Spring Newsletter 2020

M A RT I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L A RT • A R C H I T E C T U R E • G A S T R ONO M Y • A R C H A E OLO G Y • H I S TORY • M U S I C

Newsletter Spring 2020 News | newly-launched tours | Martin Randall Festivals | 2021 preview

About us

Britain’s leading specialist in cultural travel Martin Randall Travel is committed to providing the best planned, the best led and altogether the most fulfilling and enjoyable cultural tours available. Operating in around 50 countries in Europe, Asia, the Americas and the Middle East, our mission is to deepen your understanding and enhance your appreciation of the achievements of civilisations around the world.

First-rate lecturers. Expert speakers are a key ingredient in our tours and events. They are selected not only for their knowledge, but also for their ability to communicate clearly and engagingly to a lay audience.

Original itineraries, meticulously planned.

Rooted in knowledge of the destination and of the subject matter of the tour, our itineraries are the outcome of assiduous research and reconnaissance. They are original and imaginative, well-paced and carefully balanced.

Special arrangements are a feature of our tours: admission to places not generally open to travellers, access outside public hours, private concerts and extraordinary events.

Small groups, congenial company. Unless specified otherwise, our tours run with between 10 and 22 participants. You are highly likely to find yourself in good company, self-selected by common interests and endorsement of the company’s ethos.

Travelling solo. We welcome people travelling on their own, for whom our tours are ideal. We also offer tours exclusively for solo travellers.

Care for our clients, suppliers and employees.

We aim for faultless administration from your first encounter with us to the end of the holiday, and beyond. Personal service is a feature. We are a fair, inclusive company and we trust everyone who has dealings with MRT to treat our clients, suppliers and employees with courtesy, empathy and respect.

To see our full range of cultural tours and events, please visit www.martinrandall.com.

Included in our prices The services of the lecturer and a tour manager – and local guides where appropriate.

Hotel accommodation.

All breakfasts, most dinners and some lunches.

Wine or beer, soft drinks, tea or coffee at lunch and dinner.

Tips for waiters, porters, drivers and local guides.

All admissions to museums, galleries and sites visited on the itinerary.

If it is a music tour, good tickets to all included performances.

NEWSLETTER | about us

Travelling in comfort. We select our hotels with great care; most are rated as 4-star or 5-star.

We invest similar efforts in 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 seats.

Return air or rail travel between London and the destination for tours outside the UK. There are some exceptions – if flights are not included, this is always stated.

Travel by private coach for all included excursions, and airport or railway transfers, if we include flights or trains.

All state and airport taxes.

For all the latest information and advice on Martin Randall Travel’s response amid the coronavirus outbreak, please visit: www.martinrandall.com/coronavirus 2

book online at www.martinrandall.com

Illustrations. Top: detail from an etching c. 1890 after a painting

by Jan Steen (1626–1679).

Left: Ionic column, engraving 1851 by Henry Winkles.

Opposite: ‘Rocaille’ cartouche, engraving c. 1750.

Contents News & commentary ‘He made the faulty good; the good better; the better perfect’ Martin Randall talks to Adrian Bridges in an article celebrating three decades of Martin Randall Travel.................. 4 No Robots Here Rosanna Reade introduces the Client Relationship Team....... 6 Tributes and tributaries Kelly Ward, Director of Martin Randall Australasia, shares her reflections after 20 years of our Brisbane office.................. 7 New publications by our lecturers............................................. 8 Bespoke in Bath Our sister company, Heritage Group Travel, offers tailored tours for special interest groups.......................... 9

Selected tours in 2020 Glyndebourne & Garsington........................................................ 11 Castles, Campaigns, Conquest..................................................... 12 History Symposium: Tudor Encounters..................................... 13 Tours & festivals by train, including: Versailles: Seat of the Sun King.................................................... 14 Flemish Painting............................................................................. 15 Hindsgavl: Chamber Music in Denmark.................................... 16

Cyprus: stepping stone of history................................................. 18 Why Cyprus?

Lecturer Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones writes about this enticing and exciting country.................................. 19 Gastronomic Friuli-Venezia Giulia............................................. 20

Wagner’s Ring in London.............................................................. 24 Welsh National Opera.................................................................... 25 Japanese Gardens............................................................................ 26 Traditions of Japan.......................................................................... 28 Art in Japan...................................................................................... 29 Vietnam: History, People, Food................................................... 31 Cambodia by River......................................................................... 32 Peru: the Andean Heartland......................................................... 34 The Making of Argentina............................................................... 36 Love in a cold climate Sophie Watts spends some time in Patagonia.......................... 37 Modern architecture: Beyond Bauhaus George Jerger shares his enthusiasm for our new tour........... 38 At one with the Gods The Classical Turkey tour presents the finest group of Hellenistic and Roman city ruins............................... 40 Gently by gulet A new water-based tour of Turkey’s southwestern coast........ 41

Martin Randall Festivals Repeat performances welcome Architectural historian John McNeill recently accompanied Opera in Sicily, which we plan to repeat in 2021...................... 43 The Alentejo: peaceful, pretty and perfect for polyphony Read about Fiona Charrington’s recent prospecting trip to Portugal, ahead of our festival next year....................... 44 Newly-launched: London Choral Day........................................ 45 Chamber Music Short Breaks....................................................... 45

Tours & events by date

A menu from Friuli-Venezia Giulia Lizzie Watson, who runs our gastronomy programme, offers a taste of what to expect............................. 21

2020 & 2021............................................................................... 46–51

Staff favourites: Rome on Film.................................................................................. 22 The Western Balkans...................................................................... 23 St Petersburg.................................................................................... 23

Featured in this brochure.............................................................. 52

Lecturers Booking Booking form............................................................................ 53–54 Booking details & our conditions................................................ 55 Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

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NEWSLETTER | contents

Music and Silence Rachel Jones celebrates two contrasting music festivals in Scandinavia.................................................... 17

Tours in 2021

‘He made the faulty good; the good better; the better perfect.’ – J.S. Bach Martin Randall talks to Adrian Bridges about his inspirations and achievements, in an article celebrating three decades of Martin Randall Travel.

