Martin Randall Travel's 2014 brochure: second edition

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M A R T I N R A N D A L L T R A V E LART • AR cHITEcTURE • GASTR oNoMY • AR cHAEoLoGY • HISToRY • MUSIc


2014Second edition

Voysey House, Barley Mow Passage, London, United Kingdom W4 4GFTelephone 020 8742 3355 Fax 020 8742 7766 [email protected]: Martin Randall Australasia, PO Box 537, Toowong, QLD 4066 Telephone 1300 55 95 95 Fax 07 3377 0142 [email protected] Zealand: Telephone 0800 877 622Canada: Telephone 647 382 1644 Fax 416 925 2670 [email protected]

USA: Telephone 1 800 988 6168

www.martinrandall.com 5085

Front cover illustration: Ely Cathedral, aquatint c. 1823 by Charles Wild (1781–1835).

Below: ‘The Tavern Garden’, etching c. 1890 after a painting by Jan Steen (1626–1679).

All the engravings reproduced in this brochure are in the Martin Randall Travel collection.

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ContentsTour descriptions ............................8–215Our lecturers...............................216–221Making a booking .............................. 222Booking Conditions........................... 222Booking form ............................. 223–224Tours by date ...............................225–227

Algeria

Roman Algeria ..........................................8

Armenia

Armenia .................................................. 10

Austria

Mozart in Salzburg .................................12Habsburg Austria....................................13THe DAnube MuSiC FeSTivAl .............................15

britain’s leading provider of cultural tours

leaders in the fieldAt 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 and the uSA – 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 bysetting the benchmark for customer service and administration.

Martin Randall Travel is one of the most respected travel companies in the world.

The Salzburg Summer Festival ...............15The Danube Festival Walking Option ... 16vienna’s Masterpieces ............................. 17Summer 1914 ......................................... 18Connoisseur’s vienna .............................. 19Opera in vienna ...................................... 21The Schubertiade ....................................22The iron Curtain .....................................96

Belgium

Charlemagne to Charles v .....................23Flemish Painting .....................................24Flanders Fields ........................................25The Western Front ..................................68

Bosnia-Herzegovina

Summer 1914 ......................................... 18The Western balkans ..............................26

China

China ......................................................29

Croatia

The Western balkans ..............................26

Czech Republic

bohemia ..................................................28Connoisseur’s Prague ..............................30The iron Curtain .....................................96

Egypt

Ancient egypt......................................... 32Middle egypt ........................................34

England

northumbria ...........................................36Walking Hadrian’s Wall ......................... 37Art & industry ........................................ 39

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Art Historians in newcastle ...................60The battle of britain ............................... 61Country House Opera ........................... 62

Ethiopia

ethiopia .................................................63

Finland

Savonlinna Opera ...................................65

France

Mediaeval Art in Paris ...........................66French Gothic ......................................... 67The Western Front ..................................68Poets & The Somme ............................... 69Operation Overlord ................................ 70Opera & ballet in versailles & Paris ...... 71The louvre at lens ................................. 73Pilgrimage & Heresy .............................. 74

Mediaeval burgundy .............................. 75Roman & Mediaeval Provence ...............77Opera at Aix & Orange .......................... 78Gardens of the Riviera ............................80Opera in nice & Monte-Carlo ............... 81Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur ............82bilbao to bayonne ................................. 186

Germany

THe DAnube MuSiC FeSTivAl .............................15The Danube Festival Walking Option ... 16The House of Hanover ............................84berlin, Potsdam, Dresden .......................85berlin: new Architecture .......................87Music in berlin .......................................88Cold War berlin .....................................90Opera in leipzig & Dresden .................. 91Music in the Saxon Hills ........................92

First-rate lecturersexpert 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.

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.

The victorian Achievement ....................40Arts & Crafts .........................................42Mediaeval Middle england .................... 43The Cathedrals of england .....................44The South Downs ...................................46Great Houses of the east ........................ 47Royal Residences .................................... 49Chamber Music Weekends .....................50bertie, Prince & King ............................. 51Shakespeare & his World ....................... 52Oxford & Oxfordshire ............................ 53Charles Dickens ......................................54Thomas Hardy ........................................ 55Turner & the Sea .................................... 56literature & Walking in the lake District ................................ 58Connoisseurs’ london ............................ 59Music in london ....................................60lOnDOn DAyS .................................60

Original itineraries, meticulously plannedRooted 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.

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.

illustrations. left: Furness Abbey, Cumbria, steel engraving c. 1880 from Pisher’s Drawing Room. Right: engraving from Collection of the most Remarkable Monuments of the National Museum [Naples] Vol.II 1870.

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Mitteldeutschland ...................................93German Gothic ...................................... 95The iron Curtain .....................................96King ludwig ii .......................................98beethoven in bonn ...............................100THe RHine vAlley FeSTivAl OF SOnG ...................... 101

Greece

Central Macedonia ............................... 102Classical Greece .................................... 103

Hungary

THe DAnube MuSiC FeSTivAl ............................................15The Danube Festival Walking Option ... 16The iron Curtain .....................................96Hungary ................................................ 105

India

indian Summer ..................................... 106The british Raj ...................................... 107Karnataka .............................................. 107essential india ...................................... 107Mughal & nawabi Architecture .......... 107Kingdoms of the Deccan ...................... 107Sailing the Ganges ................................ 107bengal by River ..................................... 108

Israel

israel & Palestine ................................. 110

Italy

The iron Curtain .....................................96Gastronomic Piedmont ......................... 112Genoa & Turin ..................................... 113Summer Opera in italy ......................... 114

Opera & Art in Turin & Milan ........... 114Gardens & villas of the italian lakes .. 115verona Opera ....................................... 117The veneto ............................................ 118Palladian villas ..................................... 119venetian Palaces ...................................120MuSiC in THe veneTO ............. 121Art History of venice ...........................122Ruskin’s venice .....................................123venice Revisited ....................................124Courts of northern italy ......................125Ravenna & urbino ................................126Parma ....................................................127Dark Age brilliance ..............................127A FeSTivAl OF MuSiC in bOlOGnA ....................128Walking in northern Tuscany ..............129Walking in Southern Tuscany ............. 131Florence ................................................. 132

Travelling in comfortWe 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.

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.)

Small groups, and congenial companyMost 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 18.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.

Care for our clientsWe 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 have thoroughly enjoyed everything we have done with MRT and we genuinely believe that you go from strength to strength. We consider ourselves privileged to have had such wonderful experiences and thank all concerned.’

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Florence Revisited ................................. 133venice & Florence ................................134Siena & San Gimignano .......................136lucca ..................................................... 137incontri in Terra di Siena ...................... 138Trasimeno Music Festival ..................... 138Opera in Macerata & Pesaro ................ 138Torre del lago ......................................138The Heart of italy ................................. 139The via Flaminia .................................. 140The Duchy of urbino ............................ 142Gardens & villas of Campagna Romana ...143The etruscans ....................................... 144essential Rome ..................................... 145Ancient Rome ....................................... 146Connoisseur’s Rome ............................. 148Pompeii & Herculaneum ...................... 149naples: Art, Antiquities & Opera ........150

normans in the South .......................... 151Martina Franca ..................................... 152Puglia .................................................... 153Sicily ......................................................154Palermo Revealed ................................. 156The Greeks in Sicily .............................. 157Gastronomic Sicily ................................ 159Walking in eastern Sicily ..................... 160

Jordan

essential Jordan .................................... 162Jordan Revisited .................................... 164

Malta

Malta .................................................... 166

Mexico

Mexico: lands of the Maya .................. 167

Morocco

Morocco ................................................ 167Andalusian Morocco ............................ 169

Netherlands

Historic Dutch Organs ......................... 170The Renewed Rijksmuseum ................. 171Art in the netherlands ......................... 172

Norway

bergen Music Festival ........................... 172

Palestine

israel & Palestine .................................. 110Palestine ............................................... 173

Oman

Oman .................................................... 173

We never forget our clients are responsible adults, deserving of respect and courtesy at all times.

value for money, and no surchargesThe 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.

We do not levy surcharges for fuel price increases, exchange rate changes, additional taxes or for any other reason. The price published in this brochure is the price you pay.

Travelling soloWe welcome single travellers. Our tours are ideal for people who are on their own, as so many of our clients testify. Often there are several single travellers on a tour, but anyway no one need fear feeling excluded. Tour managers ensure

that clients are not left on their own on a free evening if they would rather have company.

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 single clients to rooms which are normally sold as doubles.

‘I have found these the best kind of holiday – always people with common interests and common experiences, so that people travelling by themselves do not feel left out’.

illustrations. Opposite page: ‘Self-portrait with Saskia’ 1636, after Rembrandt. left: altar from basel Cathedral, wood engraving from Les Arts au Moyen Age, 1871.

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Portugal

The Heart of Portugal ........................... 175Gardens of northern Portugal ............. 176Walking in Madeira ............................. 178Wellington in the Peninsula .................202

Romania

Transylvania .......................................... 179Monasteries of Moldavia ...................... 181

Russia

St Petersburg ......................................... 182

Scotland

Scotland: the borders ............................ 184edinburgh Festival ............................... 185east neuk Music Festival ..................... 185

Slovakia

The iron Curtain .....................................96

Fitness and ageOurs 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 small-group 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 toursWe 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 2014 walking tours by strenuousness, with the most strenuous first:Walking to Santiago (page 185)Walking in eastern Sicily (page 160)Walking in Southern Tuscany (page 131)Walking Hadrian’s Wall (page 37)Walking the Rhine valley (page 101)The Schubertiade (page 22)The Danube Festival Walking (page 16)Walking in Madeira (page 178)Walking in northern Tuscany (page 129)literature & Walking in the lake District (page 58)Jordan Revisited (page 164)Music in the Saxon Hills (page 92)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.

lucca, San Martino, engraving c. 1800.

‘What distinguishes Martin Randall from other tour operators is the participants it attracts; always congenial, well-educated, more eager to learn than indulge.’

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Sweden

Opera in Drottningholm ......................203

SwitzerlandThe lucerne Festival .............................204The lucerne Piano Festival ..................204

Turkeyistanbul .................................................205eastern Turkey .....................................206Classical Turkey ....................................208

U.S.A.Connoisseur’s new york .......................209Santa Fe Opera ..................................... 211Frank lloyd Wright ..............................212Art in Texas .......................................... 213West Coast Architecture ...................... 214

Financial securityThe 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

Responsible TourismMartin Randall Travel is proud to have been awarded a 4-star rating for Sustainable Tourism by the Association of independent Tour Operators (AiTO).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 pay your final invoice.Our policy is published on our website: www.martinrandall.com/responsible-tourism.

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 222) for further details.

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Slovenia

The iron Curtain .....................................96

Spain

Walking to Santiago ............................. 185bilbao to bayonne ................................. 186Castile & león ..................................... 187Cave Art in Spain ................................. 189Art in Madrid ....................................... 190Zurbarán & the Golden Age ................ 191el Greco 1614 ....................................... 192extremadura ......................................... 193Andalucía .............................................. 195eastern Andalucía: Caliphs to Kings ... 197Granada & Córdoba ............................. 199Gastronomic Andalucía ........................200Semana Santa in Spain .........................201Wellington in the Peninsula .................202

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.Above illustration: ionic capital from the erechteum,

wood engraving 1881.

UzbekistanTransoxiana ........................................... 215

WalesOpera in Cardiff ..................................... 52

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Roman AlgeriaOutposts of Empire

13–21 October 2014 (mb 152)9 days • £3,270Lecturer: 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 itsIndependence stands beside the Vietnam War and Suez as one of the watersheds of late 20th-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 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. And 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.

ItineraryDay 1: London to Algiers. Fly at c. 9.20am 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 followed by 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, the town was once a flourishing commercial centre. Overnight Algiers.

Lambessa, wood engraving 1865 from The Illustrated London News.

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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.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. 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. 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.

PracticalitiesPrice: £3,270 (deposit £300). This includes: air travel (standard class) on scheduled British Airways flights (Boeing 737) for international flights and Air Algerie for the one internal flight; comfortable air-conditioned coach for all other journeys; accommodation as described below; all breakfasts, lunches and dinners with wine (drinks included); the services of the lecturer, tour manager and local guides; admissions to museums and sites; tips for restaurant staff, guides, drivers; all airport and local taxes. Single supplement £320. Price without flights £3,010.

Hotels: Algiers (3 nights): the Djazair Hotel (formerly the St George), established in 1889 and located in a quiet district not far from the city centre with excellent views of the Mediterranean. Facilities include a garden, swimming pool, restaurant and bar. Constantine (3 nights): a Novotel, a modern business style hotel in the city centre. What it lacks in charm is made up for in comfort and convenience. Annaba (2 nights): Hotel Majestic, a simple but clean establishment within walking distance of the Cours de la Révolution.

Visas. British citizens and most other foreign nationals require a tourist visa. The current cost for UK nationals is around £85. 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 Algerian Consulate in your country of residence prior to departure. Processing times vary from country to country but UK residents should expect to be without their passport for up to 10 working days.

How strenuous? A good level of fitness is essential. Uneven ground and irregular paving are standard. There are some long coach journeys on uneven terrain during which facilities are limited and may be of poor quality. Many of the sites are exposed and the Algerian sun is strong, even in the cooler seasons. Average distance by coach per day: 90 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Recently launched

All of the following tours, several of them new tours for 2014, have been launched since the publication of our 2014 first edition brochure.

Roman AlgeriaVienna’s Masterpieces ............................. 17Flander’s Fields .............................................25Country House Opera...........................62Thomas Hardy .............................................55Literature & Walking in the Lake District ..................................................58Turner & the Sea ........................................56Connoisseur’s London ............................59Savonlinna Opera.......................................65Opera at Aix & Orange .........................78Opera in Nice & Montecarlo .............81Cold War Berlin ..........................................90Music in the Saxon Hills .........................92Beethoven in Bonn ................................100Central Macedonia .................................102Gastronomic Piedmont .......................112Opera & Art in Turin & Milan ..........114Genoa & Turin ...........................................113Verona Opera ............................................117The Via Flaminia .......................................140Naples: Art, Antiquities & Opera ........................................................ 150Puglia.................................................................153Historic Dutch Organs .........................170The Lucerne Festival .............................204Santa Fe Opera .........................................211

Lecturers’ biographies are on page 216.

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ArmeniaEarly Christian Monasteries & modern-day Yerevan

19–26 June 2014 (ma 937)8 days • £2,780Lecturer: Alan Ogden

Monasteries and other sacred buildings from as early as the seventh century.

Outstanding mountainous landscape.

Time to get to know Yerevan, with its squares, cafés and street-life.

Comfortable hotels and surprisingly good food.

Led by historian and travel writer Alan Ogden.

Of all the lands straddling east and west, the nation of Armenia is perhaps least like a gateway and most like a frontier. ‘Unique’ is a lazy and unenlightening epithet with which to characterise distant lands, but Armenia, both ancient and new, both Asian and European, both a melting-pot and defiantly individual, is fully deserving of the description.

Its long and tenacious history is one of frequent tragedy and renewal. At its apogee in the first century bc, Armenia stretched from the Mediterranean to the Caspian, and almost to the Black Sea. For the next three centuries, however, Armenia would suffer conquest and reconquest as the Romans and the Parthians traded blows in the southern Caucasus, with

intermittent periods of self-rule keeping the flame of independence alive.

It was in large part to keep themselves distinct from the two vast empires on either hand that the Armenians adopted the new religion of Christianity in ad 301, developing a new alphabet a hundred years after that. These two markers of Armenian identity survived domination by Byzantines, Arabs, Mongols, Turks and Russians, as did many spectacular religious buildings, which were built to withstand not just invasions but earthquakes too.

Armenia’s sacred architecture was a greater influence on mediaeval Europe than is commonly assumed, after its round towers and

Yerevan, mid-18th-century engraving.

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Illuminator was imprisoned. Hidden from view in a remote valley, Noravank, the masterwork of the architect and sculptor Momik, is perhaps the most beautiful of Armenia’s thirteenth-century monasteries. Overnight Yerevan.

Day 8. The morning flight from Yerevan arrives Heathrow at c. 2.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,780 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) on Air France flights: return London to Paris (Airbus A321) and Paris to Yerevan (Airbus A320); accommodation as described below; travel by private air-conditioned coach throughout; breakfasts, all lunches and all dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admission to museums, churches and sites; all tips for restaurant staff, drivers and guides; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer and a local guide. Single supplement £320. Price without flights £2,290.

Visas: British nationals no longer require a visa. Other nationalities need to obtain a visa either on arrival at the airport (c. £5) or in advance electronically (c. £15). Passports must be valid for at least six months after the tour ends.

Hotels: In Yerevan (5 nights): The Armenia Marriott Hotel, a recently-renovated, international 5-star hotel on the central square, impersonal but with excellent facilities. In Dzoraget (2 nights): The Avan Dzoraget in a wonderful riverside location, a small and stylish hotel, equivalent to a 4-star.

Food: surprisingly good for carnivores, but options for vegetarians are very limited and special dietary requirements cannot be catered for at all.

How strenuous? You will be on your feet for long periods. Many of the sites are reached by steep, uneven steps often without handrails. There are 220 steps to a monastery. The tour would not be suitable for anyone who has difficulties with everyday walking and stairclimbing. There are four coach journeys of over two hours (average distance by coach per day: 72 miles).

Small group: the tour will operate with between 10 and 22 participants.

Flight schedules can change at short notice. We recommend you keep diaries clear for a day either side of these dates.


cross-plans were noted by returning crusaders. Thick-walled, built from local tuff or basalt, and housing a particularly severe strain of eastern Christianity, there is a resplendent austerity about these churches which is only heightened by their frequently spectacular natural surroundings.

Many of the finest, including the rock-hewn Geghard and the unesco world heritage site of Echmiadzin, are easily visited from the capital, Yerevan. And while calling Yerevan the most sensitively-remodelled of all Soviet cities may sound like damnation with the faintest praise imaginable, today it is attractive and confident, its proliferation of cafés, galleries and public spaces making it a truly pleasant place to spend

time. In the north of the country are two more unesco-listed monasteries, at Sanahin and Haghpat; both tell the story of Armenian religion and cultural endurance.

Meanwhile Yerevanis live, work and socialise in the literal and metaphorical shadow of Ararat, still Armenia’s most emotive symbol despite now being on Turkish land. A few hundred yards from the border, the monastery of Khor Virap, which proudly boasts the dungeon where St Gregory the Illuminator was incarcerated, defiantly advertises the indomitable Armenian Christian tradition.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 10.00am from London Heathrow to Yerevan via Paris, where there is a 55 minute-stop, arriving c. 8.00pm. Transfer to the hotel in the heart of the city.

Day 2: Yerevan. A leisurely start this morning. The day begins with a visit to the comprehensive and fascinating State Museum of Armenian History. At the National Art Gallery see collections from Armenia, Russia and Western Europe. Overnight Yerevan.

Day 3: Echmiadzin, Yerevan. In the morning, visit the Matenadaran, a repository of 17,000 illuminated manuscripts. The Museum of the Armenian Genocide is all the more powerful for its simplicity. After lunch, drive to Echmiadzin, the seat of the Armenian Apostolic Church, also a unesco world heritage site. The vast ruined cathedral at neighbouring Zvartnots tells of the extraordinary ambition of early architects. Overnight Yerevan.

Day 4: Amberd, Dzoraget. The ruins of Amberd Fortress, dramatically located on the southern slopes of Mount Ararat, date back to the twelfth century, although it has been a stronghold since the seventh. In the afternoon, drive to Dzoraget. First of two nights here.

Day 5: Akhtala, Alaverdi. The thirteenth-century frescoes in Akhtala are strongly influenced by Byzantium. The monasteries at Haghpat and Sanahin, both unesco-listed sites, are both fine examples of Armenian sacred architecture. Overnight Dzoraget.

Day 6: Lake Sevan, Yerevan. Drive to Lake Sevan, and the peerlessly situated Sevanavank monastery that overlooks it. The Hellenic temple at Garni is the last remaining pre-Christian site in Armenia. Much of the monastery at nearby Geghard is carved out of the cliffside. Overnight Yerevan.

Day 7: Khor Virap, Noravank, Yerevan. Visit the Khor Virap monastery in the foothills of Mount Ararat, where St Gregory the

‘As with every previous MRT tour, this was a memorable one.’

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Mozart in SalzburgThe annual winter festival

25–30 January 2014 (ma 804)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.

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 plenty of free time is also allowed for

individual exploration of the city, or just for relaxing to prepare for the next concert.

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, the Carolino Augusteum, has at last been transferred to a part of the Archbishop’s palace. Also, relatively recent is the complete refurbishment of the Kleines Festspielhaus, one of the smaller auditoria, now renamed the Haus für Mozart.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at midday from London Gatwick to Salzburg. Early dinner before a concert at the Großes Festspielhaus with the Vienna Philharmonic, Paavo Järvi (conductor), Joshua Bell (violin): Mozart, Symphony No.33 in B flat; Brahms, Violin Concerto; R.Strauss, ‘Metamorphosen’; Mozart, Symphony No.35 in D (Haffner).

Day 2. As on most mornings, the day starts with a lecture in the hotel at 9.30am. Morning concert at the Mozarteum with Cappella Andrea Barca, András Schiff (pianist and conductor): Mozart, Piano Sonata in C minor, K.457; String Quartet in B flat, K.458; Piano Concerto in F, K.459. Lunch after the concert followed by a visit to Mozart’s birthplace. Evening concert at the Haus für Mozart with Les Musiciens du Louvre Grenoble, Marc Minkowski (conductor): Mozart, Overture from ‘Il re pastore’; Arias from ‘Don Giovanni’; Andantino from Serenade in D (Posthorn); Gluck, Overture from ‘Orpheus & Eurydice’; Gluck/Mozart, Arias for soprano and tenor (to be confirmed); Mozart, Symphony No.29 in A.

Day 3. Walk through the heart of the old city with a local guide. Free afternoon, opportunity for further exploration such as the buildings by Fischer von Erlach, greatest Austrian architect of the Baroque era, or the Archbishop’s Palace, which houses the city museum. Evening concert at the Mozarteum with Camerata Salzburg, Louis Langrée (conductor), Malin Hartelius (soprano), Marianne Crebassa (mezzo-soprano), Andrew Staples (tenor): Mozart, Overture to ‘La Clemenza di Tito’; Mozart, Arias from ‘La Clemenza di Tito’, Symphony No.38 in D (Prague).

Day 4. Depart for an excursion through the ravishing landscapes of the Salzkammergut to Bad Ischl, with lunch here. Evening c oncert at the Mozarteum with the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, Ivor Bolton (conductor) and Christiane Karg (soprano): Clementi, Symphony No.1 in C; Mozart, Arias from ‘La finta semplice’, ‘Ascanio in Alba’, ‘Mitridate’ and ‘ ll sogno di Scipione’; Clementi, Symphony No.3 in G, (The Great National).

Salzburg, Neues Schloss, w

oodcut c. 1920 by Frank Seidl.

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Day 5. Morning concert at the Mozarteum with Renaud Capuçon (violin), Alina Ibragimova (violin), Gérard Caussé (viola), Léa Hennino (viola), Clemens Hagen (cello): Mozart,String Quintet in B flat, K.174; String Quintet in G minor, K.516 and String Quintet in E flat, K.614. In the afternoon visit the Neue Residenz which houses the excellently refurbished city museum and see some of the other historic buildings in the heart of the city. Evening concert at the Großes Festspielhaus with the Vienna Philharmonic, Marc Minkowski (conductor), Anja Harteros (soprano): Arvo Pärt, ‘Fratres’, ‘Littlemore Tractus’ for Orchestra; R. Strauss, ‘Four Last Songs’; Mozart, Serenade in D, K.250 (Haffner).

Day 6. The flight from Salzburg arrives at London Gatwick c. 12.45pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,990 (deposit £300); this includes: 7 tickets costing c. £920; air travel (economy class) with British Airways (Boeing 737); accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 3 lunches and 2 dinners, with wine, water and coffee; private coach for the excursion and airport transfers; all admissions to museums; all tips for waiters and drivers; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £220 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,850.

Music tickets have been confirmed for all performances.

Hotel: The Hotel Bristol is excellently located two minutes walk from the Mozarteum and just across the river from the Festspielhaus (600 metres). It is a 5-star family run hotel occupying an old building which has been impeccably converted. Luxurious but not lavish. Included lunches and dinners are in the hotel and in carefully selected restaurants elsewhere.

How strenuous? A fair amount of walking is unavoidable, and the tour is planned on the expectation that participants walk to and from the concert venues; average distance by coach per day: c. 16 miles.

Small group: this tour will operate with between 12 and 22 participants.

Habsburg AustriaThe art & architecture of town & country

19–26 June 2014 (ma 939)8 days • £2,280Lecturer: Dr Jarl Kremeier

Outstanding range of castles, abbeys, churches, houses and palaces.

Some excellent art collections.

Picturesque towns and villages, and consistently beautiful scenery.

Led by an art historian who specialises in Mitteleuropa and the Habsburgs.

Habsburgs first came to Austria in 1273; their departure in 1919 terminated the longest innings of any dynasty in European history. The territory over which they ruled had meanwhile expanded into a vast multi-national empire which encompassed much of central and eastern Europe which is now split between ten different countries. There was, of course, a concomitant accumulation of titles including several kingships and, for much of their time in power, the most august title of them all: Holy Roman Emperor.

This tour concentrates on the lands which are now more or less coterminous with modern Austria, a clutch of dukedoms and counties in largely mountainous terrain which were not particularly prosperous. However, proximity to the principal Habsburg seat, Vienna, meant

that a high proportion of the artistic and architectural splendours of the Empire were concentrated in the Austrian lands. Only a single day is devoted to Vienna itself on this tour, which concentrates on the smaller towns and the architecture of the countryside.

Prominent in this category are the abbeys, some of which can boast a continuity of spiritual life since the early Middle Ages, many of them rebuilt on a most lavish scale during the Baroque age. The ruling dynasty and the aristocracy of their empire spawned a profusion of castles, country houses, town palaces and hunting lodges, and created art collections which today form the kernel of some of the best of their kind in the world.

ItineraryDay 1: fly at c. 11.10am from London Heathrow to Munich. Drive into Austria, stopping at the fortress town of Kufstein. First of two nights in Innsbruck.

Day 2: Innsbruck. Surrounded by mountains, Innsbruck has a spectacular natural setting with a joyously picturesque historic centre. Schloss Ambras just outside Innsbruck is a Habsburg palace of the 16th century; surviving here is a collection of curiosities which ranks as one of the first museums in the world. An afternoon walk around Innsbruck includes the astonishing tomb of Emperor Maximilian (d.

Innsbruck, Schloss Ambras, lithograph c. 1850.


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Habsburg Austriacontinued

1519) with 28 larger-than-life bronze statues, the 18th-century Habsburg state apartments in the Hofburg and the Baroque cathedral.

Day 3: Salzburg. The episcopal city-state of Salzburg once played a major role in European culture and politics, and the old town centre has scarcely changed since the days of its greatness two centuries ago. Among the places visited are the gardens and stair hall of Schloss Mirabell, churches by the greatest master of Austrian Baroque, Fischer von Erlach, the Late-Gothic Franciscan church and the mighty cathedral, the first major Baroque building north of the Alps. First of two nights in Linz.

Day 4: Linz, Wilhering, St Florian. The Danube city of Linz, capital of Upper Austria, has a very attractive historic centre with a town hall, several churches of architectural importance and a museum in the former Habsburg residence. The monastery church at Wilhering beside the Danube has the finest Rococo interior in Austria. The buildings of the great Augustinian monastery of St Florian span the Baroque era, beginning with the church by Carlo Carlone and culminating in the mighty Marble Hall by Jakob Prandtauer. Overnight Linz.

Day 5: Grein, Artstetten, Melk. Grein is a delightful little town on the Danube with a hilltop castle and an 18th-century theatre.

Schloss Artstetten was rebuilt in the 16th century and again for Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose descendants still live here. Perched on a rock outcrop beside the Danube, the vast Benedictine Monastery at Melk is one of the greatest creations of the Baroque era. A sequence of state apartments includes a terrace with a magnificent view of the Danube valley and culminates in a church of dazzling splendour. First of two nights in Melk.

Day 6: Riegersburg, Altenburg, Dürnstein. Drive through idyllic hilly scenery north of the Danube. The Benedictine abbey at Altenburg, distinguished by the library hall, monumental stairway and oval church, ranks with the finest of Baroque abbeys. Nearby is Schloss Riegersburg, an imposing 18th-century mansion in private ownership. Dürnstein is an enchanting little town on the Danube, backed by a hill with a ruined castle and fronted by a monastery church at the water’s edge. Overnight Melk.

Day 7: Vienna. Built around 1700 for Emperor Joseph and modified 50 years later for Maria Theresa, Schloss Schönbrunn became the summer palace of the Habsburgs until the end of their rule. One of the largest of royal residences, it contains some of the finest Rococo interiors in Europe and has extensive parkland and gardens. Other places seen include the Habsburg tombs in the

Capucin crypt, the Gothic cathedral with the tomb of Emperor Ferdinand III and the Kunsthistorisches Museum, one of the world’s greatest collections of paintings. Overnight Vienna.

Day 8: Vienna. The Roman frontier settlement close to the Danube became the principal seat of the Habsburgs and therefore centre of the Holy Roman Empire and capital of a vast multi-national empire. The Hofburg, the Habsburg Palace, is an agglomeration of buildings spanning six centuries with an incomparable collection of precious regalia in the treasury and magnificent Baroque library. Fly from Vienna, arriving Heathrow c. 6.40pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,280 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines flights (Airbus A321); travel by private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 5 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions to museums, etc.; all tips for drivers, waiters, etc.; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £240. Price without flights £2,060.

Hotels: in Innsbruck (2 nights): The Schwarzer Adler is a modern 4-star hotel in the historic city-centre. In Linz (2 nights): Archotel Nike is a modern hotel close to the Danube. In Melk (2 nights): The Hotel zur Post is in the centre of the little town and has fine views of the abbey. In Vienna (1 night): The Hotel Bristol is an elegant 5-star hotel on the Ringstrasse close to the opera house.

How strenuous? Quite a lot of walking is involved, some of it uphill and over roughly paved paths. It should not be undertaken by anyone who has difficulties with everyday walking and stairclimbing. There are also some long coach journeys. Average distance by coach per day: 65 miles.


Schönbrunn, early-20th-century etching.



The Danube Music FestivalEight private concerts in historic buildings

21–28 August 2014 (ma 995)Contact us for the full details or visit www.martinrandall.com

Eight concerts with music of the Austro-Hungarian empire in some of the region’s finest palaces, churches and country houses.

Performances by world class musicians including the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Philharmonic, Joan Rogers (soprano) and Roger Vignoles (piano), Wiener Akademie, Artis Quartet, Wiener Kammerchor, and the Mozart Chamber Ensemble.

Talks on the music by Misha Donat.

Concerts are exclusive to a maximum of 120 participants, who take a package which also includes accommodation on a luxury river cruiser, transport, meals, talks, and much else besides. There is also a walking alternative for up to 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. 2014 will be its twenty-first year.

The musicians are from Austria, Hungary and the UK, and provide concerts of rich and varied music exploring the repertoire of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The audience is small – no more than 120 – 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 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 all eight concerts and taking six country walks through upland country overlooking the Danube, the longest of which is 5 miles.

Melk A

bbey, engraving c. 1830/40.

The Salzburg Summer Festival15–21 August 2014Details available in December 2013Contact us to register your interest

‘Another most enjoyable and uplifting holiday... impeccably organised by Martin Randall Travel.’

‘Attention to detail was unparalleled and no stone left unturned to ensure that one’s experience of the festival was as good as it could be.’


The Danube Festival Walking Option

Concerts & country walks

21–28 August 2014 (ma 998)8 days • £3,080Lecturer: Richard Wigmore

Includes all eight concerts of The Danube Music Festival (see page 15 and the dedicated brochure, or our website) and six country walks.

Walks are two to three hours. Most of the terrain is gentle if hilly with some steep parts.

Stays in hotels, not on the ship.

Equipped with its own lecturer, critic and musicologist Richard Wigmore.

ItineraryDay 1: London to Vienna. Fly at c. 10.00am from London Heathrow to Vienna. Drive to Felbring to start a walk (6km) through hillsides of beech and pine with vistas across the Danube. Grassy footpaths and stony tracks, some downhill and uphill sections. Arrive in Melk, a delightful little town on the Danube with a great abbey. First of two nights here.Day 2: Grein, Melk. Drive beside the Danube before turning into the hills to start the walk (c. 6km) amid upland pastures and farmland. Descend through woods on moderately gentle paths and quiet roads, the few steep sections being fairly short. Catch glimpses of the Danube and then of the little riverside town of Grein. Lunch here. Return to Melk and visit the abbey apartments and church, which are among the most brilliant creations of Baroque. Concert at Melk Abbey with the Mozart Chamber Ensemble, Wolfgang Redik (director): Haydn, Violin Concerto No. 1 in C; Schubert, Five German Dances; Mahler, Adagietto for Strings and Harp (from Symphony No. 5); Bartok, Divertimento for Strings. Overnight Melk.

Day 3. Göttweig, Vienna. The walk (c. 5km), which incorporates a segment of the pilgrimage route to Santiago, begins at Göttweig Abbey and descends through vineyards to the Danube.

Lunch in Krems before driving to the hotel in the centre of Vienna. Recital in the Albertina with Joan Rodgers (soprano) and Roger Vignoles (piano): A selection of songs by Schubert and Hugo Wolf ’s Mörike Lieder. First of three nights in Vienna.

Day 4: Leopoldsberg, Vienna. Drive up the Leopoldsberg, a high hill with views over the capital and the Danube valley. Walk down through beech woods, vineyards and salubrious ivy-clad suburbs (5.5km). In the wine-producing village of Heiligenstadt visit the appartment where Beethoven stayed (and wrote the ‘Heiligenstadt Testament’). Some free time in Vienna before driving to the Kirche am Steinhof, the greatest masterpiece of Viennese Secessionism. Concert with the Vienna Chamber Choir: a largely Austrian a cappella programme, some contempory with the church – Mendelssohn, Bruckner, Mahler, Schoenberg (Friede auf Erden), and contemporary composers. Ovenight Vienna.

Day 5: Fertöd, Eisenstadt. The Esterházys’ 1780s summer palace at Fertöd is the most beautiful country house in Hungary. Concert with the Artis Quartet: Hadyn’s ‘Rider’, Mozart’s ‘The Hunt’. After the buffet lunch served in a grove of horse-chestnuts drive back to Austria for a walk of c. 11/2 hours through gently rolling countryside of the Burgenland. In the other great Esterházy Schloss, at Eisenstadt, concert with the Vienna Piano Trio: Hadyn, Trio in C; Mozart, Trio in G K496; Schubert, Trio in B flat D898. Third and final night in Vienna.

Day 6: Vienna, Dürnstein. Free morning in Vienna; option of a tour with a local guide. The afternoon concerts present two Beethoven symphonies in the halls where they were first heard. Promenade concert in in the Palais Lobkowitz Orchester Wiener Akademie, Martin Hasselböck (conductor): Beethoven’s Third Symphony (‘Eroica’), first heard here in 1805. As the hall is small, there is no seating for the audience, each of whom attends for only c. 10–20 minutes. Concert in the Akademie der Wissenschaften with the Wiener Akademie &

Martin Hasselböck: the ‘Eroica’ (again) and the Seventh Symphony, premièred here in 1813. Drive to Dürnstein, the prettiest little town on the Danube, for the first of two nights here.

Day 7: Dürnstein, Linz. A morning walk (c. 6.5km) predominantly on quiet roads in the vine-clad hills overlooking the Danube and the red-roofed villages in the valley below, dipping periodically into shaded gullies. Drive to Linz. Concert in the Palais Kaufmännischer Verein with the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Philharmonic, Rainer Honeck (conductor): Mozart, Symphony No. 36 in C, ‘Linz’; Beethoven, Symphony No. 6 in F, ‘Pastoral’. Overnight Dürnstein.

Day 8: Dürnstein. Choose between free time this morning or a walk of c. 11/2 hours. Fly from Vienna, return to Heathrow c. 4.30pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £3,080 (deposit £300). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Airbus 321); travel by private coach; 8 private concerts; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 5 lunches and 5 dinners, with wine, water, coffee; admission charges to museums; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £320. Price without flights £2,840.

Hotels. Melk (2 nights): The Hotel zur Post is a family-run 4-star hotel in the centre of the town, fairly simple but adequately comfortable. Vienna (3 nights): The Hotel Bristol is a 5-star hotel in a superb location on the Ringstrasse near the opera house, traditionally furnished and decorated. All rooms are well equipped, most have a bath and the location is excellent. Dürnstein (2 nights): The Richard Löwenherz is a lovely old-fashioned hotel occupying a historic building with garden and outdoor pool.

How strenuous? This is a walking tour: it is essential for participants to be in good physical condition and to be used to country walking with uphill content. There are a few moderately steep climbs for short stretches, but no walk is more than 5 miles or 21/2 hours. Except on one occasion, there is the opportunity to return to the hotel to freshen up before every concert.


Linz, wood engraving 1888.



Vienna’s MasterpiecesThe Art collections of an imperial capital

Josefsplatz, engraving c. 1810.

17–21 August 2014 (ma 992)Lecturer: Angus Haldane5 days • £1,820

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.

Combine this tour with The Danube Music Festival, 21–28 August 2014 (see page 15).

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, indigeonous 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 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.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at 9.15am from London Heathrow to Vienna 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 now 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. The precious regalia and

objets d’art in the Schatzkammer (Treasury) are 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 it’s 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 nineteenth 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 Heathrow 6.40pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,820 (deposit: £200). This includes: flights (economy class) with Austrian Airlines (Airbus 320); coach travel for airport transfers and on one other occasion; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 3 dinners, with wine, water and coffee; admission charges for museums etc.; tips for waiters, hotel staff and drivers; all airport and state taxes; services of the lecturer. Single supplement £240. Price without flights £1,630.

Hotel: dating to the early 20th century, the 5-star Bristol is traditional in style though well equipped with all modern conveniences. Excellent distreet service, good restaurant, large rooms and very good location. Included dinners are at selected restaurants.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking on this tour and standing around in galleries. Tram is used on some occasions.



Vienna, the Opernring, photograph c. 1910.

Summer 1914 Sarajevo, Vienna & Mitteleuropa on the eve of the First World War

9–14 June 2014 (ma 926)6 days • £2,130Lecturer: Richard Bassett

The background to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, June 1914.

Austrian history and culture in the last years of the empire.

Sarajevo, an archetypical Balkan town with an exceptionally troubled history.

Led by a journalist and historian who has studied Austria for thirty years.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Heir Apparent to the thrones of Austria and Hungary and the innumerable territories and nationalities which constituted that vast and creaking empire, was, as Inspector-General of the armed forces, in Bosnia-Herzogovina to attend summer manoeuvres. On a gloriously sunny day, 28th June, he processed with his wife (it happened to be their wedding anniversary) in an open-top car through Sarajevo.

The Austrians were proud of their imperial administrative capabilities, and it would be difficult to quibble with the observation that since they replaced Ottoman rule in Bosnia in 1878, the rule of law had prevailed, education had been transformed and prosperity flourished. But even they couldn’t hold back the rising tide of nationalism and revolutionary

sentiment that was corroding the coherence of Empire.

Gavrilo Princip was one of a group of fanatical young Serb nationalists who had been smuggled into Sarajevo. They were ill-trained and inept, but there was incompetence in the archducal entourage as well: after a security scare the route was changed, but no one thought to tell the driver. When told he had taken a wrong turning, he stopped to turn around. The assassin happened to be at that very spot; one bullet killed both duke and duchess.

Vienna was in her prime, or so it might have seemed to the casual visitor. ‘There was a phosphorescent glitter about it which came from the irrevocable decay of the foundations on which the capital rested’ (Ilsea Barea). Gaiety and gemütlicheit danced hand in hand with tradition, duty and old-fashioned honour; frivolity and licence consorted with psychoanalysis, pessimism and anarchism.

Politically there was impotence; reverence for the exhausted and aging Emperor Franz Joseph was fanned by a political vacuum, with Parliament paralysed by nationalist posturing and ideological conflicts. Cultural life too was polarised, clearly manifested by the gigantism of Neo-Baroque rubbing shoulders with minimalist modernism.

This tour examines the many cultural, political and social strands in the Dual Monarchy in its last years and the cataclysmic outcome of a single shot.

ItineraryDay 1: Vienna, Eckhartsau. Fly at c. 9.15am from London Heathrow to Vienna. Drive from the airport the few miles to Schloss Eckhartsau, a Baroque hunting lodge which was extended for Archduke Franz Ferdinand and has changed little since; evocative and melancholy. Return to the airport and fly on to Sarajevo, arriving at the hotel c. 10.30pm. First of two nights in Sarajevo.Day 2: Sarajevo. Surrounded by hills, and bisected by the fast-running River Miljacka, Sarajevo’s oldest quarter still retains the flavour of a minor Balkan town of Ottoman origin. Assorted mosques, churches and synagogues testify to the pluralist nature of many such places. Further downstream the 19th-cent. Neo-Renaissance architecture is unmistakably Austrian. The small but moving Museum of 1914 is on the street corner where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot. Overnight Sarajevo.Day 3: Sarajevo, Vienna. The morning is free in Sarajevo. Fly back to Vienna and arrive at the hotel in time to settle in before a lecture and dinner. The remaining three nights are spent in Vienna.Day 4: Vienna. The morning’s visits explore the conflicting trends in Viennese society at the beginning of the 20th century, and contrast the overbearing Neo-Baroque of new government buildings with the radicalism of the avant-garde. Explore the Hofburg, the sprawling


Connoisseur’s Vienna

Art, architecture, music & private visits

19–25 September 2014 (mb 126)7 days • £2,770Lecturer: Dr Jarl Kremeier

Art, architecture, history: the main sites as well as lesser-known ones.

Several special arrangements for special access or out-of-hours visits.

Outstanding hotel in very central location.

One opera and two concerts will be included.

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. Performances during the tour are not settled at the time of publishing these details, but we are confident of obtaining good tickets for two concerts and an opera.

National (formerly Court) Library, lithograph c. 1950.

palace of the Habsburg rulers, and see the apartments of Emperor Franz-Joseph. Briefly visit the Belvedere, the Vienna base of Franz Ferdinand, and continue to the Austrian Army Museum, an 1850s building of staggering decorative richness. Here are displayed the car in which Franz Ferdinand was killed and the blood-stained tunic he was wearing.

Day 5: Bad Ischl. Franz Joseph stayed in Bad Ischl every summer from 1854 to 1914, turning the little valley town into one of Europe’s most fashionable spas. Here in the Kaiservilla (which is still in Habsburg ownership) the Emperor signed the ultimatum to the government of Serbia that was effectively a declaration of war. The desk is unchanged (above it hangs a painting of a New Zealand scene). Travel there and back by train, a journey of over 3 hours each way – a long day but not an exhausting one.

Day 6: Vienna. A walk through picturesque streets in the heart of Vienna leads to the Capuchin church where 300 years of Habsburg rulers and their families are buried. There are a few hours of free time before leaving for the airport. Return to Heathrow at c. 6.45pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,130 (deposit £200). This includes: four flights with Austrian Airlines (Airbus 321 & Fokker 70); coach and train travel within Austria and Bosnia Herzegovina; accommodation as described below; 3 dinners (and one light supper) and 3 lunches with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips for restaurant staff, drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £210 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,850.

Hotels: Sarajevo (2 nights): Hotel Europa, a centrally located 5-star hotel, the best in the city, built in the late 19th century but comprehensively renovated. Vienna (3 nights): Hotel am Stephansplatz, an independently run 4-star hotel located in the heart of old Vienna next to St Stephen’s Cathedral.

How strenuous? There is a quite a lot of walking and standing for long periods of time. Public transport, metro or tram is used on some occasions.


Possible linking tours: combine this tour with The Western Front, 15–19 June (page 68).

The Iron Curtain, 8–22 September (page 96).


Connoisseur’s Viennacontinued

ItineraryThis 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. 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.

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. 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-of-the-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.

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.

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 Heathrow at c. 6.30pm.

Please note: because the itinerary is dependent on a number of appointments with private owners, the order and even the content of the tour may vary.

The Secession Building, wood engraving 1898, the year of its completion.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,770 (deposit £300). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled Austrian Airlines flights (Airbus 320), coach travel for the airport transfers and on two other occasions, music tickets for the opera and concerts costing c. £350, accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 2 lunches and 4 dinners, with wine, water and coffee, admission charges for all included visits to museums, etc., all tips for waiters, hotel staff and drivers, all airport and state taxes; services of the lecturer. Single supplement £540. Price without flights £2,620.

Music tickets: at the time of writing programmes had not been published.

Hotel: The Hotel Bristol is an excellent, traditional-style 5-star hotel, well located on the Ringstrasse beside the opera house. Dinners are at the hotel and selected restaurants.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking on this tour. Public transport, metro or tram is used on some occasions.


‘Our lecturer was outstanding and we were very appreciative of the depth of his knowledge.’


Opera in ViennaFour great operas in two great opera houses

7–12 June 2014 (ma 933)6 days • £2,910 (including four top category opera tickets)Lecturer: Simon Rees

Three performances at the Staatsoper, one of the world’s greatest opera houses, and one at the Volksoper, the premier stage for operetta.

Götterdämmerung (R. Wagner), The Magic Flute (W.A. Mozart), Ariadne auf Naxos (R. Strauss) and The Merry Widow (F. Lehár).

Daily talks by an opera historian, 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 in Vienna 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 have the privilege of seeing a classic of the candyfloss but humorous and heartstring-tugging genre, Lehár’s Merry Widow.

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 and recuperation and preparation for the next performance.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 2.45pm from London Heathrow to Vienna. 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. Some free time before Götterdämmerung (Wagner) at the Staatsoper with Jeffrey Tate (conductor), Stephen Gould (Siegfried), Attila Jun (Hagen), Eric Owens (Alberich), Nina Stemme (Brünnhilde).

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 The Magic Flute (Mozart) at the Staatsoper, with Constantin Trinks (conductor), Brindley Sherratt (Sarastro), Benjamin Bruns (Tamino), Iride Martinez (Queen of the Night), Valentina Nafornita (Pamina), Nikolay Borchev (Papageno).

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. Evening operetta at the Volksoper: The Merry Widow (Franz Lehár).

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: Ariadne auf Naxos (R. Strauss), Franz Welser-Möst (conductor), Peter Matic (Der Haushofmeister), Jochen Schmeckenbecher (Ein Musiklehrer), Christine Schäfer (Der Komponist), Klaus Florian Vogt (Der Tenor Bacchus), Daniela Fally (Zerbinetta), Emily Magee (Die Primadonna Ariadne).

Day 6. Free morning. The flight to Heathrow arrives at c. 4.30pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,910 (deposit £250). This includes: opera tickets costing c. £600; flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Airbus A320); some travel by private coach and tram; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £330. Price without flights £2,680.

Hotels: The Hotel Bristol is a 5-star hotel in a superb location near the opera house. Traditionally furnished and decorated, all rooms are well equipped and most have a bath. Dinners are at the hotel or selected restaurants.

Music tickets: have been requested but are not confirmed until late autumn 2013.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking on this tour, mainly through the town centre where vehicular access is limited. Average distance by coach per day: 5 miles.


The Staatsoper, w

ood engraving c. 1880.


The SchubertiadeMusic & hill-walking in the Vorarlberg

22–28 June 2014 (ma 949)7 days • £3,310(including 8 performances)Lecturer: Richard Wigmore

Eight performances including two Lieder recitals with Gerald Finley and Mark Padmore, and two chamber concerts with Cappella Andrea Barca and András Schiff.

Four country walks in the surrounding hills: three to four hours long, led by an experienced walking guide and programmed in the morning. One includes a picnic lunch.

Led by Lieder expert Richard Wigmore.

The combination of music-making of the highest quality with a pre-Alpine mountain setting is a heady mix. Devotees of the Schubertiade return year after year; addiction is a distinct possibility. Add a great art collection, guided walks in the hills and top up with relaxation among ravishing upland scenery and this begins to sound like the recipe for the perfect holiday.

The annual Schubertiade in the Vorarlberg, the westernmost province of Austria, is one of the most prestigious and enjoyable music festivals in Europe. It attracts artists of the highest calibre, while the rural setting and the predominance of Schubertian music create an endearing informality and intimacy.

But the festival’s success has not stifled a constant desire for change and experiment, as its periodic peregrinations demonstrate. Having started in the village of Hohenems, it migrated a few years later up the valley to the little town of Feldkirch, which in 2001 it abandoned in favour of mountain villages amidst the beautiful scenery of the Bregenzerwald. The hill village setting has been further refined by

confining all the concerts to Schwarzenberg, described by Herder as ‘the prettiest village in Europe’.

Our tour is based in the neighbouring village of Mellau, seven miles away. It is an excellent base for hill walking, and guided walks are an integral part of the tour. There is always plenty of time for relaxation between the concerts and the walks.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 9.45am from London Heathrow to Zurich. Stop at Winterthur to see the Old Master and Impressionist paintings of the Oskar Reinhart Collection, beautifully displayed in the collector’s home in woods outside the city. Drive through Switzerland and into Austria, arriving early-evening at Mellau in the lovely upland landscape of the Bregenzerwald. Dinner at the hotel.

Day 2. An experienced local walking guide leads all four walks, starting this morning with a moderate distance. Afternoon lecture, then drive to Schwarzenberg for an afternoon concert in the Angelika-Kaufmann-Saal (all concerts are held here) with Renaud Capuçon, Hanna Weinmeister (violin), Gérard Caussé, Lea Hennino (viola), Clemens Hagen (cello): Mozart String Quintets in B flat, K.174; in G minor, K.516; in E flat, K.614. Dinner between the two concerts. Lieder recital with Gerald Finley (baritone), Julius Drake (piano): Schubert, ‘Schwanengesang’.

Day 3. Morning walk followed by a free afternoon . Evening lecture, and dinner in Schwarzenberg. Concert with Cappella Andrea Barca, András Schiff (piano), Erich Höbarth (violin), Hariolf Schlichtig (viola), Christoph Richter (cello), Christian Sutter (double bass): Schubert, Symphony No.1 in D; Piano Quintet in A, ‘The Trout’; Symphony No.4, ‘Tragic’.

Day 4. Morning walk followed by a free afternoon . Evening lecture and concert with Cappella Andrea Barca, András Schiff (conductor, piano): Schubert, Symphony No.2 in B flat; Impromptus, D935; Symphony No.5 in B flat.

Day 5. Free morning. Afternoon lecture before a piano recital with Marc-André Hamelin. John Field, ‘Andante Inédit’ in E flat; Schubert, Sonata in A, D 664; List, No.6 from ‘Soirées de Vienne’; Schubert, Sonata in B flat, D 960. Dinner between the two concerts. Lieder recital with Mark Padmore (tenor), Kristian Bezuidenhout (piano): Songs by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schumann.

Day 6. Morning walk of c. four hours through the hills, including a picnic lunch. Drive to Schwarzenberg for dinner and a piano recital with András Schiff: Beethoven Sonatas, No.30 in E, Op.109; No.31 in A flat, Op.110; No.32 in C minor, Op.111.

Day 7. Morning concert with the Mandelring Quartet: Schubert, String Quartet in E flat, D87; Janáček, String Quartet No.2 ‘Intime Letters’; Schubert, String Quartet in D minor, D810, ‘Death & the Maiden’. Lunch in Schwarzenberg before driving to Zurich Airport. Return flight to London Heathrow landing c. 8.15pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £3,310 (deposit £300). This includes: 8 concert tickets costing c. £640; flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Airbus 319); private coach travel; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 picnic, 2 lunches and 5 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and a local walking guide. Single supplement £110 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £3,060.

Hotel: The Hotel Sonne Mellau is a 4-star hotel in a village 7 miles from Schwarzenberg in good hillwalking country with cable cars to higher ground. A modern and functional hotel with a pleasant atmosphere, all rooms are doubles. There is a swimming pool and restaurant. Very helpful staff.

Music tickets: first category tickets for all recitals are confirmed.

How strenuous? For the walks it is essential to be in good physical condition and to be used to regular country walking with some uphill content. The terrain is often fairly steep and the ground uneven. Average distance by coach per day: 35 miles.


Feldkirch, early 19th-century lithograph (courtesy of Stadbibliotek).

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Charlemagne to Charles VThe Southern Netherlands in the Middle Ages

25 June–1 July 2014 (ma 955)7 days • £2,120Lecturer: Jeffrey Miller

Superb Carolingian, Romanesque and Gothic art and architecture.

Places somewhat off the beaten track, now spread through three countries – Germany, Belgium and the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

The 1200th anniversary year of Charlemagne’s death: expect commemorations.

Based in Maastricht and Mechelen, two well-preserved historic towns.

Jovial, approachable, and of immense physical strength and energy, Charlemagne epitomises the early mediaeval prince who ruled by force of personality. Confident of his grip on his sprawling empire, in later life he settled his court at Aachen. Though it would be hard to argue that the rise of the great trading cities of the Netherlands could be traced directly to the favour Charlemagne showed the area, the two occurrences are not without connection.

The empire didn’t last, and little survives of the capital monuments from the eighth to the eleventh centuries. The palace chapel at Aachen is the most prominent survival, and well indicates the quality of what has been lost, as does the great collegiate church of Ste-Gertrude at Nivelles. The metalworking centres of the Meuse made a most significant contribution to the Romanesque era. Tournai cathedral is not only one of the seminal buildings of twelfth-century Europe, but also preserves one of the masterpieces of mediaeval reliquary art.

But the touchstones of southern Netherlandish culture are to be found among the monuments of the later Middle Ages, in the prodigious energy generated by her urban and mercantile instincts, and in the range and quality of her artistic ambitions. This can be seen at a number of levels – in the unruffled calm of the Beguinhof at Mechelen, or the Late-Gothic invention of Ste-Waudru at Mons or St-Jacques at Liège; in the brilliance and virtuosity of the town halls of Brussels and Ghent; and in the cool naturalism of the painting of Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden and Dirk Bouts.

The arts of sculpture, metalwork and tapestry were no less important to a late-mediaeval audience, and in the museums and church treasuries of Brussels and Liège lie some of the finest collections of Late-Gothic and sixteenth-century work in northern Europe.

Emperor Charles V was born in Ghent in 1500, on the cusp of the modern world. During his reign Habsburg control of this area was

consolidated, the once mighty and independent city states of the Netherlands subordinated within the largest empire in Europe since Charlemagne’s.

ItineraryDay 1: Leuven (Belgium). Take the Eurostar at c. 9.00am from London St Pancras to Brussels. Continue by coach to Leuven (Louvain). There see great monuments of the 15th century: the church of St Peter, the triptych within by Dirk Bouts, and the Town Hall, a tour-de-force of all-over ornament. First of three nights in Maastricht.

at the junction of France, the Netherlands and the Holy Roman Empire, and a mediaeval centre of metalwork production. There are fine buildings in the spacious centre: St Jacques is one of the most elaborate of Late Gothic churches; Eglise Ste-Croix is Belgium’s only hall church; in St Barthélemy, the bronze font rests on oxen by Renier de Huy (1118). There are good collections in the Museum of Religious Art and the Curtius Museum.

Day 4: Mons, Nivelles, Mechelen (Belgium). At Mons (Bergen) are the untrumpeted Late-Gothic splendours of the collegiate church of Ste-Waudru. Ste-Gertrude at Nivelles (Nijvel), with its spatial clarity, is one of the great buildings of early mediaeval Europe. Continue to Mechelen for the first of four nights.

Day 2: Aachen (Germany), Maastricht (Netherlands). Cross into Germany to visit Aachen (Aix-en-Chapelle), Charlemagne’s favourite capital. The cathedral has a remarkable rotonda based on San Vitale in Ravenna (for Charlemagne symbolically important as the last capital of the Roman Empire) and the Treasury has outstanding mediaeval works of art. Return to Maastricht, the pretty capital of Limburg to visit St Servaaskerk, a vast Romanesque edifice with crypt of c. 950, burial place of the last of the Carolingian Kings, and the Church of Our Lady, which has an ambulatory around the apse and a defensive west front.

Day 3: Liège (Belgium). Spread along the valley of the Meuse, Liège was for over a thousand years the seat of a powerful bishopric

Day 5: Tournai (Doornik, Belgium). Equipped with one of the few clutches of Romanesque towers to survive, the nave and transepts of the cathedral of Notre-Dame constitute one of the supreme statements of 12th-cent. architectural thinking to survive in the Low Countries. Its Rayonnant choir, 13th-cent. wall paintings, 16th-century choir screen and Nicolas of Verdun’s superb shrine, constitute a most important ensemble of mediaeval work. Visit the late 12th-century parish church of St-Quentin and the Musée des Beaux-Arts.

Day 6: Mechelen, Ghent (Belgium). Mechelen boasts one of the finest market squares to survive in Brabant, lined by 16th-century guild houses, the cathedral and the Stadhuis. See the west tower of Sint Romboutskathedraal, the founding statement of Netherlandish

Diadem of Charlemagne, engraving from The Arts in the Middle Ages & at the Period of the Renaissance, 1878 (in Vienna).

b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w . m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o mB e l g i u m 24

Charlemagne to Charles Vcontinued Flemish Painting

Van Eyck to Rubens: Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, Brussels

The Virgin and Child w

ith Canon van der Paele, wood engraving after

a painting by J. van Eyck from Le M

oyen Age by Paul Lacroix, 1871.

‘Florid Gothic’. In Ghent, visit the restored shell of the Gravensteen, Flanders’s greatest feudal redoubt, and the luminous interiors of Sint Baafskathedraal, abode of Jan van Eyck’s Adoration of the Mystic Lamb.

Day 7: Brussels. See the work of goldsmiths, sculptors and painters in the Low Countries throughout the mediaeval and Renaissance periods in the Musée Royal d’Art et Histoire, which has staggering collections of Carolingian ivories, Mosan and Rhenish metalwork, furniture, tapestries and retables. Visit the Grote Markt (Grand Place), the most ebullient town square in the Low Countries, and the cathedral of St Michel-et-Gudule with a recently rediscovered 10th-cent. church under the central space. There is time for the Musée d’Art Ancien, Belgium’s finest art museum. The late afternoon Eurostar arrives at London St Pancras at c. 7.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,120 (deposit £200). This includes: travel (1st class, standard premier) on Eurostar; travel by private coach throughout; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and five dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admission to museums, churches, etc.; all tips for restaurant staff, drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £210 (double room for single occupancy). Price without Eurostar £1,910.

Hotels: in Maastricht (3 nights): Beaumont Hotel, a modern and elegant 4-star hotel, conveniently located. In Mechelen (3 nights): Hotel NH Mechelen, a small and comfortable 3-star hotel, centrally located.

How strenuous? There is a lot of walking and standing around. Coaches are not able to access the historic centres. Average distance by coach per day: 77 miles.


Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with King Ludwig II, 4–9 July (page 98).

3–6 September 2014 (mb 102)4 days • £1,380Lecturer: Dr Richard Williams

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.

Led by Richard Williams, lecturer on 16th and 17th-century Flemish art.

First-class train travel from London.

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 jewel-

like 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 diabolical nastiness.

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.

ItineraryDay 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, the earliest and one of the greatest masterpieces of the Netherlandish painting. Visit briefly the Museum of Fine Arts, principally to see a work by Hieronymus Bosch.

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 Lecturers’ biographies are on page 216.

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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 seen.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 is 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 palaces 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 c. 6.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,380 (deposit £150). This includes: rail travel (1st class, standard premier) on Eurostar; private coach travel; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 3 dinners with wine, water and coffee; light meals and drinks on the Eurostar; all admissions to museums, etc. visited with the group; all gratuities for restaurant staff, drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £110. Price without rail travel by Eurostar £1,200.Hotel: Ghent (5 nights): Hotel NH Gent Belfort, a comfortable 4-star hotel, excellently located beside the town hall. Rooms are well-equipped and all have double beds. Included dinners are in good restaurants. How strenuous? There is quite a lot of standing in museums and walking on this tour, often on cobbled or roughly paved streets. Average distance by coach per day: 60 miles.Small group: between 10 and 19 participants.Possible linking tours. Combine with French Gothic, 8–14 September (page 67); Berlin, Potsdam, Dresden, 8–15 September (page 85).

Flanders FieldsWalking the battlefields of World War I

9–12 May 2014 (ma 887)4 days • £1,320Lecturer: 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 Yypres 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, Lijssenthoek, 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.

ItineraryDay 1: Lijssenthoek, Spanbroekmoelen, Bayenwald. Travel by coach at 7.30am from central London to Folkestone for the 35-minute Eurotunnel crossing to Calais.

A ruined church outside Ypres, drawing by Muirhead Bone from The Western Front.

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The Western Balkans

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 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 lovely mosques, Orthodox churches, squares and kafanas in a mountainous setting. Its troubled history is not far below the surface, but this is gradually being overcome.

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 May departure will show the magnificent countryside at its best.

ItineraryDay 1: Zagreb. Fly at c. 9.00am from London Heathrow to Zagreb. 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

5–18 May 2014 (ma 884)14 days • £4,070Lecturer: David Gowan

6–19 October 2014 (mb 151)14 days • £4,070Lecturer: 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 fortress-like 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 Nemjanid dynasty flourished from the twelfth until the fourteenth centuries and built monasteries that combined Byzantine and Romanesque influences. But from the defeat of Prince Lazar in 1389 until the mid-nineteenth century, the Ottoman Turks ruled Serbia and Bosnia. Meanwhile, the Austro-Hungarian 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 Treaty of Versailles, 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?

Mostar, from Balkan Sketches by Lester G. Hornby, 1926.

Drive to Lijssenthoek, the second largest British Military Cemetery on the Salient. 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 a private visit of Hussar Farm, a former 19th-century farmhouse 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 Spolbank Cemetery towards the Bluff. After lunch continue the walk towards Caterpillar, Hill 60 and Larch Wood. Finish the day with a visit to the Menin Gate Memorial to the missing.

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 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).

Day 4: Kemmel, Poperinge. Morning visit of Kemmel to investigate the practice of execution for deserters before visiting Talbot House, the sanctuary established by the Neville brothers for soldiers seeking peace and rest from the Great War. Drive to Calais for the Eurotunnel journey to London, arriving c. 7.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,320 (deposit £150). This includes: travel from London and within France; return channel crossings with Eurotunnel from Folkstone to Calais; accommodation; 3 dinners and 3 lunches with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £170 (double room for single occupancy).

Hotel: Hôtel l’Hermitage Gantois, a 5-star hotel in a converted 15th-century hospice, 20 minutes on foot from the town centre. There is a good restaurant and brasserie.

How strenuous? There is a quite a lot of walking and standing for long periods of time. Average distance by coach per day: 87 miles.


Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Operation Overlord, 21–25 June (page 70).

Flanders’ Fieldscontinued

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Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina & Montenegro

Meštrović Atelier displaying the works of the renowned Croatian sculptor, the Zagreb City Museum housed in the 17th-century convent of St Clare, the Gothic Cathedral of the Assumption. Walk to the upper town, the Kaptol district, via the bustling market. After lunch the Modern Gallery and Museum of Arts and Crafts. Overnight Zagreb. Day 3: Zagreb, Virovitica, Osijek. Drive through Croatia’s rustic north-eastern region of Slavonia via Virovitica 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 at 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). 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 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).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 at the Turkish/Bosniac town of Novi Pazar in the Sandžak.

Day 8: Arijle, Višegrad, Sarajevo. Early departure to visit Arijle Monastery before crossing from Serbia to Bosnia-Herzegovina. Stop at the beautiful Višegrad bridge before continuing to the capital, Sarajevo. First of two nights in Sarajevo.

Day 9: Sarajevo. Famously squeezed by high tree-clad 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 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 Bosnia-Herzegovina’s most picturesque town, an open-air 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).

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 old town, including the Ottoman Arslanagić Bridge and water mills. In the afternoon cross from Bosnia-Herzegovina to Montenegro and descend into 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 dining on the water’s edge.

Day 13: Cetinje, Rijeka Crnojevića, Budva. Embark on one of the most exciting mountain roads in Europe, a precipitous climb to 1,000

metres (not recommended for vertigo sufferers) and the meagre town of Cetinje which until 1916 was the capital of Montenegro. Visit the Palace of King Nikola and the Art Museum. Lunch beside the triple-arched stone bridge in Rijeka Crnojevića before visiting the historic old town of Budva on Montenegro’s Adriatic coast. Final night in Kotor.

Day 14: Kotor. Fly from Dubrovnik, arriving London Gatwick at approximately 3.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £4,070 (deposit £400). This includes: flights (economy class) with British Airways London to Zagreb (Boeing 737-400) and Dubrovnik to London (Boeing 737-400); accommodation; breakfasts, 9 lunches, 9 dinners, with wine, water, coffee; admissions; all tips; all taxes. The services of the lecturer and a local guide. Single supplement £380. Price without flights £3,830. Hotels. Zagreb (2 nights): The Regent Esplanade Hotel, a grand hotel built in 1925 for the purpose of accommodating passengers on the Orient Express, within walking distance of the city centre. In Osijek (1 night): Hotel Osijek, a modern and comfortable high-rise hotel on the bank of the river Drava. Belgrade (2 nights): Hotel Moskva Belgrade, a well-located and comfortable hotel built in 1926 with a great deal of character, recently renovated. Kraljevo (2 nights): Hotel Crystal, simple but adequate and with welcoming service, the only acceptable hotel in a region with little tourism. Sarajevo (2 nights): Hotel Europe, a centrally located 5-star hotel, the best in the city, built in the late 19th century but comprehensively renovated. Mostar (1 night): Hotel Bristol, a modern business hotel within walking distance of the historic centre. Kotor (3 nights): Hotel Cattaro, located within the old city walls, this hotel provides an excellent base from which to explore.How strenuous? There is a lot of walking in the city centres, some of it on uneven ground and up and down steep flights of steps. Though the average distance by coach per day is only 65 miles, many roads are slow and mountainous and some travelling days are long. Frequent border crossings may entail delays at check points. There are 6 hotel changes.Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.Possible linking tours. Combine the May tour with The House of Hanover, 21–28 May (page 84). Or October with Israel & Palestine, 21–30 October (page 110); Istanbul, 29 September–5 October (page 205).

Summer 1914, 9–14 June 2014 (see page 18).

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BohemiaArt, architecture, history & landscape at the heart of Europe

1–8 September 2014 (mb 114)8 days • £2,720Lecturer: 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, 9–15 September 2014 (see page 30).

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 forty-year 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.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 10.20am from London Heathrow to Prague. Drive to a country house hotel near Liblice where there is time to settle in and 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 great charm, it possesses a wonderful cathedral, perhaps the finest Gothic building in Central

Kačina, aquatint c. 1930 by Tavik Frantisek Simon.

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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, Orlík, Zvíkov. Drive to South Bohemia via three 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. Orlík Castle was domesticated in post-mediaeval times and has a fine collection of French empire furniture. First of three nights in Hluboká nad Vltavou. 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 state 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 13th-century 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 Lázny.

Day 8: Mariánské Lázny (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, 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.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,720 (deposit: £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (Airbus 320); travel by private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, six dinners and three lunches with wine, water and coffee; admission charges for all museums and places visited; all tips for waiters, drivers and guides; all airport and state taxes; the services of the lecturer and local guide. Single supplement £110. Price without flights £2,530.

Hotels. Near Liblice, 40km north of Prague (3 nights): Hotel Château Liblice is a recently opened 4-star hotel and conference centre converted from an 18th-cent. country house, charming and well run. In Hluboká nad Vltavou (3 nights): The Hotel Stekl is a 4-star hotel converted from an auxiliary building belonging to the neighbouring mansion, lavishly and characterfully decorated. In Mariánské Lazny (1 night): The Hotel Villa Butterfly is a modern hotel in the centre of town, and though adequately comfortable this may disappoint after the other two (few hotels here take bookings for fewer than 7 nights).

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking on this tour, some of it up slopes or up steps (250 steps are climbed during the visit to Karlštejn for example). To be able to enjoy the tour it would be essential to manage daily walking and stair-climbing without any difficulties. Average distance by coach per day: 104 miles.


ChinaA new range of tours to China, to be launched for 2015 and 2016.Details available in July 2014.Contact us to register your interest

Combining Bohemia with Connoisseur’s Prague8th 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.

9th September. Morning walking tour of the Old Town with a local guide. Connoisseur’s Prague begins at c.3.45pm at the hotel.

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 (£2,440), 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.

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 9th September.

Please let us know on your booking form if you would like to take up this option.


‘This tour was a delight and a revelation. The hotels were great, the countryside quite beautiful and the history was spectacular.’

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Connoisseur’s PragueArt, architecture & design, with privileged access

9–15 September 2014 (mb 116)7 days • £2,630Lecturer: Michael Ivory

Includes inaccessible and hidden glories as well as the main sights of this endlessly fascinating and beautiful city.

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, 1–8 September 2014 (see page 28).

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

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.Prague, Charles

Bridge, etching by E. George, 1884.

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ItineraryDay 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 Veletrzní (Trade Fair) Palace of 1928 now houses fascinating Czech art of the 19th and 20th cents. and a remarkable holding of modern French art. 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 infrequently

opened 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 Museum to see the extraordinarily detailed model of the city made in the 1830s. A riverside country retreat, Villa Troja is a 17th-cent. Italianate mansion with a French formal garden.

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-cent. art, the Lobkowicz Palace with Canaletto’s paintings of London and the recently installed Treasury of St Vitus. The flight returns to London Heathrow at c. 5.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,630 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (aircraft: Airbus Industrie 320); private coach for airport transfers and some excursions; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts and four dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions to museums, etc.; all tips for restaurant staff, drivers, guides; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer and Czech guide-interpreter. Single supplement £330 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,440.

Hotel. The Grand Hotel Bohemia is very well located in the Old Town close to Obecní dům and this characterful hotel built in 1920 retains some of its original Art Deco decor. Recently refurbished and upgraded, it is given a 5-star rating though elsewhere in Europe it is unlikely it would be rated more than 4-star.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking, much of it on roughly paved streets, some on inclines. The tour would not be suitable for anyone with difficulties with everyday walking and stair-climbing.

Music. It is also usually possible to obtain tickets for operas and concerts. Programme details will be sent to participants when programmes are published.


Combining Bohemia with Connoisseur’s Prague8th 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.

9th September. Morning walking tour of the Old Town with a local guide. Connoisseur’s Prague begins at c.3.45pm at the hotel.

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 (£2,440), 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.

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 9th September.

Please let us know on your booking form if you would like to take up this option.

The Iron Curtain, 8–22 September 2014 (see page 96).

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Ancient EgyptFrom Cairo to Abu Simbel

15–26 September 2014 (mb 107)12 days • £3,840Lecturer: Dr Angus Graham

A comprehensive introduction to Pharaonic Egypt visiting the principal sites from Giza to Abu Simbel.

Led by Dr Angus Graham, an expert in Egyptian archaeology.

A full and busy tour but it avoids rush and allows time to contemplate and absorb.

A well-planned land tour makes much better use of time than a Nile cruise.

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 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.

ItineraryDay 1: Luxor. Fly at c. 3.00pm 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.

Thebes, lithograph 1837.

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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 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 well-preserved 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 seventh-century 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 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.

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 from Cairo, arriving London Heathrow at approximately 1.30pm.

Should the UK Foreign Office advise against travelling to certain parts of Egypt, then this tour would go ahead provided that the itinerary can be adapted to avoid them.

PracticalitiesPrice: £3,840 (deposit £300). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled Egyptair flights London to Luxor (aircraft: Airbus A320-100), Aswan-Abu Simbel-Cairo (aircraft: Airbus 320) and Cairo to London (aircraft: Boeing 777-300). Hotel accommodation as described below. Breakfasts, 6 lunches (some are picnics) and 7 dinners, including wine, water and coffee. All admission to museums, sites, etc., visited with the group. All gratuities for restaurant staff, drivers, local guides. All state and airport taxes. The cost of the Egyptian visa (if flying with the group). The services of the lecturer and a local guide. Single supplement £340. Price without international flights £3,290.

Hotels: Luxor (5 nights): The Sofitel Winter Palace, Pavilion Wing, a locally rated 5-star hotel on the banks of the Nile with delightful gardens, part of the Sofitel group. Aswan (3 nights): The Old Cataract, perched on the banks of the Nile with fine views this is one of the finest hotels in Egypt, recently refurbished. Cairo (3 nights): Kempinski, a new 5-star boutique hotel, centrally located. All hotels have open-air pools.

How strenuous? This tour is not suitable for anyone with any difficulty with everyday walking or stairclimbing. Visits to the archaeological sites involve walking over rough and uneven ground. There are some early starts, and the heat during the day can be tiring. Average distance by coach per day: 25 miles.

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.


Working in partnership with the Egypt Exploration Society (EES). Our partnership with the Egypt Exploration Society means that clients who book this tour automatically become members of the EES. Founded in 1882 this historic Society is one of the leading archaeological units working in Egypt today. Membership allows you access to their extensive library, discounts on lectures and evening classes, as well as a subscription to their Newsletter and biannual magazine, Egyptian Archaeology.

Ancient Egyptian musicians, engraving c. 1880 by Rev. Samuel Manning from Land of the Pharoahs.


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Middle Egypt Exploring the hidden sites of the Nile valley

23 April–1 May 2014 (ma 875)9 days • £3,560Lecturer: Dr Angus Graham

Visit the settlements, tombs, and temples of two ancient capital cities and major provincial centres in Middle Egypt.

Journey into the heart of the country: the Fayoum, Minya and Tell al-Amarna.

Explore periods of ancient Egyptian history often overlooked in other tours of the country.

Travel by new 4x4 vehicles with a team of desert specialists.

Cairo, one of the world’s most fascinating cities, stands at the head of the Nile Delta in an area that has been used as the capital of Egypt at numerous periods over the last 5,000 years.

This sprawling and vibrant city is home to 2000 years of history from the Roman fortress of Babylon, scaled by the armies of Amr ibn al-Asr in the conquest of Egypt in ad 641, and the crossroads of cultures and religions represented by the Coptic, Jewish and Islamic monuments.

Just to the south lies the ruined ancient capital city of Memphis in the narrow strip of fertile floodplain bounded by desert to the east and west. The ancient necropolis of the ‘Capital Zone’ stretches 110 km along the escarpment of the Western Desert from the area of Greater Cairo to the entrance to the Fayoum. The area served as the burial place for the kings and their administration of the Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom, and its use as a non-royal but elite necropolis continued throughout the Dynastic Period. These numerous centres of burial in this vast necropolis reveal the

evolution of the awe inspiring pyramid complex of the kings from the Step Pyramid of Djoser through to the mud brick pyramids of the Middle Kingdom kings.

The Fayoum was the agricultural heart of Egypt. It became a focus of settlement and activity in the Middle Kingdom and its entrance is overshadowed by the once great pyramid complex of Amenemhat III of the 12th Dynasty. The site of Hawara is thought to be the labyrinthine complex mentioned by the ancient writer Herodotus. During the Ptolemaic and Roman periods the Fayoum reached its zenith and became a major area for agricultural expansion. The region became the agricultural bread basket until it was severely depopulated by the Antonine plague. Prosperity returned in the third century ad with the establishment of estates for wine production, but declined again in the early

Early 18th-century engraving of the Pyramids at Giza, elaborated with imagined progeny in the background.

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fourth century.West of the Fayoum the unesco World

Heritage Site of Wadi el-Hitan or so-called ‘Whale Valley’ is a palaeontological wonder. Now in the hyper-arid Western desert, this National Park displays the fossils of an early sub-order of whales, as well as sawtooth fish, turtles and ancestors of the sea cow that lived in the shallow waters of the Tethys Sea (42-37 million years ago). It is a fascinating window into the evolution of species and the geological history of the region.

Tell al-Amarna (ancient Akhetaten) was the short-lived capital established by the New Kingdom pharaoh Akhenaten and his queen Nefertiti to honour the sun-disk god, the Aten. Scenes in the tombs of the élite, the surviving mudbrick houses and the remains of the temples to the Aten provide a glimpse at the former splendour of the city, its urban planning and Akhenaten’s revolutionary vision.

The modern town of al-Ashmunein occupies the once major provincial centre of Khmun (‘8-town’), origin of the ogdoad creation myth. The town became the main cult centre of the god Thoth, who became associated with the Greek god Hermes, and continued its importance throughout the Ptolemaic and Roman periods becoming known as Hermopolis Magna. Close by at Tuna el-Gebel on the edge of the desert lies the necropolis of Hermopolis with its catacombs of mummified Ibis testifying to the dedication to Thoth. Petosiris, high priest of Thoth, lived through the Persian rule and into the time of Ptolemy I. His temple-style tomb shows a stunning example of Greek influence on traditional Egyptian scenes in a time of great change within continuity.

The tombs at Beni Hassan are evidence of the power and wealth of the local governors of the Oryx nome in the early Middle Kingdom almost 4000 years ago. Cut into the best strata high up in the limestone cliffs they provide stunning views over the Nile valley for the deceased and the visitor alike. The lively scenes provide a window into aspects of life in Egypt together with the flora and fauna of the Nile valley and the desert and reveal the effort in preparation for an eternal life in the Netherworld.

