consist of a broad alluvial plain whose glistening fecundity is fed by rivers descending from the Julian Alps and the Dolomites. The mediating foothills produce some of the finest white wines in the world. Populous and prosperous, there are many towns with historic kernels where virtually every period of Italian art and architecture is represented, from Roman to modern. Some of the early mediaeval buildings are particularly striking and important – Aquileia, Grado and Cividale. There is much fine Renaissance painting and architecture: Palladianism was the dominant creed for a couple of centuries after Palladio’s death, and in addition to painters who established themselves in Venice there are several lesserknown figures of talent who are not well known outside the region. Painting reached another climax in the eighteenth century as Tiepolo spent the years of his early maturity in Udine. Udine is the base for the tour. A lively city, it has an extensive historic centre with a succession of enchantingly picturesque streets and squares and a central piazza as fine as almost any in Italy. The other big city visited is Trieste, for centuries the principal Austro-Hungarian outlet to the sea and one of the most important ports in the Mediterranean.
the centre is the site of the castle, an imposing 16th-century residence housing the art gallery, a fine collection of paintings by artists from the region. See also S. Maria di Castello, the oldest church in Udine, and S. Giacomo with its Renaissance façade.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 2.00pm (British Airways) from London Gatwick to Venice. Drive to Udine where all five nights are spent. Day 2: Udine. In Udine, visit the main piazza with its Gothic and Renaissance loggias, and the cathedral, basically Gothic but much augmented later. The main theme is Tiepolo, the greatest painter of the 18th century, who created several major works in the cathedral, the Oratorio della Purità and the Archbishop’s Palace. A hillock at
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Palladian Villas
The greatest house builder in history Teatro Olimpico, Vicenza, 18th-century engraving.
7–12 October 2014 (mb 153) 6 days • £1,840 Lecturer: Dr Joachim Strupp 7–12 April 2015 (mb 277) 6 days • £1,910 Lecturer: Dr Michael Douglas-Scott 10–15 September 2015 (mc 433) 6 days • £1,910 Lecturer: Professor Fabrizio Nevola A survey of nearly all the surviving villas and palaces designed by Andrea Palladio (1508–80), the world’s most influential architect. Stay throughout in Vicenza, Palladio’s home town and site of many of his buildings.
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Led by expert art and archaeological historians. With many special appointments, this itinerary would be impossible for independent travellers. Utility is the key to understanding Palladio’s villas. In sixteenth-century Italy a villa was a farm, and in the Veneto agriculture had become a serious business for the city-based mercantile aristocracy. As the Venetian maritime empire gradually crumbled before the advancing Ottoman Turks, Venetians compensated by investing in the terra ferma of their hinterland. But beauty was equally the determinant of form, though beauty of a special kind. Palladio
was designing buildings for a clientele who, whether princes of commerce, traditional soldieraristocrats or gentlemen of leisure, shared an intense admiration for ancient Rome. They were children of the High Renaissance and steeped in humanist learning. Palladio was the first architect regularly to apply the colonnaded temple fronts to secular buildings. But the beauty of his villas was not solely a matter of applied ornament. As can be seen particularly in his low-budget, pared-down villas and auxiliary buildings there is a geometric order which arises from sophisticated systems of proportion and an unerring intuitive sense of design. It is little wonder that Andrea Palladio became the most influential architect the western world has ever known. Most of his finest surviving villas and palaces are included on this tour, as well as some of the lesser-known and less accessible ones.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 2.00pm (British Airways) from London Gatwick to Venice. Drive to Vicenza where all five nights are spent. Day 2. See in Vicenza several palaces by Palladio including the Palazzo Thiene and the colonnaded Palazzo Chiericati. His chief civic works here are the Basilica, the mediaeval town hall nobly encased in classical guise, and the Teatro Olimpico, the earliest theatre of modern times. The hilltop ‘La Rotonda’, a ten-minute drive away,
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is the most famous of Palladio’s buildings, domed and with four porticoes. Adjacent is the 17thcentury Villa Valmarana ‘ai Nani’ with frescoes by Giambattista and Domenico Tiepolo. Day 3. The Villa Pisani at Bagnolo di Lonigo, small but of majestic proportions, is considered by many scholars to be Palladio’s first masterpiece. The Villa Badoer at Fratta Polesine, from the middle of his career, is a perfect example of Palladian hierarchy, a raised residence connected by curved colonnades to auxiliary buildings. Day 4. In the foothills of the Dolomites, Villa Godi Malinverni is an austere cuboid design with lavish frescoes inside, and at the lovely town of Bassano there is a wooden bridge by Palladio. The Villa Barbaro at Maser, built by Palladio for two highly cultivated Venetian brothers, has superb frescoes by Veronese, while the Villa Emo at Fanzolo typically and beautifully combines the utilitarian with the monumental. Day 5. Drive along a stretch of the canal between Padua and the Venetian Lagoon which is lined with the summer retreats of Venetian patricians. The Villa Foscari, ‘La Malcontenta’, is one of Palladio’s best known and most enchanting creations. Explore one of Palladio’s most evolved, most beautiful and most influential buildings, the Villa Cornaro at Piombino Dese. Day 6. The Villa Pojana, an early work, is restrained but of noble proportions and contains models of Palladio’s works. The Villa Cordellina
Venice & Florence Painting, sculpture, architecture Lombardi is a fine example of 18th-century Palladianism. Fly from Venice to London Gatwick, arriving c. 6.45pm. Please note that most of the villas are privately owned and require special permission to visit. The selection and order of visits may therefore vary a little from the description here.
Practicalities Price: £1,840 (2014), £1,910 (2015) (deposit £200). Single supplement £120 (2014), £260 (2015) (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,720 (2014), £1,740 (2015). Accommodation. We use two different 4-star hotels in Vicenza for these tours. October 2014: Hotel Palladio (hotel-palladio.it): a small establishment in the centre of Vicenza, with contemporary décor and small rooms. April & September 2015: Hotel Campo Marzio (hotelcampomarzio.com): just outside a city gate of Vicenza, well located and comfortable, with decent-sized rooms. Included meals: 2 lunches, 3 dinners with wine. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine the 2014 departure with: Ravenna & Urbino, 1–5 October 2014 (page 127), Ancient Rome, 13–18 October 2014 (page 148). Combine the April 2015 departure with: Lucca, 13–19 April 2015 (page 137), Genoa & Turin, 13–19 April 2015 (page 115), Sicily, 13–25 April 2015 (page 156), The Heart of Italy, 14–21 April 2015 (page 142). Combine the September 2015 departure with: Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes, 17–23 September 2015 (page 116).
Verona Opera
July or August 2015 Details available in June 2014 Contact us to register your interest Engraving c. 1880.
1–8 November 2014 (mb 192) This tour is currently full 7–14 March 2015 (mb 252) 8 days • £2,770 Lecturer: Dr Kevin Childs Some of the finest and best-known art and architecture in the western world. Wide-ranging survey with Renaissance emphasis. Special arrangements include a private afterhours visit to St Mark’s Basilica in Venice. Led by Dr Michael Douglas-Scott, art historian with 15th- and 16th-century Italian speciality. Off-peak dates, small group.
Itinerary Day 1: Venice. Fly at c. 8.45am (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Venice. Cross the lagoon by motoscafo (water taxi) to the hotel. There is an introductory walk which includes
Venice, Campanile, watercolour by Reginald Barratt, publ. 1907.
a visit to S. Zaccaria, with its outstanding Renaissance altarpiece by Bellini. First of three nights in Venice. Day 2: Venice. Spend the morning at the incomparably beautiful Doge’s Palace with pink Gothic revetment and rich Renaissance interiors. In the afternoon cross the bacino to Palladio’s beautiful island church of S. Giorgio Maggiore and then to the tranquil Giudecca to see his best church, Il Redentore. Day 3: Venice. The day is spent across the Grand Canal in the Dorsoduro district. The great Franciscan church of S. Maria Gloriosa dei Frari has outstanding artworks including Titian’s Assumption, and the Scuola Grande di San Rocco has dramatic paintings by Tintoretto. The Accademia is Venice’s major art gallery, where all the Venetian painters are represented. In the evening there is a private after-hours visit to the Basilica of S. Marco, an 11th-century Byzantine church enriched over the centuries with mosaics, sculpture and precious objects (subject to confirmation as bookings had not yet opened at time of printing). Day 4: Venice, Florence. Visit the vast gothic church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, the early Renaissance S. Maria dei Miracoli with its multicoloured stone veneer, and S. Giovanni Crisostomo with its Bellini altarpiece. Travel by rail to Florence (first class) for the first of four nights there. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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To achieve a proper appreciation of Italian art and civilization, there can be no better way than immersion in the incomparable cities of Venice and Florence. There are similarities between the two city-states: the simultaneity of their periods of greatness (with consequent rivalry); the extraordinary wealth generated by pioneering commercial and manufacturing enterprise; republican and democratic political systems; and, above all, the brilliance of their material culture, both bequeathing a corpus of painting, sculpture and architecture of incomparable quantity, quality and influence. And there are differences. Florence, an inland city, is largely built of local rough-hewn pietra forte, a tough brown stone, with columns and arches of pietra serena, grey and severe. Venice, the greatest maritime power of its time, imported coloured marbles and white limestone from around the Mediterranean and brick from its hinterland. Florentine art is tough, linear and monumental, while in Venice primacy is given to colour, gorgeous and evanescent. Venice’s lagoon location and its myriad canals is beyond different, it is unique. Florence was, of course, the cradle of the Renaissance. Giotto, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo are some of the great names studied on this tour. Today Florence is a vibrant, contemporary city, but the past is omnipresent: from the mediaeval city walls and distant vistas of olive groves to the narrow alleyways, expansive piazzas and imposing palazzi, all reminders of the vast banking wealth which drove its artistic preeminence. Trade with the East was the source of Venice’s wealth, and the eastern connection has left its indelible stamp, with western styles tempered by a richness of effect and delicacy of pattern redolent of oriental opulence. Seeing the highlights of these two cities in succession, with enough time in each to enable some depth of experience, provides one of the great aesthetic journeys the world has to offer.
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Venice & Florence continued
Venetian Palaces
The greatest & best-preserved of La Serenissima Day 5: Florence. The Dominican church of S. Maria Novella has many works of art (Masaccio’s Trinità, Ghirlandaio’s frescoed sanctuary), while the church-cum-granary of Orsanmichele is adorned with important Renaissance statuary. The cluster of cathedral buildings occupies the afternoon, the baptistry with its Byzantine mosaics and Renaissance sculpture, the polychromatic marble Duomo itself capped by Brunelleschi’s massive dome and the excellent collections in the cathedral museum (at the time of printing the cathedral museum is almost entirely closed for restoration but is due to reopen in 2015).
Venice, wood engraving c. 1880.
Day 6: Florence. A Medici morning includes San Lorenzo, the family parish church designed by Brunelleschi, their burial chapel in the contiguous New Sacristy with Michelangelo’s largest sculptural ensemble, and Michelangelo’s Laurentian Library. The afternoon is devoted to the Uffizi, Italy’s most important art gallery, which has masterpieces by every major Florentine painter as well as international Old Masters. Day 7: Florence. Visit the Bargello, a mediaeval palazzo housing Florence’s finest sculpture collection with works by Donatello, Verrocchio and Michelangelo. Walk to the vast Franciscan church of Santa Croce, favoured burial place for leading Florentines and abundantly furnished with sculpted tombs, altarpieces and frescoes. In the afternoon visit the redoubtable Palazzo Pitti, which houses several museums including the Galleria Palatina, outstanding particularly for High Renaissance and Baroque paintings. Day 8: Florence. In Santa Trìnita there are fine frescoes by Ghirlandaio. See the Masaccio fresco cycle in the Brancacci Chapel, which constitutes the most important work of painting of the Early Renaissance, and Santo Spirito, Brunelleschi’s last great church, with many 15th-century altarpieces. Fly from Pisa to London Heathrow, arriving c. 4.00pm.
Practicalities Price in 2015: £2,770 (deposit £250). Single supplement £380 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,600. Included meals: 1 lunch, 4 dinners with wine.
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Accommodation. Westin Europa & Regina, Venice (westineuropareginavenice.com): an elegant and historic hotel on the Grand Canal, opposite the Salute. Hotel Santa Maria Novella, Florence (hotelsantamarianovella.it): a delightful 4-star hotel in a very central location. Group size: between 8 and 18 participants. Combine this tour with: Sicily, 16–28 March 2015 (page 156).
18–22 November 2014 (mb 202) 5 days • £2,130 Lecturer: Dr Michael Douglas-Scott 24–28 March 2015 (mb 260) 5 days • £2,270 Lecturer: Dr Michael Douglas-Scott 17–21 November 2015 (mc 530) 5 days • £2,270 Lecturer: Dr Michael Douglas-Scott Explores many of the finest and best-preserved palaces, once homes to the city’s wealthiest nobles and merchants. Access to many by special arrangement, including some which are still in private hands. Also a private after-hours visit to San Marco. Led by Dr Michael Douglas-Scott, specialist in 16th-century Italian art and architecture.
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Stay in a 4-star hotel on the Grand Canal. book online at www.martinrandall.com
Just as Venice possesses but a single piazza among dozens of campi, it has only one building correctly called a ‘palazzo’. The singularity is important: the Doge’s Palace (Palazzo Ducale), like the Piazza San Marco, was the locus of the Serenissima’s public identity and seat of her republican government. Unlike her rivals in Florence and Milan she had no ruling dynasties to dictate polity, by contrast developing a deep aversion to individual aggrandizement and over-concentrated power. While the person and Palazzo of the Doge embodied their municipal identity, it was in their private houses that Venice’s mercantile oligarchs expressed their own family wealth and status. These case (in Venetian parlance ca’) were built throughout the city. In the absence of primogeniture, many branches sprung from the two hundred-odd noble families, leading to several edifices of the same name – an obstacle for would-be visitors. These houses were unlike any other domestic buildings elsewhere in the world: erected over wooden piles driven into the mud flats of the lagoon, they remained remarkably uniform over
the centuries in their basic design, combining the functions of mercantile emporium (ground level) and magnificent residence (upper floors). They were however built in a fantastic variety of styles, Veneto-Byzantine, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo. Sometimes there is a touch of Islamic decoration. As new families bought their way into the aristocracy during the long period of the Republic’s economic and political decline, they had their residences refurbished in Rococo splendour by master artists such as Giambattista Tiepolo. Many of these palaces have survived the virtual extinction of the Venetian aristocracy and retain their original, if faded, glory. Palaces for nobles will be considered in conjunction with those for the non-noble cittadino (wealthy merchant) class and the housing projects for ordinary Venetian popolani, which rise cheek by jowl in the dense urban fabric. Some of the places visited are familiar and readily accessible to the public. Others are opened only by special arrangement with the owners, whether a charitable organisation, branch of local government, or descendants of the original occupants. Some of these cannot be confirmed until nearer the time. A private, after-hours visit to the Basilica San Marco, the mosaic interior illuminated for your benefit, is a highlight of this tour. As is an opportunity to see up close ‘the most beautiful street in the world’, the Grand Canal, from that most Venetian of vantage-points, a gondola.
the purpose-built site of the family collection of antiquities, which were then bequeathed to the Venetian Republic.
Itinerary
This tour is dependent on the kindness of many individuals and organisations, some of whom are reluctant to make arrangements far in advance. Therefore the order of visits outlined here may change and there may be substitutions for some palaces mentioned.
Day 1. Fly at c. 12.30pm (British Airways) from London Gatwick to Venice. Cross the lagoon by motoscafo (water taxi) and travel up the Grand Canal to the doors of the hotel. Luggage is transported separately to the hotel by porters. There is an introductory walk in Piazza San Marco.
Day 3. Designed by Longhena (c. 1667) and Giorgio Massari (c. 1751), the Ca’ Rezzonico is perhaps the most magnificent of Grand Canal palaces, and contains frescoes by Tiepolo; it is now a museum of 18th-century art. Visit the grand ballroom of late 17th-century Palazzo Zenobio (by special arrangement). In the afternoon visit the Palazzo Barbarigo della Terrazza (by special arrangement), a 16th-century palazzo with remarkable views of the Grand Canal. The Palazzo Grimani at Santa Maria Formosa became in the mid-sixteenth century
Day 5. Visit the privately-owned 17th-century Palazzo Albrizzi which has some of the finest stucco decoration in Venice (by special arrangement). Travel by motoscafo to Venice airport. Fly to Gatwick, arriving c. 5.15pm.
Price: £2,130 (2014, deposit £200), £2,270 (2015, deposit £250). Single supplement £280 (2014), £300 (2015) (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,030 (2014), £2,100 (2015). Included meals: 3 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Palazzo Sant’Angelo, Venice (palazzosantangelo.com): a 4-star hotel in an excellent location on the Grand Canal near Campo Sant’Angelo and the Rialto Bridge. Group size: between 8 and 18 participants. Combine this tour with: (in 2014) Florence Revisited, 10–16 November 2014 (page 135); (in 2015) Gardens of the Riviera, 18–24 March 2015 (page 79), Florentine Palaces, 11–15 November 2015 (page 134).
‘Very impressive. The accesses to private palaces and private viewing at San Marco was a great feature of this tour.’
Illustration of Venice, above: from World Pictures by Mortimer Menpes, 1903.
Monteverdi’s Operas
Music & drama in Venice 2–6 November 2015 Details available in December 2014 Contact us to register your interest
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Day 2. Visit the Palazzo Ducale, supremely beautiful with its 14th-century pink and white revetment outside, late Renaissance gilded halls and paintings by Tintoretto and Veronese inside. See the palazzi on the Grand Canal from the viewpoint of a gondola. The former Casino Venier (by special arrangement) is a uniquely Venetian establishment that was part private members’ bar, part literary salon, part brothel. There is an after-hours private visit to the Basilica San Marco, an 11th-century Byzantine-style church enriched over the centuries with mosaics, sculpture and various precious objects.
Day 4. With its elegant tracery and abundant ornamentation, the Ca’ d’Oro, also on the Grand Canal, is the most gorgeous of Venetian Gothic palaces; it now houses the Galleria Franchetti. The 13th-century Fondaco dei Turchi is a unique survival from the era; today it is the natural history museum. In the afternoon visit two privately-owned palaces, the 16th-century Palazzo Corner Gheltoff Alverà and Palazzo Contarini dal Zaffo-Polignac (both by special arrangement).
Practicalities
A festival devoted to the operas and dramatic music of Claudio Monteverdi. Includes semi-staged or concert performances of L’Orfeo, Il ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria and L’incoronazione di Poppea. World-class musicians perform in appropriate historic buildings in Venice. Access to the concerts is exclusive to those who take an all-inclusive arrangement which includes hotel, flights, meals, travel and much else besides.
Lithograph c. 1830–40. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Venice Revisited
Lesser-known & less accessible treasures 11–16 November 2014 (mb 196) 6 days • £2,160 Lecturer: Dr Susan Steer Explores lesser-known museums, churches and districts of Venice. Access to many by special arrangement, including some which are still in private hands. Also a private after-hours visit to San Marco. Led by Dr Susan Steer, specialist in the Venetian Renaissance. Stay in a converted palace on the Grand Canal, now a 4-star hotel. This is a tour for those who are familiar with the main buildings and museums of Venice and who now want to explore some of the lesserknown places. ‘Lesser-known’ does not imply less beautiful or interesting; the riches of Venice are so profuse that few visitors, even the most regular, have seen all that is worth seeing. A glance at the list below will show that some of the places are by no means obscure, merely a little off the beaten track or difficult to get into. Others are indeed alluringly arcane. But perhaps the greatest attraction of the tour is that there will be several visits to places not generally open to the public. Some are private institutions, a couple are private homes, all are accessible only by special arrangement.
There will also be some free time in which to revisit places not included on the tour or just to relax. Because the tour is dependent on the kindness of many individuals and organisations, some of whom are reluctant to make arrangements far in advance, we do not give a detailed itinerary here but merely list most of the places we intend to take you to. A special private visit to the Basilica of S. Marco, the finest Byzantine-style church in the West, the mosaic-encrusted interior illuminated exclusively for your benefit, an opportunity not only to see the church without crowds but also to visit the baptistery, not normally open to the public. Private palaces are a special feature: there will be visits to two or three family-owned palazzi with splendid 17th- and 18th-century interiors. Church buildings visited include the little Romanesque cloister of Sant’Apollonia, Sansovino’s S. Francesco della Vigna with a façade by Palladio and altarpieces by Veronese and Bellini, the Gothic church of Madonna dell’ Orto with paintings by Tintoretto, and Sant’Alvise, a 14th-century church with a 17thcentury frescoed ceiling, delightful 15th-century tempera paintings and a superb triptych by Tiepolo, Baldessare Longhena’s triumphant Madonna della Salute, with its extraordinary series of paintings by Titian.
‘Venetian Lights’, etching by S.M. Litten.
Visit Murano the glass-making island to see SS. Maria e Donato with 12th-century mosaics and pavement, and S. Pietro Martire with paintings by Bellini and Tintoretto. The glass museum can be visited independently. Museums and picture collections visited include the Seminario Patriarcale, which has paintings from churches suppressed under Napoleon, and the Museo Correr which presents the history of Venice and has many fine pictures. Walks off the beaten track include a special guided tour of the Ghetto and its synagogues, around the markets and former trading houses of the Rialto district and Cannaregio, a tranquil area of the city little known to visitors. Among the religious foundations visited are the cloisters and conventual buildings of the island church of S. Giorgio Maggiore, the Scuola Grande dei Carmini with paintings by Tiepolo and the Scuola Grande di S. Giovanni Evangelista with its grand Renaissance stairway and a magnificent hall. Flights: fly at c. 12.30pm from London Gatwick to Venice and return on Day 6 at c. 5.15pm (flights with British Airways).
Practicalities Price: £2,160 (deposit £200). Single supplement £340 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,050. Included meals: 3 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Westin Europa & Regina, Venice (westineuropareginavenice.com): an elegant and historic hotel on the Grand Canal, opposite the Salute. Group size: between 10 and 18 participants.
The Information Revolution History of Print in Venice & Rome italy
2016 Lecturer: Dr Michael Douglas-Scott Contact us to register your interest
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Cour ts of Nor thern Italy Princely Art of the Renaissance 6–13 October 2014 (mb 161) This tour is currently full 8–15 March 2015 (mb 262) 8 days • £2,190 Lecturer: Dr Michael Douglas-Scott 25 May–1 June 2015 (mb 341) 8 days • £2,190 Lecturer: Dr Michael Douglas-Scott 5–12 October 2015 (mc 476) 8 days • £2,190 Lecturer: Dr Michael Douglas-Scott Northern Italy’s independent city states: Mantua, Ferrara, Parma, Ravenna and Urbino. Some of the greatest Renaissance art and architecture, commissioned by the powerful ruling dynasties: Gonzaga, Este, Sforza, Farnese, Montefeltro and others. Led by Dr Michael Douglas-Scott, specialist in 16th-century Italian art and architecture. Highlights include the most glorious concentration of Byzantine mosaics and important work by Alberti, Mantegna, Piero della Francesca and Correggio.
Itinerary Day 1: Mantua. Fly at c. 8.45am (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Bologna. Drive to Mantua where the first four nights are spent. After a late lunch, visit the Ducal Palace, a vast rambling complex, the aggregate of 300 years of extravagant patronage by the Gonzaga dynasty
Day 2: Mantua, Sabbioneta. In the morning visit Alberti’s highly influential Early Renaissance church of Sant’Andrea, the Romanesque Rotonda of S. Lorenzo and Giulio Romano’s uncharacteristically restrained cathedral. In the afternoon, drive to Sabbioneta, an ideal Renaissance city on an almost miniature scale, built for Vespasiano Gonzaga in the 1550s; visit the ducal palace, theatre, and one of the world’s first picture galleries. Day 3: Parma, Fontanellato. Parma is a beautiful city; the vast Palazzo della Pilotta houses an art gallery (Correggio, Parmigianino) and an important Renaissance theatre (first proscenium arch). Visit the splendid Romanesque cathedral with illusionistic frescoes of a tumultuous heavenly host by Correggio. Also by Correggio is a sophisticated set of allegorical lunettes in grisaille surrounding a celebration of Diana as the goddess of chastity and the hunt in the Camera di San Paolo. In the afternoon, visit the moated 13th-century castle and Farnese theatre in Fontanellato, seeing frescoes by Parmigianino. Day 4: Mantua. After a free morning, an afternoon walk takes in the exteriors of Alberti’s centrally planned church of S. Sebastiano, and the houses that court artists Mantegna and Giulio Romano built for themselves. Also visit Palazzo Te, the Gonzaga summer residence and the major monument of Italian Mannerism, designed and with lavish frescoes by Giulio Romano. Day 5: Ferrara was the centre of the city-state ruled by the d’Este dynasty, whose court was one of the most lavish and cultured in Renaissance Italy. Pass the Castello Estense, a moated 15thcentury stronghold, and the cathedral. The Palazzo Diamanti houses the art gallery, and the Palazzo Schifanoia is an Este retreat with elaborate allegorical frescoes. First of three nights in Ravenna. Day 6: Ravenna, Classe. The last capital of the western Roman Empire and subsequently capital of Ostrogothic and Byzantine Italy, Ravenna possesses the world’s most glorious concentration of Early Christian and Byzantine mosaics. Visit the Basilica of S. Apollinare Nuovo with its mosaic Procession of Martyrs. Drive to Classe, Ravenna’s port, which was once one of the largest in the Roman world; virtually all that is left is the great Basilica of S. Apollinare. In the evening, there is a private visit to the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, lined with 5th-century mosaics, and the splendid centrally planned church of S. Vitale with 6th-century mosaics of Emperor Justinian and Empress Theodora. Day 7: Urbino. Drive into the hills to Urbino, the beautiful little city of the Montefeltro dynasty. See the exquisite Gothic frescoes in the Oratorio di San Giovanni. In the afternoon, visit the Palazzo Ducale, a masterpiece of architecture which grew over 30 years into the perfect Renaissance secular environment. See the beautiful studiolo
Urbino, Ducal Palace, watercolour by Edward Hutton, publ. 1875.
of Federico of Montefeltro and excellent picture collection here (Piero, Raphael, Titian). Day 8: Cesena, Rimini. The Biblioteca Malatestiana in Cesena is a perfectly preserved renaissance library established by Malatesta Novello, and contains over 300 valuable manuscripts. In Rimini visit the outstanding Tempio Malatestiano, designed by Leon Battista Alberti for the tyrant Sigismondo Malatesta, which contains superb decoration by Agostino di Duccio and particularly fine sculptural detail. Fly from Bologna, arriving at London Heathrow c. 8.00pm.
Practicalities Price in 2015: £2,190 (deposit £250). Single supplement £230 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,020. Included meals: 1 lunch, 4 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Casa Poli, Mantua (hotelcasapoli.it): a 4-star hotel a short walk from the historic centre. Hotel Bisanzio, Ravenna (bisanziohotel.com): a bland modern façade hides a small, welcoming but relatively basic 4-star.
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After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Italy gradually fragmented into numerous little territories. The city states became fiercely independent and were governed with some degree of democracy. But a debilitating violence all too often ensued as the leading families fought with fellow citizens for dominance of the city council and the offices of state. A common outcome from the thirteenth century onwards was the imposition of autocratic rule by a single prince, and the suspension of democratic structures: but such tyranny was not infrequently welcomed with relief and gratitude by a war-weary citizenry. Their rule may have been tyrannical, and warfare their principal occupation, but the Montefeltro, Malatesta, d’Este and Gonzaga dynasties brought into being through their patronage some of the finest buildings and works of art of the Renaissance. Many of the leading artists in fifteenth- and sixteenth- century Italy worked in the service of princely courts. As for court art of earlier epochs, little survives, though a glimpse of the oriental splendour of the Byzantine court of Emperor Justinian can be had in the mosaic depiction of him, his wife and their retinue in the church of San Vitale in Ravenna. It is not until the fifteenth century, in Mantegna’s Camera degli Sposi at Mantua, that we are again allowed an unhindered gaze into court life.
(Mantegna’s frescoes in the Camera degli Sposi, Pisanello frescoes, Rubens altarpiece). At the time of printing, the Camera degli Sposi is closed due to the earthquake in 2012, and may not reopen until the end of 2015.
Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: March: Sicily, 16–28 March 2015 (page 156); May: Palaces of Piedmont, 19–24 May 2015 (page 113); October: Sardinia, 26 September–4 October 2015 (page 155), Pompeii & Herculaneum, 28 September–3 October 2015 (page 151), Siena & San Gimignano, 30 September–4 October 2015 (page 136), The Venetian Hills, 1–5 October 2015 (page 118). Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Dark Age Brilliance Late Antique & Pre-Romanesque
east Italy, the last redoubt of the Empire in the West. Born of an Umbrian past and raised in Imperial retreat, Ravenna remains anchored in the Adriatic marshes, humbled by the rise of her great neighbours, Bologna and Venice, and unhindered by later political commerce. The effect of this marginal status has been to spare her Early Christian buildings and leave a Byzantine heritage of unique range and richness. Given the intensity with which Ravenna developed between 402, when Honorius chose it as his capital, and 751, when the last of the Exarchs returned to Constantinople, it makes a fitting introduction to Early Christian and early mediaeval culture in north-eastern Italy. Arising from the need to cater for the spiritual requirements of newly emancipated Christianity, the clarity and humanism of the classical tradition were superseded by images and decoration designed to instil a kind of sacred dread, and to intimate the glories of the world to come. Mosaic was the key element in creating church interiors of awesome splendour and intense spirituality. Early Christian forms were endorsed throughout the whole of the Adriatic seaboard, and the second half of the tour embraces Aquileia, Grado, Poreč (Parenzo) in Croatia and Concordia Sagittaria. The theme is rounded off with the astonishing little eighth-century church in Cividale in the foothills of the Julian Alps which preserves the earliest monumental sculpture of the Middle Ages.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 3.00pm (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Bologna. Drive to Ravenna for the first of three nights.
Ravenna, Sant’Apollinare Nuova, wood cut by Giulio Ricci c. 1930.
22–29 September 2015 (mc 443) 8 days • £2,140 Lecturer: Dr Ffiona Gilmore Eaves italy
A journey through north-east Italy to Croatia, via Ravenna, Torcello and Cividale. Private evening visit to San Vitale, Ravenna’s finest church, and the adjacent Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, to see the magnificent mosaics. Includes some of the finest art and architecture of the Early Middle Ages to be found anywhere. Led by Dr Ffiona Gilmore Eaves, whose PhD is on the early church at Poreč, visited on this tour.
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Byzantine heritage of unique range and richness, with exceptional mosaics.
It is now commonplace to believe, contrary to the assumptions of centuries, that the Dark Ages which succeeded the glories of the Roman Empire were not so dark, and that the later history of the Empire was not so glorious. A concomitant reappraisal has led to the acceptance of Early Christian and Byzantine art not as a regression to primitivism – an aspect of the decline and fall – but as one of the most brilliant chapters in the history of Western art. But it remains true that in the territories of the Western Empire from the fifth to the ninth century there was little in the way of monumental building or large-scale artistic production. Only in a few dispersed pockets was the flame of ambitious artistic and intellectual endeavour kept alive. A string of such pockets gathered around the northern end of the Adriatic and north-
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Day 2: Ravenna. Begin with an exploration of the 5th-century forms at the cathedral and Orthodox Baptistery, and the superlative 6th-century ivory throne of Maximian in the Museo Arcivescovile. In the afternoon study Arian Ravenna at the Arian Baptistery and Theodoric’s great Palatine church of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo. Investigate the 5th-century basilica design which provided Theodoric’s court with its most immediate models, and Galla Placidia’s splendid ex-voto basilica of San Giovanni Evangelista. Day 3: Ravenna, Classe. See the outstanding National Museum, with excellent Byzantine ivory carvings. Travel by coach to Theodoric’s superb Mausoleum and to the ancient port of Classe for the great 6th-century basilica of Sant’Apollinare. Private evening visit to the church of San Vitale, the greatest 6th-century building of the West; the invention with which form, colour, space and narrative meaning are combined is breathtaking. The Mausoleum of Galla Placidia is the earliest Christian structure in Europe to retain its mosaic decoration in its entirety. Day 4: Pomposa, Concordia Sagittaria. Drive north to the Po delta. Pomposa is an important 8th-century Benedictine abbey, richly extended by Abbot Guido’s magnificent 11th-century porch and campanile. Lunch in Chioggia. The Roman road station at Concordia Sagittaria, whose
Ravenna & Urbino
Byzantine capital, Renaissance court modest mediaeval cathedral was built alongside a 4th-century basilica and martyrium, is splendidly revealed through archaeological excavation. Stay four nights in Cividale.
1–5 October 2014 (mb 146) 5 days • £1,430 Lecturer: Dr Luca Leoncini
Day 5: Cividale. Although founded as Forum Julii in the 1st century bc, Cividale is best known to historians as the site of the earliest Longobard settlement in northern Italy, and most celebrated by art historians for the astonishing quality and quantity of the 8th-century work which has survived here. See the superb ‘Tempietto’ of Santa Maria in Valle, Longobardic work in the cathedral museum and spectacular early mediaeval collections in the archaeological museum. The afternoon is free in Cividale.
6–10 May 2015 (mb 314) 5 days • £1,430 Lecturer: Dr Luca Leoncini
Day 6: Poreč (Croatia). Drive south, cross Slovenia and enter the part of Croatia formerly known as Istria. The sole object of the excursion is to visit Poreč (Parenzo), a longish journey justified by the existence of an unusually complete 6th-century cathedral complex: basilican church, baptistery and bishop’s palace. The church proper was built above an earlier basilica c. 540 by Bishop Euphrasius, whose complete episcopal throne is set within an apse which, for once, has retained its full complement of furnishings and fittings. Day 7: Aquileia, Grado. Aquileia was a major Roman city whose influential cathedral was complete by 319. Sections of walls and mosaic pavements were preserved within the present 11th-century cathedral, a wonderful survival. The Longobard sack of 568 resulted in the removal of the see to the more defensible position on the coast at Grado, whose two great 6th-century churches, Santa Maria della Grazie and the cathedral, also have outstanding floor mosaics. Day 8: Torcello. Drive to the Adriatic and take a water taxi to the island of Torcello in the Venetian lagoon, a major city while Venice was little more than a fishing village. Visit the largely 11thcentury cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta and adjacent Greek-cross reliquary church of Santa Fosca. Continue to Venice Airport and fly to London Gatwick, arriving at c. 7.00pm.
14–18 October 2015 (mc 491) 5 days • £1,430 Lecturer: Dr Luca Leoncini A study in contrasts: one a city with origins as a major Roman seaport, the other an enchanting little Renaissance settlement high in the hills. In Ravenna, some of the greatest buildings of late antiquity with the finest and best-preserved Byzantine and Early Christian mosaics. In Urbino the ducal palace, the greatest secular building of the Early Renaissance. Private evening visit to San Vitale, Ravenna’s finest church, and the adjacent Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, to see the magnificent mosaics.
antique and early mediaeval era were allowed to survive unmolested until the modern age recognised in them not the onset of decadence and the barbarity of the Dark Ages but an art of the highest aesthetic and spiritual power. The Early Christian and Byzantine mosaics at Ravenna are the finest in the world. Urbino, by contrast, is a compact hilltop stronghold with a very different history and an influence on Renaissance culture out of all proportion to her size. The Ducal Palace, built by the Montefeltro dynasty over several decades, is perhaps the finest secular building of its period. Piero della Francesca, Raphael and Baldassare Castiglione were among those who passed through its exquisite halls. The justification for joining in one short tour these two centres of diverse artistic traditions is simple. They are places to which every art lover wants to go but which are relatively inaccessible from the main art-historical centres of Italy, yet are close to each other. For many years this has been one of our most popular tours.
Itinerary
Led by Dr Luca Leoncini, expert art historian specialising in 15th–17th-century Italian paintings.
Day 1: Ravenna. Fly at c. 3.00pm (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Bologna. Drive to Ravenna, where all four nights are spent.
Why combine them? Both are somewhat out of the way, yet near to each other. First run almost 30 years ago and still a firm favourite.
Day 2: Ravenna. In the morning see the outstanding National Museum, with excellent Byzantine ivory carvings. The Orthodox baptistry has superlative Early Christian mosaics and S. Apollinare Nuovo has a mosaic procession of martyrs marching along the nave. In the evening, there is a private visit to the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, lined with 5th-century mosaics, and the splendid centrally planned church of S. Vitale with 6th-century mosaics of Emperor Justinian and Empress Theodora.
Ravenna was once one of the most important cities in the western world. The last capital of the Roman Empire in the West, she subsequently became capital of the Gothic kingdoms of Italy and of Byzantine Italy. Then history passed her by. Marooned in obscurity, some of the greatest buildings and decorative schemes of the late
Rimini, Mausoleum of Theodoric, wood engraving c. 1900.
Practicalities Price: £2,140 (deposit £200). Single supplement £210 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,970. Included meals: 1 lunch, 5 dinners with wine.
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Accommodation. Palazzo Bezzi, Ravenna (palazzobezzi.it): a new 4-star superior hotel, located on the edge of the historic centre of town. Hotel Roma, Cividale (hotelroma-cividale.it): a simple, functional and friendly 3-star, located in the centre of town. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: The Greeks in Sicily, 14–21 September 2015 (page 159), The Heart of Italy, 15–22 September 2015 (page 142), Siena & San Gimignano, 30 September–4 October 2015 (page 136), The Venetian Hills, 1–5 October 2015 (page 118), Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes, 1–7 October 2015 (page 116).
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Ravenna & Urbino continued
Gastronomic Emilia-Romagna Food & art along the Via Emilia
Day 3: Ravenna. The Cathedral Museum possesses fine objects, including an ivory throne. Visit the Cooperativa Mosaicista, a laboratory for the restoration of mosaics (by appointment only and subject to confirmation) and the Mausoleum of Theodoric. The afternoon is free. Day 4: Urbino. The Palazzo Ducale grew during 30 years of Montefeltro patronage into the perfect Early Renaissance secular environment, of the highest importance for both architecture and architectural sculpture. The picture collection in the palace includes works by Piero della Francesca, Raphael and Titian. There are exquisite International Gothic frescoes by Salimbeni in the Oratory of St John. Day 5: Classe, Rimini. Drive to Classe, Ravenna’s port, which was one of the largest in the Roman Empire. Virtually all that is left is the great basilica of S. Apollinare. Continue to Rimini and visit the Tempio Malatestiano, church and mausoleum of the Renaissance tyrant Sigismondo Malatesta (designed by Alberti, fresco by Piero della Francesca, sculpture by Agostino Duccio). Drive on to Bologna airport for a late-afternoon flight arriving at Heathrow at c. 8.00pm.
Bologna, Torre Pendenti, wood engraving c .1890.
Practicalities Price: £1,430 (deposit £200). Single supplement £140 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,270 (2014 & May 2015), £1,200 (Oct 2015). Included meals: 3 dinners with wine. Accommodation. (2014) Hotel Bisanzio, Ravenna (bisanziohotel.com): a bland modern façade hides a somewhat basic but friendly and comfortable 4-star hotel. (2015) Palazzo Bezzi, Ravenna (palazzobezzi.it): a new 4-star superior hotel, located on the edge of the historic centre of town. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Palaces of Piedmont, 19–24 May 2015 (page 113); Gastronomic Sicily, 19–25 October 2015 (page 161).
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11–17 April 2015 (mb 280) 7 days • £2,830 Lecturers: Marc Millon & Dr R. T. Cobianchi One of the world’s most famous food-producing regions. A food-lover’s paradise: source of the best ham, cheese, vinegar, fresh pasta. See how they are made and meet their producers. Two lecturers: an expert art historian and a gastronomic specialist, author of The Food Lover’s Companion to Italy. Emilia-Romagna, shaped like a wedge of its renowned Parmesan cheese, is rich in every way – artistically, culturally, economically and, by no means least, gastronomically. To journey along the Via Emilia, the long, straight Roman road from Milan to the Adriatic coast, is to immerse oneself in a gloriously hedonistic garden of Eden that is the source of some of the greatest foods in the world. The lovely cities of Parma and Bologna are the ideal bases from which to explore some of the masterpieces of Italian gastronomy, including the two jewels in the region’s crown; sweet Prosciutto di Parma, air-cured by dry mountain winds that sweep down from the Apennines, and Parmigiano-Reggiano, the king of cheeses. Here, within their strictly defined areas of origin, you have a rare opportunity to see the production of these protected foods and to taste them in the company of the producers themselves. We also visit two family-run acetaia to discover the mysterious art of producing traditional balsamic vinegar, the rich, complex condiment that must be aged for a minimum of twelve years. Vast oceans of inferior imitations
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may be found on tables all around the world, but the real thing, aged in batteries of wood, unctuous and thick, is known as ‘black gold’, an incredibly concentrated elixir that is part of the region’s great gastronomic patrimony. The trademark of Bologna is its hand-made egg pasta, which appears in many guises from filled tortellini to rich, luscious lasagne. A visit to Bologna’s food market with its vast array of fresh pasta, mortadella and salami, breads, cakes and ice cream explains why this city is known as la grassa (the fat one). Wine, too, is an important feature throughout. Starting in the Colli Piacentini (hills of Piacenza), we discover expressions of the grape that may not be as exalted as the region’s foods but which are perfect accompaniments, made from ancient grapes such as Malvasia, Trebbiano and Sangiovese. We also discover the real Lambrusco, foaming wildly, raspingly dry and rich in acidity. Although the main focus of this tour is gastronomy, both Parma and Bologna have a wealth of artistic treasures and time is allowed to explore these in the expert company of an art historian. Feeding the body, feeding the mind: this is the gastronomy of Emilia-Romagna.
‘Marc was superb: adaptive, fluent, interesting; we particularly liked his readings during coach trips’ Itinerary Day 1: Piacenza, Parma. Fly at c. 10.30am (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Milan. On the border of Lombardy and EmiliaRomagna is Piacenza, with many mediaeval buildings on its Roman grid plan, among them an outstanding town hall and Romanesque cathedral. The equestrian statue of Alessandro Farnese is a masterpiece of Baroque sculpture. Visit the Romanesque basilica of S. Savino before continuing to Parma. Dinner is at a Michelinstarred restaurant. The first four nights are spent in Parma. Day 2: Parma, Polesine Parmense, Colli Piacentini. Parma is of great importance in particular for its High Renaissance school of painting. In the Palazzo della Pilotta is a good art collection. Discover the rare and prestigious culatello di Zibello, made from the rump of a specially bred pig and cured for over a year in cellars at the 13th-century Corte Pallavicina. Normally such conditions are not conducive to the curing of meats – there is a great risk of spoilage – but when successful, the result is a cured meat product of near unbelievable intensity of flavour and sweetness. Lunch is in the family-run restaurant here, which has a Michelin star. In the afternoon, visit the Romanesque collegiata in Castell’Arquato before continuing to Vigolo Marchese for a tasting of wines of the Colli Piacentini.
Day 3: Parma and surroundings. ParmigianoReggiano has been made in the area around Parma using the same methods for over 700 years. Watch the process at a modern caseificio, with tasting. See the hand production of traditional balsamic vinegar at an acetaia, followed by a demonstration of fresh pasta-making and lunch. To see pasta being made by hand is to witness a near miraculous transformation of the simplest ingredients, flour and eggs, into the most ingenious collection of shapes and forms. Return to Parma to see the astonishingly vital and illusionistic frescoes by Correggio, Parma’s finest painter, in the cathedral, the church of S. Giovanni Evangelista and the exquisite Camera di S. Paolo. In the early evening the lecturer leads a wine tasting in the hotel. Day 4: Torrechiara, Langhirano. In the morning visit the 15th-century castle in Torrechiara. Continue to a producer of Prosciutto di Parma and see the age-old process of curing and drying, before tasting it later with wines and lunch at a good winery. Return to Parma for some free time. Day 5: Modena, Nonantola. In Modena visit the cathedral, among the finest Romanesque buildings in the region. Visit another family-run acetaia in a converted convent, with a tasting followed by lunch at a restaurant on the property. Continue to Bologna for a visit to the vast Gothic church of S. Petronio, with sculpture by Jacopo della Quercia. The last two nights of this tour are spent in Bologna.
Day 6: Bologna, Dozza, Imola. The famous food market in Bologna sprawls through a maze of streets where shops and stalls display an overwhelming array of fresh pasta, artisanal mortadella, hams and salamis, cheeses, fresh fruit and vegetables, and an irresistible variety of bread and pastries. Taste some of these products in one of the city’s historic food shops. Other visits include the early mediaeval churches of S. Stefano and the Pinacoteca Nazionale, which includes works by Raphael, the Carracci family and Guido Reni. In the evening drive to Dozza for a tasting of wines from Romagna, before continuing to Imola for dinner at one of the finest restaurants in Italy. Day 7: Brisighella, Forlimpopoli. In the morning drive to Brisighella, where the extra virgin olive oil produced by a cooperative of local olive growers enjoys DOP status. Forlimpopoli is the birthplace of Pellegrino Artusi, the author of the original Italian national cookbook. A demonstration of making the typical flatbread of Romagna, piadina, is followed by lunch before driving to the airport. Fly from Bologna, arriving Heathrow at c. 8.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,830 (deposit £300). Single supplement £310 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,550.
Marc Millon Wine, food and travel writer. Born in Mexico, raised in the USA he then studied English Literature at the University of Exeter. He owns a business importing Italian wines from family estates and is author of The Wine and Food of Europe, The Wine Roads of Italy and The Food Lover’s Companion to Italy. Marc Millon also leads Gastronomic Sicily (page 161). All lecturers’ biographies can be found on pages 8–15. Included meals: 5 lunches, 4 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Stendhal, Parma (hotelstendhal.it): a quiet 4-star hotel, excellently located in the middle of the historic centre. Hotel Corona d’Oro, Bologna (bolognarthotels.it/hotelcorona-d-oro.aspx): an elegant 4-star hotel in the heart of Bologna. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Pompeii & Herculaneum, 20–25 April 2015 (page 151), Villas & Gardens of Campagna Romana, 20–25 April 2015 (page 146).
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Parma, woodcut c. 1550. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
The Po Valley
Romanesque & renaissance architecture in the Val Padana realised in the interlocking cloisters of San Giovanni at Parma, the Casa Romei at Ferrara or the magnificent interiors of the new monastery of San Benedetto, Po.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. midday (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Milan, then transfer by coach to Parma. First of three nights in Parma. Day 2: Parma, Fidenza, Fornovo. Though superb, Parma’s Romanesque cathedral is excelled by its free-standing octagonal baptistry, one of the architectural triumphs of its time (begun 1196) and richly ornamented with sculpture and paint outside and in. Visit the Benedictine Abbey, its three interlocking cloisters were exquisitely rebuilt towards the end of the 15th cent. In the afternoon visit Fidenza, whose cathedral possesses the greatest assemblage of late Romanesque sculpture in northern Italy, and the stunning early Romanesque parish church at Fornovo di Taro. Day 3: Piacenza and environs. Situated on a terrace above the southern bank of the River Po, Piacenza was a strategic Roman city and an important bishopric. Visit San Savino, a remarkable parish church with 11th-cent. capitals. The interior of the 12th-cent. cathedral vies with Pisa for complexity and majesty. In the afternoon visit the wonderfully well-preserved Cistercian monastery of Chiaravalle della Colomba. Continue on to see the delightful complex of hexagonal baptistry and church at Vigolo Marchese and the breathtaking juxtaposition of collegiate church and 14th-cent. castle (exterior only) at Castell’Arquato.
Verona, Sant’Anastasia, wood engraving from The Magazine of Art, 1887.
6–13 June 2015 (mb 353) 8 days • £2,410 Lecturer: John McNeill Enthralling conspectus of architecture from the Late Antique to the early Renaissance. A core of Romanesque work, including much of the greatest sculpture of 12th-century. Based in just two centres – Parma and Verona.
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Tour led by renowned architectural historian John McNeill. The Po Valley, or Val Padana, consists of a great alluvial plain formed by the river Po, bounded to the south by the Apennines and to the north by the foothills of the Alps. Its historical development owes most to Roman settlement, when the cities were established and the fertile and well-watered land between them was farmed from substantial rural villas. Matters changed with barbarian settlement, and though it is rare to find material from this period surviving, the eighth-century royal nunnery at Brescia stands as one of the most compelling structures of Longobardic Italy.
By contrast, the major Romanesque buildings are twelfth century, and the quality and quantity of work that survives here is impressive. The crucial first step was taken at Modena cathedral, and its combination of architectural scale and narrative relief sculpture exerted a profound influence on later building across the region. Capitals, corbels, arches and stringcourses were embellished with new and unexpected forms - developing into vehicles of mesmerising virtuosity as designers and patrons sought to create buildings of unparalleled richness and expressive power. By the second quarter of the twelfth century public spaces were enlivened by costly and ambitious facades, those at San Zeno in Verona, and the cathedrals of Piacenza and Fidenza ranking among the most exciting essays on the interaction of sculpture and architecture of twelfth-century Europe. And other art forms were not neglected – as is beautifully illustrated by the stunning wall paintings of the baptistery at Parma, while the treasuries of Modena and Brescia house some of Italy’s greatest metalwork. Full dress Gothic never arrived in the Po valley, though there is another type of building – a rather chaste, elegant, almost modular Renaissance architecture – that constitutes the second of the tour’s main themes, brilliantly
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Day 4: Modena, Nonantola, San Benedetto Po. Modena cathedral is one of the great buildings of Romanesque Europe, and was highly influential in Lombardy-Emilia; begun in 1099, it possesses the earliest and most famous of the region’s programmes of elaborate relief sculpture, Willigelmo’s magnificent Genesis frieze. In the afternoon visit two Benedictine monasteries to the north of the Po, San Silvestro at Nonantola, reconstructed after the earthquake of 1117, and San Benedetto Po, greatest of the Cluniac houses of northern Italy. Both monasteries were partially damaged in the 2012 earthquake, restoration work is slowly progressing. Continue to Verona where four nights are spent. Day 5: Verona. A morning walk leads across the River Adige to the well-preserved Roman theatre for views of one of the most architecturally enthralling cities of Europe. Nearby Santo Stefano embodies the standard features of Veronese mediaeval architecture. The ravishing display of Romanesque sculpture on the west front of the cathedral is in exhilarating contrast to the Late Gothic élan of its interior. In the afternoon visit the great Benedictine church of San Zeno, begun c. 1120, which features a dramatic two-tier east end and bronze doors with narrative scenes. See the 14th-cent. Castelvecchio with an excellent collection of mediaeval painting and sculpture. Day 6: Verona. An astonishing clutch of palaces
Florence
Cradle of the Renaissance and loggie that housed the organs of mediaeval city government are ranged around a sequence of beautiful squares. Situated in the heart of the city’s mercantile quarters, the churches of the Dominicans at Sant’Anastasia and the Franciscans at San Fermo Maggiore were effectively transformed into funerary basilicas, and their chapels are a virtual primer of Italian late mediaeval painting. The afternoon is free. Day 7: Brescia. The historic core of Brescia is perhaps the most extensively excavated of any in Italy, and consequently it is possible to demonstrate the importance of the Roman city, the impact of Barbarian invasions and the reorientation of the settlement away from the forum and around the cathedral and bishop’s palace. The Museo della Città reveals an 8th-cent. nunnery built on top of Imperial Roman courtyard houses and displays many precious early mediaeval artworks. Also seen are Vespasian’s Capitoline temple, the centrally-planned Romanesque cathedral and its rebuilt predecessor, the mighty Duomo Vecchio. Day 8: Ferrara. The outer shell of Ferrara cathedral remains largely of the 12th cent., with a majestic portal composition by Master NiccolÒ, but with its late-mediaeval/earlyRenaissance palaces the city brings the tour to a fitting end. The Casa Romei and Palazzo Schifanoia both retain impressive painted interiors, the breathtaking Cycle of the Months at the Schifanoia surviving as one of the most accomplished and intellectually demanding painted interiors of 15th-cent. Europe. Fly from Bologna, arriving at London Heathrow c. 8.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,410 (deposit £250). Single supplement £330 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,120. Included meals: 4 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Stendhal, Parma (hotelstendhal.it): a quiet and tasteful 4-star hotel, excellently located in the middle of the historic centre. Hotel Due Torri, Verona (hotelduetorri. duetorrihotels.com): a luxurious 5-star, situated next to Sant’Anastasia in the centre of town. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
Parma Verdi Festival
October 2015 Details available in July 2015 Contact us to register your interest
Christmas departure: 20–27 December 2014 (mb 221) 8 days • £2,780 Lecturer: Dr Michael Douglas-Scott 16–22 February 2015 (mb 242) 7 days • £2,230 Lecturer: Dr Antonia Whitley The world’s best location for an art-history tour: here were laid the foundations of the next 500 years of western art, and it still retains an astonishingly dense concentration of great works. Both departures are led by expert art historians. The Renaissance is centre stage, but mediaeval and other periods also figure prominently. A smaller group than usual, 8–18 participants. A first visit to Florence can be an overwhelming experience, and it seems that no amount of revisiting can exhaust her riches, or stem the growth of affection and awe which the city
inspires in regular visitors. For hundreds of years the city nurtured an unceasing succession of great artists. No other place can rival Florence for the quantity of first-rate, locally produced works of art, many still in the sites for which they were created or in museums a few hundred yards away. Giotto, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Masaccio, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo – these are some of the artists and architects whose works will be studied on the tour, fully justifying Florence’s epithet as the cradle of the Renaissance. Florence is, moreover, one of the loveliest cities in the world, ringed by the foothills of the Apennines and sliced in two by the River Arno. Narrow alleys lead between the expansive piazze, supremely graceful Renaissance arcades abound while the massive scale of the buildings impressively demonstrates the wealth once generated by its precocious economy. It is now a substantial, vibrant city, yet the past is omnipresent, and, from sections of the mediaeval city walls, one can still look out over olive groves. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Combine this tour with: Connoisseur’s Vienna, 15–21 June 2015 (page 21), Mediaeval Saxony, 15–23 June 2015 (page 89).
Florence, tribune of the Uffizi, aquatint c. 1830.
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Piazza Santa Croce, by Frank Fox, publ. 1913.
Day 5: Siena. Day trip by coach to Siena, most beautiful of Italian hill towns. Walk through exquisite streets to Il Campo, the main scallopshaped ‘square’, visit the Palazzo Pubblico, the elegant 14th-century town hall, with frescoes by Simone Martini, Ambrogio Lorenzetti and others. Visit the splendid cathedral of white and green marble, many times enlarged, and the baptistry. In the cathedral museum see Duccio’s Maestà, the finest mediaeval painted altarpiece to be found anywhere. Visit the hospital of Santa Maria della Scala, which has a rich collection of 15th-century frescoes. Day 6, Christmas Day. Free morning, with a range of options for a church service, followed by Christmas lunch.
Though the number of visitors to Florence has swelled hugely in recent years, it is still possible during winter, and with careful planning, to explore the city and enjoy its art in relative tranquillity.
Itinerary – Christmas 2014 Day 1. Fly at c. 10.45am (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Pisa, then transfer by coach to Florence. In the late afternoon, study the buildings and sculpture in the Piazza della Signoria. Day 2. Visit the Bargello, housing Florence’s finest sculpture collection with works by Donatello, Verrocchio, Michelangelo and others. The granary-cum-church of Orsanmichele has sculpture by Donatello, Ghiberti and Verrocchio. See the Byzantine mosaics and Renaissance sculpture in the cathedral baptistry. There is also a private visit to a palazzo.
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Day 3. See Brunelleschi’s Foundling Hospital (1419), the first building wholly in Renaissance style. The Early Renaissance is wonderfully and colourfully represented by the enchanting paintings by Fra Angelico in the Friary of San Marco. See Michelangelo’s David and the ‘Slaves’ sculpture in the Accademia. Visit the Uffizi, with masterpieces by every major Florentine painter as well as international Old Masters. Day 4. A Michelangelo morning: visit his Laurentian Library, whose architectural components would herald the onset of Mannerism, and the New Sacristy of San Lorenzo, burial chapel of the Medici family and Michelangelo’s enigmatic sculptural ensemble. See the exquisite frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli in the chapel of the Palazzo Medici Riccardi. In the afternoon visit Santa Maria Novella, a Dominican church with many works of art.
Day 7. In Santa Trìnita there are fine frescoes by Ghirlandaio. See the Masaccio/Masolino fresco cycle in the Brancacci Chapel, a highly influential work of art which influenced all subsequent generations of Renaissance artists. Visit Santo Spirito, Brunelleschi’s last great church, and the extensive Boboli Gardens, at the top of which is an 18th-century ballroom and garden overlooking olive groves. In the afternoon visit the redoubtable Palazzo Pitti, which houses several museums including the Galleria Palatina, outstanding particularly for High Renaissance and Baroque paintings.
exquisite frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli. Visit Michelangelo’s Laurentian Library, whose architectural components would herald the onset of Mannerism. Free afternoon. Day 5. Visit the Bargello, housing Florence’s finest sculpture collection with works by Donatello, Verrocchio, Michelangelo and others. Walk to the vast Franciscan church of Santa Croce, favoured burial place for leading Florentines and abundantly furnished with sculpted tombs, altarpieces and frescoes. Lunch is at a restaurant on the Piazzale Michelangelo before a visit to San Miniato al Monte, the Romanesque abbey church with panoramic views of the city. Day 6. In Santa Trìnita there are fine frescoes by Ghirlandaio. See the Masaccio/Masolino fresco cycle in the Brancacci Chapel, a highly influential work of art which influenced all subsequent generations of Renaissance artists. Visit Santo Spirito, Brunelleschi’s last great church, with many 15th-century altarpieces, and the extensive Boboli Gardens, at the top of which is an 18th-century ballroom and garden overlooking olive groves. In the afternoon visit the redoubtable Palazzo Pitti, which houses several museums including the Galleria Palatina, outstanding particularly for High Renaissance and Baroque paintings.
Day 8. In the morning, visit the vast Franciscan church of Santa Croce, favoured burial place for leading Florentines and abundantly furnished with sculpted tombs, painted altarpieces and frescoes. Travel by coach to Bologna and fly to Heathrow, arriving at c. 8.00pm.
Day 7. In the morning visit the Palazzo Vecchio, fortified civic centre of the republic, which has several rooms designed by Vasari and contains works by Michelangelo, Donatello and Bronzino. There is some free time, and a second, selective visit to the Uffizi. Fly from Florence Airport, arriving at London City at c. 9.00pm.
Itinerary – February 2015
Practicalities
Day 1. Fly at c. 11.15am (British Airways) from London City to Florence. In the late afternoon visit the Piazza della Signoria, civic centre of Florence with masterpieces of public sculpture.
Price: £2,780 (Christmas), £2,230 (February) (deposit £200). Single supplement £290 (Christmas), £260 (Feb.) (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,630 (Christmas), £2,050 (Feb.)
Day 2. Brunelleschi’s Foundling Hospital, begun in 1419, was the first building to embody stylistic elements indisputably identifiable as Renaissance. See Michelangelo’s David, the ‘Slaves’ in the Accademia and the frescoes and panels of pious simplicity by Fra Angelico in the Friary of S. Marco. In the afternoon see the Byzantine mosaics and Renaissance sculpture in the cathedral baptistry, and the cathedral museum (many parts of the museum are closed for restoration at the time of printing). Day 3. In the morning visit S. Maria Novella, the Dominican church with many works of art (Masaccio’s Trinità, Ghirlandaio’s frescoed sanctuary). See Renaissance statuary at the church-cum-granary of Orsanmichele. The afternoon is devoted to the Uffizi, with masterpieces by every major Florentine painter as well as international Old Masters. Day 4. A Medici morning includes San Lorenzo, the family parish church designed by Brunelleschi, their burial chapel in the contiguous New Sacristy with Michelangelo’s enigmatic sculptural ensemble and the chapel in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi which has
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Included meals, Christmas: 1 lunch (Christmas Day), 5 dinners with wine. February: 1 lunch, 4 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Santa Maria Novella (hotelsantamarianovella.it), Florence: a delightful, recently renovated 4-star hotel in a very central location. Group size: between 8 and 18 participants. Combine this tour with: Connoisseurs’ Rome, 24 February–1 March 2015 (page 149), Essential Rome, 24 February–2 March 2015 (page 145).
History of Medicine
Florence, Bologna & Padua in the age of humanism 7–13 September 2015 (mc 431) 7 days • £2,280 Lecturers: Professor Helen King & Dr Luca Leoncini Italy’s two oldest university towns, Bologna and Padua, where Galileo once lectured. Fascinating early anatomical theatres, with an exploration of the anatomical work of Leonardo and Michelangelo. Some of the best scientific museums in Italy, plus a special arrangement to see the earliest anatomical theatre in the world. Accompanied by both a leading historian of medicine and an expert art historian. It is almost impossible to over-emphasise the leading role that Italy played in creating the civilization of the modern world. Developments in the arts of painting, sculpture and architecture during the Italian Renaissance came to dominate the art of the western world until the beginning of the last century. Humanism, a range of intellectual endeavour which built on the achievements of the classical world, matured into the critical, liberal attitude which underlies current modes of thought and ideas about education. From patisserie to opera, boarding schools to astronomy, in countless areas of human endeavour and intellectual achievement a seminal Italian input can be traced. In no field is the contribution of Italy greater than in the science of medicine. Bologna and Padua are homes to the oldest universities in Italy – indeed, in Europe – and their medical schools have for centuries made important contributions to the study of anatomy and the practice of surgery. Florence also has a good range of historical medical institutions, as well as the finest artistic patrimony of any city in the world. This unique tour is jointly led by a leading professor of classical medicine and an expert art historian.