IN CONVERSATION WITH MARTIN RANDALL

course in the Philosophy of Art at York University were interspersed with gap years in Italy (Florence) and Germany (Bamberg) and, unlikely though it now seems, spells as a manual labourer, including a period on night shift in Bedfordshire Brickworks.

The quest for museum work proved less successful, with application after application being met with rejection.

Baffled and despondent, Martin readjusted his sights, taking a succession of jobs in the sphere of tourism with organisations that he felt left a lot to be desired.

He could do it better himself. ‘Good luck,’ said his school teacher father, words that for Martin ‘turned an ill-formed desire into unshakeable ambition.’

‘When I plan an itinerary I spend dozens of hours fiddling around from one day to another. I change timings maybe by five minutes, then change them back. I will change them by quarter of an hour – will that fit better?

– pulling, pushing…’

and a benchmark for excellence. Randall – once described by the political journalist Simon Hoggart as the last Renaissance man – has an infectious enthusiasm, undimmed even at 65, but he has suffered for his art and his architecture and his arias along the way.

Anyone who has worked with Martin Randall will recognise that these are the words of a man for whom nothing short of perfection will ever suffice, a man with passion and vision – and a prodigious capacity for good old-fashioned graft.

Suffered for his art? Well there was the time he was shot in Naples. He was escorting a group to the Misericordia to hear The Tallis Scholars sing Gesualdo madrigals beneath Caravaggio’s ‘The seven works of mercy’, when, ‘Bang!’ a shot rang out and Martin was hit. Mercifully, rather than being a case of see Naples and die it was simply a bunch of youths letting off steam with an air gun containing harmless pellets. But there was consternation among the group. ‘Martin has been shot’, ‘Martin has been shot!’ the word went down the line.

It is 30 years since Martin formed the company that bears his name – Martin Randall Travel. It has been quite a journey.

His company has won accolade after accolade; his tours have become a byword

Prospect Art Tours was the name of that first foray into the world of cultural tourism and it was here that Martin began to develop what were to become hallmarks of Martin Randall Travel – getting art historians to accompany groups to sites themselves, thinning down overloaded Itineraries, reducing tour size numbers.

While the product was good, the company was not profitable and after six years, in 1988, Martin found himself ousted. It was a bitter blow, occasioning huge feelings of self doubt. His detractors said he was too perfectionist, too academic and spent too long fiddling around with itineraries and text. He resolved to start up again. Enter stage left, Martin Randall Travel. ‘I had to show the world as well as myself that I was not a failure,’ he says.

NEWSLETTER | news & commentary

MRT clients are used to dramas – usually enacted in the most prestigious opera houses and music venues in the world – but there are less welcome kinds too.

‘When I started, it came as a real shock to discover that despite all the care taken in advance something might go wrong or even some customer might not like it,’ says Martin. ‘I was not very resilient; I took things too personally.’

martinrandall The Royal Navy’s biggest ever warships at the time they were completed, Warrior 1860 and Queen Elizabeth 2020 - only a few hundred yards apart, in Portsmouth. #portsmouthhistoricdockyard #royalnavy #historicships #aircraftcarriers #hmswarrior #hmsqueenelizabeth #visitengland 48

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The early journey was not the easiest, either. Brought up in Bedford and much influenced by a teacher who drew out a ‘precocious lust for art history’, Martin decided at the age of 14 that his future lay in art museums and that he would become the youngest ever director of the National Gallery (‘an outrageously inappropriate ambition’).

The study of Art History at the Courtauld Institute in London and a postgraduate

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martinrandall Law Courts, Strand, by George Edmund Street, opened 1883. London’s finest secular Gothic Revival building, looking resplendent this morning. #victorianarchitecture #lawcourts #georgeedmundstreet #beautifullondon #gothicrevival 33

Not only did clients receive highly informed commentaries, they also had time and mental space to appreciate what they were seeing.

Over time the company expanded geographically – branching out from Europe into Asia and the Americas – and redefined the concept of cultural tourism.

To places containing great art, architecture or classical music pedigree were added tours revolving around historical figures, such as Winston Churchill, the buildings of the Victorians, including the great railway heritage of northern England, gastronomic experiences and even the Northern Ireland of the Troubles.

A London Days programme offered highly illuminating insights into the architecture and history of the city; long weekends for history symposia or chamber music were added to the mix.

The most important innovation was the introduction of entire music festivals involving performances by first rate musicians in exquisite settings throughout Europe solely for the benefit of MRT clients. ‘The music festivals are capable of bringing a higher degree of delight than almost any other product in the realm of tourism,’ he says. ‘If at the culmination of nine concerts in places associated with J.S.

martinrandall Nice field, pretty garden, pleasant picnic. Oh, and a thunderingly good opera as well.

Don Giovanni at Garsington. #countryhouseopera #garsington #garsingtonatwormsley #dongiovanni #mozart

martinrandall Sorry I’m late, got stuck in a flock of 22,000 sheep in Patagonia. Short title: Where’s Woolly? #patagoniafleece #patagoniachile #patagoniafleece #chiletourism #merino @_martinrandalltravel

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Bach you hear as good a performance as it is possible to hear of the B Minor Mass in the Nikolaikirche in Leipzig – it’s hard to do better.’

And though all the rest MRT does is widely copied around the world, after 27 years these festivals remain unique. No other organisation has come close.

‘ I’ve probably seen more works of art and visited more museums and great buildings than almost anyone else in Britain.’

Especially when, as is the case with Martin’s signature London Backstreet Walk from Hyde Park to The Tower Hyde Park, a glass of Champagne at the Savoy is an essential element. But then those stops are a crucial part of the MRT way. Building more time into the tours for people to reflect more on what they are seeing and hearing, and to enjoy good food and drink and convivial conversation is a key part of the company ethos. As is making time for lunch (‘lunch is always at lunchtime’) and planning our own music festivals so that concerts don’t begin at 7.30pm (‘so ruinous to dinner’).

Martin is justifiably proud of his company and his own achievements, though he

‘MRT has flourished because I have a rare combination of talents and experience. I am an art historian and I have also travelled widely. I am capable of fresh thinking,’ he says. When I work out an itinerary I know what it should look like because I have been there. I can picture it. I know how long it takes to walk those stretches. I can engage with the detail.’