This tour explores the Fayoum and Middle Egypt, an area little visited by the majority of travellers. This makes it special, as does its fascinating mixture of Nile valley and desert, and also because, as travel is with 4x4 Landcruisers, it is possible to view the antiquities at close quarters.

Should the UK Foreign Office advise against travelling to certain parts of Egypt, then this tour would go ahead provided that the itinerary can be adapted to avoid them.

ItineraryDay 1: Fly at c. 3.00pm from London Heathrow to Cairo and transfer to Giza. First of two nights in Giza.

Day 2: Saqqara, Dahshur. A full day in the desert visiting the early pyramids and mastaba tombs south of Giza at Abu Sir, Saqqara and Dahshur, the necropolis of Memphis.

Day 3: Giza, Fayoum. Morning visit to the Giza Plateau before a drive south along the Nile Valley to the unusual pyramid of Meidum and the pyramid of Hawara, also allegedly the site of Herodotus’s Egyptian labyrinth. On to the shores of Lake Qarun for the first of two nights.

Day 4: Lake Qarun. Drive into the desert around the lake, taking in the unusual rock formations and striking landscape. Explore the Graeco-Roman town and fort of Dime, the mysterious temple of Qasr Sagha and the Graeco-Roman temple and town remains at Qasr el-Qarun.

Day 5: Wadi el-Rayyan, Minya. A whole morning spent in the Wadi el-Rayyan National Park, including the fossils site of Wadi al-Hitan. Drive through the desert to the Middle Egyptian town of Minya, with a stop en route at a Coptic monastery and garden. First of two nights in Minya.

Day 6: Tell al-Amarna. Cross the Nile to spend a day at the legendary site of Tell al-Amarna visiting the surviving royal tombs and boundary stelae, and the remains of the vast temple to the Aten as well as other recent excavations in the ancient city.

Day 7: Beni Hassan, Cairo. The morning is spent admiring the Middle Kingdom tombs at Beni Hassan, overlooking the lush Nile Valley, and the rock-cut temple Speos Artemidos. Drive back to Cairo (the journey will take c. 4 hours). First of two nights in Cairo.

Day 8: Cairo. Coptic Cairo, in the heart of the old city with an afternoon visit to the Nilometer, hidden amongst the gardens on Rhoda island.

Day 9: Fly from Cairo to London Heathrow, arriving at c. 1.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £3,560 (deposit £300). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled Egyptair flights (aircraft: Boeing 777, Airbus 330); private coach in Cairo and new Landcruiser Toyotas; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 7 lunches (6 prepared by our own kitchen team) and 8 dinners with

wine where available, water and coffee; all admissions to sites and museums; all gratuities for restaurant staff, guides, kitchen team and drivers; all state and airport taxes; the cost of the Egyptian visa (if flying with the group); the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £190 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £3,160.

Hotels: Giza, Cairo (2 nights): Mena House, a 19th century royal hunting lodge, now a luxurious 5-star hotel overlooking the Pyramids, set amid extensive gardens. Lake Qarun (2 nights): Helnan Auberge, another former royal hunting lodge, recently renovated and now an adequate 4-star hotel with character on the shore of the lake. Minya (2 nights): Minya Hotel, the best Minya has to offer; a former Mercure now showing signs of wear situated on the noisy Corniche, friendly service and good food, rated as a 4-star it is more like a basic 3-star. Cairo (2 nights): The Marriot, a large and well-appointed 5-star on the banks of the Nile.

How strenuous? This is a taxing tour with long distances, walking and scrambling over sand and rocks and off-road driving. It is not suitable for anyone with any walking difficulties or back problems. At times participants will be far from modern medical facilities. All cars are new 4x4 Toyota or VW desert Jeeps, driven by desert specialists who are excellent drivers and mechanics. Average distance by coach or 4x4 per day: c. 55 miles.

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.


Working in partnership with the Egypt Exploration Society (EES). Our partnership with the Egypt Exploration Society means that clients who book this tour automatically become members of the EES. Founded in 1882 this historic Society is one of the leading archaeological units working in Egypt today. Membership allows you access to their extensive library, discounts on lectures and evening classes, as well as a subscription to their Newsletter and biannual magazine, Egyptian Archaeology.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Classical Greece, 3–12 May (page 103).

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NorthumbriaCountryside, castles, coast & comfort

Warkworth Castle, wood engraving from The Saturday Magazine Vol.III, 1833.

18–26 June 2014 (ma 938)9 days • £2,720Lecturer: Christopher Newall

Wide-ranging exploration of the natural and man-made beauties of one of the most interesting but least visited regions of England.

Castles, country houses, villages, towns and cities and, above all, wonderful landscape.

Includes a number of special arrangements, a private boat for a day and two exhilarating country walks (optional – alternative visits are provided for non-walkers).

Good hotels: Jesmond Dene House in Newcastle and Waren House near Bamburgh.

Northumbria is border country in depth. The Romans had a bumpy ride in their attempts to fix the limits of their empire and pacify the populace, despite the extraordinary achievement of Hadrian’s Wall. After the Norman Conquest the region was supposedly within England but was subject to frequent Scottish incursions and effectively ruled by a handful of clans beyond the writ of the English Crown. To this day castles characterise the region more than country houses, and yet those houses that exist share an austere aesthetic.

But perhaps the most striking and alluring consequence of its buffer-zone heritage is the landscape. Remote and sparsely inhabited, ruffled by majestic undulations and etched with dry stone walls, rugged uplands mixing with picturesque farmland, Northumbria has some

of the most enthralling scenery in all England. Such marginal land was a magnet to monastic foundations, and outstanding mediaeval church architecture is another feature.

And yet, by extreme contrast, the region became one of the powerhouses of the industrial revolution. The Tyneside conurbation has some of the most fascinating cityscapes in Britain, from the dramatic late Georgian terraces at the centre of Newcastle to Ralph Erskine’s Byker Wall. Beyond the city, wealth and innovation led to the great Victorian country estate such as Norman Shaw’s Cragside.

Northumbria was far larger than the (relatively) modern counties of Northumberland, Durham and Tyne and Wear. This tour presents a grand sweep of history, architecture and landscape by selecting the finest sights in an itinerary that is balanced in content and pace.

ItineraryDay 1: Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Durham. The coach leaves the hotel at 1.00pm and Newcastle Central Station at 1.30pm. Drive via The Angel of the North, Anthony Gormley’s bold and beautiful sculpture outside Newcastle, to Durham Cathedral, one of the great monuments of Romanesque Europe, its glories enhanced by a hilltop site in one of the loveliest little cities in England. Return via St Paul’s church in Jarrow, the home of the Venerable Bede. First of five nights in Newcastle.

Day 2: Newcastle. A day in the city, an undulating site tumbling down to the Tyne through fine buildings and streets. Start at the Laing Art Gallery, home to a collection of paintings by north-eastern artist John Martin. Planned and developed by Richard Grainger, Grey Street in the commercial city centre is often described as one of the finest planned streets in England. Outstanding post-industrial regeneration on the quayside with the Millennium Bridge (Wilkinson Eyre) and Foster’s Sage Gateshead. Overnight Newcastle.Day 3: Bywell, Hexham, Hadrian’s Wall. Nestled in the Tyne Valley, the village of Bywell has two fine churches, one with a Saxon tower. The delightful town of Hexham grew up around an abbey founded in ad 674; the grand 13th-century church survives. An optional walk along Hadrian’s Wall from Housesteads (31/2 miles), scenically and archaeologically perhaps the most spectacular stretch. Non-walkers visit Vindolanda, site of a Roman town; ongoing excavations are yielding exciting discoveries. Overnight Newcastle.Day 4: Alnwick, Edlingham, Cragside. Externally still a formidable mediaeval fortress, Alnwick Castle, seat of the Dukes of Northumberland, has sumptuous interiors and a superb painting collection. A beautiful drive via Edlingham to see the Norman church and remains of a 12th-cent. hall house. Cragside, built for Sir William Armstrong, is the masterpiece of Norman Shaw and the interiors form a wonderful sequence of late-Victorian taste and technology. Overnight Newcastle.Day 5: Warkworth, Woodhorn, Seaton Delaval. More palace than castle, the 15th-century Warkworth Castle towers above the town. Woodhorn Colliery is one of the best surviving examples of a 19th-century coal mine. A shell, baroque Seaton Delaval is a masterpiece by Vanbrugh (bought by the National Trust in 2009). Overnight Newcastle. Day 6: Craster, Dunstanburgh. Byker Wall, Ralph Erskine’s remarkable housing development. Lunch in the pretty seaside town of Craster, kipper capital of the UK. A glorious coastal hillside walk to Dunstanburgh Castle (21/2 miles round trip; optional), in splendid isolation on a rocky promontory. Non-walkers visit the gardens at Howick Hall. Drive to the hotel at Waren Mill two miles away. First of three nights here.Day 7: Berwick-upon-Tweed, Etal, Bamburgh. The border town of Berwick has been much fought over by England and Scotland in the past. It is protected by the most complete set of ramparts in England. Barracks, Cromwellian church and Royal Border Bridge. Drive into wild Northumberland to the ruins of the

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14th-century Etal Castle, slighted by James IV of Scotland. Some free time at the hotel or in Bamburgh. Overnight Waren Mill.

Day 8: Farne Islands, Holy Island. Drive to Holy Island to see Lindisfarne Priory and the Castle which was later converted by Lutyens into Edward Hudson’s country home. Sail on a privately chartered boat to the Farne Islands and Inner Farne, famously the setting of Grace Darling’s heroism and home to some of England’s richest birdlife. St Aidan lived as a hermit here before establishing Lindisfarne Priory, as did St Cuthbert who later became the patron saint of Durham. Overnight Waren Mill.

Day 9: Newcastle. 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. Drive south to Newcastle, dropping off at the station by 1.45pm and at the Jesmond Dene House c. 2.30pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,720 (deposit £250). This includes: accommodation; private coach throughout; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 7 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; private boat to the Farne Islands; all tips; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Members of the National Trust or English Heritage (with cards) will be refunded c. £30. Single supplement £210 (double room for single occupancy).

Hotels: in Newcastle (5 nights): Jesmond Dene House, a 19th-century mansion in a quiet wooded suburb which opened as a hotel in 2007 and has been awarded César City Hotel of the Year in 2013; stylish, very comfortable, exceptional service, good amenities, garden, excellent restaurant. In Waren Mill (near Bamburgh, 3 nights): Waren House Hotel, a Georgian house in the countryside with 15 rooms; furnished and adorned by the owners in a charmingly quirky way with light, floral bedrooms, sitting room-cum-library and dining room; patio, garden and sea views.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking involved, even without the two optional country walks. Coaches can rarely park near the sites and some places visited are extensive. Average distance by coach per day: 47 miles.


Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Art & Industry, 9–15 June (page 39); The Louvre at Lens, 12–15 June (page 73).

Walking Hadrian’s Wall

Roman civilization at the edge of an Empire

The W

all near Housesteads, w


18–24 May 2014 (ma 903)7 days • £1,820Lecturer: 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.

The lecturer is Graeme Stobbs, 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, its fulfilment – far from the pool of skills and prosperity in the Mediterranean heartlands of the Empire – astonishing: a fifteen-foot-high wall 75 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 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 will power, 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 of ordinary Romans – and Britons – who lived in its shadow. But the Wall itself remains the fascinating focus, and the subject of endless academic debate. It’s not even clear what exactly it was for.

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 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,


Walking Hadrian’s Wallcontinued

For tours in Scotland see page 184. For tours in Wales see page 52.

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 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 rough-hewn 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.

ItineraryDay 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.

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.

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, 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.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,820 (deposit £200). This includes: hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 3 lunches and 5 dinners with wine, beer, water, coffee; private coach; all admissions (English Heritage members will be refunded c. £20); all tips; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £120.

Hotel: A 19th-century Jacobean-style mansion, Matfen Hall is a fine country house hotel offering excellent service. It has large, well equipped bedrooms, a variety of Victorian and contemporary public spaces, a very good restaurant, two bars for informal meals, spa facilities, a garden and an extensive landscaped park (now a golf course).

How strenuous? Please read the last two paragraphs of the introduction above. 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.


Illustration from the front of an Ordnance Survey map, 1940s.

Walking toursWalking to Santiago ............................... 185

Walking in Eastern Sicily ..................... 160

Walking in Southern Tuscany ...........131

Walking Hadrian’s Wall ..........................37

Walking the Rhine Valley ....................101

The Schubertiade.......................................22

The Danube Festival Walking ............ 16

Walking in Madeira .................................178

Walking in Northern Tuscany ..........129

Literature & Walking in the Lake District .........................................58

Jordan Revisited........................................ 164

Music in the Saxon Hills .........................92

For general advice about our walking tours, see page 6.

‘The lecturer: his enthusiasm, his expertise and balanced views, his personality made me wish that there would be other Roman walls in the world, and that he would lecture on them.’


Art & IndustryInvention, manufacture & design in 18th-century England

9–15 June 2014 (ma 927)7 days • £1,720Lecturer: Dr Paul Atterbury

The 18th-century Industrial Revolution when Britain led the world in technology, invention, manufacture and commerce.

Highly significant industrial archaeology.

Fine and applied arts, created with the wealth generated by industrialisation or which was the outcome of new factory processes.

Houses of both employers and employees.

Led by Dr Paul Atterbury, specialist in 19th and 20th century art, architecture and design.

In a putative ‘Concise History of World Civilization’, Britain might garner a few mentions (Magna Carta, Parliamentary democracy) but would probably be awarded only one substantial passage. This would be an account of the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth century. The modern world began in the English Midlands.

It is difficult to overestimate the global impact of the technological developments which took place in this relatively out-of-the-way region of Europe (there were few roads in pre-modern Shropshire and Staffordshire). Enabled by the abundance of accessible mineral resources, propelled by an Enlightenment spirit of enquiry and experiment and forged by the enterprise and ambition of a few exceptional individuals, Britain came to lead the world in manufacturing, commerce, and science through to the middle of the nineteenth century.

Places have been chosen to show most of the main constituents of the Industrial Revolution, water power and steam, coal and iron, textiles and pottery, the factory system and urbanisation, canals and roads (railways are reserved for a future tour). Sights include the visible remains of early industrial enterprise of the highest importance.

Art and architecture paid for by the proceeds of industrialisation, or which were the industrialised products themselves, and the houses of entrepreneurs and workers, constitute the other major strand. C.P. Snow’s ‘Two Cultures’ was a feature of Britain’s later decline; ‘art’ and ‘industry’, were not recognised as distinct and antagonistic categories in the eighteenth century.

The subsequent two centuries are not ignored. Indeed, much of the industrial archaeology and the art we see takes us well into the twentieth century.

The tour concentrates on five centres. Two are the upper reaches of fast-moving rivers, the Severn in Shropshire, now dubbed Ironbridge Gorge, and the Derwent in Derbyshire. (Both,

incidentally, are now tranquil and fairly rural, the Derwent Valley in particular being a place of outstanding natural beauty.) The six towns of the Potteries in Staffordshire were a unique concentration of the ceramic industry – as indeed they still are; the fourth is the group of towns in the West Midlands known as Black Country, and the fifth is Birmingham, ‘workshop of the world’.

ItineraryDay 1: Birmingham. The coach leaves from New Street Railway Station at 11.45am and there follows a walk around a nexus of canals – Birmingham famously has more canals than Venice. Soho House, excellently restored and presented, was the home of Matthew Boulton and a meeting place of the Lunar Society, a group of progressive thinkers, scientists and manufacturers who played key roles in the Industrial Revolution. Continue to Telford for the first of three nights there.

Day 2: Ironbridge Gorge. By the end of the 18th century this short stretch of the upper River Severn (a unesco Heritage Site) was the most heavily industrialised location in the world. The blast furnace at Coalbrookdale where Abraham Darby I in 1709 achieved the smelting of iron with coke, and thus ushered in the modern world, survives as part of a fascinating Museum of Iron. Abraham Darby III was largely responsible for the Iron Bridge of 1779, an epoch-making structure of powerful beauty as well as an icon of the Industrial Revolution. Two mansions lived in

by the Darby family overlooking the works retain original furnishings.

Day 3: Dudley, Wightwick. The Black Country is contender for the title ‘birthplace of industry’, named after the smoke from the unequalled density of mines, workshops and factories. An outstanding museum shows historic industrial installations, many in working order, including a replica of a Newcomen steam engine of c. 1717, and rescued houses, shops and other buildings furnished as a hundred years ago. Wightwick Manor , built at the end of the 19th century by a factory owner, is a veritable shrine to the Pre-Raphaelites and the Arts and Crafts movement.

Day 4: Barlaston, Stoke-on-Trent. Josiah Wedgwood was a genius of the Industrial Revolution, dedicated equally to improvements in design and technology, to natural philosophy and commerce, to social amelioration and progressive politics. The excellent Wedgwood Museum, one of the finest ceramics museums in the world, well documents the development of an iconic English brand. In the afternoon visit Trentham Gardens, a Charles Barry formal layout created in the 1840s with the wealth accrued by the Duke of Sutherland from mining rights. First of three nights in Stoke.

Day 5: Stoke-on-Trent. Stoke-on-Trent remains the world’s foremost pottery city despite the loss of much mainstream production. The Gladstone Pottery Museum is the only complete Victorian pottery factory: original workshops, bottle ovens, historic products. Emma Bridgewater is an inspiring

The Iron Bridge at Coalbrookdale, etching and engraving c. 1800.


Art & Industrycontinued

Manchester, the Exchange, etching 1910.

The Victorian Achievement4–11 August 2014 (ma 988)8 days • £1,880Lecturer: Dr Paul Atterbury

Studies the social history, industrial archaeology, architecture and art of the reign of Queen Victoria, a period when Great Britain led the world in trade, industry and ideas.

Includes some of the most beautiful architecture of the era and immensely impressive works of engineering – canals, railways, bridges.

Painting and sculpture in all its manifold variety features; many of the country’s best collections of Victorian art are in the region.

The historical, social and economic context is an important strand of the tour, with attention to the lives of some of the greatest Victorians.

A subsidiary theme is the remarkable post-industrial regeneration of recent years.

Led by Dr Paul Atterbury who specialises in the art, architecture and design of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Athens, Florence, Manchester: there is no fourth. Another risible Victorian polemic? No. The essence of this proposition concerning the paramount importance of Manchester in the history of civilization remains valid. The impact of the industrial cities of Victorian Britain in shaping the modern world cannot be overestimated.

But the era still needs rescuing from twentieth-century disdain. Ignorance and misunderstanding remain deep and widespread. The truth is that nineteenth-century Britain was one of the most dynamic and innovative societies in history, and that Victorian cities, as the principal material manifestation of that great age – and their post-industrial reincarnation – are among the most fascinating features of the United Kingdom.

In the earlier decades of the century Britain led the world in industrialisation and technology, dominated world trade and became the world’s wealthiest nation. It can also be claimed that Britain was a leader in the development of ideas, the extension of education, the practice of philanthropy

example of success for a new company in an old industry. The factory tour shows traditional crafts in the service of modern designs. The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery in Hanley excellently displays Staffordshire wares and other ceramics, another outstanding museum.

Day 6: Derwent Valley, Derby, Cheadle. A stretch of the River Derwent in Derbyshire is birthplace of the modern textile industry (and another unesco Heritage Site). The world’s first water-powered cotton spinning mill, built by Richard Arkwright in 1771, survives at Cromford, and his 1783 Masson Mills are equipped with 19th-cent. machinery. The Derby Museum displays many paintings by Joseph Wright, one of Britain’s finest 18th-cent. painters, who excelled at innovatory scenes of industry and scientific experiment and portraits of industrialists. The Church of St Giles at Cheadle, 1841–7, A.W. Pugin’s masterpiece, has been called ‘the outstanding English church of the 19th century’.

Day 7: Birmingham. Established in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter in 1881, J.W. Evans is an exceptional survival of a historic factory where little has changed for a century. Currently there is the threat of closure; in that event, the Museum of the Jewellery Quarter would be substituted. Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery has the largest public collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings in the world. There is a walk to see some of the great architecture from Birmingham’s heyday before finishing at New Street Station by 3.30pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,720 (deposit £150). This includes: hotel accommodation; private coach travel; breakfasts, 2 lunches, 5 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; services of the lecturer. Single supplement £120.

Hotels. Telford (3 nights): the Telford Golf and Spa Hotel (QHotels) is a modern hotel in a quiet location on the edge of town. Swimming pool, fitness centre, spa. Stoke-on-Trent (3 nights): The Best Western Moat house, though incorporating the shell of Etruria Hall, Josiah Wedgwood’s home, this is also a new hotel, adequately comfortable, lively. Of both it can be said that the rooms are comfortable, the restaurants not bad and the service willing, and that they are the best in their localities.

How strenuous? Some walking is unavoidable on this tour, which would not be suitable for anyone who has any difficulty with everyday walking and stair-climbing. Average distance by coach per day: 40 miles.



and social amelioration and the advance (if haltingly) of political reform. Meanwhile the British Empire grew and grew, almost by accident, and became the most extensive the world has ever seen, and the best administered.

London might have been the world’s biggest city and the seat of government of the Empire, but the crucible of progress did not lie beside the Thames. The great inventors were mainly from the north, railways were at first a northern phenomenon, and the north was the source of many of the great ideas of the age, free trade among them. The arts, too, particularly architecture, were less Londoncentric than they became subsequently; a very large proportion of the great buildings of Victorian England are in the northern counties. (Liverpool has more listed buildings than any city outside London.)

For variety, vigour, muscularity, ambition, technological boldness, ingenuity, symbolism and, yes, beauty, Victorian architecture has few peers in all history. Much of the interest of this tour lies in the built environment: palatial town halls, Pirenesian warehouses, fabulously embellished churches, noble Philosophical Institutes, mansions for the rich and tenements for the poor. But of no less interest are the stunningly impressive engineering accomplishments – canals, railways, bridges – whether their aesthetic power arises from raw functionalism or historicist adornment.

Victorian painting and sculpture is an important part of the tour; a good proportion of the country’s finest collections are in the North West. The best is world-class, the Pre-Raphaelites in particular, but irrespective of artistic merit the art is fascinating for what it reveals of Victorian attitudes and mores as well as for what it purports to depict.

A week’s holiday in Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool is an unusual proposition, and this itinerary is probably unique. We might not have risked it a few years ago but recent regeneration has reversed decline and dramatically assisted the transformation to the post-industrial era. As a trio of cities to visit they should be considered to rank with, say, Bologna, Parma and Verona, or Augsburg, Nuremberg and Regensburg: there is as much of artistic and architectural interest to see, and arguably the historical significance is greater.

ItineraryDay 1: Manchester. Assemble at the Midland Hotel in Manchester and leave at 2.15pm for a walk to see many of the great Victorian buildings which still predominate in the city centre. A palatial manifestation of municipal pride, Alfred Waterhouse’s Town Hall (1867–77) is one of the most splendid buildings of the era, an imaginative Gothic design with glorious

interiors and murals by Ford Madox Brown. First of two nights in Manchester. Day 2: Manchester. The industrial landscape of Castlefield encompasses the world’s first passenger railway station (1830), the nodal point of England’s most important canal network and other monuments of the industrial revolution. The City Art Gallery has a superb collection of Victorian paintings, particularly Pre-Raphaelites. An afternoon by coach includes the soaring beauty of Bodley’s St Augustine at Pendlebury. Overnight Manchester.Day 3: Manchester, Saltaire, Leeds. The John Rylands Library (Basil Champneys) is late Victorian architecture at its most refined. In 1853 Titus Salt consolidated his five cloth factories into one, added a model town and named it Saltaire. It survives intact, a monument to Victorian ameliorism and to 21st-century regeneration. Arriving in Leeds, visit the stupendous Classical town hall (Cuthbert Broderick 1853) and dine in a restaurant under the great oval roof of the Corn Exchange (also Broderick), a masterpiece of Victorian commercial architecture. First of two nights in Leeds.Day 4: Leeds, Bradford. The industrial heritage of Leeds: a vast 1840s mill, an Egyptian-style mill and factory chimneys imitating mediaeval Italian towers. The retail and commercial district is the most extensive and unspoilt area of Victoriana in Britain, with dazzlingly elaborate arcades and endlessly inventive façades. An afternoon in Bradford (20 minutes by train), source in the 1850s of two-thirds of Britain’s woollen cloth. Retaining a mediaeval street pattern on a sloping site, the centre has a magnificent set of Gothic Revival buildings. Overnight Leeds.Day 5: Leeds, Liverpool. Among the sights today are the 1830s Parish Church, a key monument in the history of the Gothic Revival, an amazing Venetian Gothic warehouse disrupting the Georgian serenity of Park Square and the Municipal Buildings complex with the Art Gallery, Library and Tiled Hall. By coach from Leeds to Liverpool. First of three nights in Liverpool.Day 6: Liverpool. The Albert Docks (1843) is one of the most impressive constructions of the century, ruggedly functional but perfectly proportioned. Time for exploration, lunch and a museum or two (Tate Liverpool is here). See other waterside buildings, including the enormous Tobacco Warehouse. To the salubrious suburb of Sefton Park and two fine late Victorian churches, St Agnes (JL Pearson 1883) and St Clare (Leonard Stokes 1899). Overnight Liverpool.

Day 7: Liverpool. St George’s Hall is but the most magnificent of a group of buildings which is unequalled as a display of potential for variety of classical architecture. Another is the Walker Art Gallery with an outstanding collection of Victorian painting. Explore the architectural riches of the central business district including the former Bank of England (Cockerell 1845) and cast iron Oriel Chambers (1864). Finally Giles Gilbert Scott’s Anglican Cathedral, begun in 1904 so not quite Victorian but the superb, sublime culmination of the Gothic Revival. Overnight Liverpool.

Day 8: Port Sunlight. Cross the River Mersey to Port Sunlight, the exceedingly pretty and superbly appointed township started in 1888 for workers at Lord Leverhulme’s adjacent soap factory. The Lady Lever Art Gallery is outstanding for English painting of the 18th and 19th centuries with masterpieces by Millais, Leighton, Burne Jones and others. Drive to Manchester, reaching Piccadilly Station by 3.30pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,880 (deposit £200). This includes: rail travel between Leeds and Bradford (return); coach transfers throughout the tour; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and six dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions and donations for churches, museums and galleries; all tips for drivers and restaurant staff; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £280.

Hotels. All are excellently located within walking distance of much that is seen on the tour and among the more comfortable hotels in each city. Manchester (2 nights): The Midland, a large elaborately adorned Victorian hotel, recent refurbishment blending something of its original character with modern comforts. Leeds (2 nights): Queen’s Hotel is a very comfortable 1930s establishment which has retained Art Deco interiors. Liverpool (3 nights): in a salubrious area between the cathedrals, the Hope Street Hotel brings good modern design and comforts into a 19th-century factory and adjacent 1960s police station.

How strenuous? This tour would not be suitable for anyone who has difficulty with everyday walking and who cannot stand for long periods of time. Average distance by coach per day: 25 miles.


Architecture, Industry & Art in Lancashire & Yorkshire



Arts & Crafts in the Cotswolds

Kelm

scott Manor, after a draw

ing by Charles H

arper, 1910.

22–25 September 2014 (mb 130)4 days • £1,030Lecturer: Janet Sinclair

Visits to see some of the finest output of the Arts and Crafts movement.

Includes Kelmscott Manor, Rodmarton Manor and Madresfield Court and workshops where the work was created.

Some of the loveliest countryside in the world with honey-coloured stone that marks the buildings from Oxford to the Severn Valley.

Following the ideals of Pugin, amplified by Ruskin and documented by Carlyle, the call for a return to a golden age of craftsmanship with respect for the individual became a moral as well as an aesthetic crusade in mid-century Britain. A number of idealistic artists, architects and thinkers found inspiration that was essentially mediaeval but went beyond the imitative aspect of the Gothic Revival.

William Morris and his collaborators and followers, now collectively known as the Arts and Crafts movement, reacted against the worst by-products of industrialisation, poverty and social injustice, and believed in a link between these ills and mass-manufactured, poorly designed goods and shoddy housing.

Ironically perhaps, the railways, the most omnipresent sign of industrialisation, opened up unspoilt Cotswolds villages as an escape from sordid city life and provided easy access to its commercial markets. The villages of Daneway and Sapperton were colonised by craft workers who shared their wealthy patrons’ respect for past styles and high standards of craftsmanship.

Inspired by Morris, their attitude towards historic buildings was based on conservation rather than ‘improvement’. Thus the past and

the modern imperceptibly fuse at magical Owlpen Manor, while Rodmarton, begun as late as 1909, seems as if it has always been there.

Ernest Gimson and the Barnsleys, who built and furnished Rodmarton, were not alone: in 1902 C.R. Ashbee had moved the entire Guild of Handicraft, workers and their families, from East London to rural Chipping Campden. Later exponents, like C.F. Voysey, turned towards a newer, more ascetic style, yet worked alongside their mediaevally-inspired colleagues. Nowhere is this better illustrated than at Madresfield where Ashbee and Voysey worked in the early twentieth century with Payne’s Birmingham Group who created the extraordinary chapel later immortalised in Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited.

ItineraryDay 1: Cheltenham, Bibury. The coach leaves Cheltenham Spa railway station at 2.30pm. The Museum and Art Gallery in Cheltenham, self-styled ‘capital’ of the Cotswolds, contains a nationally important Arts and Crafts collection, and contemporary work by their artistic descendants. Morris believed Bibury, with its row of riverside weaver’s cottages, was the most beautiful village in England. It epitomises the Cotswolds vernacular that is so potent an ingredient of the Arts and Crafts aesthetic. All three nights are spent at Bibury.Day 2: Rodmarton, Sapperton, Owlpen. The first commission for Morris and Co was from architect G.F. Bodley for stained glass for All Saints Church on the Cotswold hills, which therefore contains work by Burne-Jones, Rossetti, Madox Brown, Philip Webb and Morris himself. Owlpen Manor, untouched since the 17th century, was sympathetically restored for the Mander family by craftsmen

with sensitive respect for the past vernacular. In contrast, Rodmarton is one of the last country houses to be built and furnished in a traditional style, by hand with local stone, local timber and local craftsmen. Nearby Sapperton became home to several members of the Cotswolds group including Gimson and the Barnsleys.

Day 3: Chipping Campden, Madresfield. In 1902 C.R. Ashbee and his Guild of Handicraft arrived in the hitherto quiet village of Chipping Campden. Here they set up workshops, some of which survive to this day, and their lives and skills are celebrated in a small museum. The Guild’s most important commission was the library for Lord Beauchamp at Madresfield Court, an ancient moated manor house sympathetically extended in the 19th century. At the same time the Birmingham Group led by Henry Payne decorated and furnished Madresfield’s celebrated chapel that so enchanted Evelyn Waugh, a family friend.

Day 4: Kelmscott, Cheltenham. Kelmscott is the most evocative and best known of the houses associated with William Morris. It looked to him as if it had ‘grown up out of the soil’, and became his spiritual as well as family home. It now holds an outstanding collection of his possessions and works: furniture, original textiles, pictures, books, carpets, ceramics and metalwork. The coach takes you to Cheltenham Spa railway station by 4.30pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,030 (deposit £100). This includes: hotel accommodation as described below; private coach throughout; breakfasts, two lunches and two dinners with wine, water, coffee; admission to houses; all tips for waiters, drivers, guides; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £120.

Hotel: A former 17th-century coaching inn, The Swan at Bibury is in the heart of Bibury village. Public rooms are cosy, comfortable and traditional. Bedrooms have a classic country décor. There is a bar, restaurant and garden.

How strenuous? Quite a lot of walking. This tour would not suitable for anyone who has difficulty with everyday walking and stair-climbing. Coaches can rarely park near the houses, and gardens are extensive. Average distance by coach per day: c. 64 miles.


Possible linking tours. Oxford & Oxfordshire, 15–20 September (page 53); The Cathedrals of England, 1–9 October (page 44); Classical Greece, 27 September–6 October (page 103); Gastronomic Sicily, 29 September–5 October (page 159).


Mediaeval Middle EnglandLeicestershire, Northamptonshire, Rutland, Nottinghamshire

Illustration: the Tower of Earl’s Barton Church, from Old England Vol.I, c. 1840.

23–27 June 2014 (ma 950)5 days • £1,260Lecturer: John McNeill

Well-balanced survey of the outstanding mediaeval monuments of Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Northamptonshire and the Soke of Peterborough.

Beautiful drives through understated verdant landscapes.

Led by a mediaeval architectural historian.

Stay in one hotel throughout.

The East Midlands boasts some of the finest mediaeval ecclesiastical architecture in England. The region largely corresponds to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, which converted to Christianity during the seventh century and had already established a widespread network of churches and monasteries by the eighth century.

Though the rich, agricultural territory remained disputed between the Saxons and the Danes until the Normans finally brought stability, those looking to explore its pre- and post-Conquest heritage will be delighted to find outstanding examples of Saxon, Norman and Gothic architecture.

Two of the most impressive buildings the tour visits are Peterborough Cathedral and Southwell Minster. Peterborough, one of the five great mediaeval abbey churches, is the least altered of England’s Norman cathedrals, with a nave that retains the original 13th-century painted wooden roof – one of only four in Europe. Southwell Minster, with its distinctive pepper-pot spires, is another exceptional example of the Norman and Early English styles.

The area is notable, too, for its fine mediaeval parish churches and amongst the highlights of the visit are: All Saints’ Brixworth, England’s largest and best preserved Saxon church; the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Northampton, built shortly after the First Crusade and inspired by the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem; and the 14th-century St Mary Magdalen, Newark upon Trent, with its remarkable panel painting from the Dance of the Death.

ItineraryDay 1: Peterborough, Barnack. The coach leaves Peterborough Railway Station at 2.00pm for the short drive to Peterborough Cathedral, proud possessor of the most ambitious mediaeval painted ceiling to survive in England, as well as a majestic Romanesque nave, fan-vaulted east end and astonishingly

inventive west front. A brief visit to the important early Gothic parish church of Barnack. First of four nights in Rutland.

Day 2: Southwell, Hawton, Newark, Holme. A day devoted to Nottinghamshire, beginning with Southwell Minster, the pre-eminent mediaeval church of the county and a building justly celebrated for the exquisite naturalistic foliage of its chapter-house. Thence to the breathtaking early-14th-century chancel at Hawton. Visit Newark-on-Trent, whose mid-12th-century castle and new river crossing sowed the seeds of prosperity for the town, which led to the rebuilding of St Mary Magdalen as one of the finest of all English late mediaeval parish churches. Cross the Trent to the tiny jewel-like church in Holme.

Day 4: Melton Mowbray, Gaddesby, Oakham, Castor, Fotheringhay. A day of local horizons, starting with the majestic late mediaeval town church at Melton Mowbray, and maturing via Decorated Gaddesby, late-12th-century Oakham Castle, Romanesque Castor and the sometime Yorkist mausoleum at Fotheringhay.

Day 5: Tickencote, Stamford. Drive along the northern shore of Rutland water to the enchanting Romanesque parish church at Tickencote. In Stamford visit the important late mediaeval chantry foundation known as Browne’s Hospital and the superb late mediaeval stained glass at St Martin. Return to Peterborough Railway Station by 2.30pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,260 (deposit £150). This includes: travel by private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and all dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions and donations; tips for restaurant staff and drivers; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £110.

Hotel: Barnsdale Lodge Hotel is housed in an extended old farmhouse close to Rutland Water. Public rooms and bedrooms are arranged around a courtyard and have a traditional, country décor. Bedrooms vary in size and outlook. There is a restaurant and lounge; service is friendly. There is no lift.

How strenuous? This tour involves quite a lot of getting on and off coaches and standing around and should not be attempted by anyone who has difficulty with everyday walking and stair-climbing. Average distance by coach per day: 61 miles.


Day 3: Brixworth, Northampton, Earls Barton, Higham Ferrers, Geddington. A perfect opportunity to slip south into Northamptonshire. First to the great Anglo-Saxon minster church at Brixworth, and on to a wonderful pair of Romanesque churches: lavishly sculpted St Peter and the centrally-planned Holy Sepulchre, in Northampton. Drive to Earl’s Barton, the town beautifully punctuated by its late Anglo-Saxon tower, before continuing to Edmund Crouchback’s stunning church at Higham Ferrers and the most delicate of the surviving Eleanor Crosses at Geddington.

More tours with John McNeillDark Age Brilliance..................................127

Sicily .................................................................. 154

Normans in the South ..........................151

Pilgrimage & Heresy ................................. 74

Mediaeval Burgundy .................................75

London Day: Mediaeval Art in London ........................................................60


The Cathedrals of EnglandTen of the greatest buildings in the country

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 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.

ItineraryDay 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 choir a ravishing setting for the lost shrine to St Etheldreda. Overnight Lincoln. 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

19–27 March 2014 (ma 835)9 days • £2,520Lecturer: Tim Tatton-Brown

1–9 October 2014 (mb 147)9 days • £2,520Lecturer: 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

Gloucester Cathedral, etching by E.L. Hampshire (1882–1944).


The ‘C

horisters’ Window

’ in Ely C

athedral, wood engraving c. 1900.

of artistic fashion and technological capability. The steep streets of the ancient town are a delight. First of three nights in York.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 1903 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. 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. 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) and a moving symbol of rebirth and reconciliation. 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 are 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. The nave of Bristol Cathedral is by the greatest of Victorian ‘Goths’, G.E. Street, and the eastern parts are 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 to the

cathedral’s exceptional allure. The strainer arches supporting the sagging tower are among the great creations of the Middle Ages.

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 central London by 4.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,520 (deposit £250). This includes: hotel accommodation as described below; private coach throughout; rail travel between York and Durham (return); breakfasts, 1 lunch and 6 dinners with wine, water and coffee; admission and donations to all cathedrals visited; all tips for waiters, drivers, guides; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £230.

Hotels. Lincoln (1 night): a historic building close to the cathedral, the Castle Hotel has recently been thoroughly refurbished. Rooms are not large but are comfortable and well-designed, and the restaurant is excellent. York (3 nights): The Grange is also in a historic building with a new wing, bedrooms are individually and charmingly designed, the public spaces are lovely and the service and restaurant are good. Stratford-on-Avon (1 night): The Stratford (Q Hotels) is a modern hotel, located on the edge of the historic centre of the town, contemporary style with neutral colour schemes, comfortable. Wells (2 nights): The Swan, in a building of 15th-cent. origin in a narrow street close to the cathedral. While retaining its historic atmosphere it has been well refurbished. Winchester (1 night): excellently located overlooking the cathedral, The Wessex (Mercure) is a 1960s building with both traditional and modern elements in the décor. Rooms at all the hotels, being city-centre historic properties, vary in size and outlook.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking on the tour. You ought to be able to walk at about three miles an hour for up to half an hour. There are also a lot of steps and uneven surfaces. Roof and tower visits are optional of course, but at Salisbury there are 332 stairs to climb. Two of the hotels do not have lifts. There are three days without any coach travel, but there is an average on the remaining five days of 73 miles.


Possible linking tours. Combine the March tour with Granada & Cordoba, 10–16 March (page 199); Art History of Venice, 10–16 March (page 122); The London Haydn Quartet, 28–30 March (page 50); Essential Jordan, 29 March–6 April (page 162). Combine the October tour with Cave Art in Spain, 23–29 September (page 189); Arts & Crafts in the Cotswolds, 22–25 September (page 42).

‘Excellent cultural content, outstanding competence, extremely high comfort level (accommodation, transportation, food) - made this trip a fantastic experience for me. Thank you.’


The South DownsGreat houses & gardens

Arundel Castle, engraving c. 1880.

25–30 April 2014 (ma 872)6 days • £1,880Lecturer: Janet Sinclair

The stunningly beautiful landscape of the West Sussex Downs.

Great country houses and parks, charming country towns, inspiring upland and lowland landscapes.

Special arrangements and private openings. One hotel throughout.

The chalk ridge of the South Downs runs 80 miles from Hampshire to meet the sea at Eastbourne. With spectacular viewpoints, unique natural history and ease of access, it also contains a glittering string of great stately homes, housing personal collections that reflect changing national fortunes as well as personal tastes and triumphs.

For successive generations of settlers and great builders, the strategic importance of the South Downs overlooking the Channel was gradually replaced by the attraction of their spectacular beauty. Be inspired by histories of fortifications and pleasure palaces: repositories of treasured collections as symbols of power, and places of leisure and entertainment.

Exploitation of natural resources, from flint-mining, charcoal burning and iron-smelting to sheep-farming and forestry, shaped the Downland landscape. The great family estates helped to create and conserve this area of outstanding natural beauty, now protected and sustainably managed as Britain’s newest National Park.

Changing attitudes to conservation are illustrated by the contrasting fortunes of Midhurst’s Cowdray Ruins, magnificently restored Uppark, and rebuilt Stansted House – each destroyed a century apart by disastrous fires and reborn in a new context.

Two thousand years of history, taste and politics survive, including the most important collections of fine art in the care of the National Trust at Petworth and Uppark. Exquisite mediaeval sculpture at Boxgrove and Chichester, the unique Stansted Chapel and High Victorian Gothic at Arundel are highlights of religious patronage. Splendid historic houses that are still private homes reflect the tastes and fortunes of royal Dukes, Earls and Lords of church and country.

The story of the English country house would not be complete without an exploration of life ‘downstairs’. At both Petworth and Stansted these stories are vividly brought to life.

Contemporary patronage can be enjoyed in Chichester Cathedral and in England’s oldest

continuously occupied castle at Arundel, where the seventeenth-century Collector Earl was recently commemorated in a wonderful modern garden commission by the Duke of Norfolk. Modern art sits in a striking contemporary setting alongside one of the finest eighteenth-century houses in Chichester at Pallant House.

ItineraryDay 1: Chichester, Stansted Park, Goodwood. The coach leaves Chichester railway station at 2.00pm. Stansted Park provides a fascinating insight into the social history of an English country house in its Edwardian heyday.

Day 2: Arundel, Denmans Garden. Home to the Duke of Norfolk, England’s premier duke, Arundel Castle has Norman origins, later mediaeval parts and 18th- and 19th-century embellishments. The totality is splendid, the art collection outstanding. The picturesque and unspoilt little town of Arundel is capped by a soaring 1870s Catholic cathedral in Gothic style. Denmans Garden is a beautiful, four-acre 20th-century creation.

Day 3: Goodwood, West Dean, Boxgrove. Goodwood House, seat of the Duke of Richmond, is a magnificent late Georgian country house with excellent furniture and paintings by Stubbs, Canaletto and van Dyck. The Edward James Foundation at West Dean has extensive, beautifully-kept gardens. At mediaeval Boxgrove Priory, the remains include a vaulted Gothic choir of cathedral-like proportions.

Day 4: Singleton, Parham House. The Weald and Downland Museum at Singleton is an assembly of rescued and re-erected vernacular buildings from the 14th to the 19th centuries, including two hall-houses. Outlying farms present rare breeds, historic farming methods and craft demonstrations. One of the loveliest of Elizabethan buildings, Parham House has an extensive collection of 16th- and 17th-century portraits and tapestries, and a clutch of award-winning gardens.

Day 5: Chichester, Uppark House. Chichester Cathedral houses an extraordinary range of modern religious commissions, as well as nationally important Tudor panel paintings. Pallant House is a unique combination of a Queen Anne townhouse with a recent award-winning extension, which holds one of the best collections of 20th-century British art in the country. Lunch is here at the excellent restaurant. Uppark enjoys extraordinary views over rolling downland and to the Solent and the Isle of Wight. A perfect late-17th-century mansion with a splendid Grand Tour collection, it is also a masterpiece of restoration after a fire in 1989.

Day 6: Pulborough, Petworth, Chichester. Bignor Roman Villa in Pulborough has fine mosaic floors in a beautiful downland setting. Set in one of ‘Capability’ Brown’s most poetic landscapes, immortalised by Turner, Petworth is an impressive ducal palace of the seventeenth century. It contains major works by Turner, van Dyck and Blake. The coach returns you to Chichester railway station by 3.30pm.


Great Houses of the EastEssex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Rutland

Revolution of the eighteenth century which further enhanced what Nature provided. The financial benefits of Britain’s primacy in trade and industry seeped into stately piles. Relative peace and absence of foreign occupation, preference for primogeniture, a reluctance to revolt, a fruitful balance between the power of the monarch and the rights of the nobles: all these have been factors in the creation and maintenance of country house culture. Many of the houses on this tour have been in the same family for several generations.

The broad spread of this tour, East Anglia and the East Midlands, allows for the inclusion of some of the very finest country houses in England. If all you ever see of eighteenth-century England are Houghton and Holkham, they will suffice to shine in the memory for ever as the epitome of restrained grandeur and elegant opulence. Burghley is the most elaborate and monumental of Elizabeth great houses, Blickling the most beautiful of Jacobean, Belton the most perfectly proportioned of Restoration ones.

There are also several brilliant if less mainstream masterpieces. Layer Marney Tower is little more than a Tudor gateway, but what a gateway, the highest such in Britain. Felbrigg is

Houghton, the entrance hall, from The Art Journal, 1887.

4–12 June 2014 (ma 923)9 days • £2,880Lecturer: Dr Andrew Moore

The best country houses in East Anglia and the East Midlands, outstanding examples from the end of the Middle Ages to the Victorian era.

The Tudor and Stuart age is particularly well represented, as is the Palladian style.

Great architecture, major works of art, spectacular gardens, landscaped parks, life both sides of the green baize door.

Exceptionally attractive towns and villages and magnificent lowland landscape.

Special arrangements and out-of-hours visits.

Why is Britain the locus classicus of the country house? Wealth is a precondition of their erection in the first place, and by and large there was a sufficiency. Geography has been kind in allowing agricultural prosperity, and we pass through places key to the Agricultural

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,880 (deposit £150). This includes: hotel accommodation as described below; private coach throughout; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters, drivers, guides; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £270.

Hotel: Located on the Goodwood Estate, the Goodwood Hotel is owned by the estate. Housed in the old seven-acre walled garden and family inn, it maintains many original features. Stylishly decorated, it has good amenities including spa facilities and an award-winning restaurant serving estate reared produce. Bedrooms are comfortable and well appointed.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking on this tour and it would not be suitable for anyone with difficulties with everyday walking and stair-climbing. Coaches can rarely park near the houses, and gardens are extensive. Average distance by coach per day: c. 25 miles.


Houses, Palaces & GardensGreat Houses of the East .....................47

Royal Residences ........................................49

Bertie: Prince & King ................................ 51

Oxford & Oxfordshire ...........................53

Gardens of the Riviera............................80

King Ludwig II & the Wittelsbach Palaces of Bavaria .......................................98

Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes ................................... 115

Palladian Villas ............................................. 119

Venetian Palaces ........................................120

Gardens & Villas of Campagna Romana .................................143

Gardens of Northern Portugal .......176



not much more than a large-scale manor house, albeit an exceptionally handsome one, but it is one element in an enchanting ensemble which includes walled gardens, Italian paintings and a remote location. The Queen’s private estate at Sandringham will impress with its quietly regal interiors despite pretensions to be unexceptional, Deene Park will captivate with the depth of its history and the authenticity of its atmosphere.

A feature of the tour is the opportunity to spend a little time in some of the loveliest towns and villages in England – Lavenham, Norwich, Stamford. And then there is the ravishing countryside, East Anglia with its broad undulations, big skies, fens and bosky vistas, and the rolling farmland and magnificent trees of the ‘Dukeries’.

ItineraryDay 1: Layer Marney (Essex). The coach leaves London at 1.30pm. Layer Marney Tower is an apposite first visit: the seven-storey gatehouse is a final flamboyant fling of the Middle Ages, while its Renaissance ornament is harbinger of the classicism which dominated English architecture for the next 400 years. First of three nights in Bury St Edmunds (Suffolk).

Day 2: Audley End, Lavenham (Essex, Suffolk). Audley End was the most ambitious house to be built in the reign of James I but

was later reduced, altered and re-Jacobeanised, revealing both changes in taste and in styles of country house living. Delicious Robert Adam rooms and park landscaped by ‘Capability’ Brown. In the later afternoon explore the abundance of mediaeval and Elizabethan houses in Lavenham and its superb parish church.

Day 3: Ickworth, Melford (Suffolk). Ickworth is almost as eccentric as its builder, the 4th Earl of Bristol (a bishop), a glorious Neo-Classical rotunda attached to curving wings intended to accommodate art and antiquities acquired on his incessant travels. Visit Melford Hall, a house largely built in the 16th century, with beautiful Edwardian gardens and fountain.

Day 4: Norwich, Blickling (Norfolk). Stop for a while at Norwich, an exceedingly attractive county town with castle and cathedral. Jacobean Blickling Hall is one of the loveliest of English country houses, red brick with stone dressings and mediaeval sprawl constrained by Renaissance symmetry. Among its treasures are a long gallery, library and a variety of art and furnishings, and the gardens are spectacular. First of two nights in Norfolk.

Day 5: Felbrigg, Holkham (Norfolk). Felbrigg Hall is a lovely 17th-century house whose chief glory is the suite of rooms arranged in the 18th century to display paintings collected on the Grand Tour. With Holkham Hall (1730s) the English country house reached a moment of perfection, the serene Palladian edifice contrasting with the ‘natural’ layout of the deer park. Within are magnificent classical halls and a collection of paintings, sculpture and furniture of staggering richness.

Day 6: Houghton (subject to confirmation), Sandringham (Norfolk). The grandest monument of English Palladianism, Houghton Hall was built for Sir Robert Walpole. There are outstanding artworks, a spectacular walled garden and an extensive park. Sandringham was built for Edward VII when Prince of Wales and now belongs to the Queen. An attractive Jacobean-style mansion set in a landscaped garden, the principal rooms have the glittering opulence of a royal residence despite their intended informality. First of three nights in Rutland.

Day 7: Deene Park, Burghley (Northants, Lincs). Though also largely 16th-century, Deene Park feels very different and is still very much the home of the Brudenells. Full of good things, there is also an enchanting riverside garden. The grandest of Elizabethan houses, Burghley was built by the Queen’s chief minister and magnificently remodelled internally a hundred years later. The paintings

and furniture are superb. Time is spent in Stamford, one of England’s best preserved historic towns.

Day 8: Belton, Belvoir (Lincs, Rutland). A building of supreme and serene beauty, Belton is the classic Restoration house. Fine contents and formal gardens. Belvoir Castle, home of the Duke of Rutland and his young family: hilltop Regency Gothic with breath-taking views and magnificent ceremonial interiors.

Day 9: Rushton, Boughton (Northants). Rushton Triangular Lodge, an Elizabethan miniature, is laden with symbolism. Palatial in scale and sumptuously fitted out, Boughton House echoes Versailles (its builder was ambassador to the court of Louis XIV). It has scarcely changed since the end of the seventeenth century, and sits amid a great estate. Return to London at c. 4.30pm.

Practicalities

Price: £2,880 (deposit £250). This includes: hotel accommodation as described below; private coach throughout; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 7 dinners with wine, water and coffee; admission to houses, gardens and sites; all tips for waiters, drivers and guides; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £360.

Hotels: in Bury St Edmunds (3 nights): The Angel Hotel is a 3-star hotel in an historic coaching inn in the centre of town; rooms are warmly furnished and all have ensuite bathrooms; there is a good restaurant; limited parking space is available (please request when booking). In Congham (2 nights): Congham Hall was refurbished in 2010; rooms are airy and well appointed with a traditional country house décor; public rooms are pleasant and informal; attractive gardens. In Stapleford (3 nights): set in extensive grounds and farmland, Stapleford Park was converted from a private country house just 25 years ago; several very attractive public rooms, a large garden, spa and indoor swimming pool; rooms have a contemporary décor.

How strenuous? Unavoidably, there is quite a lot of walking on this tour and it would not be suitable for anyone who has difficulties with everyday walking and stair-climbing. Coaches can rarely park near the houses, many of the parks and gardens are extensive, the houses visited don’t have lifts (nor do all the hotels). Average distance by coach per day: c. 87 miles.

Memberships. National Trust: members (with cards) will be refunded c. £35. Current annual membership is £55.50 or £92 for a couple.


Great Houses of the Eastcontinued

Audley E

nd, the winding staircase, from

Historic H

ouses of the United K

ingdom, 1892.


Royal ResidencesPalaces & houses in & around London, with private visits

So within the remit of this tour are some charming, fascinating but really rather modest mansions – the Dutch House at Kew, Frogmore House in Windsor Great Park and Clarence House in St James’s. Modesty, however, is relative, and these rank among the finest historic houses of England.

Architecture and decoration are not the sole subjects of the tour. The Royal Collection is one of the greatest in the world; the Queen’s palaces are replete with paintings, sculptures, furniture, porcelain and textiles of international importance. The unoccupied palaces are also amply furnished and adorned. Art, architecture, history, personalities: the theme of royal residences is one which is as rich and stimulating as any that London and her environs has to offer.

ItineraryNote that appointments for private tours cannot be confirmed until January 2014. Day 1: Tower of London, Whitehall, Windsor. Start in Westminster at 9.45am. Begun by William the Conqueror and regularly enlarged and strengthened, the Tower of London remained the principal fortified royal residence throughout the Middle Ages. Whitehall was one of the largest palaces in Europe but was burnt in 1698; only the epoch-making Banqueting House by Inigo Jones and Peter Paul Rubens survives. Drive to Egham and settle into Great Fosters Hotel. There is a private evening tour of the state apartments of Windsor Castle, which was also founded by William I – the Norman motte and bailey design is still clear. It has been occupied by

nearly every monarch since (for the present Queen it is a weekend retreat). Embellishment over the centuries has resulted in one of the most impressive and diverse palaces in the world. First of two nights in Egham.

Day 2: Hampton Court, Frogmore. 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. There follows a private visit to rarely-open Frogmore House. A farmhouse bought and enlarged by George III, it was used by successive sovereigns as a country residence, and is still used for entertaining.

Day 3: Windsor, Kew, Clarence House. Return to Windsor Castle to see more of this vast complex, including St George’s Chapel, one of England’s finest Gothic buildings, and the Albert Memorial Chapel. In the botanical gardens at Kew is an early 17th-century mansion that became a favourite residence of George III and his family. Continue to the centre of London and check in to the Royal Horseguards Hotel near Whitehall. In the late afternoon there is a private visit to Clarence House, a Nash mansion which was home to William IV while king, Princess Elizabeth from 1947, the Queen Mother from 1952 and the Prince of Wales from 2002. Overnight London.

Day 4: Greenwich, Buckingham Palace. By fast river bus down the Thames to Greenwich.

19–23 August 2014 (ma 996)5 days • £2,190Lecturer: Giles Waterfield

Visits ten palaces and homes, half of which are still in use by the Royal Family.

Up to four very special out-of-hours private tours, including Windsor Castle.

Led by Giles Waterfield, distinguished art historian, curator and director of the annual Royal Collections course.

As rich a theme as any that London and its environs has to offer, with outstanding art and architecture, with past and present brought alive.

Good hotels near Windsor and in Whitehall.

This tour studies some of the most splendid secular buildings in Britain: Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and Hampton Court are of a size and magnificence which are unrivalled. Other buildings visited are glorious fragments – the Banqueting House and the Queen’s House, surviving parts of the long-demolished palaces of Whitehall and Greenwich, and the Great Hall of Westminster Palace, rebuilt as the Houses of Parliament.

The dominant role of royalty in building activity in England ended abruptly with the death of Henry VIII and did not revive until the late eighteenth century under George III and George IV. Subsequently, royal patronage was constrained by the parsimony of Parliament and a prevailing dislike of Continental-style absolutism – and, long before constitutional monarchy emerged as the established political order after 1688, shortage of cash. There is no Versailles in England, no Caserta, no Winter Palace.

Nevertheless, decorum continued to demand that the official residences of the monarch be appointed with a decorative richness which set them apart from even the grandest apartments of the nobility. The fabulous gilded interiors of Buckingham Palace need to be seen in this context, and the seemingly bombastic sequence of halls and chambers at Windsor and Hampton Court need to be read as symbolic of the might of the nation as well as of the aspirations of the sovereign.

The taste and predilections of the inhabitants of these royal residences also contribute to their appearance, of course. Some members of the Royal Family have been passionate about art and architecture and aspired to be enthroned amidst the latest style and in maximum magnificence, but many have been content with – or even yearned for – something more modest.

Windsor Castle, the south-east corridor, engraving 1900 from The Life & Times of Queen Victoria.


Royal Residencescontinued

Of the great palace, a Tudor favourite, only the Queen’s House remains, designed by Inigo Jones in 1616 and the first truly Classical building in Britain. The rest was replaced by the Royal Naval Hospital built by Wren, Hawksmoor and Vanbrugh, the finest ensemble of Baroque architecture in Britain. In the afternoon visit the state rooms of Buckingham Palace. A mansion of 1703 remains at its core, but periodic refurbishment and enlargement, most significantly by John Nash for George IV in the 1820s, led to today’s truly palatial experience. Overnight London.

Day 5: Westminster. Edward the Confessor began building an abbey and adjacent palace at Westminster in 1050. The Great Hall, the largest in Europe when built by William II fifty years later, and spectacularly re-roofed c. 1400, is the main mediaeval survivor; fires in 1512 and 1834 erased the rest. The present Houses of Parliament, designed by Barry and Pugin and the most richly ornamented of Victorian buildings, rose in its place and still ranks as a royal palace. The tour ends at lunchtime.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,190 (deposit £200). This includes: accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; transport by private coach, and journeys by Thames waterbus; admission to houses, palaces and sites visited with the group; tips for waiters, drivers and guides; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £330 (double room for single occupancy).Hotels. Egham (2 nights): located between Windsor and Hampton Court, Great Fosters is a Grade One listed building largely of the 16th and 17th centuries, sympathetically restored in the 1920s and surrounded by 50 acres of gardens and park. Now a luxury hotel, bedrooms vary in size and décor, but many are furnished with antiques and all are well equipped with modern conveniences. London (2 nights): just off Whitehall, the Royal Horseguards Hotel is within walking distance of, or a short taxi ride to, most of the London palaces. The style is that of an international hotel and bedrooms are very comfortable with all mod cons. All have a bath and shower. How strenuous? Participants need to be good walkers and have stamina. On occasion there is a walk of 20 minutes or more between the coach (or water bus) and the palace. Some of the visits are of two hours or more without a break. Average coach travel per day: 20 miles. Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.Possible linking tours. Combine with Bertie, Prince & King, 11–15 August (page 51).

Chamber Music Weekends

The Castle Hotel, Taunton

The Dominant Quartet24–26 January 2014 (ma 803)Price: £590 (garden room £670)Speaker: Professor Geoffrey Norris

The Chilingirian Quartet21–23 February 2014 (ma 819)Price: £690 (garden room £820)The Castle Hotel, Taunton

The London Haydn Quartet28–30 March 2014 (ma 844)Price: £690 (garden room £820)The Castle Hotel, Taunton

The Vienna Piano Trio25–27 April 2014 (ma 871)Price: £690 (garden room £820)Speaker: Richard Wigmore

Contact us for the full details or visit www.martinrandall.com

Register your interest now in our 2014–2015 season of music weekends

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, who are all among the very best in their fields.

Second, the music is performed in an intimate setting, a small hall little bigger than a large drawing room. The audience is rarely more than a hundred and usually fewer, and consists mainly of those who stay throughout the weekend and attend all four concerts.

Third, the weekends take place at an

Copper engraving 1737 by G. Bickham.

outstanding hotel. The Castle Hotel in Taunton is among the finest hotels in England. We often have exclusive use of the hotel during these music weekends, and there is opportunity for artists and audience to mingle throughout.

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 lectures, and musicians often talk during their concerts.

The Dominant Quartet returns to Taunton to perform a programme of music by its native Russian composers.

The incomparable Chilingirian Quartet will present four concerts of quartets by Beethoven and Schubert – we expect theirs to be a particularly popular weekend.

In March, the London Haydn Quartet will perform quartets by Beethoven and Haydn. The group are leading Haydn specialists (as you might expect, from their name) and play with classical bows and gut strings.

The April 2014 weekend will be the Vienna Piano Trio’s eighth at The Castle Hotel in Taunton, and their recently-appointed violinist (Bogdan Božović)’s first.

The price for the weekend packages covers almost everything, from the concerts or talks themselves to interval drinks, via luxurious accommodation, extravagant afternoon teas and memorable dinners. Even gratuities for hotel staff are included.


Bertie, Prince & KingEdward VII, country house politics & pleasures

11–15 August 2014 (ma 989)5 days • £1,780Lecturer: Professor Jane Ridley

Study the life and times of Edward VII through visits to places where he lived, worked and played.

A parallel theme is the importance of the country house as a setting for political activity in Imperial England.

Hotels include the 5-star Cliveden House, linked to the Profumo affair.

Led by Jane Ridley, acclaimed biographer of Edward VII.

Edward VII (reigned 1901–10) was a degenerate, a dunderhead, a sad sequel to a monarch of exemplary majesty and impeccable morals. This view was orthodoxy for much of the twentieth century and is common now, but was not held by informed people at the time and has been overturned by recent historians, especially Jane Ridley, author of Bertie: a Life of Edward VII (2012).

‘Bertie’ fulfilled the role for which he was destined conscientiously and wisely, and arguably saved the monarchy, popular support for which had slumped as a consequence of Victoria’s indulgent reclusivity. He set the pattern which continues to this day, judiciously mixing display and accessibility with good works while retaining enough majesty to maintain the requisite mystique.

That is not to deny that Edward did not pursue a panoply of pleasures, especially as Prince of Wales, many of which were sated at the great country houses of the time. But weekends away were not all frivolity, for politics were pursued with equal ardour here. For much of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, parties and political debate were inextricably interwoven, in the country as much as in town. Victoria’s Prime Ministers were required to entertain on the grandest scale, particularly in the country. This tour explores not only a royal life but also follows in the intriguing footsteps of some of the most eminent Victorians and Edwardians.

As Prince of Wales, Edward gathered round him a wealthy, witty and sporting crowd. ‘The Marlborough House Set’, as they became known, pursued a relentless social whirl that revolved around the young royals’ two homes: Marlborough House in London (to which a visit may be possible) and Sandringham in Norfolk. Entertaining royalty was something only to be contemplated by those with the deepest of pockets and the era’s most notable hosts were often from families not traditionally admitted to royal circles, families like the Rothschilds.

For the final two nights, stay in suitable style, at Cliveden House in Berkshire, which itself has witnessed 300 years of power and politics.

ItineraryNote that appointments for some visits cannot be confirmed until January 2014.

Day 1: London, Cambridge. Start by leaving luggage on the coach in Westminster by 10.30am. A walk examines some Edwardian buildings and town planning on an imperial scale. It is hoped that a visit to Marlborough House will be possible; it was designed by Wren for Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and

enlarged for Edward in 1863. Here he lived until his accession in 1901. First of two nights in Cambridge.

Day 2: Sandringham, Easton Lodge. Sandringham, Bertie’s Jacobean country residence, was much enlarged and reinvented as the ideal seasonal retreat for shooting parties and hunting. The pleasure-loving prince was as notorious for his liaisons as his raffish pastimes and Easton Lodge in Essex was the home of the socialite Daisy Greville, Duchess of Warwick, his mistress for nine years. Here, in the 1880s and 1890s, the vivacious beauty entertained the prince and his fashionable entourage. Overnight Cambridge.

Hatfield House, wood engraving from Historic Houses of the United Kingdom, 1892.


Buckingham Palace, after a drawing by Joseph Pennell from A London Reverie, 1928.

Day 3: Hatfield, Luton Hoo, Ascott. Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, three times Victoria’s Prime Minister, inherited Hatfield House with the title of third Marquess of Salisbury, but the Hertfordshire seat of the Cecils had been the setting for high-power politics from the time of James I. Its Jacobean galleries and formal gardens would always have been the pleasantest of locations for out-of-town politicking. The house beyond all others which may be said to typify these banquet years is Sir Julius’s Wernher’s Luton Hoo, where the architects of the Ritz were imported to bring a touch of Belle Epoque urban chic to rural existence (now a five-star hotel). Ascott House has been home to a succession of Rothschilds since 1873. First of two nights at Cliveden.

Day 4: Hughenden, Waddesdon. A romantic baronial fantasy, Hughenden Manor in High Wycombe was Benjamin Disraeli’s home 1848–1881. The immaculately preserved interiors evoke the life and work of its extraordinary owner, and the grounds include Disraeli’s German forest. Waddesdon Manor, built for Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, was the era’s

most extravagant addition to country-house living. A French château on a Buckinghamshire hillside, it is surrounded by landscaped gardens and filled with an unrivalled collection of the finest French furniture and art.

Day 5. Cliveden, Buckingham Palace. 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 parties and political gatherings. Drive late morning to Buckingham Palace. A mansion of 1703 remains at its core, but periodic refurbishment and enlargement, most significantly by John Nash for George IV with updating for Edward VII, led to today’s truly palatial experience. The tour ends in central London by 4.30pm.

Bertie, Prince & Kingcontinued

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,780 (deposit £150). This includes: hotel accommodation as described below; private coach throughout; breakfasts, two lunches and four dinners with wine, water, coffee; admission to houses; all tips for waiters, drivers, guides; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £290.

Hotels: In Cambridge (2 nights): housed in a Victorian mansion with modern wings, Hotel Felix has a contemporary, décor with many artworks. There is a good restaurant. Near Taplow (2 nights): Cliveden House Hotel, best known as the home and social hub of Nancy Astor, MP in the 20th century. The public rooms have been sensitively conserved and bedrooms have traditional décor. There is an excellent restaurant, a spa and acres of National Trust grounds.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking on this tour and it would not be suitable for anyone with difficulties with everyday walking and stair-climbing. Coaches can rarely park near the houses, and gardens are extensive. Average distance by coach per day: c. 89 miles.


Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Royal Residences, 19–23 August (page 49).

Wales: Opera in CardiffOctober 2014Details available in February 2014Contact us to register your interest

Shakespeare & his WorldJuly 2014Details available in February 2014Contact us to register your interest



Oxford & OxfordshireArt & Architecture

15–20 September 2014 (mb 124)6 days • £1,780Lecturer: Dr Cathy Oakes

Oxford, one of the world’s great historic cities: a dense accumulation of architecture in every style.

A wide variety of architecture, interiors and gardens in glorious settings.


One hotel throughout, a manor house in the Oxfordshire countryside.

Led by Dr Cathy Oakes, architectural historian and Oxford resident.

Gerard Manley Hopkins described it as ‘cuckoo-echoing, bell-swarmèd, lark-charmèd, rook-racked, river-rounded’, Chaucer set one of his most raucous tales there and Matthew Arnold’s Scholar Gypsy haunted its surrounding countryside. Oxford is a jewel in a magnificent setting which has stimulated countless intellects and imaginations over the centuries and which still bears the marks of well over a thousand years of history.

It is as a university town, and one of the most ancient in Europe, that Oxford is renowned and most of its historic buildings are connected with this aspect of its heritage. Nevertheless we will be probing even deeper into its past as we visit Christ Church cathedral and Iffley parish church, both of which predate

the university’s foundation in the late twelfth century. The university buildings on our list demonstrate the development of mediaeval collegiate life at foundations such as Merton, New and Magdalen and go on to represent the work of many of the most famous English architects from Wren, Hawksmoor and Gibbs to Butterfield and Cockerell; St Catherine’s College bears witness to the university as a patron of great architecture into the modern period.

Oxfordshire provides a gentle foil to the intense historical and cultural experience which is Oxford. An undulating pastoral landscape dotted with golden limestone towns, villages and grand houses, is the heritage of an area which enjoyed enormous prosperity in the late mediaeval and early modern periods. The town of Burford with its huge parish church and handsome high street dropping steeply down to the River Windrush, the theatrical might of Vanbrugh’s Blenheim, the gardens at Rousham, a remarkable survival of the Picturesque, and Broughton Castle, which Pevsner describes as ‘the finest and most complete medieval house in the country’, are among the delights.

Beyond Oxford itself our wanderings will take us to castles, churches and villages where hopefully, like the ‘Scholar Gypsy’ we will be able to enjoy ‘the live murmur of a summer’s day’.

ItinerarySome appointments cannot be confirmed until January 2014 and it may be that not all the visits mentioned will be possible.

Day 1: Oxford, Burford. The coach leaves Oxford Railway Station at 1.30pm. The large number of late mediaeval merchants’ houses and ancient inns derive from Burford’s prosperity as a centre for the wool trade in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Continue to the Manor Hotel at Weston-on-the-Green where all five nights are spent.

Day 2: Oxford. The Divinity School is a glorious 15th-century lecture hall surmounted by a library built for the manuscripts given to the university by the younger brother of Henry V, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. Other libraries are the circular Radcliffe Camera (exterior) by James Gibbs and the mediaeval one at Merton College, which has the oldest collegiate buildings in the university. Christ Church was founded by Cardinal Wolsey but incorporated the Norman church of an Augustinian Priory, now a cathedral. Christopher Wren’s first major commission, the Sheldonian Theatre was designed to stage the university’s ceremonies

Day 3: Blenheim, Rousham. Blenheim Palace is the grandest house in Britain, and the country’s greatest Baroque building. It is the outcome of a huge sum of money given in 1705 by a grateful nation to John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough, and of John Vanbrugh’s genius. After a private visit to the state apartments there is time to enjoy the gardens and the ‘Capability’ Brown park. Rousham Park is an early exercise in the Picturesque, almost unchanged since it was laid out in the mid-18th century against the backdrop of a house designed by William Kent.

Day 4: Oxford. New College was built on a lavish scale by William Wykeham in the 14th century, while 15th-century Magdalen College is set in its own deer park and has one of the most beautiful mediaeval towers in England. The 17th-century chapel in Trinity College is a perfect example of Carolean architecture and decoration; William Butterfield’s Keble College is one of the most strident and famous examples of Victorian Gothic Revival architecture. Designed in the 1960s by Arne Jacobsen, St Catherine’s is Oxford’s tribute to the Modernist movement. The Ashmolean Museum is one of the most important art museums in the country, recently refurbished and extended.

Day 5: Broughton, Bloxham, Chastleton. Broughton is a moated and fortified manor house still occupied by the Fiennes family who have lived there since the 15th century. In

Oxford, after a drawing by Joseph Pennell (1857–1926)


Oxford & Oxfordshirecontinued Charles Dickens

London, Portsmouth, Rochester & Broadstairs

5–9 April 2014 (ma 849)5 days • £1,580Lecturer: Professor Andrew Sanders

Accompanied by Andrew Sanders, author of Charles Dickens’s London.

Talks and readings by the lecturer throughout the tour.

Stay in central London and on the seafront in Portsmouth.

A Charles Dickens tour makes perfect sense in that Dickens was very much a peripatetic, restless man with a particularly acute sense of place and a superlative skill in depicting places in his writings, a skill he once described as being akin to that of a ‘fanciful photographer’. It is thus particularly rewarding to explore the settings, both urban and rural, for his great novels, especially, of course, relevant areas of London (his knowledge of the city was described as being already ‘wonderful’ by one of his fellow clerks in the lawyer’s office where he began earning his living at the age of fifteen). His love/hate relationship with the great city and the myriad, often sensational, contrasts it offered, lasted the whole of his life and is central to all his work. At night the streets of London were for him what he called ‘a great magic lantern’ into which he needed to be able to look and he found it a struggle to write when deprived of this unfailing resource.

The tour begins with a visit to the Charles Dickens Museum in Doughty Street, Dickens’s only surviving London residence occupied by him during the crucial years 1837–1839 when he was rocketing to fame with the serial publication of Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby. We later travel to

Portsmouth to visit Dickens’s birthplace, now a museum and also his father’s workplace, the Navy Pay Office in the historic Dockyard. Back in London we explore the legal quarter around Lincoln’s Inn, one of the chief settings for Bleak House. Lunch is at one of Dickens’s clubs, the Athenaeum, scene of his memorable reconciliation with Thackeray after many years of estrangement.

The north Kent marshes are the scene of Pip’s fateful encounter with the escaped convict in Great Expectations, and eventually into the ancient cathedral town of Rochester. This picturesque old city, called by Dickens’s friend, John Forster, ‘the birthplace of his fancy’, was the setting for his happy childhood, fated to come to an abrupt end when John Dickens was posted back to London in 1822.

See the only home Dickens ever owned, his ‘little Kentish freehold’, Gad’s Hill Place, near Higham in Kent – his home for the last ten years of his life, and where he wrote his last three novels, the last being the tantalisingly unfinished Mystery of Edwin Drood.

ItineraryDay 1: London and Portsmouth. Assemble at the hotel on Gower Street at 1.30pm. Passing Tavistock Square, the site of Dickens’s last London home and the site of the Foundling Hospital, walk to the Charles Dickens Museum. Housed in 48 Doughty Street, Dickens’s former home is also the headquarters of The Dickens Fellowship. Drive to Portsmouth. Overnight Portsmouth.Day 2: Portsmouth and London. Visit the Birthplace Museum in Portsmouth. By a Dickensian coincidence, Dickens’s first love, Maria Beadnell, and his last love,

an attractive village which still retains much of its mediaeval street plan, Bloxham church is one of the largest parish churches in the country; sculpted 14th-century Last Judgement, painted rood screen, wall-paintings. A fine late sixteenth-century manor house, Chastleton was boldly designed and lavishly decorated within with wood carving and plaster work.

Day 6: Iffley, Ewelme, Dorchester. The parish church in Iffley, on the banks of the Isis, is rich in Romanesque sculpture and has a window by John Piper. A monument to the patronage of Chaucer’s granddaughter, Alice, Duchess of Suffolk, the 15th-century complex of school, almshouses and church at Ewelme is unique, and still functioning. The magnificent church of Dorchester Abbey survives with 14th-century stained glass windows with remarkable tracery, carved in the shape of a Jesse Tree. Return to Oxford Railway Station by 3.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,780 (deposit £150). This includes: private coach travel; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £240 (double room for single occupancy).

Hotel: The Weston Manor Hotel is an attractive country house hotel set in a stone manor house, parts of which date from the 12th century. The hotel has recently been refurbished – a traditional, tasteful décor, sensitive to the nature of the building, runs throughout. Bedrooms are in the main house and in an adjoining coach house. Due to the historic nature of the main house, sound proofing is not always as complete as one would hope. There is a restaurant, bar, outdoor swimming pool and charming gardens.

How strenuous? A lot of walking and standing in colleges, gardens and houses. Coaches cannot park near the house at several properties. Paths are often uneven so sure-footedness is essential. Quite a lot of time is spent on the coach on narrow, country roads. Average distance by coach per day: 37 miles.

Small group: this tour will operate with between 10 to 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Arts & Crafts in the Cotswolds, 22–25 September (page 42).

Rochester, engraving 1896 after a draw

ing by W.H

.J. Boot.

For tours in Scotland see page 184. For tours in Wales see page 52.


Ellen Ternan, are both buried in the Highland Road Cemetery in Portsmouth. Spend time in the historic dockyard. Return to London. First of three nights in London. Day 3: London. A morning ‘Bleak House’ walk. Lunch at The Athenaeum Club, by invitation. A private visit to Carlyle House. Thomas Carlyle was a hero of Dickens and his French Revolution inspired A Tale of Two Cities. Readings from both works. Visit St Luke’s church in Chelsea where Charles and Catherine were married. Day 4: Rochester and Broadstairs. Leave London for Rochester via the Great Expectations country of the Kentish Marshes. See Restoration House (Satis House in Great Expectations) and Rochester cathedral which figures so largely in The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Watts Charity, the setting for Dickens’ Christmas story The Seven Poor Travellers. En route to London visit Gad’s Hill Place. Now a school, Gad’s Hill was Dickens’s final home which he bought in 1856 after admiring it since childhood. Day 5: London. Visit Westminster Abbey where Dickens is buried. Return to London by 12.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,580 (deposit £150). This includes: private coach travel; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £240. Hotels. Portsmouth (1 night): The Queens Hotel is a 3-star hotel, the best available in Portsmouth. Public rooms are opulent though bedrooms feel tired and décor is dated. Some rooms have a shower over the bath. London (3 nights): The Academy Hotel is a 4-star hotel situated in a quiet street in central London and feels more like a private home. Public rooms are pleasant and there is a garden. Rooms have a traditional décor and baths have a shower over them. How strenuous? Involves quite a lot of walking and should not be attempted by anyone who has difficulty with everyday walking and stair-climbing. Average coach travel per day: 52 miles.Group size: 12–22 participants.

Thomas HardyThe writer’s Dorset

15–19 July 2014 (ma 969)5 days • £1,910Lecturer: Jonathan Keates

Visit sites associated with both Hardy and his characters in rural Wessex.

Travel through some of the loveliest countryside that England has to offer.

Stay in a country house hotel, modified at the end of the 19th century to plans drawn up by Hardy.

The lecturer, Jonathan Keates, is a renowned English teacher and also a scholar, author and novelist.

Thomas Hardy is unique among English writers in the precision with which he uses sights and scenes from his native landscape to create a personal imaginative landscape. Gifted with an uncannily exact visual memory and a talent for uncovering little-known facts, legends and traditions associated with individual places, he located Dorset at the heart of that broader West Country world he called ‘Wessex’, using the name of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom which once dominated the region.

Hardy’s Dorset springs unforgettably to life in the pages of novels like Far From The Madding Crowd or Tess Of The D’Urbervilles and in so much of his verse, from Friends Beyond to A Trampwoman’s Tragedy. Generations of readers have

grown to accept the Valley of the Great Dairies, the fairground at Weydon Priors or the esplanade at Budmouth as authentic localities, though the writer is always careful not to romanticize his Wessex landscapes and never becomes sentimental about the communities settled among their green folds.

