What could be more romantic than a sunset gondola ride along the Grand Canal in Venice, gliding past grand palazzi or exploring the network of narrow waterways in one of the most beautiful cities in the world? Venice has few roads so gondolas, with their slim hulls and flat undersides, have been used for a thousand years …
The very name of the Orient Express symbolises the glamour and romance of train travel, summoning up visions of luxurious sleeping cars, opulent dining rooms, smoking rooms and elegant ladies’ drawing rooms. The Orient Express, however, wasn’t simply one train travelling along a single route. Initially called the Express d’Orient, the train was the brain-child of …
I’ve always been fascinated by old buildings and what could be a more romantic setting for a story than a palazzo on the Grand Canal? I found the allure of Venice impossible to resist and it provides a wonderful setting for The Lost Daughter of Venice, my latest historical novel. This famously beautiful canal is …
[IMG: War Graves Commission] When the slaughter of the Great War ended in 1918, the nation was left in mourning for a ‘Lost Generation’ of young men. It didn’t take long before girls, who had grown up with the expectation of a future as a wife and mother, realised there simply weren’t enough potential husbands …
The most astonishing fact about Venice is that it exists at all. This ancient city is built on a series of low mud banks off the coast of mainland Italy that are subjected to frequent tidal flooding from the Adriatic sea. Using impermeable stone, timber piles and larch wood, early Venetian builders evolved a unique …