Romanesque ensemble of cathedral, monumental burial ground, campanile (‘Leaning Tower’) and baptistery. The ‘Campo Santo’, for centuries the burial place of the Pisan upper classes, was built using earth brought back from Golgotha during the crusades and has frescoes depicting death. In the afternoon visit the botanical gardens. Day 4: Florence. See the Ospedale degli Innocenti, a children’s orphanage designed by Brunelleschi, before visiting Casa Buonarroti, house of Michelangelo’s family, which has models revealing his unprecedented knowledge of anatomy. Some free time. Leave Florence for Bologna, where the next three nights are spent. Day 5: Bologna. The Archiginnasio has an eighteenth-century anatomical theatre and écorché figures by Lelli. At the oldest university in Italy visit the Museo di Palazzo Poggi, which has sections devoted to obstetrics and anatomical waxworks. The museum of mediaeval art is housed in a Renaissance palace, notable for tomb reliefs depicting university lectures of the period. Day 6: Padua. A full-day excursion to Padua, an important university city where Galileo once lectured. In the university itself, items include
Galileo’s chair, William Harvey’s emblem and, above all, the sixteenth-century Anatomical Theatre, the oldest in the world. The Palazzo della Ragione has representations of early alchemy and medicine, and frescoes that make up one of the largest existing astrological cycles. See also Giotto’s fresco cycle in the Arena chapel, one of the landmarks in the history of art. Day 7. Fly from Bologna to London Heathrow, arriving at c. 2.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,280 (deposit £250). Single supplement £340 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,110. Included meals: 4 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Santa Maria Novella, Florence (hotelsantamarianovella.it): a delightful 4-star hotel in a very central location. Hotel Corona d’Oro, Bologna (bolognarthotels.it/hotelcorona-d-oro.aspx): an elegant 4-star hotel in the heart of Bologna, rooms vary in size and decor but are all classically furnished and comfortable. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: The Greeks in Sicily, 14–21 September 2015 (page 159), The Heart of Italy, 15–22 September 2015 (page 142).
Itinerary Day 1: Florence. Fly at c. 8.45am (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Pisa. Visit the Museo Galileo, which covers scientific studies from the Medici right through to current theory. First of three nights in Florence.
Day 3: Pisa. In the High Middle Ages Pisa was one of the most powerful maritime city-states in the Mediterranean, the rival of Venice and Genoa, deriving great wealth from its trade with the Levant. The ‘Campo dei Miracoli’ is a magnificent
Bologna University, engraving c. 1900 after Margarite Janes.
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Day 2: Florence. Visit the Natural History Museum, ‘La Specola’. The oldest scientific museum in Europe, it also houses an excellent anatomical section. In the afternoon visit the Museo del Bigallo, a 14th-century orphanotropium, and the polychromatic marble cathedral capped by Brunelleschi’s massive dome, and the Piazza della Signoria, civic centre of Florence with masterpieces of public sculpture.
Leonardo da Vinci April or May 2015 Details available in July 2014 Contact us to register your interest
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Florentine Palaces
Defence, humanism, magnificence & beauty 11–15 November 2015 (mc 523) 5 days • £2,120 Lecturer: Dr Joachim Strupp An examination of one of the most fascinating aspects of the Florentine Renaissance, the private palace. Mediaeval, Baroque, Neo-Classical and 19thcentury examples as well. Led by Dr Joachim Strupp, Italian art expert who lived in Florence for several years. Several special arrangements to see palaces not usually open to the public. Renaissance Florence experienced one of the most spectacular property booms of all time. From the second half of the fourteenth to the beginning of the sixteenth century as many as 100 private palazzi were built throughout the city. The period
was also one of the pivotal moments of western architecture, witnessing a design revolution that was to have an impact on the rest of Europe and the Americas for 500 years. In the preceding couple of centuries, intense clan and class rivalries required palazzi to be highly defensible structures. Like many Italian cities, Florence bristled with tower houses, of which several stubs can still be seen, and the massive Palazzo Vecchio, the town hall, retains its fortress-like aesthetic. While an intimidating monumentality remained a design feature of the Renaissance palace, decreasing lawlessness and increasing wealth fortuitously combined with new humanist concepts of ‘magnificence’ and ‘virtue’ by which the elite were required to demonstrate their greatness with ‘fitting expenditure’. Constructed on a magnificent scale, three times the height of a three-storey building today, its spread was equally expansive, frequently swallowing up a multitude of smaller dwellings. Palazzo Strozzi, lithograph by Valfredo Vizzotto c. 1930.
And the design of these high-fashion mansions represented a dramatic shift in architectural language. The credit for their creation, however, remained the patron rather than the architect. A Renaissance palazzo was intended as a statement of dynastic ambition, its facade emblazoned with coats of arms, its interior trumpeting the family name in every visual detail. Fortunes were spent – and lost – keeping up with the Medici. Many palaces remained unfinished through lack of funds (neither the Gondi nor the Rucellai were complete at the time of their founder’s death); and even more – including the Pitti and the Davanzati – changed hands through financial necessity within a generation. By the end of the sixteenth century, the Florentine palazzo was being adapted to accommodate more elaborate households and lifestyles, but splendour remained their defining characteristic. Certainly no Renaissance patron would have felt embarrassed by the endeavours of his seventeenth- and eighteenth-century successors, such as Alessandro Capponi or the Corsini family.
‘The visits to the private palazzi and to meet their owners was a real privilege and to be hosted in their homes a real treat.’ Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 11.15am (British Airways) from London City Airport to Florence. Visit the Palazzo Vecchio, a sturdy fortress at the civic heart of the city with outstanding interiors and lavish frescoes by Ghirlandaio in the sala dei gigli and by Bronzino in the Chapel of Eleanor of Toledo.
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Day 2. Visit Palazzo Davanzati, built in the second half of the fourteenth century in one of the oldest quarters of Florence. See Palazzo Strozzi, a late fifteenth-century construction of formidable proportions. In the afternoon visit the privately-owned Palazzo Corsini (by special arrangement), a vast baroque palazzo with views over the Arno. See the exterior of Palazzo Lanfredini, built by a member of an important Republican family during the Medicis’ absence from Florence in the early sixteenth century with handsome sgraffiti on the façade. Visit also the chapel in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi which has exquisite frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli. Day 3. Visit the Bargello, a mediaeval palazzo housing Florence’s finest sculpture collection with works by Donatello, Verrocchio, Michelangelo and others. Following this see Palazzo Capponi all’Annunziata (by special arrangement), built in the early 18th century for one of the most distinguished of Florence’s ancient families and designed by the most fashionable architect of the day, Carlo Fontana. In the afternoon visit the Palazzo Corsini al Prato (by special
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Florence Revisited
Art off the beaten track & in private collections arrangement), begun in 1591 to designs by Bernardo Buontalenti, the palazzo was acquired in 1621 by Filippo Corsini and most of the palace and gardens date to his refurbishment. Day 4. Begin at the Uffizi, Italy’s most important art gallery, which has masterpieces by every major Florentine painter as well as international Old Masters. Walk through the Vasari Corridor (by special arrangement) from the Uffizi to the Pitti Palace, viewing the Medici collection of artists’ self-portraits. In the afternoon, visit the privatelyowned Palazzo Gondi (by special arrangement), designed in 1490 by Giuliano da Sangallo, the favourite architect of Lorenzo de Medici. There are remarkable views of the city from the terrace. Day 5. In the morning visit the redoubtable Palazzo Pitti, which houses several museums including the Galleria Palatina, outstanding particularly for High Renaissance and Baroque paintings. The visit includes rooms not generally open to the public. The afternoon is free. Fly from Florence to London City Airport, arriving at c. 9.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,120 (deposit £200). Single supplement £170 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,930. Included meals: 1 lunch, 3 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Santa Maria Novella, Florence (hotelsantamarianovella.it): a delightful 4-star hotel in a very central location. Group size: between 8 and 18 participants. Combine this tour with: Connoisseurs’ Rome, 3–8 November 2015 (page 149), Essential Rome, 3–9 November 2015 (page 145), Venetian Palaces, 17–21 November 2015 (page 122).
Dr Joachim Strupp Art historian and lecturer. He lived in Venice and Florence for several years and specialises in the sculpture of the Italian Renaissance, though his interests include German and Italian art of most ages. He lectures at the V&A and organises adult art history courses and tours.
All lecturers’ biographies can be found on pages 8–15.
10–16 November 2014 (mb 195) 7 days • £2,480 Lecturer: Dr Joachim Strupp Designed for those already familiar with the main sites, concentrating on places privately owned or not easy to access. A medley of pleasures, from mediaeval to modern, pursuing a number of key themes. A few places outside Florence – Fiesole, Poggio a Caiano, Carmignano, Artimino, Galluzzo. The B list? An A list by the standards of nearly everywhere else in the world. So abundant are Florence’s artistic riches that some masterpieces elude all but the most regular visitors. And those that are in private ownership, or for which access is only by special arrangement, are beyond the reach of all but the well-connected resident, unless you join this tour, which has been designed specially for those who are familiar with the main sights. As an introduction to Florence, it would be decidedly eccentric. As a week spent in pursuit of great art and architecture in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, it will be a delight. In quality and importance, the art seen far exceeds that on many of our tours to regions which have been less creative. But in Florence, even the second division is a world-beater. One of the reasons why many of the items on this itinerary are usually missed is simply because they are, geographically, peripheral, being located in the suburbs, or, even if within walking distance of the centre, they are away from the main clusters of monuments and museums. Subsidiary themes will emerge, such as depictions of the Last Supper, and the brief but
brilliant episode of Mannerist painting. But the tour is a medley of pleasures, from mediaeval to (nearly) modern, from the famous to the little known, from the hard-to-find to the (nearly) impossible to get into. And then there is the beauty of Florence itself, and the charm of its surroundings. There will also be free time in which you could re-visit some of the major museums and monuments. Many of the visits are by special arrangement and are dependent on the generosity of owners or institutions. There is the chance that one or two visits may have to be withdrawn, but suitable alternatives will be arranged.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 11.15am (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Pisa. Drive to Florence. See Lippi’s Apparition of the Virgin to St. Bernard in the Badia Fiorentina, an abbey and church now home to the Fraternity of Jerusalem. Day 2. See Ghirlandaio’s Last Supper at Ognissanti and the Opificio delle Pietre Dure to see exquisite furniture and ornaments made from semi-precious stones. Private backstage tour of the Teatro della Pergola, an historic opera house. In the afternoon, see the Villa La Pietra, once the property of Sir Harold Acton, and originally built by Francesco Sassetti, general manager of the Medici Bank in the 15th century. There is an Italianate garden, formal but imaginative, and much sculpture. Day 3. The morning starts with a selective tour of the Uffizi, Italy’s most important art gallery, which has masterpieces by every major Florentine painter as well as international Old Masters. Walk through the Vasari Corridor from the Uffizi to the Pitti Palace (by special arrangement), viewing the Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Joachim Strupp also leads The Venetian Hills (page 118), Friuli-Venezia Giulia (page 119) and Florence Revisited (opposite).
Florence, watercolour by A.H. Hallam Murray, publ. 1904.
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Florence Revisited continued
Siena & San Gimignano Hilltop towns of Tuscany
Medici collection of artists’ self-portraits. There is also a private visit to parts of the redoubtable Palazzo Pitti not usually open to the public. Day 4. The Last Supper by Andrea del Sarto at San Salvi is the greatest 16th-century picture in Florence. Visit the Badia Fiesolana near Fiesole, a 15th-century church with a Romanesque façade. In Fiesole visit the cathedral and the well-preserved Roman theatre. Visit the Villa Medici, the first of its genre to provide a stunning view over Florence. It was built by Michelozzo in the 15th century and later became home to Sibyl Cutting and her daughter Iris Origo. Visit a private palazzo, a grand building from the 17thcentury overlooking the river Arno. Day 5. The Cenacolo di Sant’Apollonia has a Last Supper by Andrea del Castagno, and there is another by Perugino’s workshop at the Cenacolo di Fuligno. Visit another private palazzo, where pre-lunch refreshments are served. Free afternoon. Day 6. Poggio a Caiano was the country retreat of Lorenzo il Magnifico, and a highly important monument in the history of grand country houses. At Carmignano is the exquisite Annunciation by Pontormo. There is another Medici villa at Artimino, viewed briefly before lunch. The Carthusian monastery at Galluzzo has beautiful cloisters and paintings by Pontormo. Day 7. In the morning visit the tiny Museo del Bigallo, a late-gothic structure which houses a small collection of paintings with a religious theme. Fly from Pisa to London Heathrow, arriving c. 4.45pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,480 (deposit £200). Single supplement £240 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,280. Included meals: 1 lunch and 4 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Santa Maria Novella, Florence (hotelsantamarianovella.it): a delightful 4-star hotel in a very central location. Small group: between 8 and 18 participants.
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Siena, watercolour by Walter Tyndale, publ. 1913.
30 September–4 October 2015 (mc 470) 5 days • £1,530 Lecturer: Dr Antonia Whitley An autumn break in one of the most extraordinary of Tuscan hill towns, San Gimignano. Visits to nearby places – Volterra, Monteriggioni and two to Siena. Led by Dr Antonia Whitley, expert art historian, with a PhD on Sienese society in the 15th century. Beautiful landscape, wonderful streetscape, outstanding mediaeval and Renaissance painting, great buildings. Towards the end of an autumn afternoon, when the last of the day trippers have departed and the shutters have clattered down on the souvenir shops, an ineffable timelessness descends. While dusk begins to obscure the hills and darken the streets, the inhabitants get on with their lives – shopping, socialising, doing business – amidst the most extraordinary streetscape in Europe. The ordinary within the quite extraordinary – that is the charm of Italy. San Gimignano is not a museum but a living country town. It is also so improbable a phenomenon, with fourteen hundred-foot stone tower houses, that a day trip does not always suffice to eradicate incredulity, let alone allow the visitor to feel the austere magic of the place. Scarcely changed in appearance for six hundred years, and looking like a balding porcupine in a searingly beautiful Tuscan landscape, the town provides a microcosm of life and art in mediaeval Italy. The towers and circuit of walls were built not only in response to hostilities with neighbouring
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city-states but also to the incessant conflict between the swaggering, belligerent nobility and the emergent merchants and tradesmen. Nevertheless, the little city flourished. A nodal point on the main north-south road to Rome, hospices and friaries swelled to serve pilgrims, officials and traders. Wealth, pride and piety conspired to attract some of the best artistic talent to embellish the churches. But San Gimignano never recovered from the double blow of the Black Death of 1348 and submission to Florence shortly after. Extending the theme of hilltop towns, the tour also visits Monteriggioni, a one-horse village with magnificent fortifications. And visits are made to two of the greatest: Volterra, rugged and dour, and Siena, the largest and the most beautiful of them all. Spilling across three converging hilltops, Siena contains perhaps the most extensive spread of mediaeval townscape in Europe. Culturally the town reached its peak in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. There is plenty of excellent Renaissance art here, but it is mediaeval painting for which the city is best known. Duccio, Simone Martini and the Lorenzetti brothers were among a host of brilliant artists who created the distinctive Sienese style: exquisite delicacy of design, detail and colour, and images which are godly yet humane, numinous yet naturalistic. This tour provides opportunity for a concentrated study of Siena, not only its art and architecture but also its history. Mediaeval sculpture and painting is its main subject matter because of its exceptional quality and quantity, but Renaissance and Mannerist painters such as Pinturicchio, Sodoma and Beccafumi will also be surveyed. There is also good representation of Florentine masters from Ghiberti to Michelangelo.
Lucca
Sculpture & architecture in northern Tuscany Itinerary Day 1: Monteriggioni. Fly at c. 11.15am (British Airways) from London Gatwick to Pisa. Situated on the Florence-Siena border, the fortress of Monteriggioni is little more than a hamlet surrounded by an extraordinary circuit of 13th-century walls. All four nights are spent in San Gimignano. Day 2: San Gimignano. In San Gimignano, visit the Romanesque collegiate church containing two great cycles of trecento frescoes depicting scenes from the Old and New Testaments, the town hall, also with 14th-century frescoes and a small art gallery. Among the Renaissance works of art seen today are frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli and an altarpiece by Pollaiuolo in the church of Sant’Agostino. Study the development of the city in the streets, alleys and squares, and walk along a stretch of the walls. Day 3: Siena. Siena is the largest of hilltop towns in Tuscany, distinguished by red brick and architectural and artistic design of an exquisite elegance. The cathedral museum contains Duccio’s Maestà, the finest of all mediaeval altarpieces. The 14th-century Palazzo Pubblico has frescoes by Simone Martini and the Lorenzetti brothers. Visit also the cathedral, an imposing Romanesque and Gothic construction of white and green marble with outstanding Renaissance sculpture and painting including Pinturicchio’s brilliant frescoes in the Piccolomini Library and the font by Ghiberti, Donatello and Jacopo della Quercia. Day 4: Volterra, Siena. A wonderful morning drive through Tuscan hills to the episcopal seat of Volterra (which in the early Middle Ages claimed suzerainty over San Gimignano), a rugged mediaeval hilltop town. Visit the art gallery and the Romanesque cathedral, which has fine Renaissance sculpture. Return to Siena to visit the hospital of Santa Maria della Scala, with its exceptional collection of Renaissance frescoes. Day 5. Drive to Pisa for the flight to London Gatwick, arriving c. 4.45pm.
Practicalities Price: £1,530 (deposit £150). Single supplement £160 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,270. Included meals: 3 dinners with wine.
Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Dark Age Brilliance, 22–29 September 2015 (page 126), Friuli-Venezia Giulia, 5–10 October (page 119), Courts of Northern Italy, 5–12 October (page 125), Sicily, 5–17 October (page 156).
A leisurely exploration of one of the most beautiful and engaging of Tuscan cities. Exceptional 17th-century ramparts enclosing a city rich in sculpture, painting, and Romanesque architecture. Led by expert art historian Dr Antonia Whitley, specialist in the Italian Renaissance. Excursions to Prato, Pistoia, Pisa and Barga. Work by renowned masters, including Filippo Lippi, Donatello and Jacopo della Quercia. Nowhere in Tuscany can claim to be undiscovered. Some places are more undiscovered than others, however, and for no good reason Lucca is one of the most underrated of ancient Tuscan cities. Many know of its exceptional attractions, but few allow themselves the opportunity of getting to know it properly. Only by staying for several nights, and by allowing time to absorb, observe and reflect can real familiarity develop – not only with its historic fabric and works of art but also with the rhythm of life of its current inhabitants. For Lucca is not a museum but an agreeable and vital lived-in city. To the approaching visitor, Lucca immediately announces its distinctiveness and its historical importance, while at the same time secreting the true extent and glory of its built heritage. The perfectly preserved circumvallation of pink brick, ringed by the green sward of the grass glacis, is one of the most complete and formidable set of ramparts in Italy. Unlike many Tuscan cities, Lucca sits on the valley floor. This feature and the traces of the grid-like street pattern – albeit given a mediaeval inflection – betray its Roman origin. Within the walls, the city is a compelling masonry document of the Middle Ages. There is a superb collection of Romanesque churches with the distinctive feature of tiers of arcades applied to the façades. There is good sculpture, too, including the exquisite tomb of Ilaria del Carretto, and some quite exceptional (and exceptionally early) panel paintings. Looming over the dense net of narrow streets are the imposing palazzi of the mercantile elite, including some grand ones from the age of Baroque. The Romanesque theme of the tour is continued on the excursions to the nearby cities of Prato, Pistoia and Pisa, where the style has its greatest manifestation in Tuscany in the ensemble of cathedral, baptistery and campanile (the now not-quite-so-leaning tower) at Pisa. Likewise mediaeval sculpture features prominently in all these places. The Renaissance is represented by some of the best loved works of the Florentine masters – by Filippo Lippi and Donatello at Prato cathedral, for example, and by the della Robbia workshop in Pistoia. There are also visits to small towns and to a country villa of the eighteenth century.
Lucca, San Michele, engraving after a drawing by John Ruskin in The Stones of Venice, 1902 edition.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 11.30am (British Airways) from London Gatwick to Pisa and drive to Lucca. On the way visit the Romanesque basilica of San Piero a Grado. Day 2: Lucca. Visit San Michele in Foro and the cathedral of San Martino, Romanesque churches with important sculptures (tomb of Ilaria del Carretto) and paintings, and the Villa Guinigi, a rare survival of a 14th-century suburban villa and now a museum with outstanding mediaeval panel paintings. In the afternoon drive to the Villa Torrigiani which has a 19th-century landscaped garden with a sunken garden from the 1750s. Return to Lucca to visit Torre Guinigi. Day 3: Prato. Drive inland to Prato, a city that built its wealth on cloth-working. The mediaeval cathedral has outstanding Renaissance sculpture and painting, notably Donatello’s pulpit with dancing putti and the Filippo Lippi frescoes. Visit also the Museo di Palazzo Pretorio, recently reopened after a long period of restoration, housing works by both Lippis, among others.
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Accommodation. Hotel Leon Bianco, San Gimignano (leonbianco.com): a 3-star hotel in the central square, with fine views.
13–19 April 2015 (mb 289) 7 days • £2,180 Lecturer: Dr Antonia Whitley
Day 4: Barga, Lucca. Drive up through forested hills to Barga, a delightful little town with a fine Romanesque cathedral at its summit. The afternoon in Lucca is free. Day 5: Pistoia. The exceptionally attractive town of Pistoia has important art and architecture. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Walking in Southern Tuscany
Lucca continued
Art, architecture & landscapes in Val d’Orcia & Chianti
Buildings include the octagonal baptistry and the cathedral, both at one end of the main square, and the Renaissance hospital, Ospedale del Ceppo. Sculpture includes the pulpit in Sant’Andrea carved by Giovanni Pisano, one of the finest Gothic sculptures south of the Alps, and a unique silver altarpiece in the cathedral, the product of 150 years’ workmanship.
20–27 October 2014 (mb 180) 8 days • £2,420 Lecturer: Dr Antonia Whitley
Day 6: Pisa. In the High Middle Ages Pisa was one of the most powerful maritime city-states in the Mediterranean, the rival of Venice and Genoa, deriving great wealth from its trade with the Levant. The ‘Campo dei Miracoli’ is a magnificent Romanesque ensemble of cathedral, monumental burial ground, campanile (‘Leaning Tower’) and baptistery, all of gleaming white marble. Among the major artworks here are the pulpit by Nicola Pisano (1260) and the 14th-century Triumph of Death fresco. There is an optional afternoon walk to the historic centre.
Art history away from the tourist throngs – mediaeval fortress towns, Romanesque churches, Renaissance palazzi, Sienese painting.
Day 7: Lucca. Visit the Romanesque church of San Frediano, one of the finest in Lucca, with façade mosaics and chapel tombs sculpted by Jacopo della Quercia. The flight from Pisa arrives into London Gatwick at c. 4.30pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,180 (deposit £200). Single supplement £240 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,990. Included meals: 4 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Ilaria, Lucca (hotelilaria. com): an excellently situated 4-star, within the city walls, with friendly staff.
Five walks of between three and six miles through exquisite landscape of soaring cypress, olives and vines.
Based in two tiny towns in topographically diverse areas of Tuscany. Three wine tastings, in Montalcino, Chianti and Badia a Coltibuono. To walk through quintessentially Tuscan landscapes, along chalky tracks lined with soaring cypress trees and flanked by neat rows of vines and well-kept olive trees, must surely be one of life’s great pleasures. The walks selected here pass through farmland and woodland, where primrose, violet and cyclamen nestle below chestnut, holm oak and beech. Pine trees grace the higher terrain. Walking is conducive to observing at close quarters the variations of plant, animal and birdlife in this enchanting countryside. But if seeing the artistic and architectural delights in these parts of Tuscany is your aim, this tour also offers opportunity to do so. We avoid the tourist throngs in the larger towns and cities and concentrate on the smaller and less-visited places. Mediaeval fortress towns, Romanesque churches, Renaissance palazzi and paintings of
Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
Torre del Lago
August 2015 Details available in September 2014 Contact us to register your interest Lucca Cathedral from Some Tuscan Cities 1924.
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Montepulciano, aquatint c. 1830. book online at www.martinrandall.com
the Sienese school are particularly in evidence here. Sometimes these are seen at the beginning or the end of a morning’s walk, sometimes during a half day spent in leisurely exploration of one of the enchanting little cities or settlements. All are seen in the enlightening company of an art historian. And while the walks are taxing enough to ensure that hearty evening meals are fully deserved, they are not so strenuous as to detract from enjoying the ever-changing views and natural, agricultural and constructed sights. We take trouble to ensure that much of what you eat is produced from fine local ingredients, including Pecorino cheese (whose pungent flavour is due to the herbs grazed by ewes on the unique clay soils south of Siena) and the prized salami of the cinta senese pigs. The food is often perfectly complemented by a glass of one of the world’s finest red wines. As this tour is based for three nights in Radda in Chianti, today still the nucleus of Tuscan viticulture and where the noble Sangiovese vine is most prevalent, opportunity is allowed for tastings of these robust reds. We also visit a producer of some of the finest Chianti Classico, in a former monastery where thirsty monks made a wine similar to the sophisticated Chianti produced today.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 9.00am (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Pisa. Drive to Pienza, a gem of Renaissance architecture created by Pope Pius II as a tribute to his place of birth, and our base for four nights.
Day 2: San Quirico, Pienza. Drive to the little walled town of San Quirico d’Orcia. Visit the Collegiata with its splendid portals and the Horti Leonini, public gardens dating to the 17th century. Walk back to Pienza (c. 6 km) through rolling, open farmland of rare beauty, visiting the Romanesque church of Corsignano before the steady climb to Pienza. In the afternoon, explore this little city where at the centre the cathedral, episcopal palace and Pius’s own palazzo form a harmonious group.
Etching of Tuscan landscape, c. 1920s.
Day 3: Sant’Antimo, Montalcino. Walk down from near Montalcino through a pretty valley, part vineyard, partially wooded, punctuated by farmsteads, and arrive at the remote and serene monastery of Sant’Antimo (c. 5 km). This most beautiful of Romanesque churches is in part constructed of luminous alabaster. Once an impregnable fortress and now centre of Brunello wines, Montalcino is a hilltop community with magnificent views and a collection of Sienese paintings in the civic museum. There is a wine tasting here. Return by coach to Pienza. Day 4: Monticchiello, Montepulciano. Mediaeval hamlet Monticchiello, with views across Val d’Orcia, is the starting point for a morning walk through a valley, before continuing uphill to Pienza (c. 6 km).Montepulciano is one of the most picturesque of Tuscan hill towns, with grey stone palaces piled up towards the main square at the apex. The cathedral here is rich in Renaissance works of art, while outside the walls is a centrally planned church, a Renaissance masterpiece. Day 5: Monte Oliveto Maggiore, Asciano. The monastery of Monte Oliveto Maggiore is a fine complex of Early Renaissance art and architecture, the cloister having 36 frescoes by Signorelli and Sodoma (1505–8). Break the journey in Asciano, a delightful town sitting in the heart of the Crete Senesi, a name deriving from the chalky Sienese earth. Radda in Chianti, once the capital of the Chianti League established in 1250, is one of the most attractive of the region’s settlements. Stay three nights in Radda. Day 6: Gaiole in Chianti, Badia a Coltibuono. From Gaiole, walk a pleasantly varied route through Chianti countryside with woodland, vineyards and breath-taking vistas (c. 10 km). Badia a Coltibuono, a former abbey founded by Vallombrosan monks, has an important history of viticulture. Lunch and wine tasting at the estate restaurant before a visit to the abbey’s 16thcentury refectory, gardens and wine cellars.
Day 8: Fly from Pisa, arriving London Heathrow at c. 2.30pm.
Price: £2,420 (deposit £200). Single supplement £290 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,260. Included meals: 2 lunches (both including wine tastings), 5 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Relais Il Chiostro, Pienza (relaisilchiostrodipienza.com): a former friary dating to the 15th century; the restaurant serves good Tuscan food. Relais Vignale, Radda in Chianti (vignale.it): a 17th-century manor house with historical links to Chianti wine production. Group size: between 10 and 18 participants
Dr Antonia Whitley Art historian and lecturer specialising in the Italian Renaissance. She obtained her PhD from the Warburg Institute on Sienese society in the 15th century and has published on related topics. She has lectured for the National Gallery, organises adult education study sessions and has led many tours in Italy.
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Day 7: Badiaccia Montemuro, Volpaia. An optional morning walk through variegated woods including oak and silver birch (c. 6km mostly downhill on tracks with some rough patches) to the well-preserved hamlet of Volpaia. The village is dedicated to the arts and wine-making, ensuring its original architectural features remain intact. A further optional walk in the afternoon goes down through the estate’s impressively maintained vineyards to the valley floor before a climb to Radda (c. 4.5 km mostly downhill on grassy tracks and through vineyards).
Practicalities
Amongst many tours, Antonia Whitley also leads Walking in the Footsteps of Leonardo & Michelangelo (page 140). All lecturers’ biographies can be found on pages 8–15. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Walking in the Footsteps of Leonardo & Michelangelo Countryside, gardens, villas & sculpture in northern Tuscany foot which enables one better to understand their genius loci and their merits. As gardens were considered extensions of the villa, they were designed to display artworks of the horticultural variety as well as sculpture of stone and bronze. The shapes of the topiary, the patterns of parterres and the delight of the vistas combine with the beauties of Renaissance and Baroque sculpture carefully positioned to best effect. Traditional sculpture is still practised in Tuscany; in the gracious town of Pietrasanta there are dozens of small workshops where the fivehundred-year long tradition of delicately shaping a block of marble into art is still very much alive. Beyond the gardens, the Tuscan climate lends itself to producing a number of well-structured red wines based on Sangiovese and refined white wines, as well as excellent olive oil. The combination of care for provenance of ingredient and excellent cooking means that the meals should be of a high order. Matching local wines with food is an increasingly popular craft, and this tour offers an opportunity to experience this first hand.
Itinerary Fiesole, steel engraving 1832
10–17 October 2014 (mb 150) 8 days • £2,580 Lecturer: Dr Antonia Whitley 22–29 May 2015 (mb 335) 8 days • £2,810 Lecturer: Dr Antonia Whitley Five country walks amid the beautiful scenery around Fiesole and Lucca (between two and five miles). Special arrangements to visit villas and gardens, some with proprietors or gardeners. Visits to places of artistic and gastronomic interest, and to picturesque towns and villages. Known in 2014 as Walking in Northern Tuscany.
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Pleasing views, cooling breezes, the cultivation of vine and olive, light and space: these were key in encouraging wealthy merchants in Florence and Lucca to build villas in the surrounding countryside as their summer residences. But just as the town houses were constructed to demonstrate the accomplishments of the patron and the skills of his architect, their country villas did the same, with the added benefit of a garden. In these less-visited corners of Tuscany (we deliberately avoid crowded spots), there is an extraordinary number of villas and gardens. This tour includes some of the best, linking them by geographical proximity – and in some cases the feasibility of walking between them – and for the purposes of aesthetic and architectural comparison. There is something about discovering these villas and gardens on
Day 1: Villa La Pietra, Fiesole. Fly at c. 9.00am (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Pisa. Villa La Pietra was built in the 15th century by Francesco Sassetti, manager of the Medici Bank, and owned and embellished last century by aesthete and historian Sir Harold Acton. Tour the magnificent garden and visit the villa’s interior. Drive to Fiesole for the first of three nights. Day 2: Fiesole, San Domenico. Visit Fiesole’s cathedral and then walk through the town to Monte Ceceri on small roads and woodland paths, passing stone quarries where Leonardo launched his flying machines (4.5 km, steeply uphill at the beginning of the walk). Visit Villa Medici, built in the 15th century and subsequently home to Sibyl Cutting and Iris Origo, and Villa Le Balze, where Cecil Pinsent designed a series of green ‘rooms’ which cling to a steep slope. Walk the old road to the convent of San Domenico where Fra’ Angelico first worked, and see his altarpiece there. Day 3: Settignano, Pian de’ Giullari. Morning walk to Settignano on farm tracks and chalky paths through olive groves and woodland (easy to moderate, undulating, c. 5.5 km). Villa Gamberaia is one of the most perfect examples of garden art, 18th- and late 19th-century with a formal water garden and high hedges. Drive to Pian de’ Giullari for lunch and a visit to Villa Capponi, to which Cecil Pinsent contributed. Overlooking Florence, San Miniato al Monte is a splendid Romanesque basilica with a superb Early Renaissance Chapel. Day 4: Pistoia, Lucca. The exceptionally attractive town of Pistoia has important sculpture including the pulpit in Sant’Andrea by Giovanni Pisano, one of the finest Gothic ensembles south of the Alps, and a silver altarpiece in the cathedral, the product of 150 years’ workmanship. Visit one of Pistoia’s nurseries to see large-scale plant production in its showroom. Arriving in Lucca,
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there is time for a climb up the Guinigi Tower to admire the panoramic view of this exceptionally well-preserved city. First of four nights in Lucca. Day 5: Lucca, Matraia, Villa Oliva Buonvisi. San Martino is a Romanesque cathedral with the exquisite Gothic effigy of Ilaria del Carretto. Drive mid-morning to Matraia to begin a walk through olive groves, a route beside some of the finest of Lucca’s summer retreats. Lunch and olive-oil tasting at a farm overlooking the hillside. Continue walking downhill to Marlia on country paths and lanes (total 5 km; a steep downhill section at the start, walking poles are essential for this part). Visit the 15th-century Villa Oliva, once owned by the powerful Buonvisi family. Day 6: Compitese villages, Pietrasanta. A walk on footpaths and country roads through the villages of Sant’Andrea di Compito and San Giusto di Compito (c. 3.5 km, moderate to easy terrain). Pietrasanta is famous for its skilled marble workers; visit a workshop where classical and contemporary works are produced using methods unchanged since the Middle Ages. Day 7: Camigliano, Villa Torrigiani. Drive to Camigliano to begin a 7 km country walk on grassy paths and lanes to Sant’Andrea in Caprile (of which 3.5 km is steadily uphill). Picnic lunch before visiting Villa Torrigiani and its garden. Dating back to the 16th century when it was owned by the Buonvisi family, the garden was transformed in the late 17th century by Niccolao Santini, the Lucchese ambassador to Louis XIV. Return to Lucca for an optional cooking demonstration, a wine tasting, and dinner. Day 8. Fly from Pisa to London Heathrow, arriving c. 2.30pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,580 (2014, deposit £250), £2,810 (2015, deposit £300). Single supplement £240 (2014), £290 (2015) (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,390 (2014), £2,540 (2015). Included meals: 4 lunches (including 1 picnic), 4 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Pensione Bencistà, Fiesole (bencista.com): a family-run hotel, located on the hillside 4 km outside Fiesole, locally rated as a 3-star. Hotel Ilaria, Lucca (hotelilaria.com): an excellently situated 4-star, within the city walls. Group size: between 8 and 18 participants.
Piero della Francesca From Umbria to Milan 13–19 March 2015 (mb 264) 7 days • £2,390 Lecturer: Dr Antonia Whitley A journey to nearly every surviving work in Italy by the Early Renaissance master. The lecturer is Dr Antonia Whitley, expert art historian and lecturer specialising in the Italian Renaissance. A new, extended itinerary with more time in Milan and Florence, and a visit to Rimini. Big cities and tiny country towns – visits in Urbino, Monterchi, Arezzo, Sansepolcro and Perugia. This tour is an exhilarating study of one of the best-loved and most intriguing artists of the fifteenth century. It also takes you to a select handful of some of Italy’s loveliest places and best-stocked galleries, and through some of her most enchanting countryside. Though the theme is a specialised one, the tour is by no means intended only for serious students of the subject. Few art lovers are untouched by the serenity and beauty of the high-key palette of Piero’s works; even fewer would be unmoved by seeing most of his surviving works in the towns and landscapes in which he created them. Born about 1412 in the small town of Sansepolcro on the periphery of Florentine territory, Piero spent little of his life in the Tuscan capital to which most provincial artists flocked. Though he was not without influence, he had no ‘school’ or direct successors. A mathematician, his images beguile with their perfect perspective, architectonic form and monumentality. There is little documentation for his life, and he seems to have been a slow worker. Few works survive, despite the fact that he lived until the age of eighty.
of the most enlightened and creative courts of the Renaissance, it has an importance in the history of art out of all proportion to its small size. Piero possibly contributed to the design of the beautiful Ducal Palace, which houses his exquisite Flagellation of Christ and the Madonna di Senigallia. Visit San Bernardino, where Federigo da Montefeltro was buried. In the afternoon visit Monterchi to see Piero’s beautiful fresco The Madonna del Parto.
Day 6: Milan. In Milan the Poldi-Pezzoli Museum and the Pinacoteca di Brera contain paintings by Piero. Visit the Renaissance church of Santa Maria delle Grazie; the refectory houses Leonardo’s Last Supper.
Day 4: Arezzo, Florence. See Piero’s great fresco cycle, The Legend of the True Cross, executed over a twenty year period, at San Francesco, Arezzo; and in the cathedral, his fresco of Mary Magdalene. Continue on to Florence where one night is spent. See the Masaccio/Masolino fresco cycle in the Brancacci Chapel, a highly influential work of art which influenced all subsequent generations of Renaissance artists, including Piero.
Price: £2,390 (deposit £250). Single supplement £280 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,210.
Day 5: Florence. The Uffizi contains the portrait panels of Federigo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, and his wife Battista Sforza. In the afternoon, travel by first class rail to Milan for the first of two nights.
Day 7: Milan. Free morning. Fly from Milan to London Heathrow, arriving at c. 5.00pm.
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Included meals: 5 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Tiferno, Città di Castello (hoteltiferno.it): a central 4-star hotel, renovated respecting the original architecture. Hotel Santa Maria Novella, Florence (hotelsantamarianovella. it): a delightful 4-star hotel in a central location. Hotel De La Ville, Milan (delavillemilano.com): a 4-star Belle Epoque style hotel excellently located 50 metres from the Duomo. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 8.45am (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Bologna. Drive to Rimini to visit the outstanding Tempio Malatestiano, designed by Leon Battista Alberti for the tyrant Sigismondo Malatesta. See Piero’s fresco of St. Sigismund and Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta. Continue on to the hotel in Città di Castello for the first of three nights.
Day 3: Urbino, Monterchi. Drive through mountains to the hilltop town of Urbino. As one
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Day 2: Perugia, Sansepolcro. Perugia, the capital of Umbria, is one of Italy’s most beautiful towns. The National Gallery of Umbria in the mediaeval town hall has a polyptych with The Annunciation by Piero. There is a wealth of other monuments, including a fine merchants’ hall with frescoes by Perugino. In the afternoon visit Borgo Sansepolcro, Piero’s birthplace and home town. Visit the museum in the former town hall, where Piero’s early masterpiece, Madonna della Misericordia, a panel of St Julian, and the marvellous Resurrection fresco are housed. Walk around the town centre, passing Piero’s house and the Romanesque Gothic cathedral.
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Perugia, Cathedral, lithograph by V. Faini c. 1930. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
The Hear t of Italy
Umbria’s Finest Art & Architecture Spoleto, Ponte delle Torri, reproduction of a 19th-century steel engraving.
14–21 April 2015 (mb 297) 8 days • £2,320 Lecturer: Professor Ian Campbell-Ross 15–22 September 2015 (mc 448) 8 days • £2,320 Lecturer: Dr Michael Douglas-Scott One of our most popular tours – an excellent survey of the art and architecture of Umbria, heartland of the Renaissance. Based throughout in the hilltop town of Spello, amidst ageless undulating countryside. Perugia, Spoleto, Assisi and significant smaller towns away from the main tourist centres.
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Also known as the ‘green heart of Italy’, Umbria contains a vast and varied array of what visitors most love about central Italy: ancient streetscapes crammed onto hilltops, exquisitely undulating countryside of olive, cypress and vine, and an abundance of wonderful art. Rarely can the spirit of the Middle Ages be so potently felt as in the hill towns of central Italy. That such small communities could have built each dwelling so massively, raised churches and public buildings of such magnificence and created works of art of such monumentality inspires awe bordering on disbelief among today’s visitors. This is also the heartland of the Renaissance, and several of the leading artists of the era were natives who worked here before being inveigled to the great metropolises of Florence and Rome. Many of the most important and beautiful of Italy’s incomparable patrimony of paintings and frescoes are included on this tour. The great Giottesque cycle at Assisi stands at the
beginning of the modern era of art, and the Last Judgement frescoes by Signorelli in Orvieto are on the cusp of the High Renaissance. While in the field of architecture Romanesque and Gothic predominate, there are many major Renaissance buildings, including the centrally planned church at Todi. The man-made environment melds with the natural in a picturesque union of intense beauty. It is a landscape of rumpled hills, sometimes rugged and forested, sometimes tamed in the struggle to cultivate, always speckled with ancient farmsteads, fortified villages and isolated churches. Even from the central piazze of many of these towns there are views of countryside which seems scarcely to have changed for centuries.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 10.45am (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Rome Fiumicino airport. Drive to Spello, the small, quiet town which is the base for this tour. Day 2: Assisi. Drive the short distance to Assisi and spend much of the morning at San Francesco, mother church of the Franciscan Order. Here is one of the greatest assemblages of mediaeval fresco painting, including the controversial cycle of the Life of St Francis. In the afternoon walk through the austere mediaeval streets and visit the church of S. Chiara and the Romanesque cathedral. Day 3: Todi, Spello. Visit S. Maria della Consolazione in Todi, a centrally planned Renaissance church influenced by Bramante’s ideas. Walk through the town; see the cathedral and the church of San Fortunato, with its richly decorated central doorway and frescoes by
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Masolino. Return in the afternoon to the small hilltop town of Spello, with fine Roman remains and richly coloured Renaissance frescoes by Pinturicchio in the church of S. Maria Maggiore. Day 4: Perugia, capital of Umbria, is one of the largest and loveliest of Italian hill towns and has both major works of art and architecture and an authentic, age-old liveliness of a prosperous market town. Morning visits include the Palazzo dei Priori, the mediaeval town hall now housing the National Gallery of Umbria, and a merchants’ hall. An afternoon walk includes an impressive Etruscan city gateway, the mediaeval walls and the richly carved façade of the Renaissance church of S. Bernardino. Day 5: Foligno, Montefalco. Known to the Romans as Fulginium, Foligno lies on the banks of the river Topino. It offers a range of exceptional attractions and yet is little known to tourists. See the restored palace of the Trinci family, lords of Foligno, and home to extensive frescoes now known to be the work of the greatest Italian master of International Gothic, Gentile da Fabriano. Continue to Montefalco, a delightful hilltop community with magnificent views of the valley below and hills around. In the deconsecrated church of Francesco are frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli. Return to Spello for some free time. Day 6: Spoleto. A morning walk in Spoleto includes the Roman theatre and Casa Romana, and finishes at the cathedral square. One of the most imposing in Italy, it slopes like an auditorium towards the imposing cathedral façade with its mosaics and rose windows; inside there are frescoes by Pinturicchio and Filippo Lippi. In the afternoon see the Rocca Albornoziana, the fourteenth-century fortress
Ar t in Le Marche
A wealth of lesser-known fine art & architecture built at the command of Cardinal Albornoz to secure the city for the papacy. The museum within has an outstanding collection of mediaeval art. Day 7: Orvieto. Spend the day in this entrancing hilltop town, with its glistening marble Gothic cathedral. Among its treasures are the low relief sculptures by Maitani and the apocalyptic Last Judgement frescoes by Signorelli (1505). Visit also the cathedral museum, richly endowed with art, sculpture and religious artefacts. Day 8: Caprarola. Break the return journey to Rome with a visit to the imposing pentagonal villa at Caprarola, with extensive park adorned with fountains, walled gardens and casino. Drive on to Rome Fiumicino airport for a late-afternoon flight arriving at Heathrow at c. 7.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,320 (deposit £250). Single supplement £170 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,080. Included meals: 1 lunch, 4 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Palazzo Bocci, Spello (palazzobocci.com): a modest 4-star in the centre of town, converted from a family palazzo dating back to the 17th century. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Palladian Villas, 7–12 April 2015 (page 120); History of Medicine, 7–13 September 2015 (page 133), Essential Puglia, 23–30 September 2015 (page 153), Sardinia, 26 Sep.–4 Oct. 2015 (page 155).
Walking to Assisi October 2015 Details available in autumn 2014 Contact us to register your interest
1–8 June 2015 (mb 347) 8 days • £2,380 Lecturer: Polly Buston Explores the small cities in the hills and valleys of Le Marche. Paintings by Crivelli and Lotto provide pegs around which the tour is planned. Led by Polly Buston, expert art historian with an MA from the Courtauld Institute. Wonderful landscape and streetscape. Nearly everywhere hilly and in some parts mountainous, the Italian Marches have always been difficult of access. Even now, away from the coast the roads are slow, as is the pace of life. The Marches look and feel much like the Italy of a generation ago, and compared with Tuscany and Umbria there are few tourists. For some travellers these are sufficient reasons for going there immediately, and that is without citing the captivating landscape and the innumerable unspoilt hilltop towns. Ragged hills are spattered untidily with pasturage, fruit trees, vineyards and woods, and each peak is crowned with a pink-grey clump of walls and towers. The topography did not lead to poverty or cultural backwardness, however, and tucked away in churches and museums are many gems of mediaeval and Renaissance art. If you seek a succession of mainstream masterpieces which provide the shock of recognition, the Marches should not be a priority for you. For the adventurous aesthete, however, the region has plenty to delight and much of great merit. Two painters in particular are associated with the area, Carlo Crivelli and Lorenzo Lotto,
and the best of the pictures by these wayward geniuses are pegs around which this tour has been designed. Carlo Crivelli (c. 1435–1494) was one of the greatest artists of the Early Renaissance. Avidly collected in the nineteenth century, he became an embarrassment to art historians in the twentieth because he didn’t fit into the received schemes of stylistic development. He persevered with gold backgrounds, low relief ornament and elaborate framing long after they were abandoned elsewhere in Italy. But within these conservative conventions he created an emotionally charged use of line, powerfully tactile detail, virtuosic use of perspective and intensity of expression. Lorenzo Lotto (c. 1480–1557) was similarly individualistic, and his works evince similar emotional power. Also born in Venice, most of his long and peripatetic career was spent in small cities in the Venetian Empire and the Marches. While the major figures of Italian painting – Bellini, Raphael and Titian – provided the foundations of his style, he was also influenced by the angular expressiveness of German painting.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 10.45am (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Rome. Drive to Ascoli Piceno, an exceedingly attractive little city, ringed by rivers and wooded hills, where the first three nights are spent. Day 2: Ascoli Piceno, Monte S. Martino. Explore the centre of Ascoli, an unspoilt agglomeration of mediaeval, Renaissance and Baroque buildings around arcaded squares and narrow streets. One of Crivelli’s finest altarpieces is in the cathedral and paintings by him and others in his circle are in the diocesan and municipal museums. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Assisi, St Francis, watercolour 1913.
Ascoli Piceno, Palazzo Governativo, engraving 1897.
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In the afternoon, drive through the foothills of the Monti Sibillini, among the most dramatic ranges in the Apennines, to the village of Monte San Martino. Here, there is a little church with excellent 15th-century polyptychs, by Carlo Crivelli, his brother Vittore and two ‘Crivelleschi’. Day 3: Montefiore dell’Aso, Offida. At Montefiore dell’Aso a Crivelli is preserved in the museum of San Francesco. Offida is built on a spur and ringed by walls with a 13th-century church at its apex and a delightful 18th-century theatre in the main square. Day 4: Fermo, Monte S. Giusto. Drive through the hills and towards the coast, first stopping in the hilltop town of Fermo where there is a sequence of architectural delights and a good art gallery. At Monte San Giusto see the great Crucifixion by Lorenzo Lotto, described by Berenson as the finest of the 16th century. Continue to Recanati for the first of three nights. Day 5: Recanati, Loreto. A charming town, Recanati spreads along the ridge of a neighbouring hill; four of Lotto’s paintings are in the museum, including the famous Annunciation. Then spend the afternoon in Loreto, another great pilgrimage centre, where some of the finest artists and architects of Renaissance Italy worked, including Bramante, Signorelli, Melozzo da Forli and Lotto, several of whose last works are here.
Day 7: Ancona, Jesi. The ancient port of Ancona clings to the cliffs around a busy harbour with the beautiful pre-Romanesque cathedral of S. Ciriaco at the summit. Other churches contain an Assumption by Lotto and a Crucifixion by Titian. From here drive through some of the loveliest landscape so far, high and hilly but undulating and cultivated, to Jesi, a handsome little city with a Renaissance town hall and a superb Rococo palace, now an art gallery. Continue to Urbino, Duke Federico da Montefeltro’s principal residence and one of Italy’s loveliest towns. Overnight Urbino. Day 8: Urbino. Unravel the building history and examine the interior of the finest Renaissance palace in Italy, built over half a century from the 1450s for the dukes of Urbino, with the loveliest of all arcaded courtyards, serene halls of state, beautifully carved ornament and exquisite study. The art collection includes paintings by Piero della Francesca, Raphael and Titian. See also the outstanding International Gothic frescoes by the Salimbeni brothers. Fly from Bologna, arriving at London Heathrow at c. 8.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,380 (deposit £250). Single supplement £280. Price without flights £2,150. Included meals: 5 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Palazzo Guiderocchi, Ascoli Piceno (palazzoguiderocchi.com): a converted Renaissance palace in the heart of the city, which retains many original features. Gallery Hotel, Recanati (ghr.it): a former private palazzo, the rooms are furnished and decorated in a contemporary style. Hotel San Domenico, Urbino (viphotels.it): converted from a monastery building and the most centrally located hotel, opposite the Ducal Palace. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Great Houses of the South West, 9–16 June 2015 (page 44).
There is a possibility that not all of the works mentioned above will be seen; sometimes galleries and churches loan them at short notice.
Day 6: Cingoli, Tolentino. From the perimeter of the hilltop town of Cingoli there are magnificent views over vast tracts of rolling landscape. Arising from dour mediaeval streetscape, the church of San Domenico contains a masterpiece by Lotto, the Rosary Madonna. Now something of a backwater, the shrine of S. Nicola da Tolentino once made the town a major pilgrimage destination and the sumptuous church has fine mediaeval frescoes.
Trasimeno Music Festival italy
3–11 July 2015 Details available in January 2015 Contact us to register your interest
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Opera in Macerata & Pesaro Urbino, early 20th-century etching. book online at www.martinrandall.com
August 2015 Details available in January 2015 Contact us to register your interest
Essential Rome
The complete spectrum of art, architecture & antiquities 4–10 November 2014 (mb 193) 7 days • £2,760 Lecturer: Dr Thomas-Leo True 24 February–2 March 2015 (mb 247) 7 days • £2,690 Lecturer: Dr Thomas-Leo True 3–9 November 2015 (mc 521) 7 days • £2,690 Lecturer: Christopher Newall Major buildings, monuments and works of art, a representative selection of all periods from Ancient Rome onwards. Led by Dr Thomas-Leo True and Christopher Newall, expert art historians specialising in Renaissance and Baroque architecture in Rome. Private visit to the Sistine Chapel. In 2015 the visits are shared with participants travelling on Connoisseur’s Rome.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 11.00am (British Airways) from London Gatwick to Rome. The tour starts with
Rome, Trevi Fountain, watercolour by C.T.G. Fornilli, publ.1927.
the glorious Byzantine mosaics in the churches of Sta Maria Maggiore and Sta Prassede. Day 2. Among today’s highlights are the Pantheon, the best preserved of Roman monuments (whose span was only twice exceeded in the next 1,750 years); the lively and wonderfully adorned Piazza Navona, which retains the shape of the Roman hippodrome on which it was built; and the 5th-cent. church of Sta Sabina, as perfect an Early Christian basilica as survives anywhere. See also Sant’Ivo, a masterpiece of Baroque architecture with a cupola designed by Borromini, and two Roman temples, of Vesta and Fortuna Virile. Day 3. The Basilica of St Peter in the Vatican was the outcome of the greatest architects of several generations – Bramante, Raphael, Sangallo, Michelangelo – and contains major sculpture. Originally Emperor Hadrian’s mausoleum, Castel Sant’Angelo became a fortress in the Middle Ages and a residence in the Renaissance. After some free time, return to the Vatican in the evening for a private visit to see Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel in peace, together with Raphael’s frescoes in the adjacent Stanze. Day 4. The morning includes the superb sculpture of the Altar of Peace (Ara Pacis) erected by Augustus, paintings by Pinturicchio and Caravaggio in Sta Maria del Popolo, and a walk in the Pincio Gardens (good views across Rome) to the Spanish Steps. The Palazzo Barberini is a great palace which became Rome’s National Gallery, with paintings by most of the Italian Old Masters. Day 5. Drive in the morning to three contrasting churches largely or partly dating to the early Middle Ages: the 6th-cent. circular Mausoleum of Santa Costanza, the historically complex but exceptionally beautiful basilica of San Clemente, and St John Lateran, the cathedral of Rome. The afternoon is free.
Day 6. The day is largely devoted to Ancient Rome, beginning with the Colosseum, largest of all amphitheatres, completed ad 80. The Forum has evocative remains of the key temples and civic buildings at the heart of the Roman Empire. The present appearance of the Capitol, first centre of ancient Rome, was designed by Michelangelo, and the surrounding palazzi are museums with outstanding ancient sculpture and a collection of paintings. Day 7. Before departing for the airport, visit two churches to see paintings by Caravaggio, Sant’Agostino (Loreto Madonna) and San Luigi dei Francesi (St Matthew series). Return to Gatwick c. 4.45pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,760 (2014), £2,690 (2015) (deposit £250). Single supplement £490 (2014), £380 (2015) (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,570 (2014), £2,550 (Feb. 2015), £2,530 (Nov. 2015). Included meals: 1 lunch, 4 dinners with wine. Accommodation. In 2014: Hotel d’Inghilterra, Rome (hoteldinghilterrarome.com): a 5-star hotel in a 17th-century palazzo in a wonderful location just off the Via Condotti at the bottom of the Spanish Steps. In 2015: Residenza di Ripetta, Rome (residenzadiripetta.com): a recently renovated 4-star hotel in a former 17th-century convent just south of Piazza del Popolo, with spacious rooms.
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Rome presents three major challenges to the cultural traveller. First, it is big. Items of major importance – many of which on their own would make any town in the world worth visiting – are generously strewn through an area that is approximately four miles in diameter. The second problem is that there are hundreds of such places in the city. The third is that these items are from such a wide span of time, well over two millennia, for much of which Rome was the pre-eminent city in its sphere – as capital of the Roman Republic and Empire, as centre of western Christianity, a role regained with consequent splendour with the triumph of the Catholic Reformation and finally, from 1871, as capital of a united Italy. Over the years MRT has devised many tours to Rome, but apart from at Christmas hitherto they have all attempted only a single episode or theme – Ancient, Mediaeval, Baroque; Caravaggio, Michelangelo, Raphael, music. This is the first time we have devised a tour which selects from the whole range of Rome’s heritage. The key has been generally to give preference to geography over chronology, proximity over theme. Meandering walks explore a particular district, picking out the most significant buildings and works of art, enjoying alluring vistas as they arise, glimpsing minor treasures – whatever period they belong to. It is fair to say that the itinerary includes most of the most important places and works of art in Rome. There is a lot of walking, though regular use is made of minibuses and taxis (rarely of cumbersome coaches, which are highly restricted in the city centre). Not every place seen is mentioned in the description below, and the order may differ. There is, incidentally, almost no overlap with the items on Connoisseurs’ Rome except for the private visit to the Sistine Chapel.
Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: November 2014: Venice Revisited, 11–16 November 2014 (page 124); February 2015: Florence, 16–22 February 2015 (page 131); November 2015: Florentine Palaces, 11–15 November 2015 (page 134). Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Gardens & Villas of Campagna Romana Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 10.45am (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Rome Fiumicino. Drive to the countryside near Viterbo where the first two nights are spent. Day 2: Bagnaia, Caprarola. The Villa Lante at Bagnaia, designed by Vignola, has been universally admired since its creation: the twin casinos are subordinate to the design of the delightful terraced gardens with restored giochi d’acqua and fountain by Giambologna. On a hilltop at Caprarola, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese had an imposing pentagonal villa built by Vignola, with an extensive park adorned with fountains, walled gardens and a casino. Day 3: Bomarzo, Vignanello, Frascati. Vicino Orsini created a Renaissance ‘theme park’ at Bomarzo of extraordinary grotesque animals and statues based on figures from Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. Visit the Renaissance Castello Ruspoli and its enchanting gardens (by special arrangement). In Frascati, the gardens of the Villa Aldobrandini are richly appointed with terraces, grottoes and iconographical statuary. First of three nights in Grottaferrata, near Frascati. Day 4: Tivoli. Spend the morning at Hadrian’s Villa, designed entirely by him and inspired by sites he visited during his travels in the Empire, undoubtedly the richest building project in the Roman Empire. Lunch is in a good restaurant with astonishing views. The vast garden at Villa d’Este became one of the classic visits on the Grand Tour.
Villa d’Este, after a watercolour by Walter Tyndale c. 1910.
20–25 April 2015 (mb 295) 6 days • £2,260 Lecturer: Helena Attlee Renaissance villas and gardens, many accessible by special arrangement. The tour is led by Helena Attlee, a garden writer specialising in the cultural history of Italian gardens.
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Beguiling scenery of tufa hills and ‘classical’ compositions. The countryside around Rome has long been the playground of the privileged, but it was in the sixteenth century that the region of Lazio took the lead in garden design. The wealthy families of popes and cardinals such as the Farnese and Este commissioned villas and gardens in the campagna romana to escape from the noise and worldly cares of the capital to places of tranquillity and repose. Vasari wrote of Caprarola in the sixteenth century that it was ‘marvellously situated for one who wishes to withdraw from the worries and tumult of the city’.
But Renaissance gardens developed to offer more than a haven of peace and a chance for contemplation; they also provided the patron with the opportunity to vaunt his knowledge of the antique world. Garden design and ornamentation were steeped in references to classical mythology. Gardens also became places of entertainment, whether formal or frivolous. The use of water tricks or giochi d’acqua – allowing the owner to ‘drown’ an unsuspecting visitor at the pull of a hidden lever – is a prime example of the latter. The towns, villas and gardens to the north of Rome are set against a backdrop of an almost fantasy, surreal landscape: villages perch high on volcanic outcrops, villas and gardens are carved out of purple tufa. To the west and south of Rome this often extraordinary scenery gives way to more classically pastoral scenes, offering glimpses of Claude Lorrain’s inspiration for many of his depictions of the campagna romana, which in turn became the foundation of the landscape style of gardens in eighteenth-century England. Some of the gardens can only be visited by special arrangement and it is possible that the order of visits will change from that listed here.
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Day 5: Ninfa, La Landriana. Drive to Ninfa, one of the most famous and best-loved English gardens abroad, where the ruined buildings of a mediaeval town have been transformed into a place so extraordinarily beautiful that it has long been a place of pilgrimage for gardeners. Continue to La Landriana where Lavinia Taverna worked with Russell Page to create one of the most important modern Italian gardens of its day. Day 6. Visit the Villa Mondragone in Frascati before driving to the airport. Fly from Rome, arriving Heathrow at c. 5.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,260 (deposit £250). Single supplement £240 (double room for sole occupancy). Price without flights £2,010. Included meals: 3 lunches, 4 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Alla Corte delle Terme, near Viterbo (allacortedelleterme.it): a comfortable 4-star in the countryside outside of Viterbo, all rooms are suites. Park Hotel Villa Grazioli, Grottaferrata (villagrazioli.com): an outstanding 4-star hotel overlooking Frascati and Rome, a 16th-century villa containing frescoes by Caracci and Pannini. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Lucca, 13–19 April 2015 (page 137), Genoa & Turin, 13–19 April 2015 (page 115).
Caravaggio
From Lombardy to Naples, via Rome 12–19 October 2015 (mc 482) 8 days • £3,360 Lecturer: Dr Helen Langdon Unhurried appreciation of the finest painter of the Italian Baroque in the company of his foremost biographer Dr Helen Langdon. New for 2015: an extra day added, to include Caravaggio’s canvasses in Naples. Almost twenty of Caravaggio’s works in all: most in Italy’s greatest art museums, some in their original chapels, and one in private hands. First class rail travel within Italy. When Caravaggio died in 1610 aged 38 he was the most famous painter in Italy, and the most influential. His reputation slumped in subsequent centuries but in recent decades his stock has risen steadily to a new peak. His works are now widely regarded as the most immediately compelling and dramatically charged in the whole history of Italian art. With unflinching realism, stark contrasts of light and shade and intense emotional power, his art burst upon the tired, febrile artistic scene of fin-de-siècle Italy like a Damascene conversion. His paintings were radically innovatory, even shocking; his personality was arrogant, tempestuous and violent. Accused of murder, he fled Rome and sought exile successively in Naples, Malta and Sicily, time and again obliged by further conflict to make a fresh start. Nevertheless, in his own lifetime connoisseurs clamoured for works. His patrons and protectors were among the richest and most powerful of cardinals, bankers and aristocrats. Though paintings by him now hang in museums around the world, many remain in the cities where he produced them, some still in the chapels for which they were made. This tour begins in Lombardy, including the small town from which the artist took his name. It ends in Rome, where he established both his reputation and his notoriety, with a day in Naples where he was received with acclaim. Throughout it allows unhurried viewing of many of his finest paintings. The focus on a single artist provides not just a thematic stringency, but also a springboard to enhance the appreciation of the arts of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Italy.