A tour of the Hardy country reveals just how little its essential features have altered in the years since he walked its lanes, hillsides and woodland tracks. The initial focus is on Dorchester, a county town whose turbulent history sends echoes spinning through the narrative of The Mayor of Casterbridge. Following a Dorset river like the Frome or the Piddle along its valley reveals a pattern of village life which fascinated Hardy for its stubborn permanence, not unlike the quality found in open country further south which he called ‘Egdon Heath’ and described as “the image of man, slighted but enduring”.

Small Tudor and Jacobean manor houses, a typical Dorset feature, are also visited, together with market towns like Blandford, Shaftesbury and Sherborne, the Georgian seaside watering-place of Weymouth and the ancient rope-working and net-making town of Bridport, Hardy’s ‘Port Bredy’, with its fishing harbour at West Bay. The journey in pursuit of “a man who used to notice such things” also includes Stinsford churchyard, where his heart was buried.

ItineraryDay 1: Dorchester, Athelhampton. The coach leaves the hotel at Evershot at 2.00pm and Dorchester South Railway Station half an hour later. Athelhampton House is a mediaeval manor with a spectacular Great Hall and lovely gardens.

Day 2: Higher Bockhampton, Stinsford, Dorchester. The cottage in Higher Bockhampton in which Hardy was born and raised is now the Thomas Hardy Birthplace, managed by the National Trust. Walk from here to Dorchester, via Stinsford to see the burial place of Hardy’s heart in St Michael’s Church. Dorchester features much in Hardy’s novels as ‘Casterbridge’ – explore the town with the lecturer.

‘The Night before the Shearing’ by E.A. Waterlow, from The Magazine of Art, 1891.


Thomas Hardycontinued

Day 3: Cerne Abbas, Sherborne, Melbury Osmond. Spend the day in South Wessex beginning with Cerne Abbas, or Abbots Cernel as it appears in Hardy’s novels. Once capital of Wessex, Sherborne is a pretty market town with an impressive abbey church. The rural village of Melbury Osmond appears as Great Hintock in The Woodlanders.

Day 4: Egdon Heath, Blandford Forum, Shaftesbury, Marnhull. Spend the morning in Hardy’s ‘Egdon Heath’, the setting for The Return of the Native. See Puddletown (Hardy’s ‘Weatherbury’), Tolpuddle and Affpuddle. Spend time in the charming market towns of Blandford Forum and Shaftesbury before visiting Marnhull (Hardy’s Marlott), birthplace of Tess Durbeyfield.

Day 5: Bridport, Abbotsbury, Weymouth. Appearing as Port Bredy in Hardy’s novels, Bridport today is a lively town with a good museum. In such novels as Far From The Madding Crowd and Return of the Native, the resort town of Weymouth is known as Budmouth. Hardy worked for architect, George Crickmay, here. The coach returns to Dorchester South Railway Station by 4.00pm and continues to the hotel.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,910 (deposit £200). This includes: private coach throughout; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and four dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions and donations for houses, sites and museums; all tips for drivers and restaurant staff; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £280.

Hotel. All four nights are spent in the Grade II listed Summer Lodge in Evershot. Built in the late 18th century, the house was enlarged in 1893 to plans drawn up by Thomas Hardy. The hotel has luxurious interiors and is set in four acres of lovely grounds. Bedrooms have all mod cons and are spread between the main house and Courtyard House. They vary in size due to the historic nature of the building. There is a good restaurant, bar, indoor swimming pool and spa facilities.

How strenuous? This tour would not be suitable for anyone who has difficulty with everyday walking and who cannot stand for long periods of time. Average distance by coach per day: 40 miles.


Turner & the SeaMarine Painting & Nelson’s Navy

30 March–4 April 2014 (ma 858)6 days • £1,780Lecturer: Dr Sam Willis

A study of historic ships and dockyards – Turner’s favourite subjects – and of the maritime history of his and Nelson’s time.

A study also of marine paintings and drawings by JMW Turner, Britain’s greatest artist.

Includes the exhibition Turner and the Sea at the National Maritime Museum and Turner Contemporary, the exciting new arts centre in Margate.

Led by distinguished maritime historian and archaeologist, Dr Sam Willis.

More than one third of Turner’s prolific output was devoted to ships and the sea, and to river estuary and harbour scenes. His sketchbooks contain hundreds of drawings of fishing boats, beach scenes, breaking waves, and studies for paintings such as Calais Pier and The Shipwreck.

He was inspired by, and painted a number of pictures as homage to, the seventeenth-century Dutch painters who pioneered the seapiece. In The Bridgewater Seapiece he successfully challenged van de Velde, the acknowledged master of marine art, in a picture designed to hang alongside his Dutch boats in a gale. From these beginnings he went on to develop a unique style which conveyed a sense of water and light with an intensity which has never been surpassed. He was equally adept at stormy seas and tranquil calms. Dordrecht, his painting of a Dutch packet boat becalmed, was described by John Constable as ‘the most complete work of genius I ever saw’.

Many of Turner’s paintings reflect Britain’s conflict with Napoleonic France and the part played in that long-running war by Nelson’s navy. As did most Englishmen and women of his day, Turner followed closely the exploits of Britain’s warships. With an invasion by Napoleon’s army a constant threat, the Royal Navy was crucial to the defence of the realm. News of Nelson’s victories at the Nile, Copenhagen and Trafalgar produced rejoicing across the country with church bells ringing and bonfires in the streets, while Nelson’s death and funeral were the occasion of grief and mourning on an unprecedented scale.

Turner painted two controversial pictures of the Battle of Trafalgar, and many fine watercolours of warships at Spithead. The most popular of all his paintings is The fighting Temeraire, the superannuated hulk of a first-rater being towed to her last berth, an evocative view of the ship which had fought alongside Nelson’s Victory.

This tour follows two interweaving themes: places associated with Nelson’s navy; and places where Turner painted and where his pictures can be seen.

ItineraryDay 1: London, Greenwich. Meet in central London at 10.00am and visit the Clore Gallery. A wing of Tate Britain, this was built to display the Turner Collection, bequeathed to the nation by the artist on his death in 1852 and by far the largest holding of his works. Drive to Greenwich to see the paintings of the National Maritime Museum, now displayed in Inigo Jones’s exquisite Queen’s House. Turner’s huge painting of Trafalgar is here. See also the splendid hall and chapel of the former Royal Naval College. First of three nights in Greenwich.

Day 2: London, Greenwich. Return to central London by fast ferry along the Thames. Visit the Courtauld Gallery in Somerset House – location of the Navy Board in Turner’s time. Return to Greenwich by waterbus for the Turner and the Sea exhibition, as well as the Nelson collections in the National Maritime Museum. Overnight Greenwich.

Day 3: Margate, Chatham. Drive east along the Kent coast. Turner first saw the open sea at Margate and he continued to visit throughout his life. Turner Contemporary, the acclaimed arts centre which opened in 2011, has an apposite temporary exhibition, Paintings by JMW Turner and Helen Frankenthaler. At Chatham is the most perfectly preserved example of an 18th-century royal dockyard, with a rope-walk, sail loft, building slips and much else. Many of Nelson’s ships were built and maintained here. Overnight Greenwich.

Day 4: Petworth, Portsmouth. Petworth House in Sussex is one of the finest country houses in England. The home of Lord Egremont, Turner’s best patron, it houses his paintings of Chichester harbour and of the beautiful park of Petworth, a ‘Capability’ Brown masterpiece. In Portsmouth, make the first visit to the incomparable Historic Dockyard. Here see the excellent Royal Naval Museum, vital for Nelson studies, and HMS Victory, Nelson’s flagship at Trafalgar. First of two nights in Southsea.

Day 5: the Solent, Bucklers Hard. Drive to the New Forest and to Bucklers Hard, an enchanting 18th-century village which was dedicated to ship building. Nelson’s Agamemnon was built here. In the afternoon there is a trip by privately chartered boat along the Solent to see the anchorage at Spithead (once swarming with Nelson’s ships) and the entrance to Lecturers’ biographies are on page 216.


Portsmouth harbour (much painted by Turner). Overnight Southsea.

Day 6: Portsmouth, London. Return to the Historic Dockyard again. Here see the remarkably well-preserved artefacts from Henry VIII’s flagship the Mary Rose in the new state of the art museum, opened in 2013. Also see HMS Warrior, an ironclad of 1860, which represents a technological development chronicled in Turner’s paintings. Return to London by c. 3.30pm when there is the choice of spending more time in the Tate’s Turner collection or of leaving the tour; Tate visitors are taken to Tothill Street at c. 5.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,780 (deposit £200). This includes: accommodation as described below; breakfasts, one lunch and four dinners with wine, water and coffee; transport by private coach, and two journeys by Thames waterbus; admission to sites and museums visited with the group; tips for waiters, drivers and guides; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £240.

Hotels. In Greenwich (3 nights): Devonport House is a modern conference hotel housed in an historic building on the World Heritage Site. Bedrooms are bland but have all mod

cons. There is a restaurant and pleasant bar. In Southsea (2 nights): The Queens Hotel is a three star hotel, the best available near central Portsmouth. Public rooms are opulent though bedrooms feel tired and décor is dated. Some rooms have a shower over the bath.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking on this tour, and standing around in museums and galleries. It would not be suitable for anyone with difficulties with everyday walking and stair climbing. Average distance by coach per day: 70 miles.

Small group: 12 to 22 participants.

‘Sun Rise, Whiting Fishing at Margate’, steel engraving 1825 after JMW Turner.

‘I don’t know how MRT does it. This itinerary linked the two different subjects so well.’


Literature & Walking in the Lake District

Following Wordsworth & Ruskin in spectacular countryside

23–26 June 2014 (ma 953)4 days • £1,170Lecturer: Dr Charles Nicholl

Wordsworth, Ruskin and Potter, their lakeside homes and surrounding countryside, combined with four country walks.

The lecturer is acclaimed writer and biographer Charles Nicholl.

Stay all four nights in a country house hotel overlooking Lake Windermere.

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 privately-owned 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 Wordsworth 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 tourists 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.

ItineraryDay 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 four nights are spent.

Day 2: 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

John Ruskin’s house at Brantwood, after a drawing by L.J. Hilliard.


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 3: drive to the pier at Coniston for the passenger ferry across Lake Coniston, the setting for Arthur Ransome’s novel Swallows and 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 though Monks Coniston and the restored walled garden to Coniston.

Day 4: Visit Hill Top, Beatrix Potter’s 17th-century farmhouse before driving to Hawkshead to see Wordsworth’s grammar school. There is also the opportunity to visit the Beatrix Potter gallery. Return to Oxenholme train station by 3.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,170 (deposit £150). This includes: private coach throughout; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee; admissions to museums and houses; tips for drivers, waiters; the services of the lecturer and tour manager.

Hotel: The Merewood Country House Hotel, is an early 19th-century manor house, located just to the east of Windermere lake and set in 20 acres of woodland, meadow and landscaped gardens. Bedrooms have a traditional décor and vary in size and outlook due to the historic nature of the building; some have a lake view. There is a restaurant. Single rooms are doubles for single occupancy.

How strenuous? This is a walking tour: it is essential for participants to be in good physical condition and to be used to country walking. There are some short but steep uphill sections and terrain can be uneven and slippery in wet weather. There are four walks (two on one day) of no more than 4 miles or 2½ hours in length. Average distance by coach per day: 21 miles.


Connoisseur’s London

Less accessible & lesser known treasures

eccentric Soane Museum and the Palladian perfection of Chiswick House. Some contain staggeringly good art collections such as the King of Spain’s gift to Wellington in Apsley House, the Vermeer and companions at Kenwood House and the spectacular Old Masters at the Wallace Collection.

There is also a gentlemens’ club, and Britain’s first public gallery, a 17th-century garden, a Roman amphitheatre and St Paul’s Cathedral. This last can hardly be assigned to the category of little visited or out of the way, but as elsewhere, special arrangements lift the visit above the ordinary.

Making a selection from the endless possibilities that London offers was not easy, and in the process not one but three itineraries emerged. The others will be published in future years.

Most days are over between 4.30 and 5.30pm, giving opportunity to attend a concert or a play. We will buy a few tickets for choice events as they come on sale and offer them to participants.

ItineraryDay 1: Chiswick, Kensington. Leave the hotel in Westminster 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.

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 other great masters. Finally, the Banqueting House in Whitehall, the first truly classical-style building in Britain,

Soane Museum, engraving c. 1870.

17–21 August 2014 (ma 990)5 days • £1,870Lecturers and guides: various specialists

Great art and architecture and places of interest which are 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.

Possible to book as a pre-festival tour to The Danube Music Festival, 21–28 August 2014 (see page 15).

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? Probably not, so the good news for visitors and short-

term residents is that there are plenty of fresh delights awaiting discovery.

This tour is 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. Many of these turn out to be houses and homes, among them the wonderfully Lecturers’ biographies are on page 216.


Connoisseurs’ Londoncontinued

designed by Inigo Jones in 1619 and with a ceiling painting by Rubens.

Day 4: Hampstead, Bloomsbury. Kenwood House on Hampstead Heath in north London is a very fine 18th-cent. mansion by Robert Adam with a marvellous picture collection, reopening in 2013 after restoration. Hampstead is perhaps the loveliest of London’s villages. Visit the exquisite 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 eager benefactors, the art here is remarkable.

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 hotel at c. 3.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,870 (deposit £200). This includes: accommodation as described below; breakfasts, one lunch and one dinner with wine, water and coffee; transport by private coach, taxi and by underground railway (tube); admission to houses and sites visited with the group; tips for waiters, drivers and guides; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £280.

Hotel. The Royal Horseguards is a 5-star hotel in the heart of Whitehall. The style is that of an international hotel and bedrooms are very comfortable with all mod cons. All have a bath and shower.

How strenuous? Participants need to be good walkers and have stamina.


London DaysEvents to inform & inspire: Spring 2014

January 201417th Ancient Greece at the British Museum Professor Antony Spawforth

23rd The Italian Renaissance Dr Antonia Whitley

February 201427th Caravaggio & Rembrandt Dr Helen Langdon

March 20143rd Caravaggio & Rembrandt Dr Helen Langdon

5th London’s Underground Railway Andrew Martin

6th The Italian Renaissance Dr Michael Douglas-Scott

13th Mediaeval Art in London John McNeill

April 20141st Seven Churches & a Synagogue Giles Waterfield

3rd London’s Great Railway Termini Professor Gavin Stamp

St Martin’s in the Fields from the National Gallery, after a drawing by G.M. Ellwood c. 1910.

30th Arts & Crafts Michael Hall

May 20141st The London Backstreet Walk Bridget Cherry

8th Sculpture in London David Mitchinson

20th The London Backstreet Walk Giles Waterfield

June 201411th The London Backstreet Walk Martin Randall

July 20141st The Complete London Hogarth Lars Tharp

Contact us for the full details, or visit www.martinrandall.com.

Details for futher London Days will be released every few weeks. Contact us to register your interest.

Music in LondonSeptember 2014Details available in January 2014Contact us to register your interest

Art Historians in Newcastle4–6 April 2014 (ma 847)Prices from £590

Seven art historians talk about subjects which are dotted across twenty centuries of creative achievements, from the Roman in Romanesque to British art in the Second World War.

Speakers: Monica Bohm-Duchen; Professor Judith Herrin; Dr Helen Langdon; John McNeill; Christopher Newall; Giles Waterfield; Dr Antonia Whitley. Chair: Martin Randall.

Based at Jesmond Dene House, the best hotel in the region.

The speakers are among those who accompany the cultural tours organised by Martin Randall Travel, all of whom are selected not only for their learning but also for their ability to inform and inspire.

The weekend also includes accommodation, a buffet lunch, morning and afternoon refreshments, two dinners and a private visit to the Laing Art Gallery.


The Battle of BritainThe story of ‘The Few’

16–19 September 2014 (mb 127)4 days • £1,210Lecturer: Terry Charman

Former airfields, museums, memorials and mementos in southeast England.

Fighter Command HQ at Bentley Priory, accessible for the first time from late 2013.

Historical, tactical, strategic and personal commentary by Terry Charman, Senior Historian at the Imperial War Museum.

‘The Battle of France is over. I expect the Battle of Britain is about to begin.’ With these words Churchill predicted the next stage of the war (and accomplished the unusual feat of naming a battle before it had taken place). German forces were now in command of all the countries from which airaids could be launched against Britain. The Luftwaffe had begun harassing shipping in the English Channel, and from 10th July commenced attacks on airfields and radar installations in southern England.

The German strategy was uncomplicated. As Churchill had so unreasonably refused to come to terms with Hitler after the fall of France, Great Britain would have to be knocked out of the war by force. The first step was to eliminate her air force, easily done as it was much inferior to Germany’s in numbers, equipment and experience, and then the invasion fleet would cross the Channel unmolested from the air.

But though outnumbered 1:3, Britain had more aircraft than the enemy had calculated, fewer losses once the battle started and factory capacity to replenish fighters faster than they were destroyed. Initially, there were certainly deficiencies in experience and tactical

competence. But the RAF learnt quickly, aided by determined defiance, fearlessness and famously high spirits. While the Hawker Hurricane was slower and less manoeuvrable than the Luftwaffe Bf 109s, the Spitfire, designed by R.J. Mitchell, was a brilliant creation which outperformed them all.

Nearly twice as many German aircraft were shot down than British, a rate of loss the Luftwaffe couldn’t sustain. No airfield was irrevocably destroyed. Hitler ‘postponed’ the invasion; Britain stayed in the war. Impressed by Britain’s heroic and successful defiance, opinion in the United States swung from isolationism and antipathy towards preparedness to give assistance and, in due course, to enter the war as a belligerent. British victories were dispiritingly few in the next two years, but without being buoyed by the success of the Battle of Britain the will to win would probably not have lasted long.

‘Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.’ Indeed, only 2,937 airmen are credited with having taken part before the official end of the battle in October, but there were tens of thousands of ground crew and gunners in support, not to mention the aircraft factory workers and the commanders, especially Air Chief Marshal Dowding and Vice-Marshal Sir Keith Park, who commanded the squadrons located in south-east England.

ItineraryDay 1: Bentley Priory, RAF Uxbridge. The coach leaves central London at 10.00am for RAF Bentley Priory, Fighter Command HQ where Dowding had his headquarters. It was been an inaccessible RAF site until 2013. This is followed by a visit to RAF Uxbridge,

Group HQ of 11 Group, one of four into which Britain was divided. The command room remains intact, and here Churchill was inspired to utter those words ‘…so much by so many to so few’. Drive to Cambridge for one night.

Day 2: Duxford, Capel-le-Ferne. An RAF base during the Battle of Britain, and later an American air base, Duxford is now a branch of the Imperial War Museum. A dozen large hangers, some dating from WW2, house dozens of historic aircraft, some in working order, Spitfires and Hurricanes among them. Here also is the Norman Foster-designed American Air Museum. Drive the couple of hours to the Kent coast and visit the Battle of Britain Memorial on the cliff top at Capel-le-Ferne. First of two nights near Dover.

Day 3. Dover Castle, Hawkinge. The war at sea, and the Dunkirk evacuation, were the prelude to the air war. Dover Castle is not only one of the greatest of mediaeval castles, but since the Napoleonic wars grew a subterranean incarnation with a network of tunnels, much extended in the Second World War. They played a vital role in the defence of Britain, but only in recent years have been opened to the public. The Kent Battle of Britain Museum at Hawkinge, a former air base, has a huge assortment of mementos, fragments and replica aircraft. Overnight near Dover.

Day 4: Biggin Hill, Central London. Drive to Biggin Hill Airport on the edge of London, one of the most important WW2 airfields. See the memorial chapel (Hugh Easton glass). Return to London, and there visit St Clement Danes, a Wren church restored after the War as an RAF memorial, and the Battle of Britain Memorial (2007) on the Embankment. Lunch at the RAF Club. The tour finishes by 4.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice £1,210 (deposit £100). This includes: return travel by private coach from London; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions and voluntary donations; all tips; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £90.

Hotels: Felix Hotel, Cambridge (1 night): occupying a Victorian mansion and modern wings, with contemporary, décor and artworks; good restaurant. Wallets Court, near Dover (2 nights): a pleasantly converted manor house and outbuildings situated in farmland.

How strenuous? There is a fair amount of walking involved.


Inside the operations room at Uxbridge, from Battle of Britain by Dr Alfred Price.


Country House Opera Longborough Festival & Garsington at Wormsley

Scene from Tosca, photograph 1904.

3–6 July 2014 (ma 962)4 days • £1,820 Lecturer: Richard Wigmore

Three operas at two of England’s highest quality opera festivals – Longborough and Garsington.

Tosca (Puccini), The Cunning Little Vixen ( Janáček) and Fidelio (Beethoven).

Staying at The Manor, Weston on the Green.

The lecturer is music writer and BBC Radio 3 broadcaster, Richard Wigmore.

Country house opera is a peculiar and peculiarly British phenomenon. An alluring rural setting, a grand mansion, maybe a garden, sometimes a lake, elegant attire, a long interval for dinner (though picnicking is optional). But the music? When on form, opera performed at the best of them – and Longborough and Garsington certainly fall into that category – can stand comparison with any in the world.

You are likely to encounter some of the singing stars of the future – and some splendid singers of the present. Often the best is brought out of directors and designers, working within the constraints of tight budgets and the knowledge that, there being no subsidy, experimentation should not risk causing offence. There is also the intimacy and intensity of music and drama created by a small auditorium.

Longborough Festival Opera is situated in the heart of the Cotswolds, overlooking the Evenlode valley, with some of the most glorious

views in England. It began modestly in 1991 but by the end of the decade had moved into a converted barn seating just under 500 (on seats rescued from the Royal Opera House). High praise has been heaped on productions here, particularly for their Wagners. This year the offering is Puccini’s Tosca.

Garsington Opera was founded in a village of that name in Oxfordshire and moved in 2011 to the Wormsley Estate in Buckinghamshire, which nestles in the rolling countryside of the Chiltern Hills. With an eighteenth-century house, walled garden, lake, deer park and famous cricket ground, Wormsley is an English country estate on a grand scale. Yet it is secluded and sheltered by the wooded slopes that enclose it.

The 2014 season marks the 25th anniversary and they celebrate with two masterpieces, Beethoven’s Fidelio, a revival of the acclaimed 2009 production, and Janáček’s masterpiece The Cunning Little Vixen. Performances are in an award-winning, purpose-built Opera Pavilion.

Accommodation is in a comfortable country house hotel in the Oxfordshire countryside. Dinners are served during the long intervals.

ItineraryDay 1: Oxford, Longborough: Tosca. The coach leaves Oxford railway station at 2.00pm. Alternatively, meet the group at the hotel. There is a talk at 3.00pm before leaving for the Longborough Festival Opera (31 miles): Tosca (Puccini), Jonathan Lyness (conductor), Richard Studer (director).

Day 2: Blenheim, Wormsley: Vixen. Spend the morning at nearby Blenheim Palace, the grandest house and the greatest Baroque building in Britain. It is the outcome of a huge sum of money given in 1705 by a grateful nation to the first Duke of Marlborough, nemesis of Louis XIV, and of the genius of architects John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor. After an afternoon lecture leave for Garsington Opera at Wormsley (23 miles): The Cunning Little Vixen ( Janáček), Garry Walker (conductor), Daniel Slater (director), Robert Innes Hopkins (designer), Claire Booth (Vixen), Grant Doyle (Forester), Joshua Bloom (Poacher), Henry Waddington (Priest).

Day 3: Woodstock, Wormsley: Fidelio. There is the option of some free time in the pretty market town of Woodstock. Among the attractions are the Oxfordshire Museum. Following an afternoon lecture, return to Garsington Opera at Wormsley. Fidelio (Beethoven) begins at 6.20pm. Douglas Boyd (conductor), John Cox (director), Gary McCann (designer), Rebecca von Lipinski (Leonore), Peter Wedd (Florestan), Darren Jeffery (Don Pizarro),

Stephen Richardson (Rocco), Jennifer France (Marzelline), Sam Furness (Jaquino). Day 4. The coach leaves the hotel for Oxford at 10.00am. You have the option of leaving the tour now, or spending time in Oxford, collecting your luggage from the coach at the railway station at 2.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,820 (deposit £200). This includes: three opera tickets costing c. £550; private air-conditioned coach; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, all three dinners with wine, water and coffee; tips for restaurant staff and drivers; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £180.

Hotel. The Weston Manor Hotel is an attractive stone-built country house, parts of which date from the 12th century. The hotel has recently been refurbished – a traditional, tasteful décor, sensitive to the nature of the building, runs throughout. Bedrooms are in the main house and adjoining coach house. Due to the historic nature of the main house, sound proofing is not always complete as one would hope. There is a restaurant, bar, outdoor swimming pool and charming gardens.

Music tickets: to be confirmed in November.

How strenuous? This tour would be a struggle for anyone whose walking is impaired. It is a short walk from the coach to the opera house.


More opera toursOpera in Vienna ......................................... 21

Savonlinna Opera.......................................65

Opera in Cardiff .........................................52

Opera & Ballet in Versailles & Paris ......................................... 71

Opera at Aix & Orange .........................78

Opera in Nice & Montecarlo ............. 81

Opera in Leipzig & Dresden ............... 91

Opera & Art in Turin & Milan ..........114

Verona Opera ............................................ 117

Torre del Lago ...........................................138

Opera in Macerata & Pesaro ............138

Opera in Drottningholm .................... 203

Santa Fe Opera ......................................... 211

T e l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5 E t h i o p i a63

Ethiopia Tracing one of Africa’s most fascinating histories

12–27 February 2014 (ma 815)16 days • £5,140Lecturer: Professor David Phillipson

8–23 October 2014 (mb 155)16 days • £5,140Lecturer to be confirmed

Journeying through the most striking landscapes Africa has to offer.

Three days exploring the remote and little-visited rock-hewn churches of eastern Tigray, the country’s best kept secret.

Lalibela: 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.

Led by an archaeologist with over forty years of experience working in eastern Africa.

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.

Periodic famines notwithstanding, 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, hydro-electric 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. 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.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 8.00pm from London Heathrow for the 7-hour flight to Addis Ababa (currently 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 Maryam Church, Menelik’s capital prior to the establishment of

Addis Ababa and the scene of his coronation in 1882. Overnight Addis.

Day 3: Addis Ababa, Hawzien. Fly c. 7.00am to Mekele and drive to Hawzien. Visit Abraha-wa-Atsbaha 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 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 here.

Gondar, wood engraving c. 1875.

b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w . m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o mE t h i o p i a 64

Ethiopia continued

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 Nakuta La’ab 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 12: Gondar, Bahir Dar. Morning visit to the church of Debre Birhan Selassie (Mountain of the Enlightened Trinity), founded c. 1690 and displaying some of the most beautiful examples of ecclesiastical art in Ethiopia. In the afternoon we drive along the shores of

Lake Tana to the quiet and picturesque town of Bahir Dar. First of two nights in Bahir Dar.

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).

Day 14: Bahir Dar, Addis Ababa. After a drive through some wild and unspoilt countryside, we walk over the 17th-century Portuguese styled 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.

Day 16. Fly from Addis Ababa to London arriving Heathrow c. 5.30pm (via Rome, February) or c. 9.15am (direct, October).

PracticalitiesPrice: £5,140 (deposit £500). This includes: flights (economy class) with Ethiopian Airlines (Boeing 767-300 for international flights & De Havilland DHC-8 Dash 8for internal); private coach for all other journeys; accommodation as described below; all breakfasts, all lunches (including 3 picnics)and 13 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all airport and local taxes; the services of the lecturer, tour manager and local guides. Single supplement £560. Price without flights £4,380.

Hotels. Addis Ababa (3 nights): Addis Ababa Hilton, a smart, modernised, centrally-located 5-star hotel. Gheralta (3 nights): Gheralta Lodge, spectacular scenery, accommodation in local style stone houses. Axum (2 nights): Yeha Hotel, the best hotel in the town with excellent views over the stelae park and church. Lalibela (3 nights): Roha Hotel, a former government-owned hotel in close proximity to the church complexes, quiet and comfortable.

Gondar (1 night): Goha Hotel, located high above the town, this hotel has spectacular views of Gondar and the surrounding countryside. Bahir Dar (2 nights): Kuriftu Resort and Spa, 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.

Room allocation: like many hotels in East Africa twin rooms are standard for people sharing a room. In hotels outside Addis Ababa a double bed cannot be guaranteed.

Food is basic, the options for vegetarians are very limited and special dietary requirements cannot be catered for at all.

Visas. British citizens and most other foreign nationals require a tourist visa. The current cost for UK nationals is around £22. 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. Processing times vary from country to country, but UK residents should expect to be without their passport for up to 10 days. Passports must be valid for 6 months from entry into Ethiopia.

How strenuous? This is a very demanding tour and a good level of fitness is essential. Unless you enjoy entirely unimpaired mobility, cope with everyday walking and stair-climbing without difficulty and are reliably sure-footed, this tour is not for you. Much of the tour is at a high altitude (approx. 8,900ft) which can exacerbate fatigue. Uneven ground and irregular paving are standard. On some days there are fairly steep ascents to remote churches. There are some long coach journeys on uneven terrain (we will be using modified buses) during which facilities are limited and may be of poor quality. Most sites have some shade but the Ethiopian sun is strong, even in the cooler seasons. Average distance by coach per day: 45 miles.

Access to churches. Some visits to remote churches may not be possible due to unforeseen circumstances or the unavailability of the key holder.


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.

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Savonlinna OperaMadama Butterfly, The Magic Flute & Carmen

14–18 July 2014 (ma 971)5 days • £2,380 (with 3 opera tickets)Lecturer: Simon Rees

Productions at Savonlinna are musically and dramatically first-rate, in the incomparable setting of a mediaeval castle on an island.

A pleasant, small town amidst the unassertive beauty of lakeland Finland.

Simon Rees, dramaturg of Welsh National Opera from 1989 to 2012, leads the tour and gives talks on the performances.

A massive structure of rough-hewn granite rising from a rocky islet, the castle at Savonlinna is the largest in Scandinavia. It was built in 1475 and frequently re-fortified during the next three centuries, for this was border country: Nordic occupancy alternated with Russian until modern times.

Opera has been performed here in the courtyard since 1912, so it even pre-dates Verona as a festival in a spectacular historic setting. During the last couple of decades its artistic achievements have placed this festival among the best in the world, yet its unlikely and rather inaccessible location keeps the number of international visitors well below what it deserves.

The courtyard of Olavinlinna Castle (fortuitously, and with the help of a temporary, acoustically-designed roof) is a perfect space for performing opera, especially when the opera involves huge choruses. In Madama Butterfly, the approach of Butterfly’s female friends and relations as they go up the hill to her little wood-and-paper house in Nagasaki will work wonderfully there, as will the choruses in Carmen of cigarette-girls, soldiers, smugglers and bullfighting aficionados. In The Magic Flute the stately, solemn choruses of Sarastro’s followers will find a suitably masonic setting. At the same time, the fine acoustics and the excellent orchestra allow the solo voices – drawn from the best in the Baltic and further afield – to show themselves off at their best. Walking back from the castle in the ‘simmer dim’ of the northern night, with torches flickering over the lake water, makes a peaceful, thought-provoking end to each evening’s performance.

The lake district of eastern Finland is an area of gently beguiling beauty. Thousands of inter-connected lakes meet forests of birch and pine at an incredibly convoluted shoreline, the pattern varied with scattered patches of pasture and arable land neatly arranged around timber farmsteads. The scenery and pure air provide a restful and refreshing foil to nights at the opera.

Visits include a guided tour of the castle

at Savonlinna; a boat trip through beautiful lakeland scenery; a visit to the Retretti Art Centre, a remarkable complex with several changing exhibitions (due to reopen in 2014 following refurbishment, although this is dependent on funding); a visit the Punkaharju nature reserve and the Finnish Forest Museum; and the largest wooden church in the world (1840s) in Kerimäki.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 10.15am from London Heathrow to Savonlinna via Helsinki.

Day 2. After a morning lecture, take a boat through beautiful lakeland scenery to the Retretti Art Centre, a remarkable complex with several changing exhibitions (due to reopen in 2014 following refurbishment). Evening opera: Madame Butterfly (Puccini). Mikko Franck (conductor); Henry Akina (director); soloists include Helena Juntunen (Cio Cio San), Niina Keitel (Suzuki), Giorgio Berrugi (Pinkerton), Sauli Tiilikainen (Sharpless).

Day 3. The morning lecture is followed by a visit to the castle of St Olav at Savonlinna. The afternoon is free to explore the attractive old part of the town beside the lake, with its art galleries and museums. Evening opera: The Magic Flute (Mozart). Okko Kamu (conductor); August Everding (director); soloists include Mika Kares (Sarastro), Tuomas Katajala (Tamino), Arttu Kataja (Papageno).

Day 4. Visit the Punkaharju nature reserve and the Finnish Forest Museum. Drive to Kerimäki, the largest wooden church in the world (1840s). Opera: Carmen (Bizet). Philippe Auguin (conductor); Marianne Mörck (director); soloists include Nadia Krasteva (Carmen), Luc Robert (Don José), Mari Palo (Micaëla).

Day 5. Fly from Savonlinna to London via Helsinki, arriving at Heathrow c. 5.15pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,380 (deposit £250). This includes: music tickets costing c. £415; air travel (economy class) with Finnair (aircraft: Airbus 321 and ATR 72); private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 3 dinners with wine (one of which is a buffet), water and coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters, drivers and guides; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £240. Price without flights £2,080.

Hotel: Sokos Hotel Seurahuone, located by the lake in Savonlinna. This functional hotel is the best in town. It is basic but adequately equipped and with modern facilities. All rooms (including rooms for single occupancy) have twin beds.

How strenuous? Access to the castle and the forest walk would be difficult with impaired walking. Average distance by coach per day: 19 miles.


Savonlinna, after a pen and ink drawing, early 20th-century.


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Mediaeval Art in Paris

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 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.

ItineraryDay 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 become 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 by coach 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. 5.30pm.

Those combining this tour with French Gothic have 24 hours independent time in Paris before taking a train on 8th September at c. 1.15pm to Lille, where the tour begins. This part of the tour is unescorted. See below for prices.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,280 (deposit £150). This includes: return rail travel (first class, standard premier) by Eurostar from London to Paris; private coach for transfers where necessary; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 2 dinners with water, wine and coffee; all gratuities for restaurant staff, porters and drivers; all state taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £180 (double room for single occupancy). Price without rail travel by Eurostar £1,100.

Price combined with French Gothic: £3,310. Single supplement £560 (double room for single occupancy). 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 7th September and first class rail travel from Paris to Lille on 8th September.

Hotel: Hôtel du Louvre, a comfortable 4-star hotel in an excellent location near the Louvre. It is decorated in a traditional style and has a good brasserie.

How strenuous? The visits require a fair amount of walking and standing around. You need to be able to lift your luggage on and off the train and wheel it at stations.


5–7 September 2014 (mb 103)3 days • £1,280Lecturer: 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, its ideal companion.

Can be combined with French Gothic, 8–14 September 2014 (see opposite page).

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

Enamelled shrine in the Museum of Cluny, engraving c. 1875 from The Arts in the Middle Ages.

Impressionism in ParisJune 2014Details available in December 2013Contact us to register your interest

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French GothicCathedrals of Northern France

Chartres Cathedral, engraving c. 1835 from France Pittoresque.

8–14 September 2014 (mb 110)7 days • £1,980Lecturer: 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.

The lecturer is Dr Alexandra Gajewski, specialist in gothic architecture.

Unparalleled examples of stained glass, sculpture and metalwork.

Can be combined with Mediaeval Art in Paris, 5–7 September 2014 (see opposite page).

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.

ItineraryDay 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 thick-walled 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.

Day 3: Rheims, Soissons. Rheims 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 classicizing 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-la-Jolie. 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.

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. 7.15pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,980 (deposit £200). This includes: Eurostar (1st class, standard premier); private coach in France; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 5 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager; hire of radio guides for better audibility of the lecturer. Single supplement £270 (double room for single occupancy). Price without Eurostar £1,840. See opposite page for a price to combine with Mediaeval Art in Paris.

Hotels: Chamouille (3 nights): Hôtel du Golf de l’Ailette, a few kilometres from Laon, a comfortable 3-star hotel in an attractive position beside a lake. Chartres (2 nights): Le Grand Monarque, a centrally located 4-star hotel; rooms differ in size. Amiens (1 night): Hôtel Mercure Amiens Cathédrale, a new 3-star hotel; close to the cathedral.

How strenuous? There is a fair amount of walking and standing around. Some long coach journeys. You should be able to lift your luggage on and off the train and wheel it within the station. Average distance by coach per day: 89 miles.



The Western FrontWWI’s theatre of war 100 years on

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, 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?

ItineraryDay 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, ‘Myth and Reality in the First World War’. 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

Drawing by Muirhead Bone from The Western Front.

15–19 June 2014 (ma 947)5 days • £1,740Lecturer: 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 and Poppycock.

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


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 lecture, ‘The Background to the Somme’, precedes 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.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,740 (deposit £150). This includes: return travel by Eurostar between London and Lille; coach travel within France; accommodation as described below; 4 dinners and 4 lunches with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips for restaurant staff, drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £180 (double room for single occupancy). Price without Eurostar £1,530.

Hotels: In Lille: L’Hermitage Gantois, a 5-star hotel in a converted 15th-century hospice. Décor is traditional with a modern twist. In Arras: Hôtel de l’Univers, a traditional 3-star hotel in Arras, installed in a 16th-century building. Rooms vary in size and decoration. There is a good restaurant.

How strenuous? There is a quite a lot of walking and standing for long periods of time.


Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Operation Overlord, 21–25 June (page 70).

Poets & The SommePoetry of the Great War in battlefield context

5–8 September 2014 (mb 105)4 days • £1,320Lecturer: Andrew Spooner

First World War poetry in the context of the Battle of the Somme and the lives (and deaths) of the poets.

Led by military historian Andrew Spooner.

A presentation of the poetry through a study of events, landscapes and the wartime lives of individual poets. An actor reads the poems.

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

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.

ItineraryDay 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

From World War 1914–1918, A Pictured History.

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


Poets & the Sommecontinued

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.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,320 (deposit £150). This includes: luxury coach travel from London and within France; return channel crossings with Eurotunnel from Folkstone to Calais; accommodation as described below; all meals with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips for restaurant staff, drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and poetry reader. Single supplement £140 (double room for single occupancy).

Hotel: Hôtel de l’Univers, a traditional 3-star hotel in Arras, installed in a 16th-century building. Rooms vary in size and decoration. There is a good restaurant.

How strenuous? There is a quite a lot of walking, most of it over rough ground. Average distance by coach per day: 127 miles.


Operation OverlordThe Allied landings in Normandy, 70 years on

21–25 June 2014 (ma 948)4 nights • £1,890Lecturer: Andrew Spooner

Examine the terrain and topography of the events of June 1944, one of the most courageous and decisive episodes in the history of warfare, seventy years on.

Study both the broader picture – strategic, political, diplomatic as well as military – and the human detail, following the fortunes, or tragedies, of individuals.

Led by military historian Andrew Spooner.

Ferry from Portsmouth, returning overnight.

‘Goodnight then: sleep to gather strength for the morning. For the morning will come.’ Churchill’s words broadcast to the French people in October 1940 gave hope to all the peoples of German-occupied nations in continental Europe.

On the morning of the 6th of June 1944 at H-hour on D-day, dawn broke on the Normandy coastline to reveal the greatest armada ever assembled. The critical timing of moon, tide and weather saw the 5th–7th June as the optimum time for invasion. A 24-hour delay due to inclement weather created the major risk of German awareness and postponement. With the sea running Force 4 to 5, landing craft might easily be swamped. But the man at the Met Office forecast a lull for a few hours after midnight and Admiral

Ramsay agreed to go. Operation Neptune became Operation Overlord and the invasion of Normandy began.

Visits are included to four of the invasion beaches (Sword, Gold, Juno and Omaha) and to the scene of the British airborne operations on the eastern flank. The military historian Andrew Spooner devised and leads the tour. Without losing sight of the broad picture, his speciality is the human detail, focussing on particular individuals and following their fortunes, or tragedies, through the Longest Day.

ItineraryDay 1: Southsea, Portsmouth, Bayeux.Leave central London by coach at c. 8.45am for Southsea where the Operation Overlord exhibition at the D-Day Museum sets the scene. Take the ferry crossing later in the afternoon for Normandy. There is dinner on board. Arrive late in the evening on the left flank of Sword Beach at Ouistreham. Drive to Bayeux for the first of three nights.

Day 2: Ranville, Sword, Juno. The tour begins with the British airborne invasion by paratroopers and gliders shortly after midnight to capture the vital bridges over the Orne and to provide a flank defence for the invasion beaches. Though moved a few yards, the bridge (later called Pegasus) still exists. There is a good museum adjacent. Visit the site of the first casualties and Ranville Military cemetery and have lunch at Pegasus Café, one of the very first houses to be liberated and used as First Aid Post by the airborne troops. Move West along the British and Canadian beaches, Sword Beach and the German Artillery Command Bunker, the Canadian landings on Juno Beach and Hobart’s ‘funnies’, specialist Royal Engineer armoured vehicles (AVREs) for clearing paths off the beaches. Overnight Bayeux.

Day 3: Pont du Hoc, Colleville, Omaha, Longues-sur-Mer. At Pont du Hoc, see a well preserved German gun battery, both pounded by bombing and assaulted by American Ranger Special Forces. The remaining evidence of battle allows us to follow the Rangers as they located and disabled the guns. Visit Omaha Beach, one of two areas where the Americans landed, described as difficult to take with exits overlooked and heavily defended. Follow the fortunes of the initial assault wave; the anticipated fear of failure was so nearly realised as misplaced landings and mounting casualties stalled the impetus. Overlooking Omaha Beach, Colleville-sur-Mer American cemetery contains 9,387 graves perfectly aligned to give an impressive reminder of the struggle to secure

Normandy landings 1944 (photograph courtesy of Andtew Spooner.


Opera & Ballet in Versailles & Paris

4–9 April 2014 (ma 851)6 days • £2,980(including tickets to 4 performances)Lecturer: Dr Michael Downes

Two nights in Versailles, three nights in Paris.

Five performances in four great opera houses.

A concert performance of Handel’s Tamerlano in the magnificent Opéra Royal at the Château de Versailles.

A double bill at the Opéra Comique: Histoire du Soldat by Stravinsky and De Falla’s ballet El Amor Brujo.

Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde at the Opéra Bastille; Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri at the Palais Garnier.

First-class rail travel to Paris.

Versailles, epitome of the age of Louis XIV, became the centre of government in 1682. Both palace and gardens chart the major events in the King’s life and the political course of his reign. From the 1680s Louis XIV set aside three evenings a week for musical entertainments in the palace, ranging from private chamber performances to opulent stagings of opéra-ballets by Lully, Lalande, Desmarets and other composers. At the end of the King’s life grands motets were performed in the Chapelle Royale (1710) but other performances were given in temporary

structures until the construction of the Royal Opera began in 1765. Designed by Jacques-Anges Gabriel this magnificent theatre is made entirely of wood, has a fantastic acoustic and wonderful faux marble, neo-classical decoration. It was inaugurated in 1770 with Lully’s Persée during the wedding of the future Louis XVI but deprived of its theatrical purpose in 1871 to house the Senate and not restored to its original aspect until 1957. Witness here a concert version of Handel’s Tamerlano.

Paris was the undisputed opera capital of the world for much of the 19th century; the home of grand opera and the city to which Meyerbeer, Bellini, Donizetti, Rossini, Verdi and Wagner all gravitated. For singers and composers alike, conquest of Paris was de rigueur. From the mid-1870s, when the Palais Garnier was opened, Paris boasted the grandest opera house in the world – in this opulent setting see Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri.

The Bastille, the now not-quite-new but still controversial flagship of Parisian opera, offers Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde in Peter Sellars’ innovative and highly praised production featuring video design by Bill Viola. The Lithuanian soprano Violeta Urmana, singing the role of Isolde, leads a strong cast of Wagnerian specialists.

In the Salle Favart (now the Opéra-Comique but once the theatre over which Rossini presided) see a double bill of two twentieth-century masterpieces; Stravinsky’s

the beachhead. At Longues-sur-Mer view all the structures of a German artillery battery on the cliff top complete with its guns. Overnight Bayeux.

Day 4: Bayeux, Gold, Arromanches, Caen. There is some free time to explore the pleasant town of Bayeux with its fine mediaeval cathedral and the marvellous 11th-cent. tapestry, vivid memorial of another cross-Channel invasion. Visit Bayeux Military Cemetery, the largest British and Commonwealth cemetery of World War II in France with 4,144 burials and the names of more than 1,800 men with no known grave. Here concludes the story of our walk on Juno Beach. On Gold Beach follow the Green Howards on their route off the beach and view sections of Mulberry Harbour, the engineering miracle which was towed across the Channel to enable the landing of extraordinary quantities of supplies, and which can still be seen off Arromanches-les-Bains. There is a museum that explains its workings. Dinner in Caen before boarding the overnight ferry to Portsmouth.

Day 5: Arrive Portsmouth c. 6.45am. Drive to central London, arriving c. 9.00am.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,890 (deposit £200). This includes: return ferry crossings Portsmouth/Caen with Brittany Ferries; coach travel from and to London; hotel accommodation as described below and cabin accommodation on the return ferry journey; breakfasts, two lunches and all dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admission to museums and sites, etc.; all tips for waiters, drivers, etc.; all state taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £230 (double room for single occupancy).

Hotel: in Bayeux (3 nights), Villa Lara, a new 4-star hotel in the centre. Rooms are spacious and decorated in a French, modern style. The final night is aboard a ferry (Brittany Ferries). Double cabins are suites, comfortable and quite spacious with baths, sitting areas and outside windows. Those used for single occupancy are small twins, simple but adequately comfortable with en suite facilities, a shower and outside window.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking on this tour, some of it over rough ground. Average distance by coach per day: 70 miles.


Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with The Western Front, 15–19 June (page 68).

The Palais Garnier, by Henry Rushbury from Paris by Sidney Dark.

‘Our lecturer was marvellous and had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the subject.’


Opera & Ballet in Versailles & Pariscontinued

Histoire du Soldat, composed in Switzerland during World War I and based on a Russian folk tale, and De Falla’s ballet suite with song, El Amor Brujo, based on Andalucian folklore and premièred in Paris in 1925.

During the tour there are guided visits of the Château de Versailles, the Palais Garnier and a visit to the music museum at La Villette.

ItineraryDay 1. Travel by Eurostar at c. 10.30am from London St Pancras to Paris. Continue by coach to Versailles for an early evening lecture and dinner. First of two nights in Versailles.

Day 2: Versailles. Take a guided tour of the opulent Château de Versailles including the Hall of Mirrors and the King’s and Queen’s apartments. There is free time in the afternoon to explore the gardens. Evening opera (concert performance) at the Opéra Royal: Tamerlano (Handel). Maxim Emelyanychev (conductor), Il Pomo d’Oro orchestra; soloists: Xavier Sabata (Tamerlano), Max Emanuel Cencic (Andronico), John Mark Ainsley (Bajazet), Sophie Karthaüser (Asteria), Ruxandra Donose (Irene), Pavel Kudinov (Leone).

Day 3: Paris. Drive to Paris, arriving in time for lunch and a lecture at the hotel. Afternoon double bill at the Opéra Comique: Histoire du Soldat (Stravinsky). Marc Minkowski (conductor), Jacques Osinski (director); soloists include Johan

Leysen (Narrator), Alexandre Steiger (the soldier), Grégoire Tachnakian (the devil). El Amor Brujo (De Falla). Jean-Claude Gallotta (choreographer); Olivia Ruiz (Candelas), Centre Dramatique National des Alpes, Groupe Emilie Dubois/Centre Choréographique national de Grenoble. First of three nights in Paris.

Day 4: Paris. Attend a morning lecture followed by a guided visit of the Palais Garnier. The afternoon is free providing the opportunity to visit the Louvre. Evening Opera at the Palais Garnier: L’Italiana in Algeri (Rossini), sung in Italian. Riccardo Frizza (conductor), Andrei Serban (director); soloists include: Ildebrando d’Arcangelo (Mustafà), Jaël Azzaretti (Elvira), Anna Pennisi (Zulma), Nahuel di Pierro (Haly), Kenneth Tarver (Lindoro), Varduhi Abrahamyan (Isabella), Tassis Christoyannis (Taddeo).

Day 5: Paris. Morning lecture and some free time. In the afternoon drive to Porte de la Villette to visit the Cité de la Musique concert hall, designed by Christian de Pontzamparc, and the music museum. Drive to the early evening opera at the Bastille (sandwiches are served during the interval): Tristan und Isolde (Wagner) sung in German. Philippe Jordan (conductor), Peter Sellars (director); soloists include Robert Dean Smith (Tristan), Franz Josef Selig (König Marke), Violeta Urmana (Isolde), Jochen Schmeckenbecher (Kurwenal), Janina Baechle (Brangäne), Raimund Nolte (Melot).

Day 6. Free time before a late morning coach transfer to the Gare du Nord. The Eurostar to London St Pancras arrives c. 2.45pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,980 (deposit £300). This includes: top category tickets for four performances costing c. £400; return rail travel (first class, standard premier) by Eurostar from London to Paris; private coach for transfers where necessary; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 4 dinners (including one light supper at the Bastille) with water, wine and coffee; all gratuities for restaurant staff, porters and drivers; all state taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £370 (double room for single occupancy). Price without rail travel by Eurostar £2,770.

Hotel: in Versailles (2 nights): Hôtel Pullman Versailles Château, a modern 4-star hotel within walking distance of the Château. Rooms are tastefully decorated. In Paris (3 nights): Hôtel du Louvre, a comfortable 4-star hotel in an excellent location. It is decorated in a traditional style and has a good brasserie.

How strenuous? Three of the performances are reached on foot. The visits require a fair amount of walking and standing around. There are some late nights but starts are leisurely. You need to be able to lift your luggage on and off the train and wheel it at stations.


Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Normans in the South, 25 March–2 April (page 151); Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes, 10–16 April (page 115).

Wood engraving c. 1860 from The Illustrated London News.


Country House Opera...........................62


Opera in Cardiff .........................................52





Verona Opera ............................................ 117

Santa Fe Opera ......................................... 211


The Louvre at LensAncient to modern art in & around Lille

12–15 June 2014 (ma 928)4 days • £1,270Lecturer: Mary Lynn Riley

The new outpost of the Musée du Louvre at Lens, showcasing 200 works of art, ancient to modern.

Also visited are the Matisse museum at Le Cateau Cambrésis and the Fine Arts museum in Lille.

Three nights in Lille, a charming historic city with fine Flemish architecture.

Led by an art historian based in France.

First class rail travel.

Following in the footsteps of the Tate in Liverpool and the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Louvre-Lens, designed by Japanese architects SANAA, opened to the public at the end of 2012 and was instantly acknowledged as a tour de force. Built to help regenerate this former mining town it sits poised like a Phoenix on the embers of its harsh industrial landscape. Composed of five shimmering glass and aluminium buildings, the main exhibition space is the Galerie du Temps, a spectacular 120-metre-long gallery containing six millennia of art, from prehistory to the nineteenth century. All the works on display are from the Louvre in Paris, and among them are some of the mother museum’s most celebrated masterpieces.

This tour includes other artistic delights in this little-visited north-east corner of France. Traditionally known for its textile industry and mining (and as the birthplace of Charles de Gaulle), Lille has in recent years repositioned itself as a cultural hub. In 2004 it became European Capital of Culture, a distinction which brought into focus its Musée des Beaux Arts, one of France’s finest, its Museum of Modern, Contemporary and Outsider Art, a treasure house of 20th- and 21st-century work, and La Piscine de Roubaix, a converted Art Deco swimming pool now containing a delightful collection of 19th- and 20th-century fine, decorative and applied arts.

The Matisse Museum in Le Cateau-Cambresis is a similarly impressive experience. Established by the artist in 1952 to show his work as he wished it to be seen, the original core has since been supplemented by a further 65 paintings.

Today, most of the territory of the former County of Flanders lies in Belgium, but the land south of the border in France shares its history as one of the richest and most fascinating locations in Europe. Until conquered by Louis XIV, Lille belonged to the Spanish Netherlands and this Flemish heritage

The Louvre at Lens, ©Julian Lanoo.

is everywhere in evidence, from the nobly proportioned Vieille Bourse – built to rival the stock exchange in Amsterdam – to the Musée de l’Hospice Comtesse, a former convent and hospital now offering a vivid picture of local life from the thirteenth to eighteenth centuries.

ItineraryDay 1: Lille. Take the Eurostar at c. 11.00am from London St Pancras to Lille (light lunch on board). A walk through Vieux Lille passes a wealth of Flemish architecture including the Vielle Bourse on the Grand’ Place and finishes at the Musée de l’Hospice Comtesse which has some fine 17th-century furniture and objets d’art and painting by Louis Watteau.

Day 2: Lens, Le Cateau Cambrésis. The architecturally striking new Louvre at Lens (45 minutes from Lille) displays 205 works of art, from all the Paris departments, arranged chronologically from 3500 bc to the 19th century. The Matisse Museum in the artist’s native Cateau Cambrésis, now located in the renovated Fenelon Palace, is the third largest Matisse collection in France. The primary school has a stained glass window that he created for the Chapelle du Rosaire in Vence.

Day 3: Lille. Spend the morning at the majestic Musée des Beaux Arts whose vast collection encompasses European painting from the 16th to the 20th centuries, international ceramics and the superb relief maps. The afternoon is free, perhaps for a walk to Vauban’s citadel, the largest and finest of the 300 fortifications he designed to aid the Sun King’s attempts to consolidate his realm.

Day 4: Roubaix, Villeneuve d’Asq. Visit two museums in Lille’s suburbs. The Musée de l’Art Moderne contains works by Modigliani, Leger, Picasso and Bracque as well as an extensive contemporary collection. La Piscine at Roubaix is a spectacular converted Art Déco swimming pool housing a collection of 19th and 20th-century painting and sculpture, fashion, decorative and applied arts. The Eurostar returns to London St Pancras at c. 5.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,270 (deposit £200). This includes: return Eurostar travel (first class, Standard Premier); private coach within France; accommodation; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters, porters, drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager; hire of radio guides for better audibility of the lecturer. Single supplement £150 (double for sole use). Price without Eurostar £1,110.

Hotels: L’Hermitage Gantois is a 5-star hotel in a converted 15th-century hospice. Décor is traditional with a modern twist.

How strenuous? There is a fair amount of walking and standing in art galleries. The hotel is located c. 20 minutes walk from the Grand’ Place. Average distance by coach per day: 37 miles.


Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Palladian Villas, 17–22 June (page 119); Mediaeval Burgundy, 31 May–7 June (page 75).


Pilgrimage & HeresyMediaeval Auvergne & Languedoc

Abbaye de Moissac, south portal, engraving c. 1830.

5–14 May 2014 (ma 883)10 days • £2,870Lecturer: John McNeill

All the building arts – architecture, sculpture, stained glass, woodwork, painting and in particular precious metals.

A section of the route to Santiago intersects with the story of the Albigensian heresy.

Led by renowned architectural historian John McNeill.

Enchanting landscapes.

In the remote and largely rural centre of France, two aspects of popular religion were of decisive influence in shaping the art and architecture of the Middle Ages: the cult of relics and the consequent passion for pilgrimage; and the Albigensian heresy and its subsequent suppression.

The attitude of the church to the cult of relics – the physical remains of saints – was ambivalent. St Bernard, the 12th-century polemicist, condemned it as idolatrous, but on the whole it was encouraged as an aid to religious devotion. Ideas travelled quickly along the pilgrimage routes; churches were designed to accommodate pilgrims, and imagery in sculpture, painting and stained glass was made to encourage devotion to the saints.

Some saints are of purely local significance, and yet they often inspired remarkable works of art, such as the reliquaries at Mozac and St

Nectaire. Other relics attracted the faithful from all over Europe. Catering for both the physical and spiritual needs of pilgrims was a lucrative business, and shrines such as those at Conques and Toulouse were intended to attract the pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, one of the most important goals of mediaeval pilgrimage.

Looking back from later centuries, the universal faith of the Romanesque era seemed a golden age for Christianity. But then came a revival of an old heresy which was not only in opposition to the orthodox teachings of the church, but even challenged its very existence. The heresy of Cathars, or Albigenses, had an intense and popular following, particularly in the area around Albi. The murder of the papal legate in 1208 provoked the so-called Albigensian Crusade and gave the knights of northern France an excuse to conquer Languedoc. The victory of the North and of orthodoxy is reflected in the great cathedrals of Rodez and Toulouse, modelled on the rayonnant Gothic of the royal domain. That the cathedral at Albi is also fortified allows alternative interpretations of Gothic: as a symbol of the triumph of the established Church, or of the oppression of the true faith of the people.

The post-mediaeval upheavals of France touched this area less destructively than elsewhere. Exceedingly rare gold shrines and cult-figures in particular constitute a thrilling aspect of this tour.

ItineraryDay 1: Lyon. Fly at c. 8.30am from London Heathrow to Lyon Saint-Exupéry. The early afternoon is devoted to Lyon cathedral, one of the great Gothic cathedrals of central France and a wonderful foil to the earlier architecture we will see in the Auvergne. Continue to the hotel outside Clermont Ferrand for the first of three nights.

Day 2: Ennezat, Montaigut-le-Blanc, St-Nectaire, Orcival. In Ennezat see the earliest surviving Auvergnat nave. Lunch at Montaigut-le-Blanc. In St-Nectaire see the wooden Virgin and Child and a magnificent bust reliquary. In Orcival see the golden Virgin in Majesty, a remarkable survival.

Day 3: Mozac, Clermont-Ferrand. The Romanesque church at Mozac has good sculpture and the largest Limoges enamel shrine. Clermont-Ferrand cathedral is a remarkable example of the Parisian rayonnant Gothic style. See Notre Dame du Port, Romanesque with sculpted portal and capitals.

Day 4: Brioude, Rodez, Conques. Brioude has sculptured capitals in a variety of styles, extensive murals, and Romanesque door knockers signed by the artist. Rodez cathedral, a symbol of North European dominance and orthodoxy, built after the Albigensian Crusade, is attributed to Jean des Champs. Overnight Conques.

Day 5: Conques, Albi, Toulouse. Conques is off the beaten track but was once one of the great churches on the pilgrimage road to Compostela, with a tympanum depicting the last judgement, one of the most beautiful and sophisticated works of Romanesque art, and a treasury containing many fine works, especially the shrine of Ste Foy (St Faith). Albi Cathedral is a potent symbol of the crushing of the Cathars, the building almost as much a fortress as a church. First of five nights in Toulouse.

Day 6: Toulouse. Spend the whole day in Toulouse. Visit St Sernin, one of the principal monuments of Romanesque architecture, an important stop on the road to Santiago de Compostela. The buildings of the Augustinians survive as a museum with a splendid collection of Romanesque sculpture.

Day 7: Toulouse. Visit the cathedral. The eastern arm, perhaps by Jean des Champs, is joined to a nave of local workmanship on a much smaller scale with bizarre effect. Visit the Jacobin, a Dominican church, like a monastic refectory on a vast scale. The rest of the day is free.


Mediaeval Burgundy

Abbeys & churches of the high Middle Ages

Day 8: Moissac, Cahors. In Moissac, there is an extensive programme of Romanesque sculpture and an awe-inspiring judgement portal. Visit the stunning mediaeval bridge at Cahors.

Day 9: Carcassonne, Rieux-Minervois. Carcassonne is a spectacular walled town in the valley of the Aude. Its walled circuit was famously restored by Violet-le-Duc. Visit the exquisite church of St-Nazaire. In the afternoon drive to Rieux-Minervois, an extravagant testimony to the symbolic power of Marian devotion.

Day 10: St-Lizier, St-Girons. Visit an important early Romanesque painted church with an exquisite cloister at St-Lizier. Break for lunch in St-Girons. Fly from Toulouse to London Heathrow arriving at c. 7.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,870 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (Airbus 319/320); private coach travel; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch, 7 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters and drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £430 (double room for single occupancy, except for one night in Conques). Price without flights £2,690.

Hotels: in Clermont Ferrand (3 nights): Hôtel Le Radio, a 3-star located just outside the city, decorated in Art Déco style with a good restaurant. In Conques (1 night): Hôtel Sainte-Foy, a charming 3-star hotel, dating back to the 17th century. In Toulouse (5 nights): Grand Hôtel de l’Opéra, a 4-star hotel in the historic centre of town.

How strenuous? A fairly long tour with a lot of coach travel and walking. Average distance by coach per day: 94 miles.

Small group: between 10 to 22 participants.

31 May–7 June 2014 (ma 919)8 days • £2,360Lecturer: John McNeill

Superb collection of Romanesque and early Gothic buildings.

Exceptionally well-preserved historic towns.

Rural drives through beautiful landscapes.

Led by renowned 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,

Vézelay, Abbey of La Madaleine, after a drawing by René Piot, c. 1920.Lecturers’ biographies are on page 216.


Mediaeval Burgundycontinued

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 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.

ItineraryDay 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 immensely influential early 11th-century monastery.

Day 3: Beaune, Autun, Dijon. The 15th-century 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 well-preserved 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 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 London St Pancras c. 6.30pm.

Practicalities

Price: £2,360 (deposit £250). This includes: Eurostar (1st class, standard premier) London to Paris, and TGV (high-speed train) Paris to Mâcon (times confirmed 2 months before departure); private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 6 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £290 (double room for single use). Price without Eurostar and TGV £2,090.

Hotels: in Tournus (2 nights): Hôtel Le Rempart is a 4-star hotel formerly a 15th-century guard house, located on the ramparts of the town. In Dijon (3 nights): Hostellerie du Chapeau Rouge is a centrally located, comfortable 4-star hotel furnished to a high standard. In Auxerre (2 nights): Hôtel Le Parc des Maréchaux is a 4-star hotel in a delightful 18th-century hôtel particulier.

How strenuous? Quite a lot of walking, some of it on steep hillsides, and standing around. Plenty of coach travel and three hotels. You will need to be able to lift your luggage on and off the train and wheel it within stations. Average distance by coach per day: 70 miles.


Autun, wood engraving c. 1860.

‘Excellent; as well as the better-known places, we visited some interesting little churches.’


Roman & Mediaeval ProvenceThe south of France in the middle ages

17–23 October 2014 (mb 174)7 days • £2,110Lecturer: 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.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 1.15pm 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 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.

Day 4: Villeneuve, Orange, Tarascon, Pont-du-Gard. 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.

Day 5: St-Rémy-de-Provence. Drive along the northern flank of the Alpilles to St-Rémy-de-Provence, 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. Some free time.

Pont du Gard, mid-19th-century lithograph.


Roman & Mediaeval Provencecontinued

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.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,110 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (aircraft: Airbus A319); travel by private coach throughout; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts and four dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all gratuities for restaurant staff, drivers; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager; hire of radio guides for better audibility of the lecturer. Single supplement £240 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,960.

Hotel: the Hôtel Cloître Saint Louis is a 4-star hotel in Avignon in a converted 16th-century convent. Some rooms are in a modern extension. Excellent location near the Palais des Papes.

How strenuous? Quite a lot of walking is involved, particularly in the town centres. The tour is not suitable for anyone who has difficulties with everyday walking and stairclimbing. There are some long days and coach journeys. Average distance by coach per day: 53 miles.


Opera at Aix & Orange

Verdi, Handel, Mozart

8–12 July 2014 (ma 966)5 days • £2,980(includes 3 performances)Lecturer: Dr David Vickers

Two of Europe’s finest summer music festivals, artistic standards of the highest order.

In Orange: Verdi’s Nabucco performed in one of the best-preserved Roman theatres.

In Aix: Handel’s Ariodante with Sarah Connolly and Sandrine Piau and Mozart’s The Magic Flute with the Freiburger Barockorchester.

The lecturer is musicologist and author Dr David Vickers.

Stay in Avignon and Aix-en-Provence.

The summer festival in Aix-en-Provence is one of the most prestigious and enjoyable in Europe. In 2014 our tour combines the Aix Festival with the Chorégies d’Orange, – a choral festival which began in the late 19th century and today offers an enticing programme with eminent names.

Orange, on the northwestern border of Provence, is a small town with arguably the best-preserved theatre of the Roman Empire to have survived in the West. The impressive stage wall of the Théâtre Antique d’Orange remains intact and this year provides the backdrop for Verdi’s Nabucco.

We stay a short drive away from Orange in the majestic walled city of Avignon, on the banks of the river Rhône, famous for its papal palaces, its churches and museums and the strangely cul-de-sac pont d’Avignon.

Aix, the handsome old capital of Provence is graced with a profusion of 17th- and 18th-century mansions, quiet squares, fountains and arcaded streets, and provides a superb setting for a feast of first-rate opera performances. Now

in its sixty-sixth year, the Festival d’Aix never fails to come up with irresistible programmes and artistic standards of the highest order.

The tour starts with Verdi’s Nabucco, the grand operatic retelling of the Old Testament story of Nebuchadnezzar that Verdi originally premiered at La Scala in 1842. The splendid courtyard of the Archbishop’s Palace in Aix is the setting for Handel’s Ariodante, performed by a fine cast and the outstanding Freiburger Barockorchester conducted by acclaimed Venetian harpsichordist Andrea Marcon. Widely considered one of Handel’s finest mature operatic masterpieces, Ariodante (Covent Garden, 1735) was designed to exploit the dramatic and aesthetic talents of the castrato Carestini, soprano Anna Maria Strada, the young English tenor John Beard, and the French ballet company led by renowned dancer Marie Sallé. Finally, the magnificent Grand Théâtre de Provence in Aix offers Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Mozart’s well-loved collaboration with the impresario and librettist Emanuel Schikaneder, first performed in Vienna’s Theater auf der Wieden in September 1791 (only a few months before Mozart’s tragic death), needs little introduction of course – but this Aix-en-Provence production promises to be a special occasion, in which the Freiburger Barockorchester is conducted by fast-rising star conductor Pablo Heras-Casado.

The main emphasis of the tour is on the musical events. It is led by a musicologist who gives talks on all the works attended. There are also some walks and visits in Avignon, Aix and Marseille, gentle enough to avoid taxing participants’ energies at the expense of the music.

ItineraryDay 1: London to Avignon. Fly from London Heathrow to Marseille at c.1.15pm. Drive to

Aix-les-Bains, m

id-19th-century lithograph.



Avignon where there is time to settle into the hotel before dinner. First of two nights here.

Day 2: Avignon, Orange. Attend a morning lecture before spending a free morning in Avignon. Suggestions include the cathedral, which houses the magnificent tomb of Pope John XXII, and the Petit-Palais which has collections of late Gothic sculpture and painting. In the afternoon drive to Orange to see the Roman Arc de Triomphe which has intricate depiction of the conquering of Gaul. Have dinner in the theare grounds before the late evening opera at the Théâtre Antique d’Orange: Nabucco (Verdi), Pinchas Steinberg (musical director) with the Orchèstre National Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon; Martina Serafin (Abigaïlle), Karine Deshayes (Fenena), Marie-Adeline Henry (Anna), George Gagnidze (Nabucco), Dmitry Bolesselskiy (Zaccaria), Pietro Pretti (Ismaele).

Day 3: Avignon, Aix-en-Provence. Morning lecture followed by an optional walk through old Avignon to the place du Palais, dominated by the Palais des Papes, one-time site of the papal curia and the most significant 14th-century building to survive in southern France, the walk ends at the notorious Pont St-Bénézet. Drive to Aix after lunch for some free time before the evening opera in the Théâtre de l ’Archevêché: Ariodante (Handel), with Andrea Marcon (musical director) and the Freiburger Barockorchester. Sarah Connolly (Ariodante), Patricia Petibon (Ginevra), Sandrine Piau (Dalinda), Sonia Prina (Polinesso), Bernard Richter (Lurcanio). First of two nights in Aix.

Day 4: Aix-en-Provence. After a morning lecture the day is free for independent exploration. We suggest the Musée Granet, with a good permanent collection of French painting from the 16th-century onwards as well as works by native Cézanne, the cathedral of St Sauveur, with 5th-century baptistry, cloisters and a 15th-century triptych of The Burning Bush by Nicolas Froment, the 18th-century Mazarin quarter or the Pavillon de Vendôme or the Archbishop’s Palace, which has a fine collection of Beauvais tapestries. The evening opera is at the Grand Théâtre de Provence: The Magic Flute (Mozart), Pablo Heras-Casado (musical director) with the Freiburger Barockorchester. Christof Fischesser (Sarastro), Albina Shagimuratova (Queen of the Night), Topi Lehtipuu (Tamino), Mari Eriksmoen (Pamina).

Day 5: Marseille. Drive to Marseille and visit the Fine Arts Museum, housed in the grand Palais Longchamp recently reopened after extensive renovation. The large collection contains French, Italian and Flemish masters in addition to French works from the 19th century. Lunch is independent in the attractive

old port area. Fly from Marseille airport, arriving London Heathrow at c.5.10pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,980 (deposit £300). This includes: good tickets for 3 performances costing c. £580; air travel (Euro Traveller) on British Airways flights (aircraft: Airbus 319); travel by private coach for transfers and excursions; hotel accommodation as described below; buffet breakfasts, and four dinners with wine, water and coffee; admissions to archaeological sites visited as a group; talks on the operas; tips for restaurant staff, drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £320 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,820.

Hotels: in Avignon (2 nights): the Hotel Cloître St Louis is a 4-star hotel in a converted 16th-century convent, located within the old city walls. In Aix (2 nights) the Grand Hotel Roi René is an excellent 4-star hotel just

outside the old city walls, a short walk from the Cours Mirabeau. Good breakfasts. Both hotels have swimming pools.

Music: at the time of going to print tickets for all performances were not yet confirmed.

Venues: Two of the three venues are outside. In the event of bad weather neither festival has a generous refund policy. With your confirmation of booking we will send details. Our itinerary does not allow for attending a postponed performance.

How strenuous? During the day there is a fair amount of walking within the towns. In the evening most venues are reached by coach or taxi, one in Aix is accessible on foot. There are some late nights. The performance in Orange begins at 9.45pm, and does not finish until after midnight. In July Provence is hot and busy. Average distance by coach per day: c.40 miles.


Lithograph 1902.

‘Despite the efforts of your competitors you continue to produce a product that far exceeds them on so many levels.’


Gardens of the RivieraIn & around Menton & Nice

Menton, engraving from Picturesque Europe, c. 1880.

12–18 March 2014 (ma 832)7 days • £2,110Lecturer: 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.

ItineraryDay 1: Cagnes-sur-Mer, Menton. Fly at c. 11.45am from Heathrow to Nice with British Airways. Renoir spent his last years in the farmhouse at 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.

Day 2: Menton. Lawrence Johnston’s great garden 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.

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 bougainvillea, perfumed parterres, pergolas, exotic pavilions and citrus orchards adorn this garden paradise on a private headland.

Day 5: Menton. Perched on the hillside villa quarter of Garavan, Val Rahmeh is an early


Opera in Nice & Monte-Carlo

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’ 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 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 Heathrow, arriving at c. 7.45pm.

Some of these gardens can only be visited by special arrangement and the order of visits may vary. A couple are subject to confirmation.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,110 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (aircraft: Airbus A319); private coach travel; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, one light lunch and five dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admission to gardens, museums, etc.; tips for restaurant staff, drivers; all state taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager; hire of radio guides for better audibility of the lecturer. Upgrade to sea view £100 per room (shared room). Single supplement £190 (double room for single occupancy), with sea view £270. Price without flights £1,920.

Hotel: The Hotel Napoléon is a modern and comfortable 3-star hotel with some 4-star features . Located near the border with Italy looking back on Vieux Menton. Sea view rooms have balconies but suffer some noise from the busy coastal road. Rooms at the rear are quieter.

How strenuous? A lot of walking and standing. Several gardens are on steep sites and paths are often uneven. Sure-footedness is essential. Average distance by coach per day: 42 miles.


22–25 January 2014 (ma 802)4 days • £1,590Lecturer: Simon Rees

Two performances at two of Europe’s most prestigious opera houses.

In Nice: Die Fledermaus (Strauss) directed by Andreas Gergen, a regular at Salzburg.

In Monte-Carlo: Rusalka (Dvořák) featuring the great coloratura contralto, Ewa Podleś.

Visits to two of the great galleries in Nice.

Led by Simon Rees, former Dramaturg of Welsh National Opera.

Three nights in a good hotel in Nice.

Soft light, mild winters, a rocky, sandy coastline of coves and bays and the lure of casinos and opera houses in extravagant Belle Epoque styles have long drawn visitors to the French Riviera. Migrating British and Russian aristocrats, heading south for the winter, settled along the Côte d’Azur, and encouraged the development of resorts that were built as retreats from the northern cold and darkness.

Now France’s fifth-largest city, Nice retains much of its eighteenth- and nineteenth-century beauty. As a resort, it grew up alongside the Promenade des Anglais, an elegant walkway built at the behest of the English overwintering there and in the late nineteenth-century illustrious artists such as Chagall and Matisse were drawn there to paint. Their legacy remains thanks to two great galleries of their work. The old town, lime-washed in red and yellow ochre, feels as much Italian as French (it was ruled for many years by the House of Savoy).

The opera house, with its seaward-looking

façade, was built in 1885 to replace an earlier one burnt down by a gas leak during a performance of Lucia di Lammermoor (traditionally an unlucky opera). See here the greatest of all Viennese operettas, Strauss’s Die Fledermaus, beloved for its cast of comic characters and improbable plot. French soprano Sophie Marin-Degor, a regular at the great French opera houses, plays the role of Rosalinde.

The Corniche that links the Côte d’Azur eastward of Nice to the principality of Monaco is one of the great romantic roads of Europe, and the Grande Corniche above Monte-Carlo is where Grace Kelly (as Frances) takes Cary Grant (as Robey) for a white-knuckle drive in To Catch a Thief. Monte-Carlo is not the capital of tiny Monaco, simply the largest quartier. Here the celebrated Casino houses the Opéra de Monte-Carlo in the ornate Salle Garnier. The opera company gained a reputation for first-class productions under its director for sixty years, Raoul Gunsbourg.

The Casino has provided the main source of income for the Principality for well over a century and the Opéra has always benefited from this, drawing its casts from among the greatest singers in the world. What the punters lose at the tables, the audience gains in the stalls, and the proximity of the casino and theatre has always given a night at the opera in Monte-Carlo a dangerous, exotic glamour. Witness here Dvořák’s Rusalka, a lyric fairytale about a water nymph, starring Barbara Haveman, a frequent performer at Vienna Staatsoper, and Ewa Podleś, noted for her vocal agility and three-octave range.

ItineraryDay 1: fly at c. 12.00 midday from London Gatwick to Nice. The Musée Matisse unites a wide range of the artist’s work; sculpture, ceramics, stained glass as well as painting. All three nights are spent in Nice.

Day 2: Nice. Morning lecture on tonight’s performance. 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. Some free time to explore Nice’s old town. Evening opera at the Opéra de Nice: Die Fledermaus (Strauss), Bruno Ferrandis (conductor), Andreas Gergen (director) Frabrice Dalis (Eisenstein), Sophie Marin-Degor (Rosalinde), Bernard Imbert (Franck).

Day 3: St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, Monte-Carlo. Morning lecture. Drive west to nearby St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat to see the paintings, sculpture and furniture of the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild, a mansion set in attractive gardens. Some free

From The Foreign Tour of Brown, Jones & Robinson 1904.


Nice, etching c. 1925 by Frederick Farrell.

Opera in Nice & Monte-Carlocontinued Modern Art

on the Côte d’Azurtime before driving east to Monte-Carlo for a guided visit of the luxuriant Casino, epitome of the Belle Epoque, and the Salle Garnier (subject to rehearsal schedules), Monte-Carlo’s Opéra, with its frescoed ceilings and chandeliers, housed within the Casino. Dinner in Monte-Carlo before the evening opera: Rusalka (Dvořák), Lawrence Foster (conductor), Dieter Kaegl (director), Maxim Aksenov (The Prince), Tatiana Pavlovskaïa (The Foreign Princess), Barbara Haveman (Rusalka), Alexei Tikhomirov (Vodnik, the water goblin), Ewa Podles (Jezibaba, a witch). Drive back to Nice.

Day 4: Nice. Some free time before the early afternoon flight from Nice to London Gatwick, arriving c. 11.35am.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,590 (deposit £200). This includes: top category opera tickets in Nice and second category tickets in Monte-Carlo costing c. £125; air travel (Euro Traveller) on scheduled flights with British Airways (Airbus 320, Boeing 737); private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 3 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters and drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £160 (double room for single occupancy). Single supplement for a room with sea view £250. Sea view supplement for 2 people sharing £140 (room rate). Price without flights £1,480.

Hotel: Hotel La Pérouse is a stylish four-star hotel partially built into the cliff and overlooking the Promenade des Anglais. Rooms are furnished in modern Provençal style. Most rooms have a balcony or terrace.

How strenuous? There is a fair amount of walking and standing around in museums. Average distance by coach per day: 13 miles.


4–11 March 2014 (ma 839)8 days • £2,780Lecturer: Mary Lynn Riley

19–26 September 2014 (mb 122)8 days • £2,780Lecturer: Monica Bohm-Duchen

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 20th-century art.