And what now? Having turned 65, he has stepped back from much of the day to day running of the business, but has no intention of giving up the thing he loves most – devising ever more innovative, ever more satisfying cultural tours and events.

He pauses to reflect on an observation once made about Bach: ‘He made the faulty good; the good better; the better perfect.’ ‘That is the process to which we aspire. Of course we never get there. There never is perfection.’

Adrian Bridge is Deputy Travel Editor at the Telegraph • For more information on any of the locations or tours referred-to in Martin’s Instagram posts, please contact us or visit www.martinrandall.com

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NEWSLETTER | news & commentary

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concedes he can be a little eccentric and idiosyncratic – and that even now making money is not his forte.

Does he ever regret not having become a museum director? ‘No. Doing what I have done I’ve probably seen more works of art and visited more museums and great buildings than almost anyone else in Britain. I’ve also met extraordinarily interesting people.’

In addition to devising tours, Martin has always led them. ‘Partly because I like it; partly because it’s necessary to remind yourself what it’s actually like. Regularly being at the coalface is terribly important.’

martinrandall Marvao, Estremoz, Monsaraz, Elvas.

The little towns in the east of the Alentejo are extraordinarily pretty and unspoilt. #visitportugal #alentejo #portuguesearchitecture @_martinrandalltravel

IN CONVERSATION WITH MARTIN RANDALL

The first MRT tour – in the winter of 1988 – was to the Franconia region of Germany: the northern part of Bavaria containing such treasures as Nuremberg and Bayreuth, Wurzburg and Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

No Robots Here Clients come first at MRT, and that means we do our utmost to be there for you at the end of the line, but who are we?

Rosanna Reade introduces the Client Relationship Team.

OUR CLIENT TEAM

In the age of convenience, e-mails, and online bookings, you don’t necessarily need to speak to anyone in order to make a booking.

That’s true of MRT. You can reserve a tour on our website at the click of a few keys. But booking one of our tours is a commitment of time, money and trust, and although a computer might be convenient, we know that many of you still prefer to talk to a ‘human being’. If you have called our office, then you will know that there are no robots at the end of our phones! More often than not, you will be speaking to a member of the Client Relationship Team.

The ‘Client Team’ is one of the smallest in the office, with six members. You might recognise my name – Rosanna Reade – from your confirmation letters, and in addition there is: Liz Roe, Simone Larche, Alice Rendell (no, not Martin’s daughter!), Sarah Fenner, and our newest recruit, Lydia Shirfield. We are charged with the care of all aspects of the administration of your reservation before you travel: from making the initial booking and confirming your place, to posting your final documents before you depart. We answer around 1,500 calls a month, and send more e-mails and letters than we can count.

NEWSLETTER | news & commentary

Our work is closely intertwined with that of the Operations Team, who work on the tours themselves, and we have a broad knowledge of the MRT tours and festivals.

In the space of five minutes we might go from advising on the selection of hotels on Venice: Pageantry & Piety, to suggesting which tours with Michael Douglas-Scott still have availability, to talking about travel insurance. For all of us in the Client Team, it is the diversity of the role that makes working here enjoyable. And this is most evident in the variety of conversations we have with our clients.

It could be said that Martin Randall Travel attracts a certain kind of clientele, and it is no different with the employees. All of us have been drawn to the company for its rich cultural offerings, and we have a sharp eye for detail. Sarah, Alice and I studied History of Art (at St Andrews, Exeter and Edinburgh respectively), and Liz and Lydia studied Archaeology and Ancient History (at Royal Holloway and Sheffield). Simone worked in the book trade for the best part of 20 years, and is our resident bookworm.

One of the most enjoyable parts of the role is learning about the many tours we have on offer – and sometimes joining one. If 6

‘ Having joined MRT fairly recently, I couldn’t have wished for a warmer welcome. I love that the work ethic here is one where everyone helps and supports each other, it really is a team effort.’ – Lydia ‘ I’m always learning new things, whether that’s to do with my job role, or from lecturers on tour.’ – Liz asked to choose, Alice and Sarah would both favour New Orleans to Natchitoches, lured by the architecture, culture and music of the ‘Big Easy’. Simone dreams of going to India, to trace the footsteps of an ancestor who fought in the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

Lydia has her eye on Traditions of Japan, which explores the modern and historic aspects of Japanese society.

Liz recently was the tour manager on Classical Greece. Her favourite moment involved a thunderstorm in Megalopolis, resulting in a candlelit lunch in a traditional

book online at www.martinrandall.com

taverna – an atmospheric meal to say the least! She looks forward to meeting those of you travelling on our Ancient & Islamic Tunisia tour in October this year.

Sarah and I both assisted on Music Along the Danube in 2019, where a private concert at Dürnstein Abbey is a striking memory.

I have also been lucky to tour manage The Melbourne Ring and St Petersburg in recent years. Learning about the ‘red line’ of St Petersburg’s architecture, visiting ornate palaces and the indomitable Hermitage Museum remains a highlight in five years

The team, photographs clockwise from top left: Rosanna, Sarah, Liz, Lydia, Alice and Simone.

Centre: Rosanna, while prospecting in Iceland.

Bottom left: Delphi, taken by Liz (bottom right) while tour managing ‘Classical Greece’.

Tributes and tributaries This year is the 20th anniversary of Martin Randall Australia.

Its Director, Kelly Ward, shares her personal reflections.

Over ages also, the most meaningful works of humanity endure over others and continue to speak to generation after generation. In our frenetic and busy current times, where overwhelming access to information – even virtual reality – threatens to flood the senses, it is an art to balance the richness of opportunity that technological advances bring with the quiet discovery of what makes life worthwhile.

Sir Richard Livingstone wrote about the Greeks:

of working at MRT, although prospecting for Iceland’s Story might come a close second. Travelling on our tours is such a reward, but it is also an invaluable way for us to learn more about the tours and how MRT operates, in order to pass on this information firsthand to our clients.

‘As civilisation moves further from its origin, it receives a thousand tributaries that continually augment its volume, and colour and confuse its streams. The interests of an early age are the principal interests of man, and the literature of such an age presents them unalloyed and uncomplicated by lesser issues. The poets make poetry from emotions as old as the world, and have none of the refinements and elaborations which education and a long inheritance of culture superadd to the essential stuff of human nature.’

