Whatever you have read about Naples, it doesn't prepare you for the reality. The taxi driver that I had booked turned up late, his car...

Both with terrible flu, the partner on antibiotics and me trying not to be, we head to Modena to meet up with the daughter and her...

Awoke to a thrush singing and breakfasted under an enormous, ancient plum tree with fruit almost ripened. The heat was already palpable...

My solo time is about to come to and end. I'm meeting the partner in Rome tomorrow. I take the bus to Venice and then meet a lovely lady...

We hang out in the spring. There are wildflowers everywhere, fields of them swaying gently, the river like aquamarine flowing over the...

I meet the daughter in Bologna at a hotel where we’ve stayed before, right in the heart of the city. All Italianate rooms, a beautiful...

This place has never done a great deal for me, I’m a child of the cities where I can walk and watch people, look at art and search for...

Mantova ,someone told me, is a city of mists; low lying, surrounded by lakes. I arrive to find it filled with Italian tourists, grey but...

So I booked an Air BnB for four nights in my spirit city so I could live as a honorary Venetian for a few days. My vision was to go to...

I meet the daughter in #Bologna. The hotel I booked that suggested it was in the centre, isn't. It's like a Fawlty Towers scenario. The...

I'm off to Ravenna, in my mind a fabled place that in the thirty years of travelling to Italy, I never went to. It's famous for it's...