Visits to the coastal towns and villages which inspired the artists.

Stay in Nice throughout.

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.

Modern art & architectureThe Louvre at Lens ...................................73

Berlin: New Architecture .....................87

Art in Madrid ............................................. 190

Frank Lloyd Wright .................................212

West Coast Architecture ...................214

Art in Texas .................................................213


ItineraryDay 1: Nice. Fly at c. 12.00 midday from London Gatwick 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 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 renovated 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. The Maeght Foundation at St-Paul-de-Vence is renowned for its collections (Picasso, Hepworth, Miró, Arp, Giacometti, but not all works are shown at once) and for its architecture and setting.

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 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 Gatwick 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.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,780 (deposit £250). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Airbus 319); private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 5 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters and drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer; hire of radio guides for better audibility of the lecturer. Single supplement £280 (March), £330 (September). Price without flights £2,600.

Hotels: (March): Hotel La Pérouse is a stylish four-star hotel partially built into the cliff and overlooking the Promenade des Anglais. Rooms are furnished in modern Provençal style. Rooms are at the back of the hotel. Contact us for a price to upgrade to a room with a sea view. (September): Hotel Le Beau Rivage is a modern 4-star located in Nice’s old town, a very short walk from the Promenade des Anglais. Rooms are comfortable and decorated in a contemporary style.

How strenuous? There is a fair amount of walking and standing around in museums. Average distance by coach per day: 51 miles.


Possible linking tours. Combine the March departure with Essential Rome, 26 February–3 March (page 145); Connoisseur’s Rome, 25 February–2 March (page 148); Gardens of the Riviera, 12–18 March (page 80); Siena & San Gimignano, 26 February–2 March (page 136). Combine the September tour with Classical Greece, 27 September–6 October (page 103); French Gothic, 8–14 September (page 67); Gastronomic Sicily, 29 September–5 October (page 159).


‘High point for me was Chagall, being able to see so much in one museum.’

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The House of HanoverDuchies, electorate & kingdom in Germany

21–27 May 2014 (ma 886)7 days • £1,920Lecturer: Dr Jarl Kremeier

Studies the German territories ruled by the dynasty from which came the Hannoverian kings of Great Britain 1714–1837.

Marks the 300 years since the start of the rule of the Hannoverians in Great Britain, and three anniversary exhibitions are included.

Led by anglophile German art historian, tour leader and genealogist Jarl Kremeier.

Includes well-preserved small towns, mediaeval monuments, some good art collections, city palaces, country houses and gardens. History as well as art history and architecture.

Great-grandson of James I and VI, consistently through the female line, George Ludwig Elector of Hannover (1660–1727) might have been fifty-second in line to the thrones of Great Britain at the death of Queen Anne. But a combination of premature deaths and, much more devastatingly, the Act of Settlement of 1702 which barred the throne to Roman Catholics, enabled him to succeed as King George I in 1714. The House of Hanover was to reign in Britain until 1837. This tour travels to the territories the Hanoverians ruled before, during and after this episode.

The Guelphs, or Welfen, are one of the great dynasties of Europe. The attempt of

Henry the Lion (1129–95) to bring himself in line for the possible election of Holy Roman Emperor eventually failed, but as dukes of Braunschweig-Lüneburg (since 1235) the family played a decisive role in German politics and patronage of the arts. Both activities were greatly enhanced by Duke, and from 1692 Elector, Ernst August (1629–98) and Duchess Sophie, parents of the future George I.

When George moved his residence from Hannover to London, the sudden loss of the court was a severe blow to arts patronage, but there is still a great deal to see in the area of the former duchies. The erstwhile residences at Celle and Wolfenbüttel have large Schlösser set in charming cities; the ‘Großer Garten’ at Herrenhausen near Hannover and the landscaped parts next to it rank among the finest in the history of gardening; Braunschweig (Brunswick) has a magnificent collection of old master paintings and bronzes assembled by George I’s cousin; and there are furniture and paintings in various places.

The tour also includes a number of mediaeval places connected to the Guelphs, as well as some nineteenth-century buildings erected by the then kings of Hannover after the union-by-king of Great Britain and Hannover. The union came to an end in 1837 because the electorate submitted to the Salic law which did not permit a female monarch, and the kingdom became extinct after it backed the losing side in the war between Austria and Prussia in 1866; Hannover was absorbed into Prussia.

Itinerary

Day 1: Lüneburg. Fly at c. 10.50am from London Heathrow to Hamburg then drive to Lüneburg, capital of the eponymous duchy until 1373 when the city expelled the ducal family. See the important town hall with original interiors, St Michael’s Church (where J.S. Bach went to school) and St Johannes (magnificent organ). On the market square is the 1690 dowager palais of Duchess Eleonore (aunt by marriage of George I and widow of the last duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg, who was succeeded by George I in 1705). Overnight Lüneburg.

Day 2: Lüneburg, Medingen. Visit the Museum of the Duchy of Lüneburg. Drive south to Kloster Medingen, convent then girls’ school, which burnt down in 1781; George III as Elector of Hannover contributed to the cost of re-building. Drive to Hannover and visit the Landesmuseum, a good collection of paintings from the former royal collection. The remaining five nights are spent in Hannover.

Day 3: Wolfenbüttel. Residence of the Wolfenbüttel branch of Guelf dukes (1432–1753), the town is a very well-preserved with a Schloß of various periods, one of the few major purpose-built Protestant churches (started 1604) and the important and famous Herzog-August-Bibliothek, a library which in the 17th century was perhaps the largest in Europe.

Day 4: Celle. Celle is another of the most charming of smaller German cities with a well preserved centre with much half timbering. The Schloß, residence of the dukes (Lüneburg branch) since the 14th century, has a wonderfully decorated Renaissance chapel and apartments rebuilt by Georg Wilhelm (George I’s uncle) with Italian stucco and a tiny court theatre. Special exhibition on the history of the Welfen. See the house and garden used by George III’s brother-in-law, the duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and the church with tombs of George I’s uncles and aunt. Celle also served briefly as residence of George III’s sister Caroline Mathilde.

Day 5: Braunschweig (Brunswick). To territories of George I’s cousins, the dukes of Braunschweig-Lüneburg-Wolfenbüttel. The Herzog Anton-Ulrich Museum in Braunschweig has most of the collections of the eponymous duke (died 1714), Rubens, van Dyck, Rembrandt, Vermeer, etc. (closed for renovation in 2014 but much on display elsewhere). Schloß Richmond is a delightful villa built in 1768 for Duchess Augusta (sister of George III, mother of Queen Caroline), surrounded by landscaped gardens. Drive out to Marienburg, a strikingly situated castle commissioned by

Brunswick m

arket square, wood engraving c. 1880.

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Georg V in 1857 with some good interiors, pictures and furniture.

Day 6: Herrenhausen. The small palais of Fürstenhaus on the Herrenhausen estate, still owned by the Prinz von Hannover (and Duke of Cumberland!), has good furniture and portraits and one of the grandest complexes of historic gardens in Europe. A vast formal, Franco-Dutch layout was started by George I’s uncle, enlarged by his parents and finished by himself (waterworks). There is also a magnificent orangery with frescoed interiors, a botanical garden and landscaped gardens with the summer house of Graf Johan Wallmoden, illegitimate son of George II. The Welfenschloß was started in 1858 for Georg V but not quite finished by the end of the Hannoverian monarchy in 1866. There is a special exhibition here celebrating the dynasty.

Day 7: Hannover. Visit the Landesmuseum again, this time to see an exhibition about Hannoverian rule in England (sic). There is some free time in Hannover; the Kestner Museum (applied arts) and the Sprengel Museum (modern art) are among the attractions. Fly from Hannover, arriving Heathrow c. 8.50pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,920 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled flights with British Airways (aircraft: Airbus A319 jet); travel by private coach for transfers and excursions; breakfasts, one light lunch and five dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admission to museums and sites; all gratuities for waiters, drivers and guides; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single room supplement £110. Price without flights £1,750.

Hotels. In Lüneburg (1 night): Hotel Bergström, a charming hotel on the banks of the River Ilmenau in the heart of town. In Hannover (5 nights): Maritim Grand Hotel, a large 4-star chain hotel in the city centre. Although lacking in character, it is well-run with good-sized rooms.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking on this tour, some over uneven ground. Average distance by coach per day: 93 miles.


Spelling: the conventional English spelling, Hanover, seemed appropriate for the title but elsewhere the German, Hannover, has been adopted.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with The Rhine Valley Festival of Song, 29 May–6 June (101).

Berlin, Potsdam, Dresden

Art & architecture in Brandenburg & Saxony

8–15 September 2014 (mb 106)8 days • £2,490Lecturer: Dr Jarl Kremeier

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.

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 Brandenburg-Prussia 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 now 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

Berlin, statue of Frederick the Great (Christian Daniel Rauch) mid-19th-century engraving.


Berlin, Potsdam, Dresdencontinued

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.

ItineraryDay 1: Dresden. Fly at c. 11.00am from London Heathrow to Berlin and drive to Dresden. Take an introductory walk around the old centre of Dresden. First of three nights in Dresden.

Day 2: Dresden. 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. The Green Vault of the Residenzschloss displays one of the world’s finest princely treasuries.

Day 3: 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 New Masters Gallery in the Albertinum.

Day 4: Dresden, Berlin. Stroll in Dresden-Neustadt on the right bank of the Elbe, little damaged in the War. Visit the domed Frauenkirche, the Protestant cathedral. Leave for Berlin by coach in the afternoon. 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. Relatively recent additions include the British Embassy (Michael Wilford) and the Holocaust Memorial. First of four nights in Berlin.

Day 5: 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. Some free time.

Day 6: Berlin. In the 1990s Potsdamer Platz was Europe’s greatest building project and showcases an international array of architects (Piano, 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. In the evening, visit Norman Foster’s glass dome capping the Reichstag and have dinner in the roof-top restaurant.

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. 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 Pergamon Museum has one of the world’s finest collections

of Near Eastern antiquities, including the eponymous altar. Fly from Berlin to Heathrow, arriving at c. 5.50pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,490 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on Lufthansa flights (Airbus A320); travel by private coach and metro within Berlin; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 5 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; tips for waiters, drivers, guides; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £310 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,320.

Hotels: in Dresden (3 nights): Radisson Blu Gewandhaus Hotel, a traditional 5-star hotel in a reconstructed Baroque building, tastefully decorated, with a personal, friendly atmosphere, 20 minutes walk from the Zwinger. Rooms vary in size.; in Berlin (4 nights): the Regent Berlin, an elegant hotel decorated in Regency style, located close to Unter den Linden. Rooms are of a good size and of excellent standard.

Music: details of performances will be circulated nearer the time. We will endeavour to obtain tickets as requested.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking required and standing in museums. Average distance by coach per day: 44 miles.


Possible linking tours. Combine with Flemish Painting, 3–6 September (page 24); Mediaeval Art in Paris, 5–7 September (page 66); The Heart of Italy, 16–23 September (page 139).

Dresden, Zwinger, engraving c. 1880 from The German Fatherland.

‘Very instructive and well-planned, as exemplified in the variety of churches, public buildings, palaces and gardens seen in Berlin, Potsdam and Dresden.’


Berlin: New ArchitectureThe unification of a capital

apartments for every depth of pocket, shops, cinemas, sporting facilities.

The economic stagnation of the mid-1990s should form part of the story, but so deep are the roots of prosperity that, to the visiting Brit, recession in Germany looks like boom time back home. Some economy measures were imposed by the government: some of the grander schemes were trimmed, and a requirement to rehabilitate existing buildings as far as possible was instituted, which in retrospect resulted in an even more stimulating built environment.

There are many layers to the fascinating story of Berlin’s new architecture, and one of them is this: while its quantity is amazing and the speed of its construction astonishing, the quality on the whole is staggeringly high – three characteristics not usually found in the same sentence. The traditional long-term thinking of German enterprise helps, resulting in sound workmanship and good materials. To this is happily allied a widespread interest in visual culture and a general enthusiasm for the modern. Every Berlin taxi driver seems able to discuss the merits of the more prominent buildings.

And then there is the extraordinary internationalism of present-day Germany. Symbolism can be teased out of every block of masonry in the new Berlin, and so a rejection of the nationalism of the past, whether conscious or not, probably plays a role. But the fact is that many leading architects from countries around the world have contributed magnificently to the new Berlin. In the context of this paragraph, it would be tastelessly ironic to trumpet the fact that the nation which has spawned more of the foreign architects than any other is Great Britain, but it will undeniably give extra interest to the British participants on this tour.

ItineraryPlease note: because the itinerary is dependent on a number of appointments and special arrangements, the order and even the content of the tour may vary.

Day 1. Fly at c. 8.45am from London Heathrow to Berlin. Drive to Potsdamer Platz, before the war a nodal point in the

city centre but subsequently virtually open wasteland. Now it is at the centre of a 50-acre development and a conspectus of international contemporary architecture with contributions from Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers, Helmut Jahn, Hans Kollhoff, Rafael Moneo and Arata Isozaki. Buildings of a wide range of use and design, interconnected with public atria, fill the segments and step up to the towers which front the Platz itself. Foster’s library at the Free University is inspired by the human brain. Visit the Jewish Museum, Daniel Libeskind’s jagged, lacerated, powerfully emotive extension to a Baroque palace.

Day 2. Triumph, defeat, unity: perhaps no other building is imbued with such mixed associations while remaining the unmistakable symbol of a city: isolated since the war, politically and architecturally, the Brandenburg Gate again is integrated into a stately square, Pariser Platz. Despite strict planning regulations, buildings of individuality and distinction have arisen including the chirpy British Embassy by Michael Wilford, the DG Bank by Frank Gehry and the French Embassy by Christiande Portzamparc. The controversial Holocaust Memorial by Peter Eisenmann is nearby . Another potent Berlin symbol is the Reichstag, a ponderous 1880s structure scarred by the vicissitudes of the 20th century, the shell now brilliantly rehabilitated by Norman Foster and topped by the famous glass dome. Planned by Axel Schultes and Charlotte Frank, the ‘Band des Bundes’ is a long rectangle of government buildings including the Chancellery which twice crosses the meandering River Spree.

Day 3. With a degree of co-operation rare in international politics, the five Nordic countries have grouped their embassies in a single compound with a layout by a Viennese firm. Each embassy building, designed by an architect from the nation represented, is completely different except for their height. Move westwards to the commercial heart of West Berlin, the Kurfürstendamm. The architectural blandness of the district was in the 1990s ruptured by, among others, Nicholas Grimshaw’s armadillo-like Stock Exchange. The ‘Kulturforum’ was planned in the 1960s by

5–8 June 2014 (ma 922)4 days • £1,310Lecturer: Dr Harry Charrington

Europe’s biggest concentration of contemporary architecture.

The list of architects virtually comprises a roll-call of the world’s leading architectural practices.

Access to private places, and time for some of the standard sights.

Led by Dr Harry Charrington, an architect and lecturer in architecture who specialises in the history of modernism.

Perhaps one of the most joyous years of the twentieth century, 1989 culminated in the breaching of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the East German state. With the headlong rush towards monetary and political unification which followed, there arose the question of where to locate the capital of the new Germany.

Should it remain in Bonn, ‘a small town in Germany’, provisional base of the western Federal Republic (and where a proper parliament house was just beginning to be built), or should it be moved back to Berlin, with all the complex historical resonances which that entailed (including, for citizens of the former GDR, the fact that Berlin was already a capital). By a narrow majority in June 1991 Berlin won the vote.

Almost immediately the city became the biggest building site in Europe, the skies darkened by cranes like scavengers cleansing the site of dead ideologies and tragic memories, and the ground excavated with deep pits as if the very subsoil was tainted and in need of renewal. Not only was the government outfitting the city with all the necessaria of a political capital, but the infrastructure needed radical surgery, two halves which had developed completely separately over half a century needed to be knitted together, heavyweight companies were moving their headquarters here and the great museums and cultural institutions were being renewed. In their wake the camp followers of urban renewal poured in – speculative office buildings,

The British Embassy in Berlin by Michael Wilford & Partners.


Music in BerlinArt, architecture & music in the German capital

Berlin: new Architecturecontinued

the West as an area for cultural institutions and became a site for Mies van der Rohe’s modern-movement New National Gallery and Hans Scharoun’s original and organic Philharmonie (concert hall); the last building to be added was the Gemäldegalerie by Hilmer & Sattler which superbly displays one of the world’s greatest collections of Old Masters.

Day 4. The main railway station by Gerkan, Marg & Partners, which opened in June 2006, celebrates unification through its form and transparent appearance. The Catholic parish church of St Canisius is based on strictly geometrical patterns enlivened through light. En route to the airport visit the Heinz-Galinski School, a labyrinth of alleys between curved and wedge-shaped blocks like an ancient Near Eastern village. Fly to London, arriving Heathrow c. 5.50pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,310 (deposit £150). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (aircraft: Airbus A319); travel by private coach; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, two lunches and two dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions to museums, sites; all gratuities for restaurant staff, drivers, guides; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £130. Price without flights £1,120.

Hotel: The Westin Grand is a stylish but traditional hotel close to Unter den Linden and within walking distance of the Staatsoper. Rooms are of good size and excellent standard.

How strenuous? This is a short but tiring tour. There is a lot of walking and very little free time. Average distance by coach per day: 4 miles.


25 February–2 March 2014 (ma 814)6 days • £2,670(including 4 performances)Lecturers: Professor Jan Smaczny & Dr Jarl Kremeier

The Marriage of Figaro (Mozart); La Damnation de Faust (Berlioz); Tosca (Puccini); The St John Passion ( J.S. Bach) with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, and a star cast including Magdalena Kožená (mezzo-soprano).

Numerous excellent collections of fine and decorative arts and first-rate architecture.

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

Berlin Royal Palace (demolished 1953, being rebuilt), engraving c. 1995.

More modern art & architectureThe Louvre at Lens ...................................73

Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur .....82

Art in Madrid ............................................. 190

Frank Lloyd Wright .................................212

West Coast Architecture ...................214

Art in Texas .................................................213


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 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.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 12.30pm from London Heathrow to Berlin Tegel. Take an orientation tour by coach: Reichstag, Brandenburg Gate, Pariser Platz and Unter den Linden. Visit the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.

Day 2. Start with a music lecture as on most mornings. Then walk to ‘Museums Island’, a group of major museum buildings. Visit the Neues Museum, recently restored and recreated by British architect David Chipperfield, and the Alte Nationalgalerie with European painting of the 19th century including the finest collection of German Romantics. Some free time followed by an evening at the Deutsche Oper: The Marriage of Figaro (Mozart), Matthias Foremny (conductor), John Chest (Duke Almaviva), Genia Kühmeier (Duchess Almaviva), Heidi Stober (Susanna), Jana Kurucová (Cherubino), Marko Mimica (Figaro), Burkhard Ulrich (Don Basilio), Paul Kaufmann (Don Curzio), Stephen Bronk (Bartolo), Ronnita Miller (Marcellina), Alexandra Hutton (Barbarina), Seth Carico (Antonio).

Day 3. Schloss Charlottenburg, the earliest major building in Berlin, is an outstanding Baroque and Rococo palace with splendid interiors. Some free time followed by an evening at the Deutsche Oper: La Damnation de Faust (Berlioz), Donald Runnicles (conductor), Clémentine Margaine (Marguerite), Klaus Florian Vogt (Faust), Samuel Youn (Méphistophélès), Tobias Kehrer (Brander).

Day 4. Potsdamer Platz, for 50 years a great expanse of wasteland, became in the 1990s Europe’s greatest building project with an array of international architects participating. The ‘Kulturforum’ developed before 1989 on land close to the Wall as the site for several major museums, the State Library and Philharmonie. Visit the Gemäldegalerie, one of Europe’s major collections of Old Masters. Free afternoon. Evening opera at the Staatsoper: Tosca (Puccini): Stefano Ranzani (conductor), Maria José Siri (Tosca), Thiago Arancam (Cavaradossi), Egils Silins (Scarpia), Gyula Orendt (Angelotti), Raimund Nolte (Sacristan), Florian Hoffmann (Spoletta), Maximilian Krummen (Sciarrone).

Day 5. Walk to the Pergamon Museum, home to of one of the world’s finest collections of Near Eastern antiquities including the

eponymous Hellenistic altar from Anatolia. Free afternoon: suggested visits include the Altes Museum (Classical sculpture and artefacts) and the Bode Museum (sculpture and paintings). Evening performance at the Philharmonie: St John Passion (J.S. Bach), Sir Simon Rattle (conductor), Camilla Tilling (soprano), Magdalena Kožená (mezzo-soprano), Topi Lehtipuu (tenor), Mark Padmore (tenor), Roderick Williams (baritone), Christian Gerhaher (baritone).

Day 6. Short visit to the Jewish Museum followed by lunch in the rooftop restaurant in the Reichstag, with the opportunity (without queuing) to walk around Foster’s dome. Fly at c.4.35pm arriving at London Heathrow at c. 5.30pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,670 (deposit £250). This includes: music tickets costing c. £420; flights with British Airways (Airbus A320 & A321); travel by private coach with some use of the metro; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch, 3 dinners and 1 interval snack, with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturers. Single supplement £240. Price without flights £2,500.

Hotel: The Regent Berlin, an elegant hotel decorated in Regency style, close to Unter den Linden. Rooms are of a good size and excellent standard.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking and standing around in art galleries. Average distance by coach per day: 12 miles.

Music tickets have been confirmed for all performances.



Cold War BerlinClash of ideologies, clinch of superpowers

27–30 July 2014 (ma 970)4 days • £1,420Lecturer: Patrick Mercer

Historical examination of the divided city where East and West confronted each other for 44 years.

Politics global and local, life in the DDR and in the western enclave.

Led by a military historian and politician who served as an army officer in Berlin.

Stays in a (refurbished) 1970s hotel in the centre of the old Soviet sector.

For nearly forty years after World War Two, the world lived with the incessant anxiety of annihilation through the doctrine of ‘Mutually Assured Destruction’. There seemed little likelihood of compromise and none of conciliation between the two great geopolitical blocs, and many of the wars around the globe were superpower conflicts by proxy. But there was nothing vicarious about the confrontation in Berlin. Here military personnel on both sides looked each other in the eye from a few feet away. Here, it was widely believed, the Third World War was most likely to begin.

Though only a few traces remain, the Wall is the most striking memorial of that bizarre and frightening era. Staggering in its brazenness and cruelty, it was erected in 1961 as the culmination of attempts by the eastern sector to stop its citizens fleeing to the West, and was continually refined until its sudden breach in 1989.

That is but one thread in an extraordinary and multi-faceted story which began in Year

Zero, 1945. Concentrated bombardments had reduced Berlin to ruins with most of the houses flattened or uninhabitable (it took 12 years to clear the rubble), thousands starved to death each day, there was an almost complete breakdown of law and order and rape by Soviet soldiery was on a horrific scale.

Cold War Berlin is also a story of global politics, of visits by Kennedy, Khrushchev, Gorbachev and Reagan, of appeasement and resistance, of the 462-day Blockade (1948–9) and of how a devastated and deeply unstable city became a heroic beacon of western values. There is also the story of the manipulation of democratic processes to impose a tyrannical regime in the Soviet sector; a proper historical analysis overturns the currently fashionable nostalgia for the DDR.

Berlin was also of course the spy capital of the world, the peculiarities of its administration allowing for clandestine meetings and exchanges of information. This is the world of John Le Carré and Len Deighton, though fiction should not be taken as fact. Some of what went on is still officially secret.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly from London Heathrow at c. 11.00am to Berlin Tegel. Drive to Treptow to visit the Soviet War Memorial where 300,000 are buried, a salutary reminder of another side of the story. Drive along Karl-Marx Allee (Stalinallee till 1956), a showpiece boulevard of socialist monumentalism. The Berlin Wall Memorial in Bernauer Strasse retains one of the few complete sections with double wall and death strip.

Day 2. Visit Gedenkstätte Hohenschönhausen,

a Soviet then Stasi (secret police) prison for political deviants, and the Stasi HQ at Normannenstrasse, much as it was in 1990 and revealing the extraordinary scale of surveillance of DDR citizens. Checkpoint Charlie was the infamous crossing point between American and Soviet sectors (marked by a replica hut and museum), and Zimmerstrasse was the site of the Fechter shooting which shocked the world. Alexanderplatz and Marx-Engels Forum are open spaces at the heart of the Soviet sector, dominated by the Television Tower. Some free time.

Day 3. Drive to Potsdam and visit Cecilienhof, the English-style mansion built for the Crown Prince in 1913 and scene in 1945 of the Potsdam Conference (where Atlee replaced Churchill midway). Then there is a special walk along the site of the Wall to the Glienicke Bridge on the south-western edge of West Berlin. Straddling the border, it was used for the exchange of prisoners. The Allied Museum in Zehlendorf well illustrates the western occupation; the nuclear bunker off the Ku’damm reveals the anxieties.

Day 4. Recently restored, Schloss Schönhausen contains the residence of Wilhelm Pieck, President of the DDR. Pariser Platz and around: the Brandenburg Gate, the most potent symbol of tragedy and triumph, the Russian (formerly Soviet) embassy, the Soviet War Memorial in the British sector. At the Reichstag the Cold War symbolically came to an end with the reunification ceremony in 1990. On the way to the airport stop at Schöneberg Town Hall, seat of Berlin city government of the western sectors and site of Kennedy’s speech: ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’. Return to Heathrow c. 6.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,420 (deposit: £150). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Airbus 319); private coach; accommodation; breakfasts, 1 lunch, 2 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £80 (double for sole use). Price without flights £1,180.

Hotel: Park Inn by Radisson, a 1970s 40-storey skyscraper in the eastern sector off the Alexander Platz, now refurbished though parts retain a period feel. Rooms are comfortable (showers, no baths). There are the disadvantages of a large but not luxurious hotel, but the advantages are location, the views and appropriateness to the theme of the tour.

How strenuous? Quite a lot of walking required and standing around is unavoidable.


GDR Soldier Conrad Schumann escapes to West Berlin, 15 August 1961.


Opera in Leipzig & Dresden& the art treasures of Saxony

27 June–3 July 2014 (ma 960)7 days • £2,610(including 4 opera tickets) Lecturer: Simon Rees

Die Frau Ohne Schatten (R. Strauss), Elektra (R. Strauss), The Barber of Seville (Rossini) and Der Fliegende Holländer (Wagner).

Rebuilding, restoration and refurbishment has wrought wonders in these once shattered cities.

Led by Simon Rees, writer, lecturer and former dramaturg of the Welsh National Opera.

Since the earliest days of opera, the Electoral Court at Dresden was one of its most enthusiastic and extravagant patrons. The same could not be said of the dour, God-fearing mercantile city of Leipzig (J.S. Bach is not noted for his operatic compositions). Only relatively late did it allow itself the thrills of secular music drama.

But the two great Saxon cities, which had such different histories and cultures, have in our era been twin pillars of operatic excellence in the heart of Germany. Despite the grim post-war years and the traumatic changes since re-unification, their opera companies are flourishing again. Dresden has managed to maintain the traditional salaried company system, which gives rise to high standards in all departments, and the Leipzig opera house has enjoyed a resurgence with a succession of much-acclaimed productions.

Eastern Germany is being transformed by comprehensive reconstruction and painstaking restoration. The charms of those pre-war buildings which survived into the Communist era used to be veiled by dirt and neglect; now they are emerging as from a chrysalis. Elsewhere ‘historic’ buildings pop up anew, entirely rebuilt, but amazingly persuasive in their deceit. Leipzig in particular has become a city of pavement cafés and stylish shops, a world away from its recent past.

And then there are the art museums, with collections of international importance. The Old Masters Gallery and the Green Vault at Dresden are legendary, but there is much to delight in at many museums in both cities.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 11.30am from London City airport to Dresden. Drive to Leipzig. A lecture is followed by dinner. First of two nights in Leipzig.

Day 2: Leipzig. Join a guided walk around the city centre to include the Marketplace and Old City Hall, Stock Exchange and the churches of St Nicholas and St Thomas (where J.S. Bach

was choir master) and the Bach Museum. Free afternoon. Early evening opera at Leipzig Opera House: Die Frau Ohne Schatten (R. Strauss). Cast to be confirmed. Overnight Leipzig.

Day 3: Leipzig, Dresden. Drive from Leipzig to Dresden. After lunch, a walk with a local guide includes the Zwinger, a unique Baroque confection, a pleasure palace, arena for festivities, and museum for cherished collections. Other buildings of the Electoral Court include the Stable Courtyard and the Catholic Church. Some free time. Early evening opera at the Semperoper: Elektra (R. Strauss), Stefan Klingele (conductor), Tichina Vaughn (Clytemnestra), Evelyn Herlitzius (Elektra), Jürgen Müller (Aegistheus), Markus Marquardt (Orest). First of four nights in Dresden.

Day 4: Dresden. Visit the Rezidenzschloss, one of the world’s finest princely treasuries, once again displayed in the Green Vault. Evening

opera at the Semperoper: The Barber of Seville (Rossini), Josep Caballé-Domenech (conductor), Christopher Tiesi (Il Conte d’Almaviva), Michael Eder (Bartolo), Gala El Hadidi (Rosina), Christoph Pohl (Figaro), Enzo Capuano (Basilio). Overnight Dresden.

Day 5: Dresden. Visit the Old Masters Gallery in the Zwinger, one of the best collections in Germany. After lunch, join a walk of the Neustadt, taking in amongst others the Baroque Quarter around Königsstrasse, and a Japanese Palace. Overnight Dresden.

Day 6: Dresden. Guided visit of the great domed Frauenkirche, whose restoration is now complete. Free afternoon. Evening opera at the Semperoper: Der Fliegende Holländer (Wagner), Constantin Trinks (conductor), Markus Marquardt (The Dutchman), Marjorie Owens (Senta), Georg Zeppenfeld (Daland), Christa Mayer (Mary), Wookyung Kim (Erik). Overnight Dresden.

Leipzig, Market Square & Old Town Hall, wood engraving c. 1890.


Opera in Leipzig & Dresdencontinued

Day 7: Dresden, Pillnitz. Morning excursion to Pillnitz, a summer palace in Chinese Rococo style, with collections of decorative art and a riverside park. Fly from Dresden to London City airport, arriving c. 6.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,610 (deposit £250). This includes: 4 opera tickets costing c. £250; air travel (economy class) on CityJet flights (aircraft: Fokker 50); private coach for transfers; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 4 dinners and 2 lunches, including wine, water and coffee; admission to museums, etc.; all tips for waiters, drivers and guides; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £260. Price without flights £2,490.

Hotels: in Leipzig (2 nights): Hotel Fürstenhof, the finest hotel in the city, yet not large and with the feel of a discreet private club. A converted 19th-century building, it is furnished throughout with antique furniture. Situated just outside the line of the mediaeval walls, the hotel is a 20 minute walk from the Opera House. In Dresden (4 nights): Radisson Blu Gewandhaus Hotel, a traditional 5-star hotel in a reconstructed Baroque building, tastefully decorated, with a friendly, personal atmosphere, c. 20 minutes on foot from the Semperoper. Rooms vary in size.

How strenuous? Vehicular access is restricted in the city centres and participants are expected to walk to the opera houses. Average distance by coach per day: 23 miles.


Music in the Saxon Hills

16–22 September 2014 (mb 120)7 days • £2,190Lecturers: Dr David Vickers & Tom Abbott

A remarkable music festival with internationally renowned musicians in a little-visited region.

Beautiful and varied landscapes, unspoilt old towns, magnificent Gothic churches.

Exclusive arrangements. Accompanied by two lecturers, a cultural historian and a musicologist.

The Erzgebirge is a forgotten region of eastern Germany. The mining which for centuries sustained Saxony as one of the richer territories of Europe has gone. The younger generation have deserted in droves, but among those who remain an appreciation of music seems to be something in their blood, not learnt, not a taste acquired, but lived and breathed.

Located deep in the territory of the former GDR, few of the town centres have been prettified, and though neglected and drear the more perceptive visitor can enjoy the authentic, age-old vernacular. But it needs no special learning to be impressed by the huge Gothic churches at the centre of every community. Often at the highest point, reached up mossy steps and cobbled alleys, these are the venues for the remarkable Erzgebirge (‘ore mountains’) Musikfestival.

It is the brainchild of Christoph Rademann, conductor of the Dresden Chamber Choir, the Dresden Baroque Orchestra and the RIAS Kammerchor. The aim is to bring good music

to people who appreciate it, build a bridge between local tradition and international quality of performance and to create a synthesis of music, landscape and architecture. They want a mixed audience of locals, national fans (many come down from Berlin for the day) and a few foreigners. MRT was their first and only choice of English tour operator.

Artists this year include Masaaki Suzuki, King’s College Choir, the Staatskapelle Dresden and Rademann’s Dresden-based choir and Baroque Orchestra. The landscape is a striking feature, an ever changing sequence of rolling hills, mountains, pine forests, green pastures and flat grassland. Driving along the winding, rising and falling roads provides an impressive sequence of varied vistas.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 12.00 noon from London Heathrow to Prague (Czech Republic). Drive into Germany and to the remotely located and charming town of Annaberg-Buchholz where this tour is based throughout.

Day 2. Annaberg-Buchholz, Lößnitz. In the morning there is a guided walk around the town centre. The parish church is one of the finest of late Gothic buildings with complex vaulting and superb furnishings. Some free time. Drive to Lößnitz, stopping en route in Zwönitz for dinner. Concert in Lößnitz with the Pera Ensemble (Istanbul) and Dresdner Barockorchester: works by Vivaldi, Händel, Lotti and music from the Ottoman empire.

Etching c. 1920.



Opera in Cardiff .........................................52






Verona Opera ............................................ 117

Santa Fe Opera ......................................... 211


MitteldeutschlandWeimar & the towns of Thuringia & Sachsen-Anhalt

18–26 July 2014 (ma 976)9 days • £2,270Lecturer: Dr Jarl Kremeier

A trawl through little-known and largely unspoilt towns at the heart of Germany.

Great mediaeval churches, Baroque and Neo-Classical 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 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

Day 3. Freiberg. The mediaeval city of Freiberg was built with the wealth derived from silver mining and the centre is now a unesco World Heritage site. The cathedral is one of the most beautiful Late Gothic buildings in Germany and has retained an exceptional panoply of furnishings. The main organ by Silbermann (1711–1714) is one of the world’s finest. Concert in Freiberg with Masaaki Suzuki (organ): J.S. Bach, 18 Choral Preludes, BWV 651–668.Day 4. Pöhlberg, Eibenstock. A morning of exclusives: the artistic director of the Festival, Hans-Christoph Rademann gives a talk to our group, and afterwards there is a private organ recital. In the afternoon a gentle walk on the nearby mountain, the Pöhlberg, with breathtaking views into the surrounding hills. Concert in Eibenstock with King’s College Choir & Stephen Cleobury (conductor). Day 5. Chemnitz, Stollberg. Visit the small but remarkable art museum in Chemnitz, particularly good for German Expressionists, and the Jugendstil Villa Esche, designed in every detail by Henry Van de Velde and one of the few remaining buildings of its kind. Concert in Stollberg with Tobias Bernt (baritone), Daniel Heide (piano): Schubert, ‘Die schöne Müllerin’. Day 6. Augustusburg, Schwarzenberg. Drive to Erdmannsdorf and take the cable car to Schloss Augustusburg. More castle than Schloss, this large mediaeval complex has fine views over the surrounding hills. There is a second private organ recital here. Concert in Schwarzenberg, St. Georgenkirche with Christina Landshamer (soprano), Maximilian Schmitt (tenor), Daniel Schmutzhard (bass), RIAS Kammerchor, Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden: Haydn, ‘Die Jahreszeiten’ (The Seasons). Day 7. Drive back to Prague and fly from there to London Heathrow, arriving c. 5.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,190 (deposit £200). Including: 5 music tickets; flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Airbus 320); coach travel; accommodation; breakfasts, 2 lunches, 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; admissions; tips; taxes; the lecturers. Single supplement £60. Price without flights £2,000.Hotel. The Wilder Mann – a 4-star hotel in the centre of Annaberg-Buchholz. There are no luxury hotels in the region but this is the best of them, and while basic, it is functional, clean, adequately comfortable and has helpful staff. How strenuous? Quite a lot of walking, sometimes on roughly paved and hilly streets. A fair amount of driving each day to reach concerts. Average coach miles per day: 64.Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Arnstadt, steel engraving c. 1850.

‘An imaginatively conceived festival… a superb experience.’


Mitteldeutschlandcontinued

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.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 5.00pm from London Heathrow to Hanover. 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. Overnight Quedlinburg.

Day 4: Mühlhausen. Drive in the morning 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 were 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 with a remarkable display of 18th-century dolls illustrating social hierarchy. First of four nights in Weimar.

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 Neo-Classical 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. Visit 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 the many other museums to choose from are the Bauhaus Museum, the 18th-century Wittumspalais, the Schiller House and Goethe’s Gartenhaus. 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.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,270 (deposit £250). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (aircraft: Airbus A319 jet); travel by private coach; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 5 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admission to museums, sites, etc.; all gratuities for restaurant staff, drivers, etc.; all airport and state taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £180. Price without flights £2,110.

Hotels: in Quedlinburg (3 nights): Wyndham Garden Stadtschloss is a centrally located hotel in a converted 16th-century castle. In Mühlhausen (1 night): the Brauhaus “Zum Löwen” hotel is a converted brewery in the centre of the town; characterfully rustic dining area and bar, simple but spacious rooms; some rooms are not accessible by lift. In Weimar (4 nights): Dorint Am Goethepark is a modern hotel, situated by the park and on the edge of the town centre. Rooms are elegant and comfortable, though somewhat contemporary in design.

How strenuous? This is a fairly long tour and there is quite a lot of walking required, some of it uneven ground. Average distance by coach per day: 56 miles.


Weimar, the ducal Schloss, lithograph c. 1830.


German GothicGlories of the later Middle Ages

17–24 July 2014 (ma 980) 8 days • £2,320Lecturer: Jeffrey Miller

Some of Europe’s finest mediaeval buildings in rural and small town Germany.

A comprehensive survey of architectural masterpieces covering a wide geographical spread. Sculpture and other arts in abundance.

Led by an art historian and expert in architecture of the Middle Ages.

This unique tour quarries one of the richest seams of creativity in the Middle Ages – one which is familiar at first hand to few.

Gothic architecture was late to take root in German-speaking lands but, once established, architects there became exceptionally accomplished and innovative, and produced some of the more outstanding buildings in Europe of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This tour provides a comprehensive survey of their achievement. By including key buildings of the thirteenth century, and illustrating the demise of the influence of French High Gothic, the genius and originality of distinctly German styles will become all the more evident.

Considering the beauty and importance of these buildings, it is astonishing that so few Britons have visited them. Some, indeed, until a generation ago were difficult of access, located as they were in the depths of rural East Germany. Many of the churches visited are located in some of the least spoiled towns in the country, and the tour passes through enchanting countryside.

Architecture is not the only subject of the tour. A great deal of very fine sculpture, painting and furnishing survives in Germany, much of it in situ in the churches for which it was made.

ItineraryDay 1: Marburg. Fly at c. 10.45am from London Heathrow to Frankfurt. Drive northwards across forested uplands to Marburg, a lovely university town with a wealth of half-timbered buildings. The Elisabethkirche is a pioneering hall church (side aisles and nave of equal height) of remarkable homogeneity, and is one of the first major churches to embody specifically German characteristics. The gold shrine of St Elisabeth is very fine. Continue to Erfurt for the first of three nights.

Day 2: Erfurt, Naumburg. Erfurt is an attractive town famous for its mediaeval bridge crowned with houses. The cathedral has a soaring High Gothic choir and a Late Gothic

hall-church nave. Adjacent is the Severikirche, another fine hall-church with excellent sculpture. Some free time before the afternoon excursion to Naumburg. The imposing Early Gothic cathedral is known for the astonishingly naturalistic life-size statues of the twelve founders (c. 1250), among the greatest treasures of the Middle Ages. Overnight Erfurt.

Day 3: Annaberg-Buchholz. Remote in lovely countryside, Annaberg-Buchholz has a parish church (1499–1522) which is one of the finest of late Gothic churches, with vaulting of great complexity, fascinating sculpture and superb furnishings. Linger in the charming town in the afternoon for a while. Overnight Erfurt.

Day 4: Bamberg, Dinkelsbühl. Built on seven hills and intersected by rivers, Bamberg is one of the loveliest towns in Europe. The majestic double-ended, four-towered cathedral is particularly outstanding for its Early Gothic sculpture, including the Bamberg Rider, a potent embodiment of knightly values. Continue to Dinkelsbühl, a highly attractive walled town, for the remaining four nights.

Day 5: Dinkelsbühl, Nördlingen. The morning is spent in Dinkelsbühl. St George is one of the most beautiful of mediaeval churches, with outstanding net vaults (architect Nicholas Eseler). Drive to nearby Nördlingen, a picturesque town with mediaeval city walls intact. Visit the Late Gothic hall church of Saint George with its 90 metre steeple. Overnight Dinkelsbühl.

Day 6: Schwäbisch-Gmünd, Ulm. The Church of Holy Cross at Schwäbisch-Gmünd is one of the most beautiful of Late Gothic churches; the first major undertaking by the Parler family, it was seminal for future stylistic development in Central Europe. Parlers also worked on

Erfurt Cathedral, lithograph c. 1860.


German Gothiccontinued

the enormous minster of complicated building history at Ulm, which has the world’s tallest Gothic spire (162m), and remarkable choir stalls. The museum has good mediaeval painting and sculpture. Overnight Dinkelsbühl.

Day 7: Nuremberg. Despite wartime damage, Nuremberg remains one of the finest historic towns in German. The church of St Lorenz, with a magnificent choir by Konrad Heinzelmann (begun 1439), is remarkable for an abundance of first-rate painting, sculpture and furnishings (Veit Stoss, Annunciation), as is its rival across the river, St Sebald. The German National Museum houses the country’s biggest collection of German art. Overnight Dinkelsbühl.

Day 8: Ingolstadt. The Frauenkirche at Ingolstadt has remarkable vaulting with branch-like freestanding ribs. Fly from Munich, arriving Heathrow at c. 5.30 pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,320 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (aircraft: Airbus 319 and 320); travel by private coach; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 6 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admission charges to churches, museums, etc., visited with the group; all gratuities for waiters and drivers; airport and government taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £170 (double room for sole use). Price without flights £2,090.

Hotels: in Erfurt (3 nights): The Radisson Blu Hotel is a modern hotel in the town centre. In Dinkelsbühl (4 nights): The Hezelhof Hotel is a 4 star hotel, centrally located. Dinners are at the hotels or in nearby restaurants.

How strenuous? There is a fair amount of walking within towns (most German city centres being pedestrian zones). There is a lot of driving on this tour, with the average distance by coach per day of 151 miles being the highest of all our tours. But the coach is comfortable, and most roads are well built and maintained.

Small group: 10–22 participants.

Possible linking tour: combine this tour with King Ludwig II, 10–15 July (page 98).

The Iron CurtainThe Cold War & after

8–22 September 2014 (mb 101)This tour is currently full

29 September–13 October 2014 (mb 145)15 days • £4,340 Lecturer: Neil Taylor

A unique and exciting journey from the Baltic to the Adriatic.

Criss-crosses between west and east, assessing the impact of the Iron Curtain on both sides while having time for the main sights.

2014 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain.

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 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 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.

ItineraryThe designation after place names (W) or (E) refers to their location west or east of the Iron Curtain.

Day 1: Lübeck. Fly at 1.30pm from London Heathrow to Hamburg. 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 2: Lübeck. A leisurely morning exploration of the city includes St Mary,

Graz, photograph by G.F. Randall, October 1945.


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 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 19th-century Schloss and a good art collection. Overnight Lübeck.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).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 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. 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 Ehrenhof, 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.

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.

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 German-speaking 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.

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 has also retained 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 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’. A guided tour to the Risiera di San Sabba, a former rice mill on the outskirts of Trieste used as a concentration camp from 1943–45. Return to London Gatwick from Venice at c. 7.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £4,340 (deposit £400). This includes: air travel (economy class) on British Airways flights (aircraft: Airbus 319); travel by private coach throughout; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, one lunch and 11 dinners

S lovak i a

Germany

Czech Repub l i c

Aus t r i a

I t a ly

Po l and

Swi t zer l and

Croat i a

Hamburg

Lübeck

Quedlinburg

Trebon

Mariánské Lázne

Graz

Bratislava

Sopron

TriesteVenice

Ják

Wismar

Schwerin

MarienbornHalberstadt

Weimar

Coburg Cheb

Cesky Krumlov

Vienna

EsterhazáKoszeg

Kobarid

Slov

en iaHungary

c. 50 miles


The Iron Curtaincontinued

with wine, water and coffee; all admission to museums and sites; all tips for restaurant staff, guides and drivers; all airport and state taxes; the services of the lecturer, local and national guides. Single room supplement £410. Price without flights £4,150.

Hotels: Lübeck (3 nights): The Radisson Blu is a modern, 4-star hotel just outside the old city gates. Quedlinburg (2 nights): Wyndham Garden Stadtschloss is a centrally located hotel in a converted 16th-century castle. Coburg (1 night): Romantik Hotel Goldene Traube is a comfortable 4-star historic hotel. Mariánské Lázne (2 nights): The Falkensteiner Grand Spa Hotel Marienbad (September 2014) and The Spa Resort Butterfly (October 2014) are modern hotels in the centre of town. Trebon (1 night): Hotel Zlatá Hvezda is 3-star hotel in an old building in the centre. Bratislava (1 night): The Radisson Blu Carlton is a modern, 4-star hotel on one of the old town squares. Sopron (1 night): Hotel Wollner is an old, established hotel in the centre, some rooms are furnished with antiques. Graz (2 nights): Hotel zum Dom is a 4-star hotel in a 16th-century building with galleried courtyard (now roofed). Trieste (1 night): Grand Hotel Duchi d’Aosta is an excellent, centrally-located 4-star hotel.

How strenuous? Very long drives and frequent changes of hotel (eight) are a feature of this tour. Days begin at 8.30 or 9.00am; arrival at the hotel twice is after 7.00pm. However, there are three relatively restful days. There is a lot of walking. Average distance by coach per day: 98 miles.


King Ludwig II & the Wittelsbach palaces of Bavaria

10–15 July 2014 (ma 964)6 days • £2,270Lecturer: 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 The Flying Dutchman 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 in 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

Schloss Nymphenburg, engraving c. 1770.

Cold War Berlin, 27–30 July 2013 (page 90).



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.

Was he, to quote one of his more defamatory monikers, 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 suicide, 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?

ItineraryDay 1: Schleissheim, Munich. Fly at c. 9.00am from London Heathrow to Munich. 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 The Flying Dutchman at the Bavarian State Opera. 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 of Prussia. Majestic lakeside Alpine location, frescoes featuring medieval Swan-Knight Lohengrin which led to Ludwig II’s obsession with Wagner. Then continue 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.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,270 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on Lufthansa flights (Airbus 320/321); opera ticket costing c. £140; private coach for transfers and excursions; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 4 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; tips for restaurant staff and drivers; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £170 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,070.

Hotels: Munich (2 nights): Hotel Torbräu, a friendly, family-run hotel in a central location. Rooms are traditionally furnished, there is a snack bar but no restaurant. Single rooms are doubles for single use. Murnau (3 nights): Hotel Alpenhof, a rambling 5-star hotel on the outskirts of Murnau with a country house feel; rooms vary in size and are restrained in decoration; two restaurants, spa and swimming pool.

How strenuous? This is a strenuous tour with long coach journeys and a lot of walking and standing around in the castles and gardens. Average distance by coach per day: 65 miles.


Possible linking tour: combine this tour with German Gothic, 17–24 July (page 95).

Palaces, Villas & GardensRoyal Residences ........................................49


Palladian Villa ............................................... 119




‘The itinerary was excellent. We went to the sites in the right order for the development of Ludwig’s life and work.’


Beethoven in BonnAll the symphonies

6–11 September 2014 (mb 104) 6 days • £2,710 (includes 5 concert tickets)Lecturer: Ian Page

Five concerts at the Beethovenhalle including the complete Symphony cycle with the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Andris Nelsons and a performance by the London Symphony Orchestra under Sir John Eliot Gardiner.

Includes some of the many museums of this former capital city and an excursion to Cologne.

First-class rail from London to Cologne.

Bonn was the seat of the Prince-Archbishops of Cologne, ex-officio one of the eight Electors of the Holy Roman Empire and temporal ruler of one of the weightier principalities in the German-speaking lands. Its location on the

Rhine, Europe’s great thoroughfare, and not far from France and the Netherlands helped to ensure that it was no cultural backwater. During Beethoven’s youth the electoral court maintained a corps of musicians which ranked with the largest of such establishments – larger than those, for example, in Salzburg or Eszterháza.

Beethoven’s father and grandfather had been among their number, and Beethoven himself may well have been content to have settled into lifelong electoral service, his Olympian talents nurtured by the security of a salaried existence. But the French Revolution and subsequent conquest of the Rhineland eliminated that possibility. The study visit he made to Vienna at the age of 22 became a lifelong exile.

Maybe distance made the heart grow fonder, but his letters suggest he had the warmest memories of his home town and enduring affection for his Bonn friends and some (not all) of his family.

Bonn’s honourable cultural history contributed to its choice as the temporary (as was expected at the time) seat of government of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1947. Despite the accumulation of parliamentary paraphernalia, government buildings and embassies it never shed its provincial, small-town feel, hence the notorious epithet, ‘a small town in Germany’. Then in the 1990s Berlin became the German capital again. The spectre of empty ministries, boarded-up shops and urban decay loomed, but such was the assiduity of the city fathers and the generosity of central government that employment has actually risen and cultural amenities much enhanced.

Most of the major museums and art galleries reopened in rebuilt or refurbished buildings after the loss of capital status. The annual International Beethoven Festival is a major event, featuring world-class orchestras and artists from around the world.

ItineraryDay 1: Bonn. Travel by rail from London to Cologne, leaving St Pancras at c. 9.00am and changing at Brussels. Continue by coach from Cologne to Bonn (30 km), arriving in time for a an early dinner in the hotel restaurant. Evening concert with the London Symphony Orchestra: Mendelsohn, Symphony No. 5 and other works.

Day 2: Bonn. A morning walk follows a route linking places associated with Beethoven: family homes, school, churches where he played the organ, the Electoral Palace, the tavern he frequented, memorial sculpture and the Beethovenhalle (concert hall). Free afternoon: the Rheinisches Landesmuseum, well documenting the history of the region through works of art and artefacts, is recommended. Evening concert with the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra: Beethoven, Symphonies No.1, 2 and 3.

Day 3: Maria Laach. A relaxing day begins with cruising upstream along the Rhine past wooded hills, vineyards and small towns. Disembark at Remagen and drive into the hills to the west to visit Maria Laach, an abbey with one of the most complete and satisfying of Romanesque churches. Lunch here and time to walk around the lake. Evening concert with the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra: Beethoven, Symphonies No.4 and 5.

Day 4: Bonn. Guided visit of the Haus der Geschichte, an excellent museum of the history of Germany since 1945, followed by some free time with the opportunity to visit the adjacent Kunstmuseum Bonn, a good collection of 20th-century art, especially August Macke. Evening concert with the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra: Beethoven, Symphonies No.6 and 7.

Beethoven, woodcut c. 1930.


The Rhine Valley Festival of Song

Below: Pfalz bei Kaub, aquatint c. 1830. Photos, clockwise from top left: Imogen Cooper; Julius Drake; Elizabeth Watts; Andreas Scholl.

Day 5: Cologne. Rail excursion to Cologne including a guided tour of the cathedral and some free time for independent exploration (maps and notes supplied). Cologne was the largest city in Roman Gaul and the largest city in northern Europe in the Middle Ages. Outstanding architecture includes several Romanesque churches and the Gothic cathedral, vast, prolix and supremely beautiful. Museums include the Römisch-Germanisches Museum (Roman and early mediaeval collection) the cathedral treasury (reliquary of the Three Magi) and the Wallraf-Richartz Museum (Old Master paintings) and the Schnütgen, a superb display of mediaeval art. Evening concert with the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra: Beethoven, Symphonies No.8 and 9.

Day 6: Bonn. Visit the graves of Beethoven’s mother and Robert Schumann then leave for Cologne by coach, boarding the 11.45am train for Brussels. The Eurostar arrives at London St Pancras at c. 4.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,710 (deposit £250). This includes: 5 concert tickets costing c. £375; return rail travel (superior class Eurostar; first class into Germany and back); accommodation as described below; all breakfasts, 1 lunch, 4 dinners with wine, water and coffee; private coach travel within Germany; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £190. Price excluding all rail travel £2,370.

Music tickets: these are confirmed.

Hotel: The Hilton Bonn is a comfortable 4-star hotel situated on the banks of the Rhine, a short 15 minute walk from the Beethovenhalle. Rooms are modern and decorated in a neutral style. The rooms booked are not river-facing. Rooms with a river view are available on request and for a supplement. All rooms have safes and hairdriers. Bathrooms are equipped with either a bath or a shower. Wi-fi internet is available for €20 per day. The hotel has two restaurants, a bar and leisure facilities, including an indoor swimming pool.

How strenuous? A fair amount of walking is unavoidable, and the tour is planned on the expectation that participants walk to concerts. Participants need to be able to lift their own luggage onto coaches and trains. The rail journey from London to Cologne and back necessitates a change in Brussels. Average distance by coach per day: c. 15 miles.


29 May–5 June 2014 (ma 917)Contact us for the full details or visit www.martinrandall.com

The 2014 Rhine Valley Festival of Song will include nine private Lieder recitals and a piano recital, all taking place in historic palaces, churches, concert halls and country houses along the Rhine Valley.

The line-up includes: Ian Bostridge (tenor), Imogen Cooper (piano), Julius Drake (piano), Stephan Loges (baritone), Clara Mouriz (mezzo-soprano), Renata Pokupić (mezzo-soprano), Christoph Prégardien (tenor), Markus Schäfer (tenor), Andreas Scholl (counter-tenor), Birgit Steinberger (soprano), Roger Vignoles (piano), Elizabeth Watts (soprano) and Roderick Williams (baritone).

Richard Stokes, leading expert on German song, will give daily talks on the music on-board the ship.

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, and 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.

Walking the Rhine Valley28 May–4 June 2014 (ma 916)Eight concerts from The Rhine Valley Festival of Song, with country walks.This tour is currently full.Contact us for full details or visit www.martinrandall.com

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Central MacedoniaThessaloniki & northern Greece

4–11 October 2014 (mb 154)8 days • Price to be confirmed Lecturer: Dr Oswyn Murray

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.

ItineraryDay 1: London to Kavala. Fly at c. 8.30am from London Gatwick to Thessaloniki. 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 port joined to hills behind by a massive Ottoman aqueduct.

Depending on ferry times, there may be a visit the archaeological museum. Overnight Kavala.

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.

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,

Thessaloniki, engraving from Byzantine & Romanesque Architecture, 1920.

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Classical GreeceThe Peloponnese, Attica & Athens

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 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 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.

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.

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 Gatwick c. 4.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: please contact us. This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (Boeing 737); private coach travel throughout; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 5 lunches and 5 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters, drivers and guides; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer and a local guide.

Hotels: in Khavala (2 nights): Egnatia Hotel, a modern hotel well located with fine views. Thessaloniki (5 nights): Daios Hotel, a newly constructed 4 star hotel on the waterfront.

How strenuous? You will be on your feet for lengthy stretches of time in some cases on exposed sites and walking over rough terrain. Sure-footedness and agility are essential. Average distance by coach per day: 60 miles.


3–12 May 2014 (ma 882)10 days • £3,210Lecturer: Henry Hurst

27 September–6 October 2014 (mb 140)10 days • £3,210Lecturer: Dr Andrew Farrington

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.

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.

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.

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.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at midday 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.

Ruins at Olympia, 20th-century pen drawing.

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Classical Greececontinued

Day 2: Nauplion, Tiryns, Mycenae. Today’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 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 18th-century 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 Greece’s 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.

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 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 new 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.

PracticalitiesPrice: £3,210 (deposit £300). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Boeing 767 and Airbus A320); private coach travel (day 8 is on foot); accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 2 lunches and 7 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and a local guide. Single supplement £290. Price without flights £2,960.

Hotels: in Nauplion (3 nights): Hotel Ippoliti, a small comfortable hotel in a converted 19th-century mansion situated near the harbour. In Olympia (1 night): Best Western Hotel Europa, a characterful hotel outside the town. In Delphi (2 nights): Hotel Amalia, a modern hotel a short coach ride from the archaeological site. In Athens (3 nights): Electra Palace Hotel, a smart hotel near the picturesque Plaka quarter.

How strenuous? There are three hotel changes and some long journeys. You will be on your feet for long stretches of time in some cases on exposed sites and walking over rough terrain. Sure-footedness and agility are essential. Average coach travel per day: 70 miles.


Athens, the E

rechtheion, late-19th-century wood engraving from

La Sculpture.

The Budapest Spring FestivalMarch 2014Details available December 2013Contact us to register your interest

‘Superbly balanced, thoughtfully coherent, a modern pilgrimage.’

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HungaryTransdanubia & the Great Plain

10–17 September 2014 (mb 115)8 days • £2,230Lecturer: Dr József Sisa

Historic towns in a part of the country little visited by tourists.

Much fine mediaeval, Renaissance and Baroque architecture and art.

Led by an art historian who is also a native Hungarian.

While the magnificence of Budapest and the superb holdings of its museums now attract large numbers of visitors, the cultural riches of the rest of Hungary are still unjustly neglected.

Hungary was formed in the tenth century by horsemen from the Central Asian steppes. Emerging as a powerful and prosperous state at the end of the Middle Ages, it was the first country outside Italy to receive Renaissance architecture and to apply it with understanding. The subsequent Turkish conquest resulted in the elimination of nearly all political and cultural achievements, though impressive Romanesque and Gothic monuments remain, as well as tantalising fragments of great fifteenth-century Italianate palaces.

From the eighteenth century there was steady reconstruction as part of the Austrian empire, resulting in some magnificent Baroque and Classical buildings and large-scale decorative painting. In the nineteenth century the accelerating drive towards independence was accompanied by outstanding artistic and architectural creativity. This tour includes historic towns, churches, abbeys and country houses in the west and the north of the country.

ItineraryDay 1: Sopron. Fly at c. 10.00am from London Heathrow to Vienna. Drive through the Austrian province of Burgenland, which was part of Hungary until 1919, and across the border to Sopron, one of the best preserved and most picturesque towns in Hungary. Around a Fire Tower of mediaeval foundation and Baroque termination crowd dozens of ancient patrician houses, churches and synagogues. First of three nights in Győr.

Day 2: Pápa, Sárvár, Sümeg. The spires and domes of the country town of Pápa can be seen from many miles away. Once an important ecclesiastical and administrative centre, it has a splendid late-Baroque church and a magnificent Esterházy palace. Episcopal patronage in the little town of Sümeg provided a beautiful 18th-century parish church with frescoes which are the masterpiece of Franz Anton Maulbertsch, the greatest of Austro-

Hungarian Rococo painters. Sárvár has a pentagonal Renaissance fortress, with fine rooms of the 16th to 18th centuries.

Day 3: Eszterháza, Győr, Pannonhalma. Eszterháza (Fertőd) is the most magnificent of Hungarian country houses; built in the 1770s, Joseph Haydn worked here every summer for thirty years. Győr has a very lovely and extensive historic centre with buildings of many periods, including a Romanesque-cum-Baroque cathedral with a 15th-century golden reliquary. Pannonhalma has a major Benedictine abbey situated on a hill with bold Neo-Classical tower, church, library and an art gallery. Final night in Győr.

Day 4: Veszprém, Tihany, Székesfehérvár. The episcopal seat of Veszprém has a cluster of fine buildings crowning a ridge among the Bakony mountains and suave 18th-century edifices rise from remnants of the mediaeval citadel. Beautifully sited on a promontory protruding into Lake Balaton is the abbey of Tihany. Székesfehérvár, a former capital of Hungary, has picturesque streetscapes and fascinating Baroque and Neo-Classical architecture. Overnight Székesfehérvár.

Day 5: Kecskemét. Kecskemét, the city of the Great Plain, is surrounded by vineyards and orchards, particularly of apricots. The centre is largely composed of fascinating turn-of-the-century architecture by Ödön Lechner and others. Continue to Eger, perhaps architecturally the finest 18th-century city in Hungary. First of three nights in Eger.

Day 6: Eger. Begin with a visit to the massive Neo-Classical cathedral. The splendid former university built 1765–85 has a Maulbertsch fresco in the chapel and a magnificent library

with the ceiling painted by J.L. Kracker. Then on to the Baroque County Hall with outstanding wrought-iron gates, the Gothic Bishop’s Palace and 18th-century Archbishop’s Palace and finally the splendid Minorite church designed by K.I. Dientzenhofer.

Day 7: Eger, Bélapátfalva, Noszvaj. The morning is free for independent exploration of this lovely city, perhaps to visit the art gallery. There is an afternoon excursion into the countryside. At Noszvaj visit the De la Motte Mansion with its Rococo decoration and the Romanesque Cistercian church at Bélapátfalva. Final night in Eger.

Day 8. Fly to Heathrow, arriving c. 3.45pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,230 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Airbus A320); private coach travel; hotel accommodation; breakfasts and 7 dinners, with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and Hungarian escort. Single supplement £190. Price without flights £2,060.

Hotels: Győr (3 nights): Hotel Schweizerhof, an excellent, small, Swiss-owned 3-star on a quiet side street. Székesfehérvár (1 night): the Novotel is a newly built, rather bland business hotel, locally rated as 4-star. Eger (3 nights): the Hotel Park is clean and comfortable, in the heart of the old town and rated as 4-star.

How strenuous? Quite a lot of walking. Some long coach journeys. This tour should not be attempted by anyone who has difficulty with stairs. Average coach travel per day: 96 miles.


Veszprém, mid-19th-century steel engraving.

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Indian SummerDelhi, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Shimla

24 March–5 April 2014 (ma 840)13 days • £5,120Lecturer: 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 flow and ebb 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 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 amid 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 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 wto 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.

ItineraryDays 1 & 2: London to Delhi. Fly from London Heathrow at c. 9.30am and, after a 51/2-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 Neo-Gothic 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 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

Amritsar, the Golden Temple, wood engraving from Across India at the Dawn of the 20th Century, 1898.

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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.

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 5: Amritsar, Wagah. Amritsar was founded by the 4th Sikh guru in 1579 and is home to 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 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 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.

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 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 19th-cent. 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.

Day 13: Delhi to London. Rise early for the flight, arriving Heathrow at c. 1.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £5,120 (deposit £450). This includes: flights (economy class) with British Airways: return London to Delhi (Boeing 747–400) and with SpiceJet: Delhi to Amritsar and Chandigarh to Delhi (Boeing 737–800); travel by private air-conditioned coach and people carriers; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 8 lunches (including 1 packed lunch) and 8 dinners with wine or beer, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; airport taxes; the service of a lecturer. Single supplement £740. Price without international flights: £4,520.

Hotels: New Delhi (4 nights): dating to the early 1900s, it retains colonial charm and is ideally situated in the heart of Lutyens’ Delhi. Garden and swimming pool. Amritsar (2 nights): attractive colonial mansion converted into a characterful boutique hotel down a narrow alley off the main road. Chandigarh (2

nights): modern hotel with elegantly furnished and well-appointed rooms. Shimla (3 nights): landmark 19th-cent. heritage hotel converted into a luxury hotel in the 1930s. Delhi–Gurgaon (1 night): ideally located near the international airport, this modern 4-star hotel has comfortable rooms.

Visas: see ‘Visas’ on page 109.

How strenuous? A good level of fitness is essential. Unless you enjoy entirely unimpaired mobility, cope with everyday walking and stair-climbing without difficulty and are reliably sure-footed, this tour is not for you. Uneven ground and irregular paving are standard. There are some steep walks. Unruly traffic and the busy streets of larger cities require some vigilance. There are a few long coach and car journeys during which facilities are limited and may be of poor quality. Average distance by coach per day: 33 miles.


Possible linking tour: combine this tour with Bengal By River, 9–22 March (page 108).

Tours in the 2014–2015 season are to include: Essential India; Bengal by River; The Indian Mutiny; Indian Summer; Temples of Karnataka; Great Living Temples of South India; Painted Palaces of Rajasthan; Sailing the Ganges.

Full details for our 2014–2015 season of tours to India will be available in January 2014. Contact us to register your interest.

India 2014The British Raj, 4–16 January 2014Karnataka, 18–29 January 2014Essential India, 31 January–14 February 2014Mughal & Nawabi Architecture, 5–15 February 2014Kingdoms of the Deccan, 7–20 February 2014Sailing the Ganges, 18 February–2 March 2014Bengal by River, 9–22 March 2014Indian Summer, 24 March–5 April 2014


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Bengal by RiverCalcutta & a week’s cruise along the Hooghly

9–22 March 2014 (ma 829)14 days • £4,890Lecturer: Dr Anna-Maria Misra

Four days in Calcutta, Bengal’s capital, and a week visiting places along the River Hooghly on an exclusively chartered cruiser.

Bengal, an outpost of the Mughal Empire and the first region to come under the control of the East India Company.

Islamic architecture in Murshidabad and Gaur, Hindu temples in Baranagar and Kalna, Georgian and Victorian buildings of the Raj.

Sailing along the banks of the Hooghly gives a unique insight into unspoilt village life.

When George V announced in 1911 that the capital of British India was to be transferred from Calcutta to Delhi, there was disbelief and horror in Bengal. It seemed to overturn the natural order of things. Founded by Job Charnock in 1690 on the banks of the mighty Hooghly River, Calcutta (now Kolkata) had been the headquarters of British rule in India ever since. Today the city is home to over fifteen million, but the central district remains largely as it was during the Raj.

Buildings of all sorts – political, economic, educational, religious, residential – formed the British city. Their styles, Classical and Gothic, are bizarrely familiar, and their size is startling, often exceeding their equivalents in Britain. A walk through the South Park Street Cemetery

shows the high price that many Britons paid for coming to Calcutta in search of wealth. ‘Power on silt!’ wrote Kipling of the city. ‘Death in my hands, but Gold!’

West Bengal is the land of lost capitals and fading grandeur. Calcutta was only the latest city whose power was snatched away by changing political events. Hindus, Muslims, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish and French all founded settlements on the dreamy, fertile banks of the Hooghly.

For a time Bengal was the richest province in India, not only because everything seemed to grow in its lush soil but from the industry of its people too. Indigo, opium and rice were cash crops, but textiles first attracted European traders in the seventeenth century. Beautiful silk and muslin fabrics were known as ‘woven wind’ because they were so fine. The river was a natural highway. Apart from the Grand Trunk Road of the Mughals, there was no other way to travel.

Steeped in history but still very much off the conventional tourist route, this tour adds a new dimension to India for those who already know it, and for those who are yet to encounter it.

Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, and Christianity are all practised in Bengal and each faith has built buildings to its gods and goddesses. The town of Kalna is named after a manifestation of the dreaded goddess Kali, the destroyer who lives in cremation grounds and wears a necklace of skulls. By contrast the Jain temples in the village of Baranagar are a peaceful anthem in carved brick to non-violence and harmony. Bengal contains the largest imambaras in India, buildings associated with the Shi’a strand of Islam, not quite mausolea, although burials are frequently found in them, more gathering places for the devout. Serampore, the Danish settlement, is known for its eighteenth-century church.

Had the British under Clive not defeated the Nawab Siraj-ud-daula at the Battle of Plassey in 1757, the history of India would have been very different. The French, established at Chandernagore and allies of the Nawab, would have seized their opportunity, supported by Francophone rulers elsewhere in India who wanted to counterbalance the pervasive British presence. But it was from their base in Bengal that the British steadily extended their rule through the subcontinent.

ItineraryDays 1 & 2: London to Calcutta (Kolkata). Fly at c. 1.30pm from London Heathrow to Calcutta via Dubai where there is a 2-hour stop. Reach the hotel at c. 9.00am (time difference from UK is 51/2 hours.) The rest of the morning is free. In the afternoon visit the

Calcutta, the O

ld Town H

all, a drawing by D

esmond D

oig, c. 1960.

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South Park Street Cemetery, where tombs of the early British settlers are of a monumental classicism without parallel in Britain, and walk to La Martinière Schools. First of four nights in Calcutta.

Day 3: Calcutta. The Anglican cathedral of St Paul, completed in 1847 in Gothic style, has many fine memorials and a window by Burne-Jones, one of his best. Completed in 1921, the Victoria Memorial is the most imposing building in Calcutta. It houses a collection of European paintings and a display on the history of the city. The Indian Museum, built by Granville to house the collection from the Asiatic Society, is India’s most important collection of sculpture.

Day 4: Calcutta. This morning’s walk provides a survey of the civic buildings from the late 18th century. St John’s Church, which dates back to 1784, is loosely modelled on St Martin-in-the-Fields in London (like hundreds throughout the globe). In the grounds, the mausoleum of Job Charnock, the founder of Calcutta, is the earliest British building in India. We also visit the antiquarian collections of the Marble Palace (by special arrangement).

Day 5: Calcutta. The Maghen David Synagogue (1884) and the Armenian Church (1707) are reminders of the variety of religions which thrived in Calcutta prior to Independence. The Home of Rabindranath Tagore, the Bengali poet and philosopher who received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913, provides an insight into the Bengali Intellectual Renaissance which in turn led to the Independentist movement.

Day 6: Barrackpore, Serampore. Board the MV Sukapha in Calcutta. Sail to the former British garrison town of Barrackpore. Many 19th-cent. buildings remain, including the riverside Government House (1813) with its Semaphore Tower, part of a river signalling system, and the elegant neo-Greek Temple of Fame. The gardens of Flagstaff House now serve as repository for colonial statuary removed from Calcutta. The Danish colony of Serampore is across the river. First of seven nights on board the RV Sukapha.

Day 7: Chandernagore, Chinsura, Hooghly. In the morning, sail upstream to the former French colony of Chandernagore, established in 1673. Visit the remaining churches and cemeteries as well as Governor Joseph François Dupleix’s House. Sail to Chinsura to visit the 17th-cent. Dutch cemetery before continuing by cycle-rickshaw to Hooghly where the 19th-cent. Shi’a Imambara of Hazi Mohammed Mohasin contains fine marble inlay.

Day 8: Kalna, Nabadwip, Mayapur. At Kalna, visit the series of fine 18th-cent. terracotta temples and the unique Shiva temple with concentric rings comprising 108 double-vaulted shrines. Sail to the pilgrimage centre of Nabadwip, where the river ghats are lined with active temples. The skyline of Mayapur on the opposite bank is dominated by a vast new temple.

Day 9: Matiari, Plassey. Visit the village of Matiari where brass is worked using traditional methods. After sailing further, there is an excursion to the site of the battle of Plassey, where Robert Clive’s 1757 victory over the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-Daulah was the prelude to consolidation and extension of the East India Company’s power in Bengal and beyond. Overnight at Murshidabad.

Day 10: Murshidabad. The Mughal Khushbagh is a peaceful walled pleasure-garden containing the Tomb of Siraj-ud-Daulah and family. A magnificent example of Greek Revival architecture, the Hazarduari Palace was built by Duncan McLeod in 1837 as a guest house for the Nawab. The museum holds a respectable collection of European paintings, sculpture and arms. The imposing Katra Mosque (1724) is modelled on the great mosque at Mecca. Visit the Nashipara and Katgola palaces, 18th-cent. homes of rich Jain merchants in classical Georgian style.

Day 11: Baranagar. Sail to the village of Baranagar and walk through fields to visit three miniature carved-brick Jain temples. Sail in the afternoon through a stretch of charming waterway that weaves past banks lush with mango groves and mustard crops. Overnight at Jangipur.

Day 12: Gaur, Farakka. Drive from Jangipur to the quiet city of Gaur, the ancient capital of Bengal. Situated within easy reach of the black basalt Rajmahal hills, Gaur is filled with elegant Muslim ruins. The many mosques, palaces and gateways stand as testament to a prosperous past and gifted stonemasons.

Day 13: Disembark Farakka. Calcutta. At Farakka, disembark the RV Sukupha in the early morning and transfer to the station to board a train for Calcutta (a journey of c. 6 hours). The rest of the day is at leisure. Overnight in the hotel in Calcutta.

Day 14: Calcutta. After a 2-hour stopover in Dubai, the flight arrives Heathrow c. 6.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £4,890 (deposit £400). This includes: flights (economy class) with Emirates: return London to Dubai (Airbus 380–800), Dubai to Calcutta (Airbus 330–200); travel by private air-conditioned coach; accommodation in the hotel and aboard the river cruiser as described below, breakfasts, 10 lunches (including 1 packed lunch) and 11 dinners with wine or beer, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; airport taxes; the service of a lecturer. Single supplement £1,550. Price without international flights £4,270.

Hotels: Calcutta (5 nights): The Oberoi Grand, a long-established luxury hotel located in the city centre. An oasis of colonial charm, defined by impeccable service. There is a pool.

River cruiser: RV Sukapha (7 nights): built in 2006, it is not luxurious but it is adequately comfortable and has great charm. The decor is simple, with floors and walls made of wood. Cabins are fairly spacious with good showers. Shore is reached by a small launch. The service on-board is excellent.

Changes to the itinerary: circumstances might arise which prevent us operating the tour as advertised. On the river, the ebb and flow of the tide and shifting silt levels might necessitate omission of one or more ports of call. We would try and devise a satisfactory alternative.

Visas: British citizens and most other foreign nationals require a tourist visa. The current cost for UK nationals is c. £45 including service fees. This is not included in the price of the tour because you must obtain it yourself. We will advise on the procedure but you will need to submit your passport to the India Visa Application Centre in your country of residence prior to departure. Processing times vary but UK residents should expect to be without their passport for up to 10 days.

How strenuous? A good level of fitness is essential. Unless you enjoy entirely unimpaired mobility, cope with everyday walking and stair-climbing without difficulty, this tour is not for you. Uneven ground and irregular paving are standard. Unruly traffic and busy streets also require vigilance. There are a few fairly steep ascents to hilltop forts and temples. There are some long coach journeys during which facilities are limited and may be of poor quality.


Possible linking tour: combine with Indian Summer, 24 March–5 April (page 106).


‘A fascinating blend of colonial history, Indian heritage and glimpses of rural life. And, of course, the excitement and chaos of Kolkata. Full of variety and well-balanced.’

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Israel & Palestine Archaeology, architecture & art in the Holy Land

11–20 February 2014 (ma 809)10 days • £4,130Lecturer: Dr Garth Gilmour

21–30 October 2014 (mb 166)10 days • £4,210Lecturer: 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 – Jewish, 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, and 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. 2.20pm from London Heathrow to Tel Aviv, and then drive to Jerusalem, reaching the hotel c. 10.30pm. 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 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.

Day 3: Jerusalem, Bethlehem. The intact 7th-cent. 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.

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.

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 palm-shaded oasis of Jericho is the world’s most low-lying 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 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.

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Jerusalem, Temple Mount, mid-18th-century engraving.

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. 9.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £4,130 (February), £4,210 (October) (deposit £400). This includes: flights (economy class) with El Al (Boeing 777-200); private coach travel; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 5 lunches and 7 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer, tour manager and local guides. Single supplement £650 (both departures). Price without flights £3,810 (February), £3,890 (October).

Hotels. In Jerusalem (4 nights): King David Hotel, a 5-star hotel in West Jerusalem within walking distance of the Old City, the group stays in Deluxe rooms. In Ein Gedi (1 night): Kibbutz Ein Gedi, a renovated kibbutz near the Dead Sea with comfortable cottages set among beautiful botanic gardens. In Galilee (2 nights): The Scots Hotel, a long-established 5-star hotel by the lake in Tiberias. Tel Aviv (2 nights): David Intercontinental, a 5-star hotel with all expected amenities and well-appointed rooms. The group stays in Executive category rooms.

Visas: are obtained on arrival at no extra charge for most nationalities.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking, some of it over rough ground and uneven paving, and sure-footedness is essential. Average distance by coach per day: 36 miles.


Tours in North Africa & the Middle EastRoman Algeria.................................................8

Ancient Egypt ...............................................32

Middle Egypt ..................................................34

Ethiopia .............................................................63

Essential Jordan ..........................................162


Morocco .........................................................167

Andalusian Morocco ..............................169

Oman .............................................................. 173

Palestine ........................................................ 173

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Gastronomic PiedmontSome of the finest food & wine in Italy

11–17 October 2014 (mb 162) 7 days • £2,780Lecturer: 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 Michelin-starred 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 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.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 10.30am from London Gatwick to Genoa and drive north to Bra, an attractive market town with some fine architecture, where the first four nights are spent. In the evening study the local wine-making process at the Ascheri winery adjacent 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.

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 Michelin-starred 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,

The Val Lucerne, Piedmont, steel engraving after William Brockedon (1787–1854).

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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.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,780 (deposit £250). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Airbus 319 & Boeing 737); private coach throughout; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 6 lunches and 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; 2 wine tastings with the option of an additional third; all admissions; all food tastings; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £170 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,590.

Hotel: In Bra (4 nights): Albergo Cantine Ascheri, a 4-star hotel refurbished to a very modern but enjoyable design using locally-made materials as much as possible. Service is enthusiastic, rooms are comfortable and it is a 10-minute walk from the city centre. In Cuneo (2 nights): Hotel Palazzo Lovera, an excellently situated 4-star just off the ancient arcaded Via Roma, the decor is traditional and tasteful with dark woods and faux-Rococo wall paintings. Staff are helpful and there is a good restaurant.