We are far from civilisation’s origin and yet I believe that what tours and festivals can offer is a handful of this pure source material. In an expansive and reflective space, where one can contemplate truth and nourish the soul with beauty, unadulterated by the stresses and intrusive alerts of everyday life, we create our own beauty in the world – that of human joy, wonder and the bonds of companionship.

It has taken the natural distillation of time for me to attain this perspective, and I consider myself fortunate to have trodden this path, alongside many cherished and inspiring kindred spirits – clients and colleagues alike.

Kelly Ward

20 YEARS OF MARTIN RANDALL AUSTRALASIA

As the years advance, what is of greatest import rises to the top in our lives and we look back with a clarity that the distance of perspective affords.

Kelly first joined MRT in 1997 after graduating in Classics at Oxford University.

She worked initially in the London office and then moved to Australia in 1999, where she opened our Brisbane office.

Below: detail of Raphael’s fresco ‘The School of Athens’, 1508–11 in the Vatican, Rome, 19th-century lithograph.

NEWSLETTER | news & commentary

I hope this goes some way to an introduction – adding some faces to names, at least. Do call. We look forward to speaking to you!

Rosanna Reade, Client Relationship Supervisor

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New publications by our lecturers

NEW PUBLICATIONS BY OUR LECTURERS

Jeremy Black’s, A Brief History of Portugal, is published by Little Brown in April. It follows his studies of Italy and Spain in the same series. A Brief History of the Mediterranean will come out later this year. Jeremy, who has published widely on US history, leads New Orleans to Natchitoches, History, Architecture and Jazz, 24 February-6 March 2021.

David Beresford-Jones has co-edited Rethinking the Andes-Amazon Divide, to be published later this year by UCL Press.

Neil Jackson’s latest book, Pierre Koenig: A View from the Archive, Getty Publishing, is the fruit of his discoveries from Koenig’s archive at the Getty Research Institute. Neil leads Frank Lloyd Wright – and the Chicago School, 12-23 June 2020; and West Coast Architecture – a century of building in Arizona and California, 11–22 September, 2020.

Bloomsbury has recently published Helen King’s new study Hippocrates Now: The ‘Father of Medicine’ in the Internet Age. As well as through traditional outlets, it can be accessed in full online.

Helen leads Art & Medicine – Florence, Bologna and Padua in the Age of Humanism, 19–25 October 2020.

NEWSLETTER | news & commentary

Conor Lucey’s Building Reputations Architecture and the artisan, 1750–1830 (Manchester University Press) has been awarded the Alice Davis Hitchcock medallion of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain. Conor leads Georgian Dublin – 18th-century architecture, its builders & design, 21–24 May 2020.

Adam Hopkins led tours with us for 21 years, retiring in 2017 after 140 tours. His new book Camino Pilgrims to Paradise: the Road to Santiago Then and Now (Movement Publishing), will strike a poignant chord for any who have had the fortune to walk the route with him.

The book, billed as a ‘cultural companion’ to the Camino, is part memoir of Adam’s experiences walking the route. Just as he did on our tours, it covers the historical background and artistic legacy, buildings and paintings encountered along the way. There’s analysis of religious belief over the centuries, from the Renaissance and Reformation to the Franco era and onwards.

The Islamic story is told in counterpoint with the Christianity of early times, adding a distinctive note to other Camino books.

Richard Stokes has just completed a new book, The Complete Songs of Hugo Wolf, to be published by Faber in October 2021.

Giles Tremlett’s latest book, Today the Struggle, a new history of the International Brigades, will be published

by Bloomsbury this autumn. Giles leads Two Spains: the Spanish Civil War and its Aftermath, 14–22 Oct 2020.

‘ Adam Hopkins is a master of his subject and I found all his talks informative and engaging. We were introduced to a variety of cultural, economic, gastronomic and historical aspects of life in Spain.’

Illustration: procession leaving Santiago Cathedral, Muirhead Bone, 1938.

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book online at www.martinrandall.com

Bespoke in Bath Expertly managed by our sister company, Heritage Group Travel, tailoring tours for special interest groups expands cultural partnerships and choices alike.

BESPOKE TOURS

Providing bespoke tours for art societies, patron organisations, cultural institutions and other affinity groups has always formed a valued part of MRT’s activities. It received a huge boost in 2017 with the acquisition of Heritage Group Travel, the country’s leading specialist in tailor-made cultural tours. Together, we have 65 years of experience of the market.

Heritage has always been based in Bath, and MRT’s partnership team recently joined them there – just off Queen Square, so in the centre of a sequence of urban architecture which is among the most beautiful in Europe.

One of the advantages of working with Heritage is that they have a very wide range of partners, from Art Society members to patrons of major museums such as the National Gallery in London. Between us, we can cater for a range of requirements, from the budget-conscious to the high-end and exclusive.

If you would like to discuss the possibility of a bespoke tour for an organisation, do get in touch with Hannah Wrigley (hannah.wrigley@martinrandall.co.uk), our Partnership Manager, or Penny Withers (penny@grouptravel.co.uk), Managing Director of Heritage Group Travel.

NEWSLETTER | news & commentary

We are delighted to partner with the following leading museums, organisations and publishers, amongst others: National Gallery, London, National Gallery of Canada, CPSA (Center for Palladian Studies in America), Royal Opera House, QAGOMA, Handel House, The Telegraph, HALI Publications, BBC Music.

Illustration: Bath, The Circus, wood engraving c. 1880.

PARTNERSHIP TOURS We also offer a number of tours that are designed and run in partnership with organisations, with their members in mind – but which are open to all: The Oberammergau Passion Play with BBC Music Magazine 1–5 June 2020 (eg 401) Textiles in Japan with HALI 1–12 November 2020 (eg 551) Please visit www.martinrandall.com for full details, or contact us.

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‘ This was a magical tour for me: a perfect opera experience and holiday – excellent singing, excellent seats for wonderful productions of interesting operas combined with elegant ambiance and pleasant and knowledgeable group participants, an insightful lecturer and excellent tour manager.’