Day 4: Rome. Walk in the street where Caravaggio rented rooms near the Corso, and see three churches containing major religious paintings, including San Luigi dei Francesi (The Calling of St. Matthew), Sant’Agostino (Madonna di Loreto), and Santa Maria del Popolo (The Conversion of St. Paul and The Crucifixion of St. Peter). In the afternoon visit the Galleria DoriaPamphilj to see Caravaggio’s Rest on the Flight into Egypt and Penitent Magdalene. Day 5: Rome. The Palazzo Barberini holds several important works, including Judith Beheading Holofernes. Continue to the Villa Ludovisi, which houses Caravaggio’s early ceiling painting Jupiter, Neptune & Pluto (special arrangement). Day 6: Rome. Cross the river into Trastevere for the gallery in Palazzo Corsini (St. John the Baptist). More paintings by Caravaggio and his peers are seen in the Capitoline Museums, which also house a breathtaking and recently-renovated collection of Ancient Roman statuary. In the afternoon visit the Villa Borghese, which contains Sick Bacchus and Boy with a Basket of Fruit among others. Day 7: Naples. Travel by train (first class) from Rome to Naples. Here see two works by Caravaggio, his Martyrdom of St Ursula in a bank and his Seven Acts of Mercy in the chapel for which it was commissioned. In the afternoon drive into the hilly suburbs to visit the palace of Capodimonte, originally a giant hunting lodge.
Here is located one of Italy’s greatest art galleries, with a magnificent range of art from the Middle Ages onwards, including The Flagellation of Christ by Caravaggio. Return to Rome by train. Day 8: Vatican City. Visit the Vatican’s painting gallery, including Caravaggio’s Entombment of Christ, for long his most famous work. Some free time to explore the rest of the Vatican follows. Fly from Rome arriving Heathrow at c. 7.00pm. There is a possibility that not all of the works mentioned above will be seen; sometimes galleries loan them at very short notice.
Practicalities Price: £3,360 (deposit £300). Single supplement £510 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £3,100. Included meals: 1 lunch, 5 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel De La Ville, Milan (delavillemilano.com): a 4-star Belle Epoque style hotel excellently located 50 metres from the Duomo. Hotel Bernini Bristol, Rome (berninibristol.com): a luxurious 5-star at the bottom of the Via Veneto, on Piazza Barberini. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Friuli-Venezia Giulia, 5–10 October 2015 (page 119), Courts of Northern Italy, 5–12 October 2015 (page 125).
The Entombment of Christ (detail), engraving after Caravaggio’s painting in The Art Journal 1862.
Itinerary italy
Day 1: Caravaggio. Fly at c. 10.30am (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Milan. Drive to the town of Caravaggio for an introductory walk. In the evening there is a lecture in the hotel. Stay two nights in Milan. Day 2: Milan. Visit the Brera, one of the premier art collections in Italy, which includes the Supper at Emmaus. The Pinacoteca Ambrosiana houses Caravaggio’s Still Life: Basket of Fruit. Day 3: Milan, Rome. Some free time in Milan. In the afternoon travel by train to Rome (first class), a journey of less than four hours. Stay five nights in Rome.
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Ancient Rome
Art & architecture of the classical world 13–18 October 2014 (mb 164) 6 days • £2,570 Lecturer: Dr Mark Grahame A comprehensive exploration of Rome’s ancient remains, in situ and in museums. Also includes visits outside Rome: Ostia, the wellpreserved ancient port of Rome, and Tivoli, for Hadrian’s enormous villa complex. Led by Dr Mark Grahame, lecturer on the archaeology and history of the Roman Empire at Oxford University’s Department of Continuing Education. When the Aurelian walls were built around Rome in the third century ad, the area enclosed was about fifty times that of Londinium and the present-day City of London. Rome’s population at that time was around a million, a figure not surpassed by any city in the world until the nineteenth century (by which time the world’s population had increased tenfold). Such was the scale of ancient Rome – formidable to any modern city-dweller with a little historical imagination, awesome, incredible even, to most citizens and subjects of the Empire. The size was appropriate for the capital of an empire which stretched from Upper Egypt to the Cairngorms, and from Atlantic Africa to Babylon, but the impedimenta of imperial administration were not the sole determinants of its size and status. As a kernel from which the Empire grew, and protagonist in myth and history, it was a spiritual home for every Roman citizen, and the fount of civilization. Of course, decline and fall ensued. Rome was
relieved of responsibility for half the Empire when Constantinople was founded; it lost its capitular status first to Milan and then to Ravenna; it was sacked by the Goths in ad 410. At one point during the Middle Ages the population shrunk to a hundredth of its ancient peak. As late as the nineteenth century the Forum was known as the Campo Vacchino because cows grazed among the ruins. After more than a millennium of destruction it is surprising that so much remains. Again, the sheer scale impresses the observer, but so also does the extraordinary high level of skill in art, craft and construction, and the sophistication of a society which produced such accomplishments. This tour will look at the visible remains of ancient Rome and bring them alive by placing them in the context of the tumultuous history and of everyday life, which reached peaks of refinement and ease while never banishing the lewd, violent and squalid.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 12.45pm (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Rome. Day 2. Morning walk, including the Ara Pacis, Augustus’ monumental altar of peace. The Pantheon is the most complete of Roman buildings to survive. The Forum Romanum, the civic, religious and social centre of Ancient Rome, has the remains of many structures famed throughout the Empire. Walk along the Via dei Fori Imperiali, past Trajan’s Column and Trajan’s Market, a remarkable shopping centre. Day 3. Visit the Colosseum, the largest of ancient amphitheatres, and the Arch of Constantine,
sculpturally the richest of triumphal arches. The Palatine Hill was the site of the luxurious palaces of successive emperors. In the afternoon, visit the Capitoline Museums which have important collections of ancient sculpture. Walk around the temples of the Largo Argentina, the Theatre of Marcellus and the Forum Boarium. Day 4. See the awesome bulk of the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla. Drive to Ostia, the ancient port of Rome, comparable to Pompeii for its state of preservation. Day 5. Drive to Tivoli to see Hadrian’s Villa, designed entirely by him and inspired by sites he visited during his travels in the Empire, undoubtedly the richest building project in the Roman Empire. Lunch is in a good restaurant. Some free time in Rome. Day 6. Morning visit to the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, built on the site of the Baths of Diocletian. Palazzo Massimo, home to the majority of the National Roman Museum’s collection, contains wonderful Roman frescoes and stuccoes. Fly from Rome Fiumicino to London Heathrow, arriving at c. 7.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,570 (deposit £250). Single supplement £420 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,330. Included meals: 2 lunches, 3 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Ponte Sisto, Rome (hotelpontesisto.it): a 4-star hotel located a short walk from the Piazza Farnese and Trastevere. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Rome, lithograph by W.H.M. McFarlane c. 1880.
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Connoisseur’s Rome
With private visits including the Sistine Chapel 24 February–1 March 2015 (mb 246) 6 days • £2,670 Lecturer: Dr Michael Douglas-Scott 3–8 November 2015 (mc 519) 6 days • £2,670 Lecturer: Dr Kevin Childs Artistic riches which are difficult to access or are rarely open to the public, including an out-ofhours visit to the Sistine Chapel. Highlights of the Renaissance and Baroque. Led by Dr Michael Douglas-Scott and Dr Kevin Childs, both specialists in Renaissance Italian art. As appealing for those new to the city as for frequent visitors. Many of Rome’s artistic riches are not easily accessible to the visitor. The emphasis of this tour is on places which are difficult of access or are rarely open to the public – on treasures which lie beyond normally impenetrable portals. Privileged access also takes the form of visits to places outside their normal opening hours. Instead of sharing the Sistine Chapel with hundreds of others, around forty Martin Randall Travel clients, from two tours which do not otherwise meet (the other is Essential Rome), will have the place to themselves for a couple of hours. The two tours overlap so that the high cost of private admission to the Vatican museums is spread between the two. What we manage to include varies each time we run the tour. Though it is likely that most of the places mentioned in the itinerary given below will be visited, arrangements depend on the generosity of owners and institutions and are occasionally subject to cancellation, but our network of contacts and know-how would enable us to arrange alternatives. Some better-known and generally accessible places are included in the itinerary as well, so the tour should appeal both to those who are unfamiliar with the city as well as to those who have been many times before. Except for the Vatican, there is almost no overlap between this tour and Essential Rome.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 12.45pm (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Rome Fiumicino.
Day 4. By special arrangement, visit the 16thcentury Villa Medici, now the seat of the French Academy. The Villa Madama (now used for diplomatic receptions), designed by Raphael and Antonio da Sangallo the Younger for Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, is one of the most important, as well as most beautiful, of Italian Renaissance villas. The delightful Villa La Farnesina has frescoes by Raphael. Day 5. The Palazzo della Cancelleria, begun in 1485 by Cardinal Raffaele Riario, is a masterpiece of Early Renaissance secular architecture and has frescoes by Vasari of the life of Pope Paul III. The Palazzo Colonna is an agglomeration of building and decoration of many centuries, and has a collection which includes works by Bronzino, Titian, Veronese and Guercino. The 17th-century Great Hall is surely one of the most magnificent secular rooms in Europe. Palazzo Doria Pamphilj holds a famous picture collection (Caravaggio, Velasquez), and S. Ignazio has an illusionistic ceiling painting by Andrea del Pozzo. Day 6. Some free time. Fly from Rome Fiumicino, arriving at London Heathrow at c. 7.00pm. This gives a fair picture of the tour, but there may be substitutes for some places mentioned and the order of visits will probably differ.
‘I know Rome very well and love it. This tour gave me the opportunity to see places that were difficult to access’ Practicalities Price: £2,670 (deposit £250). Single supplement £330 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,460. Included meals: 1 lunch, 3 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Bernini Bristol, Rome (berninibristol.com): a 5-star hotel excellently located on the Piazza Barberini. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Florence, 16–22 February 2015 (page 131); Florentine Palaces, 11–15 November 2015 (page 134).
Rome, Sistine Chapel, detail of the east wall, late-18th-century engraving after Michelangelo.
Chamber Music Weekends in Italy
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Day 2. See Bernini’s oval church of S. Andrea, and in the attached monastery the rooms of St Stanislav Kostka with sculpture by Pierre Legros. The ceiling fresco by Guido Reni in the Casino dell’Aurora in the garden of the Palazzo Pallavicini Rospigliosi is one of the greatest works of 17th-century classicism. In the afternoon visit the Sancta Sanctorum, adjacent to St John Lateran, part of the mediaeval papal residence and decorated with Cosmati mosaics dating to 1278. Michelangelo’s unfinished tomb of Pope Julius is in the church of S. Pietro in Vincoli.
Day 3. Visit the stunning collection of sculpture and painting in the Villa Borghese. Continue to the Villa Ludovisi, which houses Caravaggio’s early ceiling painting Jupiter, Neptune & Pluto. In the evening there is a private visit to the Vatican to see the Sistine Chapel and the adjacent Stanze. With Michelangelo’s ceiling fresco, his Last Judgement on the end wall and the quattrocento wall frescoes, together with Raphael’s frescoes in the Stanze, this is the most precious assemblage of painting in the western world.
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Athens & Rome
What did the Greeks & Romans ever do for us? Statue of Marcus Aurelius, wood engraving from The Magazine of Art 1881.
superb Archaic and Classical sculpture, including some by Phidias and his assistants. Day 3: Athens. The Agora (market place) was the centre of civic life in ancient Athens, with the small Doric Hephaisteion, the best-preserved of Greek temples. The refurbished National Archaeological Museum has the finest collection of Greek art and artefacts to be found anywhere. The vast Corinthian Temple of Olympian Zeus was completed by Hadrian 700 years after its inception. Day 4: Athens to Rome. Drive to the 5th-century Temple of Poseidon at Sounion, overlooking the sea at the southernmost tip of the Attic peninsula, visited by Byron in 1810. Fly at c. 3.30pm from Athens to Rome (Aegean Airlines), where four nights are spent. Day 5: Rome. Visit the Colosseum, the largest of ancient amphitheatres, and the Arch of Constantine, sculpturally the richest of triumphal arches. The Palatine Hill was the site of the luxurious palaces of successive emperors. In the afternoon visit the Capitoline Museums, which have important collections of ancient sculpture, and see the Pantheon, the most complete of Roman buildings to survive.
3–10 October 2015 (mc 487) 8 days • £3,070 Lecturer: Professor Roger Wilson A comprehensive look at the two of the most influential civilizations of the Western World. Two full days exploring Athens – the Acropolis, Agora and the city’s finest museums; and an excursion to the temple at Sounion. Three full days in and around Rome, and half a day in the city’s port, Ostia, almost as well preserved as Pompeii.
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The civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome had an enormous impact on the shaping of modern Europe: this tour will focus on two key sites that remarkably preserve outstanding ancient remains that enable us still to appreciate today both the astonishing sophistication of ancient Greece and Rome and our continuing debt to them today. Athens has been the ‘capital’ of Greece only since 1834. In the fifth century bc this city enjoyed under the enlightened leadership of Pericles a cultural flourishing of incredible intensity, extraordinary versatility, superlative skill and remarkable originality. We will be looking in detail at three iconic fifth-century bc buildings on the Athenian acropolis, the Propylaea, the Parthenon and the Erechtheum, asking ourselves what makes these buildings so very special and why their impact has been so profound. Visits to the museum of the Athenian Acropolis and to the National Museum will enable us to appreciate the full gamut of Greek visual culture from its beginnings in the tenth century bc down into the Roman period. We will also visit the Theatre of Dionysus and in the Athenian marketplace (the Agora) we will be visiting the very birthplace of democracy, and
seeing in its museum in the reconstructed Stoa of Attalus precious archaeological documents of that democracy in action. Rome, by contrast, from humble origins, grew to be a capital city of a million inhabitants at the centre of a far-flung empire. It too was blessed by architects and artists of genius, and inside another iconic building, the Pantheon, we will see how radically different from the Greek was the Roman approach to building, with an emphasis on an architecture of interior space and on the use of new materials. In the Forum Romanum and nearby we shall see monuments associated with some of the greatest figures of Roman history, such as Julius Caesar, Augustus and Constantine, while our visits to the emperors’ palace on the Palatine and Hadrian’s self-indulgent rural retreat in the countryside near Tivoli provide a glimpse of the luxurious lifestyles of the imperial family itself. The tour concludes with a visit to Rome’s harbour town of Ostia near the mouth of the Tiber, which better than anywhere else allows us to imagine what an entire Roman town in central Italy would have looked like in the second and third centuries ad.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 12.45pm (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Athens, where three nights are spent. Day 2: Athens. The Acropolis is the foremost site of Classical Greece. The Parthenon (built 447–438 bc) is indubitably the supreme achievement of Greek architecture. Other architectural masterpieces are the Propylaia (monumental gateway), Temple of Athena Nike and the Erechtheion. At the Theatre of Dionysos plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides were first performed. The new Acropolis museum has
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Day 6: Tivoli, Rome. Drive to Tivoli to see Hadrian’s Villa, designed entirely by him and inspired by sites he visited during his travels in the Empire, undoubtedly the largest and most lavish Roman country retreat anywhere in the Roman Empire. Lunch is in a good restaurant. In the afternoon, see the awesome bulk of the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, the best preserved of the several bath complexes that Roman emperors constructed in Rome for the enjoyment of the Roman people. Day 7: Rome. Morning visit to the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, built on the site of the Baths of Diocletian. Palazzo Massimo, home to the majority of the National Roman Museum’s collection, contains wonderful Roman frescoes and stuccoes. In the afternoon, visit the Forum Romanum, the civic, religious and social centre of Ancient Rome, which has the remains of many structures famed throughout the Empire. Day 8: Ostia. Drive to Ostia, the ancient port of Rome, comparable to Pompeii for its state of preservation. Fly from Rome Fiumicino to London Heathrow, arriving at c. 7.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £3,070 (deposit £300). Single supplement £490 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,890 (includes the flight on Day 4 between Athens and Rome). Included meals: 2 lunches, 6 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Electra Palace Hotel, Athens (electrahotels.gr): a smart hotel near the picturesque Plaka quarter. Hotel Bernini Bristol, Rome (berninibristol.com): a 5-star hotel excellently located on the Piazza Barberini. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
Pompeii & Herculaneum Antiquities of the Bay of Naples 20–25 October 2014 (mb 178) This tour is currently full 20–25 April 2015 (mb 293) 6 days • £2,040 Lecturer: Dr Mark Grahame 28 September–3 October 2015 (mc 467) 6 days • £2,040 Lecturer: Dr Mark Grahame 12–17 October 2015 (mc 484) 6 days • £2,040 Lecturer: Professor Roger Wilson One of the most exciting tours possible dealing with Roman archaeology.
Day 2: Paestum. Paestum was a major Greek settlement and is one of the most interesting archaeological sites in Italy. Three outstanding Greek Doric temples stand in a remarkable state of preservation. Visit also the excellent museum which contains a very rare ancient Greek painted tomb and fascinating sculptured panels (metopes) of the sixth century bc, among the earliest anywhere. Day 3: Cumae, Baia, Pozzuoli. Spend the day around the Bay of Naples at some little-visited but exciting sites. Cumae was the first Greek settlement on mainland Italy, and material from here and other sites visited during the tour can be seen in the archaeological museum of the Phlegraean fields in the spectacularly-situated castle at Baia. The port of Pozzuoli has a wellpreserved amphitheatre and market.
Day 6: Oplontis. Visit the lavish villa at Torre Annunziata (ancient Oplontis), which may have been the home of Poppaea, wife of Nero. It is one of the loveliest of ancient sites, with rich wall paintings, a replanted garden and a swimming pool. Fly from Naples to London Gatwick, arriving c. 2.45pm or c. 9.45pm, or from Rome to London Gatwick, arriving c. 8.30pm. Multiple flight times are given as it is difficult to secure group space on direct flights between London and Naples. The order of visits shifts according to which flights we are able to confirm.
Practicalities Price in 2015: £2,040 (deposit £200). Single supplement £220 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,800.
Two principal sites, both buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in ad 79 and preserved with unparalleled completeness. A unique insight into everyday life in the Roman Empire. Important early Greek settlements, including Paestum, Cumae and Pozzuoli.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 7.15am or c. 3.00pm (British Airways) from London Gatwick to Naples. Drive to the hotel in the hamlet of Seiano, above the town of Vico Equense, where all nights are spent.
Pompeii, watercolour by Frank Fox, publ. 1913.
Day 4: Pompeii. Since its first exploration during the 18th century, ancient Pompeii has been one of the world’s most famous archaeological excavations. The fascination of the site lies not only in the major public buildings such as the theatre, temples and the forum but also in the numerous domestic dwellings, from cramped apartments to luxurious houses with their mosaic pavements and gaudily frescoed walls. Day 5: Herculaneum, Naples. At Herculaneum, engulfed by mud rather than ash, timber and other fragile artefacts that normally do not survive have been preserved by the unique conditions of burial. Less than a quarter of this town has been excavated, and in the part preserved the emphasis is on private dwellings and their decoration. The Archaeological Museum in Naples has one of the finest collections in the world, and is the principal repository for both the small finds and the best preserved mosaics and frescoes discovered at Pompeii and Herculaneum.
Included meals: 1 lunch, 3 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Grand Hotel Angiolieri (grandhotelangiolieri.it): a smart, modern 5-star hotel on the hill-top above Vico Equense. Sea views are available on request for a supplement. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Sicily, 5–17 October 2015 (page 156); Athens & Rome, 3–10 October 2015 (see opposite page).
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Campania’s favourable climate, fertile soils and natural harbours were attractive to the Greeks looking to trade and for places to settle. They founded their earliest colony at Cumae and others soon followed with Naples and Paestum (Posidonia) among them. The prosperity enjoyed by the Greek colonies is best seen at Paestum where three of the most complete Doric temples anywhere still stand. After falling under Roman dominion, Campania continued to prosper with wealth generated by agriculture and trade. Towns like Pompeii and Herculaneum thrived and wealthy Romans seeking to escape from the summer heat of Rome built villas along its coast. Campania became an imperial playground with the emperor among the most famous and notorious of all villa owners on the Bay of Naples. However, life on the Bay if Naples was struck by tragedy when Mount Vesuvius erupted in ad 79 and buried Pompeii and Herculanum with volcanic ash. Paradoxically, this sudden obliteration preserved the towns with a level of completeness which has no parallel with any other archaeological site in the world. Excavation has revealed them almost in their entirety, providing a unique insight into everyday life in the Roman Empire. Even the smallest and most fragile objects of daily use have survived, along with wall paintings, floor mosaics, precious jewellery and household utensils. The immediacy and vividness with which the imagination is able to grasp a past civilization are startling and unique.
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Normans in the South
Castles & cathedrals in Puglia, Basilicata & Campania 24 March–1 April 2015 (mb 268) 9 days • £2,520 Lecturer: John McNeill An architectural tour of one of the most sophisticated kingdoms in mediaeval Europe. Splendid Norman legacy of Romanesque, with churches of unprecedented size and grandeur. Led by an expert on the art and architecture of the region. Later architecture of equal magnificence, with an elaborate flowering of Baroque. Attractive, well-preserved town centres and a dramatic landscape of raw limestone. The Norman conquest of southern Italy was one of the most remarkable episodes in mediaeval history. Whereas England was subjugated by a sizeable and highly organised Norman army, the ‘Kingdom in the Sun’ was won by small bands of soldiers of fortune. They trickled in during the eleventh century when the tangled political situation and incessant feuding made the area ripe for exploitation by ambitious knights in search of adventure and personal gain.
By the end of the century they had expelled the Byzantines from the mainland and the Saracens from Sicily, and by 1127 all Sicily and southern Italy was ruled by one Norman king. This cosmopolitan kingdom was one of the best administered and most culturally sophisticated in Europe. As in England, in the wake of conquest there arose splendid new churches of unprecedented size and grandeur. A mixture of French, Lombard, Byzantine, Saracenic and ancient Roman elements, south Italian Romanesque is one of the most distinct and beautiful of the variants of this truly international style. Prosperity and creativity continued after the extinction of the Norman dynasty in 1194 by the Hohenstaufen from Germany. In the first half of the thirteenth century the region was dominated by the extraordinary Emperor Frederick II, ‘Stupor Mundi’, ‘Wonder of the World’. He was as courageous and ambitious in artistic and intellectual spheres as he was in administration, diplomacy and war. Much later there was another artistic outburst, appropriately international but characteristically idiosyncratic: a highly elaborate version of Baroque architecture and decoration.
Trani Cathedral from The Shores of the Adriatic by F. Hamilton Jackson 1906.
The heel and spur of boot-shaped Italy, Puglia is remote from the better-known parts of the peninsula, and its raw limestone landscape wholly different from the silky richness of central and northern Italy. The last day of the tour is spent across the Apennines in Campania. This region presents another face of Italy, distinctly southern but with an equally cosmopolitan and pan-Mediterranean cultural history.
‘The lecturer was excellent: very caring of everyone’s needs and at the same time brilliantly informative. Our mini-lectures and walkabouts were models of their kind.’ Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 10.30am (Alitalia) from London City to Brindisi, via Rome, and drive on to Lecce. First of three nights in Lecce. Day 2: Squinzano, Gallipoli, Otranto. Explore the Salentine Peninsula, the southernmost tip of the heel of Italy. Visit the Abbey of Santa Maria di Cerrate, a 12th-century Romanesque complex. Gallipoli was the centre of Byzantine Italy until conquered by the Normans in 1071; the old town is on an off-shore island. Otranto, captured by Normans in 1068, has a cathedral with outstanding 12th-century floor mosaics. Day 3: Lecce. Lecce is distinguished by an elaborate style of Baroque and Rococo decoration wrought in the soft, honey-coloured tufa of the region, the outstanding examples being the cathedral and the church of Santa Croce. See also the Norman church of SS. Niccolò e Cataldo, founded by Tancred. Some free time. Day 4: Brindisi, Bitonto. Possessing the safest natural harbour on the Adriatic, the provincial capital of Brindisi has been of intermittent strategic importance for over twenty-four centuries. Visit San Benedetto, with Romanesque bell tower. Bitonto has one of the finest of Romanesque cathedrals with good sculpture and an Early Christian lower church. Continue to Trani where the next four nights are spent.
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Day 5: Bari, Trani. Bari, capital of Puglia, has an extensive and unspoilt mediaeval quarter beside the sea. The Basilica of San Nicola, begun in 1087, is not only the first but also the greatest of Puglian Romanesque churches; the episcopal throne here is remarkable. Also visit the cathedral (1170) and later mediaeval Angevin castle. Back in Trani, visit the magically beautiful Romanesque cathedral on the waterfront. Day 6: Castel del Monte, Canosa. Castel del Monte, situated on an isolated peak, is Frederick II’s extraordinarily sophisticated hunting lodge and one of the most intriguing secular buildings of the Middle Ages. Canosa di Puglia has an 11thcentury cathedral.
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Essential Puglia
Art & architecture in the heel of Italy Day 7: Troia, Melfi, Venosa. Troia is a lovely town with a Pisan-style Romanesque cathedral. Drive to the hilltop town of Melfi in Basilicata, which was for a while the main centre of Norman power in Italy. The impressive but unfinished Abbazia della SS. Trinità at Venosa was built from the 12th century over an early Christian church. Return to Puglia for the final night in Trani. Day 8: Benevento, Salerno. Cross the Apennines to Campania. Benevento was a strategic Roman colonia, Lombard Duchy and Norman from 1081. The Arch of Trajan is one of the finest surviving Roman triumphal arches. Santa Sofia has a magnificent 12th-century cloister. The seaport of Salerno has an 11th-century cathedral with a fine sculpted portal and a 12th-century ivory altarpiece. Overnight Vico Equense. Day 9: Sant’Angelo in Formis. The Basilica of Sant’Angelo in Formis has outstanding 11thcentury frescoes. Fly from Rome to London City, arriving at c. 6.45pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,520 (deposit £250). Single supplement £300 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,310. Included meals: 1 lunch and 5 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Patria Palace Hotel, Lecce (patriapalacelecce.com): a stylish 5-star hotel in an excellent location near the church of Santa Croce in the historic centre. Hotel San Paolo al Convento, Trani (hotelsanpaoloalconventotrani. it): a charming 4-star hotel converted from a 15th-century convent, although service and maintenance are not always quite up to North European standards. Grand Hotel Angiolieri, Vico Equense (grandhotelangiolieri.it): a smart, modern 5-star hotel in the village of Seiano, close to the town of Vico Equense. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
John McNeill
John McNeill also leads West Country Churches (page 47), Mediaeval Burgundy (page 74), The Po Valley (page 130), Sicily (page 156) and The Road to Santiago (page 183). All lecturers’ biographies can be found on pages 8–15.
15–22 October 2014 (mb 169) 8 days • £2,230 Lecturer: Christopher Newall 23–30 September 2015 (mc 446) 8 days • £2,340 Lecturer: Christopher Newall Fascinating architecture, especially Norman and Baroque. Exceptionally attractive streetscapes in hilltop towns and coastal cities. Distinctive, dramatic limestone landscapes. The heel and spur of boot-shaped Italy, Puglia is now returning to the limelight after being ignored or disparaged for centuries. While the sobriquet ‘the new Tuscany’ is a lazy cliché and dangerously misleading (with its raw limestone landscape Puglia looks and feels like a different country), it is the case that only in the last couple of decades have Italophiles and discerning travellers been taking the region seriously. The region’s strategic position meant that it was repeatedly invaded and conquered, and each dynasty left its mark. Roman remains are frequent but tend to have been all but eradicated by later prosperity – or warfare. The many magnificent Romanesque cathedrals bear witness to the Norman conquest of southern Italy, one of the most notable episodes in mediaeval history. Churches and castles from the subsequent Hohenstaufen and Angevin eras abound and exhibit French, Lombard, Byzantine and Saracenic influences. Much later there was another artistic outburst, appropriately international but characteristically idiosyncratic, a highly elaborate version of
Baroque architecture and decoration. Lecce is a glorious example: churches and palaces with intricately embellished façades carved from the local stone line the streets and squares of this lively town, the regional capital of the Salento. A journey from the north to the south of Puglia, this tour takes in the most important mediaeval and Baroque sites and well as the noteworthy items from other eras. Particularly memorable are the unspoilt centres of ancient cities and villages built up around narrow twisting alleys, some tumbling down hillsides, most whitewashed, all full of picturesque incident. Waterfronts with ancient harbours are another feature. There is scenic variety from rolling hills to open plains, in parts enlivened by trulli, conical stone houses which are a unique vernacular phenomenon. In the autumnal light and cooler temperatures Puglia’s charms can now be enjoyed with comfort and ease. While including many of the major items visited on our nine-day Normans in the South tour, this itinerary differs by lessening the focus on that era and encompassing a wider range of architecture, art and history.
Itinerary
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Architectural historian and a specialist in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. He lectures at Oxford University’s Department of Continuing Education and is Honorary Secretary of the British Archaeological Association. Publications include the Blue Guide: Normandy, Blue Guide: Loire Valley and Romanesque and the Past.
Bari, steel engraving c. 1840.
Day 1: Bitonto. Fly at c. 11.45am (British Airways) from London Gatwick to Bari and drive to Bitonto, which has one of the finest of Romanesque cathedrals in the region, with good sculpture and an Early Christian lower church. Continue to Trani, where three nights are spent. Day 2: Trani, Castel del Monte. A walk along the harbour of the small city of Trani includes the 12th-century church of Ognissanti and the magically beautiful Romanesque cathedral perched on the waterfront. In the afternoon drive Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Essential Puglia continued
out to Castel del Monte. Situated on an isolated peak, Frederick II’s extraordinary octagonal hunting lodge of c. 1240 is one of the most intriguing secular buildings of the Middle Ages. Day 3: Monte Sant’Angelo, Santa Maria di Siponto. High on the southern slopes of Monte Gargano sits Monte Sant’Angelo, where the apparition of the Archangel Michael in the 5th century has made the grotto sanctuary a popular destination for pilgrims. The massive castle was started by the Normans and extended by the Swabians, Aragonese and Bourbons. The Tomba di Rotari is a baptistery with 12th-century decorations and a domed roof. Seemingly of Tuscan Romanesque influence is the isolated church of Santa Maria di Siponto. Day 4: Bari. Capital of Puglia, Bari has a wonderful walled mediaeval quarter beside the sea, extensive and unspoilt. The Basilica di San Nicola, begun in 1087, is not only the first but also the greatest of Puglian Romanesque churches; the episcopal throne here is remarkable. Also visit the cathedral (1170) and the later mediaeval Angevin castle. There is a good art gallery. Continue through the Itria Valley, an area peppered with conical stone trulli, to Martina Franca, a beautiful hill town of winding streets, sudden vistas and Baroque and Rococo houses and churches. Overnight near Martina Franca. Day 5: Martina Franca, Brindisi. Before leaving Martina Franca, see the 17th-century Palazzo Ducale with its fine Baroque façade and the cathedral of San Martino. Possessing the safest
natural harbour on the Adriatic, Brindisi has been of intermittent strategic importance for over twenty-four centuries. Visit the Romanesque church of Santa Maria del Casale, which has Byzantine frescoes and a polychrome façade, and San Giovanni al Sepolcro with a splendid portal decorated with reliefs. Drive to Lecce where the final three nights are spent. Day 6: Lecce, Galatina. Lecce is distinguished by an elaborate style of Baroque and Rococo decoration wrought in the soft, honey-coloured tufa of the region. The outstanding examples are the cathedral and the church of Santa Croce. See also the well preserved Roman theatre. Drive out in the afternoon to the pretty little town of Galatina to see the remarkable frescoes from the first half of the 15th century in the Franciscan church of St Catherine. Some free time in Lecce. Day 7: Casarano, Gallipoli, Otranto. Explore the Salentine Peninsula, the southernmost tip of the heel of Italy. Gallipoli was the centre of Byzantine Italy until conquered by the Normans in 1071. The highly picturesque old town is on an off-shore island protruding into the Ionian Sea. The ancient city of Otranto, the easternmost in Italy, has a Norman cathedral with outstanding 12th-century floor mosaics. Day 8: Ostuni. Ostuni is another delightful white-washed hilltop town with bemusingly winding streets. At its centre is a late Gothic cathedral with three fine rose windows. Fly from Bari, arriving at London Gatwick at c. 5.45pm.
Christopher Newall Art historian, lecturer and writer. A specialist in 19th-century British art he also has a deep interest in southern Italy, its architecture, politics and social history. He studied at the Courtauld and has curated various exhibitions including John Ruskin: Artist & Observer at the National Gallery of Canada and Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Christopher Newall also leads Essential Rome (page 145) and Sicily (page 156). All lecturers’ biographies can be found on pages 8–15.
Practicalities Price: £2,230 (2014), £2,340 (2015) (deposit £250). Single supplement £270 (2014 & 2015) (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,020 (2014), £2,160 (2015). Included meals: 5 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel San Paolo al Convento, Trani (hotelsanpaoloalconventotrani.it): a 4-star hotel converted from a 15th-century convent. Relais Villa San Martino, near Martina Franca (relaisvillasanmartino.it): a converted villa 3km outside town. Patria Palace Hotel, Lecce (patriapalacelecce.com): stylish 5-star hotel in an excellent location near the church of Santa Croce. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: The Greeks in Sicily, 14–21 September 2015 (page 159), The Heart of Italy, 15–22 September 2015 (page 142), Siena & San Gimignano, 30 September–4 October 2015 (page 136), The Venetian Hills, 1–5 October 2015 (page 118), Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes, 1–7 October 2015 (page 116).
Gastronomic Campania italy
Autumn 2015 Details available in September 2014 Contact us to register your interest
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Gallipoli, after a painting by Donald Maxwell, publ. 1920. book online at www.martinrandall.com
Sardinia
Archaeology, architecture & art 26 September–4 October 2015 (mc 468) 9 days • £2,560 Lecturer: Dr R. T. Cobianchi
Cagliari, late-19th-century engraving from Gazetteer of the World, Vol.II.
Includes the best of the island’s material culture, from Neolithic and Bronze Age, through Punic and Roman to mediaeval and Renaissance. The unique Bronze Age nuraghi are a striking feature, as are Tuscan-style Romanesque churches and 16th-century Catalan altarpieces. Led by Dr R. T. Cobianchi, expert art historian. See the recently reconstructed Giganti di Mont’e Prama, an extraordinary group of sculpted lifesized warriors dating back to 8th century bc. Wonderful mix of sites from the south to the north following the west coast of the island.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 10.45am (Alitalia) from London City Airport to Cagliari, via Rome. First of three nights in Cagliari. Day 2: Cagliari. The morning is spent in the Cittadella dei Musei: the art gallery has works by the foremost Sardinian retable painter, Pietro Cavaro, and the excellent archaeological museum has important finds from the Nuragic, Phoenician and Roman periods. See the Giganti di Mont’e Prama, nuragic stone figures representing warriors, boxers and archers that have been recently reconstructed from over 5000 fragments excavated in the 1970s. In the afternoon walk up the Bastione St. Remy, an immense late nineteenth-century gateway to the Castello district. The cathedral has a remodelled Pisan-Romanesque façade and a sculpted pulpit from 1160. The Museo Diocesano has a 15thcentury Flemish triptych. Day 3: Barumini, Tuili. The Nuraghe Su’ Nuraxi is the largest of the Bronze Age nuraghi, with an impressive central tower constructed of basalt. At nearby Tuili, the unprepossessing Chiesa di San Pietro houses an exquisite retable by the Maestro di Castelsardo (c. 1500). Return to Cagliari for a little free time. Stroll around the mediaeval ramparts or visit the few Baroque churches. Day 4: Paulilatino, Oristano. The Basilica di Santa Giusta, erected in 1135, is one of the earliest of the Tuscan Romanesque churches. The Nuraghe Santa Cristina is the most picturesque nuragic site, surrounded by olive groves and with an astounding underground shrine from the second century bc. At Oristano there is a fine collection at the archaeological museum, a 14thcentury polychrome statue by Nino Pisano in the cathedral. First of two nights in Oristano.
Day 5: Tharros, San Salvatore. Tharros is a magnificently located Punic and Roman site, with fine views over the Gulf of Oristano. The nearby Byzantine Church of San Giovanni in Sinis is the oldest of Sardinia’s churches. Visit the Church of the Saviour, which has an underground hypogeum with fourth-century frescoes depicting animals and Roman mythology. Return through the marshes of the lagoon, stopping for lunch at a fish restaurant in the town of Cabras. Day 6: Borruta, Bonorva, Torralba. San Pietro di Sorres is the most superbly situated Romanesque church in Sardinia, with typical Tuscan black and white stone banding. The church overlooks the Valle dei Nuraghi where there is a concentration of nuragic sites. Visit Nuraghe Santu Antine, the most complex nuragic site in Sardinia. The cliff necropolis of Sant’Andrea Priu was used for burial in the second and third centuries bc. In the main chamber are exquisite fragments of later Roman and Byzantine frescoes. Continue to Sassari for the first of three nights. Day 7: Sassari, Porto Torres. The morning is spent in Sassari, which has a network of charming mediaeval streets culminating in stately 19thcentury piazze. The cathedral of San Nicola has one of Italy’s most lavish Baroque façades. There is a large collection of pre-historic, Punic and Roman artefacts in the Museo Sanna, as well as excellent models of the nuraghi and tomb complexes. At Porto Torres, the Basilica di San Gavino is a monumental Romanesque structure, Sardinia’s earliest and finest, with almost thirty Roman columns flanking the nave. The Copper Age sanctuary of Monte D’Accoddi is entirely unique in the Mediterranean, reminiscent of the tombs of the Aztecs. Day 8: Alghero, Churches of the Logudoro. Alghero is a picturesque seaside town, still a functioning commercial fishing port. A Catalan Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Despite being the second largest island in the Mediterranean, Sardinia’s cultural treasures remain largely undiscovered by travellers. Its extraordinary jagged coastline and clear blue seas have earned it a deserved reputation for beach tourism, with villas and resorts clinging to the cliffs along the Costa Smeralda. Yet the wealth of prehistoric sites, Punic and Roman remains and Pisan-Romanesque churches make it a fascinating destination for those prepared to forego the luxury of the coast and explore inland. As with all the larger islands in the Mediterranean, Sardinia was plundered and settled by a succession of pirates and empire builders, though due in large part to its rugged and impenetrable landscape, Sardinian identity was never wholly extinguished. Her Bronze Age settlements truly set it apart. Deep gorges, craggy limestone and slate mountain ranges and swathes of verdant countryside hide over 7000 nuraghi, peculiar conical stone structures which were forts, palaces and simple domestic dwellings. Much is left to the imagination as little is known about these edifices, though digs are leading to some fascinating insights. Evidence of Phoenician power on the island can be seen at Tharros on the west coast, established in the eighth century bc in a strategic position jutting into the sea in the Gulf of Oristano. Later colonized by the Romans, the site is a remarkable example of a coastal citystate. Finds can be seen in Sardinia’s superlative collection of archeological museums, in Cagliari, Sassari and Oristano. The decline of the Roman Empire left Sardinia open to Goths, Lombards, for a short spell the Byzantines, and to the new Muslim empires of North Africa and Spain. The Pisans and Genoese in the eleventh century left an indelible mark on the island with their superb Romanesque churches in the Logudoro region, indeed some of the finest in Europe. Rule by the Kingdom of Aragón brought a Spanish dimension to the island’s culture, most evident today in the Catalan-Gothic architecture of the fishing port at Alghero and, concealed in mediaeval churches in tiny villages the length of the island, sumptuous sixteenth-century retables which rival coeval ones on the Italian mainland.
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Sicily
Centre of Mediterranean Civilizations colony for nearly 400 years, the Spanish influence can be seen in the Catalan-Gothic architecture of the old town. Visit the nearby domus de janus site Anghelu Ruju, a fine example of the pre-nuragic hypogea found all over the island. Drive to see two examples of Pisan-Romanesque churches, each in a very different setting in the rural landscape. Santissima Trinità di Saccargia is a splendid example, built in black basalt and white limestone in 1116. Santa Maria del Regno has a magnificent ornate retable from 1515. Day 9. Fly from Alghero to London City Airport, via Rome, arriving c. 6.45pm. Alternative flights. The flights offered on this tour are indirect via Rome as at the time of going to press only budget airlines offer direct flights from London to Sardinia, with whom it is not currently viable for us to make a group booking. However we have planned the itinerary with the following flights in mind so that participants who prefer to arrange their travel independently and fly directly can do so: Outbound: EZY3203 (Easyjet), fly c. 4.15pm from London Stansted to Cagliari arriving at c. 8.00pm. Inbound: FR231 (Ryanair), fly at c. 6.15pm from Alghero to London Stansted arriving at c. 7.45pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,560 (deposit £250). Single supplement £180 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,310. Included meals: 4 lunches, 5 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Regina Margherita, Cagliari (hotelreginamargherita.com): a recently refurbished 4-star hotel, externally unattractive but internally clean and bright; spacious rooms. Mariano IV Palace Hotel, Oristano (m4ph. eu): the only centrally-located 4-star hotel in the town, in need of refurbishment. Bedrooms are a good size if a little dated. Hotel Vittorio Emanuele, Sassari (hotelvesassari.it): a 3-star hotel close to the historic centre but rooms are simple, small and ill-lit. These hotels are the best in their localities, but are by no means luxurious. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Friuli-Venezia Giulia, 5–10 October 2015 (page 119), Courts of Northern Italy, 5–12 October 2015 (page 125), Sicily, 5–17 October 2015 (page 156).
Segesta, watercolour by Alberto Pisa, publ. 1911.
13–25 October 2014 (mb 163) This tour is currently full 16–28 March 2015 (mb 258) 13 days • £4,130 Lecturer: Christopher Newall 13–25 April 2015 (mb 290) 13 days • £4,130 Lecturer: John McNeill 21 September–3 October 2015 (mc 465) 13 days • £4,320 Lecturer: Dr Luca Leoncini 5–17 October 2015 (mc 475) 13 days • £4,320 Lecturer: Dr Philippa Joseph 2–14 November 2015 (mc 518) 13 days • £4,130 Lecturer: Dr Ffiona Gilmore Eaves
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Covers the whole island, including the main sights and many lesser-known ones. The whole gamut – Ancient Greek, Roman, mediaeval (particularly Norman), Renaissance, Baroque and later. A full tour but carefully paced. Hotel changes kept to a minimum – only three hotels during the entire tour. Combine the September departure with Malta, 5–11 October 2015 (see page 165).
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By virtue of both size and location, Sicily is the pre-eminent island in the Mediterranean. It is the largest, and it is also close to the sea’s centre, a book online at www.martinrandall.com
stepping stone between Europe and Africa and a refuge between the Levant and the Atlantic. The result is that throughout history Sicily has been viewed as a fortuitous landfall by migrating peoples and a prized possession by ambitious adventurers and expansionist princes. And as the Mediterranean has been catalyst and disseminator of a greater variety of civilizations than any other of the world’s seas, the island has acquired an exceptionally rich encrustation of art, architecture and archaeological remains. For the Phoenicians, Sicily was a nodal point in their far-reaching trading empire, but from the seventh century bc they were increasingly displaced by colonies established by the Greeks. Exploiting the enormous potential of the island, these rapidly outpaced their rugged home territories to become the most prosperous of all Hellenic colonies. At Segesta and Agrigento there survive some of the finest standing Doric temples to be seen anywhere. Great wealth accrued under Roman rule when the island was clothed in fields of corn, and endless oak forests and abundant fauna provided sport for grandees and emperors. One of them has bequeathed to us on the floor of his luxurious villa the most splendid Roman mosaics to have survived. Overrun by Germanic barbarians in the fifth century, Sicily was wrested back for the twilight of classical civilization by the Byzantines, but at the cost of military campaigns which devastated the island. Byzantine rule was in turn supplanted from the ninth century by Muslim Arabs, and a period of prosperity and advanced civilization ensued. Two hundred years later Arab rule was swept aside by conquering Normans, who, by succumbing to the luxuriant sophistication of their predecessors, distanced themselves as far as is imaginable from their rugged northern roots. The unique artistic blend of this golden
age survives in the Romanesque churches with details of Norman, Saracenic, Levantine and classical origin. Byzantine mosaicists were much employed. The wealth and power of Sicily began to wane again from the later Middle Ages as a succession of German, French and Spanish dynasties exploited the island with colonial disregard for long-term interests, but pockets of wealth and creativity remained as Gothic and Renaissance masterpieces demonstrate. Artistically, however, a final flourish was reached in the Age of Baroque which saw the erection of churches and palaces as splendid and exuberant as anywhere in Europe. The raw beauty of the landscape changes continually across the island. The Sicilians can be as welcoming as Italians anywhere, but the island continues to retain its enigmas, and differences with the mainland sometimes seem profound. There may be itinerary changes due to closures for restoration work which happen fairly frequently in Sicily.
Itinerary Day 1: Palermo. Fly at c. 7.30am from London Heathrow, via Milan, to Palermo (Alitalia, March or November 2015), or at c. 2.30pm from London Gatwick to Catania (British Airways, April, September or October 2015), and drive across the island to Palermo. The largest and by far the most interesting city on the island, Palermo has been capital of Sicily from the period of Saracenic occupation in the 9th century. It reached a peak under the Normans and again during the Age of Baroque. First of six nights in Palermo.
of many periods, has grand royal and imperial tombs. Free afternoon. Return to the Palace of the Normans for a private visit to the Palatine Chapel. Day 7: Palermo, Piazza Armerina. In Palermo visit Castello della Zisa, an Arab-Norman Palace. Drive through the interior of Sicily. At Piazza Armerina are the remains of one of the most sumptuous villas of the late-Roman Empire, whose floor mosaics comprise the most vital and colourful manifestation of Roman figurative art in Europe. Continue across the island for the first of four nights in Taormina.
‘Very insightful and comprehensive. Learned a lot. Discovered a lot.’ Day 8: Taormina. Visit the famed Roman theatre, with spectacular views over the sea to Calabria and inland to Mount Etna, an active volcano. The rest of the day free: one of the earliest and still one of the most attractive of Mediterranean resorts, Taormina has an area of secluded beaches joined by funicular to the delightful hilltop town. Day 9: Messina, Reggio di Calabria. Drive north to Messina to see the art gallery with paintings by Caravaggio and Antonello da Messina. Cross by ferry to Reggio di Calabria on the mainland of Italy, and see the Riace Bronzes – over-life-size male nudes possibly by Phidias, and among the finest Greek sculpture to survive.
Day 10: Catania. Drive along the coast to Catania, with a fine Baroque centre. Here there are special visits to a private palazzo, and a Byzantine chapel, where there is a light lunch. See also the cathedral and the civic museum, which houses some stunning classical sculpture and Greek vases. Day 11: Syracuse. Founded as a Greek colony in 733 bc, Syracuse became the most important city of Magna Græcia. Afternoon walk on the island of Ortygia, the picturesque and densely built original centre of Syracuse, and see the Caravaggio painting in the church of Santa Lucia alla Badia. First of two nights in Syracuse. Day 12: Noto, Syracuse. Rebuilt after an earthquake in 1693, Noto is one of the loveliest and most homogenous Baroque towns in Italy. Visit the 5th-century bc Greek theatre in Syracuse, the largest of its type to survive, the stone quarries and the Roman amphitheatre. There is also time to visit the excellent museum of antiquities in Syracuse. Day 13: Syracuse. Fly from Catania, via Rome, arriving London Heathrow at c. 7.15pm (March or November 2015), or arrive London Gatwick at c. 9.30pm (April, September or October 2015). Flights. We opt to travel to and from Sicily with Alitalia in March and November because the only direct flights to the island in this period are with low-cost airlines, with whom it is not currently viable for us to make a group booking. British Airways only flies directly from London Gatwick to Catania from April to October.
Day 2: Palermo. Morning walk through the old centre includes a visit to several oratories and outstanding Norman buildings including La Martorana with fine mosaics. Drinks at a private palace, usually closed to the public. In the afternoon see the collection of pictures in the 15th-century Palazzo Abatellis. Day 3: Monreale, Cefalù. Monreale dominates a verdant valley southwest of Palermo, and its cathedral is one of the finest Norman churches with the largest scheme of mosaic decoration to survive from the Middle Ages. Cefalù, a charming coastal town, has a massive Norman cathedral with outstanding mosaics and an art gallery with a painting by Antonello da Messina.
Day 6: Palermo. Visit the 12th-century Palace of the Normans, containing the Hall of King Roger which has outstanding mosaics (sometimes subject to last-minute closure). S. Giovanni degli Eremiti is a Norman church with five cupolas and a charming garden. The cathedral, a building
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Day 5: Agrigento. A full day in Agrigento to see the ‘Valley of the Temples’, one of the finest of all ancient Greek sites with two virtually complete Doric temples, other ruins and a good museum.
Cefalu, Cathedral, engraving c. 1830.
Day 4: Segesta, Selinunte. With its magnificently sited temple and theatre, Segesta is one of the most evocative of Greek sites. Selinunte, founded c. 650 bc, is a vast archaeological site, renowned for its well-preserved temples on the eastern hill and the acropolis.
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Palermo at Christmas Art, archaeology & architecture 20–27 December 2014 (mb 223) 8 days • £2,750 Lecturer: Dr Luca Leoncini One of the most fascinating cities in Italy, much improved recently. Includes access to private palaces and to places outside public opening hours. Excursions to other towns and sites in western Sicily: Cefalù, Bagheria, Monreale, Segesta.
Palermo, Palatine Chapel, by F. Fox, publ. 1913.
Practicalities Price in 2015: £4,130 (March, April, November), £4,320 (September, October) (deposit £400). Single supplement £480 (March), £510 (all other departures) (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £3,900 (March, April, November), £3,990 (September, October).
Sicily’s heritage of art, architecture and archaeological remains is exceptionally rich and varied, and Palermo is by far the most interesting of the island’s cities. Staying here for all seven nights, the tour also has excursions to some of the best of the island’s patrimony outside the city. Ancient classical remains are prominent, with some of the finest standing Doric temples to be seen anywhere at Segesta and Agrigento. In the ninth century AD, when Byzantine rule was supplanted by that of Muslim Arabs, Palermo became the leading city on the island and famous throughout Europe for the beauty of its position, its tradition of craftsmanship and its enlightened administration. In the eleventh century, Arab rule was swept aside by conquering Normans. By succumbing to the luxuriant sophistication of their predecessors they distanced themselves as far as is imaginable from their rugged northern roots. From a Palermo-based cosmopolitan court they ruled with efficiency and tolerance an affluent and cultured nation.
Included meals: 5 lunches, 7 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Grand Hotel Piazza Borsa, Palermo (piazzaborsa.it): a centrally located 4-star hotel housed in an assortment of historical buildings. Hotel Villa Belvedere, Taormina (villabelvedere.it): a 4-star, charming, family-run hotel, in the old town, with its own garden (rooms vary in size and outlook). Des Ètrangers Hotel, Syracuse (March, April, September, October) (desetrangers.com): an elegant 5-star hotel on the island of Ortygia. Antico Hotel Roma 1880, Syracuse (November) (hotelromasiracusa. it): a somewhat basic but friendly 4-star hotel, excellently situated on the island of Ortygia. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
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Combine this tour with: March: Venice & Florence, 7–14 March 2015 (page 121), Courts of Northern Italy, 8–15 March 2015 (page 125). April: Palladian Villas, 7–12 April 2015 (page 120). September: Malta, 5–11 October 2015 (page 165), Friuli-Venezia Giulia, 5–10 October 2015 (page 118), Courts of Northern Italy, 5–12 October 2015 (page 125). October: Sardinia, 26 September–4 October 2015 (page 155), Pompeii & Herculaneum, 28 September–3 October 2015 (page 151), Siena & San Gimignano, 30 September–4 October 2015 (page 136). November: Venetian Palaces, 17–21 November 2015 (page 122). Mosaic from the Palatine Chapel, Palermo, engraving 1881. book online at www.martinrandall.com
The unique artistic blend of this golden age survives in the Romanesque churches with details of Norman, Saracenic, Levantine and classical origin. Byzantine mosaicists were extensively employed, and more wall and vault mosaics survive here than in all of Byzantium. The tour includes not only the Norman buildings in Palermo but also the cathedrals at Cefalù and Monreale. The prosperity and power of Sicily began to wane from the later Middle Ages, but pockets of wealth and creativity remained, as Gothic and Renaissance creations demonstrate. Artistically, however, a final flourish was reached in the Age of Baroque when churches and palaces were erected in Palermo and throughout the island which are as splendid and exuberant as anywhere in Europe. Always a seething, vibrant city, enlightened local government has made Palermo cleaner, safer, and altogether more enjoyable than even a few years ago. The tour includes a number of special arrangements to gain access to private palaces or visit buildings outside opening hours.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 10.30am (Alitalia) from London City to Palermo, via Rome. Overnight in Palermo where all seven nights are spent. Day 2: Palermo. A morning walk through the old centre includes visits to several oratories and an excellent collection of pictures in the 15thcentury Palazzo Abatellis. Visit a private palace and dinner here by special arrangement.
The Greeks in Sicily
Greek, Phoenician & Roman Antiquities in ‘Magna Graecia’ Day 3: Agrigento. A full day excursion to Agrigento to see the ‘Valley of the Temples’, one of the finest of all ancient Greek sites, with two virtually complete Doric temples, other ruins, and superb archaeological museum.
Ruins at Selinunte, aquatint c. 1830.
Day 4: Palermo. Visit the cathedral this morning, a building of many periods, with royal and imperial tombs, followed by the Teatro Massimo. A free afternoon is followed by a reception in a private palazzo, with astonishing Rococo interiors and original furnishings (used by Visconti for ‘The Leopard’). Day 5: Monreale. Monreale dominates a verdant valley southwest of Palermo, and its cathedral is one of the finest Norman churches with the largest scheme of mosaic decoration that survives from the Middle Ages. Visit the Castello di Zisa in the afternoon, an Arab-Norman Palace. Day 6, Christmas Day: Segesta, Mondello. In the morning drive to Segesta, one of the most evocative of ancient Greek sites, with magnificently sited temple and theatre. Christmas lunch is in an excellent restaurant in Mondello, a seaside town to the north-west of Palermo. Day 7: Cefalù, Bagheria. Cefalù, a charming coastal town, has a massive Norman cathedral with outstanding mosaics. Bagheria on the fringes of Palermo is a district of aristocratic Baroque and Neo-Classical villas. The remarkable if faded Villa Palagonia has a fine external staircase and is adorned with grotesque statuary. Day 8: Palermo. Before leaving Palermo, see the extraordinary 12th-century Palace of the Normans, containing the Palatine Chapel and Hall of King Roger, both with outstanding mosaics. The Norman church of S. Giovanni degli Eremiti has five cupolas and a garden. Fly from Palermo to London Heathrow, via Milan, arriving at c. 6.00pm. Flights. We opt to travel to and from Sicily with Alitalia because the only direct flights to Palermo are with low-cost airlines, with whom it is not currently viable for us to make a group booking. It is possible to choose our ‘no flights’ option and to book your own flights with Easyjet, who fly directly to Palermo in this period. Please contact us for advice or further information about this.
10–18 November 2014 (mb 200) 9 days • £3,070 Lecturer: Dr Ffiona Gilmore Eaves 14–21 September 2015 (mc 441) 8 days • £2,610 Lecturer: Professor Tony Spawforth Magna Graecia: a survey of the Ancient Greeks in Sicily, including some of the best-preserved Doric temples to be found anywhere. Exceptional Greek sculpture including The Charioteer at Mozia and the Dancing Satyr of Mazara del Vallo. Also Phoenician artefacts (a ship) and Roman remains (the finest surviving floor mosaics).
Price: £2,750 (deposit £250). Single supplement £330 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,520.
Some of the finest archaeological museums in Italy well document life in the Ancient World.
Included meals: 2 lunches, 5 dinners with wine.
In the Aegean heartlands of ancient Greece there was an abundance of energy and enterprise but a superabundance of people and an acute shortage of cultivatable land. The solution was to send seaborne parties of young men across the Mediterranean in search of sites where they could settle and found colonies. The colonies in Sicily were particularly successful – despite frequent strife with natives, Carthaginians, Romans and other Greeks – and rapidly outgrew their mother cities in prosperity and architectural magnificence. The Greeks themselves coined the phrase which is better
Accommodation. Grand Hotel Piazza Borsa, Palermo (piazzaborsa.it): a 16th-century church and convent converted into a charming 4-star hotel in the centre of town. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
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known in its Latin form, Magna Graecia, ‘Greater Greece’. The most evocative evidence for this phenomenon lies in the splendid crop of Doric temples, more numerous and on the whole larger and much better preserved than their counterparts in Greece proper. The peripteral, pedimented form of the Greek temple continued as a living tradition for nearly 500 years with no significant change, though no two temples are alike, and informed examination of the best examples provides an aesthetic feast of the highest order. Outstanding Greek sculpture is another feature in Sicily, with three recent discoveries – the ‘Charioteer of Mozia’, the ‘Morgantina Venus’ and the bronze ‘Dancing Satyr of Mazara del Vallo’ – requiring a re-writing of the history books, and all now beautifully displayed. Prominent among the Roman artefacts are floor mosaics, those of the sumptuous Villa Romana del Casale near Piazza Armerina being the finest in the western Empire, but there are also some little-visited ones such as those at Villa Romana del Tellaro. There are also some rare Phoenician remains such as the well-preserved warship in Marsala’s archaeological museum.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 10.30am (Alitalia) from London City to Catania, via Milan (2014), or at c. 2.45pm (Alitalia) directly from London Gatwick to Catania (2015). Light dinner at the hotel. First of three nights in Syracuse. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Day 2: Syracuse. Founded by Corinthian colonists in 733 bc around a natural harbour, Syracuse grew into the wealthiest of all the cities in Magna Graecia. The heart of the ancient city is now an island, Ortygia. Here are the ruins of the oldest Doric temple in the Greek west while another owes its preservation to conversion into the present-day cathedral. On the mainland there is a well-conserved theatre, the largest of its type to survive, stone quarries, a Roman amphitheatre and an excellent museum. Overnight Syracuse. Day 3: Castello Eurialo, Vendicari, Palazzolo Acreide. Castello Eurialo is part of the overall defences of Greek Syracuse, with evocative views. Drive south to the salt-lagoons and nature reserve at Vendicari to visit the Villa Romana del Tellaro, where a small but superb set of Roman mosaics depicting scenes of hunting has been beautifully restored at this former masseria. In the afternoon explore the ruins at Palazzolo Acreide, formerly the Greek town of Akrai, where there is a wellpreserved theatre. Overnight Syracuse. Day 4: Morgantina, Aidone, Piazza Armerina. Visit the archaeological park at Morgantina and the museum at neighbouring Aidone, which houses the controversial ‘Morgantina Venus’,
returned to Italy by the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. At Piazza Armerina see the remains of one of the most sumptuous villas of the lateRoman Empire, whose floor mosaics comprise the most vital and colourful manifestation of Roman figurative art in Europe. Overnight Agrigento. Day 5: Agrigento. As if making up for a relatively late foundation (580 bc), the colony of Akragas rose rapidly to riches and constructed eight peripteral temples – the largest group in the Greek world. That dedicated to Olympian Zeus was the largest of all Doric temples before being felled by earthquakes, while the Temple of Concord is the best preserved in the west. With the colonnades of several others still standing to varying extents, the ‘Valley of the Temples’ is one of the great sights bequeathed by the ancient world (and is on the doorstep of our hotel). There is also an excellent museum here. Overnight Agrigento (2014), Marsala (2015). Day 6: Selinunte, Segesta. Drive to the coastal site of Selinunte, founded c. 650 bc. This is a vast site, with eight Doric temples on the eastern hill and on the acropolis, some quite well preserved. They are considered by some to be architecturally the most outstanding in Magna
Agrigento, Temple of Castor, wood engraving c. 1885 from Picturesque Europe.
Graecia. At Segesta, set in an unspoilt hilly landscape, the fascinatingly not-quite-finished 5th-century temple was built by the indigenous if thoroughly Hellenized people. On an adjacent, higher hill is a theatre with fine views to the sea. Altogether one of the most evocative of ancient sites. Overnight Marsala. Day 7: Marsala, Mozia, Mazara del Vallo. Visit the archaeological museum in Marsala, where the star exhibit is an extremely well-preserved Phoenician warship. Drive to the salt flats north of Marsala to take a boat across the lagoon to the island of Mozia (sailings cancelled in rough weather). Here visit the small Whitaker Museum which houses the 5th-century bc Auriga (charioteer), one of the most exquisite of surviving Greek sculptures. In the afternoon, see the Dancing Satyr in Mazara del Vallo, a very rare Hellenistic bronze of extraordinary energy. Overnight Marsala. (2014 only) Day 8: Erice, Marsala. Perched on top of what was known in Ancient Greece as Mount Eryx, Erice is a charming mediaeval town where according to legend Aeneas founded the Temple of Venus. The afternoon is free in the charming little port town of Marsala. Overnight Marsala. Final day: Fly from Palermo to London via Milan, arriving London City at c. 7.00pm (2014), or at London Heathrow at c. 6.00pm (2015). Flights. We opt to travel to and from Sicily with Alitalia because the only direct flights from Palermo to London are with low-cost airlines, with whom it is not currently viable for us to make a group booking. It is possible to choose our ‘no flights’ option, or to choose to travel just one way with the group, and to book your own flights with Easyjet or Ryanair, both of whom fly directly between London and Palermo in this period. Please contact us for advice or further information about this.