How strenuous? There is a fair amount of walking involved. Participants need to be used to walking unaided on uneven terrain, and surefootedness is also essential for truffle hunting in the woods. Participants on the optional 5 km walk on Day 5 need to be used to hiking up and down hills. Average distance by coach per day: 65 miles

Small group: 12–22 participants

Possible linking tours. Combine with Pompeii & Herculaneum, 20–25 October (page 149); Walking in Southern Tuscany, 20–27 October (page 131).

Genoa & TurinPalaces & galleries

7–13 April 2014 (ma 857)7 days • £2,120Lecturer: 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.

Led by Dr Luca Leoncini, expert art historian and Director of the Palazzo Reale in Genoa.

Exceptional picture collections with particularly fine examples of Van Dyck and Rubens.

Secret cities, despite the allure of botched alliteration, 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 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.

ItineraryDay 1: Genoa. Fly at c. 10.30am 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) and further churches and galleries.

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 14th-century 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 morning walk through beautiful Piazza S. Carlo, with arcades and 18th-century churches. Visit the little church of S. Lorenzo, a Guarini masterpiece, the

Genoa, Palazzo Doria Pamphili, engraving c. 1720.


cathedral, with Guarini’s Chapel of the Holy Shroud (under restoration for the foreseeable future), and the sumptuous Consolata church. Afternoon visit to the Palazzo Madama in the centre of Piazza Castello, now housing the City Art Museum, and the Royal Palace, built 1660, with wonderful interiors from the 17th–19th centuries.

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 Galleria Sabauda, an excellent picture collection housed inside the Palazzo Reale. 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. 6.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,120 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Boeing 737); private coach for excursions and transfers; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 3 lunches and 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £290 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,910.

Hotel: Genoa (3 nights): Grand Hotel Savoia, a 5-star hotel close to the Palazzo Reale. Turin (3 nights): Grand Hotel Sitea, a 4-star hotel, comfortable, elegantly furnished and very central. Meals are in the hotels and carefully selected restaurants.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking and standing in museums. Average distance by coach per day: 25 miles

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Courts of Northern Italy, 30 March–6 April (page 125); Palermo Revealed, 31 March–5 April (page 156); Normans in the South, 25 March–2 April (page 151).

Genoa & Turincontinued Opera & Art in

Turin & Milan

25 February–1 March 2014 (ma 813)5 days • £2,570Lecturer: Dr Luca Leoncini

Performances at two of Italy’s most prestigious opera houses, accompanied by some of the finest northern Italian art and architecture.

Includes a guided tour of La Scala and its museum.

Led by Dr Luca Leoncini, expert art historian.

Northern Italy’s two grandest cities share many qualities: both are artistically bountiful, architecturally grandiose and have played vital roles in the formation of modern Italy. For over 200 years, they have also both been considerable players on the Italian opera scene.

Turin’s Teatro Regio, commissioned by Carlo Emanuele III and built in just two years under the architect Benedetto Alfieri, was inaugurated in 1740 with Arsace by Francesco Feo and remains one of Italy’s premier music venues.

The leading city of Piedmont, Turin 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.

The world’s most famous opera house, with an unrivalled history and prestige, the Teatro alla Scala in Milan was inaugurated in 1778.

After its extensive refurbishment from 2002 to 2004 and the melodrama of past management controversies, La Scala is now very much back to its artistic best, the world’s greatest performers ensuring a packed house.

While rightly renowned as the world capital of fashion (as well as opera), and as a commercial and financial powerhouse, Milan’s fascinatingly rich historical character is often overlooked. Indeed, it has one of the proudest and most illustrious histories of all Italian cities, not least its influential role in the Risorgimento. Characteristically eschewing such short-sightedness, we have allowed time to visit several of the city’s historical and artistic treasures.

There is a visit to the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie, whose dining hall walls boast the fresco of The Last Supper by Leonardo. Time is also devoted to La Scala’s museum, which provides a fascinating insight into the theatre’s history (subject to rehearsal schedules).

ItineraryDay 1: Turin. Fly at c. 10.45am from London Heathrow to Milan Linate, and drive to Turin. First of two nights in Turin.

Day 2: Turin. A morning walk through beautiful Piazza S. Carlo, with arcades and 18th-century churches. Visit the Royal Palace, built 1660, with wonderful interiors from the 17th–19th centuries, which also houses the Galleria Sabauda, an excellent picture collection. There is an evening performance at the Teatro Regio of Puccini’s Turandot, Giampaolo Bisanti (conductor), Giuliano

Milan, La Scala, aquatint c. 1830.

Summer Opera in ItalyJuly 2014Details available in November 2013Contact us to register your interest

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Montaldo (director); cast includes Lise Lindstrom, Roberto Aronica, Carmen Giannattasio, Giacomo Prestia, Antonello Ceron. Overnight Turin.

Day 3: Venaria, Milan. Drive from Turin to the magnificent royal palace of Venaria (Amedeo Castellamonte, 1659) reopened in 2007 following extensive renovation work. Overnight Milan.

Day 4: Milan. Visit the Renaissance church of Santa Maria delle Grazie; the refectory houses Leonardo’s Last Supper. Most of the greatest Italian artists are represented in The Brera, one of Italy’s finest art galleries. The afternoon is free in Milan. After an early dinner, there is an evening performance at La Scala of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, Pier Giorgio Morandi (conductor); cast includes Fabio Capitanucci, Albina Shagimuratova, Vittorio Grigol, Juan Francisco Gatell, Orlin Anastassov, Barbara Di Castri, Massimiliano Chiarolla. Overnight Milan.

Day 5: Milan. In the morning there is a guided tour of the La Scala museum (subject to rehearsal schedules), containing portraits of Verdi, Puccini and others, plus a wealth of historically significant instruments. Return to London Heathrow at c. 4.45pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,570 (deposit £200). This includes: tickets to two performances costing c. £280; flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Airbus 319/320); travel by private coach; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £230 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,370.

Hotels. In Turin (2 nights): Grand Hotel Sitea, a 4-star hotel, comfortable, elegantly furnished and very central. In Milan (2 nights): Hotel de la Ville, a 4-star superior hotel in a Belle Epoque-style located in the city centre, 100 metres from the Piazza del Duomo and five minutes’ walk from the Teatro alla Scala.

How strenuous? There is a fair amount of walking as traffic is restricted in both city centres. Participants need to be averagely fit and able to manage everyday walking and stairclimbing without any difficulty. Average distance by coach per day: 43 miles


Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Florence, 17–23 February (page 132); Ruskin’s Venice, 5–9 March (page 123).

Turandot in Turin, Lucia di Lammermoor in Milan

Gardens & Villas of the Italian LakesComo & Maggiore

Lake Como, wood engraving c. 1890.

10–16 April 2014 (ma 854)This tour is currently full

18–24 September 2014 (mb 123)7 days • £2,780Lecturer: Steven Desmond

2–8 October 2014 (mb 148)7 days • £2,780Lecturer: 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, specialist in the conservation of historic parks and gardens and architectural historian.

Sublime mountain scenery, the inspiration of Shelley and Stendhal.

Historic lakeside hotels.

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. 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.


Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakescontinued

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.

ItineraryDay 1: Bellagio. Fly at midday from London Heathrow to Milan. Drive to Bellagio on Lake Como. First of three nights in Bellagio.

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, and can only be approached by boat. 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: Stresa, Pallanza. Visit the grounds of Villa Pallavicino near Stresa, a romantic landscape park on rising ground commanding epic views across the lake. The design is now overlaid with seasonal flowers and the calls of exotic birds and animals. 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.

Day 7. Fly from Milan to London Heathrow, arriving at c. 5.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,780 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (Airbus 319); travel by private coach, boat and public ferry; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, one lunch and four dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters and drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £240 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,540.

Hotels: Bellagio (3 nights): Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni, excellently situated on the edge of the lake, a historic 5-star hotel with lavishly decorated public rooms and well-appointed bedrooms (they vary in size). Pallanza (3 nights): Grand Hotel Majestic, a recently renovated, privately owned 4-star Belle Epoque hotel with lakeside gardens; bedrooms vary in size. Rooms with a lake view are available on request and for a supplement.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking as some of the gardens are extensive, and all have uneven ground. Participants need to be fit and sure-footed. Average distance by coach per day: 23 miles


Possible linking tours. Combine the September departure of this tour with Dark Age Brilliance, 9–16 September (page 127); Lucca, 8–14 September (page 137); Gastronomic Sicily, 29 September–5 October (page 159).

Lake Maggiore, aquatint c. 1830.


‘Well planned and extremely enjoyable. A great variety of gardens which were all beautiful in their individual way.’

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Verona Opera Lyric spectacle in the Veneto

17–21 July 2014 (ma 972)5 days • £2,280Carmen, Un Ballo in Maschera, AidaLecturer: Angus Haldane

21–25 August 2014 (ma 994)5 days • £2,280Madame Butterfly, Romeo & Juliet, AidaLecturer: Dr Luca Leoncini

28 August–1 September 2014 (ma 999)5 days • £2,280Carmen, Madame Butterfly, AidaLecturer: Dr R. T. Cobianchi

In the setting of a Roman amphitheatre, the most famous of open-air festivals.

The hotel is a luxurious 5-star in the historic centre, with an optional shuttle service to the operas.

Each tour is accompanied by an expert art historian who lead walks and visits during the day, rather than by a musicologist.

The first magic moment comes well before the conductor raises his baton. Unless you have led a team onto the pitch at Wembley, or won the New Hampshire primaries, you are unlikely to have experienced anything quite like the wall of heady high spirits which hits you as you emerge from the entrance tunnel into the arena.

Filling the vast ellipse of the almost two-thousand-year-old Roman amphitheatre are fourteen thousand happy people, bubbling with joyous expectation of the spectacle which is to follow. Even the most dour of dusty-hearted opera purists cannot help but be uplifted.

Then the floodlights go down, the chaotic chatter quietens to a reverential whisper, and the enveloping dusk is pierced only by flickering candle flames as uncountable as the stars above. Magic again; for these special moments the Verona Festival remains without rival.

The list of unique assets continues. There is the inestimable advantage of the stage and auditorium, one of the largest of ancient amphitheatres which, though built for rather less refined spectacles (‘arena’ is Latin for sand, used in quantity after the slaughter of animals and gladiators) provides miraculously sympathetic acoustics. The elliptical form also seems to instil a sense which can best be described as resembling an embrace, bonding the audience however distant or disparate the individual members might be.

Then there is the benefit of being at the heart of one of the most beautiful of Italian cities. Verona is crammed with magnificent architecture and dazzlingly picturesque streets and squares. Surprisingly, the city seems

scarcely deflected from a typically Italian dedication to living well and stylishly by the annual influx of festival visitors.

Enough of the spectacle, what of the music? Most performances reach high standards, with patches of stunning singing. For the (largely Italian) casts, to perform at Verona is still a special event, and there remains as an incentive to excellence the typically Italian expression of audience disapproval, instant and merciless. Besides, the younger singers know that they will be judged by more agents, casting directors and peers in one performance than usually would see them in a season.

Opinions vary concerning the best place to sit. All the seats we have booked are numbered and reserved (no queuing for hours and elbowing to seize the best of what remains), and a proportion are poltronissime, cushioned stalls seats, which we offer for a supplement. The rest are on the lowest tiers, the gradinate numerate, with clear sight lines, while plastic seating is mercifully interposed between you and the marble.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 4.00pm from London Gatwick to Verona. Overnight Verona where all four nights are spent.

Day 2. Visit the church of Sant’Anastasia with its Pisanello frescoes, and the spectacular mediaeval tombs of the ruling della Scala family. Take an introductory walk in Verona, passing through the beautiful streets and squares at the heart of the city, and visit the Romanesque church of San Fermo. Some free time; evening opera in the Arena.

Day 3. A walk leads to the Romanesque cathedral, then across the River Adige to the well-preserved Roman theatre. Alternatively, there are bus and train services offering the

opportunity to see more of the region, perhaps Lake Garda or Venice. The afternoon is free or take an optional visit to the church of S. Zeno, a major Romanesque church with sculpted portal and a Mantegna altarpiece; evening opera in the Arena.

Day 4. The morning walk includes the Castelvecchio, a graceful mediaeval castle and fortified bridge, now housing an art museum. Lunch is at a privately owned villa in the countryside (by special arrangement). There is some free time; evening opera in the Arena.

Day 5. Fly from Verona, arriving London Gatwick at c. 1.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,280 (deposit £200). This includes: three opera tickets costing c. £270; air travel (Euro Traveller) on scheduled British Airways flights (aircraft: Boeing 737); accommodation as described below; breakfasts, one lunch and four dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; tips for waiters, drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Supplement for poltronissime seats £250. Single supplement £160 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,160 (July), £2,080 (August, September).

Hotels: All four nights are spent at the Hotel Due Torri, a luxurious 5-star situated c. 20 minutes walk from the Arena. A shuttle is provided to and from the operas. Rooms are opulent and all have baths and air-conditioning.

How strenuous? To participate fully in the itinerary, a fair amount of walking is involved.


The A

rena, Verona, etching c. 1850 after J.M.W

. Turner.


The VenetoSome of Italy’s finest art & architecture

Elevation from Andrea Palladio’s Quattro libri dell ’architettura, 1570.

14–21 June 2014 (ma 935)8 days • £2,560Lecturer: Dr Michael Douglas-Scott

Art and architecture in places major and minor, Padua, Verona, Vicenza, Treviso and elsewhere.

Mediaeval frescoes (Giotto), Renaissance paintings (Titian), 18th-century interiors (Tiepolo), Neo-Classical sculpture (Canova).

Combine this tour with Music in the Veneto, 23–28 June (see page 121).

ItineraryDay 1: Castelfranco Veneto. Fly at c. 9.15am from London Heathrow to Venice and drive to the delightful little walled town of Castelfranco. The cathedral has Giorgione’s wonderful Madonna Enthroned and a museum in his house next door. Continue to Vicenza, where all seven nights are spent.

Day 2: Vicenza. The beautiful little city of Vicenza is architecturally the noblest and most homogenous in northern Italy, much of the fabric consisting of Renaissance palaces. Andrea Palladio spent most of his life there, and his buildings include the town hall (‘Basilica’), an epoch-making theatre (Teatro Olimpico) and several aristocratic residences, one of which, the Palazzo Chiericati, houses an excellent art gallery. A number of restoration campaigns are coming to an end and there is more to see than ever before.

Day 3: Verona. A major Roman settlement, Verona flourished also in the Middle Ages under the tyrannical rule of the Scaligeri dynasty. A sequence of interconnecting squares lie at the heart of the city, lined with magnificent mediaeval palazzi. The vast Gothic church of Sant’Anastasia has a fresco by Pisanello and San Zeno is a splendid Romanesque church with an altarpiece by Mantegna. The elegant red-brick castle contains a very fine art gallery.

Day 4: San Vito, Asolo, Possagno. The Brion cemetery complex at San Vito by Carlo Scarpa is 20th-cent. architecture at its most beautiful and moving. Break for lunch at Asolo, a lovely hilltop town with a Lorenzo Lotto altarpiece in the cathedral. Possagno was birthplace of the leading Neo-Classical sculptor Antonio Canova and he rebuilt the church as his memorial, a cross between the Pantheon and Parthenon. Full-scale models for many of his sculptures have been assembled in a museum.

Day 5: Padua. Giotto’s fresco cycle in the Arena Chapel is one of the greatest achievements in the history of art and marks

the beginning of the modern era in painting. Further outstanding 14th-cent. fresco cycles are by Giusto de’ Menabuoi in the Baptistry and by Altichieri in the vast multi-domed Basilica of St Anthony. The Renaissance is represented by Donatello’s altar panels here and the bronze equestrian statue outside, the Gattamelata. The mediaeval town hall and surrounding squares are among the finest of such ensembles in Italy.

Day 6: Vicenza, Vicentine villas. There is free time in Vicenza in the morning. The afternoon excursion is to places just outside the city: ‘La Rotonda’, the most famous of all Palladian villas, and the adjacent Villa Valmarana ‘ai Nani’, with superb frescoes by the Giambattista Tiepolo and his son.

Day 7: Treviso. Once an important fortress city, Treviso has a fine historic centre with imposing public buildings and many painted façades. The cathedral has a Titian Annunciation, but the hero of the day is the 14th-cent. painter Tommaso da Modena: his frescoes of learned monks in the chapter house of St Nicholas are extraordinary, as is the St Ursula cycle in the church of Sta Caterina.

Day 8: Stra. The 18th-century Villa Pisani at Stra, perhaps the grandest in Italy, has a ceiling fresco by Tiepolo in the ballroom and well maintained gardens. If not combining with the Music in the Veneto festival, fly from Venice, returning to Heathrow c. 2.45pm. Music in the Veneto festival participants return to Vicenza. From this point until the beginning of the festival no lecturer or tour manager accompanies the group – festival staff start to arrive in Vicenza from the 22 June.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,560 (deposit £250). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Airbus 319); private coach travel; accommodation; breakfasts and 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £120 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,240.

Hotel: Hotel Palladio, a small establishment in the centre of Vicenza. It occupies a historic building but the décor is contemporary. Rooms are quite small and are air-conditioned.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking as the coach can rarely enter town centres. There are also some visits reached by crossing uneven ground or up some steep hills. Average distance by coach per day: 52 miles


Other possible linking tours. Combine this tour with The Duchy of Urbino, 7–13 June (page 142).

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Palladian VillasThe greatest house builder in history

17–22 June 2014 (ma 936)6 days • £1,840Lecturer: Professor Fabrizio Nevola

9–14 September 2014 (mb 129)6 days • £1,840Lecturer: Professor Fabrizio Nevola

7–12 October 2014 (mb 153)6 days • £1,840Lecturer: Dr Joachim StruppA 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.

Combine the June departure with our Music in the Veneto festival, 23–28 June 2014 (ma 951).

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 soldier-aristocrats 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.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 2.15pm 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, is the most famous of Palladio’s buildings, domed and with four porticoes. Adjacent is the 17th-century 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 Lombardi is a fine example of 18th-century Palladianism. Fly from Venice to London Gatwick, arriving c. 6.45pm, or Music in the Veneto festival participants return to Vicenza.

Final day of the festival, 28th June. Participants on this tour who also book the Music in the Veneto festival fly from Venice, arriving Gatwick at c. 5.45pm.

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.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,840 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (Euro Traveller) on scheduled flights with British Airways (Boeing 737); travel by private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, two lunches and three dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; tips for waiters and drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £220 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,720.

Hotel. We use two different 4-star hotels in Vicenza for these tours. (June & September 2014) Hotel Campo Marzio: just outside a city gate of Vicenza, well located and comfortable. A fairly undistinguished exterior screens attractively furnished, moderately sized, air-conditioned bedrooms. (October 2014) Hotel Palladio: a small establishment in the centre of Vicenza, opened in 2008. It occupies a historic building but the décor is contemporary. Rooms are quite small and are air-conditioned.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking as the coach can rarely get close to the villas or enter town centres. Average distance by coach per day: 66 miles


Music in the Veneto festival participants: please select that you are arriving on the 22nd June on the festival booking form (see the dedicated brochure), unless you are making your own arrangements for the night of 22–23 June. Please note that there is a choice of four hotels for the festival, and that you will transfer to whichever you select on the booking form at the end of the tour (unless you choose to stay on at the Campo Marzio).


Venetian PalacesThe greatest & best-preserved palaces of La Serenissima

18–22 March 2014 (ma 834)This tour is currently full18–22 November 2014 (mb 202)5 days • £2,130Lecturer: 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, Associate Lecturer in History of Art at Birkbeck College, and specialist in 16th-century Italian art and architecture.

Stay in a converted palace on the Grand Canal, now a 4-star hotel.

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 many of 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.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 12.30pm from London Gatwick to Venice. Cross the lagoon by motoscafo (water taxi) and travel up the Grand Canal to the doors of the hotel. There is an introductory walk in Piazza San Marco.

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

Wood engraving c. 1880.

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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 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 Pisani Moretta on the Grand Canal, a Gothic palace with lavish 18th- and 19th-century interiors (by special arrangement). The Palazzo Grimani at Santa Maria Formosa became in the mid-sixteenth century the purpose-built site of the family collection of antiquities, which were then bequeathed to the Venetian Republic.

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 the 16th-century Palazzo Corner Spinelli that now houses the Rubelli fabrics archive and Palazzo Contarini dal Zaffo-Polignac (both by special arrangement).

Day 5. Visit the 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 London Gatwick, arriving c. 5.15pm.There may be substitutes for some palaces mentioned as the tour is dependent on the kindness of many individuals and organisations, some of whom are reluctant to make arrangements far in advance.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,130 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (Euro Traveller) on British Airways flights (Airbus 319); travel between Venice Airport and hotel by private water-taxi, some journeys by vaporetto and one by gondola; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and three dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters, porters; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £280 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,030.

Hotel: Hotel Palazzo Sant’Angelo, a 4-star deluxe in a converted palace on the Grand Canal near Campo Sant’Angelo and the Rialto Bridge. The decoration is 18th-century Venetian style. Canal view rooms and suites are available on request. There is a small bar and lounge but no restaurant.

How strenuous? The nature of Venice means that the city is more often than not traversed

Music in the VenetoMonteverdi • Vivaldi • Palladio

23–28 June 2014 (ma 951)6 days • Speakers: Jonathan Keates, Professor Fabrizio Nevola, Dr Michael Douglas-Scott


Six concerts of music by Monteverdi, Vivaldi and others who worked in north-east Italy from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries.

Beautiful historic buildings designed by Andrea Palladio or his followers – four villas, a church and a theatre.

The performers – from Italy, Britain and Germany – are among the world’s finest exponents of this repertoire. They include Adrian Chandler, Claudio Cavina, Robert Hollingworth, Andreas Scholl; La Venexiana, I Fagiolini, La Serenissima, Sonatori della Gioiosa Marca.

There are lectures on cultural and musical history and on-site comment about the buildings by Palladio experts.

A choice of four hotels. Three are in the centre of Vicenza, one of the loveliest historic towns in Italy, and one in the hills outside the town.

There are two pre-festival tours, which can be booked as an extension to the festival: Palladian Villas, 17–22 June (see page 119), or The Veneto, 14–21 June (see page 118).

Renaissance villas were built for recreation, for escape from the pressures and unpleasantnesses of urban life. Situated in countryside ‘far from the madding crowd’, they provided the setting for artistic, intellectual and idle pursuits, from philosophical discussion and poetry readings to gustatory indulgence and assorted jolly japes.

Above all, there was music. The most immediately transporting of the arts, in its

manifold variety of mood and meaning music was an indispensable accompaniment to the rural idyll of villa life.

The great age of the villa in Italy lasted from the middle of the sixteenth century to the middle of the eighteenth: happily this coincides with the great age of music in Venice and the Veneto.

This festival recreates something of the Arcadian villa experience by placing appropriate music into a selection of the loveliest villas and other buildings in the Veneto. Some of the world’s finest musicians specialising in Italian Renaissance and Baroque repertoire perform a wide range of music apposite to the individual setting, ranging from the frivolous to the austere, from intimate chamber music to celebratory fanfare.

Matching music with place, that is the key feature of the festivals Martin Randall Travel has been creating for over two decades.

on foot. Although part of her charm, there is a lot of walking and crossing of bridges; standing around in museums and palaces is also unavoidable.


Possible linking tours. Combine with Florence Revisited, 10–16 November (page 133).

Vicenza, steel engraving c. 1850 after Samual Prout.

‘Very impressive. The accesses to private palaces and private viewing at San Marco was a great feature of this tour.’


Art History of VenicePainting, sculpture, architecture

10–16 March 2014 (ma 830)7 days • £2,360Lecturer: Polly Buston

Wide-ranging survey of art and architecture with an emphasis on the Renaissance.

Private after-hours visit to San Marco.

Led by expert art historian Polly Buston.

Avoids the crowds of busier months, and has a lower maximum number than most of our tours.

For the world’s most beautiful city, Venice had an inauspicious start. The site was once merely a collection of mudbanks, and the first settlers came as refugees fleeing the barbarian destroyers of the Roman Empire. They sought to escape to terrain so inhospitable that no foe would follow.

The success of the community which arose on the site would have been beyond the wildest imaginings of the first Venetians. By the end of the Middle Ages Venice had become the leading maritime power in the Mediterranean and possibly the wealthiest city in Europe. The shallow waters of the lagoon had indeed kept her safe from malign incursions and she kept her independence until the end of the eighteenth century. ‘Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee, and was the safeguard of the West, Venice, eldest child of liberty.’

Trade with the East was the source of that wealth and power, and the eastern connection

has left its indelible stamp upon Venetian art and architecture. Western styles are here tempered by a richness of effect and delicacy of pattern which is redolent of oriental opulence. It is above all by its colour that Venetian painting is distinguished. And whether sonorous or poetic, from Bellini through Titian to Tiepolo, there remain echoes of the transcendental splendour of the Byzantine mosaics of St Mark’s.

That Venice survives so comprehensively from the days of its greatness, so little ruffled by modern intrusions, would suffice to make it the goal of everyone who is curious about the man-made world. Thoroughfares being water and cars nonexistent, the imagination traverses the centuries with ease. And while picturesque qualities are all-pervasive – shimmering Istrian limestone, crumbling stucco, variegated brickwork, mournful vistas with exquisitely sculpted details – there are not half-a-dozen cities in the world which surpass Venice for the sheer number of major works of architecture, sculpture and painting.

Venice in early spring has one overwhelming advantage over other seasons: fewer tourists. With most of the noisy, gaudy trappings of the tourist industry packed away, the beauties of the city are more readily appreciated, and the sense of her past greatness even more captivating.

There may be rain, there will probably be morning mists and it will be overcast for at least some of the time, but equally likely are days of unbroken sunshine and brilliant blue skies, with a wonderful clarity in the air.

Itinerary

Day 1. Fly at c. 12.30pm from London Gatwick to Venice. Cross the lagoon by motoscafo (water taxi) to the hotel. There is an introductory walk in Piazza San Marco.

Day 2. The morning walk includes S. Zaccaria and S. Giovanni in Bragora, two churches with outstanding Renaissance altarpieces by Vivarini, Bellini and Cima. The Scuola di S. Giorgio degli Schiavoni has a wonderful cycle of painting by Carpaccio. 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. In the evening there is a special after-hours private visit to the Basilica of S. Marco, an 11th-century Byzantine church enriched over the centuries with mosaics, sculpture and various precious objects.

Day 3. Cross the Grand Canal to the Dorsoduro district, location of the Franciscan church of S. Maria Gloriosa dei Frari which has outstanding artworks including Titian’s

Assumption, and the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, with dramatic paintings by Tintoretto. In the afternoon see the incomparably beautiful Doge’s Palace with pink Gothic revetment and rich Renaissance interiors.

Day 4. Cross the lagoon by motoscafo to the island of Torcello, once the rival of Venice but now scarcely inhabited. Virtually all that remains of the city is the magnificent Veneto-Byzantine cathedral with its 12th-century mosaics. Continue by vaporetto (water bus) to the glass-making island of Murano. Back in Venice, see Titian’s St Lawrence in the Gesuiti.

Day 5. In the morning 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. In Dorsoduro, visit the church of S. Sebastiano with decoration by Veronese, and the nearby Scuola Grande dei Carmini with fine ceiling paintings by Tiepolo.

Day 6. Free morning with an afternoon in the Accademia, Venice’s major art gallery, where all the Venetian painters are well represented.

Day 7. The Ca’ Rezzonico is a magnificent palace on the Grand Canal, now a museum of 18th-century art. Fly to London Gatwick, arriving c. 5.15pm.

Practicalities

Price: £2,360 (deposit £250). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Airbus 319); travel between Venice Airport and hotel by water-taxi, a vaporetto pass for the duration of the tour; luggage porterage from and to the airport; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £390 (double room for sole occupancy). Price without flights £2,260.

Hotel: The Westin Europa & Regina, an elegant and historic hotel on the Grand Canal, opposite the Salute. It is maintained to a high standard and has a good restaurant. Rooms are elegantly furnished and decorated. Room service, drinks at the bar and extras in general are known to be expensive in this hotel.

How strenuous? The nature of Venice means that the city is more often than not traversed on foot. Although part of her charm, there is a lot of walking along the flat and up and down bridges; standing around in museums and churches is also unavoidable.


The Circumcision, detail from an engraving c. 1820 after Giovanni Bellini.

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Ruskin’s VeniceThrough 19th-century writers & artists

Engraving from The Stones of

Venice by John Ruskin, 1900

edition.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 12.30pm from London Gatwick to Venice. Cross the lagoon by motoscafo (water taxi) to the hotel. There is an introductory walk in Piazza San Marco.

Day 2. A morning walk includes a Carpaccio painting of noblewomen in the Museo Correr which Ruskin (and the rest of the world) gloriously misinterpreted, and S. Maria dei Miracoli, whose sculptures ‘should be examined with great care, as the best possible examples of a bad style’. Continue to SS. Giovanni e Paolo, a vast church with various funerary monuments, some of which were admired by Ruskin and others reviled. In the afternoon visit the Doge’s Palace, of which Ruskin wrote that it ‘contains the three elements in exactly equal proportions: the Roman, Lombard, and Arab. It is the central building in the world’, but he saw in the extravagant crockets and finials on the Porta della Carta a sign of

vaporetto (water bus) to the island of Murano to visit S. Donato; see the inlaid floor and mosaic of the Madonna above the altar (for Ruskin, seeing this building was ‘a hard day’s work’).

Day 4. As a Gothic structure, the great Franciscan church of S. Maria Gloriosa dei Frari aroused Ruskin’s approbation (he detected Arabic influence in the apse), of the paintings in the adjacent Scuola di San Rocco he wrote when he first saw them, ‘I never was so utterly crushed to the earth before any human intellect as I was today, before Tintoret’. A guided walk passes the pensione on the Zattere and the Danieli Hotel on the Riva degli Schiavoni where Ruskin stayed. In afternoon visit the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni with the cycle of paintings by Carpaccio which he studied deeply and analysed symbolically.

Day 5. Visit the Accademia, Venice’s principal art gallery, study the painters of most interest to Ruskin: Bellini, Titian, Tintoretto. Ruskin was obsessively interested in the works of Carpaccio, identifying Rose La Touche, with whom he had been hopelessly in love, with the figure of St Ursula. Fly to London Gatwick, arriving c. 5.15pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,960 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Airbus 319); travel between Venice Airport and hotel by water-taxi, a vaporetto pass for the duration; luggage porterage from and to airport; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £210 (double room sole use). Price without flights £1,850.




Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Siena & San Gimignano, 26 February–2 March (page 136); Connoisseur’s Rome, 25 February–2 March (page 148); Art History of Venice, 10–16 March (page 122).

5–9 March 2014 (ma 826)5 days • £1,960Lecturer: Christopher Newall

A study of Venice through the writings of the enormously influential critic and philosopher John Ruskin.

Visits a selection of buildings and paintings which were significant to him, Byzantine, Gothic and Renaissance.

The views and visions of other 19th-century writers and artists are also considered.

Led by art historian Christopher Newall.

John Ruskin’s The Stones of Venice, published 1851–53, was an enormously influential book. It is not an exaggeration to say that the book changed the way people looked at Venice, and that to this day we still see the city with eyes and minds infused with Ruskin’s vision.

Before Ruskin, Venetian Byzantine and Gothic architecture, mosaic and painting were ignored as representing a barbarous interlude before civilization returned with the Renaissance. St Mark’s was abhorred as a monstrous blot; weathered stone was a defect to be put right, funds permitting, with mechanically cut replacements; Grand Tourists learnt that painting began with Titian and architecture with Palladio.

Ruskin’s views, passionately articulated – his idealistic adoration for the Middle Ages, his love of decoration and richness of surface, his belief that the decline of Venice dated from 1418 – were a radical departure from the accepted norms of the past. Underlying his aesthetic preferences were highly original socio-political ideas and the belief that art and architecture were a barometer of the spiritual and moral health of a society. It was this philosophical cogency which gave his writings such impact.

Ruskin’s brilliant polemics taught his readers to look at Venice the way he did, to love the city as he did. He was the first to make a cool-headed appraisal of the problems of Venice, political, physical, and sociological, and as one of the first modern conservationists he instituted a campaign to protect the fabric from ‘improving’ restoration and reconstruction.

The tour also looks at responses to Venice by other writers, including Wordsworth, Shelley and Byron, and to British and American artists, particularly Turner, whom Ruskin championed, and Whistler, whom he reviled.

incipient decline. Look across to San Giorgio Maggiore, an example of ‘this pestilent art of the Renaissance’. In the evening, an after-hours private visit to the Basilica of S. Marco.

Day 3. Visit the Gothic church of Madonna dell’Orto with paintings by Tintoretto. Cross the lagoon by motoscafo to the island of Torcello, movingly desolate in Ruskin’s day and not much changed now; the Byzantine church and mosaics induced him to ecstasy. Continue by Venice & Florence, 1–8 November (page 134).


Venice RevisitedLesser-known & less accessible treasures

11–16 November 2014 (mb 196)6 days • £2,160Lecturer: 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 lesser-known 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 17th-century 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.

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 Cannareggio, 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.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,160 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on British Airways flights (Airbus 319); travel between Venice Airport and hotel by private water-taxi, a vaporetto pass for the duration of the tour; luggage porterage between the airport and the hotel; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and three dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters, porters; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £340 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,050.




Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Venice & Florence, 1–8 November (page 134).

A Venetian street, after a drawing by D.Y. Cameron c. 1900.

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Parma, theatre in the ducal palace, lithograph 1822.

Courts of Northern ItalyPrincely Art of the Renaissance

30 March–6 April 2014 (ma 837) 8 days • £2,140Lecturer: Dr Michael Douglas-Scott

6–13 October 2014 (mb 161) 8 days • £2,140Lecturer: 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, Associate Lecturer in History of Art at Birkbeck College, and 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.

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.

ItineraryDay 1: Mantua. Fly at c. 8.45am 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 (Mantegna’s frescoes in the Camera degli Sposi, Pisanello frescoes, Rubens altarpiece).

Day 2: Mantua, Sabbioneta. 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 15th-century stronghold, and the cathedral. The Palazzo Diamanti houses the art gallery. 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 Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, lined with 5th-century mosaics, the splendid centrally planned church of S. Vitale with 6th-century mosaics of Emperor Justinian and Empress Theodora, and the Basilica of S. Apollinare Nuovo with its mosaic Procession of Martyrs. Drive to Classe, Ravenna’s port,


Courts of Northern Italycontinued Ravenna & Urbino

Byzantine capital, Renaissance court

which was once one of the largest in the Roman world; virtually all that is left is the great Basilica of S. Apollinare.

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 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.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,140 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Boeing 737); private coach; accommodation; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; admissions; tips; taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £230. Price without flights £1,980.

Hotels: Mantua (4 nights): Hotel Casa Poli, a 4-star hotel close to the historic centre. Décor is minimalist but stylish. Ravenna (3 nights): Hotel Bisanzio, a bland modern façade hides a small, welcoming but relatively basic 4-star hotel. It is very centrally located however, and the best to be found in the centre of town. The room décor is a little austere but comfortable.

How strenuous? A lot of walking, much of it on steep and roughly paved streets: agility, stamina and sure-footedness are essential. Coaches are not allowed into historic centres. Many of the buildings visited are vast. Average distance by coach per day: 88 miles


Possible linking tours. Combine the spring departure with Sicily, 17–29 March (page 154); The Heart of Italy, 8–15 April (page 139); Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes, 10–16 April (page 115). Combine the October departure with Gastronomic Sicily, 29 September–5 October (page 159); Sicily, 13–25 October (page 154); Ancient Rome, 13–18 October (page 146); Pompeii & Herculaneum, 20–25 October (page 149).

23–27 April 2014 (ma 869)5 days • £1,430Lecturer: Dr Michael Douglas-Scott

1–5 October 2014 (mb 146)5 days • £1,430Lecturer: 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.

Led by expert art historians.

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.

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 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.

ItineraryDay 1: Ravenna. Fly at c. 3.00pm from London Heathrow to Bologna. Drive to Ravenna, where all four nights are spent.

Day 2: Ravenna. The so-called Mausoleum of Galla Placidia has the earliest mosaic scheme in Ravenna (mid-5th century, with 4th-century insertions). The National Museum is outstanding, particularly for Byzantine ivory carvings. The Orthodox baptistry has superlative Early Christian mosaics. S. Apollinare Nuovo has a mosaic procession of martyrs marching along the nave. The centrally planned church of S. Vitale is Ravenna’s finest and has some of the most magnificent mosaics (including portraits of Emperor Justinian, Empress Theodora and their entourage).

Day 3: Ravenna. The Cathedral Museum possesses fine objects, including an ivory throne. Visit the Cooperativa Mosaicista, a

Portrait of Sigismond Malatesta, from The Shores of the Adriatic, The Italian Side 1906.

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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.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,430 (2014) (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (aircraft: Airbus 319); travel by private coach for transfers and excursions; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts and three dinners including wine, water and coffee; all admissions to museums, sites, etc; all gratuities for restaurant staff, drivers and guides; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £140 (double room for sole occupancy). Price without flights £1,270.

Hotel: Hotel Bisanzio, a bland modern façade hides a somewhat basic but friendly and comfortable 4-star hotel. Decoration of its rooms is rather austere. Included dinners are at a selection of nearby restaurants.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking and standing in museums. The coach cannot be used within the town centres. Average distance by coach per day: 65 miles


Parma22–27 September 2014Contact us for the full details or visit www.martinrandall.com

Dark Age BrillianceLate Antique & Pre-Romanesque

9–16 September 2014 (mb 111)8 days • £1,970Lecturer: John McNeill

A journey through north-east Italy to Croatia, via Ravenna, Torcello and Cividale.

Includes some of the finest art and architecture of the Early Middle Ages to be found anywhere.

Led by renowned architectural historian John McNeill.

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-

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.

Cividale, from The Shores of the Adriatic, 1906.


Dark Age Brilliancecontinued

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 2.45pm from London Heathrow to Bologna. Drive to Ravenna for the first of three nights.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, Galla Placidia’s splendid ex-voto basilica of San Giovanni Evangelista and Bishop Neon’s San Francesco.Day 3: Ravenna, Classe. The Mausoleum of Galla Placidia is the earliest Christian structure in Europe to retain its mosaic decoration in its entirety. The church of San Vitale is the greatest 6th-century building of the West; the invention with which form, colour, space and narrative meaning are combined is breathtaking. This is followed by the collections of the Museo Nazionale, which complement Ravenna’s buildings. Travel by coach to Theodoric’s superb Mausoleum and to the ancient port of Classe for the great 6th-century basilica of Sant’Apollinare.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 modest mediaeval cathedral was built alongside a 4th-century basilica and martyrium, is splendidly revealed through archaeological excavation. First of four nights in Cividale.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.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 rather 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 11th-century cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta and adjacent Greek-cross reliquary church of Santa Fosca. Fly from Venice to London Gatwick, arriving at c. 7.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,970 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Airbus 319); travel by private coach; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 5 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £190 (double for sole use). Price without flights £1,750.Hotels: Ravenna (3 nights): Hotel Bisanzio, a bland modern façade hides a fairly basic but friendly and comfortable 4-star hotel. Cividale (4 nights): Hotel Roma, a simple and friendly 3-star, located in the centre of town. Dinners are at a selection of local restaurants.How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking in town centres, some of it over uneven ground. Average distance by coach per day: 76 milesSmall group: between 10 and 22 participants.Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes, 18–24 September (page 115); The Heart of Italy, 16–23 September (page 139).

A Festival of Music in Bologna

28 September–3 October 2014Details available in December 2013Contact us to register your interestFew Italian cities are more engaging than Bologna. The allure of aged red brick, great churches and memorial sculpture, magnificent palaces and civic buildings, first-rate galleries and frescoed halls and miles of arcaded streets should be irresistible. As home of Europe’s oldest university, as a beacon of good civic governance and with a world-wide reputation for gastronomic excellence one would think that a visit would be practically mandatory. But still the tourists stay away.

Not so scholars, scientists, artists and musicians, who for hundreds of years were attracted from far and wide to this centre of culture and learning. Patrician and commercial wealth nurtured a long tradition of music making that drew performers and composers from all over Europe, from Dufay in the fifteenth century to Wagner in the nineteenth.

Important and influential Bologna-born composers include Jacopo da Bologna (fourteenth century), Adriano Banchieri (1568-1634), Giacomo Antonio Perti (1661-1756), and Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936). Among composers from elsewhere who spent significant amounts of time here are Giuseppe Torelli (1658-1709), famous for developing the concerto, and Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868), in his lifetime the undisputed colossus of opera. Mozart spent several months at the Accademia Filarmonica in 1770 studying with ‘Padre’ Martini, whose other pupils included J. C. Bach and Gluck.

Bologna is an ideal setting for an MRT music festival: relatively small and walkable, partially pedestrianised, highly civilised and with a variety of magnificent venues, many of which are associated with the music which will be performed in them.

‘Just thank you – another very rewarding experience.’

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Walking in Northern TuscanyCountryside, gardens, villas & sculpture around Fiesole & Lucca

2–9 May 2014 (ma 880) This tour is currently full

10–17 October 2014 (mb 150)8 days • £2,580Lecturer: Dr Antonia Whitley

Five country walks amid the beautiful scenery around Fiesole and Lucca (between 2 and 5 miles).

Special arrangements to visit villas and gardens, some with proprietors or head gardeners.

Visits to places of artistic and gastronomic interest, and to picturesque towns and villages.

Led by Dr Antonia Whitley, art historian and lecturer specialising in the Italian Renaissance.

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

Fiesole, 20th-century etching.

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 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 and arboricultural 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 five-hundred-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 two opportunities to experience this first hand.

ItineraryDay 1: Villa La Pietra, Fiesole. Fly at c. 9.00am 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 with the head gardener and visit the villa’s interior. Drive to


Walking in Northern Tuscanycontinued

the hotel in Fiesole; wine-tasting on the terrace overlooking Florence, and the first of three nights here.

Day 2: Fiesole, San Domenico. Walk through Fiesole to Monte Ceceri on small roads and woodland paths, uphill and down, past stone quarries to a clearing where Leonardo launched his flying machines (3.5 km). Return to Fiesole and see the cathedral. Visit Villa Medici, built by Michelozzo in the 15th century and 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

for a talk on the plants of historic Italian gardens (subject to confirmation). Arriving in Lucca, there is time for an introductory walk around 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 along the rustic paths of the Via delle Ville, a route beside some of the finest of Lucca’s summer retreats. Lunch and olive-oil tasting at a farm overlooking the groves. Continue walking downhill to Marlia on country paths and lanes (total 5 km, easy to moderate). 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

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 is followed by dinner.

Day 8. Fly from Pisa to London Heathrow, arriving c. 2.30pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,580 (deposit £250). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Airbus A319); travel by private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 4 lunches (including one picnic) and 4 dinners (two with wine-tasting) with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer, tour manager and local guides where appropriate. Single supplement £240 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,390.

Hotels: Fiesole (3 nights): Pensione Bencistà, a family-run hotel, located on the hillside 4 km outside Fiesole, with far-reaching views of Florence and surroundings from the terrace and public rooms. Parts of the villa date from the 14th century, when it belonged to close acquaintance of the Medici family. The rooms are elegantly furnished with antiques and original art; modern appliances (televisions, minibars) are reserved for the public rooms. Locally rated a 3-star, the rooms here lack the opulence that might be expected in this category. A limited number of rooms have views overlooking Florence and will be allocated to those who book first. Lucca (4 nights): Hotel Ilaria, an excellently situated 4-star, within the city walls of Lucca. The staff are helpful and friendly, and dinners are at selected restaurants outside the hotel.

How strenuous? This tour should only be considered by those who are used to regular country walking, with some uphill content. There are five walks of between 2 and 5 miles. Strong knees and ankles are essential, as are a pair of well-worn hiking boots with good ankle support, and if you are used to them you may find walking poles useful. Walks have been carefully selected but some steep paths are unavoidable (both uphill and downhill) and terrain can be loose underfoot, particularly in wet weather. Average distance by coach per day: 32 miles


Possible linking tours: Combine the October departure of this tour with Walking in Southern Tuscany, 20–27 October (page 131); Pompeii & Herculaneum, 20–25 October (page 149).

Lucca, S. Frediano from the ramparts, from Some Tuscan Cities, 1924.

(easy to moderate, undulating, c. 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, a silver altarpiece in the cathedral, the product of 150 years’ workmanship, and the coloured terracotta frieze by the della Robbia workshop on the Ospedale. Visit one of Pistoia’s largest nurseries

the villages of Sant’Andrea di Compito and San Giusto di Compito passes several important Lucchese villas and gardens (c. 3.5 km, some uphill). The 16th-century hunting lodge once owned by Count Sinibaldi has been beautifully restored by its current American owners (visit subject to confirmation). 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 an 8 km country walk on grassy paths and lanes to Sant’Andrea in Caprile (of which 4 km is steadily uphill). Picnic lunch in the grounds of Villa Torrigiani before visiting the garden. Dating back to the 16th century when it was owned by the

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Walking in Southern Tuscany Art, architecture & landscapes in Val d’Orcia & Chianti

20–27 October 2014 (mb 180)8 days • £2,420Lecturer: Dr Antonia Whitley

Five walks of between 3 and 6 miles through exquisite landscape of soaring cypress, olives and vines.

Art history away from the tourist throngs – mediaeval fortress towns, Romanesque churches, Renaissance palazzi, Sienese painting.

Led by Dr Antonia Whitley, art historian and lecturer specialising in the Italian Renaissance.

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 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.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 9.00am 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, which is the 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.

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. The mediaeval hamlet of 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).

Montepulciano, aquatint c. 1830.


Walking in Southern Tuscany continued

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 16th-century frescoed refectory, gardens and wine cellars.

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).

Day 8: Fly from Pisa, arriving London Heathrow at c. 2.30pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,420 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Airbus 319/321); travel by private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 2 lunches (both include wine tastings) and 5 dinners with wine, water, coffee; 1 additional wine tasting; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £290 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,260.

Hotels: Pienza (4 nights): Relais Il Chiostro, a former friary dating to the 15th century close to the main square; bedrooms vary in size and are simply decorated; the gardens and terrace have an impressive view and the restaurant serves good Tuscan food. Radda in Chianti (3 nights): Relais Vignale, a 17th-century manor house with historical links to Chianti wine production; terrace with valley view, restaurant and outdoor pool; rooms vary in size.

How strenuous? This tour should only be considered by those who are used to regular country walking, with some uphill content. Strong knees and ankles are essential, as are a pair of well-worn hiking boots with good ankle support. Walks have been carefully selected but some steep rises are unavoidable and terrain can be loose under foot, particularly in wet weather, and if you are used to using them, may find walking poles useful. There are five walks of between 3 and 6 miles. Average distance by coach per day: 44 miles


FlorenceCradle of the Renaissance

17–23 February 2014 (ma 816)7 days • £2,160Lecturer: 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.

Led by Dr Antonia Whitley, expert art historian.

Still retains an astonishingly dense concentration of great works of art.

The Renaissance is centre stage, but mediaeval and other periods also figure prominently.

Avoids the crowds of busier months, and 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.

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.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 11.15am from London Heathrow to Pisa and transfer by coach to Florence. In the late afternoon visit the Piazza della Signoria, civic centre of Florence with masterpieces of public sculpture.

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 baptistry, as well as the polychromatic marble cathedral capped by Brunelleschi’s massive dome, and the museum with works of art from the cathedral and baptistry.

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, Italy’s most important art gallery, which has 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 largest sculptural ensemble and the chapel in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi which has exquisite frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli. Visit the Laurentian Library, Michelangelo’s most substantial building in Florence. Free afternoon.

Giambologna’s Virtue Chaining Vice in the Barghello, engraving 1883.

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Day 5. Visit the Bargello, a mediaeval palazzo 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 Trinità 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. 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 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. Fly from Pisa Airport, arriving at Heathrow at c. 4.45pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,160 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (Airbus 319); private coach for airport transfers; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, one lunch and four dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions for museums, etc.; all tips for restaurant staff, drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £230 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,950.

Hotel: Santa Maria Novella, a delightful, recently renovated 4-star hotel in a very central location. Rooms are stylishly decorated; singles are double rooms for single occupancy. Dinners are at selected restaurants nearby.

How strenuous? There is a lot of walking on this tour and it would not be suitable for anyone who has difficulties with everyday walking or stair-climbing.


Possible linking tours. Walking in Northern Tuscany, 10–17 October (page 129); Ancient Rome, 13–18 October (page 146); Venice & Florence, 1–8 November (page 134).

Florence RevisitedArt off the beaten track & in private collections

10–16 November 2014 (mb 195)7 days • £2,480Lecturer: 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.

Led by Dr Joachim Strupp, Italian art expert and resident of Florence for several years.

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.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 11.15am 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

Florence, the Ponte Vecchio, aquatint c. 1830.


Venice & FlorencePainting, sculpture, architecture

from the Uffizi to the Pitti Palace (by special arrangement), viewing the Medici collection of artists’ self-portraits. In the afternoon there is 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 17th-century 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 nearby. 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.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,480 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Airbus 319); private coach travel outside the city centre; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £240 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,280.

Hotel: Santa Maria Novella, a 4-star hotel in a very central location. Rooms are stylishly decorated. Dinners are at selected restaurants.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking, and the tour would not be suitable for anyone who has any difficulties with everyday walking or stair-climbing, or standing for long periods of time.


Florence Revisitedcontinued

1–8 November 2014 (mb 192)8 days • £2,770Lecturer: Dr Michael Douglas-Scott

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 after-hours 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.

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 limstone 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 pre-eminence. 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.

ItineraryDay 1: Venice. Fly at c. 8.45am from London Heathrow to Venice. Cross the lagoon by motoscafo (water taxi). There is an introductory walk which includes 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.

Florence, Duom

o, from H

ope’s Essays on Architecture, 1835.

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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.

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.

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 cathedral buildings occupy 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.

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, the chapel in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi which has exquisite frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli 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 Trinita 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: £2,770 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) on British Airways flights (aircraft: Airbus 319); travel between Venice Airport and hotel by water-taxi, a vaporetto pass for the time spent in Venice; luggage porterage from the airport to the hotel in Venice; first-class rail travel from Venice to Florence; private coach for airport transfer in Florence; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, one lunch and four dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips for restaurant staff, drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £360 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,530.

Hotel: Venice (3 nights): The Westin Europa & Regina, an elegant and historic hotel on the Grand Canal, opposite the Salute. It is

maintained to a high standard and has a good restaurant. Rooms are elegantly furnished and decorated. Room service, drinks at the bar and extras in general are known to be expensive in this hotel. Florence (4 nights): Hotel Santa Maria Novella, a delightful, recently renovated 4-star hotel in a very central location. Rooms are stylishly decorated; singles are double rooms for single occupancy. Dinners are at selected restaurants nearby.

How strenuous? The nature of both Venice and Florence means that the cities are more often than not traversed on foot. Although part of their charm, there is a lot of walking along the flat (and up and down bridges in Venice); standing around in museums and churches is also unavoidable.


Possible linking tours. Combine with Florence Revisited, 10–16 November (page 133); Venice Revisited, 11–16 November (page 124).

Venice, Rialto Bridge, 17th-century copper engraving.



Siena & San Gimignanohilltop towns of Tuscany

26 February–2 March 2014 (ma 820)5 days • £1,440Lecturer: Dr Antonia Whitley

A winter break in one of the most extraordinary of Tuscan hill towns, San Gimignano.

Visits to nearby places – Volterra, Monteriggioni and two to Siena.

Beautiful landscape, wonderful streetscape, outstanding mediaeval and Renaissance painting, great buildings.

Towards the end of a winter 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 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.

ItineraryDay 1: San Gimignano, Monteriggioni. Fly at c. 11.15am from London Heathrow 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 Collegiata (cathedral) containing two great cycles of trecento frescoes depicting scenes from the Old and New Testaments, the town hall, also with 14th-

San Gim

ignano, late-19th-century wood engraving.

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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. Free time in Siena, or a chance to visit the cathedral, baptistry and Libreria Piccolomini with the lecturer.

Day 4: Volterra, Siena. A 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 Sta Maria della Scala, with its exceptional collection of Renaissance frescoes.

Day 5. Drive to Pisa for the flight to Heathrow, arriving c. 4.45pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,440 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (Airbus 319); travel by private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and three dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admission charges; all tips for drivers and restaurant staff; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £110 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,260.

Hotel: San Gimignano (all 4 nights): Hotel Leon Bianco, a 3-star hotel in the central square with fine views. As with all historic conversions, rooms vary in size and outlook, but all have a view of the piazza or hills. Included dinners are at good local restaurants.

How strenuous? There is a lot of walking on this tour, some of it on uneven ground and much of it uphill. Coaches are not allowed inside the walls of any of the towns visited. Average distance by coach per day: 51 miles


LuccaSculpture & architecture in northern Tuscany

21–27 April 2014 (ma 867)7 days • £2,130Lecturer: Dr Antonia Whitley

8–14 September 2014 (mb 109)7 days • £2,130Lecturer: Dr Flavio Boggi

A leisurely exploration of one of the most beautiful and engaging of Tuscan cities.

Exceptional Renaissance ramparts enclosing a city rich in sculpture, painting, and Romanesque architecture.

Led by expert art historians specialising in the Italian Renaissance.

Excursions to Prato, Pistoia, Pisa and Barga. Work by Florentine masters, including Filippo Lippi, Donatello and Giovanni della Robbia.

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 town.

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 Renaissance ramparts in Italy.

Unlike many Tuscan cities, Lucca sits on the valley floor. This 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 Lucchese feature of tiers of arcades applied to the façades and flanks. 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.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 9.00am from London Heathrow 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 Torre Guinigi. 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 the Villa Guinigi, a rare survival of a 14th-century

Lucca, San Michele, engraving after a drawing by John Ruskin in The Stones of Venice, 1902 edition.


Luccacontinued

suburban villa and now a museum with outstanding mediaeval panel paintings.

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. The Museo della Pittura Murale has good paintings by both Lippis, Lorenzo Monaco and Paolo Uccello.

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. 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, a unique silver altarpiece in the cathedral, the product of 150 years’ workmanship, and the coloured terracotta frieze by the della Robbia workshop on the Ospedale.

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.

Day 7: Lucca. Visit the Romanesque church of San Frediano, one of the finest in Lucca, with façade mosaics and a chapel sculpted by Jacopo della Quercia. The flight from Pisa arrives into London Heathrow at c. 2.30pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,130 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) with scheduled British Airways flights (aircraft: Airbus 319); travel by private coach for transfers and excursions; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts and four dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions to museums, galleries, etc. visited with the group; all gratuities for restaurant staff, drivers; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £240 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,930.

Hotel: Hotel Ilaria, an excellently situated 4-star, within the city walls of Lucca. The staff are helpful and friendly. Dinners are at selected restaurants outside the hotel.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking, much of it on roughly paved streets. The tour is not suitable for anyone with any difficulties with everyday walking and stair climbing. Average distance by coach per day: 40 miles


Pisa, Cathedral and Campanile, late-19th-century engraving.

Incontri in Terra di SienaJuly 2014Details available in Febuary 2014Contact us to register your interest

Torre del LagoAugust 2014Contact us for the full details or visit www.martinrandall.com

Trasimeno Music FestivalJuly 2014Details available January 2014Contact us to register your interest

Opera in Macerata & PesaroAugust 2014Contact us for the full details or visit www.martinrandall.com



Opera in Cardiff .........................................52






Verona Opera ............................................ 117

Opera in Drottningholm .................... 203

Santa Fe Opera ......................................... 211

‘Very interesting range of excursions. Enjoyed the mixture of half and full day excursions and the opportunity to visit less ‘touristy’ places.’

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The Heart of ItalyTuscany & Umbria

views of countryside which seems scarcely to have changed for centuries.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 11.00am from London Heathrow to Rome. 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: Cortona, Spello. Drive around Lake Trasimeno to the charming Tuscan hill town

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: Todi, Montefalco. Visit S. Maria della Consolazione in Todi, a centrally planned Renaissance church influenced by Bramante’s ideas. Walk through the town, seeing the cathedral and the church of San Fortunato, with its richly decorated central doorway and frescoes by Masolino. Montefalco is another delightful hilltop community with magnificent views of the valley below and hills around. In the deconsecrated church of Francesco are frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli. Some free time in Spello.

Day 6: Sansepolcro, Arezzo, two cities which were laid out on alluvial plains. Borgo

Perugia, San Domenico, etching 1925.

8–15 April 2014 (ma 852)8 days • £2,280Lecturer: Professor Ian Campbell Ross

16–23 September 2014 (mb 119)8 days • £2,280Lecturer: Dr Michael Douglas-Scott

One of our most popular tours – an excellent survey of the art and architecture of Umbria and some of Tuscany, heartlands of the Renaissance.

Based throughout in the hilltop town of Spello, amidst ageless undulating countryside.

Perugia, Arezzo, Assisi and significant smaller towns away from the main tourist centres.

Avoiding the major centres, this tour concentrates on a selection of the smaller towns and cities – the centri minori – of Umbria and Tuscany. Spread across the heart of Italy, these regions contain a disproportionately large quantity of what the country is most loved for: 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, Piero della Francesca’s Arezzo frescoes are among the greatest achievements of the Early Renaissance 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

of Cortona. See the high-quality collection of Renaissance art in the Museo Diocesano and the Gothic altarpiece in San Domenico. Return in the afternoon to the small hilltop town of Spello, which has 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

Sansepolcro, with a regular grid pattern betraying its Roman origin, was the home town of the 15th-century painter Piero della Francesca; see his Resurrection and other works by him in the local museum. Arezzo was one of the great cities of Tuscany in the Middle Ages, and was also a Roman foundation. In the church of S. Francesco is Piero della Francesca’s masterpiece, the fresco cycle of The Legend of the True Cross. See also the cathedral and a Romanesque church with an altarpiece by the 14th-century Sienese painter Pietro Lorenzetti.

Day 7: Orvieto. Spend the day in this entrancing hilltop town, with its glistening marble Gothic cathedral. Among its treasures


The Heart of Italycontinued

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 an extensive park adorned with fountains, walled gardens and a casino. Lunch near here before flying from Rome, arriving London Heathrow at c. 7.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,280 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (Airbus 319); private coach travel; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, one lunch and four dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips for restaurant staff, drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £170 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,040.

Hotel: Hotel Palazzo Bocci, a modest 4-star in the centre of Spello, converted from a family palazzo dating back to the 17th century. Furnishings are in keeping with the history of the building. There is a frescoed lounge and a terraced garden with views of the countryside. Rooms are comfortable but vary in size.

How strenuous? Many of the visits take place in hill towns, with very steep and uneven inclines leading from the coach park to the centre. There is a lot of walking, and agility and sure-footedness are particularly essential on this tour. This tour involves a lot of coach travel. Average distance by coach per day: 88 miles


Possible linking tours. Combine the April departure with Palermo Revealed, 31 March–5 April (page 156); Lucca, 21–27 April (page 137). Combine the September departure with Lucca, 8–14 September (page 137); Gastronomic Sicily, 29 September–5 October (page 159); Dark Age Brilliance, 9–16 September (page 127).

The Via FlaminiaRome to Rimini

10–17 May 2014 (ma 891)8 days • £2,460Lecturer: Professor Ian Campbell Ross

Italy ancient and modern, following the Roman Via Flaminia or Flaminian Way.

A conspectus of history and culture covering more than two thousand years.

Led by Professor Ian Campbell Ross, author of Umbria: a Cultural Guide.

The Via Flaminia was built by the Romans in the late third century bc and served to link Rome to the Adriatic. In so doing, it opened up Italy north and south, east and west, not only to the Romans but also to later travellers and invaders, including Early Christians, Byzantines, Lombards, monks, friars, Renaissance artists and Grand Tourists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. We follow the route from its beginning at the Forum in Rome all the way to the Arco di Augusto in Rimini, where it joins the Via Aemilia.

The majority of nights are spent in Spoleto, which stands at one end of the fertile Vale of Umbria and is ringed to the east by the wooded foothills of the high Appenines. For seven hundred years, this delightful city was the capital of a Longobard duchy which controlled a wide swathe of Italy. There is time to explore its winding mediaeval alleys and its blend of Roman, Renaissance and Baroque architecture.

From here we see much of the spectacular scenery of Green Umbria, as well as the villages, towns and cities situated on plains and hilltops or in the shadow of Umbria’s high mountain peaks. Among the towns visited are Narni, Foligno and Gualdo Tadino.

ItineraryDay 1: Rome. Fly at c. 11.00am from London Heathrow to Rome Fiumicino. The Forum Romanum, the civic, religious and social centre

of Ancient Rome, has the remains of many structures famed throughout the Empire, and is the start of the Via Flaminia. Overnight Rome.

Day 2: Narni. Narni enjoys a privileged position on the edge of the gorge of the river Nera and was the birthplace of a first-century Roman emperor and the celebrated Renaissance condottiere Gattamelata. See the Ponte di Augusto, a feat of Roman engineering, and works by Ghirlandaio and Benozzo Gozzoli in the Palazzo Eroli. Continue to Spoleto where the next five nights are spent.

Day 3: Spoleto, Carsulae. A morning walk includes the Roman amphitheatre and Casa Romana, and finishes at the cathedral square. One of the most pleasing 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. The older branch of the Flaminian Way proceeds via the substantial remains of the magnificently located Roman city of Carsulae, where the Roman road through the town is well preserved.

Day 4: Terni, San Pietro in Valle. The tour returns to the New Flaminian Way, made possible by the construction of the bridge over the Nera. An important Roman city, Terni led Umbria’s nineteenth-century industrial revolution, and despite war damage retains attractive and important traces of its Roman, mediaeval, and Renaissance past, as well as an outstanding new museum (CAOS), with archaeological and fine art displays. The monastery of S. Pietro, in a spot of great beauty, has one of Italy’s most important early fresco cycles.

Day 5: Spoleto. See the Rocca Albornoziana, the fourteenth-century fortress built at the command of Cardinal Albornoz to secure the city for the papacy. The museum within has an outstanding collection of mediaeval art. See also the medieval aqueduct, famously painted

Rimini, San Francesco, engraving c. 1860.


T e l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5 I t a l y141

by Turner, and Roman monuments including the theatre, arch and city walls. Free afternoon in Spoleto.

Day 6: Foligno, Bevagna. 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 cathedral, with a wonderful secondary façade by the builders Binellus and Ridolfus, and the adjacent 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. In the afternoon continue to Bevagna (the Roman Mevania), with one of the most beautiful of all Italian early mediaeval squares and a complete circle of mediaeval walls, built on the line of their Roman predecessors.

Day 7: Gualdo Tadino, Fano. Leaving Spoleto, the Flaminian Way runs along the Vale of Umbria before beginning to climb through spectacular mountain scenery on the way to Gualdo Tadino. Grouped close to the centre of the city are the cathedral and other medieval churches, but the most compelling visit is to the Rocca Flea, an imposing fortress

dominating the town, beautifully restored to house an impressive art collection. Fano’s layout still conforms to the Roman plan. There is a 2nd-century triumphal arch here, as well as tombs of the Malatesta dynasty and paintings by Perugino in Santa Maria Nuova. Overnight Pesaro.

Day 8: Rimini. There is a brief visit within Pesaro before departing for Rimini. 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), and the Arco di Augusto, the end of the Flaminian Way. Drive on to Bologna airport for a late-afternoon flight arriving at Heathrow at c. 8.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,460 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (Euro Traveller) on scheduled British Airways flights (Airbus 319); private coach travel; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and five dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips for restaurant staff, drivers; all taxes; the services of the

lecturer. Single supplement £270 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,250.

Hotel: In Rome (1 night): a recently renovated 4-star hotel, the Residenza di Ripetta is a former 17th-century convent just south of Piazza del Popolo. Public areas and rooms mix traditional and contemporary styles, and rooms are spacious and comfortable. In Spoleto (2 nights): Hotel San Luca, a comfortable 4-star hotel, an elegantly converted former tannery. Situated conveniently just within the city walls. In Pesaro (1 night): Grand Hotel Vittoria, a small and elegant 5-star hotel in a central location, with belle époque decor.

How strenuous? Many of the visits take place in hill towns, with very steep and uneven inclines leading from the coach park to the centre. Spoleto is particularly steep, and the hotel is situated at the bottom of the town. There is a lot of walking, and agility and sure-footedness are particularly essential on this tour. Average distance by coach per day: 56 miles


Spoleto, Ponte delle Torri, reproduction of a 19th-century steel engraving.


The Duchy of UrbinoThe Renaissance in the Marches

Urbino, engraving 1886 after a drawing by Joseph Pennell.

7–13 June 2014 (ma 924)7 days • £2,110Lecturer: Dr Luca Leoncini

Trawls through the little-visited hills, valleys and coast of the Marches.

There are a few masterpieces, but the attraction of the tour is more a matter of the rare, the unspoilt and the landscape.

Led by expert art historian Dr Luca Leoncini.

By inheritance lord of a marginal patch of mountainous territory, by profession a mercenary soldier, by scale of expenditure the most important Maecenas of his day: Federigo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, was one of the most fascinating and influential characters of Renaissance Italy.

His palace at Urbino is the finest Early Renaissance courtly residence in existence, a sequence of interiors of serene beauty. He was

also the paymaster for many other buildings, civil and military, throughout the duchy. Even more important for the subsequent history of civilization than the architecture was what took place within these buildings, for his court attracted humanists, artists and young noblemen from all over Italy and beyond. Two examples: Raphael spent his first twelve years here (his father was court painter), and for centuries the manners and demeanour in the upper echelons of European society were under the influence of Urbino court life as described by Baldassare Castiglione in The Courtier.

The Duchy of Urbino is located in the north of Le Marche, the Italian Marches, the name deriving from its tenth-century status as the borderlands between the Ottonian empire to the north and the papal lands to the south. Remoteness from the centre led to the emergence of local warlords, territorial fragmentation and de facto independence. The Buonconte dynasty had controlled Montefeltro for two hundred years before Federico II

succeeded in 1444 at the age of 22. During his 38-year tenure he expanded his domains at the expense of his Malatesta and Sforza neighbours, but the source of his fortune was his generalship of the armies of the great powers of Italy, the Duchy of Milan, the Republic of Venice and the Kingdom of Naples, switching sides without scruple, and accepting tribute from lesser powers just to stay away. He was made a duke by the pope in 1474.

His son Guidobaldo and his Delle Rovere successors continued artistic patronage though on a much reduced scale. Stagnation set in after the duchy reverted to the Church in 1631.

One recurrent feature of this tour is military architecture, castles and city walls of huge variety and sometimes extraordinary beauty. There are also many fine paintings, in galleries and original settings. There are world-class items, but for the most part the pleasures of this tour arise from the lesser treasures in remote and unspoilt communities in a kaleidoscope of breathtaking scenery.

ItineraryDay 1: San Leo. Fly at c. 8.45am from London Heathrow to Bologna. Drive along the Via Emilia and turn into the hills marking the northern border of the Duchy of Urbino and constituting the Montefeltro heart lands, guarded by the famously impregnable castle of San Leo. Introductory walk in this tiny mountain town, which has a marvellously unspoilt Romanesque church and, atop a limestone cliff, one of the most dramatically sited castles in all Europe. Overnight San Leo.

Day 2: Sassocorvaro, Urbino. Mountain drives lead to the castle of Sassocorvaro and another staggeringly beautiful hill road climbs to Urbino, Duke Federigo’s principal residence and one of Italy’s loveliest hilltop towns. An afternoon walk takes in the outstanding International Gothic frescoes by the Salimbeni brothers, cathedral and Diocesan Museum. First of five nights in Urbino.

Day 3: Mondavio, Senigallia, Fano. Two of the most extraordinary and beautiful examples of Renaissance fortifications are seen today: the multi-faceted brick castle at Mondavio and, in the coastal town of Senigallia, the sedate quadrangular fort and palace within. Also in Senigallia are a Neo-classical market place and arcaded waterfront. In Fano see an altarpiece by Perugino.

Day 4: Sant’Angelo in Vado, Mercatello sul Metauro, Urbania. Drop down to the Metauro river and follow the valley to the foothills of the Apennines. The small towns of Mercatello sul Metauro and Sant’Angelo in Vado retain well

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preserved mediaeval and Renaissance centres and paintings from the 13th to 17th centuries. Urbania is a charming town with a fortified palace built for Federico and modified for the last Duke of Urbino, whose tomb is in the town.

Day 5: 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.

Day 6: Gubbio is one of the most beautiful hill towns in Umbria, with a hillside piazza overlooking the lower town, formidable mediaeval palaces and the Ducal Palace, best-preserved of Federigo da Montefeltro’s residences outside Urbino.

Day 7: Pesaro. A prosperous port and centre of ceramic production, Pesaro was won successively by the Malatesta, Sforza and Delle Rovere dynasties before returning to papal rule in 1631. The art gallery contains Bellini’s great Coronation of the Virgin, perhaps his masterpiece. Fly from Bologna, arriving London Heathrow at c. 8.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,110 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (aircraft: Airbus 319); travel by private coach for transfers and excursions; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, one lunch and four dinners including wine, water and coffee; all admissions to museums, sites, etc; all gratuities for restaurant staff, drivers and guides; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £230 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,940.

Hotels: San Leo (1 night): Hotel Castello, a small 2-star hotel, simple but adequately comfortable, lack of luxury more than compensated for by its location in the heart of this beautiful hill village. Urbino (5 nights): Hotel San Domenico, a 4-star hotel recently converted from a monastery building and the best to be found right in the centre of the city, opposite the ducal palace.

How strenuous? There is a lot of walking, much of it uphill and on rough-hewn cobbles. There is also quite a lot of driving along minor hill roads. Average distance by coach per day: 63 miles


Gardens & Villas of Campagna Romana

12–17 May 2014 (ma 892)This tour is currently full

29 September–4 October 2014 (mb 136)6 days • £2,140Lecturer: 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.

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 16th 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.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 11.00am 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 extensive park adorned with fountains, walled gardens and a casino.

Day 3: Bomarzo, Vignanello, Frascati. Vicino Orsini created a Renaissance ‘theme park’ at

The Villa d’Este, engraving c. 1750.


Gardens & Villas of Campagna Romanacontinued The Etruscans

Italy before Rome

Paintings from Cerveteri, wood engraving from Cities & Cemeteries of Etruria 1878.

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.

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. Fly from Rome, arriving Heathrow at c. 3.15pm (May) or c. 5.00pm (October).

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,140 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Airbus 319); private coach travel; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 3 lunches and 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £210 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,900.

Hotels: near Viterbo (2 nights): Alla Corte delle Terme, a comfortable 4-star in the countryside outside of Viterbo, all rooms are suites. Grottaferrata (3 nights): Park Hotel Villa Grazioli, an outstanding 4-star hotel overlooking Frascati and Rome, in a 16th-century villa containing frescoes by Caracci and Pannini.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking, much of it on rough, uneven ground in the gardens. The tour would not be suitable for anyone who has difficulties with everyday walking and stair climbing. Average distance by coach per day: 60 miles


15–21 September 2014 (mb 118)7 days • £1,980Lecturer: Dr Nigel Spivey

Visits some of the most important and best-preserved Etruscan sites in Lazio and Tuscany.

Led by Dr Nigel Spivey, Senior Lecturer in Classical Art and Archaeology at the University of Cambridge.

A remote part of Italy’s history, and areas of Italy’s heartland which few tourists reach.

‘The mysterious Etruscans’. For several centuries they flourished in the area between Rome and Florence, creating a federation of twelve cities and living in notorious splendour. Then, as the little village of Rome expanded into an empire-building Republic, the Etruscans succumbed, and were almost obliterated from history. Only since the nineteenth century has the extent of Etruscan civilization been brought to light, and the Etruscans restored as ‘true ancestors’ of modern Italy.

Our route is an exploration of the best archaeological sites and museums in northern Lazio, southern Tuscany and along the Tyrrhenian coast. By burying their dead with care and extravagance in cemeteries laid out with urban grandeur, the Etruscans left many clues as to their existence. We follow their trail, which leads to tombs cut from cliffs and rocks amid rich agricultural land, museums in mediaeval castles and a ‘city of the dead’ shaped in volcanic stone. Brightly-painted scenes of feasting and dancing have been revealed on subterranean walls. This is a landscape riddled with tombs (about half a million of them), but

the atmosphere is far from morbid.The tour offers an opportunity to visit a

series of fascinating places on an itinerary that would challenge the independent traveller, journeying through beautiful countryside via some of the most charming and under-visited towns in Lazio and Tuscany. Dr Nigel Spivey has excavated at the sites of Cerveteri and Tuscania, both visited by the group, and studied Etruscology at Rome, Cambridge and Pisa for a dissertation on Etruscan vases.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 11.00am from London Heathrow to Rome Fiumicino. Drive to near Viterbo, where the first three nights are spent.

Day 2: Tarquinia. The unesco site of the Necropoli dei Monterozzi, part of a once thriving Etruscan city, has outstanding examples of painted tombs depicting everyday life and scenes of the journey to the next world. The charming but rarely visited town of Tarquinia has possibly the best Etruscan museum in Italy, housed in the splendid 15th-century Palazzo Vitelleschi. Its extensive collection of pottery, jewellery and carved sarcophagi is testament to the prosperity attained by Tarquinia over the course of the 7th and 6th centuries bc. In the afternoon visit Castel D’Asso, which has examples of cube tombs dating from the 4th century bc.

Day 3: Tuscania. Prosperous and powerful in Etruscan times, Tuscania is now a pretty hill town. Visit two tombs in the surrounding countryside, and see articles found in these and other tombs in the area in the archaeological museum in Tuscania. In the afternoon, visit the Etruscan museum in Viterbo.

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Day 4: Sovana. In the archaeological park at Sovana, walk along one of the Etruscan roads flanked by towering walls of tufaceous rock and see several noteworthy tombs, including the Tomba della Sirena, decorated with a sculpture of the mythological Scylla. Continue to picturesque Pitigliano for lunch, then on to Grosseto, where two nights are spent.

Day 5: Populonia. Drive to the coast to visit the archaeological park at Populonia. The burial grounds here date to the 9th century bc and the sculpted legs of stone funeral beds can be seen. The highest point of the park offers a spectacular view of the bay of Baratti and the Necropoli delle Grotte, with two stories of tombs. In the afternoon, visit the archeological museum in Grosseto.

Day 6: Cerveteri, Vatican City. In the morning drive down the coast to the unesco site at Cerveteri, a city of necropoleis ranging from the hut-like to the sumptuous based on the homes of the city’s wealthy inhabitants. Continue to the Vatican to visit the Etruscan section of its Museums. Overnight Rome.

Day 7: Rome. The Villa Giulia in Rome houses many treasures found in Etruscan tombs, including the Sarcophagus of the Spouses. Fly from Rome Fiumicino, arriving at London Heathrow c. 5.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,980 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Airbus 319); travel by private coach; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £100 (double for sole occupancy). Price without flights £1,720.

Hotels: near Viterbo (3 nights): Alla Corte delle Terme, a charming 4-star in the countryside outside of Viterbo, all rooms are suites. Grosseto (2 nights): Grand Hotel Bastiani, a comfortable 4-star hotel, excellently located within the city walls. Rome (1 night): a recently renovated 4-star hotel, the Residenza di Ripetta is a former 17th-century convent just south of Piazza del Popolo.

How strenuous? There is a lot of walking on this tour, much of it over uneven ground. It is not suitable for anyone who has difficulties with everyday walking and stair-climbing. Fitness and sure-footedness are essential. Coaches cannot always park near sites, many of which are vast. Average coach travel per day: 73 miles


Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Lucca, 8–14 September (page 137).

Essential RomeArt, Architecture, Antiquities

The Fountain of the Rivers by Gian Lorenzo Bernini in Piazza Navona, 18th-century engraving.

25 February–3 March 2014 (ma 822)This tour is currently full

4–10 November 2014 (mb 193)7 days • £2,760Lecturer: Dr Thomas-Leo True

Major buildings, monuments and works of art, a representative selection of all periods from Ancient Rome onwards.

Led by Dr True, an expert art historian specialising in Renaissance and Baroque architecture in Rome.

Private visit to the Sistine Chapel. In February the visit is shared with participants travelling on Connoisseur’s Rome, whereas in November participants have the Chapel entirely to themselves.

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 Christmas ones, hitherto they have all attempted only a


Essential Romecontinued Ancient

Romesingle 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, no overlap with the items on Connoisseurs’ Rome except for the private visit to the Sistine Chapel.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 11.00am from London Gatwick to Rome. Time to settle into the hotel, for an introductory talk and for dinner at a nearby restaurant.

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. Also seen are two great but very different Baroque churches, Sant’Ivo and Sant’Andrea delle Valle, 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. On the way to dinner, visit two churches to see paintings by Caravaggio, Sant’Agostino (Loreto Madonna) and San Luigi dei Francesi (St Matthew series).

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. The tour finishes with the glorious Byzantine mosaics in the churches of Sta Maria Maggiore and Sta Prassede. Return to Gatwick c. 4.45pm.