Glyndebourne & Garsington Mitridate, Dialogues des Carmélites, L’elisir d’amore UNITED KINGDOM

5–8 June 2020 (mg 246) 4 days • £2,860 (Including tickets to 3 performances) Lecturer: Dr John Allison Three operas at two of England’s highest quality country-house opera festivals – Glyndebourne and Garsington.

Mozart’s Mitridate and Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore at Garsington.

Glyndebourne’s first ever production of Dialogues des Carmélites by Francis Poulenc.

Staying on the banks of the Thames in Henley and in a quiet country house hotel set in beautiful gardens.

Itinerary Day 1: Henley-on-Thames, Garsington. The coach leaves Henley-on-Thames railway station at 2.10pm for the short drive to the hotel.

After a talk at the hotel leave in the afternoon

for Garsington and a 6.20pm performance of Mozart’s. Mitridate. Dinner is served during the long interval. Overnight in Henley-on-Thames.

Day 2: Henley-on-Thames, Cliveden, Horsted, Glyndebourne. By coach from Henley-on-Thames to Cliveden. Cliveden’s magnificent formal gardens and woods beside the Thames have been admired for centuries.

In the afternoon, attend a talk and drive to Glyndebourne for a 5.00pm performance of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites. A picnic dinner is served during the long interval. First of two nights in Horsted.

Day 3: Horsted, Charleston, Glyndebourne.

A morning excursion to Charleston Farmhouse, the country residence of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, with almost every surface decorated by them. A lecture in the afternoon is followed by Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore at Glyndebourne, beginning at 4.00pm. Dinner is served in the long interval.

Day 4. Leave when you wish. Taxis to Lewes railway station are provided.

Practicalities Price, per person. Two sharing: £2,860.

Single occupancy: £3,110.

Included meals: 3 dinners with wine.

Music: three tickets are included, costing c. £710.

Accommodation. Hotel du Vin, Henley-onThames (hotelduvin.com). Horsted Place, Little Horsted (horstedplace.co.uk).

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

Average distance by coach per day: 35 miles.

Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.

Photograph ©Glyndebourne Productions Ltd photo Bill Cooper (‘l’elisir d’Amore’ 2011). Left: lithograph 1902.

Performances GARSINGTON Mitridate | W.A. Mozart Clemens Schuldt conductor Tim Albery director Robert Murray Mitridate Elizabeth Watts Aspasia Mary Bevan Sifare Tim Mead Farnace Jennifer France Ismene Colin Judson Arbate Florian Panzieri Marzio The English Concert GLYNDEBOURNE Dialogues des Carmélites | Poulenc Barrie Kosky director Danielle de Niese Blanche de la Force Doris Soffel Madame de Croissy, Prioress Golda Schultz Madame Lidoine, new Prioress Karen Cargill Mère Marie Fiona Kimm Mère Jeanne Florie Valiquette Soeur Constance Paul Gay Marquis de la Force Cyrille Dubois Chevalier de la Force Vincent Ordonneau Father Confessor London Philharmonic Orchestra The Glyndebourne Chorus L’elisir d’amore | Donizetti Enrique Mazzola conductor Annabel Arden director Olga Kulchynska Adina Liparit Avetisyan Nemorino Biagio Pizzuti Belcore Mikheil Kiria Dr Dulcamara Mané Galoyan Giannetta London Philharmonic Orchestra The Glyndebourne Chorus

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NEWSLETTER | 2020 tours

When landowner John Christie built a small opera house for his professional soprano wife in the rolling Sussex Downs, he unwittingly founded Country House Opera. The Glyndebourne Festival started there in 1934 with two Mozart operas, and since then its popularity has inexorably grown. Today, Glyndebourne epitomises the English summertime.

Several other venues have followed Glyndebourne’s example and Garsington, now celebrating its 30th anniversary, has also established a sterling reputation for the worldclass standard of its opera festival. Founded in 1989 by the owner of Garsington Manor, an estate near Oxford where the Bloomsbury Group often congregated during the 1920s, the Festival moved in 2011 to a purpose-built theatre at nearby Wormsley Park, the home of Mark Getty in Buckinghamshire.

The tour begins at Garsington with Mitridate.

Mozart was only 14 when he wrote his first opera seria, combining glorious melody, dazzling vocal fireworks and exquisitely tender melancholy.

Continue to Glyndebourne for this year’s must-see new production, Poulenc’s tragic and powerful Dialogues des Carmélites. It tells the story of a Carmelite convent whose nuns are condemned to death during the French Revolution. A modern masterpiece, it contrasts violent revolution with moments of startling simplicity and beauty.

One of the best loved of all Donizetti’s operas, L’elisir d’amore combines comedy and romance with the sweetest of melodies, including Nemorino’s captivating aria ‘Una furtive lagrima’. Updating the action to the 1940s, Annabel Arden’s production celebrates the opera’s original joyful, colourful spirit, painting an affectionate picture of an Italy on the brink of political change.

Accompanied by musicologist Dr John Allison, there are daily talks on all three operas.

Castles, Campaigns, Conquest Military architecture and medieval Wales UNITED KINGDOM 29 June–3 July 2020 (mg 292) 5 days • £1,290 Lecturer: Dr Marc Morris The finest concentration of castles in Europe, set in exceptionally lovely landscape.

NEWSLETTER | 2020 tours

Includes the great Edwardian castles of the 1280s, the most advanced of their time.

A history tour as much as an architectural one.

Concise but unrushed: ten castles in five days.

Wales has the greatest concentration of castles of any region in the British Isles. For variety, architectural excellence, historical interest and state of preservation the group is perhaps unsurpassed in all Europe and Latin Christendom. This short tour encompasses most of the best of them, from Gwent in the south to Gwynedd in the north, and – it should be inserted here as not the least attractive feature – traverses some remarkably beautiful countryside.

It is a common fallacy to consider castles to be defensive in function. Many are nakedly aggressive, boldly planted on foreign land. Only one of the castles seen on this tour was built by a Welshman; the other nine were built by 12

English invaders. There had been incursions from England even before the Norman conquest, sometimes by rapacious barons acting freelance, sometimes by armies of the Crown. But the Welsh refused to be subdued and, time and again, having recuperated in their mountain fastnesses, swept down and ousted the invader.