Practicalities Price: £3,070 (2014, deposit £300), £2,610 (2015, deposit £250). Single supplement £340 (2014), £320 (2015). Price without flights £2,760 (2014), £2,330 (2015). Included meals, 2014: 2 lunches (1 is a picnic), 6 dinners with wine; 2015: 5 dinners with wine.
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Accommodation. Des Ètrangers Hotel, Syracuse (desetrangers.com): an elegant five-star hotel on the island of Ortygia. Hotel Villa Athena, Agrigento (hotelvillaathena.it): a stunning fivestar hotel out of the town centre, walking distance from the Valley of the Temples. Hotel Carmine, Marsala (hotelcarmine.it): a small and charming 3-star hotel, with occasionally erratic service. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: History of Medicine, 7–13 September 2015 (page 133), Essential Puglia, 23–30 September 2015 (page 153), Sardinia, 26 September–4 October 2015 (page 155).
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Gastronomic Sicily Food & wine in the west 19–25 October 2015 (mc 499) 7 days • £2,770 Lecturer: Marc Millon
Palermo cathedral, steel engraving c.1850.
Discover the colourful street markets of Palermo; visit authentic salt flats near Trapani and historic cellars in Marsala. Learn about making wine, olive oil and artisan foods from the craftsmen and women who carry on these age-old traditions. The full spectrum of culinary experiences, from street food in Palermo to dinner in a private palazzo. The lecturer is Marc Millon; wine, food and travel writer, and author of The Food Lover’s Companion to Italy.
Itinerary Day 1: Palermo. Fly at c. 9.00am from London City to Palermo, via Milan (Alitalia). Palermo is the largest and most interesting city on the island: capital of Sicily from the period of Saracenic occupation in the 9th century, it reached a peak under the Normans and again during the Age of Baroque. First of three nights in Palermo.
Day 2: Palermo. A morning walk to the city’s best market, sampling authentic street food. See also key cultural sites such as the cathedral, a building of many periods, and the church of San Cataldo. In the afternoon see outstanding mosaics at the 12th-century Palace of the Normans, including the Palatine Chapel, and visit the best pasticceria in Palermo. Dinner at a private palazzo. Day 3: Monreale, Partinico. Monreale dominates a verdant valley southwest of Palermo, and its cathedral is one of the finest Norman churches with the largest scheme of mosaic decoration to survive from the Middle Ages. Travel on to visit Mary Taylor-Simeti’s organic farm in Partinico, one of the earliest of its kind in Sicily, to have a simple and abundant lunch with the freshest produce from the farm and local area. Day 4: Segesta, Marsala. With its magnificently sited temple and theatre, Segesta is one of the most evocative of Greek sites. Stop for lunch and a wine-tasting at a superb winery, before continuing to see the saltpans that have been in use since Phoenician times. First of three nights in Marsala. Day 5: Marsala, Mazara del Vallo, Samperi. There is a tour of the town in the morning, including a visit to the archaeological museum, most of which is taken up by an extremely wellpreserved Punic warship. Visit Il Museo del Satiro Danzante in Mazara del Vallo after a couscous cooking demonstration and lunch. In the afternoon visit the De Bartoli wine estate, famous for the revival and revaluation of traditional Marsala wine made by age-old traditional methods.
Day 6: Menfi, Selinunte. The whole morning is spent at an award-winning olive oil estate, discovering their methods. There is a tasting here, and lunch. In the afternoon visit the vast archaeological site of Selinunte, founded c. 650 bc, renowned for its well-preserved temples on the eastern hill and the acropolis. Day 7. Fly from Palermo to London City, via Milan, arriving at c. 7.00pm. Flights. We opt to travel to and from Sicily with Alitalia because the only direct flights to Palermo are with low-cost airlines, with whom it is not currently viable for us to make a group booking. It is possible to choose our ‘no flights’ option and to book your own flights with Easyjet or Ryanair, both of whom fly directly to Palermo in this period. Please contact us for advice or further information about this.
Practicalities Price: £2,770 (deposit £250). Single supplement £220 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,470. Included meals: 4 lunches, 4 dinners with wine.
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If Sicily’s history is a layer-cake of the different cultures that have colonised the island through the centuries, its food is no less complex. Citrus fruits and ices were brought there by the Arabs before the Middle Ages. Winemaking was introduced by the Phoenicians, and during the Roman era wheat turned the inland hillsides to gold. The magnificent landscape remains a key source of agricultural richness for the island: Trapani is today Europe’s most productive grapegrowing province. What Sicily offers more than any other Italian region is an unrivalled cornucopia of sun-ripened vegetables and fruits, many grown on volcanic soils for added intensity of flavour. The Sicilians cook these products in myriad, colourful ways: sweet and sour, hot and spicy, fresh and nutritious – Sicilian food is arguably more exciting than its northern counterparts. It is also a mix of old and new cultures. Pasta is handmade in unique shapes to accommodate vegetables, capers, herbs and the varied seafood that make up the healthy Sicilian diet. Dessert lovers will be rewarded with some of the most delicious sweetmeats Italy has to offer: from the hollow cannolo filled with fresh ewe’s milk ricotta to elaborately decorated cassata cakes. As the tour travels across the Western part of the island we visit small producers of artisan foods, winemakers, home cooks and chefs alike, and do not ignore cultural sites that determine its key historical importance. Sample street food from market stalls in Palermo, the freshest seafood in the Mediterranean, and homeprepared dinners whose hospitable cooks will share their secrets with us. Walk in vineyards and olive groves, and around some of the finest archaeological sites on this ever-fascinating island. In Marsala, we’ll be the guests of one of Italy’s pioneer winemakers, who was responsible for relaunching the great wines of the south.
Accommodation. Grand Hotel Piazza Borsa, Palermo (piazzaborsa.it): a centrally located 4-star hotel housed in an assortment of historical buildings. Hotel Carmine, Marsala (hotelcarmine.it): a small and charming 3-star hotel, with occasionally erratic service. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Ravenna & Urbino, 14– 18 October (page 127), Pompeii & Herculaneum, 12–17 October 2015 (page 151). Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Ar t in Japan
Jordan Revisited
Archaeology, architecture & landscapes off the beaten track
Woodblock print by Utagawa Kunisada,1861.
May 2015 Lecturer: Professor Timon Screech Full details available in September 2014 Contact us to register your interest
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Japan has one of the richest and most continuously active art traditions in Asia and perhaps anywhere. Some of world’s earliest known ceramics have been found here, and the world’s oldest standing wooden building is in Japan. But Japanese contemporary art also stuns the world and is avidly imitated and collected. Between those chronological poles is a wealth of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines from all periods, and some impressive castles. National, regional and private collections are to be found in great profusion throughout the country, and Japan had a long and impressive lineage of art historical scholarship, connoisseurship, and more recently, a network of conservations and restoration labs and the latest technology for archaeological investigation. In short, despite the large number of wars and natural disasters that have overwhelmed the country, the Japanese arts are to be enjoyed in breath-taking abundance. In the modern period, many artworks left Japan, but it is nevertheless the case that the great majority of important pieces remain on site, and can only be seen within Japan. Throughout history, Japan has tended to make a less emphatic division between art and craft than is the case in Western counties, so that alongside the fine arts of painting and sculpture, outstanding examples of ceramic, textile and metalwork are to be found, as well as striking gardens with a uniquely Japanese beauty, and of course a special aesthetic of food and eating. This tour exposes participants to Japan across the ages, sampling works from many periods, genres and styles. As a deeply hierarchical society until modern times, we also see the ‘high’ and ‘low’ of Japanese art, from royal and shogunal works to that of the urban populace (the fabled ‘art of the floating world’). Modern Tokyo is experienced, as will the ancient capital of Kyoto, and the yet more ancient Buddhist city of Nara. We also visit the celebrated art colony of Naoshima in the Inland Sea. World Heritage sites figure on the tour, but we also visit less well-known but equally enthralling sites, such as ceramic studios and mausolea.
Petra, Ed-Deir (‘The Monastery’), lithograph by Louis Haghe after David Roberts c. 1850.
12–21 April 2015 (mb 284) 10 days • £3,640 Lecturer: Jane Taylor An alternative approach, largely away from the crowds. Devised for people who have visited Jordan before, but equally valid for first-timers. Spectacular landscapes include Wadi Rum, one of the most dramatic in the Middle East. Hellenistic, Roman, Ottoman architecture and artefacts, with visits by special arrangement. Two walks through some of the country’s most striking landscapes. Led by Jane Taylor, who lives in Amman. Nowhere in Jordan, indeed in the Middle East, can compare with Petra, but its iconic status overshadows a remarkable array of other sites which, were it not for Petra, would receive far more visitors. This tour highlights the diversity of Jordan’s man-made heritage and also the
book online at www.martinrandall.com
country’s wealth of striking landscapes. (Petra is included, but approached not from the coach park and the crowded Siq but on foot through a beautiful valley in which you might not encounter another visitor.) Starting in Amman, the scene is set by visiting the newly opened Jordan Museum, a multimillion pound project aimed at showcasing the country’s historical record. History is further explored through a visit to the quiet and picturesque city of Salt, the only town of any substance before the Emirate of Transjordan was established after World War I. Umm Qays, ancient Gadara, was one of the splendid cities of the Decapolis and a flourishing cultural centre from the Hellenistic era onwards. Known to its inhabitants as ‘home of the Muses’, it produced some of the great names of the Graeco-Roman literary world. Later it became a place of pilgrimage as site of Christ’s miracle of the Gadarene swine. In any less richly endowed country, Umm Qays would be a major attraction, but here is overshadowed by Jerash. One of few survivors of the Hellenistic period is the beautiful
Overlooking the Dead Sea, Machaerus has been identified as the site of John the Baptist’s imprisonment and execution. Its location alone is worthy of a visit – but to be at the site where it is believed Salome danced for Herod Antipas in exchange for the head of John the Baptist is a poignant reminder that these lands have witnessed so much history.
‘Jane is extremely knowledgeable with a great ability to communicate to the group. Well respected by both academics and locals wherever we went.’ Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 2.00pm (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Amman (time in the air: c. 5 hours). Arrive at the hotel at c. 10.30pm. First of three nights in Amman. Day 2: Amman, Salt. The excellent new Jordan Museum reveals the country’s rich history. Drive to Salt, the Ottoman administrative centre which ceded its role to Amman when the Emirate of Transjordan was established after World War I. There are several fine examples of Ottoman architecture including impressive houses built by wealthy merchants, places of worship and the first hospital of Transjordan. Visit the small archaeological museum, and the Abujaber House, now an ethnographic museum, and wander the alleys and quiet squares where inhabitants gather to drink coffee and pass the time of day. Overnight Amman.
Day 4: Iraq Al Amir, Shobak, Petra. South-west of Amman lies a rare example of Hellenistic architecture, the palace of Qasr al-Abd at Iraq Al Amir. Described by Josephus, it was built of huge blocks of limestone and is still adorned with vividly carved lions and leopards.Continuing south, visit the Crusader castle of Shobak, built ad 1116 and one of the earliest such castles east of the Jordan rift. There are elements of Ayyubid and Mamluk architecture and decoration, and fabulous views of the surrounding hills. First of three nights in a village close to Petra. Day 5: Petra. We begin at Little Petra, now identified as a Nabataean sanctuary, and walk for about three hours along Wadi Mu’aisra to the main site of Petra. Flanked by steep hillsides, the walk passes Nabataean carvings and dwellings which increase in frequency before arriving in the heart of Petra with magnificent views of
Day 6: Wadi Rum. The immense Wadi Rum is renowned as the location in which T.E. Lawrence roamed during World War I. It is a region of other-worldly beauty where huge geological formations rise from the sands, some harbouring primitive stone carvings. We drive in 4x4s through canyons and open plains, and lunch in a desert camp. Overnight near Petra. Day 7: Wadi Dana, Feynan. The village of Dana, perched high above the wadi from which it takes its name, is one of the few remaining traditional villages in Jordan. From here we begin a 14km walk through the Dana Nature Reserve, experiencing differing landscapes, birdlife and plenty of flora in bloom. Aided by Bedouin guides and mules, we arrive late afternoon at an ecolodge. Overnight Feynan. Day 8: Feynan, Ma’in Hot Springs. A freemorning in the lodge, with opportunities to visit ancient ruins and copper mines, and Bedouin tents. Drive to Wadi Zarqa Ma’in for the first of two nights in a hotel situated beside a series of natural hot springs and waterfalls. Day 9: Machaerus. Set on a hilltop with views over the Dead Sea, Machaerus is the Herodian fortified palace where John the Baptist was imprisoned and beheaded. There is a chance to visit the Bani Hamida Cooperative, another example of Jordan’s desire to promote and preserve local handicrafts. Final night in Wadi Zarqa Ma’in. Day 10. Drive to Amman airport for the flight to London. Arrive Heathrow c.3.30pm.
Practicalities Price: £3,640 (deposit £350). Single supplement £390 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £3,130. Included meals: 9 lunches (including 1 picnic) and 9 dinners with wine where available. Visas: required for most foreign nationals and the cost is included in the price of the tour as long as you are travelling with the group. Accommodation. The Intercontinental, Amman (intercontinental.com): a modern and excellently located hotel. Taybet Zaman, ten minutes from Petra (taybetzaman.jordantourismresorts. com): a converted Ottoman village, high in the hills, wonderful views. Feynan Lodge (feynan. com): award-winning eco-lodge run by the local Bedouin community. Evason Ma’In Hot Springs, Mai’in (sixsenses.com): beautiful spa hotel tucked in a valley behind the Dead Sea.
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2nd-century bc palace at Iraq al-Amir (Qasr al-Abd), just outside Amman. Once surrounded by an artificial lake, its lush setting is in stark contrast to the scenery of arid hills of the Crusader castle of Shobak. Jordan understands the value of its natural resources and leads the region in establishing projects and protected areas that promote the country’s biodiversity. Wadi Dana, an unspoiled valley in the heart of Jordan, allows for a full day’s walk and an opportunity to observe the rich flora and fauna in an area inhabited by Bedouin communities. The experience is heightened by a night in a candlelit lodge. Landscapes feature a great deal on this tour and the bewitching backdrop of Wadi Rum, described by T.E. Lawrence as ‘vast and echoing and God-like’, is a geological wonder of blood red sand and dramatic rock formations. Immortalised through the epic Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Wadi Rum bears the imprints of far more ancient human activity, including a Nabatean temple and simple rock drawings and inscriptions from various periods.
Day 3: Umm Qays, Amman. Early start to Umm Qays, ancient Gadara, set in the hills of northwest Jordan and commanding spectacular views over the Golan Heights and the Sea of Galilee. The site, which includes an impressive theatre, a colonnaded street and several Byzantine churches, is one of the most scenic in Jordan. After lunch return to Amman to attend a lecture and tour at the American Center of Oriental Research. Overnight Amman.
the Qasr al-Bint temple and the Royal Tombs. The afternoon is free to explore independently. Overnight near Petra.
Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
Looking for Latvia or Lithuania? See page 62 for The Baltic States, 9–22 August 2015. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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The major Nabatean, Roman, Christian & Islamic sites 15–23 October 2014 (mb 170) 9 days • £3,180 Lecturer: Jane Taylor 21–29 March 2015 (mb 259) 9 days • £3,360 Lecturer: Jane Taylor 25 October–2 November 2015 (mc 506) 9 days • £3,360 Lecturers: Sue Rollin & Jane Streetly Outstanding monuments of several civilizations – Nabatean, Roman, Early Christian, Umayyad, Crusader. The lecturers have travelled widely in the Middle East and are authorities on Jordan. Petra is the most spectacular archaeological site in the Middle East; we spend three nights here. Jordan possesses the most spectacular archaeological site in the Middle East – Petra, ‘rose-red city, half as old as time’, that easternly fascinating, westernly Baroque, altogether extraordinary city of the desert. Hidden in the mountains at the confluence of several caravan routes, many of its finest monuments are hewn from the living rock, brilliantly coloured sandstone striated with pinks, ochres and blue-greys. Its creators, the Nabataeans, drew on a range of Mediterranean and oriental styles to create a novel synthesis – uniquely Nabataean but with architectural evocations of the Hellenistic world, Egypt, Assyria and Imperial Rome. The Nabateans were an Arab people, first recorded in the fourth century bc, who grew rich by controlling the trade routes across an empire stretching from Saudi Arabia to Syria.
With Petra their capital, these nomadic desert traders became administrators and city-dwellers, whose kingdom was eventually incorporated into the Roman Empire. But decline set in, and by the 8th century ad Petra had become virtually
‘Thank you greatly for another trip-of-a-lifetime: challenging but extraordinary. Very lifeenhancing indeed.’ uninhabited. In Roman times part of the wealthy provinces of Syria and Arabia, Jordan is also rich in traces of other civilizations. Jerash is one of the best preserved and most beautiful of Roman cities. Remains of Byzantine churches, with very fine floor mosaics, lie scattered through the Jordanian hills and valleys – themselves the settings of many events recorded in the Old Testament. The varied arts of Islam are seen in the hunting lodges and desert retreats of the sophisticated and pleasure-loving Umayyad dynasty of the mid seventh to mid eighth centuries. And the castles of the Crusaders and their Arab opponents are among the most impressive examples of mediaeval military architecture anywhere. A constant backdrop to all this are the awesomely beautiful mountains, gorges and deserts of today’s Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Created after the First World War and the downfall of the Ottoman Empire, Jordan’s borders are an almost arbitrary outcome of the Franco-British re-ordering of the Levant. Something of a backwater then, and constantly buffeted since by the disputatiousness of larger neighbours, Jordan has – against all odds – succeeded in steering a precarious course to survival, stability and modest prosperity.
Jerash, mid-19th-century engraving.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 2.00pm (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Amman (time in the air: c. 5 hours). Arrive at the hotel at c. 10.30pm. First of three nights in Amman. Day 2: Amman, Jerash. The citadel in Amman was the religious and political centre of the ancient city. Here are the remains of the Temple of Hercules, the rebuilt Umayyad palace. Drive north through red earth hills with olive groves and Aleppo pine woods. Jerash, ancient Gerasa, a leading city of the Decapolis and very prosperous in the 2nd and 3rd centuries ad, is one of the bestpreserved and most beautiful of ruined Roman cities and we spend the afternoon there. Among the more spectacular remains are a triumphal arch, an oval piazza, the Cardo with its flanking colonnades, a food market, hippodrome, theatres, magnificent temples of Zeus and Artemis and several early Christian churches. Day 3: Umayyad desert residences. In the desert to the east of Amman are remarkable survivals from the Umayyad Caliphs, the first dynasty of Islam – early 8th century small pleasure palaces and hunting lodges. The fortress-like desert complex of Qasr Kharana; the fort of Azraq, originally Roman, rebuilt in the 13th century and used by T.E. Lawrence as his HQ for two months in 1917–18. Break for lunch at the Azraq Lodge, a former British military field Hospital, before continuing to the unesco world heritage site of Qasr Amra whose unique and exceptionally beautiful wall paintings are currently being restored in a project coordinated by the World Monuments Fund. Day 4: Amman, Karak. The impressive new Jordan Museum presenting the history and cultural heritage of Jordan in a series of beautifully designed galleries. Leaving Amman, drive southwards along the Biblical King’s Highway. The 12th century Crusader castle of Karak, modified by the Mamluks in the 13th century, is an impressive example of mediaeval military architecture with many chambers surviving. First of three nights in Petra.
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Day 5: Petra. The Siq, the narrow mile-long crevice with its Nabatean carvings and hydraulic system would itself merit a detour, but it is just the prelude to one of the most astonishing archaeological sites in the Middle East (also a unesco world heritage site). Emerging from the Siq, the visitor is confronted by the templelike façade of the ‘Treasury’, vast in scale, both oriental and classical in vocabulary, Hellenistic in inspiration but uniquely Nabataean – supreme among Petra’s wealth of sculptured façades, mainly tombs, created in the living rock. There are also impressive remains of built monuments in the heart of the city, from grand temples, public buildings and churches to houses. Not the least striking feature is the multicoloured, striated but predominantly red sandstone. After lunch, return to the hotel or climb, via the Soldier Tomb complex, up to the High Place of Sacrifice (c. 800 steps) where the cultic installations are still clearly visible.
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Malta
World heritage Malta, from Neolithic to now Day 6: Petra. For the second day in Petra walk again through the Siq, past the ‘Street of Façades’ and the theatre to study the more open area around the paved and colonnaded street. The remains of various structures include two mighty buildings, the ‘Great Temple’ and Qasr al Bint. Recent excavations have revealed what is almost certainly a cathedral with 5th and 6th century mosaic floors. Climb up (over 900 steps) to one of the finest rock-cut façades, ad-Deir (the Monastery), and some staggering views of hills and valleys of contorted rock.
Valetta, Strada of S. Giovanni, engraving 1840 after a drawing by H.E. Allen.
Day 7: Little Petra, Dead Sea. ‘Little Petra’, a narrow gorge with three natural widenings, is seen as a commercial centre with carved façades and chambers and a fragment of naturalistic Nabatean painting. A spectacular descent through rugged and ragged sandstone leads to Wadi Araba, part of the Jordanian section of the Great Rift Valley. Stop at the Museum at the Lowest Place on Earth featuring important archaeological finds recovered from the region, including artefacts from the church and monastery of St Lot. Reach the hotel on the Dead Sea shore mid-afternoon to relax and swim. First of two nights in Sweimeh. Day 8: Mount Nebo, Madaba. Drive up from the Dead Sea, flanked by dramatic mountain scenery. Visit the Byzantine church with remarkable mosaics on Mount Nebo, the reputed burial site of Moses. At Madaba visit the archaeological park, where many mosaics are preserved, and see the unique 6th century mosaic map of the Holy Land in the church of St George. Day 9. Drive to Amman airport (1 hour). Arrive Heathrow c. 2.45pm. There may be slight variations to this itinerary depending on the preferences of the lecturer.
Practicalities Price in 2014: £3,180. Single supplement £420. Price without flights £2,830. Price: £3,180 (2014), £3,360 (2015) (deposit £300). Single supplement £420 (2014), £440 (2015) (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,830 (2014), £2,870 (2015). Included meals: 7 lunches (including 2 picnics), 5 dinners with wine.
Accommodation. The Intercontinental, Amman (intercontinental.com): a modern and excellently located hotel. Mövenpick Hotel, Petra (moevenpick-hotels.com): a modern and excellently located hotel close to the site. Mövenpick Dead Sea Hotel, Sweimeh (moevenpick-hotels.com): buildings scattered through lush tropical gardens; shady lounges, antique or traditional-style furnishings, spa and health centre. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Indian Summer, 30 March–11 April 2015 (page 107).
5–11 October 2015 (mc 490) 7 days • £2,290 Lecturer: Juliet Rix A wonderful exploration of this fascinating, diverse island. A visit to some of the world’s earliest stone temples, amongst a concentration of other astonishing major historic sites. Led by award winning journalist Juliet Rix, author of the definitive guide to Malta (Bradt Guide: Malta & Gozo) and expert on the area. Visit the rural and picturesque Gozo Island, with stunning natural features. Malta has an extraordinary 7000-year history beginning with the arrival of a little-known people from Sicily who became the creators of Malta’s unique Neolithic temples. Older than the Great Pyramids and the famous standing stones at Stonehenge, Malta’s temples were built between 3600 and 2500 bc – they are megalithic architecture constructed a millennium before Mycenae. All the temples are unesco World Heritage Sites, as is the unique Hal Saflieni Hypogeum, the extraordinary triple-layered tomb complex cut
from solid rock where the ‘Temple People’ buried their dead. And this is just the start of the story. Malta, with its perfect natural harbours, was desired by every trading or invading nation in the Mediterranean from the Phoenicians and Romans to both sides in the Second World War. Each occupier has left its mark from RomanByzantine catacombs to British red letter boxes. The Knights of St John Hospitaller, commonly referred to as ‘The Knights of Malta’ have, of course, left the greatest impression. Ousted from Jerusalem and then Rhodes, this order of maritime warrior monks arrived in Malta in 1530 and ruled until 1798. After nearly losing the country to the Ottoman Turks in The Great Siege of 1565, the Knights built a near-impregnable new city on a rocky peninsula between two harbours: Malta’s delightful diminutive capital, Valletta. Despite the ravages of the Second World War, Valletta remains fundamentally the Knights’ city although one area has just received a very twenty–first century makeover. Badly bombed and minimally restored, the City Gate area has been redesigned by the architect of the Pompidou Centre and the London Shard, Renzo Piano.
Itinerary Day 1: Valletta. Fly at c. 11.00am from London Heathrow to Malta. Drive to Valletta, a peninsula flanked by fine natural harbours and once the most strongly fortified city in Christendom. Here, survey the massive fortifications protecting the Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Visas: required for most foreign nationals and the cost is included in the price of the tour as long as you are travelling with the group.
6–12 October 2014 (mb 176) 7 days • £2,180 Lecturer: Juliet Rix
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Valletta Baroque Festival
Music and art in the heart of the Mediterranean landward approach and view the Grand Harbour from the ramparts. Day 2: Hagar Qim, Mnajdra, Ghar Lapsi. Drive through attractive countryside to the prehistoric temples overlooking the sea, Hagar Qim and Mnajdra. In the afternoon, see the ancient trackworks, Clapham Junction cart ruts. Day 3: Valletta. The morning is spent in two museums housed in important Knights’period buildings - The National Museum of Archaeology, home of the unique ‘Fat Ladies of Malta’ and other original carvings from the Neolithic Temples; and the Museum of Fine Art. Visit the charming Manoel Theatre, a rare survival of the early 18th century and the CoCathedral of St John, one of the most interesting of Baroque buildings, which has lavish carved wall decoration, ceiling paintings by Mattia Preti, magnificently carved tombs and two paintings by Caravaggio. Finally, see the Grand Master’s Palace with state rooms, tapestry hall and armoury. Day 4: Paola, Valletta. In Paola, the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum is a unesco World Heritage Site and the only prehistoric underground temple in the world. The Tarxien Temple site is the most complex in Malta and would have been the most decorative. The afternoon is free in Valletta. Day 5: Gozo. A 30-minute ferry crossing to the island of Gozo, which is more rural and less populated than Malta. See the temple of Ggantija, amongst the oldest of Malta’s prehistoric monuments. The chief town is Victoria, which has a citadel, cathedral, museum and Sicilo-Norman houses. Fungus Rock, Gharb and Ramla Bay are all of geological, historical and mythical interest respectively. Day 6: Mdina, Rabat, Mosta. Mdina, Malta’s ancient capital, is an unspoilt citadel of great beauty, centre of the indigenous aristocracy, with mediaeval walls, grand palazzos and Baroque cathedral. Spreading below is the town of Rabat, with Early Christian catacombs. Afternoon drive to Mosta with the third largest dome in Europe. Day 7: Vittoriosa. Cross the Grand Harbour by boat, to see churches, forts, and the World War II museum in Vittoriosa. Fly to London Heathrow arriving at 7.30pm.
Practicalities malta
Price: £2,180 (2014, deposit £200), £2,290 (2015, deposit £250). Single supplement £260 (2014), £110 (2015) (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,020 (2014), £2,110 (2015). Included meals: 2 lunches, 3 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Phoenicia, Valletta (phoeniciamalta.com): deluxe 5-star in Valletta, furnished with style and character, the best in Valletta and just outside the city gates. Group size: between 10 and 20 participants.
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Combine this tour with: Sicily, 21 September–3 October 2015 (page 156), Caravaggio, 12–19 October 2015 (page 147).
13–20 January 2015 (mb 227) 8 days • £2,460 (including tickets to 5 performances) Lecturer: Juliet Rix Baroque music in one of the most complete and compact of Baroque cities. World-class musicians include Iestyn Davies, the King’s Consort and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Guided tours of Malta’s principal archaeological and architectural treasures.
followed by dinner and an evening concert at the Teatru Manoel: Handel, concert arias, Robert King with the King’s Consort and Iestyn Davies (countertenor). Day 3: Mdina, Rabat. Mdina, Malta’s ancient capital and centre of the indigenous aristocracy, is an unspoilt citadel of great beauty, with mediaeval walls, grand palazzos and Baroque cathedral. Visit Palazzo Falson, a 13th-century private residence and the second oldest building in Mdina. Spreading below is the town of Rabat, with Early Christian catacombs. Some free time followed by an evening concert at the Sarria Church: Commemorating the Tercentenary of the birth of Maltese composer, with Girolamo Abos and Passacaglia Ensemble. Day 4: Gozo. A thirty-minute ferry crossing to the island of Gozo which is more rural and less populated than Malta. See the temple of Ggantija, amongst the oldest of Malta’s prehistoric monuments. The chief town is Victoria, which has a citadel, cathedral and Sicilo-Norman houses. Stop for lunch in the citadel to try homemade Gozitan food.
Engraving c. 1890.
Malta is a highly apposite setting for the performance of Baroque music. During the Baroque period the island was ruled by the Knights of Malta or Knights Hospitaller, Valletta was completely rebuilt and the knights themselves were vigorous patrons of the arts, including music and architecture. One of Europe’s oldest working theatres is the Teatru Manoel, built in 1731 at the behest of the Grand Master of the order, Fra António Manoel de Vilhena. With only 600 seats, the theatre is a masterpiece of carpentry, with three tiers of wooden boxes, gilded and painted, and a trompel’oeil ceiling. Opera companies visited Malta regularly, performing works by Hasse, Piccini and Galuppi. Other buildings hosting concerts include the President’s (formerly Grandmaster’s) Palace; St John’s Co-Cathedral, begun in 1573 and gradually embellished to become a great ensemble of Baroque art; and the Church of St Catherine d’Italie (1713). Valletta’s beautiful position on one of the world’s greatest natural harbours, and the fine buildings which still dominate the city, make it a splendid location in which to hear the music of Bach and Handel and their contemporaries.
Itinerary Day 1: Valletta. Fly at c. 11.30am (Air Malta) from London Heathrow to Malta. Drive to Valletta, a peninsula flanked by fine natural harbours and once the most strongly fortified city in Christendom. Day 2: Valletta. Survey the massive fortifications protecting the landward approach and view the Grand Harbour from the ramparts. Visit The National Museum of Archaeology, home of the unique ‘Fat Ladies of Malta’ and other carvings from the Neolithic Temples. Some free time
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Day 5: Valletta, Ta’ Qali. Some free time in the morning followed by a midday concert at All Saints Church: Bach, Cello Suites 1–3, Sigiswald Kuijken (cello). Visit a Maltese wine estate and try a selection of local wines. Day 6: Paola, Valletta. In Paola, the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum is a unesco World Heritage Site and the only prehistoric underground temple in the world. The Tarxien Temple site is the most complex in Malta and would have been the most decorative. Evening concert at the Teatru Manoel: Bach, Goldberg Variations, performance with lecture, Joanna Camilleri (piano). Day 7: Valletta. Guided tours of the Manoel Theatre and the Co-Cathedral of St John, which has lavish carved wall decoration, ceiling paintings, magnificent tombs and two paintings by Caravaggio. A private tour of the Casa Rocca Piccola, a 16th-century palazzo owned by the Marquis de Piro, before the final evening concert in St John’s Co-Cathedral: Bach, St John’s Passion, with The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Day 8: Vittoriosa. Cross the Grand Harbour by boat (weather permitting) to see churches, forts, and the World War II museum in Vittoriosa. Fly to London Heathrow, arriving c. 7.30pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,460 (deposit £250). Single supplement £210 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,310. Included meals: 5 lunches (of which one is a light lunch and wine tasting) and 4 dinners with wine. Music: tickets to 5 performances are included, costing c. £215. Accommodation. Hotel Phoenicia, Valletta (phoeniciamalta.com): deluxe 5-star in Valletta, furnished with style and character, the best in Valletta and just outside the city gates. Group size: between 10 and 20 participants.
Lands of the Maya
Maya civilization ancient & modern in Mexico & Guatemala 26 January–11 February 2015 (mb 233) 17 days • £5,440 Lecturer: Professor Norman Hammond Magnificent Maya cities including Chichén Itzá, Palenque and Tikal, with time also for the little visited. An insight into modern Maya life: customs, religion and colourful handicrafts. Splendid colonial architecture. Spectacular scenery: jungle, lakeside, coastal, volcanic. Led by a leading authority on Maya civilization Professor Norman Hammond.
From World Pictures by Mortimer Menpes, publ. 1903.
now seems that environmental disaster – land clearance under population pressure exacerbated by severe droughts – was a major factor. But this was not quite the end, as new cities emerged in other areas, such as Uxmal and Chichén Itzá in the north of the Yucatán peninsula, which continued in much reduced form until extirpation by Conquistadores and missionaries in the sixteenth century. Today there are some six million speakers of Maya languages, the largest group of native Americans north of Panama. They reveal a distinctive living culture, an intriguing mixture of both ancient beliefs and practices adopted since the Spanish conquest.
Itinerary Day 1: Cancún. Fly at c. 10.45am (British Airways) from London Gatwick direct to Cancún. Overnight Cancún. Day 2: Chichén Itzá, Izamal. Situated in the Northern Lowlands, Chichén Itzá was the New Rome of the Maya world, where Maya culture was reborn in a different guise that was to last until the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadores in the 16th century. Prominent among the constructions here is El Castillo pyramid, simple in appearance but functioning as a complex Maya calendar. See also the great ball court, El Caracól observatory and the sacred well. Izamal is the location of the monastery of Diego de Landa, ardent extirpator of idolatries in the 1560s; the church is built symbolically on a partially razed pyramid. First of two nights in Mérida. Day 3: Mérida. Morning walk through the colonial centre including the cathedral and main square. The 19th cent. Palacio del Gobierno
houses impressive murals by local artist Fernando Castro Pacheco depicting the violent struggle of the Maya against the Spanish. The new Museum of the Maya World contains c. 500 artefacts including sculpture, jewellery and ceramics. Free afternoon. Day 4: Uxmal, Campeche. Uxmal arose towards the end of lowland Maya civilization but was abandoned around ad 900. Here are to be found some of the most beautiful of Maya buildings, distinguished by their long and low proportions and characterised by elaborate stone mosaics on the façades. Continue to Kabah, with its eccentric Palace of the Masks. The night is spent in the charming colonial city of Campeche, with historic defences. Day 5: Edzná, Palenque. Little visited Edzná is famous for its complex irrigation system and an impressive five-story pyramid. Drive south to Palenque (c. 8 hours including stops) for the first of three nights. Day 6: Palenque. Enjoying a magnificent location in the jungle of the foothills of Chiapas, Palenque rose to a dominant position through war and marriage alliances in the Late Classic period, ad 600 to 800. The sculpture found here is particularly outstanding. The largest structure, the Temple of the Inscriptions, housed the spectacular tomb of the great ruler Pacal. Complex imagery and texts on the walls make it possible to trace the history of those who commissioned some of the most beautiful of Maya architecture. Day 7: Bonampak. The small site of Bonampak has remarkably well-preserved murals with graphic scenes of royal rituals, a savage battle and sacrifice of the captives. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Ever since explorers revealed the existence of their jungle-clad ruins in the 1840s, the ‘lost’ civilization of the Maya has been a cause of astonishment and speculation. For while Europe was struggling through the ‘Dark Ages’, Maya peoples were enjoying the apogée of their civilization in seemingly the most unlikely of places – the rainforests of Central America. With organisational skills that can only be the product of a highly sophisticated society, the Maya created magnificent cities replete with elegant palaces, mighty temples and broad plazas studded with carved stelae and altars. They were great mathematicians and astronomers who conceived one of the most complex and accurate calendars the world has known. They also devised an elaborate and beautiful system of hieroglyphic writing, the only fully-developed written language in the pre-Columbian Americas. Maya art was complex and loaded with arcane symbolism, yet to our sensibilities it appears remarkably naturalistic and accessible. All this was achieved by a people still technically in the Stone Age and who, despite many colourful theories to the contrary, developed in complete isolation from the civilizations of the ‘Old World’, of Europe and Asia. Until some forty years ago a powerful mystique had grown up about the Maya. They were thought to have been a peaceable society of independent cities governed by priest-kings who devoted their days to astronomy and divination on behalf of their people. Today, however, this image has been dramatically changed by the continuing discoveries of archaeologists and by one of the great investigative triumphs of the century, the decipherment of Maya writing. Visitors to the great Maya cities can learn of their changing fortunes over almost a thousand years in extraordinary detail. We now know the history of the royal families and can also understand the essentials of Maya religious beliefs and how Maya rulers saw themselves, like Egyptian pharaohs, as god-kings on earth whose elaborate rituals of blood-letting and sacrifice sustained the Maya world. In the tenth century ad the heartland of Maya civilization in the tropical forests collapsed. Construction in the great cities ceased, temples and palaces were invaded by the jungle. It
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Professor Norman Hammond Leading expert on Maya civilization. He is a Senior Fellow at Cambridge University and Professor Emeritus of Archaeology at Boston University. His many books include Ancient Maya Civilization, Nohmul: a Prehistoric Maya Community in Belize and Cuello: an early Maya community in Belize. He is Archaeology Correspondent for The Times. All lecturers’ biographies can be found on pages 8–15.
charm and impressive Baroque churches, some of which still remain in picturesque ruin. Overnight in Antigua Guatemala. Day 16: Antigua Guatemala. Free morning, perhaps to visit the Colonial Art Museum. Drive to Guatemala City for a mid-afternoon flight, via Miami (American Airlines). Day 17: fly to London Heathrow (British Airways) arriving at c. 12.00 noon. Please note this tour departs from London Gatwick and returns to London Heathrow.
Practicalities
Altar of the Temple of the Sun, engraving c. 1840.
Price: £5,440 (deposit £500). Single supplement £520. Price without international flights £4,720. Day 8: San Cristóbal de las Casas. Drive during the morning to San Cristóbal de las Casas, a colonial town in a temperate, pineclad mountain valley and a centre of modern Maya highland life. Spanish churches, colonial mansions, traditional market with gorgeous textiles. Overnight San Cristóbal. Day 9: Panajachel. Most of the day is occupied with driving from Mexico into Guatemala, the destination being the small town of Panajachel, splendidly situated on the shores of Lake Atitlán. First of three nights in Panajachel.
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Day 10: Santiago de Atitlán. Early morning boat trip across this spectacular lake (which is surrounded by volcanoes) to the traditional Maya town of Santiago de Atitlán. Here the curious wooden effigy of Maximón is still worshipped and can be visited in his ‘house’. Day 11: Chichicastenango. Optional morning excursion to Chichicastenango, with its centuries-old, colourful market. The wide range of wares reflect the local traditions of weaving and woodcarving. An interesting mix of Maya and Catholic worship takes place in the church of Santo Tomás.
Looking for Montenegro? See page 28 for The Western Balkans, depar tures in May and October.
Day 12: Iximché, Guatemala City, El Remate. Iximché is an excellent example of a Late Postclassic site, established c. 1470 with three plazas, temples, palaces and ball courts, and with defences which were stormed by the Spanish under Pedro de Alvarado in 1524. Drive to Guatemala City to visit the Archaeological Museum, a major collection of Maya art and artefacts. From here fly north to Flores and continue to El Remate, a small village of the shore of Lake Petén Itzá, for the first of three nights. Day 13: Yaxhá. In the Petén jungle of the Guatemalan lowlands the huge city of Yaxhá is surrounded by lakes and teeming with wildlife. Its forty stelae and nine pyramids date from the Preclassic and Classic era. Day 14: Tikal. Even bigger than Yaxhá, Tikal was a thriving metropolis of maybe 100,000 at its height. Its massive pyramid-temples still pierce the forest canopy making it architecturally the grandest of all Maya cities. One of the great powers of the Maya world, its changing fortunes over almost a thousand years can be followed in the hieroglyphs. Progressive clearance and excavation have revealed an intricate pattern of urban planning. Day 15: Antigua Guatemala. Early morning flight back to Guatemala City, then drive to the splendid, colonial capital of Guatemala. Though shattered by earthquakes in 1773, much of its old fabric survives. See colonial architecture of great
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Included meals: 10 lunches (including 1 picnic) and 14 dinners with wine. Accommodation. JW Marriott, Cancún (marriott.co.uk/cancun), a modern, comfortable, resort hotel. Hotel Gran Real Yucatán, Mérida (granrealyucatan.com), a converted 19th century house, centrally located. Hotel Plaza, Campeche (hotelplazacampeche.com) is functional and comfortable. Hotel Villa Mercedes, Palenque (hotelesvillamercedes.com), a well-maintained hotel near the site. Hotel Casa Mexicana, San Cristóbal (hotelcasamexicana.com) is a Colonial style hotel. Hotel Atitlán, Panajachel (hotelatitlan.com), located on the shores of the lake with beautiful gardens and views. Hotel Camino Real Tikal, El Remate (caminorealtikal. com.gt) is situated on Lake Petén Itzá and surrounded by jungle, with modern, comfortable rooms. Hotel Casa Santo Domingo, Antigua (casasantodomingo.com.gt) is a beautifully restored, colonial hotel. All hotels are locally rated as 4 or 5 star. Group size: between 14 and 22 participants.
Morocco
Cities & empires 21 March–1 April 2015 (mb 271) 11 nights • £4,170 Lecturer: James Brown 12–23 September 2014 (mc 466) 11 nights • £4,170 Lecturer: James Brown From Tangier to Marrakech, including the imperial cities of Fez and Meknes. Led by James Brown, historian specialising in Morocco. Spectacular landscapes: the Atlas Mountains, valleys, palm groves, woodland, desert. See the sun set over the sand dunes at Merzouga and visit the magnificent Roman ruins at Volubilis. Quite a demanding tour with some long drives.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 7.50pm from London Heathrow to Tangier (Royal Air Maroc). There will be a snack in your hotel room on arrival. First of two nights in Tangier. Day 2: Tangier. A morning walk investigates the traditional walled Muslim city and the relics of the famous turn-of-the-century international city. Visit the Anglican Church, the Kasbah quarter, including the museum, the Petit Socco square and the Mendoubia garden. Some free time. Day 3: Tetouan, Chefchaouen. The heirs of Granada. Drive east over the Anjera hills to the city of Tetouan, settled by refugees from Andalucía whose Moorish culture is clearly identifiable in the streets of the old city and the products of the artisan school. Drive south to Chefchaouen to visit the kasbah and then on to Fez for the first of three nights.
Day 4: Volubilis, Meknes. In impressive isolation on the edge of the olive-covered Zerhoun hills lie the ruins of Volubilis, the capital of Roman Morocco, with triumphal arch, basilica and mosaics. Though it boasts an old walled trading city, a Merenid Madrassa and an intimate palace museum to rival Fez, Meknes is yet overwhelmed by the vast ruins of the 17th-century imperial city established by the powerful Sultan Moulay Ismail to house his Negro slave army. Day 5: Fez. A full day to explore the extraordinary walled mediaeval city of Fez that stands at the heart of Moroccan culture. Highlights include the Bou Inania Madrassa and the Karaouyine Mosque, as well as the pungent Tanneries. Afternoon tour of the city walls and some free time. Day 6: the Middle Atlas. Pick up the old caravan trail south, stopping at Midelt before crossing the nomad-grazed high plateau of the Middle Atlas and descending along the Ziz valley to the Tafilalt oasis on the edge of the Sahara. First of two nights in Erfoud. Day 7: the Tafilalt Oasis, Merzouga. Visit Tafilalt, including the exposed mounds and ruined mud walls that were once the glittering mediaeval city of Sigilmassa. Evening excursion to see the sunset over the sand dunes of the desert of Merzouga. Day 8: Erfoud to Ouarzazate. Follow a chain of palm-filled valleys west, crossing through the old market town of Tinerhir and the Dades valley. See the extraordinary tapering towers of the kasbahs dotted along the route. Leave the main
morocco
Morocco, just a cannon’s shot from Gibraltar and the ports of Spain, has always commanded the respect and fascinated the imagination of Europe. It was one of the last nations to fall under colonial occupation in 1912 and the first to win its independence from the French in 1956. The very same Grand Vizier who greeted the first French Governor had the satisfaction of ushering out the last colonial ruler before his death. Even to fellow Muslims, it was the near legendary ‘al-Maghrib al-Aqsa’, the land of the setting sun, perched on the north-west corner of the African continent where the known world ended and the sea of darkness began. Its boundaries are defined by four mountain ranges which shelter the fertile Atlantic plains and by three seas: the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the sand sea of the Sahara. Unlike some parts of the Middle East and North Africa, Morocco was not heavily settled by Arabs after the Islamic conquest in the late seventh to early eighth century. Instead the indigenous Berber tribes of the area converted gradually to Islam and created cities and empires with a uniquely Moroccan flavour. One of the first of these cities was Sigilmassa in the Tafilalt oasis, a tribal watering hole which became a thriving Saharan port city from whence camel caravans set out for West Africa laden with salt from mines in the desert and other northern products which were exchanged in ancient Ghana and Mali for gold, slaves, ostrich feathers, ivory and gum. From Sigilmassa, caravans wended their way north and east to the great entrepots of North Africa, Egypt and the Middle East. Within a couple of decades, Fez was founded in North Morocco as a rival political centre and another stage in the great caravan trade across the Maghrib. In the late eleventh century Marrakech emerged in the same way. This rich trade could not help but attract Christian European attention and by the fifteenth century, the Portuguese had captured Ceuta hoping for a share of the profits. Spain, England, the Netherlands and even the Scandinavian countries were quick to follow, using the Mediterranean ports like Tangier to access the riches of Morocco. Sultanates rose
and fell on the profits of this trade which finally dwindled in the nineteenth century. The sites along the tour’s route tell of the mediaeval Islamic empires of Morocco, founded by Arab conquerors and the Berbers of the region, and of their European trading powers, lured to Africa by tales of gold and other exotic treasures. The long drives, often winding along the ancient trade routes, reveal the dramatic landscapes of Morocco from fertile olive groves to snow-capped mountains and long deep green palm oases which taper into the desert like ribbons trailing from mountain to desert.
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Tangier, steel engraving c. 1840 after David Roberts. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
Morocco continued
Andalusian Morocco
Legacy of a remarkable cultural exchange road for the Todra Gorge with its vividly contrasting colours of bright green vegetation set against red, brown and orange rock faces. Overnight Ouarzazate. Day 9: the High Atlas. Cross the High Atlas mountains, stopping at Taourirt and the celebrated kasbah village of Aït Benhaddou before twisting through the high passes. Descend through woodland on the north face of the mountains down to the red city of Marrakech for the first of three nights. Day 10: Marrakech. A morning devoted to the architectural achievements of the Saadian dynasty, paid for by the sale of sugar produced nearby. The dazzling decorative excess of the Saadian tombs and the gaunt simplicity of the ruins of the El Badi Palace are balanced by the calm munificence of the Ben Youssef Madrassa. There is an afternoon visit to the Marjorelle gardens, with its bamboo groves and date plantations. Day 11: Marrakech. The Koutoubia minaret is the oldest of the three Almohad towers constructed in the 12th century in Marrakech, Rabat and Seville and it stands 70 metres high. The late19th-century Bahia Palace of the chief minister Ba Ahmad shows the continuity of artistic styles from Saadian era. In the afternoon visit the world famous markets and Djemaa el-Fna square. Day 12: Marrakech. Free morning for independent exploration of the city. Fly from Marrakech to London Gatwick arriving at c. 7.55pm.
Practicalities Price: £4,170 (deposit £400). Single supplement £510 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £3,930. Included meals: 7 lunches, 8 dinners with wine or soft drinks (not all restaurants serve alcohol). Visas: not required for nationals of the United Kingdom, Australia or United States for tourist stays of up to 90 days. Nationals of other countries should check their requirements.
morocco
Accommodation. Hotel El-Minzah, Tangier (leroyal.com/morocco): a comfortable but dated 5-star hotel, centrally located; Sofitel Palace Jamaï, Fez (sofitel-legend.com/fes/ en): an excellent 5-star hotel within the medina; Kenzi Bélère, Eroud: a friendly but comparatively basic hotel; Berbere Palace, Ouarzazate (leberberepalace.com): a functional 4-star hotel; Les Borjs de La Kasbah, Marrakech (lesborjsdelakasbah.com): a characterful and tranquil riad-style hotel, within the kasbah quarter of the medina; rooms vary in size and outlook. All hotels have swimming pools. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Gastronomic Andalucia, 13–20 March 2015 (page 200).
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13–21 May 2015 (mb 330) 8 nights • £3,460 Lecturer: James Brown A unique approach to northern Morocco’s heritage and relationship with southern Spain. Led by an expert in Moroccan history. 3 nights in Rabat, Morocco’s often overlooked but charming capital. Excellent hotels and restaurants throughout. Morocco, tucked away in the northwest corner of Africa and girded by the Atlantic Ocean, the great Atlas mountain ranges, and the vast expanses of the Sahara, is a country of enduring mystery. Often considered exotic and forbidding by Europeans, one of its greatest secrets is its deep cultural connection with southern Spain and Portugal, long ruled by Muslims who called it alAndalus. They created a sparkling Arab-Islamic culture celebrated in poetry, song and iconic buildings including the immense great mosque of Cordoba and the stunningly beautiful hilltop Alhambra palace. From the outset this culture was shared with Morocco. Travellers constantly went back and forth and in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Moroccan Berber Almoravid and Almohad dynasties made al-Andalus part of a vast North African empire. Under the Almoravids, West African gold paid Andalusi scholars and
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craftsmen and the architecture of Cordoba embellished the cities of Morocco, while under their Almohad successors, a new dramatic architectural style fused the Andalusi genius with Berber dynamism. When disaster struck al-Andalus in the form of the Christian conquest (reconquista) in the thirteenth century, the trickle of Spanish Muslims and Jews to Morocco became a flood. These refugees invigorated the cultures of the cities where they settled bringing with them their skills and aesthetic sense, and their music and poetry which gained a new depth and poignancy in laments about the loss of al-Andalus. The last wave of migrants were the Moriscos, Muslims forcibly converted to Christianity in the sixteenth century and finally expelled from Spain in the early seventeenth century. Deeply bitter towards their erstwhile Christian Spanish compatriots, many became pirates preying on Spanish New World shipping. A handful, the infamous Sallee Rovers, founded the Republic of the Bou Regreg in a ruined fort outside Rabat where they were joined by Dutch and English pirates until their republic was destroyed by the ancestors of the current kings of Morocco. This tour traces the story of the myriad connections between al-Andalus and Morocco, their cultural legacy, and their imprint on the mountains and fertile green plains of northern Morocco. We shall explore the twelfth century architectural fusion of Andalusi and Berber styles in the great Almohad monuments of Rabat, and witness the handiwork of Andalusi and
The Atlas Mountains with Fez in the foreground, aquatint 1811.
Morocco’s capital, arriving late afternoon. First of three nights in Rabat. Day 7: Rabat. The capital of the Kingdom since 1912 has long since been an important cultural bridge between the two regions. The unfinished Tower of Hasan, a gigantic project started in the 12th century is testament to Rabat’s prestige and mirrors the Giralda of Seville and Kutubiya of Marrakesh. In the same complex is the Mohamed V Mausoleum commemorating the sovereign responsible for regaining Morocco’s independence and decorated in art of Andalusian origin. In the afternoon walk through the city’s bustling and authentic walled Medina ending up in the Kasbah of the Oudayas, a wonderfully located complex of turquoise and white-washed houses with high ramparts and elaborate gates with views across the Wadi Bu Regreg and the Atlantic Ocean. Overnight Rabat. Day 8: Rabat, Salé. Situated outside the city walls, the vast necropolis of Chellah sits on a prosperous Roman city of Sala Colonia. Deserted in the 8th century, the site became a royal necroplis for the Marinid Sultans and is home to some fine mosaics and examples of Islamic architecture. Cross to the adjacent river bank and Rabat’s sister town, Salé, to visit the exquisite madrasa. The afternoon is free to explore Rabat with its fine examples of early 20th century architecture. Final night in Rabat.
Maghribi craftsmen in the beautiful jewel-like Marinid madrasas of Fez, Meknes and Salé, built at the same time as the Alhambra palace. We shall also visit coastal towns rebuilt all or in part by Andalusi migrants with characteristic Mediterranean whitewashed walls and blue or green paintwork, and see the strongholds from which Andalusis fought back in Rabat and the isolated mountain town of Chefchaouan.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 10.00pm from London Heathrow to Tangier (Royal Air Maroc). There will be a snack in your hotel room on arrival. First of two nights in Tangier.
Day 3: Tetouan, Chefchaouen. Drive east over the Anjera hills to the city of Tetouan, settled by refugees from Spain whose Moorish culture is clearly identifiable in the streets of the old city. Visit the Medina and attend a private performance of Andalusi music. Drive south to
Day 4: Fez. Fes al-Bali, the traditional capital of northern Morocco, has a long history of interaction with al-Andalus. When it was founded in the eighth century, it was populated by local Berbers and Arabs from Iberia and one of its quarters is still call the al-Andalus quarter today. Over the centuries, its connections with alAndalus deepened. See the Qarawiyyin Mosque with its ‘Cordoban’ minaret and Andalusiinspired renovations, Marinid madrasas built in the Andalusi style, and many other examples of how the Moroccan ‘Andalusi’ style evolved. We shall also see craftsmen at work perpetuating artisanal traditions common to Morocco and medieval al-Andalus. Overnight Fez. Day 5: Fez. Fes al-Jadid was founded in the fourteenth century as the royal city of the Marinid dynasty. The Marinids had close relations with the Nasrids of Granada who built the Alhambra and exchanged courtiers, craftsmen and soldiers with them. See the facade of the royal palace and gateways executed in the Andalusi style and also the Jewish quarter of Fes, the Mellah, populated in part by immigrants from Spain who preferred to live under Islamic rule as the Catholic kings became more hostile to Judaism. Final night in Fez.
Practicalities Price: £3,460 (deposit £350). Single supplement £480 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £3,210. Included meals: 6 lunches, 6 dinners with wine. Visas: not required for nationals of the United Kingdom, Australia or United States for tourist stays of up to 90 days. Nationals of other countries should check their requirements. Accommodation. Hotel El-Minzah, Tangier (leroyal.com/morocco): comfortable but dated 5-star hotel, centrally located. Hotel Sofitel Palais Jamaïs, Fez (sofitel-legend.com/fes/en/): excellent 5-star hotel within the medina. La Tour Hassan, Rabat (latourhassan.com): centrally located with a garden and an excellent Moroccan restaurant. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
morocco
Day 2: Tangier, Asilah. Morning visit of the Kasbah and the museum situated within before an afternoon visit of the charming port of Asilah on the Atlantic coast. Founded by Arab conquerors in the 9th century ad, Asilah was an important trading post and established strong links with the West under the Merinid Dynasty before it was stormed by the Portuguese in ad 1471. Today the town is well preserved with high rampart walls, small alleyways and white-washed houses. Overnight Tangier.
Chefchaouen to visit the kasbah and then on to Fez for the first of three nights.
Day 9: Rabat, Casablanca. Drive to Casablanca, where King Hasan II decided to build his vast mosque which is both a symbol of monarchical power and religious legitimacy and also testament to the enduring appeal of the Andalusi architectural style in Morocco. Fly from Casablanca to London via Marrakech arriving Heathrow c. 4.50pm.
Combine this tour with: Walking in the Footsteps of Leonardo & Michelangelo, 22–29 May 2015 (page 140).
Day 6:Meknes, Rabat. Our destination is Rabat but we stop at Meknes to visit the beautiful Bu Inaniya Madrasa and to have lunch. Continue to
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Ar t in the Netherlands Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Gogh 24–30 May 2015 (mb 326) 7 days • £2,470 Lecturer: Dr Guus Sluiter 4–10 October 2015 (mc 488) 7 days • £2,470 Lecturer: Dr Guus Sluiter A study of Dutch art, following the re-opening of the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum and the Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art. The seventeenth-century Golden Age (Hals, Rembrandt, Vermeer), Van Gogh and other major figures. The lecturer is an art historian resident in the Netherlands. Also architecture and design from mediaeval to modern, and several highly picturesque historic town centres. The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, one of the world’s great museums, closed for major refurbishment for over ten years, reopening in 2013 and finally allowing us to offer comprehensive art history tours to the Netherlands once again. The Van Gogh Museum and the Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art have also recently re-opened, to great acclaim. The seventeenth century was the Golden Age in the history and art history of the northern
Netherlands. (Much of this activity was concentrated in Holland, though that was but one of seven provinces which constituted the United Provinces, now the Kingdom of the Netherlands.) This was the time of Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Vermeer and innumerable other great masters. The Dutch School is of universal appeal, with its mix of realism, painterliness and potency, though it is best appreciated in the excellent art galleries of their native country – and against the background of the well preserved and wonderfully picturesque towns and cities. With their canals, cobbled alleys and gabled mansions, many have changed little in three hundred years. There is also focus on Vincent Van Gogh, the bulk of whose output is in the Netherlands. Painters of the Hague School of the nineteenth century have a presence, as do pioneers of modernism in painting and architecture, the architects Van der Velde and Gerrit Rietveld for example, and the abstract painter Piet Mondriaan. More recent art and architecture also features. The base for the tour is a five-star hotel in Utrecht, whose central location means relatively short journeys to all places visited.
Itinerary Day 1: Haarlem. Fly at c. 12.00 midday (British Airways) from London Heathrow Airport to Amsterdam Schipol. Haarlem was the chief artistic centre in the northern Netherlands in
‘The Music Maker and his Pupil’, wood engraving c. 1880 after Vermeer.
the sixteenth century and home of the first of the great masters of the Golden Age, Frans Hals, whose finest works are in the excellent small museum here. Drive to Utrecht, where all six nights are spent. Day 2: Amsterdam. With its rings of canals lined with merchants’ mansions, Amsterdam is one of the loveliest capitals in the world. Our first visit to the brilliantly refurbished Rijksmuseum concentrates on the major works in its unrivalled collection of 17th-cent. paintings, Rembrandt’s Night Watch and five Vermeers among them. A boat trip leads to the house where Rembrandt lived and worked for twenty years, well restored and with a display of prints. Also newly extended, the Van Gogh Museum houses the biggest holding of the artist’s works, largely from brother Theo’s collection. Day 3: The Hague, Delft. The Mauritshuis at Den Haag contains a superb collection of paintings including masterpieces by Rembrandt and Vermeer. Exhibited here also are 19th-cent. Hague School paintings, the realist milieu from which Van Gogh emerged, and works by the pioneer abstractionist Mondriaan. Visit also the illusionistic Mesdag panorama and the centre of city, seat of the court and parliament. Drop into Delft, the exceedingly attractive little town where Vermeer lived. Day 4: Otterlo, Het Loo. Located in gardens and surrounded by an extensive heath, the beautiful Kröller-Müller Museum has the second great collection of works by Van Gogh as well as an eclectic holding of paintings, furniture and sculpture. A leisurely visit here is followed by time at the 17th-cent. gardens of Het Loo, the former royal country palace. Brilliantly restored, they constitute the finest surviving garden ensemble of their time. Day 5: Gouda, Utrecht. Gouda is an exceptionally pretty town with an elaborate town hall of c. 1450 and a large Gothic church, Sintjanskerk, with 16th-cent. stained glass, the finest of its era. Utrecht is one of the best-preserved historic cities in the Netherlands, with canals flanked by unbroken stretches of Golden Age houses. The excellent art museum has a major collection of paintings of the 17th-cent. Utrecht School. See also the Rietveld House (1924), a landmark of 20th-cent. architecture.
netherlands
Day 6: Amsterdam. Return to Amsterdam. The Museum Willet-Holthuysen is a canalside patrician’s house furnished as in the 18th cent., while the Museum of Amsterdam excellently presents the history of the city. There is free time in the afternoon for revisiting the Rijksmuseum (there is much to see other than the Golden Age paintings), the Van Gogh Museum, or the Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art. Day 7: Rotterdam. Rotterdam is a thriving city and a centre of contemporary architecture. The Boijmans van Beuningen Museum is the second largest art gallery in the Netherlands and has many important Dutch paintings and good decorative arts. Fly from Schipol and return to Heathrow at c. 4.30pm.
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Oman
Peoples, customs & landscapes of Arabia Practicalities Price: £2,470 (deposit £250). Single supplement £360 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,260. Included meals: 1 lunch, 4 dinners with wine. Accommodation. The Grand Hotel Karel V, Utrecht (karelv.nl): 5-star hotel converted from a 19th-century hospital in a quiet location within the city walls. Group size: between 10 and 20 participants. Combine this tour with: Caravaggio, 12–19 October 2015 (page 147).
The Renewed Rijksmuseum 28 June–1 July 2015 Lecturer: Dr Sophie Oosterwijk Details available summer 2014 Contact us to register your interest
Amsterdam, watercolour by Nico Jungman, publ. 1904.
Plenty of time for the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, until 2013 shut for ten years for major reburbishment. Includes other galleries in Amsterdam, Haarlem and The Hague, and doesn’t exclude art of other eras. Stays in Amsterdam throughout. Can be combined with The Rhine Valley Music Festival, 20–27 June 2015 (see page 88), full details of which will be available this summer.