PracticalitiesPrice in November 2014: £2,760 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (Euro Traveller) on scheduled British Airways flights (Boeing 737); travel by private coach, minibus or taxi; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, one lunch and four dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions, including a private visit to the Vatican Museums; tips for waiters and drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and the tour manager. Single supplement £490 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,570.Hotel. The Hotel D’Inghilterra is a delightful 5-star hotel in a 17th-century palazzo, located just off the Via Condotti at the bottom of the Spanish Steps. Public rooms are relatively small but comfortable, while bedrooms are furnished in traditional style with antiques. How strenuous? There is unavoidably a lot of walking. The historic area is vast, and vehicular access is increasingly restricted. Travel is sometimes by coach and minibus but mainly locomotion is on foot.Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.Possible linking tours. Combine with Florence Revisited, 10–16 November (page 133), Venice Revisited, 11–16 November (page 124).

13–18 October 2014 (mb 164)6 days • £2,570Lecturer: Dr Mark Grahame

A comprehensive exploration of Rome’s ancient remains, in situ and in museums.

Also includes visits outside Rome: Ostia, the well-preserved ancient port of Rome, and Tivoli, for Hadrian’s enormous villa complex.

Led by Dr Mark Grahame, lecturer on 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.

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ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 12.45pm from London Heathrow to Rome, where all five nights are spent.

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.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,570 (deposit £250). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Boeing 767); private coach travel for transfers and excursions; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 2 lunches and 3 dinners including wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £420 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,330.

Hotel: Hotel Ponte Sisto, a 4-star hotel in an excellent location a short walk from Piazza Farnese and Trastevere. Bedrooms are furnished with traditional cherry wood furniture. There is a courtyard garden.

How strenuous? There is unavoidably a lot of walking. The historic area is vast, and vehicular access to the centre is increasingly restricted. Minibuses will be used on several occasions, but otherwise the city is traversed on foot.


Art & architecture of the classical world

Illustration: the Parthenon, Rome, engraving 1848.

‘A most satisfactory choice of Roman sites.’


Connoisseur’s RomeWith private visits including the Sistine Chapel

25 February–2 March 2014 (ma 821)6 days • £2,530Lecturer: Dr Michael Douglas-Scott

Artistic riches which are difficult to access or are rarely open to the public, including an out-of-hours visit to the Sistine Chapel.

Highlights of the Renaissance and Baroque.

Led by Dr Michael Douglas-Scott, lecturer at Birkbeck College, London, and specialist in Italian art and architecture.

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, 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 no overlap between this tour and Essential Rome.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 12.45pm from London Heathrow to Rome.

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. 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.

Michelangelo’s The Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, wood engraving c. 1880.

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Day 4. By special arrangement, visit the 16th-century 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. In the morning 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 and Pluto (special arrangement). 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.

Day 6. Some free time. On the way to the airport, visit the American church of St Paul’s Within the Walls to see mosaics designed by Edward Burne-Jones, his last great work. 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.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,530 (deposit £250). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Airbus 319); travel by private coach; hotel accommodation; breakfasts; 1 lunch and 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions, including a private visit to the Vatican Museums; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £330. Price without flights £2,350.

Hotels: a recently renovated 4-star hotel, the Residenza di Ripetta is a former 17th-century convent just south of Piazza del Popolo. Public areas and rooms mix traditional and contemporary styles, and rooms are spacious and comfortable.

How strenuous? There is unavoidably a lot of walking on this tour. The historic area is vast, and vehicular access is increasingly restricted. Minibuses or a coach are used on some occasions but otherwise the city is traversed on foot.


Pompeii & Herculaneum

Antiquities of the Bay of Naples

Pompeii wall decoration, engraving from Collection of the most Remarkable Monuments of the National Museum [Naples] Vol.II 1870.

7–12 April 2014 (ma 850)This tour is currently full

20–25 October 2014 (mb 178)6 days • £1,930Lecturer: Dr Ffiona Gilmore Eaves

One of the most exciting tours possible dealing with Roman archaeology.

Two principal sites, both buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79 and preserved with unparalleled completeness.

Led by various experts on the ancient world.

A unique insight into everyday life in the Roman Empire.

Important early Greek settlements, including Paestum, Cumae and Pozzuoli.

Campania’s felicitous climate, fertile soil and natural harbours have attracted settlers since ancient times. Prosperity invariably ensued. The Greeks founded some of their earliest colonies here, among them Naples and Paestum, the site of the latter preserving three of the most complete Doric temples to be found anywhere.

Campania was one of the most favoured areas in the Roman Empire. To the riches generated by trade, agriculture and naval dockyards there were added the proceeds of leisure industries as it became a holiday destination for wealthy citizens from Rome. Some of the most desirable towns and private villas in the peninsula were built here.

However, the infamous eruption in ad 79 of Mount Vesuvius completely buried two busy and salubrious towns on the Bay of Naples, Pompeii and Herculaneum, one with volcanic ash and the other with mud.

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 is startling and unique.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 8.45am from London Gatwick to Naples. Drive to the hotel in the hamlet of Seiano, above the town of Vico Equense, where all five nights are spent.

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 has a very rare ancient Greek painting and early metopes.

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. The archaeological museum of the Phlegraean fields in Baia has interesting marble and bronze statues from the Imperial period. The port of Pozzuoli has a well-preserved amphitheatre and market.

Day 4: Pompeii. Since the first excavations in the 18th century, ancient Pompeii has been one of the world’s most famous archaeological digs. 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 villas.

Day 5: Herculaneum, Naples. At Herculaneum, engulfed by mud rather than ash, timber and other combustibles are better preserved. A smaller settlement consisting largely of villas for the well-to-do, private dwellings are the centre of interest. The Archaeological Museum in Naples has one of the finest collections in the world, and is the principal repository for movable objects excavated at Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Day 6: Oplontis. Visit the recently excavated villa at Torre Annunziata (ancient Oplontis),


Pompeii & Herculaneumcontinued

which may have been the home of Poppaea, wife of Nero. It is one of the loveliest of ancient sites, with rich wall paintings and a swimming pool. Fly from Naples to London Gatwick, arriving c. 3.00pm.

Please note that at the time of compiling this text, flights for the October 2014 departure of this tour are not yet in range. If direct flights are not available, they may be replaced with indirect flights from London Heathrow.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,930 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on British Airways or Alitalia flights (Airbus 320); private coach for transfers and return train ticket to Pompeii; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, three dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters, drivers and guides; all taxes; the services of the lecturer; local guides where required. Single supplement £230 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,750.

Hotel: Grand Hotel Angiolieri, a smart, modern 5-star hotel on the hill-top above the town of Vico Equense. Rooms are bright, spacious and air-conditioned. The hotel restaurant has a Michelin star. There is a swimming pool, open subject to weather, and a terrace with views of the Bay of Naples and Vesuvius. The staff are efficient and friendly. Rooms look out on the hotel garden. Rooms with a sea view are available on request and for a supplement.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking, some of it over the rough ground of sites. Sure-footedness is essential. Average distance by coach per day: 65 miles


Possible linking tours. Combine the October departure of this tour with Ancient Rome, 13–18 October (page 146); Venice & Florence, 1–8 November (page 134); Courts of Northern Italy, 6–13 October (page 125).

Naples: Art, Antiquities & Opera

19–24 May 2014 (ma 904)6 days • £2,210Lecturer: Angus Haldane

Selects the best of the art, architecture and antiquities in Naples.

Performance of Ruggiero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci at the glorious Teatro San Carlo.

Led by Angus Haldane, expert art historian.

Also visits the palaces and gardens at Caserta.

Naples is one of those rare places whose very name kindles a kaleidoscope of conflicting images. A highlight of the eighteenth-century Grand Tour, it is now all but ignored by mainstream tourism. Royal capital of the largest of the Italian kingdoms, in the twentieth century it became a byword for poverty and decline. Once it basked in a reputation for supreme beauty – ‘see Naples and die’; now it enjoys notoriety as a pit of urban ills – chaos, congestion, corruption and Camorra.

Until recently there was some truth in all of these images of modern Naples. But the city has changed – not entirely, but it is one of the most heartening examples of inner-city regeneration of the last decade or so. Traffic is still appalling, but much of the historic centre is now pedestrianised. A burst of prosperity has transformed the ancient shopping and artisan districts. Restoration of buildings and works of art has further increased the beauty of the city, and more churches and museums are more often open and accessible.

Its museums display some of the finest art and antiquities to be found in Italy, and major architectural and archaeological sites are located nearby. The Teatro San Carlo is

one of the most important in operatic history, with many premières to its credit. One of the oldest and largest in Europe, it was built in 1737, restored after a fire in 1818, and emerged just a few years ago in all its glory from major refurbishment.

Naples is a city of the south. In many ways it has more in common with Seville or Cairo than with Florence or Milan. It is a city of swaggering palaces and stupendous churches, of cacophonous street life and infectious vitality. Exciting, exhausting, energising.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 8.45am from London Gatwick to Naples. Visit the Royal Palace in the afternoon, a majestic pile in the heart of the city overlooking the harbour. Begun at the beginning of the 17th century, it was extended and refurbished in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Day 2. A first walk through the teeming old city centre includes the cathedral of San Gennaro which has an interior of astounding richness and major paintings by Domenichino and Lanfranco. Also seen are 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.

Day 3. Among the treasures seen on the second walk in the centre of Naples are the Cappella San Severo, a masterpiece of Baroque art and craft with multi-coloured marbles and virtuoso sculptures, and Santa Chiara, an

Naples, Teatro San Carlo, late 19th-century engraving.


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Normans in the South

Castles & cathedrals in Puglia & Campania

25 March–2 April 2014 (ma 842)9 days • £2,320Lecturer: 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.

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

Castel del Monte, lithograph by Edward Lear from Edward Lear in Southern Italy.

austere Gothic church with a delightful Rococo tile-encrusted cloister. The afternoon is spent at the National Archeological Museum, one of the world’s greatest collections of Greek and Roman antiquities. Many items come from the excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Day 4. High on a hill which provides stunning views over the city and the Bay of Naples, the monastery of San Martino has a church of extraordinary lavishness of art and decoration and a museum of fine and decorative arts. The afternoon is free before the evening performance at the Teatro San Carlo, the oldest major working theatre in Europe and renowned for its acoustic despite its 3000-seat capacity. Pagliacci (Ruggiero Leoncavallo), Nello Santi (conductor), Daniele Finzi Pasca (director).

Day 5. Situated a few miles outside Naples, the royal palace at Caserta, begun 1751, is Italy’s most magnificent and accomplished emulation of Versailles. An awesome absolutist statement, the apartments are superbly decorated and furnished and it is set within parkland and gardens equally magnificent in scale. In Caserta there is also a visit to the 18th-century gardens at the Casale dei Duchi di Bovino, a cross between the formal Italian and the landscaped English style. Lunch is at a private villa.

Day 6. Fly from Naples to London Gatwick, arriving at c. 3.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,210 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Boeing 737); travel by private coach; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 2 lunches and 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; one opera ticket (top category stalls seats); all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £290 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,940.

Hotel: Grand Hotel Santa Lucia, a 4-star hotel on the waterfront about ten minutes on foot from the Royal Palace. Dating from the turn of the 19th century, the style is vaguely Classical tempered with Art Nouveau. Rooms are elegantly decorated but do vary in size; sea-view rooms are available on request and for a supplement of £150 per room.

How strenuous? A large swathe of central Naples is inaccessible to traffic, certainly to coaches. Pavements are often uneven, some roads are steep, traffic can be unpredictable. Participants need to be averagely fit and able to manage everyday walking and stairclimbing without any difficulty.



Normans in the Southcontinued

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.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 10.30am 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 Nicolò 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 its Romanesque bell tower, and another church. 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.

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 11th-century cathedral.

Day 7: Troia, Melfi, Venosa. Troia is a lovely town with a Pisan-style Romanesque cathedral. The hilltop town of Melfi 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.

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 11th-century frescoes. Fly from Rome to London City, arriving at c. 7.45pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,320 (deposit £250). This includes: flights (economy class) with Alitalia (aircraft: Airbus 320/321); travel by private coach; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, one lunch and five dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all taxes; all gratuities for restaurant staff, drivers and guides; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £320 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,100.

Hotels: Lecce (3 nights): Patria Palace Hotel, a stylish 5-star hotel in an excellent location near the church of Santa Croce in the historic centre. Rooms are spacious and elegantly furnished. Trani (4 nights): Hotel San Paolo al Convento, a charming 4-star hotel converted from a 15th-century convent, although service and maintenance are not always quite up to North European standards. Vico Equense (1 night): Grand Hotel Angiolieri, a smart, modern 5-star hotel in the village of Seiano, close to the town of Vico Equense. Rooms are bright, spacious and air-conditioned; there is a terrace with views of the Bay of Naples. Dinners are in the hotels or selected restaurants.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking on this tour, some of it over rough ground. Average distance by coach per day: 102 miles


Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Pompeii & Herculaneum, 7–12 April (page 149 – the hotel for this tour is the same as for the final night of Normans in the South); Venetian Palaces, 18–22 March (page 120).

Trani Cathedral from The Shores of the Adriatic by Hamilton Jackson 1906.

Martina FrancaAugust 2014Details available in January 2014Contact us to register your interest

Lecturers’ biographies: page 216.

‘Excellent. Packed a lot in but never felt rushed or overloaded.’

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PugliaArt & architecture in the heel of Italy

15–22 October 2014 (mb 169)8 days • £2,230Lecturer: 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.

ItineraryDay 1: Bitonto. Fly at c. 11.30am 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 the first 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 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 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 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

S. Valentino, Bitonto, from The Shores of the Adriatic by F. Hamilton-Jackson, 1906.


Pugliacontinued Sicily

Centre of Mediterranean Civilizations

17–29 March 2014 (ma 833)13 days • £3,970Lecturer: Dr Luca Leoncini

8–20 September 2014 (mb 128)13 days • £4,100Lecturer: Christopher Newall

13–25 October 2014 (mb 163)13 days • £4,100Lecturer: John McNeill

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.

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 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.

Agrigento, engraving from

The Picturesque M

editerranean Vol.II.

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. There is 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.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,230 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (Euro Traveller) on scheduled British Airways flights (Boeing 737); coach travel for excursions; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and five dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips and taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £270. Price without flights £2,020.

Hotels: Trani (3 nights): Hotel San Paolo al Convento, a charming 4-star hotel converted from a 15th-century convent, although service and maintenance are not always quite up to standard. Near Martina Franca (1 night): Relais Villa San Martino, a converted villa 3 km outside the town. Rooms are tastefully and individually decorated but vary in size. Lecce (3 nights): Patria Palace Hotel, a stylish 5-star hotel in an excellent location near the church of Santa Croce. Rooms are spacious and elegantly furnished.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking, some of it uphill, as the coach cannot enter the historic centres of towns. Some days involve a lot of driving. Average distance by coach per day: 70 miles


Possible linking tours. Combine with Courts of Northern Italy, 6–13 October (page 125); Palladian Villas, 7–12 October (page 119).

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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.

ItineraryDay 1: Palermo. Fly at c. 9.30am from London Heathrow, via Milan or Rome, to Palermo, largest and by far the most interesting city in Sicily; capital 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.

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 excellent 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 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 and acropolis.Day 5: Agrigento. A day in Agrigento to see the ‘Valley of the Temples’, one of the finest of ancient Greek sites with two virtually complete Doric temples, other ruins and a good museum. Day 6: Palermo. Visit the 12th-century Palace of the Normans, containing the Hall of King Roger with 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 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.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 Romanesque cathedral, Baroque fountain and 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 Byzantine chapel (subject to confirmation), where there is a light lunch, and a private palazzo.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 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 or Milan, arriving Heathrow at c. 7.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £3,970 (Mar.), £4,100 (Sept., Oct.) (deposit £350). This includes: flights (economy class) with Alitalia (Airbus 319); private coach; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 5 lunches (including a picnic) and 7 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £430 (Mar.), £470 (Sept., Oct.). Price without flights £3,760 (Mar.), £3,850 (Sept., Oct.).

Hotels: Palermo (6 nights): (Mar.) Centrale Palace Hotel, a 16th-century palazzo renovated to become a 4-star hotel in the centre, furnished to a high standard. (Sept,. Oct.) Grand Hotel Piazza Borsa, a centrally located 4-star hotel housed in an assortment of historical buildings. Taormina (4 nights): Hotel Villa Belvedere, a 3-star, charming, family-run hotel, in the old town, with its own garden (rooms vary in size and outlook). Syracuse (2 nights): (Mar., Sept.) Antico Hotel Roma 1880, a somewhat basic but friendly 4-star hotel, excellently situated on the island of Ortygia. (Oct.) Des Ètrangers Hotel, an elegant 5-star hotel on the island of Ortygia. Rooms with a sea view available on request for a supplement.

Flights: We opt to travel to and from Sicily with Alitalia because the only direct flights to Palermo in this period are with low-cost airlines, with whom it is not currently possible to make a group booking. British Airways offers one flight to and from Catania per day, but the schedule is currently incompatible with this itinerary.

How strenuous? A lot of walking, some of it over rough ground at archaeological sites and cobbled or uneven paving. Fitness and sure-footedness are essential. Some long journeys. Average distance by coach per day: c. 73 miles


‘A superb introduction to Sicily. Very well thought out.’Participant on Sicily in 2013.


Palermo RevealedArt, archaeology & architecture

Mosaic from the Palatine Chapel, Palermo, engraving 1881.

31 March–5 April 2014 (ma 843)6 days • £2,110Lecturer: Dr R. T. Cobianchi

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 several other towns and sites in western Sicily: Cefalù, Bagheria, Monreale.

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 six days, the tour also has excursions to some of the best of the island’s patrimony outside the city.

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 hillside position, its tradition of craftsmanship and its enlightened administration.

In the 11th 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.

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.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 9.30am from London Heathrow to Palermo, via Milan. Overnight Palermo where all five nights are spent.

Day 2: Palermo. A morning walk through the old centre includes a visit to several oratories. La Martorana and San Cataldo are two outstanding Norman buildings. Visit the Chiesa del Gesù, an extraordinary example of Palermitan Baroque with a profusion of marble inlay, stucco and sculpture. The afternoon is

spent at the Galleria Regionale della Sicilia (Palazzo Abatellis), which has an excellent collection of 15th–century pictures . Dinner in a private palace.

Day 3: Cefalù, Bagheria. Cefalù, a charming coastal town, has a massive Norman cathedral with outstanding mosaics and an art gallery with paintings by Antonello da Messina. Visit the Greek temple of Himera, and Bagheria, just outside Palermo, which has a series of Baroque and neo-classical villas of nobility. The remarkable but faded Villa Palagonia has a fine external staircase and is adorned with grotesque statuary.

Day 4: Monreale, Palermo. Monreale dominates a verdant valley west of Palermo, and its cathedral is one of the finest Norman churches with the largest scheme of mosaic direction to survive from the Middle Ages. In the afternoon visit the Castello della Zisa, an Arab-Norman palace, recently restored.

Day 5: Palermo. In the morning, explore the Palace of the Normans, containing the Palatine Chapel (private visit) and Hall of King Roger, both with outstanding mosaics. Visit San Giovanni degli Eremiti, a Norman church with five cupolas and a garden, and the cathedral, a building of many periods, with royal and imperial tombs. The afternoon is free. In the evening, there is a visit and reception by special arrangement to an otherwise inaccessible palazzo, with astonishing Rococo interiors and many original furnishings (used in Visconti’s The Leopard).

Day 6. Fly from Palermo to London Heathrow, via Milan, arriving at c. 6.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,110 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (economy class) with Alitalia (Airbus 321); coach travel throughout; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee (including one at a private palace, and a reception at another); all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £190 (double room for single use). Price without flights £1,860.

Hotel: Grand Hotel Piazza Borsa, a centrally located 4-star hotel housed in an assortment of historical buildings. Dinners are in selected restaurants.

How strenuous? There is a lot of walking on this tour, and it would not be suitable for anyone who has difficulties with everyday walking or stair-climbing. Average distance by coach per day: 24 miles.


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The Greeks in SicilyGreek, Phoenician & Roman Antiquities in ‘Magna Graecia’

21–29 April 2014 (ma 864)9 days • £3,070Lecturer: Professor Tony Spawforth

10–18 November 2014 (mb 200)9 days • £3,070Lecturer: Dr Ffiona Gilmore Eaves

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).

Some of the finest archaeological museums in Italy well document life in the Ancient World.

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 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 ‘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.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 3.30pm with BA from London Gatwick to Catania. (This is the only direct, full-service flight between UK and Sicily.) Late arrival and light dinner at the hotel. First of two nights in Syracuse.

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 well-preserved theatre.

Day 4: Morgantina, Aidone. 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. First of two nights in 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.

Agrigento, Temple of Castor, wood engraving c. 1885 from Picturesque Europe.


The Greeks in Sicilycontinued

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.

Day 6: Selinunte, Mazara del Vallo. 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 Graecia. In the afternoon, see the Dancing Satyr in Mazara del Vallo, a very rare Hellenistic bronze of extraordinary energy. Travel onwards to the charming port town of Marsala, where the next three nights are spent.

Day 7: Marsala, Mozia. 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. Free afternoon in Marsala.

Day 8: 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 9: Piazza Armerina. Drive across the island to Piazza Armerina, to see 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. Fly, Catania to London, arriving Gatwick c. 9.30pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £3,070 (deposit £300). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Boeing 737); private coach; accommodation; breakfasts, 2 lunches (including one picnic) and 6 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £340. Price without flights £2,760.

Hotels: Syracuse (3 nights): Des Ètrangers Hotel, an elegant 5-star historical hotel on the island of Ortygia, overlooking the harbour. Neoclassical décor, and a roof terrace with stunning views. Rooms with a sea view are available on request for a supplement. Agrigento (2 nights): Hotel Villa Athena, a 5-star hotel out of the town centre, walking distance from the Valley of the Temples. Marsala (3 nights): Hotel Carmine, a small and welcoming 3-star hotel, whose star rating

Syracuse, the Temple of Minerva, 18th-century copper engraving.

is misleading as it is by far the best hotel in the centre of town.How strenuous? A lot of walking, some of it over rough ground at archaeological sites and cobbled or uneven paving. Fitness and sure-footedness are essential. Some long journeys, particularly on the final day of the tour where the whole island is traversed (c. 250 miles). Average distance by coach per day: 82 milesSmall group: between 12 and 22 participants.Possible linking tours. Combine the April tour with Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes, 10–16 April (page 115); Walking in Northern Tuscany, 2–9 May (page 129); Pompeii & Herculaneum, 7–12 April (page 149). Combine the November tour with Venice & Florence, 1–8 November (page 134).

ArchaeologyRoman Algeria.................................................8

Ancient Egypt ...............................................32

Middle Egypt ..................................................34


Ethiopia .............................................................63

Classical Greece ....................................... 103

Central Macedonia ................................. 102

The Etruscans ............................................ 144

Ancient Rome ........................................... 146

Pompeii & Herculaneum .................... 149

Sicily .................................................................. 154




Morocco .........................................................167


Oman .............................................................. 173

Palestine ........................................................ 173

Cave Art in Spain .................................... 189

Istanbul ...........................................................205

Eastern Turkey ..........................................206

Classical Turkey ........................................208

Transoxiana ..................................................215

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Gastronomic SicilyFood & wine in the west

29 September–5 October 2014 (mb 141)7 days • £2,770Lecturer: Marc Millon

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.

A full spectrum of culinary experiences, from street food in Palermo to dinner in a private palazzo.

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 grape-growing 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 hand-made 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 we travel across the Western part of the island we’ll visit small producers, winemakers and bakers, as well as cultural sites that determine its key historical importance. We’ll sample foods from street stalls in Palermo, the freshest seafood in the Mediterranean, and home-prepared dinners whose hospitable cooks will share their secrets with us. We’ll 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.

ItineraryDay 1: Palermo. Fly at c. 9.30am from London Heathrow to Palermo (via Milan). 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 markets sampling authentic street food, but not missing the 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,

Palermo, Palatine Chapel, engraving c. 1850 after William Leitch.


Gastronomic Sicilycontinued Walking in Eastern Sicily

Crater & coast: in the footsteps of history

28 April–5 May 2014 (ma 873)8 days • £2,440Lecturer: Dr Ffiona Gilmore Eaves

Five walks of between 2 and 6 miles through immensely varied scenery, from the lava fields of Etna to salt lake flats along the coast.

Much of archaeological interest, as well as visits to Syracuse, the greatest of western Greek cities, and to the Baroque city of Noto.

Led by Dr Ffiona Gilmore Eaves, an archaeology specialist.

Sicily is well chronicled in history and literature as one of the most fascinating destinations in Europe. Her archaeological and historical sites delight visitors to the Mediterranean’s largest island, but, fortunately, few of them explore the hugely varied landscapes on foot. Locals rarely indulge in country walking, and shepherds met on mountain paths are aghast that people choose to walk for a holiday. Yet walking can provide the key to understanding and appreciating this intoxicating island. We have

included walks that are relatively unknown and countryside that is not easily accessible, but keeping in mind the principles of travelling less and seeing more, we hope to have designed an itinerary giving a fuller flavour of what Sicily can really offer.

Mount Etna, peaking as Europe’s highest active volcano at nearly 11,000 feet, and sitting within a designated regional park covering 224 square miles, demands attention but also respect. Volcanologists venture perilously close to the crater’s lip in the name of research, but for hikers there are remarkably varied and interesting paths to explore on the northern flank.

The distinctive climate and volcanic soils nurture a plethora of wild flowers, with orchids flourishing in both spring and late autumn. On the lower slopes, areas that were once covered with holm oak are now cultivated for citrus fruits and for wine, intensely flavoured reds and whites that are garnering approval throughout Italy and beyond. Above these, at 6,500 feet, Europe’s southernmost beech trees are thriving, as are birch, considered an endemic species. Another thousand feet and the thorny shrub

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 well preserved 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, Marsala. 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. The final dinner of the tour is held in the atmospheric cellars of one of Marsala’s most traditional wineries, after a private visit to the cantine and tasting.

Day 7. Fly from Palermo to London Heathrow (via Milan), arriving at c. 6.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,770 (deposit £250). This includes: flights (economy class) with Alitalia (Airbus 319); private coach; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 4 lunches and 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; 3 wine tastings, 1 olive oil tasting and 1 tasting of local pastries; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £180 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,520.

Hotels: Palermo (3 nights): Grand Hotel Piazza Borsa, a 16th-century palazzo converted into a charming 4-star hotel in the centre. Rooms combine classical furnishings with modern comforts. Marsala (3 nights): Hotel Carmine, a small and welcoming 3-star hotel, whose star rating is misleading as it is by far the best hotel in the centre of town.

How strenuous? A lot of walking, some of it over rough ground and cobbled or uneven paving. Fitness and sure-footedness are essential. Average coach miles per day: 53.


Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes, 18–24 September (page 115); Malta, 6–12 October (page 166); Courts of Northern Italy, 6–13 October (page 125); Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur, 19–26 September (page 82).

Syracuse, wood engraving c. 1880 from Picturesque Europe.

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known locally as spino santo (Astragalus siculus) covers the ground, and mountain flowers such as senecio, violets and cerastium flourish.

Twenty miles inland from Syracuse is the ten-square-mile Pantalica Nature Reserve, set on a plateau with gorges plunging through the limestone to the Anapo and Calcinara river valleys. It contains what is thought to be Europe’s most extensive open-air necropolis, where the earliest rock tombs can be dated to the thirteenth century bc. Later civilisations have also left their mark; the faint frescoed walls in an almost-hidden cave church have lasted remarkably well in this somewhat harsh environment.

A coastal walk alongside the salt-water lagoons of the Vendicari Nature Reserve provides another category of experience. The pantani are a haven for birds, and with luck flamingos can be spotted in all seasons. Mediaeval watchtowers, an old tonnaro (tuna cannery) and a fishery punctuate this landscape, highlighting the importance of sea-faring trade in this part of Sicily. Fifteenth-century merchants in Noto shipped carob, grain and almonds from the port of Vendicari, and until the 1940s tuna was caught and tinned here.

These walks have been chosen to make the most of the protected parks in Sicily, thus helping efforts to restore, waymark and maintain the paths in this remarkably unspoilt land on the edge of Europe.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 3.30pm from London Gatwick to Catania. Drive to Syracuse in time for a late light supper.

Day 2: Vendicari Nature Reserve, Syracuse. Drive south to the salt-lagoons and nature reserve at Vendicari for a level walk along the sandy paths, c. 6 km. 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. Return to Syracuse in time for an early evening walk on Ortygia, including the magnificent Duomo and the Museo Regionale in Palazzo Bellomo, home to Antonello da Messina’s Annunciation. First of three nights on Ortygia.

Day 3: Pantalica Nature Reserve, Syracuse. Drive to Pantalica, where a series of paths within this spectacular reserve follow the Anapo river bed and former railway lines or meander high along the plateaux; water levels in the river and local conditions determine today’s walk, maximum 10 km. There is a challenging downhill section on this walk which requires sure-footedness. Return to Syracuse to see pieces recovered from the site,

as well as some of the highlights of sculpture and ceramics from Sicily’s Greek colonies in the excellent Archaeological Museum.

Day 4: Syracuse, Noto. Visit the 5th-century bc Greek theatre, the stone quarries and the Roman amphitheatre in Syracuse’s Archaeological Park. There is a short walk (c. 3 km) exploring the Greek ruins at Palazzolo Accreide. Drive to Noto, one of the loveliest and most harmonious Baroque towns, before driving north to Taormina, where the next four nights are spent.

through olive groves and terraces; some terrain is very uneven on this path and requires sure-footedness. Return to Taormina for a tasting of some Sicilian wines.

Day 8. Free morning in Taormina. After lunch drive along the coast to Catania, with a fine Baroque centre. Visit the cathedral, Roman theatre and a private palazzo, subject to confirmation. Drive to Catania Airport for the flight to London Gatwick, arriving at c. 10.30pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,440 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (Euro Traveller) on scheduled British Airways flights (Boeing 737); travel by private coach; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, three lunches (including two picnics) and four dinners with wine, water and coffee, including one wine-tasting; all admission charges to museums, sites etc; all tips for restaurant staff, drivers, guides; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £280 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,200.

Hotels: Syracuse (3 nights): Antico Hotel Roma 1880, located moments from the Duomo in the heart of Ortygia, this 4-star hotel is efficiently run. Rooms may overlook an inner courtyard or streets and rooftops. Taormina (4 nights): Hotel Villa Belvedere, a 3-star, charming, family-run hotel in an excellent location in the old town with its own garden and swimming pool (open subject to weather conditions). Service is friendly and efficient; rooms are spacious but not opulent and vary in outlook.

How strenuous? This tour should only be considered by those who are used to country walking with some uphill content. Strong knees and ankles are essential, as are a pair of well-worn hiking boots with good ankle support. Walks have been carefully selected but some steep rises are unavoidable and terrain can be loose underfoot, particularly in wet weather. One walk has a challenging downhill section requiring sure-footedness and good balance. The walk on Etna involves walking at an altitude of c. 1,800 metres above sea level for c. 5 km. There are five walks of between 2 and 6 miles. Average distance by coach per day: 34 miles.


Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Ravenna & Urbino, 23–27 April (page 126); Lucca, 21–27 April (page 137).

Day 5: Taormina, Castello Saraceno. A moderate circular walk of 3 km starts from the hotel on a paved path, and continues uphill to near the Castello Saraceno on steps. Perched on the hilltop at 400m above sea level, and thought to be the site of the lower part of Tauromenion’s Acropolis, the apex of the walk offers spectacular views of the town and the Ionic coast. Visit Taormina’s famed Greek-Roman theatre and the small Roman Odeon.

Day 6: Mount Etna, Piano Provenzana. Less-visited and less-well known than the southern slopes, Etna’s northern flank nonetheless provides plenty of interest and atmosphere. A moderate circular walk (c. 5 km) on the lava fields from the great eruptions of 2002 with a local volcanologist allows time to appreciate what was known as Mongibello, mountain of mountains. Lunch at a rustic restaurant, before returning to Taormina for some free time.

Day 7: Forza d’Agrò. An unspoilt village with panoramic views of the Peloritani mountains and Etna, Forza d’Agrò is the starting point for a 9 km countryside walk, reaching 547m above sea level. It follows shepherds’ tracks

Tourists inspecting Mount Etna, engraving c. 1830.

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Essential JordanThe major Nabatean, Roman, Christian & Islamic sites

however, soon set in, and it seems that by the 8th century ad Petra had virtually become uninhabited.

Jordan is also rich in remains of many other civilizations. It lay within the wealthy Roman provinces of Syria and Arabia; Jerash is one of the best preserved and most beautiful of Roman cities. The remains of many Byzantine churches and some very fine floor mosaics are scattered through the hills and valleys which were the setting of many events recorded in the Old Testament. The art of Islam is represented by the forts, hunting lodges and desert retreats of the sophisticated and pleasure-loving Umayyad dynasty of the 8th century. The castles of the Crusaders and their Arab opponents are among the most impressive examples of military architecture anywhere.

As a constant backdrop are mountains, gorges and deserts of awesome beauty.

The current Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan started life after the First World War, following the downfall of the Ottoman Empire, its borders 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 the odds succeeded in steering a precarious course to survival, stability and modest prosperity.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 5.05pm from London Heathrow to Amman (time in the air: c. 5 hours). Arrive at the hotel at c. 12 midnight. 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 best-preserved and most beautiful of ruined Roman cities and we spend a whole day there. Among the more spectacular remains are an oval piazza, the Cardo with its flanking colonnades, triumphal arches, 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 early Islamic Umayyad dynasty, 7th- and 8th-century small pleasure palaces, hunting lodges and forts. 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 with the best preserved and most beautiful wall paintings of the eastern desert sites.

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 cent., is an impressive example of mediaeval military architecture with many chambers surviving. First of three nights in Petra.

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 temple-like façade of the ‘Treasury’, vast in scale, classical in vocabulary, Hellenistic in inspiration but uniquely Nabatean, the first of innumerable carved 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 sacrificial furnishings are still clearly visible.

Day 6: Petra. For the second day in Petra walk again through the Siq and pass through

Jerash, Temple of Zeus, steel engraving (detail) c. 1840.

29 March–6 April 2014 (ma 841)9 days • £3,180Lecturers: Sue Rollin & Jane Streetly

15–23 October 2014 (mb 170)9 days • £3,180Lecturer: Jane Taylor

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, much of its finest architecture is hewn out of the living rock, brilliantly coloured sandstone striated with pinks, ochres and blue-greys. Its builders, the Nabateans, drew on a range of Mediterranean and oriental styles to create a novel synthesis reminiscent of the more ebullient examples of Imperial Roman architecture. Egyptian, Assyrian and Hellenistic influences are also evident.

The Nabateans were an Arabian people who were first recorded in the 4th century bc and grew rich by controlling the trade routes across an empire which stretched from Saudi Arabia to Syria. With Petra their capital, nomadic desert traders became administrators and city-dwellers. They eventually submitted to incorporation in the Roman Empire. Decline,

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the necropolis gorge, the ‘Street of Façades’ 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 mosaic floors. Climb up (over 800 steps) to one of the finest rock-cut façades, Ed-Deir (the Monastery), and some staggering views of hills and valleys of contorted rock.

Day 7: Little Petra, Dead Sea. ‘Little Petra’, a narrow gorge with three natural widenings, is seen as a religious centre, perhaps connected with vine or grain harvest 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 Lot’s cave. Reach the hotel on the shore mid-afternoon, 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 Levant in the church of St George.

Day 9. Drive to Amman airport (1 hour). Arrive London Heathrow c. 3.30pm.

There may be slight variations to this itinerary depending on the preferences of the lecturer.

PracticalitiesPrice: £3,180 (deposit £300). This includes: scheduled air travel (economy class) with Royal Jordanian (Airbus A310); travel by private coach; breakfasts, 7

lunches (including 2 picnics) and 5 dinners (plus a light snack on arrival) with wine, water, coffee; all admissions to sites; all tips for waiters, drivers, guides; all taxes; the cost of the group visa; the services of the lecturer and a Jordanian guide. Single supplement £420. Price without flights £2,830.

Hotels: all the hotels are locally rated as 5-star. In Amman (3 nights): the Intercontinental Hotel is a modern and excellently located hotel with well-equipped and comfortable rooms. In Petra (3 nights): Mövenpick Hotel is close to the site, modern but in part fitted out in traditional Arab style; comfortable, capacious and well-equipped bedrooms, a choice of restaurants and cafés, swimming pool. In Sweimeh (2 nights): the Mövenpick Dead Sea Hotel has buildings scattered through lush tropical gardens; shady lounges, antique or traditional-style furnishings, spa and health centre. Included dinners are good quality buffets.

Visas: required for most foreign nationals. Passports do not have to be submitted in advance. A group visa is issued on arrival (the cost is included in the price of the tour as long as you are travelling with the group). Passports must be valid for six months beyond the dates of the tour.

How strenuous? This tour is quite demanding and you must be capable of walking all day over rough sites. Fitness and sure-footedness are essential. Average distance by coach per day: 72 miles.


Possible linking tours. Combine the March departure of this tour with Pompeii & Herculaneum, 7–12 April (page 149). Combine the October departure with Palladian Villas, 7–12 October (page 119).

Rock-cut tombs at Petra, engraving from Picturesque Palestine, 1883.

‘Very good varied itinerary, well planned. We saw many different aspects of Jordanian history and culture. We spent plenty of time in Petra to take in the complexity and detail of the sites.’

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Entrance to the valley of Petra, engraving c. 1870.

Jordan RevisitedArchaeology, architecture & landscapes off the beaten track

4–13 April 2014 (ma 855)10 days • £3,430Lecturer: 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 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 multi-million 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.

The site of 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 other 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 second-century bc palace at Iraq al-Amir (Qasr al-abd), just outside Amman. Once surrounded by an artificial lake, the lush surroundings are in stark contrast to the setting amid 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, a meandering valley in the heart of Jordan, allows for a full day walk along a river bed and an opportunity to observe the rich flora and fauna and the Bedouin communities that inhabit the area. 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 scars of far more ancient human activity including Nabatean temples and crude rock carvings.

Overlooking the Dead Sea, Machaerus, is believed to be 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 in exchange for the head of John the Baptist is a poignant reminder that these lands witnessed so much history.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 5.00pm from London Heathrow to Amman (time in the air: c. 5 hours). Arrive at the hotel at midnight. 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

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houses, places of worship and hospitals built by wealthy merchants. Visit the House of Abu Jaber Museum and a museum of archaeology. There is time to wander the alleys and quiet squares where inhabitants gather to drink coffee and pass the time of day. Overnight Amman.

Day 3: Umm Qays, Amman. Early start to Umm Qays, ancient Gadara, set in the hills of north-west Jordan and commanding spectacular views over the Golan Heights and the Sea of Galilee. The site includes an impressive theatre, colonnaded church and Byzantine church and is one of the most scenic in the country. After a lunch at a private residence nearby we return to Amman to attend a lecture and tour at the American Centre of Oriental Research. Overnight Amman.

Day 4: Iraq Al Amir, Shobak, Petra. South-west of Amman lies a rare example of Hellenistic art, the palace of Iraq Al Amir (Qasr al-abd). Referred to 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, a satellite trading station, 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 with magnificent views of the Royal Tombs and Qasr el Bint in the heart of Petra. The afternoon is free to explore independently. Overnight near Petra.

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 also a region of incredible beauty where immense geological formations rise from the sands, some of them harbouring primitive stone carvings. We drive in 4x4s through canyons and open plains, home to camel herds, and lunch in a desert camp. Overnight Petra

Day 7: Wadi Dana, Feynan. The village of Dana, perched high above the wadi below, is one of the few remaining traditional mountain villages. From here we begin a 14km walk through the Dana Nature Reserve, experiencing differing landscapes and plenty of flora in bloom. Aided by Bedouin guides and mules we arrive late afternoon at an eco-lodge. Overnight Feynan.

Day 8: Feynan, Mai’in Hot Springs. A free morning in the lodge; opportunity to visit a Bedouin village. Drive to Wadi Zarqa Ma’in for the first of two nights in a hotel at the base of a series of natural hot springs.

Day 9: Machaerus. Set on top of a hill with views out over the Jordan Valley, Machaerus is a Herodian palace site and putative location of John the Baptist’s beheading. 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.

PracticalitiesPrice: £3,430 (deposit £300). This includes: scheduled flights (economy class) with Royal Jordanian (Airbus A310); travel by air-conditioned private coach; breakfasts, 8 lunches (including 1 picnic) and 7 dinners, plus a light snack on arrival, with wine, water, coffee; all admissions to sites and museums; all tips for waiters, drivers, guides; all taxes; group visa; the services of the lecturer and a Jordanian guide. Single supplement £380. Price without flights £3,090.

Hotels: In Amman (3 nights): The Intercontinental is a modern and excellently located hotel with well-equipped and comfortable rooms. Ten minutes from Petra (3 nights): Taybet Zaman is a hotel in a converted Ottoman village, high in the hills, wonderful views. Rooms vary; some fixtures and furnishings are dated but it’s peaceful and has charm. In Feynan (1 night): Feynan Lodge is an award-winning eco-lodge run by the local Bedouin community; simple, charming, good vegetarian food (no alcohol). In Mai’in (2 nights): Evason Ma’In Hot Springs is a

beautiful spa hotel tucked in a valley behind the Dead Sea. Secluded, peaceful, and attractively furnished.

Visas: required for most foreign nationals. Passports do not have to be submitted in advance. A group visa is issued on arrival (the cost is included in the price of the tour as long as you are travelling with the group). Passports must be valid for six months beyond the dates of the tour.

How strenuous? This tour is quite demanding and you must be capable of walking all day over rough sites. The walk from Dana to Feynan in particular requires a high level of fitness and sure-footedness is essential. Some sights have no sun cover and you will often be exposed to the elements. Average distance by coach per day: 50 miles.


Woodcut c. 1910 after Frank Brangw

yn.

Tours in the Middle East & North AfricaRoman Algeria.................................................8

Ancient Egypt ...............................................32

Middle Egypt ..................................................34

Ethiopia .............................................................63



Morocco .........................................................167


Oman .............................................................. 173

Palestine ........................................................ 173

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Malta World heritage Malta, from Neolithic to now

6–12 October 2014 (mb 176)7 days • £2,180Lecturer: Juliet Rix

Visit some of the world’s earliest stone temples, amongst a concentration of other astonishing major historic sites.

Led by Juliet Rix, author of the definitive guide to Malta (Bradt Guide: Malta & Gozo) and expert on the area.

Includes a visit to 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 Roman-Byzantine 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 21st-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.

ItineraryDay 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. Survey the massive fortifications protecting the 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 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 Co-Cathedral 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 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, with its 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.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,180 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (economy class) with Air Malta (Boeing 737, Airbus 320); private coach travel; breakfasts, 2 lunches, 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee; admissions; tips; services of the lecturer and local guide. Single supplement £260. Price without flights £2,020.

Hotel: Hotel Phoenicia, a deluxe 5-star in Valletta, furnished with style and character, the best in Valletta and just outside the city gates.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking on this tour, some of it over the rough ground of sites. Valletta is relatively hilly. Average distance by coach per day: 15 miles


Montenegro: see page 26 for The Western Balkans (travels through Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro).

Valetta, steel engraving from Taylor’s Geography Vol.I, 1853.

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MoroccoCities & empires

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 7th to early 8th 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 11th century Marrakech emerged in the same way. This rich trade could not help but attract Christian European attention and by the 15th 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 19th 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.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 7.30pm from London Heathrow to Tangier (time in the air: c. 2 hours 45 minutes). There will be a snack in your hotel room on arrival. First of two nights in Tangier.

Day 2: Tangier. A morning walk investigates both 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

29 March–9 April 2014 (ma 838)11 nights • £3,980Lecturer: James Brown

13–24 September 2014 (mb 117)11 nights • £3,980Lecturer: James Brown

From Tangier to Marrakech, including the imperial cities of Fez and Meknes.

Led by James Brown, a 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.

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

The Atlas Mountains with Fez in the foreground, aquatint 1811.

Mexico: Lands of the MayaNew destination for 2015Contact us to register your interest

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city, the products of the artisan school and the archaeological museum. 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 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 late-19th-century Bahia Palace of the chief minister Ba Ahmad shows the continuity of artistic styles from Saadian era. Free afternoon to visit the world famous markets and Djemaa el-Fna square.

Day 12. Fly from Marrakech to London via Casablanca arriving Heathrow c. 4.45pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £3,980 (deposit £400). This includes: flights (economy class) with Royal Air Maroc (Boeing 737); private air-conditioned coach; accommodation; breakfasts, 7 lunches and 8 dinners with wine or soft drinks (not all restaurants serve alcohol), water, coffee or tea; all admissions; all tips; the services of the lecturer and local guides. Single supplement £470. Price without flights £3,680.

Hotels: Tangier (2 nights): El-Minzah is a comfortable but dated 5-star hotel, centrally located; Fez (3 nights): the Sofitel Palace Jamai is an excellent 5-star hotel within the medina; Erfoud (2 nights): Kenzi Bélère is a friendly but comparatively basic hotel; Ouarzazate (1 night): Berbere Palace is a functional 4-star hotel; Marrakech (3 nights): Les Borjs de La Kasbah is 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.

Visas: not required by British citizens. Nationals of other countries should check their requirements.

How strenuous? A long and tiring tour with a lot of walking on rough ground, through narrow streets and busy markets, frequent hotel changes and some lengthy coach journeys. Average distance by coach per day: 80 miles.


Possible linking tours. Combine the September departure with Classical Greece, 27 September–6 October (page 103).

MoroccoContinued

Marrakech, the Koutoubia, from Agenda P.L.M., 1926.


‘An excellent overview of Morocco – ancient and modern.’

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Andalusian MoroccoLegacy of a remarkable cultural exchange

8 –16 April 2014 (ma 856)8 nights • £3,460Lecturer: Dr Amira Bennison

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 al-Andalus. 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 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 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.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 10.00pm from London Heathrow to Tangier (time in the air: c. 2 hours 45 minutes). There will be a snack in your hotel room on arrival. First of two nights in Tangier.

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.

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 ethnographic museum and Medina. Drive south to Chefchaouen to visit the kasbah and then on to Fez for the first of three nights.

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 al-Andalus deepened. See the Qarawiyyin Mosque with its ‘Cordoban’ minaret and Andalusi-inspired 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.

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.

Day 6:Meknes, Rabat. Our destination is Rabat but we stop at Meknes to visit the

Tangier, steel engraving from The Chaplet, 1845.

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beautiful Bu Inaniya Madrasa and to have lunch. Continue to 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.

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.

Day 9. Casablanca. Fly from Casablanca to London via Marrakech arriving London Heathrow at c. 4.50pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £3,460 (deposit £300). This includes: flights (economy class) with Royal Air Maroc (Boeing 737); private air-conditioned coach; accommodation as below; breakfasts, 6 lunches and 6 dinners (plus one snack after long flight) with wine or soft drinks, water, coffee or tea; all admissions; all tips; the services of the lecturer and local guides. Single supplement £390. Price without flights £3,220.

Hotels: Tangier (2 nights): Hotel El-Minzah is a comfortable but dated 5-star hotel, centrally located. Fez (3 nights): Hotel Sofitel Palace Jamai is an excellent 5-star hotel within the medina. Rabat (3 nights): La Tour Hassan Palace is a centrally-located boutique hotel with garden and excellent Moroccan restaurant.

Visas: not required for UK citizens. Nationals of other countries should check requirements.

How strenuous? A fair amount of walking through narrow streets and busy markets. Average distance by coach per day: 59 miles.


Andalusian MoroccoContinued Historic Dutch Organs

Three centuries of outstanding instruments

29 June–4 July 2014 (ma 956)6 days • £2,260Lecturer & organist: James Johnstone

Private recitals and demonstrations on fifteen outstanding historic instruments of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.

Performances and explanations by James Johnstone in collaboration with local organists.

Most of the organs are in magnificent Gothic churches in highly attractive towns and villages.

Perhaps something is lost in translation, but ‘Land of Organs’ is not the most alluring of epithets. It’s what the Dutch (or a fairly specific segment of the Dutch population) call their own country. The fact is that there is probably a greater density of top quality historic organs here than anywhere else. Moreover, in the last few decades the Dutch have probably been world leaders in the restoration of historic instruments, as well as in the building of new ones. The consequence is that there is an impressive number of sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth-century instruments which are in good working order and whose sound is probably very close to the original.

This tour is an organ-lover’s paradise.

Fifteen instruments (give or take: a chamber organ might be added, a funeral might take away another) are seen and heard and explained. A leading specialist in performance on early instruments, James Johnstsone, who studied in the Netherlands, leads the tour, and a number of Dutch organists contribute as well. Participants hear the styles and capabilities of three hundred years of musical enterprise and ambition, and are exposed to various regional and personal styles of organ building.

The instruments are located in mediaeval churches which are mostly voluminous, often architecturally very fine indeed and are all distinctly Dutch in a way that is familiar from the paintings of Saenredam and De Witte. The characteristic chasteness of decoration, however, ceases with the glorious burst of sculpture and architectonic joinery of the organ cases covering the west wall.

The little cities, towns and villages in which the churches are located are, at the very least, charming, and often much more. The tour deliberately omits Amsterdam, which is hectic and metropolitan by comparison. Dating in large part from the period of greatest prosperity, with characteristic gabled brick buildings alongside the ubiquitous canals, their descent into backwater status until relatively recently preserved them wonderfully. Striking

Alkmaar, Market Place, engraving c. 1880.

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Charlemagne to Charles I, 25 June–1 July 2014 (see page 23).

is the absence of unsightly industrial or high-rise suburbs. Countryside is properly rural, despite the high density of population, and intensely alluring despite the lack of elevation.

At the time of going to print not all organ recitals were confirmed.

ItineraryDay 1: Leiden. Fly at c. 11.00am from London Heathrow to Amsterdam Schipohl. (If you are not flying with the group from London, your flight should be scheduled to arrive at Schiphol by 1.00pm.) Drive the half hour to Leiden, one of the best preserved and most appealing old cities in Holland (the birthplace of Rembrandt). The vast Gothic Pieterskerk (Church of St Peter) has a Hagerbeer organ of 1643, enormous for its date and fulsome in sound. Spend the first of two nights in Haarlem.

Day 2: Alkmaar, Haarlem. Morning excursion to Alkmaar in North Holland. The Grote Kerk Sint Laurens has two important organs. That of 1511 is one of the oldest functioning organs in the world, the other is another by Hagerbeer (1637). Back in Haarlem, hear the instrument in the small, architecturally classical Nieuwe Kerk. The church of St Bavo (1370–1538) is one of the grandest in the Netherlands and retains many pre-Reformation furnishings. For a while the organ by Christian Müller (1738) was the world’s largest, and it remains one of the most sought-after historic instruments. Overnight Haarlem.

Day 3: Oosthuizen, Edam, Bolsward. The organ in the church in the village of Oosthuizen is an exceptional survival from the beginning of the sixteenth century and earlier. The former port of nearby Edam, stunted by the silting of the Zuider See, is a delightful little town with an outsize church in which there is a 1663 organ by Barent Smidt (known as ‘Father Smith’ when he emigrated to England). Cross the 1930s causeway between North Holland and Friesland. The two-manual organ of 1781 in the Martinikerk at Bolsward, built by the great Dutch master A.A. Hinsz in 1781, is the smallest of the instruments heard on this tour. First of two nights in Groningen.

Day 4: Leens, Uithuizen, Groningen. Towards the north coast of the province of Groningen there are two fine organs. Leens is but a village but possesses a fully-vaulted Romanesque church with a well-preserved instrument by Hinsz of 1734. The slightly larger community of Uithuizen has an organ of 1700 by Arp Schnitger from Hamburg, one of the most influential and productive of organ builders. Free afternoon in Groningen, a lively university city. Evening recital in

the Martinikerk on a magnificent Schnitger instrument of 1692, modified by his son Frans Casper and the young Hinsz forty years later. Overnight Groningen.

Day 5: Kampen, Zutphen. Kampen is a delightful little town beside the River Ijssel. The very fine, and very large, Gothic Bovenkerk has an outstanding organ by Hinsz of 1743. Break for lunch in the nearby Zwolle, equally historic and attractive. Zutphen has one of the loveliest and best preserved old city centres in the country. The Gothic church of St Walburga has one of the three remaining chained libraries in Europe and a organ by Heinrich Bader of 1639, famous for its brilliant sound and one of the largest of its time. Overnight Utrecht.

Day 6: ’s-Hertogenbosch, Gouda. The Catholic Cathedral of St John in ’s-Hertogenbosch, Brabant, is one of the finest Gothic buildings in the Netherlands. The organ is in a monumental late Renaissance case dating to 1620, though the instrument is largely that by A.G.F. Heyneman of 1787. The exceptionally pretty town of Gouda has the largest square in the country, a town hall of c. 1450 and outstanding 16th-cent. stained glass in Church of St John. The 1730s organ is by Jacob François Moreau and retains its essentially Baroque and somewhat Flemish and French sound. Fly from Schipohl, arriving London Heathrow c. 7.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,260 (deposit £250). This includes: flights with British Airways (Euro Traveller); hotel accommodation as described below; travel by private coach; breakfasts; 1 lunch and 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all recitals and entrance to churches etc; tips for waiters, drivers, guides; the services of the lecturer/organist and tour manager. Single supplement £270. Price without flights £2,150.

Hotels. The Amarith Grand Hotel Frans Hals in Haarlem (2 nights) is a modern 4-star hotel, comfortable, unpretentious, welcoming and located 200m from St Bavo. The Princenhof Hotel in Groningen (2 nights) has 4 stars, again close to the main church, also new (opened 2012), this time in a sequence of historic buildings. Converted with taste and restraint. Excellent restaurant. The Hotel Karel V in Utrecht (1 night) is a 5-star hotel converted from a 19th-cent. hospital in a quiet location within the city walls.

How strenuous? Unavoidably, there is quite a lot of walking involved, and the tour would not be suitable for anyone with difficulties with everyday walking and stair-climbing. Coaches cannot get close to many of the churches. Average distance by coach per day: 91 miles.

Group size: between 18 and 32 participants.

Engraving 1883.

The Renewed Rijksmuseum25–28 May 2014 (ma 915)This tour is currently full

Visit www.martinrandall.com for the full details or contact us.

Concentrates on the art of the Dutch Golden Age – Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Vermeer and their contemporaries.

Plenty of time for the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, until 2013 shut for ten years for major reburbishment.

Stays in Amsterdam throughout.

Can be combined with The Rhine Valley Festival of Song, 29 May–5 June 2014 (see page 101).

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Art in the NetherlandsRembrandt, Vermeer, Van Gogh

20–26 July 2014 (ma 979)This tour is currently full

21–27 September 2014 (mb 131)7 days • £2,340Lecturer: 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.

ItineraryDay 1: Haarlem. Fly at c. 11.00am from London Gatwick to Amsterdam Schipohl. Haarlem was the chief artistic centre in the northern Netherlands in 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 has the largest 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, though currently they are on display in the Gemeente Museum. 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 fine 16th-century stained

glass. 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-century architecture.Day 6: Amsterdam. Return to Amsterdam. The Museum Willet-Holthuysen is a canalside patrician’s house furnished as in the 18th century, 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) or the Van Gogh Museum, or visiting the Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art which has re-opened after prolonged closure for refurbishment.Day 7: Rotterdam, Leiden. 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. The final visit is to the Lakenhal Museum in Leiden, Rembrandt’s natal town, to see a choice collection of early Rembrandt and other Leiden artists. Fly from Schipohl and return to Gatwick at c. 9.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,340 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Boeing 737); accommodation; travel by private coach; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £310. Price without flights £2,220.

Hotel: The Grand Hotel Karel V is a 5-star hotel converted from a 19th-century hospital in a quiet location within Utrecht’s city walls.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking and standing around, and the tour would not be suitable for anyone with difficulties with everyday walking and stair-climbing. Average distance by coach per day: 75 miles.


Bergen Music FestivalMay 2014Details available in December 2013Contact us to register your interest

The Five Syndics, engraving c. 1886 after Rembrandt.

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Palestine Archaeology & architecture of the West Bank

20–28 October 2014 (mb 159)9 days • £3,250Lecturer: Dr Felicity Cobbing

A pioneering tour which includes the major archaeological sites and the most significant historic buildings on the West Bank.

Led by Dr 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 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 form the very earliest periods of settled, 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

The C

onvent of Mar Saba, w


Oman3–13 January 2014 (ma 800)This tour is currently full

Contact us for details, or visit www.martinrandall.com

Remarkable landscape, hill forts, traditional souqs, archaeological sites.

The toehold of Arabia, with a diverse population reflecting its mercantile past.

Accompanied by social anthropologist and Middle East expert Professor Dawn Chatty.

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 generally very welcoming.

Continued overleaf.

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Israel & Palestine, 11–20 February 2014, or 21–30 October 2014 (see page 110).

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 8.30am from London Heathrow to Tel Aviv (Israel) and drive through the Separation Wall to Bethlehem (Palestine). Reach the hotel in time for a lecture and 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 Orthodox monastery of Mar Saba, perched in a gorge and with a beautiful chapel (limited access for women). Overnight Bethlehem.

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 Middle-Eastern 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 well-preserved 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 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.

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 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. 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 at Heathrow c. 8.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £3,250 (deposit £300). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Boeing 767); private coach for all other journeys; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 8 lunches and 7 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; airport taxes; the services of the lecturer, tour manager and local guides. Single supplement £310. Price without flights £2,770.Hotels. The first two are international chains used largely by religious package tours but they are comfortable, and rated locally respectively as 4-star and 5-star. Bethlehem (4 nights): Intercontinental Jacir Palace, a flamboyant late 19th-century mansion with bedrooms in a modern building around a garden to the rear. Jericho (2 nights): Intercontinental Jericho, a high-rise building outside the centre. Jerusalem (2 nights): American Colony, the most prestigious 5-star hotel in East Jerusalem. Visas: are obtained on arrival at no charge for most nationalities.How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking, some of it over rough ground and uneven paving, and sure-footedness is essential. Average distance by coach per day: c. 41 miles.Small group: between 14 and 22 participants.Working in partnership with the Palestine Exploration Fund. By booking on this tour, you will automatically become a PEF member, giving you access to the extensive PEF library as well as benefitting from expert advice on the ancient Levant from PEF members of staff.

The D

ead Sea, steel engraving c. 1850.

Palestinecontinued

‘The visits to Nablus and Hebron were outstanding.’

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The Heart of PortugalHistory, architecture, landscapes

15–23 September 2014 (mb 121)9 days • £2,370Lecturer: Adam Hopkins

Central Portugal, cradle of a tiny nation which struggled mightily for independence.

Rich in Romanesque and Gothic architecture.

Some beautiful scenery, hilltop castles and charming towns with numerous examples of decorative tiles.

Portugal’s status as an agreeable member of the European minor league, now struggling financially, runs contrary to her huge place in world history and impressive mediaeval antecedents. The nascent country’s advance against the Moors in the Iberian far west and then its courageous self-defence against the might of a neighbouring Castile revealed a nation that would be perpetually in arms, and perpetually in thrall to the Christian cause, however interpreted. Sea discovery and empire, with its ensuing riches, gold and slave trade, followed logically. The groundwork for all of this is visible to the eye in central Portugal.

Here, our concern is with the land stretching onwards from the Douro to the Tagus, hilly and tightly bunched by the western seaboard then stretching out into the broad and exhilarating sweeps of the Alentejo in the east; wheat and cork oak country of deep rusticity.

The first king of an independent Portugal pushed down through this land and endowed it in glorious style. It was King Afonso Henriques himself, in celebration of the capture from the Moors of Santarém, who brought in the Cistercians to build the sensational ‘pure’ Gothic abbey of Alcobaça.

On August 14 1385, with the aid of English archers, João I, first king of the new House of Avis, defeated the Castilians so heavily in central Portugal that this particular threat was over for a while. Close to the battlefield, João established another thrilling monastery, Batalha, or Battle – a cry of triumph.

Here João is buried with Philippa of Lancaster, his wife. She bore him five sons, all also buried here. This extraordinary brood were to carry Portugal to the threshold of the modern. One of them was Prince Henry the Navigator whose ambitions set in motion the exploration of the African coast and led in turn, less than a century later, to Vasco da Gama’s arrival in India. Imperial wealth flowed into Portugal at the start of the sixteenth century. Under the royal beneficiary, Manuel the Fortunate, there developed the hyper-decorative style now known as ‘Manueline’ Gothic architecture. Batalha abbey is fourteenth/fifteenth-century ‘pure’ Gothic, massively decorated with sixteenth-century

Manueline pinnacles and every imaginable foible stone could be worked into. All so far, symbolically speaking, is concentrated here.

There came, of course, in 1580, the evil hour in which Castile finally did accomplish a takeover of Portugal. Two generations later it was yet another new dynasty, the House of Braganza, which won back independence. The Braganza family palace is in the Alentejo. We also go to Coimbra, where a later Braganza, recipient of gold and diamonds from Brazil, constructed the gilded library of the ancient University in the early eighteenth century, a second age of imperial splendour.

Other delights include the Templar headquarters at Tomar (Romanesque with later additions of extraordinary maritime-inspired effusion), the extremely decorative World Heritage city of Évora, charming villages and hilltop castles in the remotest of remote country – looking out over that traditional enemy, Castile. The heart of Portugal: today a republic, a democracy, a member of the EU, a deeply historic country struggling to be modern.

ItineraryDay 1: Buçaco. Fly at c. 12.00 midday from London Gatwick to Porto. Drive south into the Buçaco forest. Our hotel was built as a wild neo-Manueline Gothic fantasy at the turn of the 20th century; a retreat for the Portuguese royal family. First of two nights in Buçaco.

Day 2: Coimbra. Capital of Portugal 1139 to 1385, Coimbra’s reputation outweighs its beauty though monuments are rich. The church of Santa Clara a Nova is the burial place of Sta Isabel, 14th-century Queen of Portugal. Cross the River Mondego to the Old Town for the

densely historic church of Santa Cruz with fine azulejos (decorative tiles), the Old University with 18th-century gilded library and the impressive Romanesque cathedral. Day 3: Alcobaça, Batalha, Tomar. Drive south to two extraordinary monasteries of the greatest beauty and historical significance. Alcobaça, founded 1153, is a building of breathtaking Gothic purity. Nearby Batalha, built by order of King João I, mixes French Gothic and Manueline in an intoxicating display. The drive east becomes increasingly rural. First of two nights in the small town of Tomar.Day 4: Tomar. Crowning a hill above the town the military-religious complex of the Convento de Cristo is one of Portugal’s most important and beautiful sites. The octagonal Templar church survives, Romanesque, with fine Manueline extension. The west window here, utterly exuberant, is regarded as the chief Manueline masterwork. Free time in the grid-built mediaeval town. Overnight Tomar. Day 5: Castelo de Vide, Marvão, Évora. Drive eastwards into the wonderfully rural Alentejo which borders Spain: mountainous in the north, wide and sweeping in the south. Visit two delightful hill villages dominated by mediaeval castles: Castelo de Vide and Marvão. Continue to Évora, regional capital of the greatest charm, for the first of four nights. Day 6: Évora, Arraiolos. A morning walk in Évora includes Portugal’s best preserved Roman temple, 2nd or 3rd century ad; the cathedral, battlemented, mainly Gothic on a Romanesque plan; 16th-century Jesuit university and the ‘royal’ church of São Francisco. Optional afternoon in Arraiolos, a charming village with castle and lavender-

Potuguese Muleteer, engraving c. 1820.

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The Heart of Portugalcontinued

coloured trim on many houses. Here carpets have been stitched since the 17th century. Overnight Évora. Day 7: Vila Viçosa, Olivença. The Braganza family’s main palace is in the marble-quarrying town of Vila Viçosa. It preserves the memory of King Dom Carlos who left home one February morning in 1908 only to be assassinated in Lisbon that afternoon. Cross the Spanish border to lunch in Olivença (Olivenza), a delightful Portuguese town with Manueline monuments, which fell into Spanish hands after the War of the Oranges in 1801. Day 8: Évora, Elvas. In Évora begin at the church of São João Evangelista, once serving the monastery where we are staying, with some of the finest azulejos in Portugal. The city museum houses the 13 famous Flemish paintings of the Life of the Virgin. Afternoon in Elvas, border town of great individuality within a huge and critically important fortress. Visit the cathedral, castle and English cemetery dating from the Peninsular War, beautiful and moving. Overnight Évora.Day 9: drive to Lisbon Airport for the flight arriving London Gatwick at c. 3.30pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,370 (deposit £250). This includes: flights (economy class) with TAP (Air Portugal) (Airbus 319); private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 2 lunches and 6 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Suite supplement £180 (per room, two sharing, in Évora only). Single supplement £310 (double for sole use). Price without flights £2,160.Hotels. Buçaco (2 nights): Bussaco Palace Hotel, a grandiose hotel in former royal hunting lodge with gardens; rated as 5-star though more like a 4-star. Tomar (2 nights): Hotel dos Templários, a 4-star hotel a few minutes walk from the mediaeval town; rooms are unremarkable but are well-equipped; indoor and outdoor pools. Évora (4 nights): Pousada de Evora, a small 4-star hotel (pousada) installed in the Monastery dos Lois and retaining much of the original building; attractively furnished but rooms are small. How strenuous? Steep streets, cobbles and steps, and coach access is difficult; good mobility and sure-footedness are essential. Average coach travel per day 87 miles: Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.Possible linking tours. Combine with Art in Madrid, 10–14 September (page 190); Cave Art in Spain, 23–29 September (page 189).

Gardens of Northern Portugal

2–6 April 2014 (ma 846)5 days • £1,360Lecturer: 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.

Based throughout in the delightful mediaeval town of Guimarães.

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

Porto, aquatint c. 1830.

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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.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 11.45am from London Gatwick to 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. Taste the quinta’s wine and cheese overlooking the vineyards before continuing to Guimarães, where all four nights are spent.

Day 2: Vila Real, Celorico de Basto. 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 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: Ponte de Lima, Guimarães. Drive north to the 17th-cent. Paço de Calheiros, whose 19th-cent. garden enjoys spectacular views of the Lima valley. After lunch at the Paço return to Guimarães for some free time. 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.

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, 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: Porto. Evocative of the Moorish tradition, the private garden of the Quinta do Alão is protected from the suburbs of Porto by high stone walls. Dating from the 17th-cent., a plethora of ancient planting was interspersed with decorative granite work by Nasoni a century later. 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. 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. Fly from Porto, returning to Gatwick at c. 9.30pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,360 (deposit £150). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled TAP flights (Air Portugal) (Airbus A319); private coach throughout; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 3 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions, tastings; all tips for waiters, drivers, guides; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Suite supplement £100 (room rate for 2 people sharing). Single supplement £90 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,200.

Hotel: the Hotel da Oliveira is a boutique hotel in the historic centre of Guimarães that opened in June 2013. Décor is contemporary. It has a good restaurant.

How strenuous? A lot of walking and standing. Paths in gardens are often uneven so sure-footedness is essential. Coach access to gardens and small towns is often difficult. The ascent of Bom Jesus do Monte involves c. 600 steps; we walk up and take a funicular back down. There is daily coach travel; average distance per day 70 miles.


Palaces, Villas & GardensRoyal Residences ........................................49

Gardens of the Riviera............................80

King Ludwig II & the Wittelsbach Palaces of Bavaria .......................................98


Palladian Villas ............................................. 119





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Walking in MadeiraGarden of the Atlantic

3–8 March 2014 (ma 825)6 days • £2,440Lecturer: Gerald Luckhurst

Four moderate walks of a maximum of 4 miles through Madeira’s magnificent landscapes: coastal, woodland and mountainous.

A focus on both Madeira’s formal gardens and its natural flora and wildlife.

The lecturer is Gerald Luckhurst, landscape architect and author on Madeira’s gardens.

Stay in Madeira’s most famous hotel.

Sitting in the sub-tropical Atlantic, closer to Morocco than to Portugal, Madeira is a startling island, rising high and steep from the ocean. Consisting overwhelmingly of basalt rock, which started spewing from the earth’s core around 130 million years ago, the land of Madeira itself is probably two-and-a-half-million years old.

The volcanic nature of this island produces not only steep gorges radiating from the rugged central mountains – the highest of which, Pico Ruivo, stands at 1,861 metres above sea level – but also accounts for the spectacular coastal scenery. This tour explores both settings.

A hugely varied number of plants and flowers enjoy this dynamic combination of fertile soil and warm temperatures. Bananas and vines, two of Madeira’s major exports, flourish on the coastal plains, while lush deciduous vegetation covers the higher mountain slopes. As is standard on remote islands, there has been considerable speciation,

and more than seven hundred plant species are indigenous to Madeira. Of particular interest are the laurisilva woodlands, the large house leeks, woody sow-thistles and marguerites, the beautiful shrubby Echium species and the curious Dragon tree. By exploring the terrain on foot we examine these species and their setting in greater and more rewarding detail.

Aside from the ecological and horticultural aspects of this tour, there is also the opportunity to study the history of the island’s greatest export, Madeira wine. Although established as a Portuguese colony since Prince Henry the Navigator’s expedition landed in the early fifteenth century, it was during the period of Spanish ownership that a commercial treaty was established with the British in 1660. This marked the beginning of the wine trade, which has been significant ever since. We have organised a private tasting and visit to a winery that has been operating on the island for over two hundred years.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 8.30am from London Gatwick to Funchal arriving at the hotel in time for lunch. Visit one of the island’s newest gardens, located on Ponta da Cruz, the southernmost point of Madeira. This is the warmest and sunniest spot on the island which makes for an extraordinarily colourful garden. First of five nights in Funchal.

Day 2. Morning walk (level and easy walk along the levada, narrow in places with a descent onto the road to finish, c. 5 km) along the Levada dos Tornos. Starting in the hills

above Funchal, we walk to the Blandy family estate at Palheiro for lunch and a guided visit. The extensive sub-tropical gardens, first acquired by John Blandy in 1885, have been continually developed by the family. Some free time to enjoy the camellias, centennial trees, the rose garden and myriad other flowers and climbers. Private evening visit to the Blandy Wine Lodge with a Madeira wine tasting.

Day 3. A guided tour of Funchal’s centre focusing on its city gardens and historic monuments. The Mercado dos Lavadores (farmers’ market) is a brilliantly vibrant showcase of the island’s produce. Visit the Gothic Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption, with its whitewashed walls and mudéjar-inspired ceiling, and the Jesuit collegiate church. Drive to Madeira’s easternmost peninsular, Ponta do São Lourenço, for an afternoon walk (c. 5 km, with steep ascents and descents on stepped paths; the length of the walk is subject to weather conditions) in a rugged, almost lunar landscape, home to fossils, cacti and the odd flash of desert flowers.

Day 4. A morning visit to the Boa Vista orchid gardens which houses the rarest and most unusual collection of orchids on the island. The Jardim Botánico located in the Quinta of Bom Sucesso is home to over 100 species of indigenous plants, as well as tropical and sub-tropical fruit trees and coffee trees, sugar cane and popular medicinal plants. The rest of the day is free.

Day 5. In the cool hills above Funchal is the unesco Biosphere site at Ribeiro Frio, where a botanical garden and trout hatchery sit among quiet glades. Walk along the path to Balcões and back (3 km), with views of the craggy valleys below, followed by a picnic lunch. Afternoon walk (moderate, 5.6 km, a stoney path with some steep sections) to Madeira’s highest peak, Pico Ruivo, with wonderful 360° views stretching to the horizon, and a dramatic vista down to the small town of Curral das Freiras.

Day 6. Drive to Funchal airport for the flight to Lisbon, whence a connection to London. Arrive Heathrow c. 5.30pm.

Although we have chosen the walks on this itinerary with due care and consideration, Madeira is subject to high winds which may mean that our walks have to be changed or modified at short notice. We follow the advice of local walking guides.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,440 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) on Monarch and TAP (Air Portugal) flights (Airbus 320); travel by

Funchal, wood engraving c. 1870.

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Targu Mures, woodcut c. 1930.

TransylvaniaTowns, villages & fortified churches

Wellington in the Peninsula, 22 September–4 October 2014 (see page 202).

private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 3 lunches (1 picnic) and 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters, drivers and guides; all taxes; the services of the lecturer, tour manager and additional guides for the walks. Single supplement £390 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,220.

Hotel. In Funchal (5 nights): Reid’s Palace Hotel. Arguably the best hotel on the island, this famous 5-star luxury hotel is set in subtropical gardens overlooking the Atlantic. Rooms are elegant in décor with sea or garden views. There are three excellent restaurants to choose from. Service here is second to none.

How strenuous? Walking is an integral part of this tour and if you cannot complete a 3-mile country walk with ascents and descents, do not consider booking. There are four walks of between 2 and 4 miles. These walks can be rated as easy to moderate though strong knees and ankles are essential, as are a pair of well-worn hiking boots with good ankle support. Walks have been carefully selected but some steep rises and falls are unavoidable and terrain can be loose under foot, particularly in wet weather. This tour is not suitable for people who suffer from vertigo. Please contact us if you would like to discuss the walks in further detail. Average coach travel per day: 39 miles.


20–28 June 2014 (ma 940)9 days • £2,320Lecturer: Bronwen Riley

A region of Romania with enclaves of Hungarian and German culture.

Led by Romania specialist and writer Bronwen Riley.

Gothic churches massively fortified against eastern incursions, a unique phenomenon.

Towns emerging from Communist-era depredations to rank with the most picturesque in central and eastern Europe.

Exceedingly attractive countryside where traditional rural life continues.

A tour of Transylvanian fortified churches: surely catering to a somewhat specialist taste? The case in favour: first, this unique

phenomenon is visually astounding and historically enthralling. Second, of dozens of surviving examples, we have selected a choice few, each of which exhibits a feature which sets it apart from the others. Third, seeing these places necessitates seeing some extraordinarily unspoilt villages and a way of life you will not see anywhere else. And all this amidst enchanting countryside.

Horses still pull carts and ploughs, chickens and ducks wander the unpaved streets, rows of handsome houses of identical design and layout follow a plan set out in the Middle Ages. Many of these Saxon villages date to the twelfth or thirteenth centuries when north Europeans, predominantly Germans, were recruited to migrate to Europe’s borderlands to farm, build, mine and trade. In due course they also became bulwarks against incursions from the East, first Tartars and then, beginning in the fifteenth century, the Ottomans, a more formidable foe. Hence the extraordinary fortifications around

Walking toursWalking to Santiago ............................... 185


Walking in Southern Tuscany ...........131


Walking the Rhine Valley ....................101

The Schubertiade.......................................22

The Danube Festival Walking ............ 16

Walking in Madeira .................................178

Walking in Northern Tuscany ..........129

Literature & Walking in the Lake District .........................................58


Music in the Saxon Hills .........................92

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their village churches, constructed as citadels to protect the whole village, permanently stocked in expectation of a sudden siege.

Oscillating between independence and Hungarian and Romanian suzerainty, Transylvania is one of the principalities which make up modern Romania (a large country, two thirds the size of Germany). Through good times and bad, the Saxons remained a prominent, even dominant, feature of the region until the end of Communism in 1989. Then, within a couple of years, 90% moved to Germany.

The time to see these villages is now. Congregations are tiny or nonexistent, the villages partially repopulated with people who care nothing about heritage. With the scant resources of the poorest member of the EU, their fate seems to be either irreversible decay or emasculation and Disneyfication for the tourist industry.

The final argument in favour of this tour is that there is plenty else to see. The towns are marvellous survivals, emerging from grime and dereliction to reveal cityscapes as lovely and architecturally interesting as anywhere in the former Austro-Hungarian empire. There are the finest collections of 16th to 18th-century oriental carpets you will ever see – hanging in churches. There is a nineteenth-century palace as exquisitely wrought as any in Europe. Oh, and there is a Jan van Eyck which you can bet the Joneses next door haven’t seen.

Itinerary

Day 1. Fly at c. 11.00am from London Heathrow to Bucharest where the first two nights are spent.Day 2: Bucharest. Ceausescu obliterated swathes of the capital’s historic architecture but good things remain. The Lipscani quarter was surprisingly little molested and is now undergoing comprehensive restoration. The Orthodox Stavropoleos Church (1720s) is splendid, and the Peasant Museum well displays artefacts from all Romania. The National Art Museum has a superb collection of mediaeval art as well as Romanian impressionists and masterpieces of European painting. Overnight Bucharest.Day 3: Sinaia, Viscri. The road north passes through the Transylvanian Alps and the royal summer resort of Sinaia. Here visit the beautiful series of Art Nouveau rooms in a little palace built 1899–1903 for the heir apparent Ferdinand and Queen Marie. Continuing northwards, see the first of that unique Transylvanian phenomenon, the fortified church. A spectacular erection of walls and towers overlooks the remote, impoverished but

well preserved Saxon village of Viscri. First of four nights in Sighisoara.

Day 4: Sighisoara, Biertan. On top of a hill, natural defensiveness supplemented by impressive military engineering, Sighisoara is a highly picturesque little town. Buildings range from the 13th to the 19th centuries with a fine 15th-cent. church with good furnishings and a superb altarpiece of 1490. Located in an exceptionally lovely valley, hillsides striated with terraces for (now vanished) vines, the splendid Gothic church of Biertan soars above its formidable fortifications and the charmingly modest village below. Overnight Sighisoara.