Edward I, the most warlike of English medieval monarchs, embarked in 1277 on a campaign of reconquest. Within twenty years, despite setbacks, Wales had lost its independence and the northern heartland was ringed by new castles, technically as advanced as anything in Europe and the Mediterranean. Craftsmen and labourers were recruited from nearly every county in England, but the master designer was a Savoyard, James of St George, the finest military architect of his generation.

This group of Edwardian castles alone collectively constitutes one of the finest sights medieval Britain has to offer. Not only are they wonderfully well preserved, they are immeasurably enhanced by their sites. Each was designed to be provisioned from the sea, so they enjoy the matchless setting of waterfront site and mountainous backdrop.

It is fascinating to see them in the context of five hundred years of military architecture represented in the other castles. But setting

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is again important. We journey through a landscape of highly picturesque hills, little green fields, plentiful broadleaves and occasional majestic moorland.

At the expense of a couple of castles of note, we have avoided even the fringes of larger towns and cities in favour of countryside, market towns, villages and back roads.

Itinerary Day 1: Chepstow. Leave Newport Station (Gwent) at 2.00pm and drive to Chepstow Castle, a massive series of enclosures and towers on the cliffs above the River Wye – the border with England. Immensely impressive, there is work from many periods between the 11th and 17th centuries, the great Norman tower standing comparison with those in London and Colchester. Continue to the delightful market town of Abergavenny; first of two nights here.

Day 2: Grosmont, Skenfrith, Raglan. ‘The Three Castles’ were built in earth and timber shortly after the Conquest, upgraded in stone a century later and reconstructed c.1200–40 with the latest features. Today we see Grosmont and Skenfrith – relatively small, evocative, ensconced in charming villages. Lunch break in the historic town of Monmouth. Largely 15th-century,

The glorious castles they constructed, and which we visit on this tour, reflect this attitude. Even the fortresses constructed by Edward I to cement his conquest of north Wales possess a grandeur and a romance seldom seen at similar sites elsewhere in Britain.

They may have originated as weapons of conquest, but in the later Middle Ages, these castles were often rebuilt on a palatial scale. I especially enjoy leading tours in Wales, because the landscape is enchanting, and the castles so majestic and imbued with history’ Marc Morris.

Marc Morris also leads Norman Conquest & Plantagenet Power – Great castles & churches of south-east England (17–20 May 2020) – please visit www.martinrandall.com for full details or contact us. You can also follow Marc on Twitter @Longshanks1307

UNITED KINGDOM

‘For English medieval aristocrats, Wales was a place of escape, where they could hunt in their own forests and dine on dishes normally reserved for royalty.

HISTORY SYMPOSIUM

Tudor Encounters A mid-week symposium in York 28–30 October 2020 (mg 516) • The Grand Hotel, York.

Speakers: Stephen Alford, John Bryan, Sarah Gristwood, John Guy, Miranda Kaufmann, Suzannah Lipscomb and Glenn Richardson.

Please visit www.martinrandall.com for full details or contact us.

Illustration: Conwy Castle, lithograph c. 1840.

Raglan Castle is a beautifully ornamented architectural composition, lavishly equipped with defensive devices, by now obsolete: the triumph of art over warfare.

Day 4: Dolbadarn, Caernarfon, Beaumaris.

The only native Welsh castle on the tour, Dolbadarn was built in the 13th century to control the route to Snowdonia. Intended as a seat of government, Caernarfon is the greatest of Edward I’s castles, and the high curtain wall and mural towers rising from the estuary’s edge incorporate symbolism evoking his imperial aspirations. Cross the Menai Strait to Anglesey.

Beaumaris is the last of James of St George’s constructions and, in terms of its defensive apparatus, the most sophisticated.

‘ Marc was a pleasure to travel with. His knowledge was deep and extensive which – combined with his enthusiasm and great sense of humour – made the tour richly rewarding.’

NEWSLETTER | 2020 tours

Day 3: White Castle, Harlech. Third of the ‘Three Castles’, the impressiveness of White Castle is enhanced by its remote countryside setting. Drive 130 miles (with two stops) through the unremitting loveliness of the hilly heart of Wales. Harlech Castle clings to a crag by the sea, a compact concentric type with high walls and towers, one of the great sights of the British Isles. Built 1283–89, architect James of St George, patron Edward I of England. First of two nights near Caernarfon.

Day 5: Conwy. Walk atop the walls encircling Conwy, the town founded by Edward I. The castle is one of the great achievements of medieval military architecture, and its curtain walls and many mural towers survive intact.

The tour finishes here, and the coach drives to Llandudno Junction railway station (5 minutes) two or three times between 12.30 and 3.00pm to meet trains booked by participants. There is more to see here, including Britain’s finest surviving Elizabethan town house.

Practicalities Price, per person. Two sharing: £1,290.

Single occupancy: £1,580.

Included meals: 3 dinners with wine.

Accommodation. The Angel Hotel, Abergavenny (angelabergavenny.com).

Ty’n Rhos, near Caernarfon, Snowdonia (tynrhos.co.uk).

How strenuous? There are many steps, much uneven paving, muddy paths and quite a lot of walking. This tour should not be attempted by anyone with any difficulties with everyday walking and stair climbing. Average distance-by coach per day: c. 71 miles.

Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.

What else is included?

See page 2 for a list of components that are included as standard in the price.

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Versailles: Seat of the Sun King The greatest palace and garden TOURS & FESTIVALS BY TRAIN

3–6 July 2020 (mg 289) 4 days • £1,970 Lecturer: Professor Antony Spawforth October 2021 Full details available in April 2020 Please call us to register your interest or e-mail alerts@martinrandall.co.uk Focused tour examining the most influential of European palaces and related buildings.

A study not only of art, architecture and gardens but also of history and statecraft.

Includes a concert by Philippe Jaroussky & Valer Sabadus at the Versailles Opéra Royal: Luigi Rossi (1597-1653) at the court of France.

In 2020, can be combined with Music in the Loire Valley, 7–13 July 2020 – see page 42 for information about Martin Randall Festivals.

Versailles was the grandest and most influential palace and garden complex in Europe, and arguably the most lavish and luxurious and most beautifully embellished too.