Remarkable landscape, hill forts, traditional souqs, archaeological sites. The toehold of Arabia, with a diverse population reflecting its mercantile past. Accompanied by a social anthropologist long involved in the Middle East. All the hotels are comfortable, some are superb, plus a night in a desert camp. Wilfred Thesiger was motivated to cross the Empty Quarter not only by his desire to gain further recognition as a traveller but by the hope that he would find peace and solitude in the remote desert landscapes. He also yearned to gain the friendship of the Bedu who journeyed with him and whom he encountered during his traverse. The possibility of travelling to little-visited locations, relaxing in inspiring surroundings and developing understanding with new peoples is no less possible in Oman in 2014 than it was in 1946. The country provides a diverse range of extraordinary natural beauty: deserts, mountains, wadis, beaches. Visitors also experience the kindness and friendliness of the Omanis. With relatively few, although gradually increasing number of visitors a year, Oman is still not over-developed, unlike some of its neighbouring Gulf states. Evidence of settlement dates back to the fourth millennium bc with early indications of dependence on trade. First copper and then frankincense (southern Oman is one of the few places in the world where the ‘sacred frankincense’ still grows) played a key role in the country’s history. Desire to control the supply of frankincense led to incorporation in the Achaemenid and Sassanian empires until the Persians were forced out in the seventh century. Omanis readily embraced Islam and submitted to the Umayyad and the Abbasid Caliphate. Trade and naval power continued to expand. Occupied by the Portuguese from 1507 to 1650, Oman flourished again after their departure with an empire reaching into East Africa, particularly Zanzibar, and the Indian Ocean. Treaties agreed with the British to protect communications with India marked the beginning of a special relationship, which continued beyond the formal termination of the protectorate in 1971. Meanwhile, the division of the Omani empire between the sultan of Zanzibar and the sultan of Muscat in 1856 resulted in economic decline for both and internal conflicts in the latter. Successive sultans failed to tackle the problems and Oman stagnated. The coming to power of Sultan Qaboos bin Said in 1970 heralded a new era. Though its oil revenues are relatively small, they have been used wisely to the benefit of the Omani people, for infrastructure, employment and education. Development has been rapid but controlled,
Etching, 1927, by E. J. Detmold.
guided by a determination to preserve Omani traditions. Our comprehensive itinerary includes the highlights of this vast country: from the inland forts of Nizwa and Jabrin to the little-visited archaeological sites of Al-Balid and Khor Rori, from the mountain scenery in the Western Hajar to the remoteness of the Wahiba Sands, from the bustling capital Muscat to the contrasting landscapes of the southern region of Dhofar. Other features of this tour are the opportunity to camp overnight in the Wahiba Sands, stay by the Indian Ocean and shop in souqs suffused with the scent of frankincense. Oman is opening up to a privileged few.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 9.05pm from London Heathrow (Oman Air) for the seven-hour flight to Muscat. Day 2: Muscat. Land at c. 8.30am. Hotel rooms are at your disposal for the morning. Greater Muscat is spread out along the coast with a dramatic mountain backdrop. Visit the National Museum and the privately owned Bait al Zubair housing the family collection of Omani artefacts. First of two nights in Muscat. Day 3: Barka, Nakhl. By 4-wheel-drive to the traditionally furnished 17th-century fortified house Bait Na’aman. Continue onto the impressive Rustaq and Nakhl Forts, the latter perched grandly on the foothills of the Western Hajar Mountains. Overnight Muscat.
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Concentrates on the art of the Dutch Golden Age – Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Vermeer and their contemporaries.
10–20 January 2015 (mb 229) 11 days/10 nights • £4,580 Lecturer: Professor Dawn Chatty
Day 4: Muscat, Jabrin. With seven minarets, the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque is impressively ornate. Leave Muscat by 4-wheel- drive for Nizwa. The most impressive fort in Oman is at Jabrin; sensitively restored, the plasterwork, wood carvings and painted ceilings are magnificent. First of two nights in Nizwa. Day 5: Nizwa area. Visit to the 17th-century Nizwa Fort, palace, seat of government and prison. Some free time to explore the fascinating Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Palestine
Archaeology & architecture of the West Bank souqs and markets. Bahla is home to a range of craft workers, pottery being particularly noteworthy. Bahla Fort, dating from pre-Islamic times (World Heritage Site, interior closed for restoration). The rarely-visited archaeological site of Al Ayn is a collection of Bronze Age beehive tombs sitting atop a rugged ridge with the Jebel Misht as a backdrop. Overnight Nizwa. Day 6: Nizwa, Wahiba. Drive to Ibra, the once opulent market town which stood on the trade route linking the interior to the coast. Arrive at Wahiba Sands, a sea of high rolling dunes. Watch the sunset and camp overnight in the desert. Day 7: Wahiba, Sur. After a free morning travel by 4-wheel-drive through the spectacular desert scenery. Until the 20th century Sur was famous throughout Arabia as a major trading port with East Africa. See the charming fishing village of Al Aijah, the shipyards still in operation and the displays of traditional dhows at Fath al Khair Park. Overnight Sur. Day 8: Sur, Salalah. 4-wheel-drive to Muscat, via the ancient port of Qalhat, to catch an afternoon flight to Salalah, which despite its size is considered Oman’s second city and capital of the Dhofar region. First of three nights in Salalah.
20–28 October 2014 (mb 159) This tour is currently full 12–20 October 2015 (mc 483) 9 days • £3,460 Lecturer: Dr Felicity Cobbing A pioneering tour which includes the major archaeological sites and the most significant historic buildings on the West Bank. Led by Felicity Cobbing, curator of the Palestine Exploration Fund. There are two nights in East Jerusalem. Provides an insight into a territory much in the news but little visited in recent years. Palestine is a land of limestone hills with the humped contours of a children’s picture-book. The surface is generally a grey-green impasto of olives and scrub, sometimes beautified with the striations of ancient terraces, farmed intermittently in clefts and nooks, grazed where
Day 9: Khor Rori. Spend the morning at the lush Wadi Darbat before visiting the ruins at Khor Rori. Formerly known as Sumhuraman, the settlement was an important frankincense trading port 2,000 years ago, forwarding this precious commodity to Damascus and Rome. Overnight Salalah. Day 10: Al Balid. Ancient Zafar, flourished in the 11th and 12th centuries and was visited by Marco Polo. The museum exhibits finds from the ruins of Al Balid and other artefacts from the area. The afternoon is free to relax by the Indian Ocean. Overnight Salalah. Day 11: a mid-morning flight to Muscat connects with the early afternoon flight to London, arriving Heathrow c. 6.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £4,580 (deposit £450). Single supplement £540 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £3,890. Included meals: 9 lunches (2 picnics), 9 dinners with wine (where available).
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Visas: required for most foreign nationals. These are issued on arrival and are included in the price if travelling with the group. Accommodation. Al Bustan, Muscat (ritzcarlton. com): 5-star hotel within an exclusive resort. Nizwa Golden Hotel, Nizwa (goldentulipnizwa. com): comfortable, but slightly drab 4-star with swimming pool. Desert Nights Camp, Wahiba Sands (desertnightscamp.com): luxury camp; individual tents with private facilities. Hotel Plaza, Sur (omanhotels.com/surplaza ): modern 4-star hotel. Hotel Crowne Plaza, Salalah (crowneplaza.com): 5-star hotel, excellent service. Group size: between 10 and 18 participants.
Israel & Palestine, depar tures in October and April (see page 111).
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vegetation is harsh and coarse. Then there are the hills of the Judaean desert, crinkled, barren rock, khaki with a dusting of white. Straggling along crests and down hillsides, Palestinian towns and villages are given visual unity by white limestone cladding – a requirement introduced during the British mandate and still adhered to. They express individualism, enterprise and struggle. By contrast, the Israeli settlements crowning many a peak are fortress-like high-density clusters. Recent history and current affairs cannot be ignored in this part of the world but the focus of the tour is archaeology, architecture and more distant history. Scattered across the West Bank are some very remarkable sites and buildings. There are unique remains from the very earliest periods, some fascinating remnants of the Canaanite and Israelite civilisations of the Bronze and Iron Ages, often with biblical associations. The creations of Herod the Great, among the most impressive structures of the ancient world, feature prominently, and there are significant remains from the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad, Crusader and Ottoman eras. A
particular feature are the desert monasteries, often in dramatic and inaccessible locations. Tourism is hardly new to Palestine: pilgrimage tours follow well-worn routes, quickly bouncing back after intermittent periods of strife, but other sorts of specialist tours are relatively rare. There has been investment in hotels and infrastructure in recent years, and the people are very welcoming.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 8.30am (British Airways)from London Heathrow to Tel Aviv (Israel) and drive through the Separation Wall to Bethlehem (Palestine). Reach the hotel in time for dinner. Four nights are spent here. Day 2: Herodion, Solomon’s Pools, Mar Saba. Herodion is an extraordinary fortified palace built by King Herod 24–15 bc on an artificial hill. There are extensive remains of defences, cisterns and baths and superb views. It was supplied with water from ‘Solomon’s Pools’, a series of reservoirs 9 km away, visited next. Return to Bethlehem for lunch and drive into the Judaean desert to visit The Convent of Mar Saba, wood engraving c. 1880.
the Orthodox monastery of Mar Saba, perched in a gorge and with a beautiful chapel (limited access for women). Overnight Bethlehem.
‘The visits to Nablus and Hebron were outstanding.’ ‘My whole attitude to the West Bank has changed.’ Day 3: Hebron (Al-Khalil), Judaean Desert. The Herodian phase of the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron is one of the most impressive buildings of the ancient world. The interior is Crusader and Mamluk, and is now divided between Muslims and Jews. We visit the Muslim mosque which contains the cenotaphs of the Patriarchs. We also see a 19th-century Russian church here (Hebron is volatile and this visit may be cancelled at short notice). The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, not significantly changed since ad 339, is one of the greatest of Early Christian buildings; five aisles and monumental Corinthian colonnades. Overnight Bethlehem. Day 4: Jerusalem. Spend the day in the Old City of Jerusalem (ruled de facto by Israel but claimed by Palestine). This is the most extraordinary city on Earth, a vibrant MiddleEastern enclave split between rival communities and composed of mediaeval and ancient masonry. Walk along the city’s impressive ramparts, visit the Church of St Anne and Armenian Cathedral. Overnight Bethlehem. Day 5: Bethlehem to Jericho. The journey down to the Dead Sea is broken at a modern museum of ancient mosaics. The palm-shaded oasis of Jericho is a place of superlatives, the world’s most low-lying town and arguably its oldest continuously inhabited one. The lowest strata of Tell as-Sultan, the site of ancient Jericho, are 10,000 years old and there is a unique tower of c. 7000 bc, as well as impressive Bronze Age remains from the third and second millenniums bc. Hisham’s Palace is a remarkably wellpreserved 8th-century Umayyad palace. The Monastery of Temptation is inserted in the high cliff overlooking the site and can now be reached by cable car. First of two nights in Jericho.
Day 7: Sebastia, Nablus, Jerusalem. Amid lovely countryside north-west of Nablus, Sebastia (Samaria) is a fascinating archaeological site with extensive remains spreading over a hill, principally Roman and Hellenistic but reaching
Day 8: Jerusalem. Haram ash-Sharif, alias the Temple Mount, Herod’s great retaining wall supporting a platform now adorned with some of the earliest and finest Islamic buildings, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Constantinian and Crusader. Free afternoon in the old city. Overnight East Jerusalem. Day 9: Jerusalem. The Rockefeller Museum, formerly the Palestinian Archaeological Museum, has finds from some of the sites visited on this tour, including Hisham’s Palace, ancient Jericho, Samaria and Jerusalem. After lunch drive to Tel Aviv airport. The flight arrives London Heathrow at c. 8.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £3,460 (deposit £350). Single supplement £370 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,790. Included meals: 8 lunches, 7 dinners with wine. Visas: are obtained on arrival at no charge for most nationalities. Accommodation. Intercontinental Jacir Palace, Bethlehem (intercontinental.com): 4 star hotel in a flamboyant late 19th-century mansion. Hotel Intercontinental, Jericho (intercontinental. com): 5 star hotel in a high-rise building outside the city centre. American Colony, Jerusalem (americancolony.com): 5 star prestigious hotel in East Jerusalem. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Essential Jordan, 25 October–2 November 2015 (page 164). Working in partnership with the Palestine Exploration Fund. By booking on this tour, clients will automatically become PEF members, have access to the extensive PEF library and resources as well as benefit from expert advice on the ancient Levant from members of staff.
Peru
September 2015 Lecturer: Dr David Beresford-Jones Full details available in September 2014 Contact us to register your interest A cultural and archeological survey of Andean civilisations including the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu; Colonial history and architecture in Cusco and Lima. The lecturer, Dr David Beresford-Jones, is a fellow of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Day 6: Desert monasteries. The theme of the day is monasticism in the Judaean hills, beginning with the community of Jewish zealots at Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, and continuing to functioning Christian monasteries in the wadis. According to Muslim tradition, Nabi Musa is the burial place of Moses and has Mamluk, Byzantine and Ottoman parts. There is an optional walk to the 19th-century Greek Orthodox monastery of St George in Wadi Kelt with free time in Jericho as an alternative. Overnight Jericho.
back much earlier to the time of the Israelite kings, Omri and Ahab. In Nablus, Jacob’s Well is enshrined in a church which was begun by the Crusaders and completed last century. Overnight East Jerusalem.
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Lisbon Neighbourhoods
Art, architecture & gardens in & around the capital its cloister. End the day at the Museu Nacional do Azulejo (ceramic tiles), a superb collection of one of Portugal’s great art forms with pieces from the 15th century to the present day. Day 3: Lapa, Bairro Alto. Drive to Lapa to the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga with 15th- and 16th-century Portuguese works of art – displayed in a handsome palace. Back in the centre of Lisbon, walk around the Bairro Alto, a now fashionable hub of theatres, boutiques, cafés and restaurants. Visit the highly ornate church of São Roque and the ruined Convento do Carmo and its archaeological museum. Day 4: Queluz, Sintra. Drive to the royal palace and gardens at Queluz, built for the Infante Dom Pedro, a version of Versailles tempered by a Rococo elegance and a more intimate scale. Continue to the beautifully situated town of Sintra, the favoured summer residence of the kings of Portugal for six centuries, and much praised in poetry and prose. Visit the Palácio Nacional with its curious oast-house-like conical towers and remarkable 16th- and 17th-century azulejos. Lunch in the elegant 18th-century Palácio de Seteais, now a hotel. Visit the gardens of Quinta da Monserrate, laid out in 1856 for Sir Francis Cook, first Visconde de Monserrate, and his curious Mughal style mansion with restoration nearing completion. Lisbon, watercolour by Donald Maxwell, publ. 1932.
20–25 April 2015 (mb 296) 6 days • £1,970 Lecturer: Adam Hopkins Superb and varied collections of decorative and fine arts as well as some of the best examples of Portuguese ceramic tiles. Palaces and gardens are well represented including the National Palace at Sintra and the Royal Palace at Queluz. Led by Adam Hopkins, journalist and author, specialist in Spanish and Portuguese history and culture. Rejuvenation in the last decade has transformed Lisbon into a vibrant and attractive city.
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Each of Lisbon’s neighbourhoods has its own atmosphere and its own treasures – and the same is emphatically true of the nearby hill – or mountain – of Sintra, with palaces and gardens, and a tendency for mist to hang romantically about its peak. Despite the nation’s money troubles (now easing somewhat) and the city’s pockets of poverty, Lisbon itself remains one of the most romantic capitals of Europe. The Alfama neighbourhood rises high to east of centre, its castle synonymous with the fortunes of early Lisbon and with fine views of the bellying Tagus below. The centre itself – the ‘Baixa’, at river level – was built on a grid plan by the dictator Pombal in the eighteenth century, one of the great successes of early town planning. Above to the west rises the ever more lively – and stylish
– Bairro Alto or High District and far beyond, where the Tagus reaches out towards the Atlantic, comes Belém. King Manuel the Fortunate, his coffers heaving with the riches of India, envisaged a new Bethlehem for a new Christian mission to the East. The result: two of Portugal’s great buildings: the Belém tower, feet washed by the river, and the gorgeous Jerónimos Monastery, itself once standing on the foreshore. Add to these museums and galleries with fine and applied arts of the highest level, swelling hills and the constant presence of the river, glimpsed when least expected, not to mention the world’s finest grilled sardines.
Itinerary Day 1: Lisbon. Fly at c. 1.30pm (TAP Portugal) from London Heathrow to Lisbon. Drive to the hotel and settle in. Introductory talk before dinner. Day 2: Belém, Alfama. Drive out to the Jerónimos Monastery at Belém, an outstanding example of the exuberant Manueline style with fine carving and vaulting. On the banks of the Tagus are the monument to the ‘Explorers’ and the Torre de Belém (a stylish fortress) – also Manueline with Moorish decoration. Continue to the Castelo de São Jorge – Arab castle conquered by the Christians in 1147, embellished over centuries by Portugal’s kings, destroyed and now restored. Descend with views of the labyrinthine Alfama to the Romanesque cathedral. Once fortified, later on much remodelled, it has a fascinating and important archeological site in
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Day 5: Benfica. The morning is free. In the afternoon drive to Benfica and visit by arrangement the Palácio dos Marqueses de Fronteira. The tile work is excellent, particularly the Battle Room depicting the War of Independence against Spain 1640–1668. Drive back to the centre to visit the Medeiros e Almeida Foundation, an excellent and varied collection of decorative and fine arts, assembled by the Medeiros family in the 20th century and housed in the family home. Highlights include the French and Chinese collections, and an impressive British thunder box. Day 6: Lisbon. The morning is spent at the Gulbenkian Museum, an outstanding private art collection given to the city of Lisbon and beautifully displayed in a modern building. Continue to the airport for the flight to Heathrow, arriving c. 6.45pm.
Practicalities Price: £1,970 (deposit £200). Single supplement £280 (double for single occupancy). Superior room supplement £140 (for two people sharing). Price without flights £1,800. Included meals: 1 lunch, 3 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Avenida Palace, Lisbon (hotelavenidapalace.pt) a comfortable hotel of generous proportions with an air of faded grandeur and old-world charm. Adjacent to Rossio Square. Comparable to 4-star. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Gardens of Northern Portugal, 13–18 April 2015 (page 177), Gastronomic Catalonia, 13–18 April 2015 (page 191).
Gardens of Nor thern Por tugal Porto & the Minho Valley 13–18 April 2015 (mb 288) 6 days • £1,580 Lecturer: Gerald Luckhurst Historic gardens in the beautiful setting of the Minho and Douro Valleys. Includes visits to gardens not normally open to the public. The lecturer is Gerald Luckhurst, landscape architect and garden historian based in Lisbon. Four nights in the delightful mediaeval town of Guimarães, one night in Porto. The northern provinces of Portugal are lush and green with an intensely cultivated landscape of exceptional beauty. The mild Atlantic climate provides exceptional growing conditions for camellias, rhododendrons and azaleas which reach enormous proportions and afford impressive displays amidst the oak and chestnut woods that fill the valleys of the Minho and Douro. The countryside is made up of small farms and vegetable gardens with vines everywhere. Two of Portugal’s most famous wines are produced here: the light and spritely vinho verde is grown from vines trained on tall trellises, whilst the port wine is grown on mountain terraces. This is an ancient landscape, inhabited since before the Bronze Age, and in the eleventh century the birthplace of Portugal. The cities of Braga, Guimarães and Ponte de
Lima all have castles, city walls and elaborate churches. Their mediaeval centres are filled with narrow streets and immaculately cared for public gardens that are a joy to explore. There is a great civic pride in these towns and the people are exceptionally welcoming. The food is renowned throughout Portugal. The country houses of the region had their origin as small fortified manors, known as solares, but as Portugal grew rich from overseas discoveries they were transformed into Baroque paços and quintas, their gardens filled with plants from Africa and Asia. At first the style of gardening was strongly influenced by Italy, but in the nineteenth century, with the exuberant growth of exotic vegetation brought back by adventurers from Brazil, a romantic atmosphere prevailed and the gardens were filled with naturalistic pools with winding paths, archaeological follies and model farms. In the twentieth century the elite of Porto looked to Paris for their inspiration and the Art Deco was taken as the model. The gardens of Serralves are a rare example of an intact Modernist layout impeccably conserved.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 1.00pm (TAP Portugal) from London Gatwick to Porto. Drive to Guimarães for the first of four nights. Day 2: Vila Real, Celorico de Basto. The Palácio de Mateus at Vila Real, designed by the painterarchitect Nicolau Nasoni and made familiar by
the rosé wine label, is a fine 18th-century manor house, well furnished and with gardens including a box tree avenue and impressive broderie parterre. Continue in the afternoon to Casa do Campo, not open to the general public, with impressive 19th-century camellia topiary. Day 3: Guimarães, Ponte de Lima. Morning visits in Guimarães. The imposing castle was originally constructed in the 10th century to defend the town from the Moors and Vikings, while the Burgundian ducal palace houses an extensive collection of portraits, tapestries and porcelain. In the afternoon drive north to the 17th-century Paço de Calheiros, whose 19thcentury garden enjoys spectacular views of the Lima valley. Day 4: Braga. Drive north to Braga, Portugal’s religious centre with a magisterial archbishop’s palace. Climb the lavishly Baroque penitential staircase of Bom Jesus do Monte (c. 600 steps), adorned with religious figures and surrounded by camellia and box topiary. The 18th-cent. gardens of the Casa dos Biscainhos are decorated with granite, rococo-style statues and fountains and elaborate parterres inspired by Arabic design. There is time also to see the principally Romanesque cathedral with two splendid Baroque organs. Day 5: Penafiel, Porto. Drive to the Quinta da Aveleda, home to the largest producer of vinho verde in Portugal, whose woodland gardens are famous for their follies, camellias and azaleas. Lunch here overlooking the vineyards. Continue Porto, aquatint c. 1830.
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Gardens of Nor thern Por tugal continued
The Douro
From Porto to Pinhão The River Douro, lithograph 1813.
Guimaráes, etching by A.P. Thomson.
to Porto where the 19th-cent. romantic gardens of the Quinta de Vilar d’Allen are home to a rare collection of plants and trees imported from all continents. Overnight in Porto.
6–13 May 2015 (mb 311) 8 days • £2,240 Lecturer: Adam Hopkins
Day 6: Porto. Morning walk in Porto’s old town, dense with historic architecture. The cathedral is basically 13th-century with later embellishments, many by Nasoni. The Clerigos Church with its wonderful Baroque tower is also by Nasoni, the church of the Misericordia has good Flemish paintings and São Francisco has an amazingly rich carved and gilded interior. In great contrast, Jacques Gréber’s modernist garden at the Fundação de Serralves compliments the clean lines of the pink Art Deco house, built in 1935, and features a water staircase. Elsewhere are an iris garden, a wisteria pergola and remains of the pre-existing 19th-cent. garden. Fly from Porto, returning to Gatwick at c. 7.45pm.
One of the most remote and picturesque corners of Europe.
Practicalities Price: £1,580 (deposit £150). Single supplement £180 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,420. Included meals: 1 lunch, 4 dinners with wine.
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Accommodation. Hotel da Oliveira, Guimarães (hoteldaoliveira.com): a boutique hotel in the historic centre of Guimarães with a good restaurant. Pousada do Porto Palacio do Freixo (pousadas.pt): a 4-star hotel. Public areas are located in the 18th-century palace, while rooms are in a modern extension. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Lisbon Neighbourhoods, 20–25 April 2015 (page 176) or Gardens & Villas of Campagna Romana, 20–25 April (page 146).
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Variety of visits including major museums, mediaeval and Baroque architecture, gardens, Paleolithic art and wine tastings at private estates. Journeys of immense beauty by rail and boat. At the river mouth, the vigorous, grandly-sited city of Porto. One of our more leisurely tours. The upper reaches of the Douro in Portugal present a landscape of extraordinary beauty and tranquillity. The banks rise steeply into the surrounding hills which are clothed with terraced vineyards, patches of woodland, little villages and quintas. Until recently one of the remotest clefts in western Europe, the region remains remarkably unspoilt and difficult of access. It is best approached by train; a journey into mountains that begins at the mouth of the river in Porto (Oporto). The capital of northern Portugal, Porto is synonymous with the port wine trade, which since time immemorial has been dominated by the British. Hence an architectural peculiarity of Porto: the serene Neo-Palladianism of buildings by John Carr of York and his imitators cheekby-jowl with the highly wrought, startlingly pigmented and lavishly gilded Baroque style of churches and public buildings. Baroque was virtually introduced by another foreigner, the Tuscan painter-architect Nicolau Nasoni who had a hand in the design of many churches and houses in the city and along the Douro. Porto is also relatively unspoilt, retaining a
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jumble of historic architecture on its undulating even precipitous site, but it is also a city of parks and gardens and the occasional flash of ultramodern architecture. This is not a tour in pursuit of masterpieces, rather an exploration of delicious scenery and ancient townscapes in a most beautiful but often overlooked corner of Europe. The port wine industry is a subsidiary theme, along with the excellent red wines now produced here. The pace on this tour is slower than on many.
Itinerary Day 1: Porto. Fly at c. 1.00pm (TAP Portugal) from London Gatwick to Porto. Introductory talk and time for a stroll along the river front before dinner. First of three nights in Porto. Day 2: Porto. Porto is dense with historic architecture and falls steeply down to the River Douro. The principal monuments are set amidst the rise and fall of the upper part of the town, reached by steep alleys and steps. The cathedral is basically 13th-century with later embellishments, many by the painter-architect Nicolau Nasoni. The Clerigos Church with its wonderful Baroque tower is also by Nasoni, the church of the Misericordia has good Flemish paintings and São Francisco has an amazingly rich carved and gilded interior. Also see the magnificent decorative tiles, azulejos, in the railway station and visit the Factory House (by special arrangement), a club of British port wine traders founded in the 18th century. Overnight Porto. Day 3: Porto. See the façade of the Hospital de São António designed by John Carr of York (1770). The Soares dos Reis was Portugal’s first national museum and has collections of Portuguese fine and decorative arts, and the nearby Museu Romântico in the Quinta da Macieirinha has 19th-century furnishings.
Monasteries of Moldavia
Painted churches in the foothills of the Carpathians Álvaro Siza’s elegantly minimalist Fundação de Serralves is set in an attractive park and houses contemporary art. Cross the Douro for a tasting at a port lodge and the scene of Wellington’s impulsive and brilliant 1809 river crossing which enabled him to finish Marshal Soult’s still-warm lunch. Day 4: Porto, Douro Valley, Pinhão. Free morning in Porto. Early afternoon train journey up the Douro Valley which becomes increasingly rural, unspoilt and beautiful, with vineyards, patches of woodland and quintas clinging to the hills. Pinhão is a tiny town with a hotel in a former port lodge overlooking the Douro. First of four nights in Pinhão. Day 5: São João de Tarouca, Lamego. At the village of São João de Tarouca, there are paintings by Grão Vasco (1506–42) and Gaspar Vaz (1490–1569) in the fine church beside which are the ruins of the first Cistercian abbey in Portugal (1169). Continue to the busy little town of Lamego, replete with Baroque mansions and dominated by the pilgrimage church of Nossa Senhora dos Remédios atop a ceremonial stairway. The town museum in the former episcopal palace contains splendid tapestires and a series of panels by Grão Vasco. See also the cathedral, largely Renaissance behind a Romanesque belfry and with a Gothic west front. Day 6: Vale do Côa. Up the Douro is the small almond-producing town of Vila Nova Foz Côa whose church has a Manueline doorway. Close to the border with Spain the River Côa valley holds one of the greatest archaeological finds of recent years, an extensive array of outdoor Paleolithic art, the largest in Europe. There are well-preserved engravings of auroch, horse, deer and goat along a long stretch of steeply slatebanked river. Visit one of the key sites by 4WD, then continue on foot. Return to Pinhão on the train beside the Douro. Day 7: the Douro by train and boat. A leisurely day in the heart of the wine-making area. Travel by rail downstream to the Quinta do Vallado; visit and lunch here. Sail back to Pinhão on a private rabelo boat. Day 8: Vila Real. The Palácio de Mateus at Vila Real, a Nasoni design made familiar by the rosé wine label, is a fine 18th-century manor house, well furnished and with gardens including a box tree avenue. Continue to Porto airport for the flight to London Gatwick, arriving c. 7.45pm.
Price: £2,240 (deposit £250). Single supplement £320 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,090. Included meals: 2 lunches, 5 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Carrís Porto Ribeira (hotelcarrisportoribeira.com): 4-star hotel in the historic centre, on the bank of the River Douro. Hotel Vintage House, Pinhão (cshotelsandresorts. com): hotel surrounded by vineyards, with gardens and terrace overlooking the river. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
3–9 October 2014 (mb 149) 7 days • £1,960 Lecturer: Alan Ogden Fortified 15th and 16th-century Orthodox monasteries. Exquisite authentic frescoes, a unique wphenomenon in Byzantine art. Long coach journeys through scenically enchanting Southern Bucovina. Led by Alan Ogden – travel writer and historian specialising in Romania. During the second Millennium, Romanian history was defined by its geographical juxtaposition to expansionist states. Resistance to foreign domination from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries led to the gradual establishment of independent principalities – Wallachia (c.1310), Moldavia (1359) and Transylvania (1541). Four years after the fall of Constantinople (1453), Stefan cel Mare (Stephen the Great) became Prince of Moldavia and for the next fifty years led a spirited defence against constant Turkish invasions, safeguarding much of Western Europe in the process. It was against this backdrop that Stefan and his son, Petru Rares, established almost thirty fortified monasteries and churches deep in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains in Southern Bucovina, the north-western region of the present-day Romanian province of Moldavia. Keeping church and state intact was key to their survival as one of the last Christian states in south-eastern Europe. Peasant armies would gather for battle inside the monasteries’ walls, and to educate and entertain the illiterate soldiers and camp-
followers the exteriors of the churches were adorned with paintings of biblical stories and other Christian themes, including a number of anti-Ottoman messages. Byzantine in style as befits their Orthodox congregation, the frescoes have remarkable finesse of draughtsmanship and chromatic refinement. Although the north-facing walls have been damaged by centuries of rain and wind, the images on the other walls have astonishingly retained their original vivacity, including the remarkable intensity of colour – from the greens of Suceviţa, to the pinks of Humor and the famous blue at Voronet. Annexed by the Habsburg Empire in 1775, Southern Bucovina remained under Austrian control until 1918 when it was ceded to Romania. During this period of Catholic rule, many of the monasteries had to close and thus fell into disrepair; others continued to function but with greatly reduced roles. Persecuted by the Communist regime from 1948 onwards, it is only since 1990 that the monastic communities have become active again. The Bucovina landscape is one of gently rolling hills, dense woods, broad rivers and villages with pastel painted houses and riotous flower beds. Horses are still to be found in harness, ploughing the fields and transporting produce to markets. The welcome you will receive in Romania is sure to be warm and the hospitality generous.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 2.30pm (Tarom Airlines) from London Heathrow to Bucharest. Overnight here. Day 2. Bucharest. Visit the National Art Museum with its comprehensive collection of 14th–20thcentury Romanian art, Stavropoleos Church (1724), a harmonious blend of Renaissance and Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Practicalities
Suceviţa, lithograph by Oskar Laske (1874–1951).
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Monasteries of Moldavia continued
St Petersburg Pictures & palaces
Baroque features, and the world famous Peasants Museum and its outdoor collection of village houses. Internal flight from Bucharest to Suceava. Drive to Gura Humorului. First of four nights in Gura Humorului.
The Summer Palace, early 19th-century engraving.
Day 3. Humor, Răsca, Voronet. The interior frescoes at the church at Humor (1530) are unsurpassed. Răsca (1540), located in a remote valley, is a charming working monastery and boasts a Ladder of St John on its South wall. Voronet Monastery (1488), considered by many to be the most splendid in Bucovina, offers a magnificent Last Judgement. Overnight Gura Humorului. Day 4. Arbore, Suceviţa, Moldovitsa. Arbore’s (1501) superbly executed frescoes on the western wall, with a notably green cast, contain scenes from the Lives of St Nicholas, St George and St Paraskeva. In bucolic surroundings, Suceviţa (1595) with its beautifully preserved frescoes is the last of the great painted monasteries in Bucovina. Moldovitsa’s (1532) remote position and fortifications have protected its frescoes from invaders and marauders alike. Overnight Gura Humorului. Day 5. Dragomirna, Putna. Dragomirna, now a community of nuns, was founded in 1608 by Anastasie Crimca whose legacy of writing and illumination can be seen in the museum. Putna, built between 1466 and 1481, is where Stefan the Great is buried; it still houses an active community of monks and its museum displays many priceless treasures including superb 16thcentury embroideries and intricate ecclesiastical treasures. Overnight Gura Humorului. Day 6: Iași. Drive through Bucovina to explore Iași, the capital of the former Principality of Moldavia. The Church of the Three Hierarchs built by Basil the Wolf in the 17th century and its Cathedral which hosts the relics of St Paraskeva. Overnight Iași. Day 7. Fly early morning from Iași to Heathrow via Bucharest, arriving at c. 2.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £1,960 (deposit £200). Single supplement £170 (In Bucharest and Iași, double room for single occupancy; in Gura, single-bedded room). Price without all flights £1,680.
romania, russia
Included meals: all lunches and all dinners with wine. Accommodation. The Athenée Palace Hilton, Bucharest (hilton.com), a centrally located 5-star hotel. The Best Western Bucovina, Gura Humorului (bestwesternbucovina.ro), a modern 3-star hotel 37km south-west of Suceava, ideally located for exploring the surrounding area. The Hotel Select, Iași (selectgrup.ro) a small 4-star hotel in the historic centre. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
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7–13 May 2015 (mb 307) 7 days • £3,340 Lecturer: Dr Alexey Makhrov 10–16 September 2015 (mc 438) 7 days • £3,340 Lecturer: Dr Alexey Makhrov St Petersburg is perhaps the grandest city in Europe, and one of the most beautiful. Magnificent architecture of the 18th and 19th centuries, especially the palaces of the Romanovs, nobility and merchants. Outstanding art collections, the Hermitage being the largest art museum in the world. Led by Dr Alexey Makhrov, a Russian Art Historian and graduate of the St Petersburg Academy of Arts. Founded by Peter the Great in 1703, the city of St Petersburg was intended to demonstrate to the world not only that Russia was a European rather than an Asian nation, but also that it was an immensely powerful one. This ‘window on the West’ became the capital of the Russian Empire until the government moved back to Moscow in 1918. Peter’s wish was amply fulfilled: with the assistance of Dutch, Italian and French architects – Russians were to take over later in the century once they had mastered the mysteries of Western art and architecture – St Petersburg was laid out as the grandest city in Europe, with buildings on a monumental scale. The palaces of the imperial family and of the fabulously wealthy magnates vied with each other, and with the military establishments and government institutions, to dominate the river front, the broad avenues and
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the vast squares. Although one of the newest of Europe’s great cities, St Petersburg is the one least affected by 20th-century building. Despite the wellpublicised economic and political troubles Russia has undergone in recent years, there has been a surge of cleaning and restoration which has accentuated the beauty of the city. As impressive as the architecture of St Petersburg are the contents of the museums and art galleries. The Hermitage is one of the world’s greatest art museums, with an immensely rich collection of paintings, sculpture, antiquities and decorative arts filling the enormous Winter Palace of the Romanovs. The Russian Museum comes as a revelation to most visitors, for apart from icons (and there is a wonderful collection) the great achievements of Russian painters, particularly during the 19th century, are scarcely known outside the country.
‘An excellent introduction to the complexities of Russian culture and history.’ Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 9.30am from London Heathrow to St Petersburg (British Airways; time in the air: c. 3 hours 15 minutes). There is time to settle into the hotel before dinner. Day 2. Explore the north bank of the Neva and Vasilevskiy Island which, as the original intended site of the city, has some of St Petersburg’s earliest buildings including the Twelve Colleges and the Peter-Paul Fortress. Visit the Menshikov Palace, an early 18th-century residence with impressive Petrine decoration. Drive via the
Kazan Cathedral with colonnaded forecourt to the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, an extensive Baroque layout and cemetery with graves of many famous Russians.
St Petersburg, etching 1912.
Day 3. Walk to the remarkable Neo-Classical buildings of the Synod, Senate and Admiralty. The first visit to the Hermitage, one of the world’s greatest art collections, housed in Rastrelli’s Winter Palace and contiguous buildings; walk around to understand the layout and to see the magnificent interiors. An afternoon by coach taking in the sumptuous Marble Palace (exterior), designed by Rinaldi in Baroque and Neo-Classical style and the wonderful group of Smolny Convent and Cathedral, also by Rastrelli. Day 4. A full-day excursion to two of the summer palaces about 20 miles from St Petersburg, both set in extensive landscaped parks with lakes and pavilions. At Tsarskoye Selo, formerly Pushkin, the main building is the outsized Rococo Catherine Palace by Rastrelli, its richly ornamented interiors painstakingly restored after war damage. At Pavlovsk, also well restored, the graceful Neo-Classical Great Palace with encircling wings was in part built by Scotsman Charles Cameron. Day 5. The Russian Museum, in the imposing Mikhailovsky Palace, has Russian painting from mediaeval icons to the vast canvases of the Romantics and Realists of the 19th century. An afternoon excursion to Peterhof (by hydrofoil, weather permitting), the magnificent palace on the Gulf of Finland with cascades and fountains. Day 6. Drive through the city. The Baroque Cathedral of St Nicholas, with its gilded domes, is a memorial to Russian navy sailors who perished at sea. Visit the late 19th-century Yusupov Palace, one of the finest in the city and scene of Rasputin’s murder. A second visit to the Hermitage to concentrate on specific aspects of the collections and to pursue individual passions. Day 7. Some free time for independent exploration: perhaps the Hermitage again, or places not yet visited such as the Dostoyevsky Museum, Academy of Arts, or Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood. Fly to Heathrow, arriving c. 5.30pm.
Practicalities Price: £3,340 (deposit £300). Single supplement £360. Price without flights £2,970.
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Included meals: 5 dinners with wine Music: details of opera and ballet performances will be sent to participants about one month before the tour and tickets can be requested. Visas: required for British citizens and most foreign nationals and included in the price of the tour. We will advise participants on the process. Accommodation. Hotel Angleterre (angleterrehotel.com): an excellently located 5-star hotel in the city centre, within easy walking distance of the Hermitage.
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Ardgowan
A country house weekend in the west of Scotland 18–23 June 2015 (mb 365) 6 days • £2,740 Lecturer: Caroline Knight Stay as guests at Ardgowan, a grand 18th-century country house which remains a private home, not a hotel nor a museum. Visit other country houses in the vicinity, some not generally open to the public, all by special arrangement or with privileged access. Pass through the stunning coastal and Lowland landscapes of western Scotland. A country house party as much as a study tour, there is time for leisure around the house and garden of Ardgowan. There is no single supplement. Architectural historian Caroline Knight leads the tour. The key feature of this tour is that the participants are not accommodated in a hotel. They are guests in a private home. A biggish home admittedly, an architecturally distinguished eighteenthcentury country house with excellent pictures, exceptional furniture, and gardens which spread out to the coast overlooking the Firth of Clyde. Some negatives. You will find no minibar in your room, no laundry service, no television, let alone air-conditioning. Rugs may reveal generations of use, the bathroom may be a few yards down the corridor, the shower may be Edwardian and there is no Reception desk (although staff are on hand). If you are not put off so far, the compensations include bedrooms the size of an average sitting room laden with antiques and books, and the opportunity to roam at leisure through the hall, conservatory, drawing room, library and dining room, investigating the rich archive material. You are also free to wander in the adjoining gardens, woods and shoreline.
Ardgowan is a superb mansion of the 1790s designed by a follower of Robert Adam. For this very special tour it is the base for excursions to other country houses in the vicinity, at nearly all of which special arrangements will have been made exclusively for this group. In journeying between them, you pass through some heartstoppingly lovely landscapes – lochs and sea, lowland heath and mountains, rolling farmland and forests. As much country house party as study tour, there is plenty of time at leisure at Ardgowan. The house is a textbook case of the challenges facing current owners of historic properties of the first rank. Our hosts are Sir Ludovic Shaw Stewart and the Hon. Mrs Christopher Chetwode. The latter is an art historian and a prominent figure in the field of historic buildings in Scotland. The lecturer, Caroline Knight, is her sister. She is an architectural historian and has a speciality in the country houses of Britain.
Itinerary Day 1: Ardgowan. The coach leaves Glasgow Railway Station at 2.15pm and leaves Glasgow Airport at 3.00pm. Continue west to the coast of the Firth of Clyde and reach Ardgowan in time for afternoon tea. After settling in to your rooms, there is a tour of the house and gardens followed by some free time, drinks and dinner. Day 2: Mount Stuart. Cross by ferry to the Isle of Bute. Magnificent in scale and in the lavishness of decoration and furnishing, Mount Stuart was built in the last two decades of the 19th century by one of the richest men in the world, the third Marquess of Bute. The picture collection is superb. Beautifully maintained by the current Marquess, the house is surrounded by extensive gardens and noble woods. Day 3: Culzean, Dumfries House. A leisurely start allows time for independent exploration of Ardgowan. Drive to the clifftop Culzean Castle,
Robert Adam’s boldest creation, with oval stair hall and round drawing room with views out to sea. Also by Adam, Dumfries House, famously saved for the nation with the help of the Prince of Wales in 2007, is a perfect Palladian composition which retains unspoilt interiors and a unique set of Chippendale furniture. We have an after-hours tour followed by dinner in the house. Day 4: Ardgowan, Kelburn. A free morning at Ardgowan, or there is the option of an in-depth tour to study some aspects of the house. In the afternoon visit Kelburn Castle, property of the Earl of Glasgow and in the same family for 800 years. Part remains a defensible tower house, and there is a lovely set of rooms of c. 1700. Day 5: Strachur, Inveraray. Take a ferry across the Firth of Clyde to the Cowal Peninsula and drive to Strachur House. The property of Sir Charles and Lady Maclean is a fascinating 18th-century mansion of middling size; its 20thcentury history is entwined with the western Balkans. Inveraray Castle is the ancestral home of the Dukes of Argyll. Despite its four corner towers and Gothic windows, it is entirely 18thcentury, and inside are some extraordinarily fine rooms and a very good art collection. Day 6: Glasgow. Holmwood House was designed by Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson and was built in 1857–8 for James Couper, a local businessman. From here the coach takes you to Glasgow Railway Station by 12.30pm and to Glasgow Airport by 1.10 or 4.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,740 (deposit £250). There is no single supplement for single-bedded rooms – closer to departure, double rooms may be offered for single occupancy at a supplement of £150. Included meals: 3 lunches, 5 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Ardgowan (ardgowan.co.uk): Ardgowan is a private house, not a hotel – keys to bedrooms are not provided. Please read again the first two paragraphs of this tour description. Group size: 10 to 18 participants. Combine this tour with: Great Houses of the South West, 9–16 June 2015 (page 44).
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August 2015 Details available in March 2015 Contact us to register your interest
Ardgowan, drawn and engraved by William Daniell, 1817. book online at www.martinrandall.com
Looking for Serbia? See page 28 for The Western Balkans, depar tures in May and October.
The Road to Santiago
The pilgrimage route through northern Spain Detail from Santiago Cathedral, engraving c. 1890.
28 August–9 September 2015 (mb 424) 13 days • £3,510 Lecturer: John McNeill One of the great historic journeys of the world. Includes all the major sites and deviates to many lesser-known ones. An architectural pilgrimage by coach – not a spiritual one on foot – for lovers of Romanesque and Gothic. Led by renowned architectural historian John McNeill.
Itinerary Day 1: fly at c. 5.30pm (Vueling) from London Heathrow to Bilbao. Drive to Argómaniz (80 km), arriving at c.10.00pm. Overnight Argómaniz.
Day 2: Pamplona, Roncesvalles. The day is spent in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Reflecting its proximity to France, Pamplona cathedral has a cloister which constitutes perhaps the finest achievement of High Gothic in Spain. Roncesvalles Pass was scene of the famed rearguard action of Charlemagne’s paladin Roland, and has a renowned pilgrims’ church and hospice. Drive through the spectacular gorge of the Urrobi river. First of two nights in Sos del Rey Católico. Day 3: Sos del Rey Católico, Sangüesa, Leyre, Jaca. At Sos, the church of San Esteban has a frescoed apse. Sta María la Real in the little town of Sangüesa has superb architectural sculpture, including some by a craftsman from Burgundy. The monastery of San Salvador de Leyre maintains Gregorian offices in a fascinating church with a good crypt and western portal. Jaca, below the Somport pass, has a Romanesque cathedral with a magnificent collection of mediaeval wall paintings. Overnight Sos del Rey Católico. Day 4: Eunate, Puente la Reina. At Eunate a mysterious round chapel with encircling arcade, rising from the midst of a cornfield. Puente la Reina is the point where pilgrim roads from France converged, and is equipped with hospices, churches and an amazing bridge. Overnight Sto Domingo de la Calzada.
Day 5: Nájera, Sto Domingo de la Calzada, Burgos. See the Royal tombs at Santa María la Real in Nájera. Sto Domingo cathedral has Renaissance and Baroque accretions, and a cockerel still crows over the shrine of the saint. Arrive at Burgos, which grew up at the foot of the fortress of the Kings of Castile. The magnificent cathedral is crowned by a multitude of pinnacles and open-work spires and combines French and German styles; remarkable vaults, 16th-cent. choir stalls and a wealth of sculpture. Two nights in Burgos. Day 6: Burgos, Quintanilla de las Viñas, Sto Domingo de Silos. Free morning in Burgos. In the afternoon drive to the Visigothic chapel at Quintanilla de las Viñas. Sto Domingo de Silos is the largest and finest Romanesque monastery in Spain, and has an epoch-making 12th-cent. cloister with magnificent sculpture. Overnight Burgos.
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‘By land it is the greatest journey an Englishman may go.’ So wrote Andrew Boorde, physician and former bishop of Chichester in his 1542 First Book of the Introduction of Knowledge. The road to Santiago has rarely been without plaudits, from Godescalc, bishop of Le Puy in 950, to Paula Gerson, scholar and sceptic in 1993. What was claimed to be the tomb of St James was discovered in 813 in the wilds of Galicia and soon began to attract pilgrims. Roads and bridges were built along the approaches which soon coalesced into a standard route. Hospices and monasteries were founded and secondary shrines became established. Variously described as the Camino Francés, the Milky Way and the Road Beneath the Stars, the route exerted a pull which was pre-Christian, but the discovery of an Apostolic tomb and the renewal of the infrastructure conspired to make Santiago the most celebrated of all mediaeval journeys – a byword for Chaucer’s pilgrims, a destination to vie with Jerusalem and Rome. The funds poured into such an enterprise were immense, resulting in an incomparable range of mediaeval – particularly Romanesque – and Renaissance monuments. With cathedrals such as Burgos, León and Santiago, monasteries of the calibre of San Millán de la Cogolla, Silos and Leyre, the paintings of Jaca and Miraflores, the metalwork of San Isidoro, the textiles of Las Huelgas, the road to Santiago does not want for masterpieces. But equally impressive is the landscape, a memorial backdrop through which all must pass – the limestone cliffs and tumbling watercourses of Aragón and Navarra, the forests of chestnut, oak and acacia of the Rioja, the vast wheat fields of Castile and the green, slate-divided fields of Galicia. We have two itineraries in 2015: The Road to Santiago – travelling by coach – and Walking to Santiago. They are markedly different in focus; the former is very much an architectural tour, and the latter a walking tour. But both are journeys in which you are conscious always of participating in a thousand-year-old flow of humankind which constitutes one of the most powerfully felt shared experiences in the spiritual and aesthetic history of Europe.
Day 7: Burgos, San Miguel de la Escalada. The Carthusian monastery and royal mausoleum of Miraflores has superb 15th-cent. sculpture by Gil de Siloé. Just outside Burgos is the Early Gothic convent of Las Huelgas Reales, a place of royal burial. Pressing westwards, we stop at San Miguel de la Escalada, an elegant Mozarabic gem. First of two nights in León. Day 8: León. Former capital of the ancient kingdom of León, the city has many outstanding Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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The Road to Santiago continued
Walking to Santiago
On foot for selected sections of the pilgrims’ way mediaeval buildings. The royal pantheon of San Isidoro is one of the first, and finest, Romanesque buildings in Spain, with important sculptures. The cathedral is truly superb: Rayonnant Gothic, with impressive stained glass. The monastery of San Marcos (our hotel) has a splendidly exuberant Plateresque façade. Overnight León. Day 9: Lena, Orbigo, Villafranca del Bierzo. Drive through the Puerto de Pájares (mountain pass) to Sta Cristina de Lena, an exquisite 9thcent. church. Return to the camino via the valley of the Luna. Puente de Orbigo is a 13th-cent. bridge which carried pilgrims over the River Orbigo. Villafranca del Bierzo was an ancient haunt of hermits and anchorites and subsequently studded with churches and hospices. Overnight Villafranca del Bierzo. Day 10: Villafranca to Santiago. Three churches punctuate the final stretch of the journey: O Cebreiro, site of a great Eucharistic miracle, Portomarín, a Templar foundation guarding the bridge over the Miño and Vilar de Donas, decayed and evocative knights’ church. Finally: Santiago de Compostela, goal of the pilgrimage. Three nights in Santiago. Day 11: Santiago de Compostela. The morning is dedicated to the great pilgrimage church, the shrine of St James, one of the most impressive of all Romanesque churches; also outstanding treasuries. Explore the university quarter and the narrow picturesque streets and visit Sta María del Sar, where walls splayed and buttressed support a charming Romanesque church against its cloister. Overnight Santiago.
2–13 June 2015 (mb 348) 12 days • £3,370 Leaders: Adam Hopkins & Gaby Macphedran 8–19 September 2015 (mc 428) 12 days • £3,370 Leaders: Adam Hopkins & Gaby Macphedran The last great pilgrimage route in Christendom which still attracts walkers; scenically wonderful with much fine architecture. Selected sections from the Pyrenees through northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela. Walking in comfort: good hotels; luggage transferred separately. A maximum of 14 participants. The lecturer is Adam Hopkins, journalist and author, specialist in Spanish history and culture. Still one of the most splendid walking routes in Europe, the Camino de Santiago runs almost 500 miles across northern Spain to the supposed tomb of St James, Sant Iago. Normally, the journey takes a month on foot. We are setting out to walk the highlights in twelve days, taking in the most
Day 12: Santiago de Compostela. Free day. Day 13: Santiago de Compostela. Drive around midday to La Coruña. The flight arrives in London Heathrow at c. 4.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £3,510 (deposit £350). Single supplement £460 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £3,310. Included meals: 2 lunches, 9 dinners with wine.
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Accommodation. Parador de Argómaniz (parador.es): 4-star with simple rooms. Parador de Sos del Rey Católico (parador.es): 4-star parador with views of surrounding countryside. Parador de Sto Domingo de la Calzada (parador. es): 4-star parador in the heart of town. NH Palacio de la Merced, Burgos (nh-hoteles.com): 4-star hotel in the centre of town. Parador de León (parador.es): 5-star parador in grandiose Plateresque pilgrim hostel. Parador de Villafranca del Bierzo (parador.es): 4-star parador in a contemporary building. Parador de Santiago de Compostela (parador.es): 5-star parador, for centuries the abode of the grander pilgrims. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: St Petersburg, 10–16 September 2015 (page 180), In Churchill’s Footsteps, 10–13 September 2015 (page 58).
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Burgos, copper engraving c. 1700. book online at www.martinrandall.com
historically charged and beautiful sections. For earlier pilgrims, the lure was a reduction of the soul’s time in Purgatory; now the motives are more usually historical and cultural, and sometimes also deeply personal. Religious commitment is less in evidence. But for many who undertake the magnificent walk there is also a spiritual dimension. Asceticism is not a necessary ingredient. Instead of staying in bunk beds in pilgrim hostels we repose in hotels, ranging from workaday to some of Spain’s finest. Instead of carrying huge packs with all our necessities, we carry only our own day sacks while the luggage moves by road. Our vehicles intersect with walkers every two or three hours, allowing respite to anyone who needs to ride. We eat well, often picnicking in deep country, and try some of the fine wines grown along the route. But as with all pilgrimages this is a linear walk, involving a new hotel each night except on two rest days. We are like pilgrims, rather than tourists, visiting monuments along the route and what time and tiredness allow at the end of the day’s walking. There will be interpretative commentary by the lecturer and an introduction to the major buildings. But the experience of walking the camino is what is essentially on offer, along a route which has for centuries compelled the imagination.
Itinerary Day 1: Biarritz to Roncesvalles. Leave from Biarritz Airport following the arrival of the flight from London Stansted (Ryanair, currently 3.15pm) (flights are not included – see separate section at the end of this itinerary). Drive to Roncesvalles and stay for one night here. Day 2: Roncesvalles to Lintzoáin/Erro, total walk 14.7 km. Weather permitting, we start at the summit of the pass and drop down on foot to Roncesvalles, traditional starting point of the pilgrimage in Spain. It has a fine collegiate church preserving memories of Sancho the Strong of Navarre. From here, walk downward through rustic, gentle sub-Pyrenean landscape and stately stone-built villages. After a picnic lunch, drive to Haro. Overnight Haro. Day 3: Nájera to Santo Domingo de la Calzada, total walk 21 km. Drive to Nájera, another of the burial places of the royal house of Navarre. Climb through red sandstone with vines in rocky corners, through varied irrigated crops and out into rolling wheat country with mountains lying north and south - this is a good day for striding out. Lunch is in a village café. Afternoon walkers continue to Santo Domingo de la Calzada where there is time to visit the cathedral. Overnight Sto Domingo.
Day 4: Villafranca Montes de Oca to Agés, total walk 15.8 km. Begin with an hour’s walk uphill into mildly mountainous country, passing a disturbing monument to victims of Civil War assassination. Cross a plateau and continue through pine and oak forest to a beautiful valley enclosing the monastery of San Juan de Ortega (fine Gothic church). Picnic in the woods. Afternoon walkers continue to the village of Agés. Drive to Burgos for the first of two nights.
‘We were well taken care of. Small attentions like water, tissues, picnic rugs and fruit throughout the day – all were greatly appreciated.’ Day 5: Burgos, rest day. Rest, nurse feet and loiter in this Castilian city rich in memories of El Cid and mediaeval pilgrimage, Wellington and Franco. There is time to see the magnificent cathedral, the charterhouse of Miraflores (superb sculpture by Gil de Siloé), and the monastery of Las Huelgas (fine architecture and images relevant to the camino). Overnight Burgos. Day 6: Castrojeriz to Boadilla del Camino, total walk 18.9 km. After an uphill start continuing over high ground, the walk then descends to a river and lush irrigated land. It then climbs again more gently and drops to the dovecote country of Boadilla where the plains of León begin. Picnic lunch here before driving to León with its fine Gothic cathedral and Spain’s finest stained glass. The Parador of S. Marcos, our hotel, is one of the major historic buildings of the pilgrim route. Overnight León. Day 7: Puente de Orbigo to Astorga, total walk 16.4 km. About one hour into the walk, we make a modest ascent and suddenly the plains are over. There are two or three small climbs this morning through remote-feeling countryside and wheat fields ending in shady corners under small oaks. We picnic with views down to the cathedral of Astorga. Stalwarts continue the walk into town. Here, the bishop’s palace was designed by Gaudí and there is a charming town hall. Overnight Astorga.
Day 9: Triacastela to Sarriá, total walk 18.5 km. Drive to Triacastela via O Cebreiro, first port of call in Galicia for pilgrims, with Celtic buildings and ancient church. The walk starts low and climbs through Galician-green valley and into country of tiny hamlets where cows chew the cud
Day 10. Phase 1: Sarriá to Ferreiros. Phase 2: Monte del Gozo to Santiago de Compostela. Total walk 18.2 km. Walk 13.2 km from Sarriá to Ferreiros and take a picnic lunch before driving on to Monte del Gozo. Here pilgrims once fell to their knees at the first view of the cathedral spires of Santiago (harder to see now through eucalyptus). Walk a further 5 km through suburbs into increasingly ancient city centre and right into the Parador, another important and beautiful historic building. First of two nights in Santiago de Compostela. Day 11: Santiago. The cathedral is a Romanesque masterpiece with a magnificent carved portal. Guided tour of the cathedral roof and those who wish may attend Pilgrim’s mass at midday. The rest of the day is free. Day 12. Drive to Santiago Airport in time for the flight to London Gatwick (Easyjet, currently departing at 11.40am). Flights are not included in the cost of the tour as the most convenient are with Ryanair and Easyjet and we cannot make a booking without knowing the passenger name. We can book flights on your behalf, quoting the fare at the time of booking, or you can make the bookings yourself. Full details are provided with confirmation of booking.
Practicalities Price: £3,370 (deposit £300). Single supplement £330 (double for single occupancy). Included meals: 8 lunches (7 are picnics), 8 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Roncesvalles (hotelroncesvalles.com): a 3-star hotel in an 18th-cent. building. Hotel Los Agustinos, Haro (hotellosagustinos.com): 4-star in a converted convent. Parador de Sto Domingo la Calzada (parador.es), 4-star parador, former mediaeval pilgrim hospital. NH Palacio de la Merced, Burgos (nh-hotels.com): 4-star hotel in a converted palace. Parador de León (parador. es): 5-star parador in grandiose Plateresque pilgrim hostel. Hotel Spa Ciudad de Astorga (hotelciudaddeastorga.com): 3-star, modern hotel in the centre. Parador de Villafranca del Bierzo (parador.es): 4-star parador in a contemporary building. Hotel Carrís Alfonso IX, Sarriá (carrishoteles.com): a modern hotel near the river. Parador de Santiago de Compostela (parador.es): 5-star parador, in the former pilgrims’ hospital.
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Day 8: Astorga to Rabanal del Camino, total walk 20.6 km. Walk out through Astorga’s old town. An hour and a half brings us to wellpreserved Castrillo de Polvazares, former centre of the interesting Maragatos tribe, obscure in its origins but throughout history Northern Spain’s muleteers. A mix of path and lane leads slowly upwards with views opening into the Mountains of León. After a picnic lunch continue walking to Rabanal del Camino. Drive from here to Villafranca del Bierzo for the night.
in dark mediaeval sheds. Sunken tracks, ferns and ivy abound and there is later a fine upland feel. After a picnic lunch we begin a slow descent to Sarriá. Overnight Sarriá.
Group size: between 7 and 14 participants. Combine this tour with: Art in Madrid, 27–31 May 2015 (page 187), Granada & Córdoba, 21–28 September 2015 (page 199).
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Bilbao to Bayonne
Food, art & architecture in the Basque lands Day 2: Bilbao, Laguardia. The morning is spent studying Gehry’s extraordinary titaniumclad Guggenheim Museum. Lunch is at the restaurant here run by innovative chef Josean Alija who learned his trade at El Bulli. Leave city and industry behind and drive south through increasingly attractive countryside to the undulating plains of the wine-growing region of La Rioja-Alavesa and the mediaeval village of Laguardia. Introductory tasting in the hotel cellar. First of two nights in Laguardia.
‘Our lecturer was absolutely outstanding – such a wide range of knowledge – a joy to be with! Of my many MR trips – this was one of the very best.’
San Sebastian, wood engraving c. 1860.
13–20 October 2014 (mb 165) This tour is currently full 7–14 September 2015 (mc 427) 8 days • £3,110 Lecturer: Gijs van Hensbergen Long, lazy lunches including two in restaurants with 3 Michelin stars. Excellent wines of La Rioja-Alavesa. Architecture by Gehry, Calatrava, Moneo, and varied landscapes of coast, plain and mountain. Led by Gijs van Hensbergen, art historian and author of books on Spanish art and food. Three bases: Bilbao, Laguardia and Vera de Bidasoa in the Spanish Pyrenees.
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Straddling the Pyrenees and divided between France and Spain, the Basque Country has wonderful and varied scenery, a magnificent range of art and architecture and a culinary tradition which ranks with the best in the world. It is a land of abundance in many things, though there is one striking exception: tourists are in short supply. The landscape reaches from the Atlantic coast, indented with natural harbours and the fishing communities from which the wealth of the region has derived since ancient times, to the hills and mountains majestically clothed with broadleaf forests. Both the highlands and the fertile rolling lowlands provide the raw ingredients which supplement the seafood and inspire gastronomic greatness.
The best of Basque cooking mixes a strong sense of tradition with startling innovation. From the all-male dining clubs, where friends cook for each other, to the indoor markets spilling over with smoked idiazabal cheeses and gleaming fresh fish, from the rustic cider clubs to the chic new bars vying for the ‘tapas of the year’ prize, Basques remain obsessed with the quality and provenance of their food. Juan-Marie Arzak is the most famous restaurateur in Spain. As godfather to New Basque Cuisine, he has inspired an entire generation of chefs including Martín Berasategui, Pedro Subijana and Hilario Arbelaitz. Together they share no fewer than ten Michelin stars. Today Juan-Marie cooks alongside his daughter, Elena, voted best Female Chef in the World in 2012, and their restaurant ranks in the world’s top ten. From Bilbao we drive a loop through the Rioja Alavesa, the northern rim of the most prestigious wine-making area in Spain and up to the Pyrenees. Between visits to restaurants, wineries and specialist food shops, we linger in mediaeval villages, Gothic churches and Baroque interiors. There is here some fine contemporary architecture by Gehry, Calatrava and Moneo. San Sebastian has a swathe of flamboyant turn-of-the-century buildings while nestling in the upland valleys and clamped to hillsides is a doughty vernacular of remarkable distinctiveness and beauty.