Day 5: Sibiu. One of the best preserved of the ‘Seven Towns’ of Saxon Transylvania, Sibiu has been only patchily restored but contains beautiful squares, fine architecture and a picturesque net of streets, stairways and alleys. The remarkable art gallery in the Brukenthal Palace includes works by van Eyck, Titian, Lotto and Brueghel. Nearby is an open-air museum, one of the best of its kind in Europe with a collection of 350 re-erected vernacular buildings from all over Romania. Overnight Sighisoara.

Day 6: Targu Mures, Malancrav. Targu Mures is endowed with an array of buildings in a Hungarian version of Arts & Crafts and Secessionist styles. The 1913 Palace of Culture – concert hall, art gallery, ceremonial halls – is as fine as any comparable building in Central Europe. Orthodox churches range from the timber and artisanal to the grand and splendidly painted. The village church at Malancrav is celebrated for the remarkably well preserved murals of 1421. Overnight Sighisoara.

Day 7: Sighisoara, Prejmer. There is free time in the morning in Sighisoara. Possible activities include the Monastery Church and the History Museum. On the way to Brasov, stop at Prejmer for one more fortified church. The inner face of the 12m curtain wall is spectacularly encased with emergency accommodation and storage chambers. First of two nights in Brasov, formerly the leading city of Transylvania.

Day 8. Brasov. With a wonderful jumble of façades from, principally, the 18th to the early 20th centuries, Brasov is as handsome a provincial city as anywhere in eastern Europe. The Black Church is the largest Gothic church in Romania, and the interior is enlivened with nearly 100 oriental carpets. Much of the day is free to enjoy the streetscape, the cafés and the museums. Outside the walls, there is a cable car to the top of an adjacent hill. Overnight Brasov.

Day 9: Sinaia. Return to the mountain resort of Sinaia, this time to see Peles Castle, summer retreat of the Romanian royal family, built, extended and embellished 1875–1914. The sequence of sumptuous interiors, with astonishingly richly carved woodwork, is as fine as any of its sort in Europe, and the original contents are intact. Descend to the Wallachian plain and fly from Bucharest, returning to Heathrow c. 6.30pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,320 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (aircraft: Airbus 320); travel by private coach; accommodation as described below; 4 lunches and 6 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £240. Price without flights £2,040.

Hotels. Bucharest (2 nights): The Athenée Palace, a centrally located 5-star hotel with excellent service and facilities. Sighisoara (4 nights): The Binder Bubi, a modern hotel in the lower town 8 minutes on foot to the upper town. Decor tends to peasant chic, but it is comfortable and rooms are of a good size and standard. Brasov (2 nights): The Aro Palace, a large multi-storey slab conveniently (if shockingly) situated next to the historic centre. Pretentious but adequately comfortable despite traces of its communist-era genesis. Service in all these hotels is generally helpful, smiley and efficient. All are locally rated as 5-star, though they would be 4-star or less in most other countries.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking in city centres and in villages over terrain that is often uneven, sometimes unpaved and not infrequently steep. Sure-footedness is essential; if you regularly use a walking stick, this tour would be challenging. Participants ascend the higher parts of churches and fortifications entirely at their own risk! There is a lot of coach travel, including six journeys of around two hours, over roads of variable quality. Outside big towns, loos are nonexistent or dire. Average distance by coach per day: 130 km.



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Monasteries of MoldaviaPainted churches in the foothills of the Carpathians

Suceviţa, lithograph by Oskar Laske (1874–1951).

3–9 October 2014 (mb 149)7 days • £1,960Lecturer: Alan Ogden

Fortified 15th and 16th-century Orthodox monasteries.

Exquisite authentic frescoes, a unique phenomenon 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.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 2.30pm from London Heathrow to Bucharest. Overnight Bucharest.

Day 2. Bucharest. Visit the National Art Museum with its comprehensive collection of 14th- to 20th-century Romanian art, Stavropoleos Church (1724), a harmonious blend of Renaissance and 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.

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

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Monasteries of Moldaviacontinued

community of monks and its museum displays many priceless treasures including superb 16th-century 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.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,960 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled international and national Tarom Airlines flights (Airbus A318 and Aerospatiale ATR42); accommodation as described below; travel by private coach throughout; breakfasts, all lunches and all dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admission to museums, churches and sites; all tips for restaurant staff, drivers, guides; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer and a local guide. Single supplement £170. Price without all flights £1,680.

Hotels: in Bucharest (1 night): The Athenée Palace Hilton, a centrally located 5-star hotel with excellent service and facilities. In Gura Humorului (4 nights): The Best Western Bucovina, a modern 3-star hotel located 37km south-west of Suceava, ideally located for exploring the surrounding area, bathrooms have showers, not bath tubs. The standards of comfort, equipment and service are quite acceptable and commensurate with its category. In Iași (1 night): The Hotel Select, a small 4-star hotel in the historic centre, rooms are reasonably sized and elegantly furnished. In Bucharest and Iași single rooms are doubles for sole occupancy, in Gura they are real singles.

How strenuous? Participants must be reasonably fit as you will be on your feet for long periods. The tour would not be suitable for anyone who has difficulties with everyday walking and stairclimbing. Some long coach journeys and two internal flights. Average distance by coach per day: 64 miles.


St PetersburgPictures & palaces

9–15 May 2014 (ma 888)7 days • £3,340Lecturer: Dr Alexey Makhrov

12–18 September 2014 (mb 108)7 days • £3,340Lecturer: 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 the vast squares.

St Petersburg, Nevsky Prospekt towards the Admirality, lithograph by André Durand c. 1840.


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Although one of the newest of Europe’s great cities, St Petersburg is the one least affected by 20th-century building. Despite the well-publicised 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.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 9.30am from London Heathrow to St Petersburg (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.

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 a boat ride on the Neva. Fly to Heathrow, arriving c. 5.30pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £3,340 (deposit £300). This includes: air travel (standard class) on British Airways flights (Airbus 321); travel by private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 5 dinners, with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips for drivers, restaurant staff, guides; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer and a local guide. Single supplement £420 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,980.

Hotel: The Angleterre is an excellently located 5-star hotel in the city centre, within easy walking distance of the Hermitage. Very comfortable, with good service and restaurant.

Visas: British citizens and most foreign nationals require a visa (included in the price of the tour). We will advise on the procedure but you will need to send your passport to the Russian Consulate in the two month period before departure. Visa issuing times vary from country to country but UK residents should expect to be without their passport for approximately 2 weeks.

Music: details of opera and ballet performances will be sent to participants about one month before the tour and tickets can be requested.

How strenuous? There is a fair amount of standing in galleries and walking on this tour. Traffic congestion means coach journeys can be long and frustrating. Average coach travel per day: 13 miles.


Possible linking tours. Combine the May departure of this tour with El Greco 1614, 16–19 May (page 192); Walking Hadrian’s Wall, 18–24 May (page 37). Combine the September departure with Arts & Crafts in the Cotswolds, 22–25 September (page 42); Wellington in the Peninsula, 22 September–4 October (page 202).

Additional departure:27 September–3 October 2014 (mb 133)7 days • £3,340Lecturer: Dr Alexey Makhrov

The E

nglish Quay, w

ood engraving from R

ussian Pictures, 1889.‘An excellent introduction to the complexities of Russian culture and history.’

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Scotland: the BordersCastles, houses, gardens & abbeys

6–12 July 2014 (ma 965)7 days • £2,230Lecturer: Amanda Herries


A wide variety of architecture, interiors and gardens in glorious settings.

One hotel throughout, a country house in the grounds of the Roxburghe Estate.

Led by art historian, author and lecturer Amanda Herries.

The Scottish Borders are bounded to the north by brooding Highlands and to the south by the uplands of England, and consist largely of lowland but very varied countryside; hills and moorland in the west and agricultural plains in the east.

Throughout the Middle Ages, the demarcation between England and Scotland was a matter of incessant dispute, the turbulence of the times expressed by the remains of fortifications and of powerful religious foundations. The majestic ruins of Scotland’s great abbey churches – Jedburgh, Dryburgh, and Melrose (where the heart of Robert the Bruce lies in a leaden casket) – are a memorable feature of the tour.

The ascent of James VI of Scotland to the English throne in 1603 and the Act of Union of 1707 marked a steady cessation of mutual antagonism, though intermittently there were outbreaks of hostility. Echoes of the past remained ever present. It is still possible, for example, to view the cradle in which Mary Queen of Scots rocked her baby son, James, at

Traquair House, the oldest inhabited house in Scotland. Originally a royal hunting lodge, it retains the secret passage and priest hole once necessary in a Catholic household.

Perhaps, however, the house which encapsulates the Borders above all others is Sir Walter Scott’s Abbotsford. Scott is one of the most influential figures in Scotland’s later history, with a reputation which reached far beyond his best-selling ‘Waverley’ novels. Scott created a Scotland of noble deeds and swashbuckling heroes, and Abbotsford, built near the site of the Battle of Melrose, was a mansion to match his vision, and a meeting place for the greatest figures of the age. The template for the Scottish ‘Baronial’ style, the exterior is encrusted with sculpted stones from mediaeval ruins, the interiors hung with heraldry and arms.

While the need for fortifications receded with the first Stuart king, castle imagery remained a constant. At Georgian Mellerstain, the family home of the Earls of Haddington, Scotland’s finest architect, Robert Adam, created an elegant battlemented conceit, the first in his ‘castle style’, soon to be replicated throughout the country.

The Borders are as rich in art and artefacts as they are in architecture, and the ducal mansions at Bowhill, the Duke of Buccleuch’s 46,000-acre estate, and Floors, the castellated fantasy belonging to the Duke of Roxburghe, boast exceptional collections of paintings, silver, porcelain and furniture. At Manderston, a no-expense-spared Edwardian country house near Berwick on Tweed, visitors can enjoy the only silver staircase in the world.

Garden visits complete the picture of this

mellow landscape, threaded with rivers famous for their fishing and which powered the Scottish textile industry, the region’s source of wealth. There are visits to the arboretum of the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh at Dawyck, and an urban residential garden at Inveresk in the Georgian outskirts of Edinburgh.

ItineraryDay 1: Edinburgh. The coach leaves Edinburgh Airport at 2.00pm and Edinburgh Waverley Station at 2.45pm. Stop at Inveresk Lodge Garden, a surprising haven in a Georgian hamlet on the outskirts of Edinburgh. Continue to the Roxburghe Country House Hotel where all six nights are spent.

Day 2: Manderston, Paxton. Built in the late 18th century, Manderston was completely rebuilt in the early 1900s with breathtaking ‘Adam Revival’ interiors. Paxton House, designed by John Adam in grand 18th-century Palladian style and almost untouched, houses paintings from the National Galleries of Scotland and a remarkable collection of Chippendale furniture original to the house.

Day 3: Bowhill House, Melrose, Dryburgh. Bowhill House is one of the three family seats of the Dukes of Buccleuch and has been in the family of the Montagu-Douglas-Scotts since the mid 18th century. It contains an outstanding collection of paintings, decorative arts and furniture. Contrasting with its opulence, the ruins of the great mediaeval abbeys of Melrose and Dryburgh serve as a reminder of the former wealth and power of religious orders destroyed in the Reformation.

Day 4: Mellerstain, Floors Castle. Unique in being built by both William Adam and his son Robert, Mellerstain House has some of the finest Adam interiors, with a classic enfilade of rooms, exquisite plasterwork and a magnificent Great Gallery. Floors Castle, the largest inhabited house in Scotland, is on a grand scale. Started by William Adam and built for the first Duke of Roxburghe in the 1720s, it was given the fairytale touch in the 19th century and houses tapestries, art and antiques, collected through three centuries.

Day 5: Hawick, Jedburgh, Monteviot House Gardens. A brief visit to Hawick illustrates the former source of wealth of the Borders, the textile industries based on the lush pasturelands for the sheep and the tumbling rivers for water power. In the pretty market town of Jedburgh the Romanesque walls of the Augustinian Abbey survive. Monteviot House has 30 acres of gardens in a variety of styles benefitting from the Borders climate.

Jedburgh, etching 1880 after George Reid (1841–1913).

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Day 6: Traquair, Dawyck. One of the most romantic houses in the Borders, Traquair is an almost untouched 16th- and 17th-century Scottish castle house, a high Catholic stronghold still lived in by a royal Stuart descendant. Dawyck arboretum, an offshoot of the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, takes advantage of an inland climate.

Day 7. Abbotsford. Built on the banks of the River Tweed by the novelist, poet and man of letters Sir Walter Scott, Abbotsford has become an atmospheric shrine full of Scott’s memorabilia. His interpretations of Scottish history earned him a worldwide reputation still intact today. Return to Edinburgh Waverley by 3.00pm and Edinburgh Airport by 4.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,230 (deposit £200). This includes: private coach travel; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 2 lunches and 5 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £340 (double room for single occupancy).

Hotel: an 18th-century manor house, The Roxburghe Country House Hotel is set in the grounds of the 50,000 acre Roxburghe Estate. Traditionally-decorated, public rooms are comfortable and pleasant. Service is excellent. There is a good restaurant and lovely garden.

How strenuous? A lot of walking and standing in gardens and houses. Paths are often uneven so sure-footedness is essential. Quite a lot of time is spent on the coach on narrow, country roads. Average coach travel per day: 55 miles.


Serbia: The Western Balkans, 5–18 May 2014; 6–19 October 2014 (see page 26).

Walking to Santiago

on foot for selected sections of the pilgrims’ way

Edinburgh FestivalAugust 2014Details available in March 2014Contact us to register your interest.

East Neuk Music Festival2–6 July 2014Details available in January 2014Contact us to register your interest.

3–14 June 2014 (ma 921)This tour is currently full

30 September–11 Oct. 2014 (mb 143)This tour is currently full


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; maximum of 15 participants.

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 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, some among 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.

Detail from Santiago Cathedral, engraving c. 1890.

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Bilbao to BayonneFood, art & architecture in the Basque lands

13–20 October 2014 (mb 165)8 days • £3,080Lecturer: 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.

Three bases: Bilbao, Laguardia, Vera de Bidasoa in the Spanish Pyrenees.

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.

ItineraryDay 1: Bilbao. Fly at c. 5.30pm from London Heathrow to Bilbao, Calatrava’s spectacular airport. Overnight Bilbao.

Day 2: Bilbao, Laguardia. The morning is

spent studying Gehry’s extraordinary titanium-clad Guggenheim Museum. Lunch is at the restaurant here run by innovative chef Josean Martínez 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.

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 Gehry-designed 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 14th-century 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 outcrop overlooking the sea

Bilbao, the Church and bridge of San Antonio, wood engraving c. 1880.

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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.

Day 8. Drive to Bilbao for the flight to London, arriving Heathrow at c. 5.45pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £3,080 (deposit £300). This includes: air travel on Vueling flights (Airbus 320); private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, six lunches and four dinners (three are light) with wine, water and coffee; all wine and food tastings; all admissions; all tips for waiters and drivers; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer. Suite supplement in Vera £50 (for 2 people sharing). Single supplement £240 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,850.

Hotels: in Bilbao (1 night): Silken Gran Domine, a 5-star hotel opposite the Guggenheim; contemporary in style. In Laguardia (2 nights): Hotel Villa Laguardia, a 4-star hotel on the outskirts of the town with comfortable rooms and attractive public areas. In Vera de Bidasoa (4 nights): Hotel Churrut, a 3-star hotel installed in an 18th-century military building; family owned with 17 spacious and well decorated rooms and comfortable sitting areas.

How strenuous? There is a fair amount of walking, some of it uphill. Although distances are not great, there is daily use of the coach; average distance per day: 60 miles.


Possible linking tours: combine this tour with Gastronomic Sicily, 29 September–5 October (page 159).

GastronomyGastronomic Sicily ...................................159

Bilbao to Bayonne ........................opposite

Gastronomic Andalucía ......................200

Castile & LeónAncient kingdoms in the heart of Spain

9–18 June 2014 (ma 925)10 days • £2,580Lecturer: 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 (sixteenth-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 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

Ávila, wood engraving c. 1875 from Picturesque Europe.


Castile & Leóncontinued

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.

ItineraryDay 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 honey-coloured 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 late-Gothic 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 10: El Escorial. This vast retreat-cum-palace-cum-monastery-cum-pantheon was built from 1563 to 1584 for Philip II, successfully embodying his instructions for ‘nobility without arrogance, majesty without ostentation, severity in the whole’. Fly from Madrid, arriving at London Heathrow at c. 5.20pm.

Practicalities

Price: £2,580 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled Iberia flights (aircraft: Airbus 321 and Airbus 340); travel by private coach for transfers and excursions out of town centres; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 7 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager; hire of radio guides for better audibility of the lecturer. Single supplement £270 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,420.

Hotels: In Salamanca (2 nights): NH Palacio de Castellanos, an attractive 4-star hotel in a converted palace, close to the Cathedrals and other key sites. In León (2 nights): Parador de León, 5-star Parador in grandiose Plateresque building; public areas are impressive, bedrooms less so. In Lerma (2 nights): Parador de Lerma, a 4-star Parador in the Ducal Palace. In Segovia (3 nights): Palacio San Facundo, a centrally located 4-star hotel in a converted 16th century casa-palacio. Rooms vary in size and some are small but all are well-equipped.

How strenuous? This is a fairly long tour with a lot of walking in town centres, some of it on cobbled streets and uphill. It should not be undertaken by anyone who has difficulty with everyday walking and stairclimbing. There is also a lot of coach travel. Average distance by coach per day: 117 miles.


Possible linking tours. Mediaeval Burgundy, 31 May–7 June (page 75); Armenia, 19–26 June (page 10); Habsburg Austria, 19–26 June (page 13).

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.

Salamancan musicians, from Days in Old Spain, 1938.


‘Without a doubt the best lecturer, guide and organiser I have ever come across. Totally professional, very organised and a charming erudite man.’

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Cave Art in Spain Atapuerca to Altamira

23–29 September 2014 (mb 138)7 days • £2,170Lecturer: Dr Paul Bahn

Some of the most important prehistoric caves in Europe including Altamira II, El Castillo and Tito Bustillo.

An area of outstanding natural beauty with charming villages.

Led by Britain’s leading specialist in prehistoric art Dr Paul Bahn.

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 northern Spain are in regions of outstanding beauty, famed for their seafood and cuisine. Three nights are spent in Santillana del Mar, a well-preserved medieval village close to Altamira, one of the most famous and historic decorated caves, located in a striking landscape. Other caves such as Covalanas and Pindal are in settings with breathtaking views.

Whatever your motivation or interest, a visit to an Ice Age cave is a tremendous privilege. After 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 orconservation 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.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 9.00am from London Heathrow to Madrid. Continue by coach to Burgos. The new Museum of Human Evolution is one of the biggest and most important in the world devoted to this theme, and contains a magnificent display of the major finds from the sites at Atapuerca. Overnight in Burgos.

Day 2: Burgos. Atapuerca is one of the richest and most important groups of archaeological sites in the world, and yet despite the amazing quantity of discoveries so far, the surface has

barely been scratched, and work will continue for decades or even centuries to come. Already Atapuerca has yielded the oldest evidence for human occupation in Europe, with early tools and evidence for cannibalism, as well as the world’s earliest evidence for some kind of funerary ritual, and a massive quantity of well-preserved bones of our distant ancestors. Burgos cathedral is one of the most beautiful in Spain, combining French and German Gothic styles, and has remarkable vaults and 16th-century choir stalls. Drive in the late afternoon to Santillana del Mar for the first of three nights.

Day 3: El Castillo, El Pendo. The decorated caves of El Castillo and Las Monedas are close to each other but very different. El Castillo was decorated in many periods of the Ice Age over thousands of years, and indeed contains the oldest known cave art at present; while Las Monedas was decorated by one person at the end of the Ice Age. Both contain some masterpieces. At El Pendo the art on the back wall of the vast entrance chamber was only discovered recently. Careful cleaning of the surface revealed a whole series of beautiful animal figures.

Day 4: Covalanas, Altamira. The cave of Covalanas is often voted people’s favourite, because unlike the others it is entirely pristine, with no installations of any kind, so that one visits with a hand-held lamp; and it is so narrow that one’s face is literally inches from these

Burgos, copper engraving c. 1700.


Cave Art in Spain continued

beautiful dotted-outline figures from about 20,000 years ago. Only seven people may enter at one time.The extremely accurate facsimile of the cave of Altamira is as astonishing as the original, and enables one to have a detailed look at the many facets of this highly complex decorated ceiling.

Day 5: Pindal, Tito Bustillo. Pindal contains two of the very few depictions of mammoths in northern Spain, as well as some other very fine and fascinating figures, while the cave’s spectacular coastal setting always makes it a popular site. The cave of Tito Bustillo requires a long walk past impressive stalagmites and stalactites to reach a complex decorated panel, one of the finest in all of cave art, featuring the striking use of a rare purple pigment.

Day 6: Candamo, Teverga. The visitor centre for at Candamo contains a facsimile of the cave itself and other shelters of the region. The Park at Teverga is a recent development which provides a final overview of the phenomenon of Ice Age cave art, including facsimiles of panels from a variety of caves in Spain and France.

Day 7: Oviedo. Some free time in Oviedo to visit the Gothic cathedral, with fine altarpiece and tombs of the Early Asturian kings, and the remarkable Camara Santa, the original pre-Romanesque church of King Alfonso II the Chaste (791-842). Take an early afternoon flight from Asturias airport, via Madrid, arriving at London Heathrow at c.5.15pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,170 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (economy class) with Iberia (Airbus A321/A319) travel by private coach; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 5 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager; hire of radio guides for better audibility of the lecturer. Single supplement £180. Price without flights £1,950.

Hotels. In Burgos (1 night): Hotel NH Palacio de la Merced, a smart 4-star hotel in a converted palace. Rooms are comfortable and richly furnished. In Santillana del Mar (3 nights): Parador de Santillana Gil Blas, a 4-star Parador, traditionally furnished. In Oviedo (2 nights): Hotel Meliá de la Reconquista, a 5-star in a converted 17th-century hospice. Rooms have been recently renovated.

How strenuous? A lot of walking is involved to reach the caves, often over rough ground or up steep gradients. Inside the caves the ground is slippery underfoot; sure-footedness is essential. Average distance by coach per day: 99 miles.


Art in MadridThe Great Galleries

21–25 May 2014 (ma 906)5 days • £1,660Lecturer: Gail Turner

10–14 September 2014 (mb 113)5 days • £1,660Lecturer: Gijs van Hensbergen

Two visits to the Prado (three in September) plus the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection and the Reina Sofía, home to Picasso’s Guernica.

Lesser-known places include the Sorolla Museum, Archaeological Museum and Goya frescoes at San Antonio de la Florida.

The September tour coincides with a major exhibition at the Prado to commemorate 400 years since the death of El Greco: El Greco & Modern Painting.

Lecturers Gail Turner and Gijs van Hensbergen are art historians specialising in Spain.

While the Museo del Prado alone might justify a visit to Madrid – and this tour has two sessions there, three in September 2014 – the city has other excellent collections which reinforce its reputation as one of the great art centres of Europe.

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 – including 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.

Our September tour coincides with a major exhibition of the Prado. El Greco and Modern Painting will be installed to commemorate 400 years since the death of El Greco (1541–1614), focussing on the influence that the artist’s work had on modern painters such as Manet, Cézanne and Picasso and on Cubism and Expressionism.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 9.10am 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

Madrid, The Prado, wood engraving c. 1880 from The World, its Cities & Peoples.

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The Prado, after a drawing by Joseph Pennell 1903.

the Spanish school. Settle into the hotel before dinner.Day 2. The morning walk includes 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. In September 2014 return to the Prado for the exhibition El Greco and Modern Painting. The Lázaro Galdiano Museum contains 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. The October 2013 tour coincides with the temporary exhibition Sorolla, Colours of the Sea. 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 c. 6.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,660 (deposit £150). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (Airbus 320); coach for transfers and excursions; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters, drivers and guides; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £260. Price without flights £1,480.Hotel: NH Palacio de Tepa, a small and excellently located 5-star hotel, part of a reliable Spanish chain. Rooms are comfortable and décor is contemporary. How strenuous? There is lot of standing. Average distance by coach per day: 5 milesSmall group: between 8 and 19 participants.Possible linking tours. Combine the May tour with El Greco 1614, 16–19 May (page 192). Or the September tour with The Heart of Portugal, 15–23 September (page 175); The Etruscans, 15–21 September (page 144).

Zurbarán & the Golden Age3–9 March 2014 (ma 823)7 days • £2,180Lecturer: Dr Xavier Bray

The finest collections of Golden Age painting in Spain including the Prado, Royal Academy of San Fernando and Seville’s Fine Arts Museum.

Private visit to the Royal Monastery of Santa María de Guadalupe, home to Zurbarán’s celebrated cycle of the legends of St Jerome.

Led by art historian and expert on Spanish art Xavier Bray.

Other significant masters of the Golden Age, particularly the mannerist painter Luis de Morales, but also Murillo, Velázquez and Juan Martínez Montañés, famed Seville School sculptor.

The Renaissance came late to Spain, but the Golden Age, El Siglo de Oro, began soon after Columbus set sail for the New World and flourished for 150 years under the magnificent

City Council. By 1634, his reputation was sufficiently established for him to visit Madrid, where he painted two scenes of the Defence of Cadiz for Philip IV, to be hung as companion works to Velazquez’s Surrender of Breda in the Buen Retiro Palace. The commission allowed him to sign his work: ‘Painter to the King’.

Though skilled in portraiture and still life, Zurbarán’s fame undoubtedly lay primarily in his religious painting. The most successful period of his career was the decade from 1635, when, on his return to Seville, his work was in constant demand from monasteries and churches throughout south-west Spain and the newly-acquired Spanish colonies. His skill in portraying saintly lives with a sombre mix of the mystical and real chimed perfectly with the emerging mood of the Counter Reformation. However in the 1650s, as Murillo’s sweetly sentimental work became ever more fashionable, Zurbarán modified his own style to compete, doing little for his reputation or later career.

The roots of his dark, austere piety, with its intense colour and sharply contrasting light and shade, lie within the tradition of southern Spanish realism, but the time he spent in Madrid undoubtedly broadened his horizons. Though it remains uncertain whether he had direct experience of the work of Caravaggio, he would undoubtedly have known that of José de Ribera, the Spanish Tenebrist painter, whose characteristic chiaroscuro derived from the great Italian master.

This unique tour provides a highly-focussed survey of the life and work of Zurbaran and the context in which he worked. Visits are made to Madrid, with the Prado’s exceptional collection of Zurbaran’s work and that of other significant forerunners, including Luis de Morales ‘El Divino’ (active 1547–1586), who preceded El Greco as an exponent of Mannerism in Spain. Visit also the town of his birth and the Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Guadalupe in deepest Extremadura. Entering the monastery before the general opening to the public allows an unrivalled opportunity to see his celebrated cycle of St Jerome and portraits of members of the Hieronymite order in the Baroque sacristy. The tour culminates in Seville, where he was based at the height of his career.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 10.00am from London Heathrow to Madrid. The Prado contains a great collection of Zurbaráns. Included are his first and last attempt at painting a mythological subject, the story of Hercules, a commission of twelve paintings he received from Philip IV in 1635, only recently restored and back on display. Overnight in Madrid.

rule of the Habsburgs. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Spain became the world’s greatest power and, with this dominance, came a rich flowering of the arts. Francisco de Zurbarán (1598–1664) is one of the most celebrated artists of the age.

Born in Fuente de Cantos in Extremadura in 1598, the son of a haberdasher, he was apprenticed to a craftsman-painter in Seville in 1614. At the outset of his career he settled in Llerena near his childhood home, but soon returned to Seville at the invitation of the


Zurbarán & the Golden Agecontinued El Greco 1614

A commemorative exhibition in Toledo

Toledo, the Tagus and Bridge of St Martin, wood engraving c. 1870.

Day 2: Madrid, Guadalupe. The collections of the Royal Academy of San Fernando contain key works by Morales and Zurbarán appropriated by the Spanish state when the religious orders were dissolved in 1832. Drive to Guadalupe for the first of two nights.

Day 3: Guadalupe. Visit the Monastery of San Jerónimo before it opens to the public (special arrangement). Here Zurbarán created eight large paintings to decorate the sacristy. This is followed by an optional walk in the Guadalupe mountains, or free time to explore the village.

Day 4: Fuente de Cantos, Llerena, Seville. Drive to Zurbaran’s childhood home in Fuente de Cantos and visit the museum dedicated to him. The Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Granada contains a crucifix from the artist’s studio. Continue through the barren landscape of Extremadura, an influence on Zurbarán’s religious art, to Seville (three nights here).

Day 5: Seville. In Seville Zurbarán worked primarily for the monastic orders of the Dominicans, Carthusians and Mercedarians. Visit the Iglesia de la Magdalena, the Monasterio de Santa María de las Cuevas and the magnificent cathedral. The Museo de Bellas Artes houses a particularly extensive collection.

Day 6: Cádiz. Drive to Cádiz, whose museum contains little-known paintings by Zurbarán and Murillo and has a fine archaeological section. Also visit the 18th-century Oratorio de la Santa Cueva with Goya canvases.

Day 7: Seville. Fly from Seville, via Madrid, arriving London Heathrow c. 6.15pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,180 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways and Iberia (Airbus A319 and A320); travel by private coach; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 5 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £260 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,960.

Hotels. Madrid (1 night): NH Palacio de Tepa, a small, well-located 5-star hotel, part of a reliable Spanish chain. Guadalupe (2 nights): Parador de Guadalupe, a 4-star Parador in the converted 15th-cent. pilgrims’ hospital of St. John the Baptist. Seville (3 nights): Hotel Vincci la Rábida, a 4-star hotel, a short walk from the cathedral and Barrio de Santa Cruz.

How strenuous? A lot of walking, sometimes on uneven ground. Sure-footedness is essential. Average coach travel per day: 78 miles.


16–19 May 2014 (ma 900)4 days • £1,740Lecturers: Dr Xavier Bray & Gijs van Hensbergen

The quartercentenary of the death of El Greco, commemorated in Toledo with a major exhibition in the Fine Arts Museum.

Special arrangements to see his many other paintings in the city, including private viewings.

Private concert of music by El Greco’s contemporary Alonso Lobo.

Two lecturers: Dr Xavier Bray and Gijs van Hensbergen, leading experts on Spanish art, history and culture.

Doménikos Theotokópoulos ‘El Greco’ (1541–1614) arrived in Toledo in the mid-1570s. His journey took him via Venice and Rome, where he absorbed the magic of Venetian colour and the mannerist contortions of Michelangelo. Over time his extraordinary vision has become synonymous with Spain’s ‘self-image’ during its glorious Golden Age.

El Greco worked in Toledo for forty years and witnessed the growing power of the Inquisition, the hounding of the Converso Jews (many of them his patrons) and the expulsion of the Moriscos. Many of his paintings catalogue the battle of his liberal humanism in the face of this intolerance. Today, masterpieces like The Burial of the Conde Orgaz remain perfectly preserved in situ, with their breathtaking mix of realism and spirituality.

In 2014 there is a major exhibition at the Museo de Santa Cruz to commemorate four hundred years since his death, remarkably the first exhibition of its kind in Toledo. Ranging

across early works produced before his arrival in Spain, many portraits, and works for which he also designed architecture and sculpture, it presents a unique opportunity to explore the extent of the artist’s genius.

Alonso Lobo (1555–1617) was maestro de capilla at Toledo cathedral 1593–1604 and a contemporary of El Greco. To coincide with the quartecentenary, Spanish early music group La Grande Chapelle are recording music by the composer, and perform for us a private concert featuring a mass and motets for four voices.

Crammed onto the crown of a river-girt promontory, Toledo displays the masonry residue of a greater mix of peoples and civilizations than any other city in the world. Capital of Visigothic, Islamic and (from 1085) Christian states, it was a wealthy, sophisticated and tolerant centre which attracted a large, cosmopolitan population. The Jewish community, with its school of translators, was one of the most important in Europe.

Nowadays the countryside begins at the foot of the mighty circuit of city walls, the current population being a quarter of that in the Middle Ages. It is the combination of major architecture and great works of art with the unspoilt and almost deserted cobbled backstreets that make a stay here so memorable.

ItineraryParticipants are divided into two smaller groups for most visits. Everyone comes together for private visits, the concert and lectures.

Day 1: El Escorial. Fly from London Heathrow to Madrid at c. 9.10am. Drive to El Escorial for which El Greco was commissioned to paint an alterpiece by Phillip II. Continue to Toledo, where all three nights are spent.

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ExtremaduraLandscape, architecture & rural life

A Village in Spain, by Isabel Codrington, etching and drypoint c. 1920.

Day 2 or 3, Toledo: El Greco with Xavier Bray. Morning lecture. Visit the exhibition, El Greco of Toledo, at the Museo de Santa Cruz. See more of El Greco’s work and his burial place at the convent of Sto Domingo. The Gothic cathedral is Spain’s largest and the most richly endowed with paintings (El Greco, Velázquez, Titian) and also has furnishings and sculpture of the highest quality. El Greco’s house and museum contains his finest series of apostles and View of Toledo. Private evening concert of vocal music by Alonso Lobo, performed by members of La Grande Chapelle.

Day 2 or 3, Toledo: history and architecture with Gijs van Hensbergen. Morning lecture. Founded by the Catholic Kings Ferdinand and Isabella as their mausoleum, the monastery of San Juan de los Reyes has outstanding Late Gothic decoration. San Roman is a 13th-century Mudéjar church with Romanesque paintings and a Visigothic Museum. The Cristo de la Luz mosque dates from 999 and is one of the earliest surviving examples of Moorish architecture in Spain. See also Toledo’s two main synagogues, El Tránsito and Santa María la Blanca.

Day 4: Toledo, Illescas. Private view of El Greco’s Burial of the Conde Orgaz, his greatest work in the church of Santo Tomé. Drive to Illescas where El Greco spent two years. The Hospital de la Caridad contains five of his works. Continue to Madrid for the afternoon flight to London Heathrow, arriving c. 6.30pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £1,740 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways and Iberia (Airbus A321 & 320); private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 3 dinners and 1 lunch with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturers and a tour manager. Single supplement £160 (double for single occupancy) Price without flights £1,560.

Hotel. Hotel Fontecruz Toledo, a 5-star hotel in a converted palace, 200m from Toledo Cathedral. Rooms are comfortable with elegant, neutral décor.

How strenuous? A fair amount of walking in the town centre and a lot of standing around in museums. The streets of Toledo are narrow, cobbled and occasionally steep. Average distance by coach per day: 40 miles.

Group size: maximum 40 participants. Most of the tour is spent in one of two groups of 10 to 20, each having equal access to both lecturers during visits and meals, and also coming together for the concert and lectures.

27 March–4 April 2014 (ma 845)9 days • £2,310Lecturer: 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.

The lecturer is Adam Hopkins, journalist and author, specialist in Spanish history and culture.

Extremadura means ‘beyond the Douro’, 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 round 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.


Extremaduracontinued

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.

ItineraryDay 1: Zafra. Fly at c. 10.45am from London Heathrow to Madrid. Drive to the town of Zafra (c. 5 hrs with stops). The towered castle where Hernán Cortés was received by the Duke of Feria en route for the conquest of Mexico is now the parador. First of two nights in Zafra.

Guadalupe, is hidden in hills. Columbus prayed here and gave its name to a Caribbean island. First of two nights in Guadalupe.Day 4: Guadalupe. Either a walk in the Guadalupe mountains, or free time to explore 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 5: Trujillo. Drive down the mountains to Trujillo, a hilltop conquistador town (birthplace of Pizarro). The magnificent, irregular main 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 17th-century Casa de las Valetas, built over an 11th-century 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 (restoration work in progress), 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 at nearby Jarandilla de la Vera.

Day 9: leaving Extremadura. Drive to Madrid Airport for the lunchtime flight which arrives at London Heathrow c. 4.15pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,310 (deposit £250). This includes: flights (economy class) with Iberia (Airbus 321) travel by private coach; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 2 lunches and 6 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £230 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,090.

Hotels: Zafra (2 nights): Parador de Zafra, a 4-star Parador in the 15th-cent. castle with a marble Renaissance patio and decorated Mudéjar ceilings in some public rooms. Guadalupe (2 nights): Parador de Guadalupe, a 4-star Parador in the converted 15th-cent. pilgrims’ hospital of St John the Baptist. Cáceres (3 nights): Husa Gran Hotel Don Manuel, a 4-star hotel in the historic centre of town. Jarandilla de la Vera (1 night): Parador de Jarandilla, 4-star Parador with historic connections to Charles V.

How strenuous? A lot of walking in town centres, sometimes on uneven ground. Sure-footedness is essential. Optional walks on the finca and in the Sierra de Guadalupe require greater fitness. There is a large amount of coach travel, particularly on the first and last days. Average distance by coach per day: 91 miles.


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

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.

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

Monastery of Yuste, steel engraving c. 1840.

‘Outstanding. The mix of townscapes, churches, castles, museums, paintings, together with country walks, nature observation, and ranch visit was admirable.’

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AndalucíaSpain’s southern province

18–31 October 2014 (mb 175)14 days • £3,580Lecturer: Adam Hopkins

Three nights in each of the major cities: Granada, Córdoba and Seville.

Many lesser-known places are also visited: hilltop villages, walled towns and the ports of Cádiz and Málaga.

Covers the great Moorish sites, mediaeval, Renaissance and Baroque architecture, fine art collections, markets and gardens.

The lecturer, Adam Hopkins, has written extensively on Spanish art and history.

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 sun-scorched plains of the 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 tantalizing 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.

The unification of Spain which was ensured by the marriage in 1469 of the ‘Catholic Kings’, Ferdinand and Isabella, 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.

This tour devotes ample time to the big three – Seville, Granada, Córdoba – and the Picasso Museum and the new museum of Carmen Thyssen Bornemisza in Málaga make this often overlooked city a worthwhile base for the first night. Interspersed are smaller towns, villages and more remote monuments.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 9.45am from London City to Málaga. Visit the recently opened Carmen Thyssen museum with its fine collection of old masters and 19th-century Spanish painting. Overnight Málaga.

Day 2: Málaga. Begin at Picasso’s birthplace, which houses a small collection of his belongings and some ceramics. The Picasso Museum is magnificent, combining Phoenician ruins beneath, a fine 16th-century palace and a collection which places emphasis on his

Seville, the Alcázar, w

ood engraving from Le Tour du M

onde, 1866.


Andalucíacontinued

earlier works and the women in his life. 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 Albayzín, 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 (three nights here).

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 paintings. Free afternoon in Córdoba.

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 wonderful 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. Afternoon at the Fine Arts Museum, the best in Spain after the Prado.

Day 14: Seville. Further exploration of the Barrio de Santa Cruz including the 15th-cent. Casa de Pilatos, a mix of Mudéjar, Gothic and Renaissance styles. Drive back to Málaga for the afternoon flight to London City Airport, arriving c. 7.30pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £3,580 (deposit £300) This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Embraer E190); private coach, boat ride; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 2 lunches and 7 dinners, with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer, tour manager and local guides. Single supplement £470 (double for single use). Price without flights £3,400.

Hotels: In Málaga (1 night): Hotel Molina Lario, a functional and comfortable 4-star hotel in the centre. In Granada (3 nights): Hotel AC Palacio de Santa Paula, a 5-star hotel in a converted convent, close to the Royal Chapel; rooms are comfortable and contemporary; more comparable to a 4-star. In Córdoba (3 nights): NH Amistad Córdoba, a 4-star hotel in a converted 18th-century mansion; a short walk from the mosque. In Antequera (1 night): Parador de Antequera, a new Parador installed in an 18th-century building. Rooms are comfortable and well appointed. Rated locally as 5-star but more comparable to a good 4-star. In Cádiz (2 nights): Parador de Cádiz, a newly renovated Parador overlooking the Atlantic in the old town. A modern construction and very light and spacious within. In Seville (3 nights): Hotel Vincci la Rábida, a 4-star hotel located off the tourist trail and yet only 7 minutes’ walk from the cathedral.

How strenuous? This is a long tour with six hotels, a lot of walking (often on uneven ground or uphill) and a fair amount of coach travel. You need to be fit and able to manage everyday walking and stairclimbing without any difficulties. Average distance by coach per day: 51 miles.


Córdoba, La Torre de la Carrahola, engraving c. 1870.

‘The itinerary was beautifully designed. Lots of variety, and it very cleverly moved us between city and country.’

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Granada, the Alhambra, from The Magazine of Art, 1894.

Eastern Andalucía: Caliphs to Kings

Málaga, Granada, Úbeda, Jaen, Baeza, Córdoba

2–11 May 2014 (ma 881)10 days • £2,820Lecturer: Gijs van Hensbergen

A comprehensive study of Eastern Andalucía: time for the key sites of Granada and Córdoba, exploration of the lesser-known.

Visits the Picasso Museum and newly opened Carmen Thyssen collection in Málaga and the small Renaissance towns of Úbeda and Baeza.

Features an olive oil tasting, a private concert, flamenco and an evening visit of the Alhambra.

The lecturer, Gijs van Hensbergen, has written extensively on Spanish art and history.

The mythic Al-Andalus, ruled by Islam for more than 750 years is one of Europe’s greatest examples of the wonders of multi-cultural life. Far north, in the cold mountains of Christian Galicia and its Celt neighbours across the seas we still talk of the Dark Ages, while in Córdoba around the first Millennium the Renaissance had already begun, as the Moors

and their protected dhimmi subjects, the Christians and Jews, tested out revolutionary new ideas.

600 years before da Vinci’s inspired doodles of his flying machine Ibn Firnas had already flown across the hills above Córdoba’s great mosque, (admittedly, breaking both legs.) In the great city of Córdoba, under the Caliphate, cataract operations were common, mechanical elephants served tea, iced sherbets slaked the thirst, saffron-stained meatballs and the three-course-meal were invented, while the intellect was teased with access to a library that boasted 400,000 books (almost the entire learning of the classical world). Ziryab, Córdoba’s 9th century tastemaker – the Terence Conran of his time – added the 5th and 6th string to the lute to give its harmony ‘soul’ and provide the guitar.

‘From Caliphs to Kings,’ visits the World Heritage protected caves of Granada’s Sacromonte to hear the gypsy wedding ritual, the Zambra. In Úbeda, Spain’s most perfect Renaissance city, Sephardic musicians will bring to life the recently discovered 10th

century Synagogue with its perfectly preserved mikvah – the ritual bath.

From Málaga’s Museo de Picasso, built on 2500-year-old Phoenician remains, and the wonderful new Thyssen Museum – that provides a perfect introduction to the 19th romantic traveller’s obsession with Carmen and the ‘bandoleros’ – the journey skirts around the Sierra Nevada to Granada’s legendary Alhambra. Home to the Nasrid Kings, the Alhambra’s stage-set beauty is linked by bridge to the glorious vegetable paradise of the Generalife gardens and the royal hunting grounds. Granada is a secret city where composers like Manuel de Falla and the poet Federico Garcia Lorca evoked its beauty within the secrecy of the ‘carmen,’ orange-scented walled garden.

Turn the earth anywhere in Andalucía and ancient cultures come to the fore. The provincial capital of Jaen is built on a rock spur over thousands of acres of olive stands. Hannibal’s elephants crossed this landscape, as too did Caesar’s armies in pursuit of the remnants of Pompey’s battle weary troops.


Eastern Andalucía: Caliphs to Kingscontinued

The tour culminates with Córdoba’s Cathedral and Great Mosque that acts as a compendium of some of the greatest carved columns and capitals from Mesopotamia and the classical world. Here we meet the wisdom of the Jewish philosopher-doctor Maimonides, the luxury and unrivalled power of the Caliph Abd er Rahman III and the sheer excess of his successor Al-Hakam at his palace complex of Madinat al-Zahara. Over mint teas and sweet montilla wines, served with deep fried aubergines drizzled with honey in a 14th cent. convent, we unpick the mysteries of East Andalucía’s glorious past and its fascinating passage ‘From Caliphs to Kings.’

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 9.45am from London City Airport to Málaga. Visit the Carmen Thyssen museum with its fine collection of old masters and 19th-century Spanish painting. The lecturer leads a tapas walk this evening. First of two nights in Málaga.Day 2: Málaga. Begin at Picasso’s birthplace, which houses a small collection of his belongings and some ceramics. The Picasso Museum is magnificent, combining Phoenician ruins beneath, a fine 16th-century palace and a collection which places emphasis on his earlier works and the women in his life. There is time also to see the Alcazaba, a predominantly 11th-century Moorish construction with fine views from its terraces. The Renaissance Cathedral has a fine Baroque façade. Day 3: Granada. Drive north in the morning to Granada. Walk via the Corral de Carbon, the evocative 14th-cent. caravanserai and silk market, and visit the Casa de los Tiros, Granada’s wonderful ethnographic museum housed in the 16th palace of a converted Morisco prince. In the late afternoon visit the Cathedral and Royal Chapel, which retains Isabel of Castile’s personal collection of Flemish, Spanish and Italian paintings. First of three nights in Granada.Day 4: 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. The Carmen of the Martyrs garden was built by the Catholic monarchs in memory of the Christians that suffered under the Moorish domination. Evening performance of ‘Zambra’ Flamenco, a gypsy wedding ritual. Day 5: Granada. Morning walk through the Albayzín, the oldest quarter in town,

including El Bañuelo (Arab baths) and the elegant, hispano-moresque gardens of the Instituto de Estudios Arabes. Climb up to San Nicolás from where there are fine views of the Alhambra. The Monasterio de San Jerónimo was the first to be built after the Christian conquest and contains a dazzling altar by Gil de Siloé. There is the option to see the Palacios of the Alhambra in a different light with a late evening visit.

Day 8: Córdoba. Drive in the morning to Córdoba. The capital of Islamic Spain from the middle of the 8th century, it became the richest city in Europe until its capitulation to the Reconquistadors in 1236. A morning walk includes the narrow streets of the old Jewish quarter and the 14th-century synagogue. 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. First of two nights in Córdoba.

Day 9: Córdoba. Morning visit to the Archaeological Museum, housed in a Renaissance mansion, with a fine collection of Roman and Arab pieces. The Fine Arts Museum, with Plateresque façade and one delightful ceiling, houses some good Spanish paintings. Visit the Alcázar, mediaeval with earlier architectural remains (and good Roman mosaics). In the afternoon drive out to the excavations of Medina Azahara, with remains of a huge and luxurious 10th-century palace complex.

Day 10. Drive back to Málaga via the pretty town of Antequera. The flight arrives at London City at 7.30pm.

Practicalities

Price: £2,820 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) with British Airways (Embraer E190); private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 7 dinners (including a tapas walk), with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters, drivers, guides; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and a local guides. Single supplement £410 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,640.

Hotels: In Málaga (2 nights): Hotel Molina Lario, a functional and comfortable 4-star hotel in the centre. In Granada (3 nights): AC Palacio de Santa Paula, a 5-star hotel in a converted convent, close to the Royal Chapel; rooms are comfortable and contemporary; more comparable to a 4-star. In Úbeda (2 nights): Parador de Úbeda, a 4-star Parador in a Renaissance palace on the most handsome square in town; comfortable rooms, traditionally furnished. In Córdoba (3 nights): NH Amistad Córdoba, a 4-star hotel in a converted 18th-century mansion; a short walk from the mosque.

How strenuous? There is a lot of walking, some of it uphill and some over uneven ground. Average distance by coach per day: 36 miles.


Day 6: Jaen, Baeza. Silver deposits first attracted the Romans to settle at Jaen before it was taken by the Moors in 712. Its Renaissance cathedral was built on the site of the Great Mosque and designed by outstanding Renaissance architect, Andrés de Vandelvira. See also the 14th-cent. church of San Ildefonso and the Museo Provincial with a fine archeological collection. Drive to Baeza, once a prosperous and important town and now a provincial backwater of quiet charm. It has a 16th-century cathedral, also the work of Vandelvira, and many grand houses of an alluring light-coloured stone. Continue to Úbeda for the first of two nights.

Day 7: Úbeda. 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 while the 14th-cent. Casa Mudéjar houses the archeological museum. Sample some of the famed olive oils of the region at a lunchtime tasting. In the evening visit the 10th-cent. Sinagoga del Agua with a private performance of Sephardic music.

Málaga Cathedral, mid-19th-century engraving.

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Granada & CórdobaWith Úbeda & Baeza

10–16 March 2014 (ma 831)7 days • £2,130Lecturer: Adam Hopkins

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.

See also the small Renaissance towns of Úbeda and Baeza.

The lecturer, Adam Hopkins has written extensively on Spanish art and history.

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.

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 al-Andalus 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.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 9.45am from London City Airport to Granada. Arrive in time for an introductory walk and lecture in the hotel. First of three nights in Granada.

Day 2–6 are identical to days 3–7 of Andalucía. See page 195.

Day 7. Drive to Málaga airport via the pretty town of Antequera. The flight arrives at London City Airport at 7.30pm.

Practicalities

Price: £2,130 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (Euro Traveller) with British Airways (Embraer E190); private coach; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 4 dinners, with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer, tour manager and a local guide. Single supplement £320 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,900.

Hotels: Granada (3 nights): AC Palacio de Santa Paula, a 5-star hotel in a converted convent, close to the Royal Chapel, more comparable to a 4-star. In Córdoba (3 nights): NH Amistad Córdoba, a 4-star hotel in a converted 18th-century mansion; a short walk from the mosque.

How strenuous? There is a lot of walking, some of it uphill and some over uneven ground. Average distance by coach per day: 49 miles.


Còrdoba, La M

ezquita (mosque, cathedral), lithograph by John Frederick Lew

is, 1835.


Gastronomic AndalucíaFood, wine, art & architecture

4–11 April 2014 (ma 848)8 days • £2,960Lecturer: Gijs van Hensbergen

Journey south from Las Pedroñeras in La Mancha in a sweeping curve through Andalucía: Ubeda, 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.

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: Ubeda 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 Business Woman of the Year 2008, 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’ 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.

ItineraryDay 1: London to La Mancha. Fly at c. 9.15am 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 Ubeda has streets and squares lined with palaces, one of which is our hotel. First of two nights in Ubeda.

Day 3: Ubeda, Baeza. The twin towns of Ubeda 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 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.

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

Jerez de la Frontera, engraving 1713.

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the Prado. Dinner is at a local family-run restaurant with a private Flamenco show.

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 Seville airport for the flight to Heathrow, via Madrid, arriving c. 5.45pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,960 (deposit £300). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled flights with Iberia (Airbus A321); private coach travel throughout; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 5 lunches (including 1 ‘tasting’ lunch) and 5 dinners (including one light dinner and a tapas walk) with wine, water and coffee; all other tastings; all admission to museums and sites; all tips for waiters, drivers and guides; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £230 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,700.

Hotels. In Belmonte (1 night): Palacio Buenavista Hospedería, a rustic hotel in a 16th-century house in the old town; simple but charming. In Úbeda (2 nights): Parador de Úbeda, a 4-star Parador in a Renaissance palace on the most handsome square in town; comfortable rooms, traditionally furnished. In Seville (4 nights): Hotel Vincci la Rábida, a 4-star hotel located a short walk from the cathedral.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking over uneven ground and up and down hill (as well as an optional country walk). Some days involve a lot of driving. Average distance by coach per day: 101 miles.


Semana Santa in Spain

Holy Week in small towns of the south

14–21 April 2014 (ma 860)8 days • £2,260Lecturer: Adam Hopkins

A week of drama, devotion, crowds and fun.

The lecturer, Adam Hopkins, has written extensively on Spanish history and culture.

Based in two small towns: Carmona in Andalucía and Zafra in Extremadura.

Spends a day in Seville to see processions in this city renowned for its Easter celebrations.

Carnival in Rio, royal progresses in London, St Patrick’s Day in New York: the world is not short of good street theatre. But Holy Week in Spain is equal to any - week-long, full of strange sights and wonders, and nation-wide, embracing every town and village in the country. In a land where fewer than a quarter still go to church, the winding street

neck. Carrying the floats is a highly skilled affair demanding many weeks of practice by teams of up to sixty. Sometimes you see the porters pop out from beneath the heavy folds of textile that hide the lower parts of the float, to enjoy a smoke or a glass of beer while deputy porters pop in. It is a time for flowers, gorgeous cloths, for gleaming ecclesiastical silver work. Statues ranging from near-pop to the highest form of artistic expression are paraded through the streets in absolute confidence they will come to no harm.

And then, in the deeps of Thursday night, there comes the sorrowful climax as Christ is carried to his doom, often with spectacular expressions of grief.

Fast on the heels of which, it’s party time. Fervour gives way to bank holiday spirit and Sunday brings another climax: meat, drink and the pleasures of the countryside.

This tour is a chance to participate in the popular life of Spain, with crowds and simple comradeship, tapas, wine or coffee in very busy bars. We have chosen the south-west, from ancient Carmona and Seville with its feverish processions to the towered Templar town of Jerez de los Caballeros, well known in a humbler way for its delightfully striking processions. The plan is to get an overview of Spain in Holy Week – with lunches out, countryside and some wonderful towns and villages to visit just for the fun of it.

ItineraryDay 1: Carmona. Fly at c.10.00am from London Heathrow to Málaga and drive to Carmona. This small town runs from a castle on its summit down to one of Spain’s most splendid fortified gates. Three nights in Carmona.

Day 2: Carmona. Visit the Roman necropolis, Moorish and Christian Alcázar, built on Roman foundations, town hall with Roman mosaics and the church of Sta Maria, its courtyard that of the mosque it replaced. In the evening, the first of our processions, that of the Brotherhood of the Holy Expiration of Christ Our Lord and All-Holy Mary of the Sorrows, with most of the town’s children taking part.

Day 3: Seville. All-day trip to Andalucía’s capital and centre of Spain’s Holy Week. The Fine Arts Museum, in a tile-rich convent, has some of the finest works of Zurbarán. See something of the city’s processions. There may be time for the cathedral, one of the largest Gothic churches anywhere. Return in the early evening to Carmona.

Day 4: Llerena, Zafra. Drive across the Sierra Morena into Extremadura, stopping at Llerena. The delightful town of Zafra has two

Carmona, steel engraving 1836.

processions, the candle-lit floats with holy figures, the extraordinary costumes of the barefoot penitents, the very extravagances of devotion, seem to contain something beyond purely Christian mystery. Everybody takes part, whatever their persuasion. This is a fiesta without denominations.

Sometimes a singer will appear on a corner balcony and, when the procession pauses beneath, will launch a saeta in ancient ululations that raise the hair on the back of the


Semana Santa in Spaincontinued

peculiar and pleasing arcaded squares, one big, one small. In the evening visit Jerez de los Caballeros for the ultra-theatrical Thursday night processions, famed in this part of Spain. First of four nights in Zafra.

Day 5: Zafra. Late morning walk to the 14th-cent. Collegiate Church of Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria, with a fine altarpiece by Zurbarán. Drive into the countryside for a rustic lunch. Free afternoon in Zafra.

Day 6: Olivenza, La Albuera. Olivenza is one of the loveliest towns of this part of Spain; it was Portuguese until border readjustments following the War of the Oranges in 1801 and it bears the florid imprint of Manuelline Gothic. Good local museum and fine castle. La Albuera was scene of the most ferocious and sanguinary battle of the Peninsular War.

Day 7: Sierra de Aracena. Trip to the Sierra de Aracena, lovely low mountains rich in chestnuts and running water, dividing Extremadura from Andalucía. A chance to walk: cross-country for the habituated and plenty of cafés in Aracena for refuseniks. Easter lunch at a private finca.

Day 8: Zafra to Seville. Drive to Madrid (c. 5 hours, with refreshment breaks)and fly to London Heathrow, arriving c. 6.30pm.

Practicalities

Price: £2,260 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways and Iberia flights (Boeing 737 & Airbus 321 jet); travel by private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 3 lunches and 4 dinners (including 1 light one) with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips for drivers, waiters, guides; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £260 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,040.

Hotels: in Carmona (3 nights): Hotel Alcázar de la Reina, a functional 4-star hotel in the historic centre, comfortable but simple. In Zafra (4 nights): Casa Palacio Conde de la Corte, 4-star hotel in a converted 19th-cent. ‘casa-palacio’. The 15 rooms vary in size and outlook. There is a restaurant and library.

How strenuous? There is a lot of walking over uneven ground and through narrow, crowded streets. Expect some late nights. Average distance by coach per day: 70 miles.


Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Gastronomic Andalucía, 4–11 April (page 200); Ravenna & Urbino, 23–27 April (page 126).

Wellington in the Peninsula

22 September–4 October 2014 (mb 137)13 days • £3,340Lecturer: Patrick Mercer

Survey of Wellington’s Iberian campaign, through Portugal, Spain and into the French Pyrenees.

Key battles studied in depth, also the life of the soldier and background matters.

Led by military historian Patrick Mercer.

A long but well-paced tour with a lot of driving. Some quite demanding walking on sites. Conventional sight-seeing is left to independent time.

Ascribing the eventual downfall of Napoleon to a single event is a dubious historical exercise, but here goes: his own decision in 1807, when he was at the height of his power, to plug the gap in the blockade which excluded British shipping from continental Europe.

The gap was Portugal, Great Britain’s long-time ally and trading partner. Marching French troops to Portugal through a hitherto submissive Spain provoked the Spanish people into bitter revolt, and Britain, seeing a relatively low-risk way of causing discomfort to France, committed troops to the Iberian Peninsula.

That the British would hang on in there for six years until they swept the French over the Pyrenees and defeated them in France itself was anticipated by no one – not Napoleon, because he was used to quick and decisive victories, nor the British, because there was fierce opposition to the war in Parliament and sustained criticism of the campaign in the country.

Nevertheless, the British under Wellington never lost a major battle, and, aided by

Spanish guerillas, succeeded in tying down huge numbers of French troops and infecting Napoleon with his ‘Spanish ulcer’. Wellington developed a range of tactics which amounted to the elixir of success which had eluded Napoleon’s other opponents, and emerged as the only general of the Napoleonic Wars to rival Bonaparte himself for military genius. A master both of battlefield tactics and long-term strategy, he had an extraordinary capacity for logistical and administrative detail and for cool-headedness. And by chipping away for so long without significant reverse, he gave heart to the conquered and cowering capitals elsewhere in Europe.

The War also has a significance for British history beyond its immediate achievements. The prestige of her armies had been at a low ebb after a century with few moments of glory and quite a lot of embarrassments. Indeed, England had not been considered internationally as a significant military power since the loss of French territories in the fifteenth century. The Peninsular War changed all that. Here at last was a saga of sustained success, albeit with some setbacks, and of great deeds of valour, albeit with episodes of barbarity and indiscipline. And, ultimately, there was victory, as has tended to be the case, by and large, ever since.

As a group, the battlefields of the Peninsula constitute the most dramatic and illuminating of the redcoat era. They are spread across an extraordinary variety of terrain and climate, from sun-baked plains to misty mountain passes. This tour will provide vistas of breath-taking beauty, and cities and villages which have scarcely changed in two hundred years.

Battle of the Pyrenees, wood engraving c. 1860.

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ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 11.45am from London Gatwick to Porto. Drive to the hotel in the forest of Buçaco, a former summer retreat for the Portuguese royal family. First of two nights in Buçaco.

Day 2: Buçaco. In the forest visit the museum commemorating the Battle of Buçaco, scene of Wellington’s great delaying action during his retreat to Torres Vedras. See also Craufurd’s Mill and the French view from Massena’s hill. There is an optional visit to Wellington’s command post or some free time to explore the grounds of the hotel.

Day 3: Roliça, Vimeiro, Torres Vedras, Badajoz (Spain). The long drive today heads south to Roliça and Vimeiro, sites of the British Army’s first two battles in the Peninsula. Continue to Torres Vedras; Wellington’s strategic masterpiece, a chain of hilltop fortresses used in 1810 as lines of defence. Cross the border into Spain to the frontier town of Badajoz for the first of two nights.

Day 4: Badajoz, La Albuera. The ramparts of Badajoz which provided formidable protection for the French are still intact. The siege ended at tremendous cost with their storming by the British on the night of 6th April 1812, and the army went berserk for 72 hours afterwards. On 16th May 1811 at La Albuera, 15 miles away, was the bloodiest of the major battles; it remains one of the great unspoilt battlefields in the Peninsula.

Day 5: Alcántara, Ciudad Rodrigo. Head north via the Roman bridge in the village of Alcántara. Cross the Sierra de Gata, dividing line between Extremadura and Castilla-León, to Ciudad Rodrigo. Tour the defences, stormed on the night of 19th January 1812. Overnight Ciudad Rodrigo.

Day 6: Fort Concepción, Fuentes de Oñoro, Almeida (Portugal). Explore the remarkable remains of the Fort Concepción, attacked by the British in 1810. On the border with Portugal lies Fuentes de Oñoro, site of a hard-fought battle in early May 1811. Visit the fortress town of Almeida, badly damaged in August 1810 by a huge explosion in the arsenal. Back in Spain, cross the meseta to the city of Salamanca for the first of three nights.

Day 7: Salamanca. The Battle of Salamanca, 22 July 1812, was one of Wellington’s greatest victories. Tour the battlefield in depth, beginning at Miranda de Azán before climbing the Greater Arapil for a grandstand view of the site. In the afternoon visit Garcihernández, scene of the great cavalry charge of the King’s German Legion.

Day 8: Salamanca. Free day in Salamanca, a city architecturally endowed beyond all proportion to its size with two cathedrals, Spain’s oldest university, the most beautiful and animated main square on the Peninsula and countless convents, monasteries and palaces.

Day 9: Burgos, Vitoria. Drive to Burgos, early capital of Castile, with one of Spain’s finest Gothic cathedrals. Visit the remains of the hill-top castle, scene of Wellington’s only major setback in the Peninsula. Overnight Vitoria.

Day 10: Vitoria. Tactically perhaps Wellington’s most brilliant battle, the Battle of Vitoria on 21 June 1813 effectively decided the outcome of the war. It also brought about for the first time Napoleon’s acknowledgement that the Allies had a general who was as good as any he could muster, and news of the victory precipitated the end of the truce in Central Europe and hence to the defeat of the French at Leipzig in October. Drive across the Basque Country and into the foothills of the Pyrenees. Stop at Cadoux’s bridge, scene of the desperate battle on 31st August 1813. First of three nights in Bera (Vera) de Bidasoa.

Day 11: Battles of the Nivelle and Pyrenees. A day dedicated to two battles. Travel by cogwheel railway to the top of the Rhune mountain and from here study the Battle of the Nivelle of 10th November 1813. In the afternoon examine the Battle of the Pyrenees beginning at the Otxondo Pass, walking above the Maia Valley.

Day 12: Battle of the Nive. Drive to the site of Wellington’s crossing of the River Bidasoa on 7 October 1813 and the invasion of France. See graves at Bidart and Arcangues. In the afternoon, study the Battle of the Nive, 10–13th December 1813, from an outlook at Mouguerre.

Day 13: Bayonne (France). Bayonne is an attractive town with good defences, a cathedral and a Guards Regiment cemetery. Drive to Bordeaux for the flight to London Gatwick, arriving c. 5.00pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £3,340 (deposit £300). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled flights, outbound with Air Portugal (TAP) and inbound with British Airways (aircraft: Airbus 319 and Boeing 737); travel by private coach throughout; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 2 lunches (including one picnic) and 9 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips for drivers and waiters; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £310 (double room for single occupancy). Suite supplement in Bera £60 (based on two sharing only). Price without flights £3,170.

Hotels: in Buçaco (2 nights): Buçaco Palace, rated locally as 5-star, one of the great hotels of Portugal in a turn-of-the-century palace. In Badajoz (2 nights): Hotel Zurbarán, a functional 4-star in the centre of town with adequately comfortable rooms. In Ciudad Rodrigo (1 night): Parador Ciudad Rodrigo, 4-star parador installed in a 14th-century castle with splendid public areas. In Salamanca (3 nights): NH Palacio de Castellanos, attractive 4-star hotel in a converted palace in the historic centre, a short walk from the major monuments. In Vitoria (1 night): Hotel Ciudad de Vitoria, a stylish 4-star hotel, a short walk from the centre of town. In Bera de Bidasoa (3 nights): Hotel Churrut, a 3-star hotel installed in an 18th-century military building; family owned and managed with 17 spacious rooms; well-furnished and comfortable sitting areas. The majority of included dinners are in the hotels.

How strenuous? This is a long tour involving six hotels and a lot of walking, some of it across uneven, countryside terrain and uphill. Fitness and sure-footedness are essential. There is also a fair amount of standing around on site. Transfer days involve lengthy coach journeys. Average coach travel per day: c. 100 miles.


Opera in DrottningholmAugust 2014Details available in February 2014Contact us to register your interest

Spa in

France

Porto

Buçaco

Badajoz

Ciudad RodrigoSalamanca

VitoriaBera de Bidasoa

MoroccoAlger i a

Por tuga l

c. 50 miles

From Portugal to the Pyrenees

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The Lucerne FestivalMusic in Switzerland

30 August–4 September 2014 (ma 993)6 days • £3,410 (including tickets for 7 concerts)Lecturer: Professor Stephen Walsh

A summer music festival of the first rank in the loveliest of Swiss cities.

Orchestras include the Berlin Philharmonic, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra.

Conductors are Sir Simon Rattle, Andris Nelsons and Valery Gergiev and among the soloists Mark Padmore, Rudolf Buchbinder and Robert Holl.

Led by musicologist Professor Stephen Walsh, who gives daily talks on the concerts.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 9.40am from London Heathrow to Zurich. Drive to Lucerne, a lively, historic city amidst lake and mountain. Early evening dinner followed by concert at the KKL with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons (conductor) and Rudolf Buchbinder (piano): Beethoven, Piano Concerto No.5; Elgar, Symphony No.2.

Day 2. Morning concert at the KKL with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons (conductor) and Klaus Florian Vogt (tenor): Wagner, extracts from ‘Parsifal’ and ‘Lohengrin’. Lunch is followed by a walking tour of Lucerne (Part I), starting at the oldest road bridge in Europe, the richly decorated Chapel Bridge, and continuing to the Spreuerbrücke, another historic covered bridge

notable for its ‘Dance of Death’ roof panels. See the Rococo interior of the huge Jesuit Church and the 13th-century Franciscan Church. Some free time before the evening concert with the Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra, Valery Gergiev (conductor), Daniil Trifonov (piano): Wagner, Overture from ‘Lohengrin’; Chopin, Piano Concerto No.1; Tchaikovsky, Symphony No.6.

Day 3. The village of Beromünster has an 11th-century church containing fine carved choir stalls and altar frontals and a rare collection of mediaeval church treasures, some dating from the 7th–century. Return to Lucerne for lunch. Concert at the Lukaskirche with the Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival Ensemble, Robert Holl (bass-baritone): Mozart, Piano Quartets No.1 and No.2; Gideon Klein, String Trio; selected Lieder by Hans Kràsa and Viktor Ullmann.

Day 4. Free morning in Lucerne, a chance to visit the Sammlung Rosengart, an extraordinary collection devoted to 20th-century art including many works by Picasso. Midday concert at the Casineum with Tine Thing Helseth (trumpet) and Gunnar Flagstad (piano). Lunch and some free time before the first evening concert with the Berlin Philharmonic, Sir Simon Rattle (conductor): Rachmaninoff, ‘Symphonic Dances’; Stravinsky, ‘The Firebird’.

Day 5. Walking tour of Lucerne (Part II) starting at the Hofkirche, a 17th-century church with a lovely Italianate cloister and two Romanesque towers. Visit the city’s chief 19th–century monuments including the famous Löwendenkmal, a great lion-statue hewn from a cliff-face in 1821 in honour of Swiss mercenaries killed in the French Revolution, and the Bourbaki Panorama, a giant circular mural depicting events of the Franco-Prussian

War of 1870. Optional afternoon visit to Richard Wagner’s home on a headland by the lake where the composer spent some of his happiest years. In the evening a second concert with the Berlin Philharmonic, Sir Simon Rattle (conductor), Camilla Tilling (soprano), Magdalena Kožena (mezzo-soprano), Mark Padmore (tenor), Topi Lehtipuu (tenor), Christian Gerhaher (bass), Eric Owens (bass): Bach, St Matthew Passion.

Day 6. Drive to Zurich Airport for the flight to London Heathrow, arriving c. 2.15pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £3,410 (deposit £300). This includes: tickets for 7 concerts costing c. £1,100; flights (economy class) with British Airways (Airbus 319); private coach travel; breakfasts, 3 lunches, 2 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions to museums, etc.; all tips for drivers, restaurant staff and local guides; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £150 (room with single bed) or £370 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £3,260.

Music tickets: to be confirmed, February 2014.

Hotel: The Romantik Hotel Wilden Mann is a 4-star hotel dating back to the 13th century located in the historic town centre. All double rooms in the hotel have two single mattresses on one bed frame, as is the usual style in Switzerland. Single rooms have a single mattress. Doubles for sole use can be requested, subject to availability and for a supplement.

How strenuous? Some walking is essential. The concert hall is half a mile from the hotel.


The Lucerne Piano FestivalNovember 2014Details available in January 2014Contact us to register your interest

Performers to include: Maurizio Pollini, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Leif-Ove Andsnes and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.

Lucerne, engraving from Incidents of Travel & Sketches of Remarkable Places, 1875.


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IstanbulByzantine & Ottoman metropolis

29 September–5 October 2014 (mb 144)7 days • £2,540Lecturer: Sue Rollin

An extraordinarily diverse city: Roman remains; Byzantine buildings; glorious mosaics and frescoes; Ottoman mosques and palaces.

Stay in the heart of the Sultanahmet.

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 Christianity.

The city walls were the most powerful in the western world, and while the Byzantine empire gradually shrank before the onslaughts of Persians and 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.

Itinerary

Day 1. Fly at 11.30am from London Heathrow to Istanbul. Arrive early evening and drive to the historic quarter of Sultanahmet.

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 6th-century church which is the chief monument of Christian Byzantium. The ornamental pavement belonging to 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 Camii (St Saviour in Chora) possesses the finest assemblage of Byzantine mosaics and frescoes to survive anywhere.

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 4. Sultan Ahmet Camii (Blue Mosque) is the last of Istanbul’s imperial mosques.

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 to see an important Islamic shrine. Continue along the massive Byzantine land walls to the Yediküle Fortress. Fly from Istanbul to Heathrow, arriving c. 3.15pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £2,540 (deposit £250). This includes: flights (economy class) with Turkish Airlines; (Airbus 310, Boeing 737); travel by private coach and boat; accommodation; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 5 dinners with wine, water, coffee;

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 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 Beylerbei Palace, an imperial

all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and a Turkish guide. Single supplement £290 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,270.

Hotel: Hotel Eresin Crown, an elegant hotel, locally rated as 5-star, in the heart of the Sultanahmet close to the Blue Mosque. Rooms are spacious, stylish and well equipped. It has a roof terrace with views of the Bosphorous.

Visa: British nationals need a visa. This is obtained upon arrival at the airport and currently costs £10 (not included in the tour price). Nationals of other countries should check their requirements.

How strenuous? You will be on your feet a lot, walking and standing around. Istanbul is quite hilly and not suitable for anyone with difficulties with everyday walking and stairclimbing.


Istanbul, the Golden Horn, from a drawing c. 1890.

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Eastern Turkey Archaeology, architecture, history & landscapes

10–25 May 2014 (ma 890)16 days • £4,270Lecturer: Rowena Loverance

4–19 October 2014 (mb 160)16 days • £4,270Lecturer: 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.

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

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.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at 12 midday 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 12th-century 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. 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 working monastery. The Church of the Mother of God at Anitli is little visited but with its octagonal church and intricate stone-carving is one of the most beautiful in the Tur Abdin. Overnight Mardin.

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

Kars, steel engraving c. 1840.

The majestic scenery of eastern Anatolia is the setting for this ambitious tour, which, while remaining firmly within the borders of modern-day 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 for

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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. 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 the hotel at c. 5.00pm. Spend the first of three nights at Lake Van. Day 8: Akdamar Island. Take a boat to the gorgeous 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 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. Day 10: Mount Ararat, Kars. Drive through the Artüs Mountain range toward the Iranian border, to the İshak Paşa Palace positioned 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. Overnight Kars.

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. Cross the river over the beautiful six-arched Çobandede bridge. 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. Overnight Erzurum.

Day 14: From 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 14th-century frescoes. In Trabzon, visit the beautiful late-Byzantine church of Aya Sophia, with 13th-century frescoes and frieze. Overnight Trabzon.

Day 16: Fly from Trabzon (via Istanbul) arriving Heathrow at c. 3.15pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £4,270 (deposit £400). This includes: all air travel (economy class) on scheduled Turkish airline flights (aircraft: Boeing 737–800); private coach for all other journeys; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 13 lunches (including one picnic) and 14 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; tips for restaurant staff, guides, drivers; airport and state taxes; the services of the lecturer and local guide. Single supplement £410. Price without flights £3,940 (please note that if you take the ‘no flights’ option you do not need to book the Diyarbakir-Van flight).

Visa: British nationals need a visa, which is obtained upon arrival at the airport and currently costs £10 (not included in the tour price). Nationals of other countries should check their requirements.

Hotels. In Gaziantep (1 night): Tugcan Hotel, a large international, charmless but comfortable hotel. Şanliurfa (2 nights): Hotel Manici, a boutique hotel within walking distance of the Citadel. In Mardin (2 nights): Zinciriye Hotel, a 4-star hotel in the centre of town with well-equipped and comfortable rooms. In Diyarbakir (1 night): Hotel Büyük Kurvansaray, a converted Caravanserai with magnificent basalt-stone courtyard. In Van (3 nights): Rescate Hotel, a new five star hotel set back from the shores of Lake Van; bedrooms are spacious with views of the lake. In Kars (2 nights): Hotel Simer, a 3-star hotel, friendly but basic; the best available. In Erzurum (2 nights): Hotel Polat Renaissance, a 5-star hotel with all expected amenities in the mountains above Erzurum. In Trabzon (2 nights): Zorlu Grand Hotel, a 4-star hotel with roof-top restaurant and views of the Black Sea.

How strenuous? A long and demanding tour with some early starts and days with a lot of coach travel (but roads are good and the coach carries refreshments). Participants should be able to manage everyday walking and stairclimbing without difficulty. Archaeological sites involve scrambling over rough terrain and surefootedness is essential. The average distance by coach per day is c. 71 miles.


Possible linking tours. Combine the May departure of this tour with Walking in Northern Tuscany, 2–9 May (page 129). Combine the October departure with Israel & Palestine, 21–30 October (page 110).

‘I thought this trip was outstanding, in conception, input and execution.’

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Classical TurkeyGreeks & Romans in Anatolia

7–16 April 2014 (ma 853)10 days • £3,390Lecturer: Dr Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

The most prosperous region of the ancient Mediterranean world.

The finest collection of Hellenistic and Roman city ruins to be found anywhere.

Accompanied by leading classicists.

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.

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 civilization-builders 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 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.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 11.25am 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 steep-sided 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.

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.

Day 4: Ephesus. Drive south to Ephesus, 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.

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 the coastal town of Kusadasi.

Day 7: Aphrodisias. Leave the coast and drive into the interior of Anatolia.

Miletus, steel engraving c. 1860.

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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 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 (stay three nights here).

Day 8: Antalya. Founded by (and named after) Attalus II of Pergamum, Antalya was the principal port in Pamphylia in ancient and Byzantine times. After a free morning the afternoon is spent exploring the old town with its restored Ottoman period houses.

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, covering prehistory to Ottoman.

Day 10. Fly from Antalya (via Istanbul) arriving Heathrow c. 3.15pm.

PracticalitiesPrice: £3,390 (deposit £300). This includes: flights (economy class) with Turkish Airlines (Airbus A330, Boeing 738); travel by private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 8 lunches (some are picnics) and 8 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and of a Turkish guide. Single supplement £360. Price without all flights £3,060.

Hotels: Izmir (3 nights): Hilton Izmir, a large, modern 5-star hotel overlooking the Citadel and old port. Kusadasi (3 nights): Kismet Hotel, an old-fashioned yet elegant 4-star hotel, rooms have balconies and views across the Aegean. Antalya (3 nights): Tuavana Hotel, a beautiful converted traditional house now a boutique hotel within the old city walls.

Visa: British nationals need a visa, obtained on arrival at the airport. Current cost £10 (not included in the tour price). Nationals of other countries should check their requirements.

How strenuous? This tour covers long distances by coach and much of the walking is over rough ground at sites which requires agility and stamina. There are three hotel changes. Average distance by coach per day: 80 miles.

Small group: betweeen 12 and 22 participants.

Connoisseur’s New York

In-depth & behind the scenes

30 September–8 October 2014 (mb 139)8 nights • £4,710Lecturer: Gijs van Hensbergen

Appealing for both the first-time visitor and those with a degree of familiarity.

Wide-ranging visits including galleries, museums, libraries, parks, embassy and architectural walks.

A day is spent outside New York at the Rockefeller Estate in the Hudson Valley and Philip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut.

Special access is a feature including a visit to MoMA when it is closed to the public.

In 1870, at the launch of the Metropolitan Museum, speaker Joseph Choate called for his wealthy audience to do their patriotic duty by turning ‘pork into porcelain’. Little could he know that two generations later it would be transformed into the greatest museum in the world. Prior to the American Civil War (1861–65), the old New Amsterdam ‘patroons’ and the new merchant élite had bought into the charms of the Hudson River school; seen best, and exclusively, in the archives of the New York Historical Society. After the war collectors moved in on the Barbizon school, pioneered support for the Impressionists, and gradually New York became synonymous with the avant-garde.

