Week 20
Tweet As mentioned in Week 19’s post, last week saw me floating around the Bay of Naples and down the Amalfi coast to Salerno. It was wonderful, places normally jam-packed in July were quiet (though not melancholy or deserted), and glad to see us. ...
Week 19
Tweet This week I’m taking a break from my jolly Zoom talks (my group talks start again on 29th July with a chat called “Breaking Rules and Squeezing Pediments: Bernini, Borromini and the Baroque”), and the gradual return of some onsite tours. Last week saw me...
Week 18 – “Nostalgia Canaglia”
Tweet Week 18? I had to double check. Things feel pretty normal in Rome at the moment, which in itself feels ominous: the calm before the storm, or an even keel? I say “normal”: there are still masks, temperature checks, and hand sanitiser everywhere, none...
Week 17
Tweet It’s hot in Rome. All of a sudden summer descended, fully formed. The enervating heat of a Roman summer is pretty wild. The sky is the bluest blue imaginable. Azzurro, il pomeriggio è troppo azzurro e lungo per me.. The Trevi Fountain, 6th July 2020. c.1pm Late...
Week 16
Tweet Today saw the most encouraging numbers in Italy since all of this began: a hundred and twenty-six new cases were confirmed after twenty-seven thousand tests in the last twenty-four hours, and six people died. Overall there are one hundred and eighty-six fewer...
Week 15
Tweet Exactly three and a half months after my last tour, in which I was the last person to leave the Forum after the Parco Archeologico del Colosseo was shut down by governmental decree, I returned to work. At least for a few days. We were driven (masked, as per...
Week 14 – Clouds, and silver linings.
Tweet Nearly a week ago, as those of you who follow me on Instagram or Twitter may know, we decamped to Venice. An extremely generous offer of an empty flat in the centre of town with super-duper state of the art WiFi, perfect for my new line in Zoom Rome chat, was...
Week 13
Tweet This week’s Zoom talk is about medieval fortresses, so I took myself for a spin around the biggest of Rome’s castles, the Castel Sant’Angelo to take some photos. After a night of thunderstorms, and lowering skies this morning, the afternoon was glorious. The sun...
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