Itinerary Day 1: Bilbao. Fly at c. 6.50pm from London Heathrow to Bilbao, Calatrava’s spectacular airport. Overnight Bilbao.
book online at www.martinrandall.com
Day 3: Marqués de Riscal, Granja de Remelluri, Laguardia. The bodegas of Marqués de Riscal are among the most venerable in the region. The visit includes tasting and the cellars of their Gehrydesigned hotel (subject to confirmation). Lunch and vineyard walk at the bodegas of Nuestra Señora de Remelluri, installed in 14th-century monastic buildings in countryside. Laguardia is the most picturesque of Riojan villages, perched on a hillock within a circuit of fortified walls. Walk the ramparts and see the outstanding 14thcentury portal of Sta Maria de los Reyes. Day 4: Laguardia, Ordizia, Lasarte, Vera de Bidasoa. The Ysios winery below Laguardia is a magnificent building by Calatrava. Tasting of idiazabal in Ordizia, a mediaeval town and the cheese capital of the Basque Country. Lunch at Martín Berasategui’s 3 Michelin-star restaurant in Lasarte-Oria. Vera de Bidasoa nestles in the Pyrenean foothills close to the French border. First of four nights in Vera. Day 5: France: Ainhoa, Espelette, Bayonne. Cross into the French Pyrenees to the spick and span villages of Ainhoa and Espelette with their red and white timbered houses sporting clusters of red peppers, a local speciality. Sample ewe’s milk cheese with cherry compote. Encircled by formidable Vauban ramparts and straddling the River Nive, Bayonne is a colourful town with Gothic cathedral, arcaded streets, riverside markets and famed for fish, ham and chocolate. Day 6: San Sebastian. This is the gastronomic capital of Spain, sweeping elegantly around one of the finest beaches on the northern coast. Behind the ancient fisherman’s quarter is the compact grid of the old town with a wonderfully harmonious arcaded square at the centre and traffic-free streets lined with bars. A tapas trawl is followed by lunch in a private dining club, a rare privilege (and subject to confirmation). Some free time to see the elaborate historicist architecture of the 19th-century extension and Moneo’s arts centre. Day 7: Hondarribia, San Sebastian. Hondarribia is a superbly preserved fortified town on an
Ar t in Madrid The great galleries Lecturer focus Art historian and author specialising in Spain and the USA. His books include Gaudí, In the Kitchens of Castile and Guernica. He studied Art History at the Courtauld and is a Fellow of the Cañada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies at the LSE.
27–31 May 2015 (mb 343) 5 days • £1,720 Lecturer: Dr Xavier Bray 16–20 September 2015 (mc 449) 5 days • £1,720 Lecturer: Gail Turner Two visits to the Prado plus the ThyssenBornemisza Collection and the Reina Sofía, home to Picasso’s Guernica.
Gijs van Hensbergen also leads Castile & León (page 188), Gastronomic Catalonia (page 191), Barcelona 1900, (page 193), Gastonomic Andalucía (page 200), East Coast Galleries (page 208) and Art in Texas (page 212).
Lesser-known places include the Sorolla Museum, Archaeological Museum and Goya frescoes at San Antonio de la Florida.
All lecturers’ biographies can be found on pages 8–15.
While the Museo del Prado alone might justify a visit to Madrid – and this tour has two sessions there – the city has other excellent collections which reinforce its reputation as one of the great art centres of Europe.
outcrop overlooking the sea with narrow streets, balconied palaces, a 14th-century castle and a Gothic church. Return to San Sebastian for lunch at the most famous restaurant in Spain, Arzak. Despite its 3 Michelin stars and status as the 8th best restaurant in the world, it remains very much a family business.
The lecturers Gail Turner and Dr Xavier Bray are art historians specialising in Spain.
This city of Velázquez and Goya has been enormously enhanced over the years by the installation of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection and the Reina Sofía Museum. Both these and the Prado have undergone major extension work under architects Jean Nouvel (Reina Sofía), Manuel Baquero and Francesc Plá (Thyssen) and Rafael Moneo (Prado). New exhibiting spaces, restaurants and lecture theatres lend even greater lustre to these world-class galleries. Our stints at the ‘big three’ are interspersed with less-visited collections, many of them recently restored. The great Spanish painters – El Greco, Murillo, Velázquez, Goya and Picasso – are of course magnificently represented on the tour, but the collecting mania of the Habsburgs and Bourbons and their subjects has resulted in a wide range of artistic riches which will surprise and delight. There is a large number of outstanding paintings by Titian and Rubens, for example, and the Prado has by far the largest holding of the bizarre creations of Hieronymus Bosch.
Day 8. Drive to Bilbao for the flight to London, arriving Heathrow at c. 6.15pm.
Practicalities Price in 2015: £3,110 (deposit £300). Single supplement £230 (double room for single occupancy). Suite supplement in Vera £100 (two sharing only). Price without flights £2,940. Included meals: 6 lunches, 4 dinners (3 are light) with wine. Accommodation. Silken Gran Domine, Bilbao (hoteles-silken.com): a 5-star hotel opposite the Guggenheim; contemporary in style. Hotel Villa de Laguardia (hotelvilladelaguardia.com): a 4-star hotel on the outskirts of the town with comfortable rooms and attractive public areas. Hotel Churrut, Vera de Bidasoa (hotelchurrut. com): a 3-star hotel installed in an 18th-cent. military building; family owned with 17 spacious rooms and comfortable sitting areas. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
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Combine this tour with: Art in Madrid, 16–20 September 2015 (see to the right).
Madrid, San Francisco El Grande, 20th-century watercolour. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Castile & León
Ancient kingdoms in the heart of Spain Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 9.15am (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Madrid. Start with a first visit to the Prado Museum, which is among the world’s greatest art galleries; concentrating on the Spanish school. Settle into the hotel before dinner. Day 2. Morning visits include the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, home to works by Goya, Zurbarán, Ribera and Murillo, and the Museum of Decorative Arts, with an 18th-century tiled Valencian kitchen. The afternoon is spent at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, housed in the 18th-century Palacio de Villahermosa until its purchase by the Spanish state in 1993 one of the world’s largest private art collections. Day 3. Begin at the recently renovated Archaeological Museum, good on ancient Iberian civilization and Roman Spain. Continue to the Lázaro Galdiano Museum with works by El Greco, Goya and Murillo. The afternoon is free to allow for temporary exhibitions (details nearer the time) or a visit to the 18th-century Royal Palace. Day 4. Travel by coach to the Sorolla Museum, in the charming house of the eponymous Impressionist painter. Continue to the arcaded, balconied Plaza Mayor, centrepiece of Habsburg town planning. In the afternoon return to the Prado, this time primarily to see the Italian and Netherlandish schools. Day 5. Walk via Herzog & de Meuron’s Caixaforum (visit dependent on the exhibition at the time) to the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, one of the greatest modern art museums and home to Picasso’s Guernica plus works by Miró, Dalí and Tàpies. Fly to London Heathrow, arriving at c. 6.00pm (Iberia).
Practicalities Price: £1,720 (deposit £150). Single supplement £300 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,500. Included meals: 3 dinners with wine. Accommodation. NH Palacio de Tepa, Madrid (nh-hoteles.com): a small 5-star hotel. Rooms are comfortable and décor is contemporary. Group size: between 9 and 19 participants.
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Combine this tour with: Walking to Santiago, 2–13 June 2015 (page 184), Bilbao to Bayonne, 7–14 September 2015 (page 186), Granada & Córdoba, 21–28 September 2015 (page 199).
Segovia, La Granja de San Ildefonso, watercolour by Mima Nixon, publ. 1916.
19–28 October 2015 (mc 500) 10 days • £2,630 Lecturer: Gijs van Hensbergen Led by Gijs van Hensbergen, art historian and author specialising in Spain. Spain’s most beautiful cities: Salamanca, Segovia, Ávila. Architectural magnificence throughout including the cathedrals of Burgos and León. Much fine sculpture as well. Walled villages, grand monasteries, hilltop castles and a backdrop of vast, undulating landscape. Includes the Palace of El Escorial (16th-century). Good food: suckling pig, slow-roast lamb and kid; good wine of the Ribera de Duero. Since their fusion under one crown in the eleventh century, the ancient kingdoms of Castile and León have been responsible for some of the most emblematic periods of Spanish history. These former rival territories established themselves as the heart of Spain and exerted great influence over language, religion and culture far across the mediaeval map. Innumerable castles were built here (hence ‘Castile’) for this was the principal battleground of the Reconquista, the five-hundred-year war of attrition against the Moors which reclaimed Spain for Christendom. The region occupies much of the Meseta, the vast and austere plateau in the centre of the Iberian peninsula. Here are many of Spain’s finest cities, buildings and works of art. Lovers of Romanesque will feel particularly satisfied for there are many excellent examples of the style. Great Gothic churches are another magnificent feature, the cathedrals at León, Burgos, Segovia and Salamanca among them. French, German and English influences are to be found, though
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the end result is always unmistakably Spanish. Another striking aspect of the tour is the wealth of brilliant sculpture, especially of the late-mediaeval and Renaissance periods. Castles, of course, abound, and some of the defensive curtain of frontier cities such as Ávila are remarkably well preserved. As well as the prominent cities, we include a number of lesser-known places, all strikingly attractive, many with outstanding buildings or works of art, all barely visited by tourists.
Itinerary Day 1: Ávila, Salamanca. Fly at c. 09.10am from London Heathrow to Madrid. Drive to Ávila: a fortress town built during the Reconquista, it retains its entire circuit of 11th-century walls complete with battlements and 88 turrets. The 12th-century Basilica of San Vicente has fine sculpture. First of two nights in Salamanca. Day 2: Salamanca. Distinguished by the honeycoloured hue of its stone, Salamanca is one of the most attractive cities in Spain and home to its most prestigious university. See the magnificent 16th-century Gothic ‘New Cathedral’ and austere Romanesque ‘Old Cathedral’, the 18th-century Plaza Mayor and superb, elaborate Plateresque sculpture on the façades of the university and church of San Esteban. The University has 15th- and 16th-century quadrangles, arcaded courtyards and original lecture halls. The Convento de las Dueñas has a Plateresque portal and an irregular, two-tiered cloister. Day 3: Zamora, León. On the Roman road that connected Astorga to Mérida, Zamora rose to importance during the Reconquista as a bastion on the Duero front. Much of its Romanesque architecture survives, including the cathedral of Byzantine influence. Drive to León, former capital of the ancient kingdom and visit the
monastery of San Marcos (our hotel) with an exuberant Plateresque façade, magnificent lateGothic church, Renaissance chapels and fine choir-stalls. First of two nights in León. Day 4: León. A morning walk to some of the outstanding mediaeval buildings of the city. The royal pantheon of San Isidoro is one of the first, and finest, Romanesque buildings in Spain, with important sculptures. The cathedral is truly superb Rayonnant Gothic with impressive stained glass. The afternoon is free to visit the archaeological or contemporary art museums. Day 5: San Miguel de Escalada, Lerma, Santo Domingo de Silos. The beautiful, remote church at San Miguel de Escalada displays a fusion of Visigothic and Islamic building traditions. The village of Lerma has a wealth of buildings from the early 17th century including an arcaded main square with ducal palace and the Collegiate church of San Pedro. Drive in the late afternoon to Santo Domingo de Silos, which has the finest Romanesque monastery in Spain, outstanding for the sculpture of the 12th-century cloister. First of two nights in Lerma. Day 6: Burgos, Quintanilla de las Viñas, Covarrubias. Drive to Burgos, the early capital of Castile, whose cathedral combines French and German Gothic styles and has remarkable vaults and 16th-century choir stalls. On the outskirts is the convent of Las Huelgas Reales with its important early Gothic church. Visit the Visigothic chapel at Quintanilla de las Viñas.
Covarrubias is an attractive walled village with a mediaeval Colegiata containing fine tombs. Day 7: El Burgo de Osma, San Esteban de Gormaz, Segovia. El Burgo de Osma is a walled town with arcaded streets and one of the finest Gothic cathedrals in Spain. At San Esteban de Gormaz see the 12th-century churches of San Miguel and Del Rivero with exterior galleries. Built on a steep-sided hill, Segovia is one of the loveliest cities in Spain and architecturally one of the most richly endowed. First of three nights in Segovia. Day 8: Segovia. Straddling the town, the remarkable Roman aqueduct is one of the biggest in Europe. See the outstanding Romanesque exteriors of San Martín, San Millán and San Esteban and the circular Templar church of La Vera Cruz. An afternoon walk includes the cathedral, a soaring Gothic structure, and the restored Alcázar (castle), dramatically perched at the prow of the hill. Day 9: Segovia, La Granja. Free morning; suggestions include the contemporary art museum of Esteban Vicente and the Museum of Segovia. Drive to La Granja de San Ildefonso, the palace constructed for Philip V in the early 18th century, with magnificent formal gardens.
majesty without ostentation, severity in the whole’. Fly from Madrid, arriving at London Heathrow at c. 5.20pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,630 (deposit £200). Single supplement £300 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,470. Included meals: 7 dinners with wine. Accommodation. NH Palacio de Castellanos, Salamanca (nh-hotels.com): attractive 4-star hotel in a converted palace, close to the Cathedrals. Parador de León (parador.es): 5-star Parador in grandiose Plateresque building; public areas are impressive. Parador de Lerma (parador.es): 4-star Parador in the Ducal Palace. Palacio San Facundo, Segovia (hotelpalaciosanfacundo.com): centrally located 4-star hotel in a converted 16th century casa-palacio. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: The Western Balkans, 5–18 October 2015 (page 28), Pompeii & Herculaneum, 12–17 October 2015 (page 151).
Day 10: El Escorial. This vast retreat-cum-palacecum-monastery-cum-pantheon was built from 1563 to 1584 for Philip II, successfully embodying his instructions for ‘nobility without arrogance, Burgos, Las Huelgas Monastery, lithograph c. 1850.
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Aragón
Hidden Spain: Teruel, Zaragoza, Jaca 29 September–7 October 2015 (mc 469) 9 days • £2,470 Lecturer: Adam Hopkins One of the least-visited regions of Spain and yet one of the richest in history, architecture and landscapes. The lecturer is Adam Hopkins, journalist and author, specialist in Spanish history and culture. Stretches from Teruel to Jaca – in the foothills of the Pyrenees. As diverse a tour as we offer with Paleolithic and Neolithic cave painting, Roman remains, Moorish palaces, Spain’s finest examples of Mudéjar architecture, Romanesque castles and churches. Themes of military history: El Cid, Peninsular War, Civil War. Visit Goya’s birthplace and see his Horrors of War.
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You cannot know Spain unless you know Aragón, that former kingdom rich in fine landscape, history and architecture, including Arab works and the Arab-Christian style known as Mudéjar, here at its most extravagant and surprising. It is the swiftly-flowing River Aragón, running down from the High Pyrenees, which gave its name to one of the most dynamic mini-kingdoms of early mediaeval Europe. Soon Aragón advanced to meet the Moorish occupiers of the Ebro basin and wrested Zaragoza (Roman Caesar Augusta) from them. From there, it was on to smaller Teruel and the rugged sierras which flank it, to establish, in the end, a shield-shaped territory. With Catalunya, Aragón came to rule Sicily, southern Italy and most of Greece, truly a power in the Mediterranean. Later, in the fifteenth century, it became a partner for Castile in forging the identity for what we know today as Spain. But since then it has been side-lined in the political structure, enabling it, through misfortune, to retain and still convey a sense of its early origins. The landscape is as dramatic as the history. The peaks and summer pastures of the highest Pyrenees fall almost entirely within Aragón. Dropping south, the Ebro valley is like a winding oasis between deeply eroded, dry clay banks. South again lies steppe country, sometimes desert-like, turning finally to a territory of cliff and gorge. Here Neolithic man left paintings in rock shelters. The architectural legacy is outstanding. The early stonemasons and architects of Aragón, in tandem with French craftsmen on the Pilgrims’ Way to Santiago, produced some of the most charming Romanesque buildings in Spain, marked by particularly engaging stone carving. The castle of Loarre is arguably Spain’s finest Romanesque military construction. This is matched in beauty and surprise-value by the Arabesques and interlocking arches of the (Arab) Aljaferia Palace in Zaragoza. The intermingling and development of the two styles gives us Mudéjar, built by Moorish artisans and architects for Christian masters, full of fantasy, in brick and multiple ceramic decoration. The four Mudéjar towers of Teruel are among the wonders of Spain. Military history gives us El Cid Campeador. Though touted as a Christian hero, he worked for years as a mercenary general for the Moorish rulers of Zaragoza. During the Peninsular War – known in Spain as the War of Independence – Zaragoza endured two exceptionally bitter sieges. During the civil war of 1936–39, Belchite, close to Zaragoza, was furiously contested – and left in ruins as a warning for the future. The three-month battle for Teruel, fought in sub-zero temperatures from December 1937, was one of the most cruel of defeats for the Spanish Republic. Add to all of this four different wine regions, each with its own denominación de origen; pottery still made in the Arabic tradition; intriguing country towns; and robust, big-city Zaragoza, studded with major monuments.
Zaragoza, La Torre Nueva, late19th-century steel engraving. book online at www.martinrandall.com
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 9.15am (Iberia) from London Heathrow to Madrid. Drive to Teruel with a stop en route (c. 190 miles) arriving at the hotel at about 6.30pm. First of two nights in Teruel. Day 2: Teruel, Albarracín. Albarracín is a gorgeringed hill town founded by Arabs and long ruled by its Christian reconquerors as an independent enclave. The defensive wall high on the ‘landward’ side, mediaeval streets and narrow site make it one of the most remarkable spots in Aragón. Close by lies a tract of well-wooded country above red sandstone cliffs. Here Palaeolithic and Neolithic communities painted animals and humans in rock shelters. Here we walk to see some of the most revealing paintings, mostly in woods, but also visiting a magnificent cliff top with wide views. Back in Teruel, see the little city’s famous Mudéjar towers. The cathedral has a painted ceiling which gives an extraordinary insight into mediaeval life. Overnight Teruel. Day 3: Teruel, Daroca, Zaragoza. Spend the morning in Teruel and visit the mausoleum of the famous Lovers of Teruel who perished for love of one another, and the fine Provincial Museum housed in an Aragonese mansion. Drive north to Daroca, a well-preserved mediaeval town of great beauty and curiosity. Continue to Zaragoza, capital of Aragón. First of three nights in Zaragoza. Day 4: Zaragoza. Visit the mediaeval/ Renaissance cathedral with Mudéjar work and the Lonja, fine Gothic/Renaissance Exchange. In the newer part of town, see the Fine Arts Museum and the adjacent monument to the Napoleonic sieges of the city. The Aljaferia is an Arab palace incorporating brilliant additions by Ferdinand and Isabella. The Basilica of El Pilar is the 18thcentury site of modern pilgrimage built around the pillar on which the Virgin Mary appeared to St James. Ceiling paintings include works by Goya. Overnight Zaragoza. Day 5: Belchite, Fuendetodos, Zaragoza. Belchite was the site of fierce fighting in 1937 which left the town completely ruined. In open and semidesert country, the visit is an eerie experience. At Fuendetodos, in equally bleak country, Goya’s birthplace has been well-restored. The Museum of Etching contains the Caprichos, Disparates, and Horrors of War. Free afternoon in Zaragoza. Overnight Zaragoza. Day 6: Huesca, Loarre, Jaca. Huesca, second ‘capital’ of infant Aragón, has a cathedral, with a dramatic altarpiece. Follow the river Gállego as it flows past the extraordinary rock formations of Riglos de los Mallos. Emerge from the sierras to encounter the Castle of Loarre, arguably the finest Romanesque military building in Spain. Drive up to Jaca in the western Pyrenees for three nights. Day 7: Sos del Rey Católico, Leyre, Jaca. In remote hill country, Sos del Rey Católico is one of the chief sites of the mediaeval kingdom: Ferdinand of Aragón was born here in 1452 and the town retains much of its mediaeval atmosphere. The monastery of San Salvador de
Gastronomic Catalonia Fine food & wine, art & architecture
Engraving 1864 after Gustave Doré.
Adam Hopkins Journalist and author, now living in a mountain village in Spain. He studied at King’s College, Cambridge, and has contributed extensively to national newspapers in Britain on Spanish culture and travel. Among his books: Spanish Journeys: a Portrait of Spain. Adam Hopkins also leads Lisbon Neighbourhoods (page 176), The Douro (page 178), Walking to Santiago (page 184), Extremadura (page 195), Valencia (page 194) and Andalucía (page 198). All lecturers’ biographies can be found on pages 8–15.
Leyre maintains Gregorian offices in a fascinating church with a good crypt and western portal. Visit the cathedral of Jaca with fine stone carvings. Overnight Jaca. Day 8: San Juan de la Peña, Jaca. The monastery of San Juan de la Peña, dramatically sited under a bulging rock face, is the burial place of the kings and queens of early Aragón. See the magnificently carved mini-cloister. This site is key to understanding Aragón’s religious sentiment and history. Some free time in Jaca. Overnight Jaca. Day 9: drive east out of Aragón into Catalonia; a journey of some two-hundred miles, broken by a stop for lunch. Fly from Barcelona Airport (British Airways), arriving at London Heathrow at c. 5.30pm.
13–19 April 2015 (mb 285) 7 days • £2,740 Lecturer: Gijs van Hensbergen Eat well, drink well: Michelin-starred lunches, award-winning chefs and quality wine producers.
Practicalities
Sightseeing ranges from mediaeval to Modernist art and architecture.
Price: £2,470 (deposit £250). Single supplement £200 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,290.
Led by Gijs van Hensbergen, author of books on Spanish art and food.
Included meals: 4 lunches, 6 dinners with wine.
Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
Also includes the lesser-visited city of Girona, and a day in the northernmost reaches of the region, crossing into France. Food is at the very core of Catalan existence, and the glorious variety of Catalan gastronomy reflects both the universal passion for food and the diverse cultural history of Catalonia. Food culture, husbandry and interest in medical and dietary matters reach back to the period when the Greeks first settled at Empúries to worship the healing image of Asklepios. The Carthaginians followed, bringing lentils, chickpeas and fava beans; the Romans introduced the vine and olive. Four centuries of Moorish domination brought a passion for sweetmeats, spices and aubergine. The Catalan larder expanded further in the late Middle Ages when control over Mediterranean trade routes brought pasta from Naples and the discovery of the Americas introduced the key ingredients for the Provençal and Catalan table: tomato, potato and paprika.
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Accommodation. Parador de Teruel (parador.es): 4-star parador on the outskirts of town, rooms are plain but comfortable. Hotel Catalonia el Pilar, Zaragoza (hoteles-catalonia.com): modern 4-star hotel in an attractive turn-of-the-century building in the historic centre. Hotel Conde Aznar, Jaca (condeaznar.com): a friendly, familyrun, 3-star hotel.
Contrasting bases: the centre of Barcelona and a converted farmhouse outside Figueres.
The Barcelona food markets are among the most beautiful and enticing in the world. Set out in cartwheels under ceilings of Art Nouveau stained glass, the stalls fan out from their fresh fish hub. Marble sinks soak the milky salt cod; cornucopia of fruit and vegetables are displayed with the subtlety of a still-life; butchers offer specialities and recipes upon request; the mushroom man has thirty varieties, fresh and dried. At the outer edges are the dealers in frutos secos and artisan cheeses that never find their way out of Catalonia. In the city of the exuberance and riotous colour of Antoni Gaudí’s architectural confections, it is but a little way to the tour de force of a zarzuela fish stew, shot through with a firework display of saffron, bright red peppers and the creamy smooth burnt allioli sauce. The mar i muntanya dishes – the original surf and turf – marry together a remarkable blend of game, fowl or rabbit with langouste, enriched with a subtle chocolate sauce. The pioneering Nouvelle Catalan cuisine offer new tastes and complex techniques which find their echo deep into France, even to the Lycée Palace. The chefs that create them are some of the most talked about in and outside Barcelona. Sergi Arola is the former assistant of Ferrán Adriá and a proponent of authentic Catalan cuisine. Jordi Cruz mixes tradition and creativity at his 2-Michelin-starred restaurant ABAC in Barcelona, voted the best in Catalonia in 2011. Michelin-starred chef Nandu Jubany grows his own fruit and vegetables to serve in his restaurant, a converted farmhouse near Vic. However, there is far more to Catalonia than Barcelona, and historically the region extends into France. There are the fishing ports and
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Barcelona, La Rambla, engraving c. 1890.
the countryside, the Pyrenees and the Vallées Orientales, and the wines: Priorato, rich and tannin-steeped; Cavas which demonstrate brilliance and clarity; sweet Moscatel, peasant foil for the great Gewürztraminer experiments of the last decade; Penedès reds, as good with meat as slightly chilled with fish. Catalan wine is enjoying an extraordinary renaissance.
Itinerary Day 1: Barcelona. Fly at c. 11.15am from London Heathrow to Barcelona, capital of Catalonia and cosmopolitan market place. Take an afternoon walk and visit a chocolate emporium. Dinner has a 1900s theme with recipes from the gent de bé – Barcelona’s legendary good families – at the neoBaroque Casa Calvet designed by Gaudí. First of three nights in Barcelona.
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Day 2: Barcelona. Spend the morning in the Art Nouveau Boquería with its extraordinary displays of fresh produce. The Barri Gòtic is the most complete surviving Gothic quarter in Europe is still the location of some of the finest eating establishments and food suppliers in Catalonia. A wine tasting includes rarities from the Priorato and Penedès. In the afternoon visit the Palau de la Música, the highly ornate concert hall designed by Gaudí contemporary Domenech i Montaner. Dinner takes the form of a tapas walk. Overnight Barcelona. Day 3: Barcelona. On the slopes of Montjuïc are the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, which
houses the greatest collection of Romanesque frescoes in the world, plus fine Gothic and modern collections, and the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion. Lunch is in the rooftop restaurant of the stylish 5-star Hotel Arts where Sergi Arola has added yet another twist to contemporary Catalan cooking. In the afternoon visit Gaudí’s La Pedrera building of 1906–10. Day 4: Barcelona, Sant Celoni, Mas Pau. Take a morning walk in Gaudí’s Parc Güell before sampling Jordi Cruz’s 2-Michelin-starred, avant garde cuisine at ABAC. Leave Barcelona and continue to the 16th-cent. manor house of Mas Pau. First of three nights in Mas Pau. Day 5: Girona, Vic. Girona has a compact mediaeval Jewish quarter and Gothic cathedral towering over the river. Important illuminated manuscripts and tapestries are displayed in the chapterhouse. Lunch is at Michelin-starred Can Jubany while a light dinner takes the form of cheese and olive oil tasting in the hotel. Overnight Mas Pau. Day 6: Collioure (France), La Selva de Mar, Mas Pau (Spain). Drive into France to the pretty port of Collioure, a favoured retreat for Matisse and the Fauves. Light lunch of anchovies, a key local industry. Return to Spain, and the coastal town of La Selva de Mar to visit the vineyard of one of the Empordà’s finer producers. Dinner in the Michelin-starred restaurant at Mas Pau, home to chef Xavier Sagrista, founding partner of El Bulli with Ferran Adrià.
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Day 7: Figueres. Free time in Figueres to visit the Dalí museum. Drive south to Barcelona for the flight to Heathrow, arriving c. 5.30pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,740 (deposit £250). Single supplement £240 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,560. Included meals: 4 lunches, 5 dinners (including 3 light suppers) with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Condes de Barcelona (condesdebarcelona.com): a 4-star hotel well placed for buildings by Gaudí. Hotel Mas Pau, near Figueres (maspau.com): a converted 16thcent. farmhouse set in gardens; renowned for its restaurant with comfortable rooms alongside. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Lisbon Neighbourhoods, 20–25 April 2015 (page 176).
Barcelona 1900
Modernism in Barcelona & beyond 24 September–1 October 2015 (mc 447) 8 days • £2,730 Lecturer: Gijs van Hensbergen Modernist art and architecture by Gaudí, Picasso, Domènech i Muntaner, Puig i Cadafalch, Tapíes, Miró and more. Exceptional Spanish cuisine in architecturally spectacular surroundings. Led by Gaudí biographer, Gijs van Hensbergen. Based in Barcelona throughout, with some day trips outside of the city.
Day 3: Barcelona. A morning walk through the Ciutadella park, with sculpture by Tapíes, to Santa María del Mar, the finest Gothic church in Catalonia. End at the Picasso museum, spread through five adjacent palaces in the Gothic Quarter, it is the world’s most comprehensive display of the artist’s artistic development. Lunch in Domènech’s Hotel España. Afternoon walk via Sert’s Tuberculosis Clinic, the Secessionist Casa Heribert Pons and Domènech’s landmark Editorial Muntanyer i Simon (now the Fundaciò Antoni Tàpies) to the Manzana de la Discordia, the square of discord, where Gaudí’s Casa Batlló fights it out with Puig’s Casa Amatller. Day 4: Mataró, Barcelona. Enter the city’s council building, the Ajuntament, to see the paintings by Josep Maria Sert. Drive north of Barcelona to Mataró, home to Gaudí’s first building, now a contemporary art museum. Return to the city to visit Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia, the vast, still unfinished church which is one of the best-known buildings in the world, and Montaner’s Hospital de Sant Pau. Day 5: Barcelona, Montserrat. Drive to Gaudí’s neo-gothic house, Bellesguard with fine gardens and Parc Güell, the incomplete ‘garden suburb’ with sinuous ceramic-clad structures. Lunch in Rubió i Bellver’s Asador de Aranda, one of Barcelona’s great restaurants. Back in the city centre, walk through the district of Gràcia, passing Gaudí’s Casa Vicens, to his La Pedrera building of 1906–10.
Day 6: Montserrat, Sitges. The Benedictine abbey at Montserrat contains the shrine of the Black Virgin as well as a gallery with works by Dalí and Picasso. Continue to Sitges, one of the most fashionable of costa towns and home to Rusinyol’s collection at the Cau Ferrat. See also the adjoining Museu Maricel with its frescoes by Sert. Day 7: Barcelona. Free morning. In the afternoon journey by Metro to Montjuic hill and the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion (1929), a small masterpiece of International Modernism. The Miró Foundation (Joan Miró was born in Barcelona) has a large and important collection donated by the artist. Day 8: Barcelona. Drive out of Barcelona to Gaudí’s crypt at the Colonia Güell, arguably his greatest work, set amongst the pine trees in an industrial paradise. The flight from Barcelona arrives at Heathrow at c. 6.15pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,730 (deposit £250). Single supplement £420 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,490. Included meals: 4 lunches, 2 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Condes de Barcelona (condesdebarcelona.com): a 4-star hotel very well placed for buildings by Gaudí; rooms are modern and comfortable. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: The Heart of Italy, 15–22 September 2015 (page 142), Morocco, 12–23 September 2015 (page 169). Drawing of Antoni Gaudí.
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From formal palace to factory floor, no design detail was too insignificant for the architectdesigners of the Modernista age. Architects such as Antoni Gaudí, Domènech i Muntaner and Puig i Cadafalch vied for the patronage of the new urban élite as they transformed the teachings of Ruskin and Morris into a seductive reality of stained glass, marble, tortoise-shell, elaborately carved stone and daring use of iron and brick. Turn-of-the-century Barcelona provided a haven for social and artistic experimentation. Style wars raged over the pre-eminence of Gaudí’s religious vision or of that of the Bohemian world of Picasso and the legendary Quatre Gats café. Outside the city, industrial colonies sat side by side with Utopian garden design and other experiments in social engineering. The many Modernista showcases of the latest thinking in architectural theory and design include Muntaner’s outrageously flamboyant Palau opera house, private mansions, cast-iron markets, pharmacies, patisseries and hospitals. We dine in houses designed by Gaudí and Rubió i Bellver as well as Domènech’s Hotel España, submerged in a marine world of frescoed mermaids, angel fish and slippery squid. Outside the city we visit the mountain-top shrine of Montserrat, Catalonia’s spiritual home, and Gaudí’s first edifice in Mataró, built for a textile workers union and his only building not to be funded by the bourgeoisie or the Catholic church. No single building can better explain the apparent paradoxes of the Quatre Gats and Modernista style than Rusinyol’s rock-ledge haven, the Cau Ferrat, with its views across the Mediterranean. Side by side, sketches by Picasso, tiles, cartoons by the great draughtsman Ramon Casas, all fight for space against their shared heritage of mediaeval ironwork, Gothic carving and two masterpieces by El Greco.
Gats (café). Dinner in Gaudí’s award-winning Casa Calvet.
Itinerary Day 1: Barcelona. Fly at 11.15am (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Barcelona. The Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya houses the world’s finest collection of Romanesque murals, a constant source of inspiration for the generation of 1900. Day 2: Barcelona. A morning walk includes Domènech’s exuberant Palau de la Música and the Cathedral. Continue in the afternoon to Gaudí’s sumptuous Palau Güell, Boqueria market, finishing with a drink at the bohemian Quatre
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Valencia
Art & architecture, Mediaeval to modern Valencia, Quart Towers, wood engraving 1875 after a drawing by Samuel Read.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 10.45am from London Heathrow to Madrid (Iberia) and connect on a flight to Valencia (Air Nostrum). Day 2. The cathedral, a curious mix of Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque, has a splendid chapter house and paintings by Goya. Fine Modernista market – and produce. Great examples of secular 15th-cent. Gothic include the Silk Exchange with its magnificent hall of pillars and the Generalitat with a sequence of richly decorated rooms (subject to confirmation). Housed in its exuberantly Churrigueresque palace, the collections of the National Ceramics Museum range from Moorish lustre ware to Picasso. Day 3. The complex of the Colegio del Patriarca has a Renaissance courtyard and a museum with Flemish and Spanish paintings. The church of Corpus Cristi has 16th-cent. frescoes and a Last Supper by Ribalta. Santo Domingo, a Gothic friary, has a Royal Chapel with ribless vault and an outstanding 14th-cent. chapter house (visit by special arrangement). Cross the 16th-cent. Royal Bridge to the Fine Arts Museum, one of the best in Spain, with works by Valencian, Spanish and Flemish masters.
10–14 November 2015 (mc 522) 5 days • £1,370 Lecturer: Adam Hopkins A handsome, vibrant city on the Mediterranean seaboard, excellent for its variety of art and architecture, good food and wine. The lecturer is Adam Hopkins, journalist and author, specialist in Spanish history and culture. Gothic highlights include the Silk Exchange and the Royal Chapel at Santo Domingo. Possibility of attending an opera or concert at Calatrava’s striking Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia. One of Spain’s greatest fine arts museums, and its first modern art gallery, Impressionist collections and Arabic ceramics.
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Valencia, Spain’s third city, is elegant and openspirited, filled with Mediterranean light – though you only glimpse the sea when you go down to the beach to sample a paella, Valencia’s great contribution to gastronomic pleasure. From Arab times until today, Valencia has meant and still means rice – and oranges. Valencia’s architecture reflects the city’s exuberant success in Gothic days and the newly-thrusting, ultra-modern regionalism which has brought the America’s Cup here twice in recent years. Santiago Calatrava’s vast, fantastical and gleaming showpiece, the City of Arts and Sciences, set in the bed of a diverted river as the culmination of fourteen kilometres of park, is undoubtedly its supreme expression. Calatrava, Valencian-born engineer-architect supreme, has always had his critics: today voices
are raised about operating cost and maintenance now rising to crisis level, and the general sense of grandeur. But few could deny the beauty of the cascading glass, the gleaming steel and dazzling concrete, the acrobatic forms of his assemblage of outsize buildings – opera house, science museum, sports stadium, arboretum-walkway along with an oceanarium by the older but also interesting architect Felix Candela. The complex and indeed the whole city should not be missed by anyone who wants an overview of modern Spain. Evidence of the vigour of the city’s culture over the centuries is everywhere. The Fine Arts Museum is one of the most important in Spain, excellent in particular for Gothic and Renaissance painting – Valencia was Spain’s first port of call for many Renaissance ideas. The city’s luminous nineteenth-century painting, increasingly appreciated today, is also much in evidence. The IVAM was Spain’s first major gallery of modern art with an impressive permanent collection and important temporary exhibitions. The presence of the National Ceramics Museum, in a lush rococo palace, reflects continuous production of top-class ceramics from the thirteenth century onwards – Moorish in technique and design, its best elements perpetuated in what came after. The Moors made mediaeval Valencia. Christians from Aragón reconquered it in 1238. The new masters built on Arab civilisation to achieve Mediterranean prominence and their own Gothic splendours. In an exuberant nineteenth-century city-centre, Art Nouveau (Modernista) and Art Deco flourished, as Santiago Calatrava does today in the Turia riverbed.
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Day 4. Drive via the Quart Towers, a massive 14th-cent. city gateway, to IVAM (Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno): a collection of international painting, sculpture and photography with good temporary exhibitions. The home and studio of the Benlliure family of Impressionist painters has a large art collection and a romantic garden. Drive to the seafront for a paella lunch overlooking the Mediterranean. Take an optional excursion to Manises, centre of ceramic production since Arab times, with an excellently presented ceramics museum. Day 5. Spanning the dry bed of the diverted River Turia is a Calatrava trademark, the ‘Peineta’ bridge, and, below it, a metro station he designed. Further along is his Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias consisting inter alia of an arboretum, a soaring edifice that houses the science museum and the nearby opera house (exteriors only). Fly in the early afternoon to Madrid, and then onwards to Heathrow, arriving at c. 5.15pm.
Practicalities Price: £1,370 (deposit £150). Single supplement £120 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,130. Included meals: 1 lunch, 3 dinners with wine. Music: we hope to be able to offer tickets to an opera or concert at the Palau de les Arts. Accommodation. SH Hotel Inglés (inglesboutique.com): a 4-star hotel installed in an 18th-cent. palace in a very central location. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Essential Rome, 3–9 November 2015 (page 145), Connoisseur’s Rome, 3–8 November 2015 (page 149).
Extremadura
Landscape, architecture, rural life 7–15 April 2015 (mb 275) 9 days • £2,310 Lecturer: Adam Hopkins Remote and unspoilt: one of the most consistently beautiful regions in Europe. Monumental cities of the Conquistadors: Trujillo, Cáceres, Plasencia, packed with palaces and churches. Mérida has excellent Roman remains. Monasteries of Guadalupe and Yuste, both in splendid isolation in the hills. Other visits include a livestock farm with tractor ride, opportunity to walk in the hills.
Day 2: Zafra, Jerez de Los Caballeros. In Zafra begin with the two adjacent squares, the Plaza Grande and the (smaller) Plaza Chica and the Collegiate Church (with an altarpiece by Zurbarán). Lunch is in a rural restaurant. The afternoon is spent in Jerez de los Caballeros, once a Templar town, with famously ornate Baroque church towers.
Itinerary
Day 4: Guadalupe. There is the choice of a walk in the Guadalupe mountains, or time to stroll at leisure through the village. In the afternoon see the monastery, with splendid church, Mudéjar cloister and sacristy with Zurbarán’s paintings. The museum contains exceptional vestments.
Day 1: Zafra. Fly at c. 1.30pm (TAP Portugal) from London Heathrow to Lisbon. Drive to the small town of Zafra (c. 4 hours, stops are made en route). The towered castle where Hernán Cortés was received by the Count of Feria en route for the conquest of Mexico is now the parador. First of two nights in Zafra.
Day 3: Mérida, Guadalupe. The Roman legacy of Mérida includes architecture both grand and domestic: theatre, villas, temples, fortresses. See also Moneo’s outstanding National Museum of Roman Art. The tiny town of Guadalupe is hidden in hills. Columbus prayed here and gave its name to a Caribbean island. First of two nights in Guadalupe.
Day 5: Trujillo. Drive down the mountains to Trujillo, a hilltop conquistador town (birthplace of Pizarro). The magnificent, irregular main Mérida, ruined temple, lithograph c. 1830.
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Extremadura means ‘beyond the Duero’, a designation coined by the conquering Christians as they bludgeoned their way southwards against the Moors. The Moors were finally defeated; but much of the countryside of Extremadura remains unsubjugated. Together with the adjoining Alentejo in Portugal, this, though tawny as a lion’s pelt in sweltering midsummer, is the largest ‘green’ region in western Europe. Monfragüe in the Tagus gorge has a colony of griffon vultures, the Iberian lynx is still a resident in these parts, hawks and other birds of prey abound. The Sierra de Gata in the north, the Sierra de Guadalupe in the centre and the wild country of the south-west around Jerez de los Caballeros all remain rough and uncultivated. Equally, Extremadura is cattle country, with fighting bulls and the local Retinta breed making the most of some of the gentler lands. In the autumn, when there are acorns to be eaten, the black-foot pig, source of the finest of mountain hams, comes on the scene. The landscape has a mixed array of well-spaced trees, mainly holm oak and cork oak, which together with the wild grasses constitute the habitat known as dehesa. The river valleys, notably the Tiétar and Guadiana, are now well-irrigated and grow fruit and vegetables: apricots, cherries and peppers. From the south comes wine, much improved of late. There is virtually no industry which is not based on agriculture. This tour offers a walk in the Guadalupe mountains, hoping to come close to the spirit of a countryside where many ancient ways survive. However, the history and architecture are as rewarding as the landscape. Before the Visigoths and Moors, this was a major Roman centre, with Mérida – Augusta Emerita – the capital of the western province of Lusitania. It remains the major Roman site in Spain. Above all, this is conquistador country. An astonishing proportion of the leaders of the rough bands which savaged South and Central America, in the names of king and queen and Christianity, came from Extremadura. Trujillo and Cáceres are well-known for the rich monumentality of palaces assembled by conquistadors returning with their ill-gotten gains. The spiritual centre was and remains the shrine of Guadalupe. Here a rich and beautiful Hieronymite monastery grew up, with swirling Moorish-Gothic tracery and a suite of paintings by Zurbarán. The little mountain town which
formed beneath the monastery is balconied and full of geraniums, one element of a varied vernacular architecture which is a particular Extremeñan pleasure. Zafra, in the south, is a white town, intermediate between Andalucía and the stony sobriety of Old Castile. Most curious is Plasencia in the north, where seven roads lead out of the arcaded plaza and two cathedrals stand back to back. The most moving is Yuste, the monastery to which the Emperor Charles V retired, gout-ridden and exhausted. He chose it, he said, because of its climate of continual springtime. In its deep rurality and concentration of human monuments, Extremadura is a far cry from ‘ordinary’ Europe.
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Extremadura continued
Essential Andalucía Spain’s southern province
square is surrounded by conquistador mansions and the grand church of S. Martín. Climb up to the Gothic church of Sta María and the castle with fine views of the surrounding countryside. Continue to Cáceres for the first of three nights. Day 6: Cáceres. The historic town centre is enclosed within almost perfectly preserved Moorish walls and is a myriad of narrow streets and squares lined with Renaissance mansions. Visit the Provincial Museum housed in the 17thcentury Casa de las Valetas, built over an 11thcentury Arabic cistern. Free afternoon. Day 7: Arroyo de la Luz, Alcántara, El Vaqueril. The 16th-century church at Arroyo de la Luz has a remarkable altarpiece by Luís de Morales. At Alcántara, the Roman bridge spanning the Tagus dates to 106 ad. Finca el Vaqueril is an Extremaduran ranch with Retinta cattle and pata negra pigs. Our visit includes lunch, a tour of the ranch on a tractor-trailer and an optional walk. Day 8: Monfragüe, Plasencia, Yuste, Jarandilla de la Vera. Pause in Monfragüe National Park to see colony of griffon vultures at Salto de Gitano on the Tagus. At Plasencia, start in the arcaded Plaza Mayor and then visit the two cathedrals, Renaissance and Gothic backing into one another, also a fine ethnographic museum of traditional rural life and handicraft. Drive into the hills to the monastery of Yuste to which the Emperor Charles V retired in 1556, building a gent’s des. res. right up against the fabric of the Gothic monastery. Get a moving insight into the last days of the man who once ruled most of Europe and Latin America. Spend the final night in the Parador at nearby Jarandilla de la Vera.
19–29 October 2015 (mc 501) 11 days • £3,180 Lecturer: Adam Hopkins Three nights in each of the major cities: Granada, Córdoba and Seville. The lecturer is Adam Hopkins, journalist and author, specialist in Spanish history and culture. Begins in Málaga with the Picasso Museum and Carmen Thyssen collection, and also visit the lesser-known towns of Baeza and Úbeda. Varied itinerary covering the great Moorish sites, mediaeval, Renaissance and Baroque architecture, fine art collections and gardens. Andalucía is Spain’s most fascinating and varied region. Varied geographically: stretching southwards from the Sierra Morena to the Mediterranean, it encompasses the permanent snow of the Sierra Nevada as well as the sunscorched interior.
And varied culturally: here it is possible to see great art and architecture of both Islamic and Christian traditions side by side – even, at Córdoba, one within the other. For Spain is unique in Western Europe in having been conquered by an Islamic power. The Moors first crossed from Africa in ad 711, and in the south of the country they stayed for nearly eight centuries. The Moorish civilization of the cities of Andalucía was one of the most sophisticated of the Middle Ages. There are also tantalising glimpses of the preceding Visigothic kingdom, and remains of the still earlier Roman occupation – the province of Baetica was one of the most highly favoured in the Roman Empire. Later, both Jews and gypsies made their influence felt, but overwhelmingly the dominant contribution to man-made Andalucian heritage has been created by and for unwavering adherents to Catholicism. The Christian religion does not get much more intense than in southern Spain, and its artistic manifestations rarely more spiritually charged.
Seville, Cathedral and Giralda, mid-18th-century hand-coloured engraving.
Day 9: leaving Extremadura. Drive to Madrid Airport for the lunchtime flight (Iberia) which arrives at London Heathrow c. 4.15pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,310 (deposit £250). Single supplement £220 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,080. Included meals: 2 lunches, 6 dinners with wine.
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Accommodation. Parador de Zafra (parador.es): 4-star parador in the 15th-century castle. Parador de Guadalupe (parador.es): 4-star Parador in the converted 15th-century pilgrims’ hospital of St John the Baptist. Gran Hotel Don Manuel, Cáceres (donmanuelatiramhotels.com): a modern 4-star hotel in the historic centre of town. Parador de Jarandilla (parador.es): 4-star Parador with historic connections to Charles V. Group size: between 12 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Easter at The Castle, 3–6 April (page 56), History of Impressionism, 19–24 April (page 69).
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The unification of Spain which was ensured by the marriage in 1469 of the ‘Catholic Kings’, Ferdinand and Isabella, he of Aragón, she of Castile, ushered in the period when Spain became the dominant power in Europe. This also coincided with the discovery of the Americas. The cities of the south, particularly Seville, were the immediate beneficiaries of the subsequent colonisation and inflow of huge quantities of bullion and of boundless opportunities for trade and wealth creation. The result was a boom in building and a cultural renaissance, a Golden Age which lasted into the eighteenth century, long after the economy had cooled and real Spanish power had waned. The poverty and torpor of subsequent centuries allowed much of the beauty of the glory days to survive to the present time, when a revival of prosperity has enabled extensive restoration and proper care of the immense artistic patrimony.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 9.45am (British Airways) from London Gatwick to Málaga. Visit the Carmen Thyssen museum with its fine collection of old masters and 19th-century Spanish painting on Andalusian themes. Overnight Málaga. Day 2: Málaga. Begin at Picasso’s birthplace, which houses a small collection of his belongings. The Picasso Museum is magnificent, both the 16th-century building and the collection, which places emphasis on his earlier works. There is time also to see the Alcazaba, a predominantly 11th-century Moorish construction with fine views from its terraces. In the afternoon drive north to Granada. First of three nights in Granada. Day 3: Granada. On a hilltop site is the Palace of the Alhambra, the greatest expression of Moorish art in Spain, with exquisite decoration and a succession of intimate courtyards. Adjacent are the 16th-century Palace of Charles V and the Generalife, summer palace of the sultans, with gardens and fountains. Day 4: Granada. Morning walk through the Albayzín, the oldest quarter in town, including El Bañuelo (Arab baths), the Archaeological Museum (currently closed for renovation) and a climb up to San Nicolás from where there are fine views of the Alhambra. In the late afternoon visit the Cathedral and Royal Chapel which has a fine collection of Flemish, Spanish and Italian paintings. Day 5: Baeza, Úbeda. Drive to Baeza, once a prosperous and important town and now a provincial backwater of quiet charm set among olive groves stretching to the horizon with a 16thcentury cathedral and many grand houses of an alluring light-coloured stone. In Úbeda walk to the handsome Plaza Vázquez de Molina, flanked by elegant palaces including Casa de las Cadenas and the present day parador. The astonishing church of El Salvador was designed by Diego de Siloé in 1536. The newly discovered synagogue will also be visited. Continue to Córdoba for the first of three nights.
Day 7: Córdoba. Morning visit to the Archaeological Museum, housed in a Renaissance mansion, with a fine collection of Roman and Arab pieces. Drive out to the excavations of Medina Azahara, a 10th-century palace complex of considerable luxury and another key Arab site with a fine new museum. Free afternoon in Córdoba.
‘I am awash in sensation. So much colour, light, darkness, history, geography, and the snapping and whirring of the Spanish language. I feel truly enriched by this trip.’ Day 9: Seville. Walk to the church and hospital of the Caridad, Seville’s most striking 17th-century building, with paintings by Murillo and Valdés Leal. The cathedral is one of the largest Gothic churches anywhere (‘Let us build a cathedral so immense that everyone... will take us for madmen’). The Capilla Mayor, treasury and sanctuary are of particular interest. Free afternoon. Day 10: Seville. The Alcázar, the fortified royal palace, is one of Spain’s greatest buildings; built by Moorish architects for Castilian kings, it consists of a sequence of apartments and magnificent reception rooms around courtyards and gardens. Walkthrough the Barrio de Santa Cruz, a maze of whitewashed alleys and flowerfilled patios, to the Casa de Pilatos, the best of the Mudéjar style palaces, with patios and azulejos. Afternoon at the Fine Arts Museum, the best in Spain after the Prado. Day 11. Drive back to Málaga for the afternoon flight to London Gatwick arriving c. 3.15pm.
Practicalities Price: £3,180 (deposit £300). Single supplement £460 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £3000. Included meals: 1 lunch, 7 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Molina Lario, Málaga (hotelmolinalario.com): a functional 4-star in the centre. AC Palacio de Santa Paula (marriott. com): comfortable and contemporary hotel in the centre, comparable to a 4-star. NH Amistad, Córdoba (nh-hotels.com): a 4-star in an 18th-century mansion, a short walk from the mosque. Hotel Las Casas de la Judería, Seville (casasypalacios.com): a 4-star hotel in the Barrio Sta Cruz created from several contiguous buildings connected by open-air patios.
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Day 6: Córdoba. From the middle of the 8th century Córdoba was the capital of Islamic Spain and became the richest city in Europe until its capitulation to the Reconquistadors in 1236. Visit the Alcázar, mediaeval with earlier architectural remains and the narrow streets of the old Jewish quarter including the 14th-century synagogue. The Fine Arts Museum, with Plateresque façade, occupies a delightful former convent. La Mezquita (mosque) is one of the most magnificent of Muslim shrines, and contains within it the 16th-century Christian cathedral, which ranks in importance with the Alhambra.
Day 8: Ecija, Seville. The many church towers of Ecija are visible from afar across the surrounding plain. Of the numerous Baroque mansions see the Palacio de Peñaflor and Palacio del Marqués de Benameji, and visit the GothicMudéjar church of Santiago. Drive to Seville for the first of three nights.
Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Ravenna & Urbino, 14–18 October 2015 (page 127).
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Andalucía
With Antequera & Cádiz 18–31 October 2014 (mb 175) 14 days • £3,580 Lecturer: Adam Hopkins A more comprehensive tour of the region. As well as the major cities, many lesser-known places are visited: the white-washed villages of Antequera and Osuna and the port of Cadiz. The first seven days are identical to Essential Andalucía (see the previous spread).
Itinerary Days 1–7: see days 1–7 of Essential Andalucía. Day 8: Córdoba, Antequera. The small walled town of Antequera has a municipal museum with a rich variety of religious art. The Collegiate church of Santa María la Mayor has a handsome classical façade and Baroque altarpiece of Nuestra Señora del Carmen soars to thirteen metres. Also see the dolmens outside the town. Overnight in Antequera. Day 9: Osuna, Cádiz. In the morning drive to Osuna, a delightful little town of whitewashed buildings with Baroque elaborations. Situated at the top of the hill in Osuna are the light-filled collegiate church (paintings by Ribera) and the convent of La Encarnación (small Baroque church and patio). In the afternoon drive to Cádiz, the historic Atlantic port. First of two nights in Cádiz. Day 10: Cádiz, Medina Sidonia. Walk through the gridplan of narrow streets to the chapel of the former women’s hospital, containing
El Greco’s St Francis of Assisi, and the elliptical Oratorio de San Felipe Neri with Murillo’s Immaculate Conception. The central market has a good display of fresh produce. Medina Sidonia has commanding views of the surrounding countryside seen best from the remains of the Moorish castle. See also the Gothic church of Sta María. Day 11: Cádiz, El Puerto de Sta María. The Cádiz Museum contains paintings by Zurbarán and Murillo and has a fine archaeological section. Also visit the 18th-century Oratorio de la Santa Cueva with Goya frescoes. Take a boat to El Puerto de Santa María for a lunch of local specialities: fish and manzanilla, then continue north to Seville for the first of three nights. Day 12: Seville. Walk to the church and hospital of the Caridad, Seville’s most striking 17th-century building, with paintings by Murillo and Valdés Leal. The cathedral is one of the largest Gothic churches anywhere (‘Let us build a cathedral so immense that everyone... will take us for madmen’). The Capilla Mayor, treasury and sanctuary are of particular interest. Free afternoon. Day 13: Seville. The Alcázar, the fortified royal palace, is one of Spain’s greatest buildings; built by Moorish architects for Castilian kings, it consists of a sequence of apartments and magnificent reception rooms around courtyards and gardens. Walkthrough the Barrio de Santa Cruz, a maze of whitewashed alleys and flowerfilled patios, to the Casa de Pilatos, the best of the Mudéjar style palaces, with patios and azulejos. Afternoon at the Fine Arts Museum, the best in Spain after the Prado.
Day 14. Drive back to Málaga for the afternoon flight (British Airways) to London Gatwick arriving at c. 4.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £3,580 (deposit £300). Single supplement £470 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £3,400. Included meals: 2 lunches, 7 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Molina Lario, Málaga (hotelmolinalario.com): a functional 4-star in the centre. AC Palacio de Santa Paula (marriott. com): comfortable and contemporary hotel in the centre, comparable to a 4-star. NH Amistad, Córdoba (nh-hotels.com): a 4-star in an 18th-century mansion, a short walk from the mosque. Hotel Las Casas de la Judería, Seville (casasypalacios.com): a 4-star hotel in the Barrio Sta Cruz created from several contiguous buildings connected by open-air patios. Parador de Antequera (parador.es): a modern 4-star parador, 15 minutes walk from the centre. Parador de Cádiz (parador.es): modern and newly renovated overlooking the Atlantic, very light and spacious within. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Gastronomic Piedmont, 11–17 October 2014 (page 114), Walking in Northern Tuscany (a.k.a. Walking in the Footsteps of Leonardo & Michelangelo), 10–17 October 2014 (page 140).
Cadiz Cathedral, late-19th-century wood engraving from Picturesque Europe Vol.IV.
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Granada & Córdoba With Úbeda & Baeza 9–16 March 2015 (mb 253) 8 days • £2,380 Lecturer: Dr Philippa Joseph 21–28 September 2015 (mc 442) 8 days • £2,380 Lecturer: Dr David McGrath Ample time at the key sites of Moorish Spain: the Alhambra in Granada and the Mosque in Córdoba, with time also for the lesser-known. Visits the Picasso Museum and recently opened Carmen Thyssen collection in Málaga and the small Renaissance towns of Úbeda and Baeza. Led by experts on Spanish history and culture. Southern Spain – savage peaks soar over passes that are snow-bound in winter, while plains below are well-watered by spring rivers, hot, harsh and arid in the summer, mellow in late autumn and winter.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 9.45am (British Airways) from London City Airport to Málaga. Arrive in time for an introductory walk and lecture in the hotel. Overnight in Málaga.
Day 2: Málaga. Begin at Picasso’s birthplace, which houses a small collection of his belongings. The Picasso Museum is magnificent, both the 16th-century building and the collection, which places emphasis on his earlier works. The recently-opened Carmen Thyssen museum has a fine collection of old masters and 19th-century Spanish painting. In the afternoon drive north to Granada. First of three nights in Granada. Day 3: Granada. The 13th-century Arab palaces of the Alhambra ride high above the city. They are often reckoned to be the greatest expression of Moorish art in Spain, with exquisite decoration and a succession of intimate courtyards. Adjacent are the 16th-century Palace of Charles V and the Generalife, summer palace of the sultans, with gardens and fountains. Day 4: Granada. Morning walk through the Albaycín, the oldest quarter in town, including El Bañuelo (Arab baths). Climb up to San Nicolás from where there are fine views of the Alhambra. In the late afternoon visit the Cathedral and Royal Chapel which retains Isabel of Castile’s personal collection of Flemish, Spanish and Italian paintings. Day 5: Baeza, Úbeda. Drive to Baeza, once a prosperous and important town and now a provincial backwater of quiet charm set among olive groves stretching to the horizon. It has a 16th-century cathedral by outstanding regional architect Andrés de Vandelvira and many grand houses of an alluring light-coloured stone. In Úbeda walk to the handsome Plaza Vázquez de Molina, flanked by elegant palaces including Vandelvira’s Casa de las Cadenas and the present day parador. The church of El Salvador was designed by Diego de Siloé in 1536. Continue to Córdoba for the first of three nights. Day 6: Córdoba. From the middle of the 8th century Córdoba was the capital of Islamic Spain and became the richest city in Europe until its capitulation to the Reconquistadors in 1236. La Mezquita (mosque) is one of the most magnificent of Muslim sites, for some the greatest building of mediaeval Europe. It contains within it the 16th-century cathedral. In the afternoon drive
out to the excavations of Medina Azahara, with remains of a huge and luxurious 10th-century palace complex. Day 7: Córdoba. Morning visit to the Archaeological Museum, housed in brand new galleries and a Renaissance mansion, with a fine collection of Roman and Arab pieces. Visit the Alcázar, mediaeval with earlier architectural remains (and good Roman mosaics), and the narrow streets of the old Jewish quarter, including the 14th-century synagogue. The Fine Arts Museum (optional visit), with Plateresque façade and one delightful ceiling, houses some good Spanish paintings, and the Museo Julio Romero de Torres (optional visit), the former residence of the Cordoban painter, contains a collection of his works. Free afternoon in Córdoba. Day 8. Drive to Málaga for the early afternoon flight arriving at London City at c. 4.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,380 (deposit £250). Single supplement £380 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,210. Included meals: 1 lunch, 4 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Hotel Molina Lario, Málaga (hotelmolinalario.com): a functional 4-star in the centre. AC Palacio de Santa Paula (marriott. com): comfortable and contemporary hotel in the centre, comparable to a 4-star. NH Amistad, Córdoba (nh-hotels.com): a 4-star in an 18thcentury mansion, a short walk from the mosque. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
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The cities reveal the magnitude of past achievements through the greatness of the architecture and the brilliant elaboration of decoration. Andalucía was a bountiful Roman province, in Arab times the scene of highly sophisticated Umayyad and Nasrid princedoms and a major province of the most powerful kingdom in (Christian) Europe’s sixteenth century. The artistic riches are immensely varied, though the unique distinguishing mark is the heritage from eight hundred years of rule by Muslims from North Africa and Arabia. Arab Córdoba became the capital of alAndalus and the largest city in Europe, market for all the luxuries of East and West and scene of Europe’s most splendid court until its fall to the Reconquistadors in 1236. The mosque, La Mezquita, was one of the largest anywhere, and arguably the most beautiful; Christian possession in the sixteenth century created within it a totally contrasting cathedral. Granada was the last Islamic princedom in Spain, only falling to the Christians in 1492. The concatenation of palaces and gardens of the Alhambra, with its cascading domes and gilded decoration like frozen fireworks, is one of Spain’s most enthralling sights. Although millions of tourists pour through Málaga Airport every year en route to the Costa del Sol, comparatively few set foot in the old town. The narrow streets, palm-lined squares and seafront promenades conserve Phoenician, Roman, Moorish, Gothic, Baroque and lateninteenth-century monuments. Birthplace and childhood home of Pablo Picasso, the city boasts a major collection of his works, while the new, eponymous museum of Carmen ThyssenBornemisza includes some excellent nineteenthcentury Spanish art with Andalusian themes.
Córdoba, Mosque-cathedral, engraving from Arabian Antiquities of Spain, 1816.
Combine this tour with: Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur, 17–24 March 2015 (page 81), Aragón, 29 September–7 October 2015 (page 190).
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Gastronomic Andalucía Food, wine, art & architecture
authenticity has for decades put it in the Top Ten of restaurants in Spain. Córdoba, of course, needs no advertising but a fourteenth-century convent restaurant on the edge of the gypsy quarter is just one way of retiring from the Caliphate’s wealthy past and the powerful midday sun. Perfectly fried aubergines are a foil for the oxtail, fillets of fish with herbs and oil are trapped in a flash, in a film of the lightest batter and laid out on a bed of the speciality, fried lettuce. Oaky Montilla wine is taken standing. Seville, Jerez, Cádiz are worlds on their own. Sherry houses are famous for producing unique tastes. Less known are the almacenistas, passionate amateurs, whose houses, basements, shops and even living rooms are turned over to storing and nursing their barrels. Cádiz’s legendary restaurant El Faro takes fish frying to a new level with wafer thin pancakes of miniature shrimp and is the best place in Spain to eat line caught bass baked in a salt crust. The tour ends in Seville with Michelin-starred Julio Fernández Quinteiro’s take on Andalusian cuisine at Restaurante Abantal.