‘Connoisseur’s New York’ recognises that the Empire City has created an entire cultural

Park Avenue from

New

York is Like This 1929.

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Connoisseur’s New Yorkcontinued

universe that is best understood when viewed with world experts and with the luxury of the private view. Just prior to the First World War J.P. Morgan shipped his collection back to New York. Taking a year to pack – it had filled the entire basement of the V&A – it finally found its home in his renaissance-style mid-town palace. The curators at the Morgan Library can pull out a Gutenberg Bible, a Folio Shakespeare, a tenth-century hispano-arab Codex or the Très Riches Heures.

The Gilded Age, or the age of the Robber Baron, built its regal aspirations to connoisseurship on the blood and sweat of a million lives. There is nothing so poignant as the dramatic contrast between the Lower East Side Tenement Museum and Henry Clay Frick’s five ravishing Vermeers, or as revealing of the city’s diversity as a walk through Chelsea, with all the latest ‘hot’ warehouse galleries such as Gagosian and Boone. When the Rockefellers took to art, there was enough money and range of taste within one New York ‘tribe’ to supply a patron for the mediaeval Cloisters, to create a gallery of Oceanic art at the Met, or to provide a founder of the Museum of Modern Art. A private view at MoMA guides us through the world’s ‘exemplary’ collection. Art Deco skyscrapers lead us through vertiginous views to Grand Central’s Oyster Bar. The plaza that now fills the immense vacuum left at Ground Zero reflects New York’s grit and resilience.

Central Park – a verdant urban paradise – prepares us for a day’s escape to the Hudson Valley with a view of the Rockefellers’ hilltop estate, Kykuit. Perhaps most moving of all is Philip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaan. This autobiography in three dimensions comprises a dozen buildings that skilfully essay the history of twentieth-century architecture from Mies van der Rohe to Frank Gehry.

ItineraryDay 1: fly at c. 11.30am from London Heathrow to New York, JFK, arriving c. 2.00pm (time in the air: c. 7 hours 10 minutes). Time to settle into the hotel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side before an early dinner.

Day 2: Upper West & Upper East. Walk to the New York Historical Society; founded in 1804 it was the city’s first museum and is the logical place to begin. The visit includes the library and paintings of the Hudson River School. Walk across Central Park to the Upper East Side. A special visit to the Payne Whitney Mansion, now the French Embassy, with opulent interiors and sculpture by Michelangelo (subject to confirmation). On nearby Fifth Avenue is the Frick, the salubrious mansion housing a small but brilliant collection of paintings.

Day 3: the Met. The day is dedicated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Guided tours of the Greek and Roman galleries and excellent 19th-century galleries are interspersed with free time for independent viewing.

Day 4: Lower Manhattan, Lower East. A morning walk in Lower Manhattan’s Financial District and Ground Zero before visiting the Tenement Museum to trace the story of the city’s settlers.

Day 5: Hudson Valley, New Canaan. The Rockefeller Estate at Kycuit has fine views of the river valley and Catskill Mountains beyond. The tour provides an insight into the tastes and wants of the family. Cross into Connecticut to the recently restored Glass House (Philip Johnson, 1949). The tour here studies the architecture, art and sculpture collections, in its beautiful woodland setting.

Day 6: Washington Heights. The Cloisters is set in a tranquil part of north Manhattan overlooking the Hudson River. A branch of the Met and devoted to the Middle Ages, it incorporates arcades from five cloisters and

later by Renzo Piano. Some free time before driving to JFK airport for the evening flight to London Heathrow.

Day 10: arrive London Heathrow at c. 7.30am.

PracticalitiesPrice: £4,710 (£400 deposit). This includes: flights (World Traveller) with British Airways (Boeing 747); private coach for transfers; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 3 lunches and 4 dinners (plus aircraft meals) with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes (federal, state, city, airport); the services of the lecturer and local guides. Single supplement £520 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £4,150.

Hotel: on the Upper West Side in an attractive neighbourhood, The Lucerne is a short walk from the New York Historical Society, Central Park and numerous restaurants. Traditionally furnished with very comfortable beds. Good brasserie-style restaurant adjacent. Suites can be requested; contact us for a quote.

Mid-town New York, after a watercolour 1929.

other salvaged architecture, and is a marvellous home for sculpture, tapestries, stained glass and panel paintings. Continue to the Hispanic Society of America, one of the greatest collections of Spanish art outside Iberia.

Day 7: Midtown, MoMA. On foot in Midtown with a local architectural historian, from the UN Headquarters through the city’s scrapers to Grand Central Station, which celebrated its centenary in 2013. The Museum of Modern Art for an after-hours visit of the greatest collections of 20th-century art.

Day 9: Murray Hill. In Murray Hill is the Pierpont Morgan Library, former office of the financier and home to his immense collection of books, manuscripts and artworks. Completed in 1906 the building was overhauled a century

Additional arrangements. We can request flight upgrades to World Traveller Plus, Club or First Class. We can request extra hotel nights at the end of the tour and delay your return flight. There is a fee for making these changes.

Visas: British citizens can enter the USA without a visa providing they apply for the visa waiver online and have a machine-readable passport. The current charge is $14. We will advise on this.

How strenuous? New York is vast, busy and chaotic. You should be prepared to walk for 30 minutes at a time and to stand around in museums. Fitness and stamina are essential.

Opera tickets may be offered nearer the time.


‘The choice of itinerary, the lecturer and tour manager, the hotel and the administration before the tour were excellent.’

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Santa Fe OperaSummer music in the mountains of New Mexico

3–11 August 2014 (ma 985)8 nights • £4,980 (including 4 opera tickets)Lecturer: Richard Wigmore

One of the world’s great summer opera festivals in the spectacular setting of the New Mexico mountains.

The line-up for 2014: Fidelio (Beethoven); Bizet’s Carmen with Anna Caterina Antonacci; Brenda Rae in Mozart’s The Impresario with Stravinsky’s Le Rossignol and Andrew Shore in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale.

There is also the option of attending the American première of Dr Sun Yat-sen, by Huang Ruo.

Santa Fe is small, charming, colourful; our hotel comfortable; visits around the performances include some of the excellent museums, galleries and historic sites; we allow time to acclimatise before the first opera.

The lecturer is music writer and BBC Radio 3 broadcaster, Richard Wigmore.

Established in 1957, Santa Fe Opera was the brainchild of New York conductor John Crosby, who felt a home-grown opera company would provide a fertile training ground for young American talent – as well as the ideal complement to Santa Fe’s celebrated arts scene.

From the start, the company attracted exceptional musicians – Stravinsky conducted and directed here in the 50s – and, over the years, has developed an international reputation for premiering new work and mounting innovative productions of the classic repertoire. Its ‘Apprentice Programme’ has now trained over 1,500 opera singers, including stars such as Joyce DiDonato and James Morris.

We see all the major productions of the 2014 season: Beethoven’s Fidelio, Bizet’s Carmen, a double bill of Mozart’s The Impresario and Stravinsky’s Le Rossignol and Donizetti’s Don Pasquale. Dr Sun Yat-sen, an exhilarating new work by Chinese composer, Huang Ruo, is an optional extra. Our lecturer introduces the performances through a series of talks. The evenings are further enhanced by the opera house itself. Now in its third incarnation, it is open to the sides linking the audience with the landscape beyond. Glimpsing the setting sun over the desert foothills of the Sangre de Cristo mountains is yet another highlight.

The small town of Santa Fe shares this backdrop of rolling hills and shadowed peaks, and its green and pleasant streets are celebrated for their sophisticated mix of galleries and boutiques, as well as for some of the oldest buildings in the United States. Colonised by

the Spanish in the early seventeenth century, recaptured by the native Pueblo Indians in 1680, ruled by Mexico following their War of Independence and finally becoming part of the United States in 1846, the city’s museums tell a fascinating story.

We stay in a comfortable hotel in the centre of town, and a fifteen-minute drive to the opera house. From here there is a gentle programme of visits and excursions, including a journey deep into the surrounding countryside to see the cliff-dwellings at the Bandelier National Monument.

ItineraryDay 1: London to Santa Fe. Fly at c. 11.45am from Heathrow to Dallas Fort Worth (time in air: c. 9 hours) and connect to a flight to Albuquerque, New Mexico (1 hour 30 minutes). Drive north from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, arriving c. 9.30pm. Supper is served in your room.

Day 2. A leisurely start to the tour with a 10.00am lecture to introduce the festival. Walk from the hotel to the main plaza, the historic and contemporary hub of Santa Fe. Visit the low-slung, adobe Palace of the Governors, from where Spain controlled the American south-west in the 17th century. Adjacent is the New Mexico Museum of History which gives an excellent overview from Spanish colonisation to the creation of the atom bomb. The afternoon is free for rest or further exploration.

Day 3. Morning lecture on tonight’s performance. Walk to the New Mexico Museum of Art, a wide-ranging collection but particularly good for landscapes of the region. There is the option of continuing to the museum of Santa Fe’s most celebrated artist, Georgia O’Keeffe. The afternoon is free until dinner at 5.00pm. Evening opera: Fidelio (Beethoven) with Harry Bicket (conductor), Stephen Wadsworth (director). Alex Penda (Leonore), Paul Groves (Florestan), Greer Grimsley (Don Pizarro), Manfred Hemm (Rocco), Devon Guthrie (Marzelline), Evan Hughes (Don Fernando).Day 4. Morning lecture. Optional excursion to Museum Hill. Of the four museums here, we recommend visiting the collection dedicated to Indian arts and culture, and the Museum of International Folk Art (visits are not guided).Return to the hotel for some free time. Late afternoon, drive to the opera house for a backstage tour (this is a public tour) followed by buffet dinner. Evening opera: Carmen (Bizet) with Rory Macdonald (conductor), Stephen Lawless (director). Anna Caterina Antonacci (Carmen), Roberto De Biasio (Don Jose), Kostas Smoriginas (Escamillo), Joyce El-Khoury (Micaela), Evan Hughes (Zuniga), Noah Baetge (El Remendado).Day 5. Walk to Canyon Road, an attractive avenue of commercial galleries, some of them renowned dealers in fine arts. Also here is the adobe San Miguel Mission church, built by Tlaxcalan Indians from Mexico in the early

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Frank Lloyd Wright

Fallingwater, photograph courtesy of W

estern Pensylvania Conservancy.

1600s. Lunch is included before returning to the hotel for some free time. Lecture on tonight’s performance before driving to the opera house. Opera, double bill: The Impresario (Mozart) and Le Rossignol (Stravinsky) with Evan Rogister (conductor), Michael Gieleta (director). Erin Morley (Mme. Tintement/The Nightingale), Brenda Rae (Mme. Popescu/The Cook), Bruce Sledge (Herr Puff/The Fisherman), Impresario and The Emperor to be announced, Meredith Arwady (Fraulein Krone/Death).

Day 6. Drive at 8.00am into the increasingly remote and beautiful landscape of the Sangre de Cristo mountains. In a wooded canyon at the Bandelier National Monument visit the cliff dwellings and village remains of the Ancestral Pueblo people – resident here until around 1550 (c. 1¼ mile trail on foot). The afternoon is free back in Santa Fe. Suggestions include the various commercial galleries and installation spaces in the recently revamped ‘Railyard District’. Optional opera: Dr Sun Yat-sen (Huang Ruo, American première) with Carolyn Kuan (conductor), James Robinson (director). Warren Mok (Sun Yat-sen), Corrine Winters (Soon Ching-ling), Mary Ann McCormick (Ni), Dong-Jian Gong (Charlie Soong), Chen-Ye Yuan (Mr Imeya).

Day 7. The day is free until the 3.30pm lecture. Dinner before leaving for the opera house. Evening opera: Don Pasquale (Donizetti) with Corrado Rovaris (conductor), Laurent Pelly (director & costume design). Laura Tatulescu

(Norina), Alek Shrader (Ernesto), Dr Malatesta to be announced, Andrew Shore (Don Pasquale).

Day 8. Morning departure for Albuquerque Airport for the flight to Dallas. Connect to the flight to London Heathrow (departing Dallas Fort Worth c. 6.45pm; time in air c. 8 hours).

Day 9. Arrive London Heathrow c. 9.30am.

PracticalitiesPrice: £4,980 (deposit £400). This includes: good tickets for four operas costing c. £550; flights (World Traveller) with British Airways and American Airlines (Boeing 747; MCD Douglas MD80); travel by private coach; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 1 lunch, 1 light evening meal and 5 dinners with wine, water, coffee (1 is a buffet) (plus meals on flights); all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer with some use of local guides. Price without flights £3,820.

Hotel room supplementsSuperior room for 2 people sharing £150 per room (original 1930s artist bungalow; more charm, with patio). Single supplements: £490 (double room for single occupancy; modern and spacious) or £640 (as per the superior room above). We can also request a single room at a supplement of £290. These are known as ‘Artist Studios’ and are small, with limited (or even inadequate) storage and do not always have a desk and chair. Contact us if you would like to book this.

Visas: British citizens can enter the USA without a visa providing they apply for the visa waiver online and have a machine-readable passport. The current charge is $14.

Hotel: La Posada de Santa Fe is a well presented and comfortable hotel in the centre of town. Public rooms are in the 19th-century house with all bedrooms in the surrounding adobe-style bungalows (a few have two storeys). Furnishings are generally south-western in design with a rustic feel: painted walls; colourful textiles; leather upholstery, but rooms differ in size – see ‘price’. There are patios and a garden, a bar, library/sitting room, two restaurants, a small outdoor pool and spa. Service is willing, but not always as fast as one might expect of the USA.

How strenuous? The journey to Santa Fe (from the UK) is tiring and the high altitude (7,000ft) and summer heat can exacerbate this (although the heat is dry and it is cooler at night). The programme of visits is not intended to be taxing but a good level of fitness is required. Daytime temperatures average 28ºC (82 ºF); evening temperatures 12ºC (54ºF). Average distance by coach each day: 33 miles.

Opera tickets. To be confirmed in January 2014. The cost for Dr Sun Yat-sen is £130.

Upgrades: we can request flight upgrades; prices subject to availability.


31 May–10 June 2014 (ma 918)This tour is currently full


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.

Santa Fe Operacontinued

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Art in TexasOutstanding collections in city & desert

19 February–2 March 2014 (ma 818)11 nights • £4,970Lecturer: Gijs van Hensbergen

World class collections of art and sculpture, public and private, housed 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; to tiny Marfa, way out west in the desert; alongside the Rio Grande to prettified San Antonio; to end in Dallas, the home of hospitality and a terrific arts scene.

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,

Engraving 1891 after a painting by Frederick Remington (1861–1909).

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 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.

ItineraryDay 1: London to Houston. Fly at c. 2.30pm from London Heathrow to Houston, arriving c. 6.30pm 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. The morning is spent 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 too 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.


Art in Texascontinued

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, 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. Evening visit to Judd’s home and his library (by arrangement). First of two nights in Marfa.Day 5: Marfa, the Chinati Foundation. 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 deepest countryside to bordertown Del Rio and then to San Antonio (journey time: c. ten hours with several refreshment breaks). Arrive San Antonio c. 6.00pm. First of two nights in San Antonio.Day 7: San Antonio. The McNay was the first 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. Guided tour of the nearby Botanical Garden which well represents the diverse ecology of Texas. Free time to visit The Alamo, of Davy Crockett fame, and the Cathedral, where Crockett is buried. Day 8: Austin, Dallas. Drive north via Austin, a major university city and the 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 early evening. First of three nights in Dallas.

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, Hepworth, and a ‘skyspace’ by James Turrell in the gardens. Some free time – the Asian Art Museum is a possibility. Overnight Dallas.

Day 10: Fort Worth, Dallas. The day is spent 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. Arrive London Heathrow at c. 7.30am.

PracticalitiesPrice: £4,970 (deposit £450). This includes: international flights (World Traveller) with British Airways (Boeing 747 & 777) and a further flight between Houston and Midland with United Airlines (Canadair Regional Jet 200); private coach for all transfers and excursions; accommodation; breakfasts, 4 lunches and 7 dinners with wine, water, coffee (plus meals on flights); all admissions and donations; all tips; all taxes (federal, state, city and airport); the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £530 (double room for sole use). Price without international flights £4,390.

Visas: British citizens can enter the USA without a visa providing they apply for the visa waiver online and have a machine-readable passport. The current charge is $14. We will advise on this.

Hotels. Houston (3 nights): Hotel Zaza is a contemporary hotel next door to the Fine Arts Museum; rooms are smaller than the norm in the US; good restaurant. Marfa (2

nights): the Hotel El Paisano, built in 1930 in colonial style and the focal point of town; lots of charm and quirkiness and faded in parts. San Antonio (2 nights): the Omni Mansión del Rio is an attractive hotel in colonial style, well located on the River Walk. Dallas (3 nights): The Rosewood Crescent is a comfortable hotel in Uptown Dallas with spacious bedrooms, restaurant and terrace.

How strenuous? A long tour with a lot of travelling and a significant time difference to contend with. A fair amount of walking and standing around in museums. Fitness and stamina are essential. Average coach travel per day: 62 miles.

Music. There may be an opportunity to attend an opera, concert or play in Dallas. Programmes will be sent nearer the time.

Small group. between 14 and 22 participants.

West Coast Architecture1–13 September 2014 (mb 100)This tour is currently full


The whole gamut of architecture, 1908 onwards, some of it usually closed to the public.

Begin at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona, and end at his Hanna House in Stanford, California.

Louis Kahn, Rudolf Schindler, Richard Neutra, Bernard Maybeck, Greene & Greene are also well represented.

Contemporary architects include Rafael Moneo, Frank Gehry, Mario Botta, Herzog & de Meuron, Richard Meier, Arata Isozaki, Michael Graves.

Great landscapes, from desert to coast and into the Napa Valley, plus a stunning journey by rail from L.A. to San Francisco through countryside not seen by road.

Time to visit the excellent art collections at the Getty Center, Norton Simon, de Young and Legion of Honor Museums.

Four bases: Phoenix (Arizona), La Jolla (California), Los Angeles, San Francisco.

Led by Dr Harry Charrington, an architect and lecturer in architecture who specialises in the history of modernism.

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TransoxianaSilk Road cities: Khiva, Bukhara & Samarkand

13–23 May 2014 (ma 895)11 days • £3,170Lecturer: Professor James Allan

9–19 September 2014 (mb 112)This tour is currently full

16–26 September 2014 (mb 135)11 days • £3,170Lecturer: Professor James Allan


Some of the most glorious sights in the Islamic world.

Led by experts in Middle Eastern archaeology and history.

Magnificent mosques and madrassas, acres of wonderful wall tiles, intact streetscape, memorable landscapes.

Remote, difficult of access and remarkably unspoilt. Traditional dress is still the norm.

ItineraryDay 1. Fly at c. 9.00pm from London Heathrow for the seven-hour flight to Tashkent (currently the only direct flight).

Days 2 & 3: Tashkent. Touch-down c. 8.00am. Hotel rooms in the centre of Tashkent are at your disposal 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 city 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 sixteenth to the twentieth 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 twentieth-century painting; free time for the Museum of Applied Arts or the Choroz Bazaar. Fly c. 6.00pm on day 3 to Urgench and drive the 20 miles to Khiva. First of two nights in Khiva.

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: from Khiva to Bukhara. The 280 mile journey starts and finishes in an unspoilt landscape of green fields, plentiful 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 Great in 329 bc. Reach Bukhara in time for a walk before dinner. First of three nights in Bukhara.

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, the small and serene Baland Mosque, several grand madrassas, the formidable citadel of the Khans and the Zidan, their infamous prison. Take tea in the shade of mulberry trees around a 15th-century pool.

Day 7: Bukhara. Free morning; there is plenty more architecture to see, and museums,

bazaars, carpet workshops. By coach in the afternoon to places outside the centre of the city. The perfectly preserved 10th-century 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 and swimming pool.

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 and Art has collections from pre-Islamic as well as Islamic periods. Other places seen are the Gur Emir Mausoleum, burial place of Tamerlane, the adjacent Ak Serai Mausoleum and the Shah-i-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. Some free time.

Day 11: Tashkent. Drive to Tashkent. The flight arrives at Heathrow at c. 8.00pm.

Practicalities – in briefPrice: £3,170 (deposit £300). Single supplement £180 (double for single use). Price without all flights £2,670.

Hotels: Tashkent (first morning & 1 night): Ramada Tashkent (formally The Park Turon). Khiva (2 nights): Madrassa Mukhammad Hotel. Bukhara (3 nights): Omar Khayam Hotel. Samarkand (3 nights): Malika Prime.


Contact us for full details of this tour, or visit www.martinrandall.com.

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Lecturers

Tom Abbott. Specialist in architectural history from the Baroque to the 20th century with a wide knowledge of the performing arts. He graduated in Psychology and Art History from Carleton College, Minnesota and studied at the Louvre School of Art History in Paris. Since 1987 he has lived in Berlin and has organised and led many academic tours in Germany. Tom has a particular interest in the German and American architectural and artistic modern including the Bauhaus and Expressionism.Professor James Allan. Expert in Islamic art and architecture and Middle-Eastern archaeology. He read Arabic at Oxford, where he also completed his doctorate, he then worked as a field archaeologist in Jerusalem and at Siraf, and has spent the rest of his career as a curator in the Ashmolean Museum and as a lecturer for the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Oxford. He was President of the British Institute of Persian Studies 2002–6.Dr Paul Atterbury. Lecturer, writer, curator and broadcaster specialising in the art, architecture and design of the 19th and 20th centuries. Has published many books on pottery, porcelain, silver and antiques, also on canals and railways, and two books on the Thames. He has worked as external curator of the V&A on a number of exhibitions, including Pugin & the Victorian Vision and was Historical Advisor to Royal Doulton in Stoke-on-Trent. He is a long standing expert on BBC’s Antiques Roadshow.Helena Attlee. Writer and lecturer specialising in Italian gardens. Amongst her various books are Italian Gardens: a Cultural History, and Italy’s Private Gardens, An Inside View as well as numerous other books and articles on gardens in a variety of countries. She has an MA in Italian dialect culture and is a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund. She was Writer in Residence at the University of Worcester from 2009-2012, and has just completed a book about the cultural history of citrus in Italy, to be published by Penguin in 2014.Dr Paul Bahn. Archaeologist and Britain’s foremost specialist in prehistoric art. He obtained his PhD at Cambridge and is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a corresponding member of the Archaeological Institute of America. 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 and Journey Through the Ice Age.

Richard Bassett. Read Law at Cambridge and obtained an MA in the History of Art at the Courtauld. He was a staff foreign correspondent for The Times throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, covering central and eastern Europe. His titles include Hitler’s Spy Chief: The Wilhelm Canaris Mystery; Traveller’s guide to Vienna with John Lehmann and Balkan Hours. A History of the Habsburg Army will be published in 2014.Dr Amira Bennison. Reader in the History and Culture of the Maghrib and a Fellow of Magdalene College, Amira gained her doctorate in Moroccan history from SOAS. Her publications include The Great Caliphs and Jihad & its Interpretations in Precolonial Morocco, as well as articles on the culture, society and politics of Islamic Spain and Morocco.Raaja Bhasin. Author, historian and freelance journalist, he has published seven critically acclaimed books on the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh and its capital, Shimla, and is a recognised authority on both. He has handled assignments for television, including the BBC, and for the Indian Institute of Advanced Study and various departments of the Indian Government. He writes regularly for magazines and papers in India and elsewhere. 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 widely on the artistic culture of Tuscany. He is also interested in Emilian painting and, recently, has co-written two books on the Bolognese artist Lippo di Dalmasio.Monica Bohm-Duchen. Lecturer, writer and curator specialising in 20th-century art. She studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem before graduating in English Literature and History of Art from UCL, and with an MA in Art History from the Courtauld. She has lectured for the National Gallery, Tate, Royal Academy, Courtauld, Sotheby’s and Birkbeck College. Her latest book, Art and the Second World War (2013), is published by Lund Humphries in association with Princeton University Press.Dr Xavier Bray. Art historian specialising in Spanish art and sculpture and Chief Curator of Dulwich

Left first row, left to right: James Allan; Paul Atterbury; Helena Attlee; Paul Bahn; Richard Bassett; Amira Bennison.

Left second row, left to right: Raaja Bhasin; Monica Bohm-Duchen; Xavier Bray; James Brown; Jon Cannon; Harry Charrington.

Top, left to right: Dawn Chatty; Bridget Cherry; Felicity Cobbing; Gordon Corrigan; Steven Desmond; Misha Donat; Michael Downes; John M. Fritz.

Picture Gallery. Former posts include Assistant Curator of 17th and 18th-century European paintings at the National Gallery, London, where he curated numerous exhibitions: El Greco, Caravaggio: the final years, Velázquez and The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting and Sculpture 1600–1700. He completed his PhD at Trinity College, Dublin.James Brown. Historian specialising in Morocco and with a wider interest in the history of the Muslim world and global history. He studied at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge and SOAS. He has worked as a journalist and teacher, and is currently planning post-doctoral research on the relations between Morocco and Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries.Polly Buston. Art historian with an MA in French with English from Edinburgh University as well as an MA from the Courtauld Institute. She lectures at the Courtauld Summer School and works for art history publishers as editor and picture researcher. She was co-author of Titian’s Venice, a multi-media project accompanying the 2003 National Gallery Titian exhibition.Professor Ian Campbell Ross. Emeritus Professor of 18th-Century Studies and Fellow of Trinity College Dublin. He has written widely on literature, cultural history, and travel, and translated Gian Gaspare Napolitano’s fictionalized memoir of war in central Italy in 1944 as To War with The Black Watch. Recently, he published Umbria: a Cultural Guide. A visiting professor at the university of Roma Tre, he has lectured in Ireland, the UK, Europe, and the US. He was made a Cavaliere dell ’Ordine della Stella d’Italia in 2007.Jon Cannon. Writer, lecturer and broadcaster whose research focuses on English cathedrals. He presented and co-wrote the BBC’s How to Build a Cathedral and has published Cathedral: the great English cathedrals and the world that made them. He teaches at Bristol University and was previously Communications Manager for English Heritage and for the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England.Terry Charman. Senior Historian at the Imperial War Museum. During 37 years there he has worked on many exhibitions and projects including The Churchill Museum, Holocaust exhibition, and D-Day to Victory exhibition. As well as giving frequent lectures, he has made numerous TV and radio appearances as IWM spokesperson, and is an authority on the Battle of Britain and the Blitz.

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Dr Harry Charrington. Architect and lecturer in architecture at the University of Bath with a particular interest in the history of modernism. He read Architecture at Cambridge, where he was the founding editor of Scroope: Cambridge Architectural Journal, and obtained his PhD from the LSE. He has combined architectural practice with academia in both England and Finland. His most recent book Alvar Aalto: the Mark of the Hand won the RIBA President’s Award for Research 2012. As of January 2014, he will take up a new post as Principal Lecturer in Architecture at the University of Westminster.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. Her doctoral research in Syria and Lebanon among Bedouin sheep herders as well as her later work among camel nomads in the Sultanate of Oman has given her a breadth of field-based experience from the Levant to the Gulf. Bridget Cherry. Bridget is an architectural historian; she worked for many years on the Pevsner Architectural Guides, at first as research assistant to Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, later as editor. She has been involved in revisions of all the London volumes in the series, most recently as co-author of London 5 East. She is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a Council Member of the London Topographical Society.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, particularly Syria and Lebanon. Widely published on the archaeology and the history of 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.Major Gordon Corrigan mbe. Military historian and former officer of the Royal Gurkha Rifles. He served mainly in the Far East, but also in Berlin, Cyprus, Belize and Northern Ireland. Author of Wellington, A Military Life; Mud, Blood and Poppycock: Britain and the First World War and Loos 1915, The Unwanted Battle and A Great and Glorious Adventure – A Military History of the Hundred Years War (2013). Television appearances include Napoleon’s Waterloo and Battlefield Detectives. He is an Honorary Research Fellow of the Universities of Birmingham and Kent, a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society and a Member of the British Commission for Military History.

Steven Desmond. Landscape consultant, specialist in the conservation of historic parks and gardens and architectural historian. Obtained an MA in Conservation from York and lectures for Buckingham and Oxford Universities as well as NADFAS. He is an advisor on historic gardens for the National Trust and broadcasts for the BBC and writes for Country Life. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Horticulture and Professional Associate of the Royal Horticultural Society.Misha Donat. For more than 25 years Misha was a senior music producer for BBC Radio 3, and has given many radio talks and pre-concert talks at a number of venues in Britain. He writes programme notes, particularly for the Wigmore Hall, and CD booklets for many labels, and has lectured at universities here and in the USA. Currently he is producing recordings of a Mahler cycle with Lorin Maazel and the Philharmonia.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 Birkbeck College, University of London 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. Dr Michael Downes has been Director of Music at the University of St Andrews since 2008. He is a reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement, and frequently lectures on music and opera for organisations including the Royal Opera House. Michael is the author of a highly praised study of contemporary British composer Jonathan Harvey. Since moving to Scotland, he has established St Andrews Opera and has become the musical director of the St Andrews Chorus.Professor Sir Richard J. Evans. Regius Professor of History and President of Wolfson College at the University of Cambridge. He is author of numerous books on Central European history including The Coming of the Third Reich, The Third Reich in Power and The Third Reich at War, and is currently working on The Pursuit of Power: Europe 1815-1914, a volume in the Penguin History of Europe. His latest book is Altered Pasts: Counterfactuals in History (Little, Brown, 2014).Dr Andrew Farrington. Lecturer in Ancient History at the Democritus University of Thrace and resident in Greece since 1994. He has also taught at the University of Western Australia, the Australian National University and Victoria University of Wellington and is the author of The Roman Baths of Lycia. He studied Literae Humaniores followed by a doctorate in Roman Archaeology, both at Oxford.John M. Fritz. Studied Anthropology at the University of Chicago and is currently Associate Professor of Archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Since 1981, with George Michell, he has co-directed a team of researchers at Hampi, carrying out intensive documentation of surface remains, and has written on the city’s layout and cultural meaning. Among his joint publications

are Where Gods and Kings Meet: the Royal Centre at Vijayanagara, City of Victory, New Light on Hampi and Hampi, a Story in Stone.Dr Alexandra Gajewski. Specialist in mediaeval architecture. She read Art History at Münster University, Germany, followed by a PhD in Gothic architecture in northern Burgundy from the Courtauld Institute of Art. She has lectured at the Courtauld, at Birkbeck College and at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Currently, she working at the Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales in Madrid, where she is part of a research team investigating ‘The Roles of Women as Makers of Medieval Art and Architecture’.Dr Ffiona Gilmore Eaves. Read Archaeology at Cambridge followed by a PhD on the early church at Porec. She has lectured for the WEA, for whom she founded and managed a study tours section, and for various extra-mural departments. She is the co-author of Retrieving the record: a century of archaeology at Porec published by the University of Zagreb.Dr Garth Gilmour. Biblical archaeologist based at Oxford University, where he also obtained his doctorate. He has lived in Israel and excavated at the Philistine sites of Ekron and Ashkelon. His interests include eastern Mediterranean trade in the Late Bronze Age and the archaeology of religion in ancient Israel and he is currently researching the Palestine Exploration Fund’s excavation in Jerusalem in the 1920s.David Gowan. British Ambassador in Belgrade from 2003–6 and Minister and Deputy Head of Mission in Moscow from 2000–3. He was Kosovo War Crimes Co-ordinator in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1999. His earlier career included postings in Moscow, Brasilia and Helsinki. In the UK he had two attachments to the Cabinet Office. He has been Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham and Guest Member of St Antony’s College, Oxford. He has published papers on Serbia and Kosovo and is now involved with the Russian Booker Prize. Dr Angus Graham. Honorary Research Associate at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, where he studied Egyptian Archaeology. He is the Field Director of the Egypt Exploration Society’s Theban Harbours and Waterscapes Survey and has worked on numerous archaeological projects including at Memphis, Giza, Karnak, and Edfu.Dr Mark Grahame. Archaeologist and lecturer, Mark obtained his degree and PhD from Southampton University. His thesis on the spatial layouts of the houses of Roman Pompeii was published as a British Archaeological Report, and a series of journal articles. He has taught courses on the archaeology and history of the Roman Empire and currently teaches for Oxford and Cambridge Universities’ Departments of Continuing Education. Angus Haldane. Studied Classics at Oxford University with a particular emphasis on Roman history, literature and art. He subsequently studied for a post-graduate degree in Byzantine and Renaissance art at the Courtauld Institute, has


taught Greek and Latin and has lectured on the ancient world in Italy and in Greece. Michael Hall. A former architectural editor of Country Life and editor of Apollo magazine, Michael has published many articles and books on British architecture and design, including 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 by Yale University Press in 2014. Now a freelance historian and journalist, he is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, chair of the Victorian Society’s activities committee and a trustee of Emery Walker’s Arts-and-Crafts house in Hammersmith.Gijs van Hensbergen. Art historian and author specialising in Spain and the USA. His books include Gaudí, In the Kitchens of Castile and Guernica and he has published in the Burlington Magazine and Wall Street Journal. He read languages at Utrecht University and Art History at the Courtauld, and undertook postgraduate studies in American art of the 1960s. He has worked in England, the USA and Spain as exhibitions organiser, TV researcher and critic.Amanda Herries. Art historian, author and lecturer, now living in south-west Scotland. She read Archaeology at Cambridge and then worked as a decorative arts specialist at the Museum of London. This was followed by seven years living in Japan and she has written extensively on the influence of Japanese gardens and plants in the west. She is a contributing cataloguer for the Public Catalogue Foundation project and is a Trustee of the National Trust for Scotland. Professor Judith Herrin. Mediaeval historian with degrees from Cambridge and Birmingham. She holds a Research Fellowship and is Professor Emerita at King’s College, London, was formerly Professor of Byzantine History at Princeton University. Her books include The Formation of Christendom, A Medieval Miscellany, and Women in Purple.Caroline Holmes. Garden historian, writer and design consultant. Lectures for Cambridge University Institute of Continuing Education and NADFAS. She has presented series on both TV and BBC Radio Four. Books include: Monet at Giverny, Follies of Europe – architectural extravaganzas and Impressionists in their Gardens – living light and colour. Garden consultancies include the Royal Opera House’s New Production Campus for the Performing Arts and Notre-Dame-de-Calais.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. His books include Spanish Journeys: a Portrait of Spain, Holland: its History, Paintings and People and Crete: its Past, Present and People. Together with his wife, Gaby Macphedran, he has devised many tours in Spain and Portugal.Henry Hurst. Former Reader in Classical Archaeology at Cambridge University. His special

Left–right: Garth Gilmour; David Gowan; Mark Grahame; Angus Haldane; Michael Hall; Gijs van Hensbergen; Amanda Herries; Judith Herrin; Caroline Holmes.

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. Landscape architect, writer, translator and lecturer. He studied Modern Languages at Oxford followed by a Postgraduate Diploma in Landscape Design. He is a former lecturer at the University of Central England and committee member of the British Czech & Slovak Association. His publications include the Insight pocket guide: Czech Republic, Key Guide Prague and Berlitz Czech Republic.James Johnstone. Organist specialising in the Baroque. He is Professor of early keyboards at Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Trinity College of Music. He has performed and recorded extensively as a soloist, with the Gabrieli Consort & Players and with Florilegium. He re-formed the chamber group Trio Sonnerie and recorded the Bach Motets on the historic organ in Naumburg with Trinity Baroque.Jonathan Keates. Recently retired from teaching English at the City of London School. As author and journalist, his non-fiction books include biographies of Handel and Purcell and The Siege Of Venice, and fiction includes the short story collections Allegro Postillions and Soon To Be A Major Motion Picture. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a trustee of the London Library and chairman of the Venice In Peril Fund.John Keay. John has been visiting India for over forty years as a journalist, author and lecturer. 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. A history scholar at Magdalen, Oxford, but long resident in Scotland, he also writes on exploration and other Asian regions, and he co-edited The Collins Encyclopaedia of Scotland and Macmillan’s London Encyclopaedia (third edition). Professor Hugh Kennedy. Professor of Arabic at SOAS and formerly Professor of Middle Eastern History at the University of St Andrews. 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.Dr Jarl Kremeier. Art historian specialising in 17th- to 19th-century architecture and decorative arts; teaches Art History at the Berlin College of Acting and the Senior Student’s Department of Berlin’s Freie Universität. He studied at the Universities of Würzburg, Berlin and the Courtauld, is a contributor to Macmillan’s Dictionary of Art, author of a book on the Würzburg Residenz, and of articles on Continental Baroque architecture and architectural theory.Dr Helen Langdon. Studied at Cambridge, and received a doctorate from the Courtauld. She has contributed to many academic journals, and is the

author of several books, including The Gallery Goers Guide, Claude Lorrain, Holbein, and Caravaggio: a Life. From 2002–3 she was Assistant Director of the British School at Rome, and later Research Fellow at the Getty Institute, LA, and Visiting Fellow at Yale. In 2010 she curated the exhibition, Salvator Rosa; Bandits, Wilderness and Magic, at Dulwich Picture Gallery in 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 published articles on the classical tradition in Italian art of the 15th century and contributed to the Macmillan Dictionary of Art. He has also written on Mantegna and Renaissance drawings.Dr Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones. Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Edinburgh and a specialist in the history and culture of ancient Iran, Egypt and Greece. He studied Classics and Drama at Hull University and obtained his MA in Ancient History and PhD from Cardiff University. He has contributed to history documentaries for Channel 4, the History Channel and the BBC.Dr Rosie Llewellyn-Jones. An authority on colonial India from the 18th to the 20th century. She has published books on Lucknow including Engaging Scoundrels: True Tales of Old Lucknow and Lucknow, City of Illusion. Her book Mutiny, The Great Uprising in India: Untold stories, Indian and British won critical praise. She lectures for the Asian Arts course at the V&A. She is currently Secretary of BACSA (British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia) and works as part-time archivist at the Royal Society for Asian Affairs. Rowena Loverance. Byzantine art historian specialising in sculpture, mosaics and icons. She studied History and Archaeology at Oxford and is 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.Gerald Luckhurst. Landscape architect and garden historian who has an extensive knowledge of sub-tropical and Mediterranean garden flora. His work involves both historic restoration and contemporary garden design. Books include The Gardens of Madeira; Luigi Manini: Imaginário & Metodo; Sintra: a landscape with villas; and The Gardens of the National Palace of Queluz. He is currently writing a doctoral thesis on the gardens of Monserrate in Sintra, near Lisbon.Dr Alexey Makhrov. Russian art historian and a graduate of the St Petersburg Academy of Arts. Obtained his PhD from the University of St Andrews followed by post-doctoral work as a Research Fellow at Exeter University. He is now studying International History and Politics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies Geneva.Andrew Martin. Journalist, novelist, historian and author of Underground Overground: a Passenger’s


Left–right: Adam Hopkins; Henry Hurst; Michael Ivory; James Johnstone; Jonathan Keates; John Keay; Hugh Kennedy; Helen Langdon; Rowena Loverance.

History of the Tube (2012). During the 1990s he was ‘Tube Talk’ columnist for the Evening Standard.John McNeill. Specialist in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, with degrees in art history from the University of East Anglia and the Courtauld. He lectures at Birkbeck College’s Faculty of Continuing Education, Birkbeck College and Oxford’s Department of Continuing Education. He is Honorary Secretary of the British Archaeological Association and author of the Blue Guide: Normandy and Blue Guide: Loire Valley. Has edited collections of essays on mediaeval Anjou, King’s Lynn and the Fens and the mediaeval cloister.Patrick Mercer obe. Military historian and politician. 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 freelance journalist. He is the author of two books on the Battle of Inkerman.Jeffrey Miller. Art historian specialising in architecture of the Middle Ages. He obtained his PhD from Columbia University in 2012 and he also holds an MA from the Courtauld Institute of Art. He has taught for the Culinary Institute of America and writes and lectures on medieval art and architecture for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. His writing will appear in the forthcoming Cambridge History of Religious Architecture of the World.Marc Millon. Wine, food and travel writer. Born in Mexico, he was raised in the USA before studying English Literature at the University of Exeter. Together with his wife, he has pioneered a series of illustrated wine-food-travel books including The Wine and Food of Europe, The Wine Roads of Italy and The Food Lover’s Companion Italy. He also has his own wine company, importing Italian wines from small family estates.Dr Anna-Maria Misra. Teaches history at Oxford University and is a Fellow of Keble College. She is a specialist on Indian history and the British Empire. She has written on many aspects of India’s history and culture, including Vishnu’s Crowded Temple: India since the Great Rebellion. She wrote and presented the Channel 4 series An Indian Affair and is a regular writer and broadcaster. She is currently writing a book on global cross-currents in art and architecture. David Mitchinson. Former Head of Collections and Exhibitions at the Henry Moore Foundation. He has curated exhibitions of, and written extensively on Moore’s life and work, including Henry Moore: Unpublished Drawings, Celebrating Moore, and

Hoglands: The Home of Henry and Irina Moore. He is also co-author of the four-volume catalogue raisonné Henry Moore: Catalogue of Graphic Work. One of his most recent books is Henry Moore: Prints & Portfolios.Dr Andrew Moore. Writer and curator, and a specialist in the study of country houses and their art collections. Andrew is Keeper of Art at Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery. In partnership with the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, he recently co-authored a reassessment of Sir Robert Walpole’s art collection at Houghton Hall. He is a Visiting Fellow in the School of World Art Studies & Museology at the University of East Anglia. He is currently writing a book on the impact of Thomas Coke’s European Grand Tour on Holkham Hall, Norfolk.Dr Oswyn Murray. Classics Fellow at Balliol College, Oxford for almost forty years, widely travelled in Greece and a specialist on Greek drinking customs and the history of pleasure in general. Author of Early Greece, The Greek City and In vino veritas and over a hundred articles, mainly on Greek history. He was history editor of the Oxford History of the Classical World, and is a regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement. Professor Fabrizio Nevola. Fabrizio is currently Chair and Professor of Art History and Visual Culture at the University of Exeter and was previously Senior Lecturer in Architectural History at the University of Bath, specialising in urban and architectural history of Early Modern Italy. He obtained his PhD at the Courtauld Institute and has held fellowships at the University of Warwick, the Medici Archive Project, and Harvard University’s Villa I Tatti (Florence). He has published widely including the award-winning Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City.Christopher Newall. Art historian, lecturer and writer. As well as being a specialist in 19th-century British art, he has a deep interest in Sicily, its architecture and political and social history. A graduate of the Courtauld Institute, he has organised various exhibitions including Pre-Raphaelite Vision: Truth to Nature (Tate Britain 2004). His interest in John Ruskin led to our tour Ruskin’s Venice, and he is currently working on an exhibition of Ruskin’s drawings for venues in Canada and Scotland.Dr Charles Nicholl. Honorary Professor of English at Sussex University and the acclaimed 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. Professor Geoffrey Norris. Writer and regular broadcaster on BBC Radio 3. He was for many years the Chief Music Critic of The Daily Telegraph (1995–2009). He still writes for the Telegraph today, along with Gramophone and other journals. His publications include Rachmaninoff and contributions to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. He also lectured at Royal Northern College of Music from 1977–83 and is Emeritus Professor at the Rachmaninoff Music Academy in Russia. He is chairman of the music section of The Critics’ Circle.Dr Cathy Oakes. Graduated from Oxford and worked in the Education Department at the V&A. She ran the art history programme for the Department for Continuing Education at Bristol where she completed her PhD on late mediaeval Marian iconography and now holds a similar post at Oxford University. She has published on French and English Romanesque and on Marian iconography.Alan Ogden. Following a career in international PR, Alan is now a travel writer and historian. His books include Fortresses of Faith: the Kirchenburgen of Transylvania; Winds of Sorrow: Travels in Transylvania and Through Hitler’s Back Door: SOE in Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. He has travelled extensively in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.Ian Page. Conductor and Artistic Director of the Classical Opera Company, which specialises in the works of Mozart and his contemporaries and performs regularly at Wigmore Hall, Cadogan Hall, the Barbican and Sadler’s Wells. He recently embarked on a new project to record all the Mozart operas, and has been a professor at the Royal College of Music in London since 1993.Professor David Phillipson. Professor of African Archaeology at Cambridge University until his retirement in 2006, and also Director of the Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology there. Actively engaged in the study of Ethiopia, and was awarded the Society of Antiquaries of London ‘Frend Medal’ for his research on the archaeology of Ethiopian Christianity. Emeritus Fellow of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, Honorary Professor at UCL, a Fellow of the British Academy and a former President of the British Institute in Eastern Africa.Simon Rees. Former Dramaturg of Welsh National Opera from 1989–2012. After studying English at Cambridge, he taught for two years in Italy and for three at Kyoto University. He has published novels, poetry, translations of works of art history and reviews of books on music, and has written libretti for children’s opera and oratorio with Welsh composer

Left–right: Gerald Luckhurst; Patrick Mercer; Jeffrey Miller; Marc Millon; David Mitchinson; Andrew Moore; Fabrizio Nevola; Christopher Newall; Charles Nicholl.


Mervyn Burtch.Professor Jane Ridley. Jane Ridley teaches History and leads the MA in Biography at the University of Buckingham. She read History at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, and was later a research student at Nuffield College, Oxford, gaining her DPhil in 1985. Publications include The Letters of Arthur Balfour and Lady Elcho, and, most recently, Bertie: A Life of Edward VII. She also broadcasts on BBC Radio 4 and reviews regularly for the Spectator, Literary Review and Times Literary Supplement.Bronwen Riley. Editor of the English Heritage Red Guides. After reading Classics at Oxford, she worked for Country Life and Tatler and wrote obituaries for the Daily Telegraph. Bewitched by Romania during the Nineties, she took an MA at the Courtauld, specialising in post-byzantine art in Romania and in 2008 published her book Transylvania. Other publications include the English Heritage Red Guide to Great Yarmouth Row Houses and Greyfriars’ Cloister. Mary Lynn Riley. Mary Lynn lives on the Côte d’Azur and is a specialist in 19th and 20th-century modern and contemporary art. She designs and teaches art courses and art appreciation workshops for adults at the Musée Bonnard in Le Cannet and the Espace de l’Art Concret at Mouans-Sartoux. She completed her Master of Fine Arts at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, USA and previously worked at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.Juliet Rix. Writer and broadcaster with a particular interest in the history and pre-history of Malta. She studied History of Art at Cambridge and is the author of the Bradt Guide: Malta and Gozo. Her 25-year career in journalism has involved working for the BBC and writing for magazines, online media and British national newspapers.Barnaby Rogerson. A writer and publisher whose works include a History of North Africa, A Biography of the Prophet Muhammad, a history of the First Four Caliphs and guide books to places such as Morocco, Tunisia, Cyprus and Istanbul. His most recent historical work is The Last Crusaders which tells the story of the simultaneous struggles of four Empires for the control of the Mediterranean from 1415-1578. Other recent projects include the text for Don McCullin’s Southern Frontiers, co-editing of Ox-Travels, a collection of 36 contemporary travel writers and Rogerson’s Book of (sacred and profane) Numbers. His day job is running Eland Books, home to over 100 great classic travel books of the world.Sue Rollin. Archaeologist, interpreter and lecturer. She studied at London University (Institute of Archaeology and SOAS) and at Heidelberg University and her linguistic repertoire includes three ancient Near-Eastern languages and several modern European ones. She has taught at UCL, SOAS and Cambridge University and interpreted for the EU and UN. With Jane Streetly she has written Blue Guide: Jordan and Istanbul: A Travellers’ Guide. She has visited India many times since her first trip in 1972.

Left–right: Geoffrey Norris; Cathy Oakes; Alan Ogden; Ian Page; David Phillipson; Simon Rees; Mary Lynn Riley; Juliet Rix; Barnaby Rogerson.

Professor Andrew Sanders. Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Durham and Past President of the Dickens Fellowship. Author of five books on Charles Dickens, the most recent of which is Charles Dickens’s London (2010). He has edited four of Dickens’s novels for various paperback series and has worked widely on 19th-century literature and culture. His new study, In the Olden Time: Victorians and the British Past, was published in Spring 2013.Janet Sinclair. Janet has held senior management posts at several Heritage Sites in the UK. She was educated at the Courtauld Institute of Art, Bretton Hall and the Barber Institute Birmingham, where she researched the history of British collecting and taught for many years. She is also a freelance lecturer and consultant and has led European and UK tours for MRT. In 2012 she was Director of Michelham Priory in Sussex.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.Dr Guus Sluiter. Art historian who has worked in a number of museums in the Netherlands including the Mauritshuis in The Hague and the Royal Palace in Amsterdam. Guus is currently Director of the Dutch Funeral Museum in Amsterdam, a board member of the Foundation of Amsterdam Museums and Research Fellow of the Dutch Institute for Art History in Florence. He has published widely in the Netherlands and Italy. 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 and music in 19th-century Ireland. He is a graduate of the University of Oxford, has studied at the Charles University in Prague and has worked extensively in university education.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. Formerly Assistant Director of the British School at Athens, he is currently Professor of Ancient History at Newcastle University.Dr Nigel Spivey. Senior Lecturer in Classical Art and Archaeology at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Emmanuel College. Among his publications are Understanding Greek Sculpture, Greek Art, Enduring Creation, The Ancient Olympics and Songs on Bronze. He presented the BBC2/PBS series How Art Made the World.Andrew Spooner. Military historian specialising in the Great War and has operated his own battlefield

tours since 1988. He organises specialist study days for colleges and museums throughout the country and is a regular visiting lecturer at the Imperial War Museum Duxford. He has appeared in documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4.Professor Gavin Stamp. Honorary Fellow of both the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland and the Royal Institute of British Architects and honorary Professor of the University of Glasgow. He taught History of Architecture at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow, and is a former chairman of the 20th-Century Society and Director of the Victorian Society Summer School. His research interests are 19th- and 20th-cent. British architecture and he has published on Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson, the Gilbert Scott dynasty and Sir Edwin Lutyens. Dr Susan Steer. Art Historian specialising in Venice. Her MA concentrated on the art and architecture of Venice, and her PhD on Venetian Renaissance altarpieces. As post-doctoral researcher with the University of Glasgow, and Neil MacGregor scholar at the National Gallery, she worked as a researcher and editor on the National Inventory of European Painting, the UK’s online catalogue of European paintings. She has extensive experience of teaching History of Art for university programmes in the UK and Italy. Graeme Stobbs. Archaeologist from Gateshead, with over 20 years of experience in field archaeology, and acknowledged expert on Hadrian’s Wall. He has an MLitt in Archaeology from Newcastle University. He worked until recently as Archaeological Project Officer for Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums and is Assistant Curator of Roman Collections for the Hadrian’s Wall Museums.Richard Stokes. Professor of Lieder at the Royal Academy of Music and recently retired as teacher of German at Westminster School. His books include Complete Cantatas of J. S. Bach; The Book of Lieder and translations of Kafka’s Metamorphosis and The Trial. He has lectured at the Edinburgh Festival, given masterclasses at Aldeburgh and collaborated on two books of poems by Alfred Brendel. In 2012 Richard was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for services to German culture.Jane Streetly. Co-author of Blue Guide: Jordan and Istanbul: A Traveller’s Guide. She was born and brought up in Trinidad, studied French and Spanish and now works as a conference interpreter and travel writer. She is a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society and has travelled widely throughout Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.Dr Joachim Strupp. Fellow at the University of Buckingham, he organises adult art education events and tours. He studied Art History at the universities of Nuremberg and St Andrews, where he also taught, and has lived in Venice and Florence for several years. Specialises in the sculpture of the Italian Renaissance, though his interests include German and Italian art of most ages.


Top row, left–right: Jane Streetly; Joachim Strupp; Neil Taylor; Lars Tharp; Giles Tillotson

Bottom row, left–right: Gail Turner; David Vickers; Giles Waterfield; Antonia Whitley; Sam Willis; Richard Wigmore.

Tim Tatton-Brown. Archaeologist and architectural historian. He has been Consultant Archaeologist for Canterbury, Rochester, Chichester and Salisbury cathedrals, and for Westminster Abbey, Lambeth Palace and currently for St George’s Chapel, Windsor and Westminster School. He is Vice-President of the Royal Archaeological Institute. Books include Great Cathedrals of Britain for the BBC Radio 4 series on Cathedrals, The English Cathedral and The English Church and The Abbeys & Priories of England, and most recently Salisbury Cathedral, the making of a Medieval Masterpiece. Jane Taylor. Has worked as teacher, publisher, writer, photographer and television producer. She studied Mediaeval History and Moral Philosophy at the University of St Andrews and since 1989 has lived in Amman. Her books include Testament to the Bushmen (with Laurens van der Post), Imperial Istanbul, Petra & the Lost Kingdom of the Nabataeans, Yemen: Land & People (with Sarah Searight) and Jordan: Images from the Air.Neil Taylor. A leading expert on the former communist world, he travels there as visiting university lecturer, tourism consultant and tour leader. He read Chinese at Cambridge and has worked in tourism in China, the USSR and many Third World countries. His publications include The Bradt Guide: Estonia, The Bradt Guide: Tallinn, The Bradt Guide: Baltic Cities, A Footprints Guide to Berlin.Lars Tharp. A specialist in ceramics, Lars Tharp appears regularly on The Antiques Roadshow. He was director of the Foundling Museum and is now its Hogarth Curator. He is vice-chairman of The Hogarth Trust; a liveryman on the court of England’s oldest guild, The Worshipful Company of Weavers. He is a member of the English Ceramics Circle, the Oriental Ceramics Society and a Fellow of the venerable Society of Antiquaries of London.Dr Giles Tillotson. Fellow (and former Director) of the Royal Asiatic Society, he has been Reader in History of Art and Chair of Art & Archaeology at SOAS. His specialisms include the history and architecture of the Rajput courts of Rajasthan and of the Mughal cities of Delhi and Agra; Indian architecture in the period of British rule and after Independence and landscape painting in India. Books include Taj Mahal, Jaipur City Palace, Mughal India and The Tradition of Indian Architecture. Dr Thomas-Leo True. Art historian specialising in Renaissance and Baroque architecture in Rome and the Papal States. He received his doctorate from Cambridge University. He also studied at the British School in Rome, where he was Rome Scholar (2009–10) and Giles Worsley Fellow (2013). He has lived in le Marche region of Italy and is currently

Left–right: Sue Rollin; Andrew Sanders; Janet Sinclair; József Sisa; Guus Sluiter; Jan Smaczny; Gavin Stamp; Susan Steer; Richard Stokes.

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 has worked at Tate Britain, the Arts Council, as a consultant for Christie’s and at the Courtauld and lectures for various institutions including the National Trust, the Art Fund, and also for the University of Cambridge International Summer School and the Courtauld Institute Summer Course. Dr David Vickers. Musicologist, author, journalist, broadcaster and lecturer. He works as a project consultant for many early music groups, conductors and singers. He is co-editor of The Cambridge Handel Encyclopedia, is preparing new editions of several of Handel’s music dramas and is a critic for The Gramophone, BBC Radio 3 and Goldberg. He also writes essays for record labels including BIS, Chandos, Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI and Harmonia Mundi.Professor Stephen Walsh. Stephen Walsh is a writer on music. He is the author of a major two-volume biography of Stravinsky, and recently completed a study of the Russian Five (Musorgsky, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Balakirev and Cui). He was for many years deputy music critic of the Observer and a frequent contributor to other broadsheet newspapers. He currently holds a personal chair in the School of Music at Cardiff University, and reviews for the website, theartsdesk.com.Giles Waterfield. An independent curator and writer, Director of Royal Collection Studies and Associate Lecturer at the Courtauld Institute of Art. He is a trustee of the Charleston Trust and a member of the National Trust Arts Panel and of the Advisory Panel of the NHMF. He has curated exhibitions including The Artist’s Studio and publications include Soane and After, Palaces of Art, Art for the People and Art Treasures of England. Dr Antonia Whitley. Art historian and lecturer, and specialist in the Italian Renaissance. Her interests also include paintings of WW1. She obtained her PhD from the Warburg Institute, University of London, on Sienese society in the 15th century and has published articles on related topics. She has

lectured for the National Gallery, has taught in the War Studies department of King’s College, London and has led many tours in Italy. She organises adult education study sessions and private tours.Richard Wigmore. Music writer, lecturer and broadcaster for BBC Radio 3. He writes for The Daily Telegraph, BBC Music Magazine and Gramophone and gives classes in Lied history and interpretation at Birkbeck College, London. He read French and German at Cambridge and later studied Music at the Guildhall. His publications include Schubert: the complete song texts and Pocket Guide to Haydn.Dr Richard Williams. Art historian with a PhD on 16th-century religious art from the Courtauld and curator in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle. He specialises in the Northern Renaissance and lectures on 16th- and 17th-century English, German and Flemish art, with a particular interest in religious imagery in 16th-century Protestant collections. He has taught at Birkbeck, University of London, the Courtauld Institute Summer School, the V&A and the National Gallery. Dr Sam Willis. A leading authority on naval and maritime history and author of numerous books on maritime and naval history including the Hearts of Oak Trilogy and the Fighting Ships Series. He has worked as maritime history consultant for Christies, The Discovery Channel and the History Channel. In 2012 Sam presented a BBC4 film about Antigua in the Age of Sail and in 2013 he presented a 3-part series on Shipwrecks for BBC4. His re-creation of the first ever voyage down the Grand Canyon will be broadcast in 2014 on BBC2.Dr Matthew Woodworth. Studied History of Art and Architecture at Brown University and obtained his MA from the Courtauld. He completed his PhD on the architectural history of Beverley Minster at Duke University, North Carolina. He is currently teaching in Scotland, writing one of the volumes for Pevsner’s Buildings of Scotland Series. He has published articles on English Gothic architecture, French Gothic sculpture, and the re-use of Gothic in the post-mediaeval period.

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Booking details

Making a booking

1. Provisional bookingWe 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.

2. Definite bookingFill 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.

3. Our confirmationUpon 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.

Booking ConditionsPlease read theseYou need to sign your assent to these booking conditions on the booking form. Our promises to youWe 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 youWe ask that you read the information we send to you. Specific termsOur 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 the ‘How strenuous?’ guidance at the end of every tour description. 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). 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.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:between 56 and 29 days: 40% between 28 and 15 days: 60% between 14 days and 3 days: 80% within 48 hours: 100%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. Our tours and festivals subscribe to the health and safety legislation of the destination. Seatbelts. 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 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.We provide full financial protection for our package holidays that do not include a flight, by way of a bond held by ABTA The Trade 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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M A R T I N R A N D A L L T R A V E LART • AR CHITECTURE • GASTR ONOMY • AR CHAEOLOGY • HISTORY • MUSIC

Voysey House, Barley Mow Passage, London, United Kingdom W4 4GFTelephone 020 8742 3355 Fax 020 8742 7766 [email protected] www.martinrandall.com

Booking formcontinued

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Tours by dateFor a list of holidays by country, see pages 2–7.

January 2014 3–13 Oman (ma 800) Prof. Dawn Chatty............................173 4–16 The British Raj (ma 801) Raaja Bhasin ....................................10717 London Day: Ancient Greece at the British Museum (la 807) Prof. Antony Spawforth .......................6018–29 Karnataka (ma 805) John M. Fritz ....................................10722–25 Opera in Nice & Monte-Carlo (ma 802) Simon Rees ..........................8123 London Day: The Italian Renaissance (la 808) Dr Antonia Whitley ..............6024–26 Chamber Music Weekend: The Dominant Quartet (ma 803) Prof. Geoffrey Norris ............................5025–30 Mozart in Salzburg (ma 804) Richard Wigmore.................................1231–14 Essential India (ma 806) Sue Rollin .........................................107

February 2014 5–15 Mughal & Nawabi Architecture (ma 810) Dr Giles Tillotson ..............107 7–20 Kingdoms of the Deccan (ma 811) John M. Fritz ....................................10711–20 Israel & Palestine (ma 809) Dr Garth Gilmour .............................11012–27 Ethiopia (ma 815) Prof. David Phillipson .........................6317–23 Florence (ma 816) Dr Antonia Whitley ...........................13218– 2 Sailing the Ganges (ma 817) John Keay ..........................................10719– 2 Art in Texas (ma 818) Gijs van Hensbergen ..........................21321–23 Chamber Music Weekend: The Chilingirian Quartet (ma 819) ...5025– 2 Music in Berlin (ma 814) Prof. Jan Smaczny & Dr Jarl Kremeier ...............8827 London Day: Caravaggio & Rembrandt (la 812) Dr Helen Langdon ..............................6025– 1 Opera & Art in Turin & Milan (ma 813) Dr Luca Leoncini ...............11425– 2 Connoisseur’s Rome (ma 821) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott..................14825– 3 Essential Rome (ma 822) Dr Thomas-Leo True .........................14526– 2 Siena & San Gimignano (ma 820) Dr Antonia Whitley ...........................136

March 2014 3 London Day: Caravaggio & Rembrandt (la 836) Dr Helen Langdon ..............................60 3– 8 Walking in Madeira (ma 825) Gerald Luckhurst ...............................178 3– 9 Zurbarán & the Golden Age (ma 823) Dr Xavier Bray .................191 4–11 Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur (ma 839) Mary Lynn Riley .................82 5 London Day: London’s Underground Railway (la 824) Andrew Martin ......60 5– 9 Ruskin’s Venice (ma 826) Christopher Newall ............................123 6 London Day: The Italian Renaissance (la 827) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott .....60 9–22 Bengal by River (ma 829) Dr Anna-Maria Misra ......................10810–16 Art History of Venice (ma 830) Polly Buston ......................................12210–16 Granada & Córdoba (ma 831) Adam Hopkins ...................................19912–18 Gardens of the Riviera (ma 832) Caroline Holmes ..................................8013 London Day: Mediaeval Art in London (la 828) John McNeill ..........6017–29 Sicily (ma 833) Dr Luca Leoncini .....15418–22 Venetian Palaces (ma 834) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott..................12019–27 The Cathedrals of England (ma 835) Tim Tatton-Brown .............................4424– 5 Indian Summer (ma 840) Raaja Bhasin ....................................10625– 2 Normans in the South (ma 842) John McNeill .....................................15127– 4 Extremadura (ma 845) Adam Hopkins ...................................19328–30 Chamber Music Weekend: London Haydn Quartet (ma 844) ....5029– 6 Essential Jordan (ma 841) Sue Rollin & Jane Streetly .................16229– 9 Morocco (ma 838) James Brown ......16730– 4 Turner & the Sea (ma 858) Dr Sam Willis .....................................5630– 6 Courts of Northern Italy (ma 837) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott..................12531– 5 Palermo Revealed (ma 843) Dr R. T. Cobianchi ............................156 The Budapest Spring Festival ..........104

April 2014 1 London Day: Seven Churches & a Synagogue (la 859) Giles Waterfield ..60 2– 6 Gardens of Northern Portugal (ma 846) Gerald Luckhurst ...............176 3 London Day: London’s Great Railway Termini (la 861) Prof. Gavin Stamp ..60 4–6 Symposium: Art Historians in Newcastle (ma 847) ...........................60 4– 9 Opera & Ballet in Versailles & Paris (ma 851) Dr Michael Downes .............71 4–11 Gastronomic Andalucía (ma 848) Gijs van Hensbergen ..........................200 4–13 Jordan Revisited (ma 855) Jane Taylor ........................................164 5– 9 Charles Dickens (ma 849) Prof. Andrew Sanders ..........................54 7–12 Pompeii & Herculaneum (ma 850) Dr Mark Grahame ............................149 7–13 Genoa & Turin (ma 857) Dr Luca Leoncini ..............................113 7–16 Classical Turkey (ma 853) Dr Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones ..................208 8–15 The Heart of Italy (ma 852) Prof. Ian Campbell Ross .....................139 8–16 Andalusian Morocco (ma 856) Dr Amira Bennison ...........................16910–16 Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes (ma 854) Steven Desmond ................11514–21 Semana Santa in Spain (ma 860) Adam Hopkins ...................................20121–27 Lucca (ma 867) Dr Antonia Whitley 13721–29 The Greeks in Sicily (ma 864) Prof. Tony Spawforth .........................15723–27 Ravenna & Urbino (ma 869) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott..................12623– 1 Middle Egypt (ma 875) Dr Angus Graham ...............................3425–27 Chamber Music Weekend: The Vienna Piano Trio (ma 871) Richard Wigmore.................................5025–30 The South Downs (ma 872) Janet Sinclair ......................................4628– 5 Walking in Eastern Sicily (ma 873) Dr Ffiona Gilmore Eaves ...................16030 London Day: Arts & Crafts (la 876) Michael Hall .......................................60

May 2014 1 London Day: The London Backstreet Walk (la 885) Bridget Cherry ............60 2– 9 Walking in Northern Tuscany (ma 880) Dr Antonia Whitley ...........129

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Tours by datecontinued

2–11 Eastern Andalucía: Caliphs to Kings (ma 881) Gijs van Hensbergen ..........197 3–12 Classical Greece (ma 882) Henry Hurst ......................................103 5–14 Pilgrimage & Heresy (ma 883) John McNeill .......................................74 5–18 The Western Balkans (ma 884) David Gowan .....................................26 8 London Day: Sculpture in London (la 889) David Mitchinson .................60 9–12 Flanders Fields (ma 887) Andrew Spooner ..................................25 9–15 St Petersburg (ma 888) Dr Alexey Makhrov ...........................18210–17 The Via Flaminia (ma 891) Prof. Ian Campbell Ross .....................14010–25 Eastern Turkey (ma 890) Rowena Loverance ............................20612–17 Gardens & Villas of Campagna Romana (ma 892) Helena Attlee ......14313–23 Transoxiana (ma 895) Prof. James Allan ...............................21516–19 El Greco 1614 (ma 900) Dr Xavier Bray & Gijs van Hensbergen ............19218–24 Walking Hadrian’s Wall (ma 903) Graeme Stobbs .....................................3719–24 Naples: Art, Antiquities & Opera (ma 904) Angus Haldane ..................15020 London Day: The London Backstreet Walk (la 905) Giles Waterfield ...........6021–25 Art in Madrid (ma 906) Gail Turner .......................................19021–27 The House of Hanover (ma 886) Dr Jarl Kremeier .................................8425–28 The Renewed Rijksmuseum (ma 915) Dr Guus Sluiter .................................17128– 4 Walking the Rhine Valley (ma 916) Richard Wigmore...............................10129– 5 THE RHINE VALLEY FESTIVAL OF SONG (ma 917) ..10131– 7 Mediaeval Burgundy (ma 919) John McNeill .......................................7531–10 Frank Lloyd Wright (ma 918) Tom Abbott .......................................212 Bergen Music Festival .....................172

June 2014 3–14 Walking to Santiago (ma 921) Adam Hopkins & Gaby Macphedran ..185 4–12 Great Houses of the East (ma 923) Dr Andrew Moore ...............................47 5– 8 Berlin: New Architecture (ma 922) Dr Harry Charrington ........................87

7–12 Opera in Vienna (ma 933) Simon Rees ..........................................21 7–13 The Duchy of Urbino (ma 924) Dr Luca Leoncini ..............................142 9–14 Summer 1914 (ma 926) Richard Bassett ....................................18 9–15 Art & Industry (ma 927) Dr Paul Atterbury ...............................39 9–18 Castile & León (ma 925) Gijs van Hensbergen ..........................18711 London Day: The London Backstreet Walk (la 931) Martin Randall ..........6012–15 The Louvre at Lens (ma 928) Mary Lynn Riley ................................7314–21 The Veneto (ma 935) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott..................11815–19 The Western Front (ma 947) Major Gordon Corrigan .......................6817–22 Palladian Villas (ma 936) Prof. Fabrizio Nevola ........................11918–26 Northumbria (ma 938) Christopher Newall ..............................3619–26 Armenia (ma 937) Alan Ogden ..........1019–26 Habsburg Austria (ma 939) Dr Jarl Kremeier .................................1320–28 Transylvania (ma 940) Bronwen Riley ..................................17921–25 Operation Overlord (ma 948) Andrew Spooner ..................................7022–28 The Schubertiade (ma 949) Richard Wigmore.................................2223–26 Literature & Walking in the Lake District (ma 953) Dr Charles Nicholl ..5823–27 Mediaeval Middle England (ma 950) John McNeill .......................................4323–28 MUSIC IN THE VENETO (ma 951) ..........................................12125– 1 Charlemagne to Charles V (ma 955) Jeffrey Miller .......................................2327– 3 Opera in Leipzig & Dresden (ma 960) Simon Rees ..........................9129– 4 Historic Dutch Organs (ma 956) James Johnstone .................................170 Impressionism in Paris ......................66

July 2014 1 London Day: The Complete London Hogarth (la 961) Lars Tharp .............60 2– 6 East Neuk Music Festival ................185 3– 6 Country House Opera (ma 962) Richard Wigmore.................................62 6–12 Scotland: the Borders (ma 965) Amanda Herries ................................184

8–12 Opera at Aix & Orange (ma 966) Dr David Vickers ................................7810–15 King Ludwig II (ma 964) Tom Abbott .........................................9814–18 Savonlinna Opera (ma 971) Simon Rees ..........................................6515–19 Thomas Hardy (ma 969) Jonathan Keates ...................................5517–21 Verona Opera (ma 972) Angus Haldane ..................................11717–24 German Gothic (ma 980) Jeffrey Miller .......................................9518–26 Mitteldeutschland (ma 976) Dr Jarl Kremeier .................................9320–26 Art in the Netherlands (ma 979) Richard Williams ..............................17227–30 Cold War Berlin (ma 970) Patrick Mercer .....................................90 Shakespeare & his World ..................52 Summer Opera in Italy ....................114 Incontri in Terra di Siena ................138 Trasimeno Music Festival ...............138

August 2014 3–11 Santa Fe Opera (ma 985) Richard Wigmore...............................211 4–11 The Victorian Achievement (ma 988) Dr Paul Atterbury ................4011–15 Bertie, Prince & King (ma 989) Prof. Jane Ridley .................................5115–21 The Salzburg Summer Festival ..........1517–21 Vienna’s Masterpieces (ma 992) Angus Haldane ....................................1717–21 Connoisseur’s London (ma 990)19–23 Royal Residences (ma 996) Giles Waterfield ...................................4921–25 Verona Opera (ma 994) Dr Luca Leoncini ..............................11721–28 THE DANUBE MUSIC FESTIVAL (ma 995) .......................1521–28 The Danube Festival Walking Option (ma 998) Richard Wigmore ....1628– 1 Verona Opera (ma 999) Dr R. T. Cobianchi ............................11730– 4 The Lucerne Festival (ma 993) Prof. Stephen Walsh ...........................204 Opera in Macerata & Pesaro ...........138 Torre del Lago .................................138 Martina Franca ...............................152 Edinburgh Festival ..........................185 Opera in Drottningholm .................203

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September 2014 1– 8 Bohemia (mb 114) Michael Ivory .......28 1–13 West Coast Architecture (mb 100) Tom Abbott .........................................21 3– 6 Flemish Painting (mb 102) Dr Richard Williams ...........................24 5– 7 Mediaeval Art in Paris (mb 103) Dr Matthew Woodworth......................66 5–8 Poets & The Somme (mb 105) Andrew Spooner ..................................69 6–11 Beethoven in Bonn (mb 104) Ian Page ............................................100 8–14 Lucca (mb 109) Dr Flavio Boggi ......137 8–14 French Gothic (mb 110) Dr Alexandra Gajewski .......................67 8–15 Berlin, Potsdam, Dresden (mb 106) Dr Jarl Kremeier .................................85 8–20 Sicily (mb 128) Christopher Newall ..154 8–22 The Iron Curtain (mb 101) Neil Taylor ..........................................96 9–14 Palladian Villas (mb 129) Prof. Fabrizio Nevola ........................119 9–15 Connoisseur’s Prague (mb 116) Michael Ivory ......................................30 9–16 Dark Age Brilliance (mb 111) John McNeill .....................................127 9–19 Transoxiana (mb 112) Prof. Hugh Kennedy ..........................21510–14 Art in Madrid (mb 113) Gijs van Hensbergen ..........................19010–17 Hungary (mb 115) Dr József Sisa .....10512–18 St Petersburg (mb 108) Dr Alexey Makhrov ...........................18213–24 Morocco (mb 117) James Brown ......16715–20 Oxford & Oxfordshire (mb 124) Dr Cathy Oakes ...................................5315–21 The Etruscans (mb 118) Dr Nigel Spivey ................................14415–26 Ancient Egypt (mb 107) Dr Angus Graham ...............................3216–19 The Battle of Britain (mb 127) Terry Charman ...................................6115–23 The Heart of Portugal (mb 121) Adam Hopkins ...................................17516–22 Music in the Saxon Hills (mb 120) Dr David Vickers & Tom Abbott..........9216–23 The Heart of Italy (mb 119) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott..................13916–26 Transoxiana (mb 135) Prof. James Allan ...............................21518–24 Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes (mb 123) Steven Desmond .................115

19–25 Connoisseur’s Vienna (mb 126) Dr Jarl Kremeier .................................1919–26 Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur (mb 122) Monica Bohm-Duchen .........8221–27 Art in the Netherlands (mb 131) Dr Guus Sluiter .................................17222–25 Arts & Crafts (mb 130) Janet Sinclair ......................................4222–27 Parma ..............................................12722– 4 Wellington in the Peninsula (mb 137) Patrick Mercer ...................20223–29 Cave Art in Spain (mb 138) Dr Paul Bahn ....................................18927– 6 Classical Greece (mb 140) Dr Andrew Farrington ......................10328– 3 A FESTIVAL OF MUSIC IN BOLOGNA..............................12829– 4 Gardens & Villas of Campagna Romana (mb 136) Helena Attlee .......14329– 5 Gastronomic Sicily (mb 141) Marc Millon .....................................15929– 5 Istanbul (mb 144) Sue Rollin............20529–13 The Iron Curtain (mb 145) Neil Taylor ..........................................9630– 8 Connoisseur’s New York (mb 139) Gijs van Hensbergen ..........................20930–11 Walking to Santiago (mb 143) Adam Hopkins & Gaby Macphedran ..185 Music in London ...............................60

October 2014 1– 5 Ravenna & Urbino (mb 146) Dr Luca Leoncini ..............................126 1– 9 The Cathedrals of England (mb 147) Jon Cannon .........................44 2– 8 Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes (mb 148) Steven Desmond ......115 3– 9 Monasteries of Moldavia (mb 149) Alan Ogden .......................................181 4–11 Central Macedonia (mb 154) Dr Oswyn Murray ............................1024–19 Eastern Turkey (mb 160) Rowena Loverance ............................206 6–12 Malta (mb 176) Juliet Rix ................166 6–13 Courts of Northern Italy (mb 161) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott..................125 6–19 The Western Balkans (mb 151) David Gowan .....................................26 7–12 Palladian Villas (mb 153) Dr Joachim Strupp .............................119 8–23 Ethiopia (mb 155) ..............................63

10–17 Walking in Northern Tuscany (mb 150) Dr Antonia Whitley ...........12911–17 Gastronomic Piedmont (mb 162) Marc Millon .....................................11213–18 Ancient Rome (mb 164) Dr Mark Grahame ............................14613–20 Bilbao to Bayonne (mb 165) Gijs van Hensbergen ............................1813–21 Roman Algeria (mb 152) Barnaby Rogerson ..................................813–25 Sicily (mb 163) John McNeill ............15415–22 Puglia (mb 169) Christopher Newall ............................15315–23 Essential Jordan (mb 170) Jane Taylor ........................................16217–23 Roman & Mediaeval Provence (mb 174) Dr Alexandra Gajewski ........7718–31 Andalucía (mb 175) Adam Hopkins ..................................19520–25 Pompeii & Herculaneum (mb 178) Dr Ffiona Gilmore Eaves ...................14920–27 Walking in Southern Tuscany (mb 180) Dr Antonia Whitley ...........13120–28 Palestine (mb 159) Dr Felicity Cobbing ...........................17321–30 Israel & Palestine (mb 166) Dr Garth Gilmour .............................110 Opera in Cardiff ................................52

November 2014 1– 8 Venice & Florence (mb 192) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott..................134 4–10 Essential Rome (mb 193) Dr Thomas-Leo True .........................14510–16 Florence Revisited (mb 195) Dr Joachim Strupp .............................13310–18 The Greeks in Sicily (mb 200) Dr Ffiona Gilmore Eaves ...................15711–16 Venice Revisited (mb 196) Dr Susan Steer ..................................12418–22 Venetian Palaces (mb 202) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott..................120 The Lucerne Piano Festival .............204

December 2014We will run about seven or eight Christmas and New Year tours. Details will be available in the spring of 2014. Contact us to register your interest.

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2014Second edition

Voysey House, Barley Mow Passage, London, United Kingdom W4 4GFTelephone 020 8742 3355 Fax 020 8742 7766 [email protected]: Martin Randall Australasia, PO Box 537, Toowong, QLD 4066 Telephone 1300 55 95 95 Fax 07 3377 0142 [email protected] Zealand: Telephone 0800 877 622Canada: Telephone 647 382 1644 Fax 416 925 2670 [email protected]

USA: Telephone 1 800 988 6168

www.martinrandall.com 5085

Front cover illustration: Ely Cathedral, aquatint c. 1823 by Charles Wild (1781–1835).

Below: ‘The Tavern Garden’, etching c. 1890 after a painting by Jan Steen (1626–1679).

All the engravings reproduced in this brochure are in the Martin Randall Travel collection.

Documents

Martin Randall Travel's 2014 brochure: second edition