It was much more than a building to house the monarch, his family and his court. It was conceived as the seat of government when France was at the apogee of her power, and as a structure to demonstrate and magnify the power of Louis XIV, to subdue his subjects and to overawe foreigners. A study of Versailles encompasses not only architectural history and garden history but also political science and the psychology of power.

Illustration: Versailles, watercolour by M. Nixon, publ. 1916.

Built and altered by five French kings, Versailles is several palaces. Even during Louis XIV’s reign elements changed constantly, reflecting not only changes of taste but also political realities as they changed from decade to decade. Indeed, at its core remains a small-scale hunting lodge built by his father (surely meant to be demolished in due course), and apartments were refurbished and parts added right up until the Revolution.

Enlarging the understanding of Versailles and to set it in context there are also visits to the château of Vaux-le-Vicomte, in many ways its inspiration, and to the grounds of Marly-le-Roi, a demolished palace constructed to allow the Sun King to retreat from the formality of Versailles.

Attention is paid to the town of Versailles, first laid out by Louis XIV, as well as to the park and gardens at Versailles.

Day 3: Vaux-le-Vicomte. The greatest country house and garden complex of its time (1656–61), Vaux-le-Vicomte was built by Nicholas Fouquet, Louis XIV’s finance minister. It is in many ways the predecessor of Versailles, for Louis XIV, after arresting Fouquet for corruption, plundered the property and later employed its chief designers and craftsmen at Versailles. Return to the palace for a guided tour of apartments from the time of Louis XV, characterised by lightness and delicacy and frivolity.

Itinerary | 2020

For those who are combining the tour with Music in the Loire Valley. Transfer from Marlyle-Roi to your hotel in Tours. Overnight here before the festival begins on 7th July. At the end of the festival (13th July), take the Eurostar from Paris arriving at London St Pancras c. 4.30pm.

Day 1: Versailles. Leave London St Pancras at c. 10.30am by Eurostar for Paris. Drive to Versailles where all four nights are spent. Concert in the Opéra Royal, within the Château: Luigi Rossi (1597–1653) at the court of France; Philippe Jaroussky and Valer Sabadus (counter-tenors).

Day 2: Versailles. After circumnavigating the vast palace, spend the morning immersed in the grandeur, the beauty and the symbolism of the King’s and Queen’s apartments, which culminate in the Hall of Mirrors. Explore the gardens, which remain largely as Le Nôtre created them, the parterres, basins and sculpture around the palace and the avenues and canal which seem to stretch to infinity. Then visit the family retreats of Grand Trianon, Petit Trianon and the Domaine de Marie Antoinette.

Day 4: Versailles, Marly-le-Roi, Paris. Morning walk to view the grand approach to the palace and some of the palace’s dependencies in Versailles town. Drive to Marly-le-Roi, Louis XIV’s retreat from the formality of Versailles, which became his favourite residence. No building survives, but the terraced park is evocative. Continue to Paris for the Eurostar arriving at St Pancras at c. 5.45pm.

Practicalities | 2020 Price, per person. Two sharing: £1,970 or £1,810 without Eurostar. Single occupancy: £2,250 or £2,090 without Eurostar.

The supplement for combining this tour with Music in the Loire Valley includes a transfer between Marly-le-Roi and Tours and one extra night at your chosen festival hotel on 6th July.

Please contact us for a quote.

Included meals: 1 lunch, 2 dinners, with wine.

Accommodation. Hôtel Le Louis Versailles Château (sofitel.com).

NEWSLETTER | 2020 tours

How strenuous? There is a lot of walking and standing around. The gardens cover a large area and paths are often uneven so sure-footedness is essential. You need to lift your luggage on and off the train and wheel it within stations.

Group size: between 10 to 22 participants.

What else is included?

See page 2 for a list of components that are included as standard in the price.

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Flemish Painting From van Eyck to Rubens: Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, Brussels

We are working to expand our programme of tours and festivals that include international travel by train instead of by air. Travelling by Eurostar and private coach, arrive in Ghent for an immersive tour of Flemish painting, or reach the diverse regions of Northern France for Impressionist painting, medieval architecture, or a sparkling wine tour.

TOURS & FESTIVALS BY TRAIN

TOURS & FESTIVALS

BY TRAIN

A Festival of Impressionism 19–24 April 2020 (mg 183) Medieval Burgundy 6–13 June 2020 (mg 242)

2–6 September 2020 (mg 352) 5 days • £1,920 Lecturer: Dr Sophie Oosterwijk September 2021 Full details available in April 2020 Please call us to register your interest or e-mail alerts@martinrandall.co.uk Immersion in the highlights of Flemish painting in the beautiful, unspoilt cities in which they were created.

The main centres of Flemish art: Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp and Brussels.

Based in Ghent, which is equidistant to the other places on the itinerary.

First-class train travel from London.

Itinerary | 2020

Day 2: Ghent, Bruges. With its canals, melancholic hues and highly picturesque streetscape, Bruges is one of the loveliest cities in northern Europe. A major manufacturing and trading city in the Middle Ages, decline had already set in before the end of the 15th century.

The Groeninge Museum has an excellent collection by Flemish masters including Jan van Eyck and the Church of Our Lady is home to Michelangelo’s marvellous marble Madonna and Child. St Salvator’s Cathedral contains a triptych

by Dirk Bouts.

Day 4: Bruges. Return to Bruges to see the medieval Hospital of St John, now a museum devoted to Hans Memling and contains many of his best paintings. See the market place with its soaring belfry, Gothic town hall and Basilica of the Holy Blood. Back in Ghent visit the Museum of Fine Arts, principally to see a work by a follower of Hieronymus Bosch.

Day 5: Brussels. The Fine Arts Museum in Brussels is one of the best in Europe, and presents a comprehensive collection of Netherlandish painting as well as international works. Take the Eurostar from Brussels to London St Pancras, arriving c. 6.15pm.