‘The itinerary was well researched and of great interest. I learned a lot; about the history, architecture, religion and gastronomy of Spain.’ Itinerary
Seville, watercolour by Mortimer Menpes, publ. 1903.
13–20 March 2015 (mb 255) 8 days • £2,980 Lecturer: Gijs van Hensbergen Journey south from Las Pedroñeras in La Mancha in a sweeping curve through Andalucía: Úbeda, Baeza, Córdoba, Seville, Jerez, Cádiz, Aracena. Surveys the history of the region with its cuisine: Roman, Jewish, Moorish, Christian; from the simplest cooking to the elaborate and contemporary.
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Some of Spain’s greatest monuments are here including the mosque at Córdoba and Seville Cathedral, but also good museums, small towns and spectacular countryside. Led by Gijs van Hensbergen, art historian and author of books on Spanish art and food. ‘Al-Andalus’ (the Andalucía of the Moors) are words which immediately evoke fantasies of displays of sweetmeats, saffron stained rice and jewels of livid red pomegranate. Exotic flavour combinations are countered by the simplicity of perfectly prepared fish; flaking, moist and ivory white. Sophisticated techniques are often tempered by the deeply felt philosophy that, yes, less can be more.
Gastronomic Andalucía is a true feast of the senses: earthy smells are countered by elusive and piquant tastes; sherries, montillas and punchy red caldos of La Mancha wine stand up perfectly to the pickled escabeches of game, the deep-flavoured fish soups, and the marriage of almonds, lemon-steeped olives and air-dried tenderloin of albacore tuna. The backdrop of Gastronomic Andalucía is no less exotic: Úbeda and Baeza, the twin cities of Spain’s Renaissance, are surrounded by stands of olive trees that lead the eye out to the horizon and the sierras beyond. The mosque in Córdoba, at the very heart of the Caliphate, makes a complete nonsense of the received wisdom about the so-called Dark Ages. Seville’s barrio of the Santa Cruz still offers up phantom vistas of an extraordinary cosmopolitan past. Andalucía, it must be remembered, has a large variety of climates. In the mountains above Seville the hams of the wild Iberian pig dry perfectly into a product that is second to none. Sea breezes around Sanlucar signal the flavour of salt on the tongue. South to Baeza, off the tourist track, we enter the land of olives, and a tasting at the family run Castillo de Canena, where Spain’s former Business Woman of the Year, Rosa Vañó, inducts us into the arcane wonders of olive oil tasting. Close by, is the unpretentious Casa Juanito, the Spanish gourmet’s choice of ‘true’
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Day 1: London to La Mancha. Fly at c. 9.15am (Iberia Airlines) from London Heathrow to Madrid. Drive south into La Mancha to the small walled town of Belmonte. In the surrounding countryside visit the vineyards of Pesquera, of Ribera de Duero fame, for a tasting and dinner. Overnight in Belmonte. Day 2: La Mancha to Andalucía. In Belmonte visit the Gothic church of San Bartolomé and the superbly sited 15th-century castle before leaving for lunch in nearby Las Pedroñeras. Here Michelin-starred chef Manuel de la Osa marries bohemian bonhomie with a passion for garlic. Drive through the magnificent pass of Desfiladero de Despeñaperros and enter Andalucía. The handsome town of Úbeda has streets and squares lined with palaces, one of which is our hotel. First of two nights in Úbeda. Day 3: Úbeda, Baeza. The twin towns of Úbeda and Baeza thrived in the 16th century and are richly endowed with Renaissance monuments. Spend time in both with lunch in Baeza at Casa Juanito. The Arab Castle of Canena is deep in olive-grove country of the Guadalquivir valley and home to the Vañó family, famed producers; tasting and visit here. Day 4: Córdoba, Seville. Drive west to Córdoba and focus on La Mezquita, one of the largest and most beautiful mosques in the world, and within it the 16th-century cathedral. Walk through the
The Lucerne Piano Festival The world’s finest pianists old Jewish quarter, with 14th-century synagogue, to a chilled aperitif and a Moorish lunch. Continue to Seville for an evening tapas walk through the flower-filled Barrio de Santa Cruz. First of four nights in Seville.
Wood engraving c. 1890.
Day 5: Seville. Begin at the Alcázar, one of Spain’s greatest buildings, built by Moorish architects for Spanish kings, with its courtyards, gardens and magnificent tapestries. The 15th-century cathedral is one of the largest Gothic churches anywhere, with a Late Gothic retable and paintings by Murillo, Zurbarán and Goya. In the afternoon visit the Fine Arts Museum, the finest collection in Spain after the Prado. Dinner is at a renowned Sevillian restaurant. Day 6: Jerez de la Frontera, Cádiz. Drive south to Jerez, at the heart of sherry production. Special arrangements include a tasting at the Lustau bodega and Bodegas Tradición with its own art collection. Continue to the historic port of Cádiz; laid-back and unspoilt, and with a renowned fish restaurant. There is time after lunch to visit the city museum with a significant archaeological collection. Day 7: Sierra de Aracena, Jabugo. Drive north to the Sierra de Aracena, the low mountains which form the border with Extremadura. Here we taste the exquisite jamón ibérico. There is an optional walk in the foothills along farm tracks lined with oak, chestnut and olive trees and livestock. Alternatively remain in the town of Aracena. The evening is spent at Restaurante Abantal, whose chef was the first in Seville to win a Michelin star. Day 8: Seville. Free morning in Seville; we suggest visiting the church and hospital of the Caridad, with paintings by Murillo and Valdés Leal. Drive to the airport for the flight to London Heathrow, via Madrid, arriving c. 6.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,980 (deposit £300). Single supplement £250 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,800. Included meals: 5 lunches, 5 dinners (including 1 light dinner and a tapas walk) with wine.
Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Morocco, 21 March–1 April 2015 (page 169).
Day 1. Fly at c. 9.45am (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Zurich, an hour’s drive from Lucerne. The first of three lectures on the music, followed by a pre-concert dinner. Concert at the Kultur- und Kongresszentrum (KKL): Maurizio Pollini – programme to be announced. Day 2. A leisurely start, the second of the music talks and a walking tour of the historic centre with a local city guide. Free afternoon. Suggested visit to the Richard Wagner Haus. Concert at the KKL: Pierre-Laurent Aimard performs Bach, ‘The Well-Tempered Clavier’.
22–25 November 2014 (mb 203) 4 days • £2,080 (including tickets to 3 performances) Lecturer: Professor Geoffrey Norris Three concerts with as many of the world’s most outstanding pianists: Maurizio Pollini, PierreLaurent Aimard and Leif Ove Andsnes. In a magnificent setting of lake, rivers and mountains, the picturesque city of Lucerne combines a wonderful range of historic architecture with vitality and modernity. Accompanied by critic Geoffrey Norris, Britain’s most interesting writer on piano performance. With its picturesque architecture, mountainous backdrop and magnificent lakeside concert hall, the city of Lucerne offers an inspirational atmosphere in which to hear music and musicians of the highest calibre. This autumn’s Piano Festival casts a particular spotlight on Beethoven, the composer who – in his thirty-two sonatas and five concertos – explored, expanded and revolutionised the piano’s expressive and technical spectrum during the latter years of the eighteenth century and the early decades of the nineteenth. Our tour includes a keynote concert by the outstandingly gifted Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes, who in recent times has been making a special study of Beethoven’s concertos in his ‘Beethoven Journey’, and in so doing has forged a dynamic artistic relationship with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, which joins him here for performances of the Concertos Nos 2, 3 and 4. Beethoven, and indeed a whole gamut of composers both before and after him, regarded Bach as a vital, visionary touchstone in terms of the keyboard’s range of creative and communicative capabilities, so it is entirely apt that another of the concerts features the fascinating French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard in the twenty-four preludes and fugues of the first book of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, which he will later be recording for Deutsche Grammophon. To launch the weekend, a recital by the great Italian master Maurizio Pollini is certain to be both stimulating and absorbing.
Day 3. The day begins with a lecture before a second walk which includes a visit to the Bourbaki Panorama. One of the few remaining 19th century panorama paintings, it depicts the events of the 1870 Franco-Prussian War. In the afternoon there is an optional visit to the Sammlung Rosengart collection of 20th-century art. Concert at the KKL: Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Leif Ove Andsnes (piano): Beethoven, Piano concertos No.2, No.3 and No.4. Day 4. Drive to Winterthur and visit the Oskar Reinhart Collection ‘am Römerholz’. The collector’s home in tranquil woodland above the city has marvellous Old Masters and Impressionists. After lunch, continue to Zurich airport. Arrive London Heathrow c. 5.30pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,080 (deposit £250). Single supplement £70 (single bed), £150 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,860. Included meals: 2 lunches, 2 dinners with wine. Accommodation. The Romantik Hotel Wilden Mann (wilden-mann.ch): a 4-star hotel dating back to the 13th century in the historic centre. Music: tickets for 3 concertscosting c. £390 are included. These will be confirmed in August 2014. Group size: 12 to 22 participants.
The Lucerne Summer Festival August 2015 Details available in October 2014 Contact us to register your interest
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Accommodation. Palacio Buenavista Hospedería, Belmonte (palaciobuenavista.es): a simple hotel in a 16th-century house in the old town. Parador de Úbeda (parador.es): 4-star Parador in a Renaissance palace on the most handsome square in town; traditionally furnished. Hotel Las Casas de la Judería, Seville (casasypalacios. com): a charming 4-star hotel in the Barrio Sta Cruz created from several contiguous buildings connected by open-air patios.
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Istanbul
Byzantine & Ottoman metropolis 13–19 September 2015 (mc 436) 7 days • £2,570 Lecturer: Jane Taylor An extraordinarily diverse city: Roman remains; outstanding Byzantine buildings; glorious mosaics and frescoes; Ottoman mosques and palaces. Stay in the heart of the Sultanahmet area. The radical transformations this city underwent are vividly expressed by its changes of name: Byzantium, Constantinople and Istanbul. The capital successively of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, it is one of the most beautiful and fascinating cities in the world. Initially a modest Greek city, it was chosen by Constantine as the site of the new capital of the Roman Empire and inaugurated in ad 330. The Byzantine Empire continued in direct succession to the Roman, and its capital became one of the largest cities in mediaeval Europe, the guardian of classical culture and a bastion of Orthodox Christianity. The city walls were the most powerful in the western world, and while the Byzantine empire gradually shrank before the onslaughts of Persians, Arabs and Latin Crusaders, it was not finally extinguished until 1453 when Ottoman Turks captured the city.
In the century and a half after the Ottoman conquest the city steadily acquired some of the finest Islamic architecture in the world, aided by the example of Haghia Sophia, the architect Sinan and the brilliant tile factories at Iznik. Minarets and mosques now dominate the skyline, but churches, temples, palaces and other pre-Ottoman buildings, whole or fragmentary, and the arts which decorated them, are to be found in abundance. Istanbul has evolved into a melting-pot of cultures, with a lively streetlife and colourful bazaars. The city’s international outlook is epitomised by its division between Europe and Asia, now linked by modern bridges crossing the mighty Bosphorus, and a new underwater railway tunnel.
Christian Constantinople. Part of the ornamental pavement of the Byzantine Great Palace is displayed in the small Mosaic Museum. Fethiye Camii, former church of the Pammakaristos, now part functioning mosque, part mosaic museum. The Kariye Museum (church of St Saviour in Chora) possesses the finest assemblage of Byzantine mosaics and frescoes to survive anywhere.
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Day 4. Sultan Ahmet Camii (Blue Mosque) is the last of Istanbul’s imperial mosques. Contrast the large and imposing Süleymaniye complex (the tombs are currently undergoing restoration), masterpiece of the great architect Sinan, with his beautiful small Rüstem Pasha Camii. Brief walk through the Spice Bazaar. The excellent Islamic Museum in the Ibrahim Pasha Palace has textiles and various artefacts. Finish with another small Sinan mosque, the Sokollu Mehmet Pasha Camii.
Day 1. Fly at 11.30am (Turkish Airlines) from London Heathrow to Istanbul. Arrive early evening and drive to the historic quarter of Sultanahmet for the first of six nights. Day 2. A short stroll around the Hippodrome, originally constructed c. ad 200 by Septimius Severus, it was completely rebuilt on a larger scale by Constantine and inaugurated in ad 330. The day is then spent concentrating on the Byzantine monuments. Begin with Haghia Sophia, the 6thcentury church which is the chief monument of
Day 3. Yerebatan Saray is a remarkable colonnaded cistern. The Archaeological Museum has an outstanding collection of ancient art and artefacts, Hellenistic and Roman sculpture, and sarcophagi. Visit the mosque complex of Sultan Beyazit II, with fine portals, minarets and courtyards. Optional walk through the Grand Bazaar and free time.
Day 5. Topkapı Palace was the Sultan’s residence and the political centre of the Ottoman Empire. Now used to display the Imperial Treasury, it contains the finest surviving collection of Islamic precious objects and an outstanding collection of Chinese porcelain. Free afternoon to explore. Day 6. Travel by private boat along the Bosphorus, the historic and beautiful strait which divides Europe from Asia, for superb views of Istanbul and the villas and castles of its suburbs. See Beylerbeyi Palace, an imperial summer residence during the late Ottoman Empire. The Sadberk Hanim Museum is a mansion with fine collections spanning the whole period of Anatolian civilizations. Day 7. Drive beside the Golden Horn to the suburb of Eyüp where there is an important Islamic shrine. Continue along the massive Byzantine land walls to the Yediküle Fortress. Fly from Istanbul, arriving Heathrow c. 3.15pm.
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Price: £2,570 (deposit £250). Single supplement £320 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,200.
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Included meals: 1 lunch, 5 dinners with wine. Visas: required for most foreign nationals, and not included in the tour price. You will need to apply online in advance. Accommodation. Hotel Eresin Crown, Istanbul (eresincrown.com.tr): 5-star elegant hotel, located in the heart of the Sultanahmet, close to the Blue Mosque; rooms are stylishly furnished and well equipped; roof terrace with views of the Sea of Marmara; included dinners are at the hotel or selected restaurants. Istanbul, watercolour by Robert Hichens, publ. 1911. book online at www.martinrandall.com
Group Size: between 10 and 22 participants.
Classical Turkey
Greeks & Romans in Anatolia 11–20 May 2015 (mb 319) 10 days • £3,430 Lecturer: Henry Hurst
Sardis, mid-19th-century steel engraving.
The most prosperous region of the ancient Mediterranean world. The finest collection of Hellenistic and Roman city ruins to be found anywhere. All the major sites and many which are off the beaten track or difficult to get to. Scenically varied and spectacular: coast, mountain and plain.
are still relatively difficult of access and far from the beaten track. And the settings are usually ravishing: whether coastal, mountain or plateau, the landscapes provide a backdrop for this tour of extraordinary beauty.
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 11.25am (Turkish Airlines) from London Heathrow to Izmir (via Istanbul). Dinner in the hotel. First of three nights in Izmir. Day 2: Pergamon. Under the Hellenistic Attalid dynasty, Pergamon became the most powerful city-state in Asia Minor, rivalling Athens and Alexandria as a centre of culture. On a steepsided hill are remains of Attalid palaces, Temple of Dionysus and Altar of Zeus (most of which is now in Berlin), the Greek theatre and remains of the library, Temple of Athena and Attalid palaces. The Asclepieon and ‘Temple of Serapis’ (Red Fort) lie on flat ground below. Overnight Izmir. Day 3: Sardis, Izmir. Drive inland to Sardis, capital of the Kingdom of Lydia, whose last independent ruler was the fabulously wealthy Croesus (560–546 bc), it later became an important Roman city. See the impressive remains of the Temple of Artemis, the reconstructed ‘Marble Court’, gymnasium and the 3rd-century synagogue, the largest in the ancient world. Free time in Izmir, Greek Smyrna. Overnight Izmir. Day 4: Ephesus. Drive south to Ephesus, the principal port and commercial centre on the Aegean coast under the Roman Empire and capital of the province of Asia, with a population of 400,000 in the 2nd-century ad. The most popular pagan pilgrimage destination in the Graeco-Roman world, the city was also key to
the development of Christianity. Ruined by the sedimentation of its estuary and finally sacked in the 7th-century, Ephesus has become the most extensively excavated site of the ancient world. Begin with the remains of the Temple of Artemis, before the first visit to the main site which has an abundance of paved streets, public buildings, temples, gymnasia and courtyard houses. Among the more striking buildings are the Library of Celsus and the theatre, originally seating 24,000 and scene of the protest against St Paul described in the Acts of the Apostles. First of three nights in Kusadasi. Day 5: Priene, Didyma, Miletus. A small city of the Dodecapolis in southern Ionia, Priene is magnificently sited above the Maeander plain. Its hillside site ill-suiting it for Roman commerce, the remains date largely from the late Classical and early Hellenistic periods, and it exhibits one of the earliest of grid street layouts. The Temple of Athena Polias at the summit was designed by the architect Pythius. Didyma was a sanctuary with an oracle which, for a time, rivalled that at Delphi. Impressive remains of the colossal Hellenistic Temple of Apollo. Miletus, massive, well-preserved Roman theatre, baths of Faustina, wife of Marcus Aurelius. Overnight Kusadasi. Day 6: Selçuk, Ephesus. Morning visit of the Temple of Apollo at Claros befire returning to Selçuk to see the restored Basilica of St John at the top of Ayasuluk hill, and the Isla Bey mosque at the bottom. A second visit to the vast site of Ephesus, or a free afternoon in Kusadasi. Day 7: Aphrodisias. Leave the coast and drive into the interior of Anatolia. One of the most beautiful classical sites in Turkey, Aphrodisias was the centre of a Roman cult of Aphrodite. An important school for the production of high Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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The Turks were latecomers to Turkey. Greeks had settled on the western fringes over two thousand years before and, as recounted in The Iliad, had been meddling in Anatolian affairs a few centuries earlier still. After the demise of the Mycenaean civilization of Homer’s heroes, large numbers of Hellenes migrated from Greece to Aegean Anatolia and its offshore islands. First, around 1100 bc, Aeolians came to settle in the northern part of this coastal area, then Ionians moved into terrain further down the coast, to be followed at the end of the tenth-century by Dorians who established themselves yet further south. They founded cities all along the Aegean coast and in due course along the river valleys into the heart of Anatolia and along the Mediterranean coast to the south. Most of the peoples the Greeks encountered eventually became Hellenised. No less than the Greeks of Greece proper, Asian Greeks contributed to the ‘Greek miracle’ by supplying philosophers, mathematicians, sculptors, architects and other civilizationbuilders of genius. The canon of classical architecture owes much to the Asian cities – not least the Ionic order, which appears in the gigantic temples of the Ionic coast, prodigies of architecture produced by the confluence of civilisations in the region. The Asian Greek cities succumbed willingly to Alexander. Freed from the Persian threat, they piled up the riches – material and architectural – of the Hellenistic period and became more numerous, more prosperous and more progressive than the western Greeks. They slipped with equal ease into membership of the Roman Empire. Imperial Rome was besotted by the Greek achievement. Greek culture proved more enduring than Roman, and after the fifth-century collapse of the western empire the use of Latin soon languished. Despite the subsequent collapse of trade, the destruction of the Aegean cities by the Sassanids and the invasions of Anatolia by Selçuk and Ottoman Turks, the Greek language and other aspects of Greek culture and Christianity, the new religion of the Greeks, were never entirely extinguished in Asia Minor. The abandoned ancient cities now comprise the most magnificent set of Archaic, Classical and, particularly, Hellenistic and Roman remains. While the proximity of some of the sites to holiday resorts and cruise ports means that they are also among the most visited, others
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Classical Turkey continued
Central Anatolia
Cappadocia & the civilizations at the heart of Turkey quality and widely exported sculpture, there are many fine examples in the museum. Among the architectural remains are the Temple of Aphrodite and the largest and most complete stadium to have survived from the ancient world. Drive to Antalya for the first of three nights there. Day 8: Antalya. Founded by (and named after) Attalus II of Pergamum, Antalya was the principal port in Pamphylia in ancient and Byzantine times. The morning is spent exploring the old town with its restored Ottoman period houses, this is followed by a free afternoon. Day 9: Perge, Aspendos, Termessos, Antalya. Colonised by the Greeks after the Trojan War, Perge has substantial Hellenistic and Roman gates and colonnaded streets. While the Roman aqueduct at Aspendos is the best-preserved in Asia Minor, the marvellously complete theatre is the best-preserved in the whole of the Roman world. Afternoon visit to the one of the country’s finest archaeological museums with exhibits from prehistory to Ottoman. Final night in Antalya. Day 10. Fly from Antalya (via Istanbul) arriving Heathrow c. 3.15pm.
Practicalities Price: £3,430 (deposit £350). Single supplement £380 (double for single occupancy). Price without all flights £3,080. Included meals: 8 lunches (some are picnics) and 8 dinners with wine. Visas: required for most foreign nationals, and not included in the tour price. You will need to apply online in advance. Accommodation: Hilton, Izmir (hilton.co.uk/ izmir): a large, modern 5-star hotel overlooking the Citadel and old port. Double Tree by Hilton, Kusadasi (doubletree3.hilton.com): a modern 4-star hotel. Tuavana Hotel, Antalya (tuvanahotel. com): a beautiful converted traditional house now a boutique hotel within the old city walls. Group size: 10 to 22 participants.
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Autumn 2015 Details available in November 2014 Contact us to register your interest
Uçhisar in Cappadocia, lithograph by William J. Hamilton 1842.
9–21 April 2015 (mb 282) 13 days • £4,080 Lecturer: Dr Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones Endlessly fascinating journey through an extraordinary variety of landscapes and civilizations in Central Anatolia. From the ancient capital of the Hittites to Turkey’s modern capital, Ankara. Some of the finest examples of Seljuk architecture including the unesco listed complex at Divriği. Turkey is changing rapidly, but many aspects of traditional life continue. At the centre of Anatolia lies a limestone plateau, crumpled and eroded, with mountainous barriers at the rim. A land-bridge between Asia and Europe, this unpromising terrain has perhaps been traversed by a greater variety of peoples and cultures than any comparable part of the world. Diversity is the hallmark of Central Anatolia. There is land blessed with exceptional fertility, emblazoned with a patchwork of greens and golds; and there are vast vistas of inhospitable rolling hills, parched and bereft of topsoil. Forests sprout around turbulent valley streams; elsewhere desolate, dead-flat, arid plains stretch to distant horizons. In Cappadocia the volcanic tufa has been whipped by wind and rain into clusters of billowing cones, cascades of frolicking rock and other bizarre geomorphic contortions. Equally diverse are the civilizations which have made their mark. Here can be found the site of what is generally held to be the world’s oldest
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town, Çatal Höyük. Vast towns were built by the Hittites–a people strangely little-known in the English-speaking world but, for periods during the second millennium bc, second only to the Egyptians as a power in the lands around the eastern Mediterranean. They were succeeded by Phrygians, the people of King Midas. Greeks and Persians followed, and fought; the brief rule of Alexander and his Macedonians was continued under the Seleucids. Invaded variously by migrants, conquerors, adventurers and traders, Anatolia was progressively part orientalised and part Hellenised, but indigenous characteristics remained. The Pontic kingdom was a native kingdom, which under Mithridates valiantly if cruelly resisted Roman might, but by 50 bc Central Anatolia was under Roman rule as the province of Asia Minor. When five centuries later Europe ceased to be Roman and the eastern half of the empire was ruled from Constantinople (formerly Byzantium), Anatolia found itself to be the home counties of the Roman world, a world which was now Christian. Monks and hermits cut dwellings and churches in the pliable rock of Cappadocia, and Christian communities continued there into the last century. Islam encroached when the Seljuk Turks from the Central Asian steppes rapidly extended their empire and wrested part of Anatolia from the Byzantines after their victory of 1071. Among their legacy is the mosque and hospital in Divriği, a masterpiece of Islamic architecture. The Turkish advance continued under the Ottomans until Byzantium finally fell in 1453. Traditional ways of life continue in central Turkey, seemingly oblivious to the
the citadel; here survives a traditional village apparently oblivious to the seething modern city spread over the surrounding hills. Day 4: Boghazköy (Hattusas, Yazilikaya), Alaca Höyük. In remote hill country to the east of Ankara, commanding an immense landscape, lies the site of Hattusas, the Hittite capital of the 2nd millennium bc. Of staggering size (the perimeter wall is 7 km), it retains the main gateways and figurative carvings in a temple of Yazilikaya across a gorge just outside the city. The Bronze Age site (c. 2300 bc) of Alaca Höyük has an imposing Sphinx gateway and has yielded a collection of precious objects of highly accomplished workmanship. Overnight in Çorum. Day 5: Amasya, Sivas. Nestling in a deep valley and with old Ottoman houses overhanging the River Yesilirmak, Amasya is one of the loveliest towns in Anatolia. Capital of the Pontic kingdom, there are remains of the hilltop palace and rockcut royal tombs in the cliffs overlooking the town. Continue to Sivas with traditional architecture, Seljuk and Ottoman monuments. First of two nights in Sivas.
encroachments of the modern world and the thoroughly westernised sectors of society– another instance of diversity. The best finds from sites visited are now in the excellent Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara. More than mere witnesses to lost civilizations, many of the objects are endowed with compelling sculptural force and decorative beauty; the museum is as much a collection of great art as of archaeology. An important feature of this tour is that there are two visits to the museum, one at the beginning and one at the end of the tour, thus enabling much more sense to be made of both the objects and the sites they came from. Few journeys in the Old World are as stimulating or as varied as this survey of the Turkish heartlands.
Itinerary
Day 2: Ankara. Installed in a 15th-century market hall and recently renovated, the Museum of Anatolian Civilization has a wonderful collection of art and artefacts from many of the sites on the tour. After lunch visit the Atatürk Mausoleum, a revered shrine to the creator of modern Turkey. Day 3: Gordion, Ankara. Morning drive to Gordion, site of the Phrygian capital where Alexander cut the knot and where Midas is reputedly buried. The afternoon is free to walk up to the massive Byzantine and Seljuk walls of
Day 7: Sivas, Kayseri. Sivas, which preceded Konya as the regional Seljuk capital, has some of the finest remaining architecture of the 13th century including a complex of colleges and minarets and an attractive old quarter and Ottoman structures. Drive through mountainous terrain to Kayseri. Overnight Kayseri. Day 8: Kayseri, Cappadocia. Kayseri (formerly Caesarea), was the capital of Roman Cappadocia and includes a Byzantine fortress, Islamic buildings including the Great Mosque with re-used Corinthian columns, and an intriguing ethnographic museum. The archaeological site of Kültepe was a settlement of 1800 bc with a colony of Assyrians. Continue to Cappadocia for the first of three nights in Uçhisar. Day 9: Soganli, Eski Gümüs. Drive through a gorge which in addition to geological oddities has tumble-down villages, orchards and small holdings. The Soganli valley has many dwellings and churches cut into the rock, the finest of all remnants of Byzantine Cappadocia is the monastery at Eski Gümüs. Day 10: Goreme. Morning visit of the spectacular Goreme open-air museum. The rest of the afternoon is free to explore the landscape on foot (there are several walking trails). Day 11: Ihlara Valley, Sultanhani. Whole morning walking through the deep Ihlara Gorge with abundant flora, fauna and rock-
Senior Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Edinburgh and a specialist in the history and culture of ancient Iran, the Near East and Greece. His books include Ctesias’ History of Persia, Creating a Hellenistic World and King and Court in Ancient Persia. Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones also leads Persia (page 110). All lecturers’ biographies can be found on pages 8–15.
cut Byzantine churches including Güzelyurt, birthplace of St Gregory. Drive westwards across a plain to Sultanhani, a splendid 13th-cent. caravanserai, with a cathedral-like five-aisled main hall. Continue to Konya, where two nights are spent. Day 12: Konya, Çatal Höyük. Capital of the 13th-cent. Seljuk empire and home of Sufism, Konya remains the religious centre of Turkey. Visit the Mevlana Tekke, monastery of the Whirling Dervishes, with its turquoise dome and collection of Islamic art. The Karatay Madrasa with its marvellous Seljuk tiles is now a museum of ceramics. Afternoon excursion to Çatal Höyük, the most important Neolithic site in Turkey and probably the earliest town in the world (c. 6000 bc). Day 13: Free morning in Konya before flying from Konya to Istanbul, and on to London Heathrow, arriving at c. 9.15pm.
Practicalities Price: £4,080 (deposit £400). Single supplement £510 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £3,760. Included meals: 12 lunches, 12 dinners with wine (where available). Visa: required for most foreign nationals, and not included in the tour price. You will need to apply online in advance. Accommodation. Divan Çukurhan, Ankara (divan.com.tr): a restored 17th cent. caravanserai located opposite to the main entrance of the Ankara Citadel. Anitta, Çorum (anittahotel.com): small 4-star hotel, in a central location and with all facilities. Büyük Hotel, Sivas (sivasbuyukotel. com): a large good standard hotel close the main square. Hilton, Kayseri (hilton.com.tr). Museum Hotel, Uçhisar (museum-hotel.com): a beautiful boutique hotel with views of Cappadocia, one of the finest in the region. Hich Hotel, Konya (hichhotel.com): a restored Konak building with views of the Mevlana.
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Day 1. Fly at c. 11.35am (Turkish Airlines) from London Heathrow to Ankara (via Istanbul). First of three nights in Ankara.
Day 6: Divriği. A beautiful drive through the Anatolian plains with snow capped mountains to the Great Mosque and Hospital at Divriği. Built in the early 13th cent. the building is famed for its three unique decorated doorways carved with vegetal, geometrical, star and knotted motifs, the quality of which are unrivalled in the region. Largely unknown to visitors to Turkey it is one of unesco’s least visited world heritage sites but one of Turkey’s most splendid.
Dr Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
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Eastern Turkey
Archaeology, architecture, history & landscapes 4–19 October 2014 (mb 160) This tour is currently full
3–18 October 2015 (mc 472) 16 days • £4,460 Lecturer: Rowena Loverance A journey through lesser-known Turkey from Gaziantep to Lake Van, to Mount Ararat and the Black Sea. Wide ranging themes, spectacular landscapes and varied architecture: mountains, valleys, plains and coast; Byzantine and Georgian churches, Seljuk mosques and Armenian monasteries. The tour tells a story as much about the neighbouring countries it doesn’t visit as the country it does. The majestic scenery of eastern Anatolia is the setting for this ambitious tour, which, while remaining firmly within the borders of modernday Turkey, encompasses an extraordinary range of historic and contemporary cultures. From the broad river valleys of the south to the vertiginous Alpine passes in the north, this part of Anatolia has always been a crossroads, whether Kars, steel engraving c. 1840.
Geor gia Trabzon Kars
Ani
ia men Ar
9–24 May 2015 (mb 309) 16 days • £4,460 Lecturer: Rowena Loverance
for Abraham, patriarch of the three Near Eastern faiths, as he followed the Fertile Crescent from Ur to Canaan, or for the Greek mercenaries hired to fight for the Persian king Cyrus, who had to make their way back to their homeland across the Anatolian plateau and the Pontic Mountains. The tour journeys through the cradle of civilization between the Euphrates and the Tigris, where human settlement in the towns of Urfa and Harran goes back to the fifth millennium bc. It includes a Neolithic religious sanctuary, Urartian citadels and Roman frontier towns, Byzantine churches and Seljuk mosques and madrassas. It reveals cultures and civilizations which have almost disappeared from the historical record – early Christian monasteries of the Tur Abdin, Georgian churches of Tao-Klarjeti and the lost Armenian city of Ani. It even takes in the sites of two mediaeval coronations – of the Armenian king Gagik Artzruni on the island of Aktamar in 908 and the Byzantine emperor of Trebizond, Alexius III Comnenos, at the monastery of Sümela in 1349. Far from being backward-looking, though, this tour offers a remarkable opportunity to meet people trying to forge their present-day identities: the Kurds of Diyarbakir, the Syrian Orthodox monks and nuns of the Tur Abdin and of course, the Muslim population of Turkey itself, whose efforts to work out what it means to live in a secular Islamic country are and will continue to be of huge significance for us all.
Erzurum Mount Ararat
Turkey Diyarbakir Gaziantep
Van Akdamar Çavuştepe
Mardin, Tur Abdin Şanliurfa Dara Harran
Syria
Iraq
Itinerary Day 1. Fly at 12 midday (Turkish Airlines) from London Heathrow to Istanbul and then to Gaziantep, reaching the hotel c. 11.30pm (total flying time c. 4 hours 30 mins). Overnight Gaziantep. Day 2: Gaziantep to Şanliurfa. After a leisurely start, visit the Gaziantep Museum, home to one of Turkey’s most extraordinary collections of mosaics, relocated from the nearby site of Zeugma before the area was flooded by the construction of the Birecik Dam. The mosaics, dating from the 2nd and 3rd centuries bc, are testament to the wealth of the region and are amongst the finest examples anywhere to be found. Drive to the banks of the Euphrates for a boat excursion before continuing to Şanliurfa. First of two nights in Şanliurfa. Day 3: Şanliurfa, Harran. Şanliurfa, or Ancient Edessa as named by Alexander the Great, an early Christian centre of learning and now a pilgrimage town for Muslims. See the complex of 12thcentury mosques purported to mark Abraham’s birthplace and the citadel which dominates the skyline. In the afternoon visit Harran, settled since the 5th millennium bc and crossroads of trade routes linking Assyria to Anatolia. See the beehive houses scattered throughout the plain and the archaeological remains of the 8th-century Ulu Camii and Crusader Citadel.
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Day 4: Şanliurfa to Mardin. With views of the Taurus mountain range drive through groves of olive trees into the surrounding hills to see the extraordinary excavations at Göbekli Tepe. Dated to c. 10,000 bc, it is perhaps the earliest known man-made place of worship and challenges current ideas about the Neolithic. Continue East, driving parallel to the Syrian border, to Mardin, with Artukid monuments and tiers of stone-built houses. Spend the first of two nights in Mardin. Day 5: Tur Abdin, Mardin. All day excursion to visit the Syrian orthodox limestone monasteries in the remote Tur Abdin. Deyrul Zafaran, built in 495 and once the seat of the Syrian Orthodox patriarch has some beautiful stone work in the chapel which holds the patriarchal throne. Mor Gabriel, surrounded by pistachio trees, now largely restored dates from 397 and is still a
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working monastery. The Church of the Mother of God at Anitli is little visited but with its colonnaded tower and intricate stone-carving is one of the most beautiful in the Tur Abdin. Day 6: Dara, Diyarbakir. Visit Dara, the remains of a Roman city built in the 6th century to protect the Roman border with Sassanian Persia (we are currently unable to drive from Diyarbakir to Van due to FCO advice). See the necropolis, church and water cistern, so vast in size it exceeds even the Basilica cistern in Istanbul. Continue to Diyarbakir renowned for its basalt architecture and as a symbol of Kurdish identity. See the Byzantine walls and the Ulu Camii with its adjoining madrassa; built in 1091, the first of the Seljuk mosques of Anatolia, but retaining Byzantine elements. Overnight Diyarbakir. Day 7: Diyarbakir to Van. Take a late morning flight from Diyarbakir to Ankara, connecting with the early afternoon flight to Van (we are currently unable to drive from Diyarbakir to Van due to FCO advice). Arrive at c. 5.00pm. Spend the first of three nights at Lake Van.
‘I thought this trip was outstanding, in conception, input and execution.’ Day 8: Akdamar Island. Take a boat to the 10th-century Church of the Holy Cross, seat of Armenian king Gagik Artzruni, who was crowned here in 908. Built in 921, the church is made of local sandstone with a pyramidal roof and 13th-century bell tower. Faded frescoes adorn the interior, while the exterior has relief carvings of Biblical stories, mythological animals and Gagik himself. A verdant enclave surrounded by pea-green waters and snow capped mountains, the setting is idyllic. Lunch on the lake, the rest of the afternoon is free. Overnight Lake Van.
Day 10: Mount Ararat, Kars. Drive through the Artüs Mountain range toward the Iranian border, to the İshak Paşa Palace at the base of Mount Ararat. A magnificent example of 18th-century Ottoman architecture, it is a fascinating mixture of architectural styles: Seljuk, Iranian, Georgian and Armenian. Drive up through pasture land and fields of poppies following the Armenian border north to plateaus with spectacular mountain vistas. First of two nights in Kars.
Day 11: Ani, Kars. Once the capital of mediaeval Armenia, Ani is now a deserted city standing sentinel above the Arpaçay river, the border between Turkey and Armenia. Its walls, towers and minarets retain many of their foundation inscriptions, and its ruined churches and cathedral display the variety and quality of Armenian architecture. Unlike Ani, Kars bears the marks of subsequent Ottoman and Russian occupation. Visit the Armenian Church of the Holy Apostles and the Seljuk castle and Ulu Camii. In the evening there is a performance at the Kars Cultural Centre. Day 12: Kars to Erzurum. Follow the Aras river west through the Aladaglar mountains; magical scenery of fields of gorse and fern, pristine river beds and deep ravines. Pass the beautiful six-arched Çobandede bridge over the Aras. In Erzurum, the principal city of eastern Anatolia, visit the magnificent Seljuk Ulu Camii, with its wooden dome, and also the twin-minareted Çifte Minare Medrese, its entrance adorned with stalactite porches. First of two nights in Erzurum. Day 13: Ösk Vank, Khakhuli, Erzurum. All day excursion to visit the 10th century Georgian monasteries of Ösk Vank and Khakhuli north of Erzurum. Known as Tao-Klarjeti, this area was an important part of medieval Georgia, ruled by the Bagratid kings. Both monasteries were founded by David the Great: Khakhuli, an important literary centre, retains its cross-dome triple-apsed church, with fine relief carvings and frescoes still surviving. Ösk Vank is even more impressive, with scallop-shell arches, high relief mouldings and sculpted column capitals. Day 14: Erzurum to Trabzon. Drive north through the Pontic Alps, in the steps of Xenophon’s Ten Thousand with spectacular views. Along the Karasu, the northernmost branch of the Euphrates, to Aşkale, with its ruined Byzantine fortress. Over the 2390m Kopdagi Pass, the Black Sea watershed, into the Çoruh valley, passing the huge fortress of Bayburt. Over the Zigana Pass, where the Ten Thousand caught their first glimpse of the sea. Descend through temperate forests to Trabzon,
the historic port town on the Black Sea. Visit the Pavilion where Atatürk stayed in 1924. First of two nights in Trabzon. Day 15: Sümela Monastery, Trabzon. To Sümela Monastery, founded in the 4th century, it clings to sheer rock facing the Al tindere Valley. Though in a ruinous state, many of the monastic buildings survive, with 18th- and some 14thcentury frescoes. In Trabzon, visit the beautiful late-Byzantine church of Aya Sophia, with 13thcentury frescoes and frieze. Day 16. Fly from Trabzon (via Istanbul) arriving Heathrow at c. 3.15pm.
Practicalities Price in 2015: £4,460 (deposit £400). Single supplement £430 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £4,080. Included meals: 13 lunches (including one picnic), 14 dinners with wine where available. Visa: required for most foreign nationals, and not included in the tour price. You will need to apply online in advance. Accommodation. Tugcan Hotel, Gazinatep (tugcanhotel.com.tr): comfortable 5 star hotel. El Ruha Hotel, Şanliurfa (hotelruha.com): centrally located 5 star hotel with traditional architecture and palace-like exteriors. Zinciriye Hotel, Mardin (zinciriye.com.tr): 4-star hotel in the town centre. Hotel Büyük Kurvansaray, Diyarbakir (kervansarayotel.com.tr): converted Caravanserai with magnificent basalt-stone courtyard. Rescate Hotel, Van (rescatehotel.com): 5-star hotel set back from the shores of Lake Van; bedrooms have views of the lake. Hotel Cheltikov, Kars (hotelcheltikov.com): 4-star hotel within a restored historical building built in 1874. Hotel Polat Renaissance, Erzurum (polatrenaissance. com): 5-star hotel in the mountains above Erzurum. Zorlu Grand Hotel, Trabzone (zorlugrand.com): 4-star hotel with roof-top restaurant and views of the Black Sea. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Day 9: Van, Çavuştepe. Capital of the kingdom of Urartu in the 9th century bc, Van (ancient Tushpa) was rival to Assyria. Explore the massive steep-sided Van Castle, first investigated by Austen Henry Layard in the 1840s, and the trilingual inscription from the time of Xerxes which contributed to the decipherment of cuneiform. At Çavuştepe, from the same era, see the basalt foundations of the fortress-palace of Sarduri-Hinili, the sacrifice area, open-air temple, cemetery and cisterns. Continue to the magnificent Hosap Castle, the finest example of a Kurdish castle to be found anywhere in Turkey. Overnight at Lake Van.
Mount Ararat, mid-19th-century engraving.
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East Coast Galleries From Boston to Washington DC
Busch-Reisinger Museum of German and Nordic painting. Back in Boston, visit the Isabella Stewart Gardner Collection, a sumptuous Renaissancestyle mansion crammed with magnificent works of art and furnishings. Overnight Boston. Day 4: North Adams, Williamstown. Drive through attractive New England countryside to the Berkshires in the west of Massachusetts. Housed on a vast 19th-century factory campus in North Adams, MASS MoCA is the largest centre for contemporary art in the USA. Williamstown is a small university town with the Sterling and Francine Clark Institute, a wonderfully rich and varied collection outstanding for PostImpressionist paintings, beautifully displayed in a mansion and a brand new building designed by Tadao Ando. Overnight Williamstown. Day 5: Hartford, Newhaven. En route to New York visit the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, America’s oldest public art museum, founded 1842. In Newhaven, the Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art, the largest and most comprehensive display of British art outside the UK. Continue to New York city arriving early evening. First of four nights in New York.
New York, watercolour by Donald Maxwell, publ. c. 1928.
29 April–12 May 2015 (mb 303) 13 nights • £5,620 Lecturer: Gijs van Hensbergen Every major art gallery from New England to Washington DC, providing an astonishingly rich artistic experience. The whole range of western art is covered, classical antiquity to contemporary, and some eastern art. Impressionism and Post-Impressionism are spectacularly well represented.
Itinerary
Includes the Barnes Foundation in its new home in central Philadelphia and the Mellon Center for British Art in New Haven.
Day 1. Fly at c. 11.15am from London Heathrow to Boston (direct, British Airways), arriving at 1.30pm (c. 7 hours in the air). Visit Trinity Church for an introductory lecture. First of three nights in Boston.
Centrally located hotels in Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington.
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current of American art and frequent doses of modern and contemporary production. However full and comprehensive the tour may be in terms of works of art, we have not omitted the opportunity to see something of America beyond the museum doors. There will be some general sightseeing, sometimes with a local expert, and free time for independent exploration. Most of the hotels we have selected are within walking distance of the main museums and historic centres.
Any art lover who has not seen the great galleries of the USA is in for a big surprise. Not only are there so many art museums with so many masterpieces, splendidly displayed in buildings which are often great works of architecture, but usually they are also vital, welcoming institutions where the delight of the visitor is the main priority. This tour includes every major art gallery from New England down to Washington DC. Many of the very good smaller ones are also featured. The whole range of mainstream western art is represented, from antiquity to the present day. If there is a particular emphasis, it is on the Impressionists and the Post-Impressionists. The art of the Orient also makes several spectacular appearances, and of course there is a continual
Day 2: Boston. Founded in 1630, Boston is an historic city with a long-standing reputation for culture and learning. Now a centre of the high-tech revolution, sleek glass towers co-habit with districts of narrow cobbled streets and brick houses and an important set of monuments from the colonial and revolutionary era. The Museum of Fine Arts has a fabulous collection, particular strengths being the Barbizon School, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. An afternoon walking tour of historic Boston. Overnight Boston. Day 3: Cambridge, Boston. Separated from Boston by the Charles River, Cambridge is the home of Harvard University. Visit the University Art Museums which include the long-established Fogg Museum, outstanding particularly for early Italian paintings and Impressionists, and the
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Day 6: New York. Visit the Guggenheim Collection in the famous spiral building (Frank Lloyd Wright) with primarily modern paintings. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) houses some of the greatest paintings of the 20th century in its beautifully enlarged Manhattan home. Day 7: New York. Walk through Central Park to the Metropolitan Museum, undoubtedly the number one art museum in America, embracing the whole gamut of artistic production from around the world. Magnificent benefactions and inspired curatorship have provided many great works of art and a superb standard of display, particularly the galleries devoted to the Impressionists, Tiepolo, and to English Decorative Arts. See also the Frick Collection, the salubrious Fifth Avenue mansion with a small but brilliant collection of great paintings. Day 8: New York. A morning architectural walk with a local lecturer looking at the Art Deco monuments of midtown Manhattan. In the afternoon drive to The Cloisters set in a delightfully tranquil part of north Manhattan overlooking the Hudson river. A branch of the Met, devoted to art of the Middle Ages and incorporating arcades from five cloisters and other salvaged architecture, it is a marvellous home for sculpture, metalwork, tapestries, stained glass, manuscripts and panel paintings. Day 9: Philadelphia. Drive to Philadelphia. As historically the nation’s most important art school, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts has accumulated the finest collection of American art. The Philadelphia Museum of Art, the third largest museum in the country, has a wide ranging collection, including a 12th-century cloister, a Robert Adam interior from Berkeley Square and excellent Impressionists. First of two nights in Philadelphia. Day 10: Philadelphia. The Barnes Foundation, one of the world’s largest private collections of
New England Modern Building new worlds, 1750–2015 Impressionists and Post-Impressionists housed in a new, state of the art gallery in the heart of Philadelphia’s arts district. Some free time in the city: explore the Independence National Historical Park or visit the Rodin Museum which has the largest collection of his sculpture outside Paris. Overnight Philadelphia.
8–17 October 2015 (mc 478) 9 nights • £4,530 Lecturer: Dr Harry Charrington
Day 11: Baltimore, Washington. Continue south to the seaport of Baltimore. The Walters Art Gallery is an extraordinary and eclectic collection ranging from ancient Egypt to Art Nouveau, with a Raphael, mediaeval stained glass and historic jewellery among the outstanding items. The Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland’s largest art museum, houses the Cone Collection, a group of 500 works by Matisse, and an impressive sculpture garden. Drive on to Washington for the first of two nights.
The tour tracks pioneering architecture from the early settlers to the present day with a focus on the extraordinary achievements of the mid20th century.
Day 12: Washington. A capital conceived and built on a truly grand scale. At its heart lies the Mall, a two-mile-long park with many monuments and museums. Foremost among them is the National Gallery of Art, with a major collection representing the whole spectrum of western painting; the East Wing (architect: I.M. Pei) contains modern works. Other visits include the Phillips Collection, America’s first museum of modern art, and the Freer Gallery, part of the Smithsonian Institution, with a fine Asian collection and Whistler’s Peacock Room. Overnight Washington. Day 13: Washington. Free day. Suggestions include the White House, the US Capitol or another of Washington’s many museums: the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (art from southeast Asia) or the Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (20th-century painting and sculpture), all branches of the Smithsonian Institution. Drive to Washington Dulles Airport for the flight to London departing at c. 8.45pm. Day 14. Arrive Heathrow at c. 9.00am.
Practicalities Price: £5,620 (deposit £500). Single supplement £720. Price without flights £5,010. Included meals: 8 dinners with wine. Visas: British citizens can apply for a visa waiver.
Among the architects: H.H. Richardson, Walter Gropius, Frank Lloyd Wright, Alvar Aalto, Philip Johnson, Louis Kahn, Josep Lluís Sert, Le Corbusier, Norman Foster, Renzo Piano. See some of the country’s greatest art collections and public buildings, private houses and neighbourhoods, with a number of visits by special arrangement. We stay in Boston, Stockbridge and New Haven, and travel through landscapes varying from the Atlantic coast and Long Island Sound to the great river valleys and the rolling Berkshire Hills. Led by Dr Harry Charrington, an expert on Modernism and Principal Lecturer in Architecture at the University of Westminster. New England has seen the making of Modern America not once, twice but three times. Firstly, there were the early pioneers and their chaste farmsteads, churches and small towns. Then in post-revolutionary times came the confident urbanity of the new Republic, and contrastingly, the rural asceticism of the Transcendentalists and other idealists. Finally, before, during and after World War II, a new wave of ambition established the expression of mid-twentieth-century America. What unifies all three is an overriding architectural restraint and a setting within the extraordinary light and colour of the New England landscape. The earliest buildings possess a spare timber elegance that reaches down through the Shaker villages to Walter
Itinerary Day 1: London to Boston (MA). Fly at c.11.15am from London Heathrow to Boston (British Airways) (c. 6 hours 45 minutes in the air). Drive to the hotel. The first visits are to two of America’s defining public buildings: H.H. Richardson’s Trinity Church (1877) and McKim Mead & White’s Boston Public Library (1895). First of four nights in Boston. Day 2: Concord, Lincoln, Boston (MA). Drive to Walden Pond, heart of the Transcendentalist movement, where Henry Thoreau lived in a cabin on the water’s edge in simple seclusion. Nearby, the pretty town of Concord saw the start of the American War of Independence. Visit the museum, with Thoreau memorabilia. Walter Gropius built his family home (1938) in a meadow outside Lincoln; modest, light, with the original furniture and artwork. Overnight Boston. Day 3: Manchester, Exeter (NH). In the leafy suburbs of Manchester the Zimmermans commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to build their Usonian home (1950). See also the Currier Museum of Art, a small but good collection including some American Modern. On the campus of Phillips Exeter Academy is Louis Kahn’s monumental library (1971). The detailing is superb inside and out. Overnight Boston.
Boston, Trinity Church, wood engraving 1891 after a drawing by Richard Lovett.
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Accommodation. Fairmont Copley Plaza, Boston (fairmont.com/copley-plaza-boston/): an elegant hotel near Boston Common. The Orchards, Williamstown (orchardshotel.com): a small hotel with a courtyard garden. The Lucerne, New York (thelucernehotel.com): a smart ‘boutique’ hotel close to Central Park. Sheraton Society Hill, Philadelphia (sheratonphiladelphiasocietyhill. com): a functional but comfortable hotel near the Independence National Historical Park. Sofitel Lafayette Square, Washington (sofitel.com): a modern hotel, well located.
The making of modern America set against the colour of the New England Fall.
Gropius’s invention of a local Bauhaus. This austere simplicity is matched by the refined brickwork of Federal Boston and the arcadia of American academia, and the sophisticated use of concrete as a ‘cast stone’. Threaded through New England’s river valleys, hills and along its coast are some of the finest twentieth-century private houses by architects including Frank Lloyd Wright, Josep Lluís Sert, Philip Johnson and the Harvard Five. Their seclusion is balanced by some of America’s most beautiful neighbourhoods and greatest public buildings and art collections in Boston, Harvard and Yale – as well as the delightful Frelinghuysen studio in the russet hills of Lenox.
Group size: between 12 and 22 participants.
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New England Modern continued
Frank Lloyd Wright & the Chicago School
Day 4: Cambridge (MA). Cross the Charles River to the MIT campus, a powerhouse of science and research, at its heart the sinuous brick form of Aalto’s Baker House dormitory (1947). A walk through Harvard includes Le Corbusier’s Carpenter Center (1963) and the University Art Museums, extensively re-worked by Piano and re-opening late-2014. Private visit to Josep Lluis Sert’s home (1958); perfectly proportioned, arranged around three courtyards. Day 5: Boston, Stockbridge (MA). A morning at Boston’s Fine Arts Museum, with its collection of staggering wealth and new extension by Foster. An increasingly beautiful drive west into the Berkshires leads to Stockbridge, a small town of verandah-clad villas with our historic hotel at the centre. First of two nights in Stockbridge. Day 6: the Berkshires (MA). The Hancock Shaker Village provides exquisite examples of Shaker architecture and design. In the woods outside Lenox, a private visit to the former home and studio of abstract artists George Morris and Suzy Frelinghuysen. The house is pure modernism and the art the couple amassed superb. Day 7: Litchfield, New Haven (CT). Drive south stopping in the classic New England town of Litchfield. The afternoon walk in New Haven begins at Kahn’s Center for British Art (1977), the white oak and concrete an apposite backdrop to the magnificent collection. Cross the Yale campus to see Michael Hopkins’ Kroon Hall (2009) and the luminous Beinecke Rare Book Library by SOM (1963). First of two nights in New Haven. Day 8: New Canaan (CT). The day is spent in the woodland town of New Canaan where some of the great US architects, ‘the Harvard Five’, experimented in the mid-20th century. Private tour of Philip Johnson’s pristene Glass House (1949) as well as his painting and sculpture galleries. Among the other visits, the home of Eliot Noyes (1954; subject to confirmation) and Landis Gores’ pool pavilion (1960). Day 9: New Haven. The morning is dedicated to the Yale University Art Gallery (1953), one of the best in the US, the art enhanced by Kahn’s use of concrete. Afternoon drive to New York’s JFK Airport for the flight departing 7.30pm. Day 10. Arrive London Heathrow at 7.30am.
Practicalities usa
Price: £4,530 (deposit £450). Single supplement £660 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £3,890. Included meals: 1 light lunch, 6 dinners with wine, plus meals on flights. Visas: British citizens can apply for a visa waiver.
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Accommodation. Fairmont Copley Plaza, Boston (fairmont.com/copley-plaza-boston/): elegant, opulent, opposite Trinity Church. The Red Lion Inn, Stockbridge (redlioninn.com): charming historic hotel. The Study at Yale, New Haven (studyatyale.com): modern and minimalist bedrooms, excellent location. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
Fallingwater, photograph courtesy of Western Pensylvania Conservancy.
30 May–10 June 2015 (mb 345) 11 nights • £5,110 Lecturer: Tom Abbott Includes Fallingwater, Jacobs, Robie and Taliesin houses, Johnson Wax Building and numerous other works by Frank Lloyd Wright – many of them visited by special arrangement. Four nights in Chicago, with visits to the masterworks of the Chicago School and Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House. Magnificent art collections: Chicago Institute of Art, Carnegie Collection in Pittsburgh and Milwaukee Art Museum. Drive through the countryside of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Illinois. Led by architectural historian Tom Abbott. Frank Lloyd Wright (1869–1959), his own greatest admirer, said he had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. Frustratingly, visiting his work makes this seem fair: in an extraordinarily long career Wright created a modern organic architecture infused with the artistic freedom and reverence for nature of his nineteenth-century American inheritance. Wright embraced the Arts and Crafts, Japanese art and architecture, as well as the material advances of steel and concrete cantilevers to ‘break the box’. Interiors merge inside and out, with their fluid plans reverently anchored by their great hearths. Exteriors stress continuity with nature, and brilliantly amplify their location; be it the Wisconsin hills of Taliesin, or the Pennsylvanian gorge of Fallingwater.
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That Chicago was the centre of Wright’s sphere is no coincidence. Carl Sandburg’s ‘City of Big Shoulders’ is still the continent’s most enjoyably assertive and distinctly ‘American’ city. Following the fire of 1871, it reinvented itself as the first modern metropolis, with the ‘Chicago School’ developing the technical means for, and artistic expression of, a new kind of city, and of course, the skyscraper. Little wonder that it became so natural a home to the New Bauhaus and Mies van der Rohe, through whose elegantly sparse work Chicago’s influence extends to this day. As well as building, Chicago’s citizens collected; and the Chicago Art Institute quickly established itself as one of the great galleries of America; a status shared by the Carnegie collection in Pittsburgh where the tour begins. Beautifully sited on the confluence of two rivers, Pittsburgh epitomises American self-belief and its capacity for self-regeneration, and is unrecognisable from its former ‘rust-belt’ image. Santiago Calatrava’s Milwaukee art museum, spreading out over Lake Michigan, bears equal testament to that city’s revival. In contrast to these urban scenes, the tour meanders through the gently prosperous midwestern countryside of three states, staying in the leafy university town of Madison sited on the isthmus between two lakes, and finishing at Mies’s sublime Farnsworth House on the banks of the Fox river.
Itinerary Day 1: Pittsburgh. Fly at c. 10.00am (British Airways) from London Heathrow via New York to Pittsburgh, arriving c. 4.30pm (c. 8 hours 30 minutes total flying time). Set between the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers,
Pittsburgh is modern, dynamic, sleek, the smoke and steel of the past having been replaced by glass and aluminium. Carnegie, Frick and Mellon, great patrons of the arts, all made their money here before moving to the East Coast. First of three nights in Pittsburgh. Day 2: Fallingwater, Kentuck Knob. Drive out to Fallingwater, quintessential Frank Lloyd Wright (1936). In a spectacular setting amongst the woodland of Bear Run nature reserve, the house seems to grow from, and float above, the water and rocks. You will see not only the waterfall but experience it from inside the house; ‘the most sublime integration of man and nature’ (New York Times). Kentuck Knob (Wright 1953), hexagonal building with panoramic views of the Pennsylvanian countryside, now owned by Lord Palumbo. Overnight Pittsburgh.
Spring Green, Hillside School (FLW 1932)
Day 3: Pittsburgh. Today’s programme includes visits to suburban Pittsburgh to see Richard Meier’s Giovannitti House and Venturi, Scott Brown’s Abrams House (these are likely to be exterior visits). The Carnegie Museum of Art has an extensive and varied collection including the Heinz Architectural department, European and contemporary art. End with a cable car ride up the Duquesne Incline. Overnight Pittsburgh.
still to Chicago; our hotel is in Burnham & Root’s restored Reliance Building, the first ‘skyscraper’ built in the 1890s. First of four nights in Chicago.
Day 4: Pittsburgh to Madison. A walk around Pittsburgh, passing H.H. Richardson’s Allegheny Courthouse, the Mellon bank building and Philip Johnson’s PPG Place. Drive to the airport for the flight to Madison (via Chicago) arriving late afternoon. First of two nights in Madison. Day 5: Spring Green, Madison. Set in the beautiful Wisconsin countryside just outside Spring Green lies Wright’s former home and studio, Taliesin. Here he established the Taliesin Foundation to train architects; Hillside School (1932) exemplifies Wright’s break away from the ‘Victorian box’. The Romeo and Juliet Windmill and several homes and farms designed for members of Wright’s family are also seen from the exterior. In the suburbs visit the recently restored Jacobs House (1936), the purest and most famous example of Wright’s Usonian concept.
Day 7: Wind Point, Racine, Chicago. At Wind Point visit Wingspread: the expansive low-lying building designed for the head of the Johnson Wax Corporation. Continue south to Racine on the shores of Lake Michigan and the Johnson Wax Building built in 1936 with its half acre Great Workroom, unique mushroom columns and innovative use of glass. Drive further south
‘For me this was a lifeenhancing tour which has left me with so many vivid memories that will forever hold me in their thrall. It was perfect in every detail.’ Day 9: Oak Park. In Oak Park visit Wright’s Chicago home and studio (1889) for 20 years and the birthplace of the Prairie School of architecture: ‘I loved the prairie by instinct as a great simplicity… I had an idea that the horizontal planes in buildings, those planes parallel to earth, identify themselves with the ground, make the building belong to the ground’. The surrounding residential streets are home to a number of Wright designs and his Unity Temple (1905). Overnight Chicago.
A number of these buildings are not usually open to the public and it is possible we will not be able to include everything listed.
Practicalities Price: £5,110 (deposit £500). Single supplement £620 (double room for single occupancy). Price without the international flights £4,400. Included meals: 1 lunch, 7 dinners with wine. Visas: British citizens can apply for a visa waiver. Accommodation. The Renaissance Pittsburgh (renaissancepittsburghpa.com): centrally located and comfortable with spacious rooms and good amenities. Madison Edgewater Hotel (theedgewater.com): on the shores of Lake Mendota with fine views. The Pfister, Milwaukee (thepfisterhotel.com): historic hotel with grand public areas and elegantly furnished bedrooms. The Burnham, Chicago (burnhamhotel. com): boutique hotel in the landmark Reliance Building; close to the Chicago Institute of Art. Group size: between 14 and 22 participants.
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Day 6: Madison, Milwaukee. Walk to the Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center, a monumental civic building set on the shores of Lake Monona (based on Wright’s 1938 design, it was completed in 1997). Visit the Unitarian Meeting House (1946), distinguished by its soaring copper roof and glass-prowed sanctuary. Drive to the excellent Milwaukee Art Museum to see the Prairie School Archives, with free time for the collection of European and 20th-cent. American art. End the day with a visit to one of Wright’s American System-Built homes (1916). Overnight Milwaukee.
Day 8: Chicago. The morning walk looks at the outstanding monuments of ‘The Loop’ to which Wright, Mies van der Rohe, Louis Sullivan and Frank Gehry have all contributed. Afternoon at the Chicago Art Institute, extended by Renzo Piano; the architectural courtyard contains several interesting pieces of sculpture and art glass from former Wright and Sullivan buildings. See also a reconstruction of Sullivan’s stock exchange trading room. Free time to enjoy one of the world’s great art galleries. Overnight Chicago.
Day 11: Chicago, Plano. Drive at midday into the Illinois countryside to Plano. Here, built beside the Fox River is one of Mies van der Rohe’s most significant works, the Farnsworth House (1951). Drive to Chicago O’Hare airport, arriving by 5.30pm (in time for the direct flight to London, departing c. 8.30pm).
Day 10: Chicago. Drive to the South Side to the Mies van der Rohe-designed Illinois Institute of Technology (1940–56), with additions by Rem Koolhaas. Continue to the Robie House (FLW 1910); epitome of the Prairie Style. The afternoon is free; we suggest an architectural cruise along the Chicago River, or a walk along the Magnificent Mile. Overnight Chicago.
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Outstanding collections in city & desert Fine Arts Museum, followed by Piano’s simple and striking cypress-clad Menil. However, it is without doubt Louis Kahn’s Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth that shows off these big hitters at their memorable best.
Itinerary Day 1: London to Houston. Fly at c. 10.30am (British Airways) from London Heathrow to Houston, arriving c. 2.45pm local time (flying time c. 9 hours). Drive to the hotel in Houston’s ‘Museum District’ with time to settle in before dinner. First of three nights in Houston. Day 2: Houston. Spend the morning in the Museum of Fine Arts, an outstanding collection built up over the last century. Highlights include the Impressionists and American art of the 19th and 20th centuries, but there is much variety from the Renaissance to contemporary works by minimalist Dan Flavin. It is architecturally varied with extensions by Mies van der Rohe and Rafael Moneo. Bayou Bend houses a good collection of American decorative and fine art, with beautiful gardens around. Overnight Houston.
Houston, from Esquire Magazine, mid-20th-century.
4–15 November 2015 (mc 520) 11 nights • £5,080 Lecturer: Gijs van Hensbergen World class collections of art and sculpture, public and private, in exceptional buildings. Big names include the Kimbell in Fort Worth, Menil in Houston, Blanton in Austin, McNay in San Antonio, Fine Arts in Dallas and Houston, and Donald Judd’s Chinati Foundation. The range is considerable from Renaissance to contemporary, European and American, with emphasis on the modern. The variety continues in city and landscape: big brother Houston, leafy and lush; tiny Marfa, way out west in the desert; alongside the Rio Grande to prettified San Antonio; ending in Dallas, home of hospitality and a terrific arts scene.
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Led by art historian, Gijs van Hensbergen, an expert on American collections and collectors. The cultural resonance of ‘Texas’ may not be overwhelming, yet the oil and livestock barons of this southern state were philanthropists to rival any on the eastern or western seaboards. The result: art collections of staggering richness in buildings developed by the leading architects of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Among the highlights are some of the very personal collections these patrons of the arts acquired. The Meadows Museum in Dallas, for example, the gift of oilman Algur Meadows, houses the finest display of Spanish art outside
the Prado. While John and Dominique de Menil’s dazzling Menil Collection in Houston – built up with money from the Schlumberger oil-drilling fortune – contains over 15,000 works by the greatest names of twentieth-century European and American art. Painter and heiress Marion Koogler McNay, too, used an oil fortune to establish The McNay – the first modern art museum in the Lone Star State – in her colonial revival mansion in San Antonio. But private wealth in Texas has always been matched by public investment and the entire history of art is abundantly represented in the major city galleries. The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, one of the largest in the US, has an extraordinary 62,000 works spanning six thousand years, while the Dallas Museum of Art is as renowned for its Impressionists and Post Impressionists as Austin’s The Blanton is for its Renaissance masterpieces. The searing Texan landscape, with its expanses of sand and scrub and distant sierras, is a work of art in its own right, and a visit to Marfa provides the moment where art, architecture and nature meet. The Chinati Foundation was established by minimalist sculptor Donald Judd to display large installations of his own work and other leading contemporary sculptors and, in its wake, this tiny desert town has become one of the liveliest contemporary art scenes in the US. As rich as the art is the architecture. The Dallas Arts District includes buildings by four Pritzker Prize winners (Norman Foster, Rem Koolhaas, I.M. Pei and Renzo Piano); while in Houston, admirers of Mies van der Rohe can view one of his very rare museum buildings at the
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Day 3: Houston. The Menil is one of the world’s greatest private collections of modern art. Across the road is another Piano museum dedicated to Cy Twombly’s abstract works. Also visited are the Rothko Chapel, built as a sanctuary for fourteen of the artist’s canvases, and Richmond Hall, a grocery store converted into a Dan Flavin light installation. Some free time to return to the Fine Arts Museum or walk in the neighbouring Rice University campus. Overnight Houston. Day 4: Houston to Marfa. Fly to Midland (United Airlines), in westernmost Texas, and drive south across the Chihuahuan Desert (c. 190 miles) through a landscape of scrub and shrub, fringed by distant sierras. Marfa is little more than a handful of dusty intersections and yet is laden with western charm. Thanks to Donald Judd, it also has a thriving contemporary arts scene and a sophistication out of all proportion to its size. First of two nights in Marfa. Day 5: Marfa, the Chinati Foundation. In the morning, visit Judd’s home and library (by arrangement). Judd’s decision to convert 340 acres of former US military land into an art installation stemmed from a need to escape the East Coast and a desire to display large-scale installations in a setting which linked art with landscape. Works by Judd, John Chamberlain and Dan Flavin have been joined over the years by Carl Andre, Ingólfur Arnarson, Roni Horn, Ilya Kabakov, Richard Long, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. Most of the day is spent here with some free time to visit Marfa’s excellent bookstore and main street. Overnight Marfa. Day 6: drive to San Antonio. Drive through countryside to bordertown Del Rio and then to San Antonio (journey time: c. ten hours with several refreshment breaks, including the Judge Roy Bean Visitor Center in Langtry). Arrive San Antonio c. 6.00pm. First of two nights here. Day 7: San Antonio. The McNay was the first
Cliff Dwellings & Canyons
Archaeology & anthropology in the American Southwest modern art museum in Texas and alongside the excellent 19th- and 20th-century works is a substantial sculpture collection in the landscaped park and a new wing for temporary exhibitions. Free time to visit The Alamo, of Davy Crockett fame. The San Antonio Museum of Art has excellent American and Latin American collections. Overnight San Antonio. Day 8: Austin, Dallas. Drive north via Austin, a major university city and state capital. Visit the Blanton Museum of Art, with fine collections of Renaissance as well as 20th-century American art. Brief stop at the Harry Ransom Center, an incredible resource of rare books and manuscripts. Continue to Dallas (c. 195 miles), arriving for the first of three nights. Day 9: Dallas. Begin with Philip Johnson’s Thanksgiving Chapel and JFK Memorial before continuing to the Arts District. The Dallas Museum of Art is one of the finest in the US. Next door is the Nasher Sculpture Center, a superb collection including works by Calder, Chillida, Serra and Hepworth. Some free time – the Asian Art Museum is a possibility. Overnight Dallas.
10–21 October 2015 (mc 480) 11 nights • £4,670 Lecturer: John M. Fritz Track a civilization spanning hundreds of miles and over a thousand years in the Four Corners area where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona meet. A vast and incredible landscape: gaping canyons, immense cliffs, buttes and mesas formed by ice, water and wind over millions of years. Canyonlands National Park and Dead Horse Point State Park provide spectacular lookouts. Visits include the spectacular National Parks and Historic Monuments, museums, archaeology centres, as well as a day on the San Juan River to see petroglyphs only accessible by boat. Led by John Fritz – archaeologist, anthropologist, and specialist on the American Southwest.
Cliff Dwellings & Canyons introduces the dramatic and colourful landscapes of the US Southwest and the prehistoric cultures who dwelt in this challenging environment. Much of this tour is spent on the Colorado Plateau, where deep beds of sedimentary rock have been exposed and shaped by erosion. Experience the rivers and canyons, the mesas and buttes, where Native Americans and Western settlers adapted to often marginal environments. During its earlier geological history the Plateau was a relatively shallow sea where deposits eventually formed variegated layers of limestone, sandstone, siltstone and shale. When the region was subsequently uplifted these layers remained relatively intact. At the same time the Colorado River and its tributaries cut deeply into the horizontal sediments creating deep canyons and the characteristic terraced landforms. Humans occupied the Plateau as early as 14,000 years ago. Large mammals such as mastodons (before they became extinct)
Utah, The Narrows (not visited but very similar to canyons seen on this tour), wood engraving c. 1880.
Day 10: Fort Worth, Dallas. A day in Fort Worth and its astonishingly rich ‘Cultural District’. The Kimbell Art Museum is a magnificent collection, particularly the European paintings with Titian and Tiepolo to Matisse and Mondrian. Kahn’s building is sublime: a series of barrel vaults providing lighting and acoustic perfection for the masterworks. Across the road is The Modern (designed by Tadao Ando), another collection of 20th-century greats: Pollock, Hockney, Picasso, Bacon and a room of Sean Scully canvasses. See also the Amon Carter Museum of American art including works by Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell, the two greatest artists of the American west. Overnight Dallas. Day 11: Dallas. Leave the hotel late morning for the Meadows Museum, a world-renowned collection of Spanish art, particularly strong on the Golden Age. Continue to Dallas-Fort Worth Airport for the overnight flight to London, departing c. 4.45pm. Day 12. The flight arrives Heathrow at c. 7.30am.
Practicalities Price: £5,080 (deposit £500). Single supplement £610 (double room for single occupancy). Price without international flights £4,450.
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Included meals: 3 lunches, 7 dinners with wine. Visas: British citizens can apply for a visa waiver. Accommodation. Hotel Zaza, Houston (hotelzaza.com/#houston): contemporary hotel next door to the Fine Arts Museum. Hotel El Paisano, Marfa (hotelpaisano.com): built in 1930 in colonial style. Omni Mansión del Rio, San Antonio (omnihotels.com): an attractive hotel in colonial style, located on the River Walk. The Rosewood Crescent, Dallas (rosewoodhotels. com): a comfortable hotel in Uptown Dallas. Group size: between 14 and 22 participants.
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and horses were hunted with sophisticated technology; thereafter small bands adapted to the increasingly arid environment by gathering and hunting a wide variety of plants and animals. About 2,000 years ago the emergence of the ancestral cultures of the present Puebloan peoples is marked by the adoption of agriculture and pottery manufacture. The archaeological culture of the Plateau is known as the Anasazi; their dwellings and religious structures can be seen in cliff-side shelters and on the surface. While the tour visits the remains of humble settlements, it also sees large, apartment-like towns and ceremonial centres. We also experience the vital, hybrid culture produced by later immigrants – the Navajo and Apache tribes who arrived in the sixteenth century, the Mexican descendants of Spanish conquistadors who came in the seventeenth century, and the cattlemen, sheep herders and miners from the United States who took control of the region in the mid-nineteenth century.
Cliff dwellings in Colorado, typical of those seen on the tour, wood engraving c. 1880.
Itinerary Day 1. Salt Lake City. Fly at c. 12.00 noon (British Airways) from London Heathrow via Dallas Fort Worth to Salt Lake City, arriving c. 8.00pm (total flying time c. 11 hours 45 minutes). The capital of the thriving state of Utah spreads out below the mountains of the Wasatch Front. Overnight Salt Lake City. Day 2. Salt Lake City, Moab. In the morning visit the state-of-the-art Natural History Museum of Utah for an introduction to the geology, archaeology and living cultures of the Colorado Plateau. An afternoon drive to Moab, and the Red Cliffs Lodge, set near the Colorado River amid sandstone cliffs. First of two nights in Moab. Day 3. Moab. Experience the power of water, ice and wind to transform the landscape. At Dead Horse Point State Park, 2,000 feet above a gooseneck in the Colorado River, and at Canyonlands National Park, plants, animals and humans adapted to the colourful arches, mesas and pinnacles eroded from the sandstone over millions of years. Overnight Moab.
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Day 4. Moab, Crow Canyon, Durango. Morning drive via the site of one of the largest assemblages of petroglyphs at Newspaper Rock State Historic Monument. Crowded figures depict humans, animals and abstract symbols. Continue to Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, unique for archaeological research, education and preservation of the history of the Anasazi. First of three nights in Durango. Day 5. Mesa Verde, Durango. Spend the day in Mesa Verde National Park. Occupied for more than 700 years from c. 600 ad, this is the largest archaeological preserve in the United States. The surface of the elevated plateau and the deep valleys cut into it hold thousands of sites. Visit remains of surface structures as well as the incredible cliff dwellings. Overnight Durango.
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Day 6. Chaco, Aztec, Durango. Visit two of the most important ceremonial sites of the
Southwest. Chaco Canyon is interpreted as the focus of religious celebrations involving much of the Colorado Plateau. Visit ‘Great Houses’ which were occupied only intermittently, and semisubterranean Great Kivas where sacred societies invoked the spirits of nature. One of the largest ‘Chaco outliers’, Aztec preserves the remains of a large residential community and a reconstructed Great Kiva. Overnight Durango. In the event of inclement weather, an alternative visit to Chaco Canyon will be arranged.
by Frank Lloyd Wright. Overnight Scottsdale.
Day 7. Canyon de Chelly, Bluff. Drive to the historic Teec Nos Pos Trading Post where Navajos buy supplies and sell their crafts. Continue to Canyon de Chelly National Monument. High cliffs frame narrow valleys in which live Navajo families. In the valley observe ancient cliff dwellings and simple present day farmsteads. First of two nights in Bluff.
Practicalities
Day 8. San Juan River. An all-day boat trip (private charter) through meandering canyons cut into colourful sandstone layers allows an appreciation of geology, archaeology and wildlife inaccessible by road. See the Butler Wash Panel with one of the most extensive sets of prehistoric petroglyphs. Overnight Bluff. Day 9. Monument Valley. Spend the day in Monument Valley, the vividly coloured mesas and buttes which have inspired and defined the American Western. Guides from the Navajo Nation conduct us through its Tribal Park. Overnight Monument Valley. Day 10. Flagstaff, Scottsdale. A dramatic drive across the Colorado Plateau through Apache country to the lowlands of southern Arizona. On the way visit the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff, a town on the southern flanks of the extinct volcanoes that constitute the San Francisco Peaks. Continue south to Scottsdale for a night in the historic Arizona Biltmore, inspired
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Day 11. Scottsdale, Phoenix. After a morning at leisure in the hotel, visit the Pueblo Grande Museum Archaeological Park in Phoenix. Here remains of houses, temple mounds and ball courts display the ancient Hohokam culture. Drive to Phoenix Sky Harbor airport for the direct flight to London, departing c. 8.00pm. Day 12. Arrive London Heathrow at c. 12.45pm.
Price: £4,670 (deposit £450). Single supplement £510 (double room for single occupancy) Price without flights £3,860. Included meals: 6 lunches (including 4 boxed lunches) and 7 dinners with wine. Visas: British citizens can apply for a visa waiver. Accommodation. The Grand America, Salt Lake City (grandamerica.com): a large hotel with opulent public areas and large bedrooms. Red Cliffs Lodge, Moab (redcliffslodge.com): an informal hotel set on the banks of the Colorado river. Strater Hotel, Durango (strater.com): in the town centre, reminiscent of a 19th-cent. Southwest American hotel and saloon. Desert Rose Inn, Bluff (desertroseinn.com): situated at one end of the small town of Bluff, rustic but comfortable. Goulding’s Lodge, Monument Valley (gouldings.com): on the site of the original trading post set up by Harry Goulding in the 1920s. The lodge is now spread over several 1980s buildings and bedrooms overlook the valley. No alcohol is served in Monument Valley. The Arizona Biltmore, Scottsdale (arizonabiltmore. com): an attractive hotel complex in extensive grounds built in 1929 under the supervision of Frank Lloyd Wright. Group size: between 14 and 22 participants.
Samarkand & Silk Road Cities with Khiva, Bukhara, tashkent & Shakhrisabz 19–29 May 2015 (mb 315) 11 days/10 nights • £3,290 Lecturer: Sue Rollin 1–11 September 2015 (mc 444) 11 days/10 nights • £3,290 Lecturer: Professor James Allan 22 September–2 October 2015 (mc 457) 11 days/10 nights • £3,290 Lecturer: Dr Peter Webb Some of the most glorious sights in the Islamic world. Led by experts in Central Asian archaeology and history. Magnificent mosques and madrassas, acres of wonderful wall tiles, intact streetscape, memorable landscapes. Remote, difficult to access, remarkably unspoilt.
the Museum of Applied Arts or Chorsu Bazaar. Fly c. 6.00pm on day 3 to Urgench and drive 30 miles to Khiva. First of two nights in Khiva.
Itinerary
Great in 329 bc. Reach Bukhara in time for a walk before dinner. First of three nights in Bukhara.
Day 1. Fly at c. 9.15pm (Uzbekistan Airways) from London Heathrow for the seven-hour flight to Tashkent (currently the only direct flight). Days 2 & 3: Tashkent. Land at c. 9.15am. Hotel rooms are available for the morning. The History Museum of the People of Uzbekistan is within walking distance if you want to venture out before lunch. Afternoon drive around the centre, a modern city with wide avenues, spacious parks, glistening new government buildings. Among the places seen during the two days are the Hazret Imam complex, a group of mosques and madrassas (seminaries) from the 16th to the 20th centuries; the Timur Museum and park, a homage to the newly elevated national hero with 13th to 16th-century artefacts and models of some of the buildings seen on the tour; the Fine Arts Museum with collections from pre-Islamic sculpture to 20th-century painting; free time for
Day 4: Khiva. No modern intrusions spoil the timeless fabric within a rectangle of crenellated and turreted ramparts. Most of the buildings are 19th-century, but such was Khiva’s isolation and conservatism that to the inexpert eye they could date to any time from the 16th-century. The Friday Mosque, a forest of carved wooden columns some dating to the 10th-century, the Tash Hauli Palace, whose harem quarters constitute the loveliest secular spaces in Central Asia, and the Paklavan Mahmoud Mausoleum where tiled interiors reach a peak of opulence. Day 5: Khiva to Bukhara. The 280 mile journey starts and finishes in an unspoilt landscape of green fields, trees and adobe farmsteads while the central section is undulating desert, specked with tufty shrubs which are briefly green in the spring. There are periodic sightings of the meandering Oxus, the mighty river crossed by Alexander the
Day 6: Bukhara. Genghis Khan ensured in 1220 that with notable exceptions (including the Kalon Minaret, at 48 metres then the tallest in the world) little of Bukhara’s first golden age remains, but of the second, the 15th and 16th centuries, there survives much magnificent architecture, lavishly embellished. Today’s walks take in the vast Kalon Mosque (finished 1514) with a capacity of 10,000, several grand madrassas, the formidable citadel of the Khans and the Zindan, their infamous prison. Take tea in the shade of mulberry trees around a 15th-century pool. Day 7: Bukhara. The perfectly preserved 10thcentury Samani Mausoleum and the remains of the 12th-century Namaz Goh Mosque display fine terracotta decoration. The Emir’s summer palace, 1911, is a riotous mix of Russian and traditional Bukharan decoration with rose garden, aviary Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
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Oxiana, Tartary, Turkestan, Khiva, Bukhara, Samarkand: names to produce a frisson. They evoke alluring images of shimmering turquoise domes and exquisite glazed wall tiles, of lost libraries and renowned scholars, of the delicious decadence of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, of gardens, poetry and wine, of the fabulous riches of the Silk Road between China and Christendom. Less agreeable images are also induced: of Ghengis Khan and Timur (Tamerlane), the most far-reaching conquerors in history; of the tyranny and cruelty of the khans, perpetuating the last redoubts of mediaeval misrule; of the Great Game, the nineteenth-century Cold War between Britain and Russia; of terrain as hostile as the tribesmen and petty tyrants who inhabited its desert and mountain fastnesses; and of a postSoviet penumbra of Stans of suspect politics and allegiances. The four cities of the subtitle lie now in Uzbekistan, independent since 1991 but an entity which has its origins in late nineteenth-century Russian imperialism, which agglomerated a number of independent khanates, and whose borders were settled in the 1920s. It lies at the very centre of Central Asia. One of only two double land-locked nations in the world, it has a capital which is a thousand miles north of the Indian Ocean (Afghanistan and Pakistan intervene), 1,400 miles east of the Black Sea and 400 miles from Xinjiang, China’s largely Islamic western province. This is as the crow flies; extremes of topography and climate as well as banditry slowed or terminated the progress of many travellers. A slave-trading oasis khanate, Khiva was, and remains, the smallest of the three cities. It is perhaps the most intact and homogenous urban ensemble in the Islamic world, with biscuitcoloured brick and blue and turquoise maiolica. In Bukhara, gorgeously adorned architecture spanning a thousand years still rises above a streetscape of indeterminate age. Samarkand has the largest and most resplendently caparisoned
historic buildings of all. There are also visits to Shakhrisabz, which has breathtaking remains of Timur’s palace, and to Tashkent, the spacious modern capital with good museums and galleries. Space is not at a premium in this part of the world. Broad tree-lined boulevards encircle the historic town centres and no expanding girdle of high-rise apartments disfigures the approach. Modernity has made relatively unobtrusive inroads: in one of the few nations on earth which has escaped the countryside scourge of ferroconcrete and breeze block, the whitewashed villages and farmsteads with their awnings of vines would hold few surprises for Tolstoy. Nearly all the women are to some extent in traditional dress, brightly coloured ankle-length dresses, and so are some of the older men. In the wake of economic liberalisation since independence, streets and courtyards are draped with the dazzling hues of carpets and textiles; the glories of the Silk Road in its heyday are not hard to imagine.
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Opera in Cardiff
Carmen, Moses in Egypt, William Tell and swimming pool. Free afternoon with the option to visit Chor Bakr, a memorial complex built over the burial place of Abu-Bakr a descendant of the prophet Mohammed. Day 8: Shakhrisabz. A 4-hour drive across a fertile plain where wheat and cotton flourish. Shakhrisabz was transformed by Timur (1336– 1405) whose home town it was. An astounding survival is the most imposing palace portal in the history of architecture, an arch 22 metres wide with a wondrous range of tiled decoration. Further Timurid remnants include a mosque complex with three turquoise domes. Cross a mountain range (broadleaf woods, fissured granite, pasturage) and drop down to the plain of the Zarifsan river, and to Samarkand. First of three nights in Samarkand. Day 9: Samarkand. The Registan, ‘the noblest public square in the world’ (Lord Curzon, 1889), bounded on three sides by magnificent madrassas of the 15th and 17th centuries. The Museum of History, Culture & Art has collections from preIslamic as well as Islamic periods. Also see the Gur Emir Mausoleum, burial place of Tamerlane, the adjacent Ak Serai Mausoleum and the Shahi-Zinda, an ensemble of mausolea gorgeously apparelled in many types of glazed tiles. Day 10: Samarkand. Commissioned by Timur, the Bibi Khanum Mosque is an exercise in gigantism and impresses despite partial destruction and over-zealous restoration. The adjacent Bazaar is a traditional produce market. Optional visits to the Afrasiab History Museum, which documents pre-Islamic Samarkand, and to the remains of the extraordinary observatory built by Ulug Bek in the 15th century. Free time. Day 11: Tashkent. Drive to Tashkent. The flight arrives at Heathrow at c. 8.00pm.
Practicalities Price: £3,290 (deposit £350). Single supplement £140 (double room for single occupancy). Price without all flights £2,710. Please contact the office if you wish to take the internal flight only. Included meals: lunches, all dinners with wine. Visas: required by most foreign nationals and not included in the price of the tour. We will advise.
uzbekistan, wales
Accommodation. Ramada Tashkent, Tashkent (ramadatashkent.com): centrally located, modern 5-star hotel. Madrassa Mukhammad Hotel, Khiva: a converted madrassa, impressively restored, each room a former student’s cell opening onto the courtyard. Omar Khayam Hotel, Bukhara (hotelomarkhayam.com): a modern 4-star hotel in the centre of the old city. Malika Prime, Samarkand (malika-samarkand. com): a comfortable 4-star hotel, well-located.
Wales Millennium Centre.
2–5 October 2014 (mb 172) 4 days • £990 (including tickets to 3 performances) Lecturer: Simon Rees October 2015 Details available in May 2014 Contact us to register your interest Excursions and talks with Simon Rees, writer, lecturer and Dramaturg of Welsh National Opera from 1989–2012. Operas in the acoustically excellent Wales Millennium Centre, a massive structure of slate, glass and steel embodying the natural resources and industries of Wales. Stay in a 5-star hotel in the Cardiff Bay development, within walking distance of the Wales Millennium Centre.
Itinerary in 2014 Day 1. Assemble at the hotel at 3.45pm for an introductory lecture. Opera at the Wales Millennium Centre (WMC): Carmen (Bizet), Erik Nielsen (conductor), Gwyn Hughes Jones, Kostas Smoriginas, Aidan Smith, Jessica Muirhead, Emma Carrington, Madeleine Shaw, Amy Freston, Samantha Hay. Wood engraving c. 1880.
Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
216 book online at www.martinrandall.com
Day 2. A guided tour of the Wales Millennium Centre is followed by the Cardiff Bay Barrage, a masterly piece of engineering across the Ely and Taff estuaries. Opera at the WMC: Moses in Egypt (Rossini), Carlo Rizzi (conductor), Miklós Sebestyén, David Alegret, Christine Rice, Barry Banks, Andrew Foster-Williams, Leah-Marian Jones Claire Booth, Nicky Spence. Day 3. The National Museum of Wales has one of the finest collections of Impressionist paintings in the UK. Visit Castell Coch, a Gothic Victorian castle on the outskirts of Cardiff. Opera at the WMC: William Tell (Rossini), Carlo Rizzi (conductor), David Kempster, Barry Banks, Gisela Stille, Clive Bayley, Fflur Wyn, Leah-Marian Jones, Richard Wiegold, Luciano Botelho, Nicky Spence, Aidan Smith. Day 4. Disperse after breakfast.
Practicalities Price in 2014: £990 (deposit £100). Single supplement £190 (double room for single occupancy). Included meals: 3 pre-theatre dinners with wine. Music: tickets (first category) for 3 operas are included, costing c. £120. Accommodation. St David’s Hotel, Cardiff (thestdavidshotel.com): 5-star hotel overlooking Cardiff Bay. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.
Snowdonia & Anglesey Castles & country houses 6–11 July 2015 (mb 391) 6 days • £2,080 Lecturer: Neil Johnstone The finest group of mediaeval castles to be found anywhere, and a choice variety of country houses and historic walled towns. Some of Britain’s most beautiful landscapes, highland and lowland. Stay at a country house hotel, the Historic Hotels’ Bodysgallen Hall and in the charmingly quirky seaside village of Portmeirion. Led by Neil Johnstone, an expert in Welsh archaeology.
Itinerary Day 1: Conwy. The coach leaves Llandudno Junction Railway Station at 2.30pm (having picked up at the Bodysgallen Hall hotel if
Conwy Castle, lithograph c. 1840.
required). Conwy castle is one of the great achievements of mediaeval military architecture, and its curtain walls and vast cylindrical towers survive intact – as does the wall around the contiguous town, founded for English settlers at the same time (1283). First of four nights at Bodysgallen Hall. Day 2: Plas Newydd, Beaumaris, Penmon. Cross the Menai Strait to Anglesey on Telford’s suspension bridge (1819–26), an engineering marvel. Plas Newydd, late Georgian home of Marquesses of Anglesey, has Waterloo mementos and a wonderful 1930s Rex Whistler panorama – and, looking across the Strait to Snowdonia, as fine a view as from any house in Britain. In the afternoon visit Beaumaris Castle, the most technically perfect of Edward I’s castles, and the Norman church of Penmon Priory. Day 3: Plas Mawr, Penrhyn, Snowdon. See more of the little historic town of Conwy including Plas Mawr, a well preserved Elizabethan town house. Continue along the coast to enormous Penrhyn Castle, built 1820–35 in neo-Norman style, and one of the most sumptuous houses of its time. Take the cogwheel railway train to the summit of Snowdon, a round trip of 2½ hours. Day 4: Erddig, Pontcysyllte, Gwydir. The journeys today traverse a variety of delightful lowland and valley landscapes. Erddig is one of the most fascinating and evocative country houses in Britain. Mainly of the early 18th century, it has fine furnishings and artworks, and the servants’ quarters are particularly well preserved. Telford’s Pontcysyllte Aqueduct carries a canal high above the River Dee. Return to the Conwy Valley in the evening for a private tour and dinner in Gwydir Castle, an enchanting
accumulation of 15th, 16th and 17th-century parts which, together with its gardens, is steadily being restored by its current owners. First of two nights in Portmeirion. Day 5: Criccieth, Portmeirion, Harlech. Criccieth Castle sits atop a promontory jutting into Tremadog Bay. The village of Portmeirion, created by Clough Williams Ellis from the 1920s to the 1960s, is a wholly delectable if eccentric architectural confection. Clinging to a crag between the sea and the mountains, Harlech is the most dramatically sited of Edwardian castles. It endured an eight-year siege during the Wars of the Roses. Day 6: Caernarfon. Rising above the River Seiont and the Menai Strait, Caernarfon is the greatest of the Edwardian castles. It was built as a seat of government and exhibits features intended to evoke ancient Rome and imperial status. The coach returns to Llandudno Junction Railway Station by 2.30pm.
Practicalities Price: £2,080 (deposit £200). Single supplement £220 (double room for single occupancy).
wales
At a meagre 1,085 metres, the highest peak in Wales puts the country towards the bottom of the international league of physical elevation, not far above the Maldives or the Netherlands (or England). So not the least surprising aspect of North Wales is that Snowdon and surrounding ranges look impressively mountainous – magnificently and austerely so. And then there’s another surprising feature: only twenty minutes from roads cowering beneath crags and precipitous moorland are others cossetted in lyrical lowland landscapes of green fields, abundant broadleafs and plump livestock. Castles provide a further surprise. Not that Conwy, Caernarfon and Harlech are not well known, but first-time visitors are likely to be astonished by their vast magnificence, their immaculate state of preservation and the splendour of their setting. In the 1280s King Edward I of England planted here the finest group of mediaeval castles to be found anywhere, technologically the most developed military architecture of the pre-gunpowder era. Temples to temporal power, they are every bit as fascinating and awe-inspiring as contemporary cathedrals. Topography, economy and politics were not favourable for the development of country houses of the first rank but there are some treasures in this department – the Rex Whistler mural at Plas Newydd, the Neo-Norman staircase at Penrhyn Castle, the restituted 1640s panelling at Gwydir, the servants’ portraits at Erddig. Neither was topography favourable for travel and transport. All Edward I’s castles were built with fortified harbours so they could be sustained by the navy. But in the nineteenth century, politics (the imperative of better communications with Ireland) and the economy (exploitation and export of mineral riches) forced the conquest of rivers, straits and passes. Both Thomas Telford and George Stephenson excelled here with worldbeating bridges and viaducts. The tour is based at two outstanding hotels which in their different ways are among the most agreeable in Britain.
Included meals: 5 dinners with wine. Accommodation. Bodysgallen Hall, Llandudno (www.bodysgallen.com): 4-star 17th-century mansion in 220 acres of grounds. Hotel Portmeirion (www.portmeirion-village.com): rooms are scattered throughout the idyllic village. Group size: between 10 and 22 participants. Combine this tour with: Constable & Gainsborough, 13–16 July 2015 (page 48). Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
217
Booking details Making a booking 1. Provisional booking
2. Definite booking
3. Our confirmation
We recommend that you contact us first to make a provisional booking which we will hold for one week. To confirm it please send the booking form and deposit within this period.
Fill in the booking form and send it to us with the deposit (specified in the price paragraph of the tour description). It is important that you read the Booking Conditions at this stage, and that you sign the booking form. Full payment is required if you are booking within ten weeks of departure.
Upon receipt of the booking form and deposit we shall send you confirmation of your booking. After this your deposit is non-returnable except in the special circumstances mentioned in the Booking Conditions. Further details of the tour will also be sent at this stage.
If you cancel. If you have to cancel your participation on a tour, there would be a charge which varies according to the period of notice you give. Up to 57 days before the tour the deposit only is forfeited. Thereafter a percentage of the total cost of the tour will be due:
alternative ATOL holder may provide you with the services you have bought or a suitable alternative (at no extra cost to you). You agree to accept that in those circumstances the alternative ATOL holder will perform those obligations and you agree to pay any money outstanding to be paid by you under your contract to that alternative ATOL holder. However, you also agree that in some cases it will not be possible to appoint an alternative ATOL holder, in which case you will be entitled to make a claim under the ATOL scheme (or your credit card issuer where applicable). If we, or the suppliers identified on your ATOL certificate, are unable to provide the services listed (or a suitable alternative, through an alternative ATOL holder or otherwise) for reasons of insolvency, the Trustees of the Air Travel Trust may make a payment to (or confer a benefit on) you under the ATOL scheme. You agree that in return for such a payment or benefit you assign absolutely to those Trustees any claims which you have or may have arising out of or relating to the non-provision of the services, including any claim against us (or your credit card issuer where applicable). You also agree that any such claims maybe re-assigned to another body, if that other body has paid sums you have claimed under the ATOL scheme.
Alternatively, you can make a definite booking straight away at www.martinrandall.com
Booking Conditions Please read these You need to sign your assent to these booking conditions on the booking form.
Our promises to you We aim to be fair, reasonable and sympathetic in all our dealings with clients, and to act always with integrity. We will meet all our legal and regulatory responsibilities, often going beyond the minimum obligations. We aim to provide full and accurate information about our holidays. If there are changes, we will tell you promptly. If something does go wrong, we will try to put it right. Our overriding aim is to ensure that every client is satisfied with our services.
All we ask of you That you read the information we send to you.
Specific terms Our contract with you. From the time we receive your signed booking form and initial payment, a contract exists between you and Martin Randall Travel Ltd. Eligibility. We reserve the right to refuse to accept a booking without necessarily giving a reason. You need to have a level of fitness which would not spoil other participants’ enjoyment of the holiday by slowing them down – see ‘Fitness and Age’ on page 5). With this in mind, we do not accept bookings from anyone who would be aged 81 or over at the time of the tour (we make an exception for certain MRT music festivals).
booking details 218
Insurance. It is a requirement of booking that you have adequate holiday insurance. Cover for medical treatment, repatriation, loss of property and cancellation charges must be included. Insurance can be obtained from most insurance companies, banks, travel agencies and (in the UK) many retail outlets including post offices. Passports and visas. British citizens must have valid passports for all tours outside the United Kingdom. For most countries the passport needs to be valid for six months beyond the date of the tour. If visas are required we will advise UK citizens about obtaining them. Nationals of other countries should ascertain whether visas are required in their case, and obtain them if they are.
between 56 and 29 days: 40% between 28 and 15 days: 60% between 14 days and 3 days: 80% within 48 hours: 100% If you cancel your booking in a double/twin room or cabin but are travelling with a companion who chooses to continue to participate on the tour, the companion will be liable to pay the stipulated single supplement. We take as the day of cancellation that on which we receive written confirmation of cancellation. If we cancel the tour. We might decide to cancel a tour if at any time up to eight weeks before there were insufficient bookings for it to be viable. We would refund everything you had paid to us. We may also cancel a tour if hostilities, civil unrest, natural disaster or other circumstances amounting to force majeure affect the region to which the tour was due to go. Safety and security. If the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office advises against travel to places visited on a tour, we would cancel the tour or adjust the itinerary to avoid the risky area. In the event of cancellation before the tour commenced we would give you a full refund. We would also treat sympathetically a wish to withdraw from a tour to a troubled region even if the FCO does not advise against travel there. Seatbelts. Our tours and festivals subscribe to the health and safety legislation of the destination. In some parts of the world the law concerning seatbelts differs to the UK. Financial protection. We provide full financial protection for our package holidays, by way of our Air Travel Organiser’s Licence number 3622. When you buy an ATOL protected flight inclusive holiday from us you receive an ATOL Certificate. This lists what is financially protected, where you can get information on what this means for you and who to contact if things go wrong. We will provide you with the services listed on the ATOL Certificate (or a suitable alternative). In some cases, where we aren’t able do so for reasons of insolvency, an
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We provide full financial protection for our package holidays that do not include a flight, by way of a bond held by ABTA The Travel Association. The limits of our liabilities. As principal, we accept responsibility for all ingredients of a tour, except those in which the principle of force majeure prevails. Our obligations and responsibilities are also limited where international conventions apply in respect of air, sea or rail carriers, including the Warsaw Convention and its various updates. If we make changes. Circumstances might arise which prevent us from operating a tour exactly as advertised. We would try to devise a satisfactory alternative, but if the change represents a significant loss to the tour we would offer compensation. If you decide to cancel because the alternative we offer is not acceptable we would give a full refund. English Law. These conditions form part of your contract with Martin Randall Travel Ltd and are governed by English law. All proceedings shall be within the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.
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Full payment is required if you are booking within ten weeks of departure.
Account name: Martin Randall Travel Ltd Royal Bank of Scotland, Drummonds, 49 Charing Cross, London SW1A 2DX Account number 0019 6050 Sort code 16-00-38 IBAN: GB71 RBOS 1600 3800 1960 50; Swift/BIC: RBOS GB2L
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M ARTIN RANDALL T R AV E L
Voysey House, Barley Mow Passage, London, UK, W4 4GF Telephone 020 8742 3355 Fax 020 8742 7766 info@martinrandall.co.uk
www.martinrandall.com
Australia: telephone 1300 55 95 95 New Zealand: telephone 0800 877 622 anz@martinrandall.com.au Canada: telephone 647 382 1644 canada@martinrandall.ca USA: telephone 1 800 988 6168
5085
ABTA No.Y6050
Tours by date For a list of tours by country, see pages 6–7.
26–11 30– 1
October 2014
February 2015
The Dodwell Vase, engraving 1814 by H.Moses.
November 2014 1– 8 4–10 11–16 10–16 10–18 14–16 14–28 18–22 22–25 24– 7
Venice & Florence (mb 192) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott...................... 121 Essential Rome (mb 193) Dr Thomas-Leo True............................... 145 Venice Revisited (mb 196) Dr Susan Steer.......................................... 124 Florence Revisited (mb 195) Dr Joachim Strupp................................... 135 The Greeks in Sicily (mb 200) Dr Ffiona Gilmore Eaves........................ 159 SYMPOSIUM with History Today: Nineteen-Fourteen (mb 197) Various speakers........................................ 57 Essential India (mb 198) Dr Anna-Maria Misra............................ 103 Venetian Palaces (mb 202) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott...................... 122 The Lucerne Piano Festival (mb 203) Professor Geoffrey Norris....................... 201 Painted Palaces of Rajasthan (mb 201) Dr Giles Tillotson..................................... 105
December 2014 1–11 Assam by River (mb 207) Lesley Pullen............................................. 109 20–27 Music in Vienna at Christmas (mb 218) Dr Jarl Kremeier........................................ 18 20–27 Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur at Christmas (mb 219) Monica Bohm Duchen.............................. 81 20–27 Munich at Christmas (mb 220) Tom Abbott................................................. 94 20–27 Florence at Christmas (mb 221) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott...................... 131 20–27 Palermo at Christmas (mb 223) Dr Luca Leoncini..................................... 158 29– 4 Antiquities of Upper Egypt at New Year (mb 225) Lucia Gahlin.............................. 40 29– 4 Music in Berlin at New Year (mb 224) Tom Abbott................................................. 83
January 2015 10–20 13–20 24–29 26– 8
Oman (mb 229) Professor Dawn Chatty........................... 173 Valletta Baroque Festival (mb 227) Juliet Rix.................................................... 166 Mozart in Salzburg (mb 230) Richard Wigmore....................................... 24 Temples of Tamil Nadu (mb 232) Asoka Pugal.............................................. 109
11–26 16–22 20–22 20– 6 24– 1 24– 2
Ethiopia (mb 240) Jacopo Gnisci.............................................. 64 Florence (mb 242) Dr Antonia Whitley................................ 131 CHAMBER MUSIC WEEKEND: The Leonore Piano Trio (mb 244) Richard Wigmore....................................... 56 Essential India (mb 245) Dr Giles Tillotson..................................... 103 Connoisseur’s Rome (mb 246) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott...................... 149 Essential Rome (mb 247) Dr Thomas-Leo True............................... 145 Opera & Art in Turin & Milan............ 113
March 2015 2–15 Sacred India (mb 250) Charles Allen... 109 7–14 Venice & Florence (mb 252) Dr Kevin Childs...................................... 121 8–15 Courts of Northern Italy (mb 262) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott...................... 125 9–16 Granada & Córdoba (mb 253) Dr Philippa Joseph................................... 199 11–15 Ballet in Paris (mb 251) Jane Pritchard mbe.................................... 70 13–15 CHAMBER MUSIC WEEKEND: A Weekend of Mozart (mb 254) Richard Wigmore......................................56 13–19 Piero della Francesca (mb 264) Dr Antonia Whitley................................ 141 13–20 Gastronomic Andalucía (mb 255) Gijs van Hensbergen................................200 16–28 Sicily (mb 258) Christopher Newall...... 156 17–21 Opera in Marseille & Lyon (mb 257) Dr Michael Downes................................... 82 17–24 Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur (mb 256) Mary Lynn Riley........................ 81 18–24 Gardens of the Riviera (mb 270) Caroline Holmes.......................................... 7 21–29 Essential Jordan (mb 259) Jane Taylor................................................ 164 21– 1 Morocco (mb 271) James Brown........... 169 24–28 Venetian Palaces (mb 260) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott...................... 122 24– 1 Normans in the South (mb 268) John McNeill............................................. 152 24– 2 Israel & Palestine (mb 261) Dr Garth Gilmour.....................................111 30–11 Indian Summer (mb 272) Raaja Bhasin............................................ 107
April 2015 CHAMBER MUSIC WEEKEND: Easter at The Castle (mb 274)................. 56 7–12 Palladian Villas (mb 277) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott...................... 120 7–15 Extremadura (mb 275) Adam Hopkins......................................... 195 8–13 Opera in Vienna (mb 276) Professor Jan Smaczny.............................. 19
3– 6
Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
tours by date
1– 5 Ravenna & Urbino (mb 146) Dr Luca Leoncini..................................... 127 1– 9 The Cathedrals of England (mb 147) Jon Cannon................................................. 54 2– 5 Opera in Cardiff (mb 172) Simon Rees................................................ 216 2– 8 Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes (mb 148) Steven Desmond ......................116 3– 9 Monasteries of Moldavia (mb 149) Alan Ogden............................................... 179 4–11 Central Macedonia (mb 154) Dr Oswyn Murray .................................... 99 4–19 Eastern Turkey (mb 160) Rowena Loverance................................... 206 6–12 Malta (mb 176) Juliet Rix....................... 165 6–13 Courts of Northern Italy (mb 161) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott...................... 125 6–19 The Western Balkans (mb 151) David Gowan............................................. 28 7 The London Backstreet Walk (lb 158) Giles Waterfield......................................... 61 7–12 Palladian Villas (mb 153) Dr Joachim Strupp................................... 120 8–23 Ethiopia (mb 155) Jacopo Gnisci............. 64 10–17 Walking in Northern Tuscany (mb 150) Dr Antonia Whitley................................ 140 11–17 Gastronomic Piedmont (mb 162) Marc Millon...............................................114 13–18 Ancient Rome (mb 164) Dr Mark Grahame................................... 148 13–20 Bilbao to Bayonne (mb 165) Gijs van Hensbergen................................ 186 13–21 Roman Algeria (mb 152) Barnaby Rogerson...................................... 16 13–25 Sicily (mb 163) John McNeill................. 156 15 The London Backstreet Walk (lb 167) Professor Gavin Stamp.............................. 61 15–22 Essential Puglia (mb 169) Christopher Newall................................. 153 15–23 Essential Jordan (mb 170) Jane Taylor................................................ 164 17–23 Roman & Mediaeval Provence (mb 174) Dr Alexandra Gajewski............................ 75 18–31 Andalucía (mb 175) Adam Hopkins.... 198 20–25 Pompeii & Herculaneum (mb 178) Dr Ffiona Gilmore Eaves........................ 151 20–27 Walking in Southern Tuscany (mb 180) Dr Antonia Whitley................................ 138 20–28 Palestine (mb 159) Dr Felicity Cobbing...................................174 21–30 Israel & Palestine (mb 166) Dr Garth Gilmour.....................................111 24–26 CHAMBER MUSIC WEEKEND: The Endellion String Quartet (mb 183) Professor Geoffrey Norris......................... 56 28–10 The Indian Mutiny (mb 185) Patrick Mercer.......................................... 109 29– 6 Roman Algeria (mb 186) Anthony Sattin........................................... 16
Lands of the Maya (mb 233) Professor Norman Hammond................ 167 CHAMBER MUSIC WEEKEND: I Fagiolini (mb 235).................................. 56
221
9–15 Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes (mb 278) Steven Desmond.......................116 9–21 Central Anatolia (mb 282) Dr Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones ....................... 204 11–17 Gastronomic Emilia-Romagna (mb 280) Marc Millon & Dr R. T. Cobianchi....... 128 12–21 Jordan Revisited (mb 284) Jane Taylor................................................ 162 13–18 Gardens of Northern Portugal (mb 288) Gerald Luckhurst.................... 177 13–19 Antiquities of Upper Egypt (mb 283) Dr Robert Morkot...................................... 40 13–19 Genoa & Turin (mb 286) Dr Luca Leoncini..................................... 115 13–19 Lucca (mb 289) Dr Antonia Whitley................................ 137 13–19 Gastronomic Catalonia (mb 285) Gijs van Hensbergen................................ 191 13–25 Sicily (mb 290) John McNeill................. 156 14–21 The Heart of Italy (mb 297) Professor Ian Campbell-Ross................. 142 18–28 Chinese Ceramics (mb 292) Dr Lars Tharp............................................. 32 19–24 History of Impressionism (mb 294) Dr Frances Fowle....................................... 69 20–25 Gardens & Villas of Campagna Romana (mb 295) Helena Attlee........................... 146 20–25 Pompeii & Herculaneum (mb 293) Dr Mark Grahame................................... 151 20–25 Lisbon Neighbourhoods (mb 296) Adam Hopkins......................................... 176 22–30 The Cathedrals of England (mb 300) Jon Cannon................................................. 54 23– 7 Persia (mb 384) Dr Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones........................ 110 29–12 East Coast Galleries (mb 303) Gijs van Hensbergen................................ 208 The Budapest Spring Festival.............. 102 Leonardo da Vinci.................................. 133
May 2015
tours by date 222
2–11 4–13 4–17 5–17 6–10 6–13 7–13 8–14 9–24 11–15 11–17 11–20 13–18
Classical Greece (mb 310) Dr Oswyn Murray..................................... 97 Minoan Crete (mb 321) Dr Alan Peatfield..................................... 100 The Western Balkans (mb 312) David Gowan............................................. 28 Ming & Qing Civilization (mb 316) Dr Rose Kerr............................................... 34 Ravenna & Urbino (mb 314) Dr Luca Leoncini..................................... 127 The Douro (mb 311) Adam Hopkins.... 178 St Petersburg (mb 307) Dr Alexey Makhrov................................. 180 Brittany (mb 313) Caroline Holmes........................................ 71 Eastern Turkey (mb 309) Rowena Loverance................................... 206 The Lukas Cranachs (mb 317)................ 92 Walking Hadrian’s Wall (mb 308) Graeme Stobbs............................................ 50 Classical Turkey (mb 319) Henry Hurst.............................................. 203 At Home in Weston Park (mb 320) Anthony Lambert...................................... 46
13–21 Andalusian Morocco (mb 330) James Brown............................................. 170 16–23 Central Macedonia (mb 325) Dr Oswyn Murray .................................... 99 19–24 Palaces of Piedmont (mb 332) Dr Luca Leoncini..................................... 113 19–25 Prague Spring Professor Jan Smaczny.. 37 19–29 Samarkand & Silk Road Cities (mb 315) Sue Rollin.................................................. 215 22–29 Walking in the Footsteps of Leonardo & Michelangelo (mb 335) Dr Antonia Whitley................................ 140 23–30 Mediaeval Burgundy (mb 338) John McNeill................................................74 24–30 Art in the Netherlands (mb 326) Dr Guus Sluiter........................................ 172 25– 1 Courts of Northern Italy (mb 341) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott...................... 125 27–31 Art in Madrid (mb 343) Dr Xavier Bray......................................... 187 30–10 Frank Lloyd Wright (mb 345) Tom Abbott............................................... 210 The Ring in Vienna.................................. 22 Music in the Regions............................... 51 Art & Music in Dresden.......................... 86 Naples........................................................ 151 Art in Japan............................................. 162 Opera in Genoa........................................116
June 2015 1– 8 Art in Le Marche (mb 347) Polly Buston.............................................. 143 2– 9 Moravia (mb 350) Dr Jarl Kremeier....... 39 2–13 Walking to Santiago (mb 348) Adam Hopkins & Gaby Macphedran... 184 4– 7 Flanders Fields (mb 352)............................... Andrew Spooner......................................... 27 6–13 The Po Valley (mb 353) John McNeill.. 130 8–14 French Gothic (mb 354) Dr Matthew Woodworth.......................... 67 8–15 Cave Art of France (mb 355) Dr Paul Bahn.............................................. 78 9–16 Great Houses of the South West (mb 359) Anthony Lambert...................................... 44 15–21 Connoisseur’s Vienna (mb 361) Dr Jarl Kremeier........................................ 21 15–23 Mediaeval Saxony (mb 362) Dr Alexandra Gajewski............................ 89 18–23 Ardgowan (mb 365) Caroline Knight...182 19–27 Walking the Rhine Valley...................... 88 20–27 THE RHINE VALLEY MUSIC FESTIVAL.................................. 88 25–29 The Western Front (mb 375) Major Gordon Corrigan........................... 73 25– 3 Finland: Aalto & Others (mb 377) Dr Harry Charrington.............................. 66 26– 4 Mitteldeutschland (mb 378)........................ Jeffrey Miller............................................... 90 28– 1 The Renewed Rijksmuseum Dr Sophie Oosterwijk.............................. 173 29– 2 Literature & Walking in the Lake District (mb 380) Dr Charles Nicholl..... 53 The Schubertiade...................................... 23 The Vikings................................................ 41
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Walking & Country Houses in Derbyshire............................................. 54 Handel in Halle......................................... 88 Georgia....................................................... 83
July 2015 3–11 4–7 5–11 6–10 6–10 6–11 7–12 13–16 21–25 21–27
Trasimeno Music Festival..................... 144 The Age of Bede (mb 388) Imogen Corrigan........................................ 49 THE JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH JOURNEY.................................... 91 West Country Churches (mb 392) John McNeill............................................... 47 Agincourt, Crécy & Waterloo (mb 390) Major Gordon Corrigan........................... 26 Snowdonia & Anglesey (mb 391) Neil Johnstone.......................................... 217 King Ludwig II (mb 393) Tom Abbott................................................. 96 Constable & Gainsborough (mb 395)... 48 The Western Front (mb 403) Major Gordon Corrigan........................... 73 Opera in Munich & Bregenz (mb 404) Dr David Vickers & Tom Abbott............. 93 Broughton Hall......................................... 45 Savonlinna Opera..................................... 67 Dresden & Meissen.................................. 91 Organs of Bach’s Time............................. 91 Verona Opera.......................................... 121
August 2015 5–13 9–22 11–15 16–20 20–27 28– 9 31– 6
Baroque & Rococo (mb 410) Tom Abbott................................................. 95 The Baltic States (mb 411) Neil Taylor.................................................. 62 Connoisseur’s London (mb 412) Various lecturers & guides....................... 59 Vienna’s Masterpieces (mb 416) Angus Haldane.......................................... 20 THE DANUBE MUSIC FESTIVAL.... 23 The Road to Santiago (mb 424) John McNeill ............................................ 183 The Sibelius Festival................................. 67 Summer Opera in Austria...................... 23 Innsbruck Early Music Festival............ 23 Torre del Lago......................................... 138 Opera in Macerata & Pesaro................ 144 Edinburgh Festival................................ 182 The Lucerne Summer Festival............. 201
September 2015 1–11 2– 5 2– 6 4– 6 4– 7 4– 9 4–18
Samarkand & Silk Road Cities (mc 444) Professor James Allan.............................. 215 Flemish Painting (mc 462) Dr Sophie Oosterwijk................................ 25 Agincourt, Crécy & Waterloo (mc 459) Major Gordon Corrigan........................... 26 Mediaeval Art in Paris (mc 454) Dr Matthew Woodworth.......................... 68 Poets & The Somme (mc 451) Andrew Spooner......................................... 72 Vienna & Budapest 1900 (mc 461) Dr Diane Silverthorne............................. 101 Persia (mc 455) Dr Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones........................ 110
M A RT I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L A RT • A R C H I T E C T U R E • G A S T R ONO M Y • A R C H A E OLO G Y • H I S TOR Y • M U S I C
Dear traveller, Most businesses aspire to be different. Not all – some seem to aspire to be like us – but a distinctive identity, recognisable and enduring, is something most of us try to nurture. Yet businesses must change, because the world around us changes. I am haunted by the prospect of waking up one day to find that what we have been creating for over a quarter of a century is oldfashioned, unappealing, fading. Meanwhile we continue to grow, the number of our clients increases and we remain the market leader in cultural tours and events. While maintaining the essentials of what we do, we constantly introduce changes. These may be new destinations – China is added to our range in 2015, after years of research and months of staff time spent there, and Latin America returns after a fifteen-year absence. Or changes may be small and scarcely noticeable adjustments to itineraries we have run before. There are around twenty tours which could be categorised as new – The Lukas Cranachs, Constable & Gainsborough, Vienna & Budapest 1900 and Palaces of Piedmont are among them – but there are over two hundred other tours which are repeats or revivals; all of them have been tweaked or amended to some degree. Some changes are superficial, merely affecting the design of our publicity material. Merely? – our brochures are widely regarded as our most distinctive asset. Eschewing photography in favour of black and white engravings was certainly innovatory. Are we putting our distinctiveness in danger this year by bursting into colour with the addition of Edwardian watercolours? An odd coincidence is worth reporting: our designer unwittingly chose for the front cover a lithograph from the set which twenty-five years ago first gave me the idea of using prints. Happy reading and even happier travelling. Yours sincerely,
Martin Randall June 2014
Front cover: Florence, the Badia, details of the portal (1495), lithograph by Valfredo Vizzotto c. 1930. Back cover: Schloss Schönbrunn, mid-20th-century etching by Luigi Kasimir. All the illustrations reproduced in this brochure are in the Martin Randall Travel collection.
Voysey House, Barley Mow Passage, London, UK, W4 4GF Telephone 020 8742 3355 Fax 020 8742 7766 info@martinrandall.co.uk
www.martinrandall.com
Australia: telephone 1300 55 95 95 New Zealand: telephone 0800 877 622 anz@martinrandall.com.au Canada: telephone 647 382 1644 canada@martinrandall.ca USA: telephone 1 800 988 6168
5085
Directors: Martin Randall (Chief Executive), Sir Vernon Ellis (Chairman), Ian Hutchinson, Neil Taylor, Fiona Urquhart • Registered office: Voysey House, Barley Mow Passage, London W4 4GF. Registered Company no. 2314294 England. VAT no. 527758803
Gastronomic Campania....................... 154 Peru........................................................... 175
October 2015 1– 5 The Venetian Hills (mc 479) Dr Joachim Strupp....................................118 1– 7 Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes (mc 471) Steven Desmond.......................116 1–10 Provence & Languedoc (mc 486) Dr Alexandra Gajewski............................ 76 3–10 Athens & Rome (mc 487) Professor Roger Wilson........................... 150 3–18 Eastern Turkey (mc 472) Rowena Loverance................................... 206 4–10 Art in the Netherlands (mc 488) Dr Guus Sluiter........................................ 172 5–10 Friuli-Venezia Giulia (mc 481) Dr Joachim Strupp................................... 119 5–11 Malta (mc 490) Juliet Rix....................... 165 5–12 Courts of Northern Italy (mc 476) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott...................... 125 5–13 Roman Algeria (mc 477) Anthony Sattin........................................... 16 5–16 Ancient Egypt (mc 489) Professor John Ray..................................... 41 5–17 Sicily (mc 475) Dr Philippa Joseph....... 156 5–18 The Western Balkans (mc 474) David Gowan............................................. 28 7–22 Ethiopia (mc 485) Jacopo Gnisci.............................................. 64 8–17 New England Modern (mc 478) Dr Harry Charrington............................ 209 10–21 Cliff Dwellings & Canyons (mc 480) John M. Fritz............................................ 213 12–17 Pompeii & Herculaneum (mc 484) Professor Roger Wilson......................... 151 12–19 Caravaggio (mc 482) Dr Helen Langdon................................... 147 12–20 Palestine (mc 483) Dr Felicity Cobbing...................................174 13–22 Israel & Palestine (mc 492) Dr Garth Gilmour.....................................111 14–18 Ravenna & Urbino (mc 491) Dr Luca Leoncini..................................... 127 19–25 Gastronomic Sicily (mc 499) Marc Millon.............................................. 161 19–28 Castile & León (mc 500) Gijs van Hensbergen................................ 188 19–29 Essential Andalucía (mc 501) Adam Hopkins......................................... 196 25– 2 Essential Jordan (mc 506) Sue Rollin & Jane Streetly....................... 164 Music in London....................................... 58 Paris Masterpieces................................... 69 Parma Verdi Festival............................. 131 Walking to Assisi.................................... 143 Opera in Cardiff..................................... 216
3– 8 3– 9 4–15 10–14 11–15 17–21
Connoisseur’s Rome (mc 519) Dr Kevin Childs....................................... 149 Essential Rome (mc 521) Christopher Newall................................. 145 Art in Texas (mc 520) Gijs van Hensbergen................................ 212 Valencia (mc 522) Adam Hopkins........ 194 Florentine Palaces (mc 523) Dr Joachim Strupp................................... 134 Venetian Palaces (mc 530) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott...................... 122
December 2015 We will run about seven or eight tours over Christmas and New Year. Details will be available in the spring of 2015. Please contact us to register your interest.
Section of a column designed by Andrea Palladio, engraving c. 1840.
November 2015 2– 6 2–10 2–14
MONTEVERDI’S OPERAS IN VENICE............................................. 123 Roman Algeria (mc 517) Barnaby Rogerson...................................... 16 Sicily (mc 518) Dr Ffiona Gilmore Eaves........................ 156
TOURS BY DATE
Above: monastry in Northern Greece, engraving 1891.
6–10 Connoisseur’s London (mc 445) Various lecturers & guides....................... 59 6–12 Walking Hadrian’s Wall (mc 429) Graeme Stobbs............................................ 50 7–13 French Gothic (mc 430) Dr Alexandra Gajewski............................ 67 7–13 History of Medicine (mc 431) Professor Helen King & Dr Luca Leoncini................................. 133 7–14 Bohemia (mc 426) Michael Ivory........... 36 7–14 Bilbao to Bayonne (mc 427) Gijs van Hensbergen................................ 186 7–15 Berlin, Potsdam, Dresden (mc 458) Dr Jarl Kremeier........................................ 85 7–21 The Iron Curtain (mc 432) Neil Taylor.................................................. 86 8–19 Walking to Santiago (mc 428) Adam Hopkins & Gaby Macphedran... 184 8–21 Essential China (mc 452) Dr Jamie Greenbaum................................ 30 10–13 In Churchill’s Footsteps (mc 453) Terry Charman.......................................... 58 10–15 Palladian Villas (mc 433) Professor Fabrizio Nevola....................... 120 10–16 St Petersburg (mc 438) Dr Alexey Makhrov................................. 180 12–23 Morocco (mc 466) James Brown.......... 169 13–19 Istanbul (mc 436) Jane Taylor............... 202 14–21 The Greeks in Sicily (mc 441) Professor Tony Spawforth....................... 159 14–23 Great Houses of the North (mc 437) Gail Bent..................................................... 43 15–21 Connoisseur’s Prague (mc 439) Michael Ivory.............................................. 37 15–22 The Heart of Italy (mc 448) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott...................... 142 16–20 Art in Madrid (mc 449) Gail Turner... 187 17–23 Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes (mc 440) Steven Desmond.......................116 19–28 Classical Greece (mc 435) Dr Andrew Farrington.............................. 97 21–27 Walking a Royal River (mc 450) Dr Paul Atterbury...................................... 51 21–28 Granada & Córdoba (mc 442) Dr David McGrath.................................. 199 21– 3 Sicily (mc 465) Dr Luca Leoncini......... 156 22–29 Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur (mc 434) Lydia Bauman........................... 81 22–29 Dark Age Brilliance (mc 443) Dr Ffiona Gilmore Eaves........................ 126 22– 2 Samarkand & Silk Road Cities (mc 457) Dr Peter Webb.......................................... 215 23–30 Essential Puglia (mc 446) Christopher Newall................................... 15 24– 1 Barcelona 1900 (mc 447) Gijs van Hensbergen................................ 193 26– 4 Sardinia (mc 468) Dr R. T. Cobianchi................................... 155 28– 2 THE DIVINE OFFICE........................... 52 28– 3 Pompeii & Herculaneum (mc 467) Dr Mark Grahame................................... 151 29– 7 Aragón (mc 469) Adam Hopkins......... 190 30– 4 Siena & San Gimignano (mc 470) Dr Antonia Whitley................................ 136 Haydn in Eisenstadt................................. 23
223 Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5
M A RT I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L
M A RT I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L A RT • A R C H I T E C T U R E • G A S T R ONO M Y • A R C H A E OLO G Y • H I S TORY • M U S I C
Voysey House, Barley Mow Passage, London, United Kingdom W4 4GF Telephone 020 8742 3355 Fax 020 8742 7766 info@martinrandall.co.uk Australia: Martin Randall Australasia, PO Box 537, Toowong, QLD 4066 Telephone 1300 55 95 95 Fax 07 3377 0142 anz@martinrandall.com.au New Zealand: Telephone 0800 877 622 Canada: Telephone 647 382 1644 Fax 416 925 2670 canada@martinrandall.ca USA: Telephone 1 800 988 6168
2015
www.martinrandall.com
5085
M A RT I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L A RT • A R C H I T E C T U R E • G A S T R ONO M Y • A R C H A E OLO G Y • H I S TOR Y • M U S I C
2015
& October–December 2014