Versailles: Seat of the Sun King 3–6 July 2020 (mg 289) French Gothic 6–12 July 2020 (mg 297) MUSIC IN THE LOIRE VALLEY 7–13 July 2020 (mg 294) Medieval Normandy 17–24 July 2020 (mg 303) Flemish Painting 2–6 September 2020 (mg 352) Champagne: vines, cellars & cuvées 8–12 September 2020 (mg 358) Medieval Alsace 6–13 October 2020 (mg 458) Les Années Folles 12–15 November 2020 (mg 575) The Ring in Paris 29 November–7 Dec. 2020 (mg 600)

Practicalities | 2020

Paris at Christmas 22–27 December 2020 (mg 616)

Price, per person. Two sharing: £1,920 or £1,720 without Eurostar. Single occupancy: £2,200 or £2,000 without Eurostar.

Please visit www.martinrandall.com for full details or contact us.

Included meals: 3 dinners with wine.

Accommodation. Hotel NH Gent Belfort (nh-hotels.com).

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of standing in museums and walking, often on cobbled or roughly paved streets. You will need to be able to carry (wheel) your own luggage. Average distance by coach per day: 55 miles.

TOURS BY TRAIN IN 2021 Please contact us to register your interest or e-mail alerts@martinrandall.co.uk

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Group size: between 10 and 20 participants.

Illustration: ‘The Virgin & Child with Canon van der Paele’, wood engraving 1871 after a painting by J. van Eyck.

And share your tour photos using #martinrandall

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NEWSLETTER | 2020 tours

Day 1: Antwerp, Ghent. Depart at c. 11.00am from London St Pancras by Eurostar for Lille, and from there drive to 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 for the first time since dispersal by the French in 1799.

Continue to Ghent by coach.

Day 3: Ghent, Antwerp. Visit Ghent cathedral to see the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb polyptych

by Hubert and Jan van Eyck, one of the greatest masterpieces of Netherlandish painting (undergoing restoration, not all panels are visible at once). In Antwerp, the house and studio Rubens built for himself are fascinating and well stocked with good pictures, and the Mayer van der Bergh Museum has a small but outstanding collection including works by Bruegel.

Great French Gardens 10–19 June 2020 (mg 252)

Hindsgavl: Chamber Music in Denmark Intimate and immersive performances in beautiful surroundings Performances Ian Bostridge tenor Saskia Georgini piano Britten, Winter Words Op.52 & Four English Songs from Who are these Children Schumann, Five Lieder Op.40 Arcangelo: Jonathan Cohen harpsichord & director Jean-Guihen Queyras cello Saskia Georgini piano Mendelssohn, String Symphonies 4 & 5 C.P.E. Bach, Cello Concerto in B flat J.S. Bach, Extracts from The Art of Fugue Haydn, Cello Concerto No.1 Ensemble Dialoghi (winds and fortepiano) Beethoven, Sonata Op.17, Trio Op.11 & Quintet Op.16.

Alina Ibragimova violin Cédric Tiberghien piano Mendelssohn, violin sonatas

8–14 July 2020 (mg 298) 7 days • £3,070 (including tickets to 14 performances) Lecturer: Dr Michael Downes Please visit www.martinrandall.com for full details, or contact us.

An intensive and congenial festival of chamber music on Denmark’s picturesque ‘Garden Island’.

All concerts and recitals take place in a charming country house, where both artists and audience sleep.

NEWSLETTER | 2020 tours

From Mahler to Mendelssohn; performances by international musicians including Quatuor Ébène, Ian Bostridge and Christiane Karg.

Time to explore the vibrant cities of Århus and Odense, home to outstanding museums.

Considered solely in terms of the musicians who perform there, Hindsgavl can claim to be one of Europe’s finest chamber music festivals. Resident instrumentalists for the 2020 edition include France’s dynamic Quatuor Ébène, celebrating their 20th anniversary; versatile violinist Alina Ibragimova, renowned for her playing on both period and modern instruments; Canadian-born cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras, a brilliant exponent of the instrument’s entire repertoire from Bach to the present day; and French pianist Cédric Tiberghien, who appears both as chamber musician and soloist.

The vocal talent on display is no less impressive: our tour is bookended by recitals from superstar English tenor Ian Bostridge and fast-rising Bavarian soprano Christiane Karg.

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But the musical programme, superlative though it is, is only part of what makes this festival so special. All the concerts take place in the magnificent Hindsgavl Castle, whose history dates back to the early 13th century and includes moments of international significance – it was here in 1814 that King Frederik VI signed the treaty renouncing Denmark’s claim to Norway.

The castle is also where the festival musicians eat and sleep; like many of the audience members, we will stay there too, guaranteeing opportunities to mix with the musicians in an informal setting and to hear them rehearse and discuss the music they will perform.

Nor are the musicians the castle’s only attraction: its exquisite grounds are punctuated by pavilions, streams and ponds. Orchards and gardens supply fresh ingredients for the castle’s chefs (breakfast and a pre-concert dinner are included each day on site). Hans Christian Andersen was a frequent visitor to Hindsgavl and described its view – which now takes in an extensive deer park as well as the ‘Little Belt’ separating the island of Funen from Jutland – as one of Denmark’s finest.

A centre for music-making since 1951, Hindsgavl now offers its fortunate festival-goers a heady combination of architectural, natural and musical beauty.

Practicalities Price, per person. Two sharing: £3,070 or £2,920 without flights. Single occupancy: £3,530 or £3,380 without flights.

Included meals: 3 lunches, 6 dinners, with wine.

Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.

Photograph ©Hindsgavl Slot.

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Anaïs Gaudemard harp Pépin, Nighthawks C.P.E. Bach, Sonata in G, Wq.139 de la Presle, Le Jardin mouillé Joséphine Olech flute Sindy Mohamed viola Anaïs Gaudemard harp Kurtág, In nomine all‘ongherese Zabel, La source Op.23 Saint-Saëns, Danse Macabre, Op.16 de Falla, Serenata Andaluza Debussy, Syrinx Marie-Elisabeth Hecker cello Martin Helmchen piano Stravinsky, Suite Italienne Shostakovich, Cello Sonata Op.40 Rachmaninov, Cello Sonata Op.19 Schnittke, Cello Sonata No.1 Ensemble Dialoghi Mozart, Sonata K.304 & Quintet K.452 Haydn, Trio Hob XV:16.

Quatuor Ébène Beethoven, String Quartets Op.18 No.1, Op.74 Harp, & Op.59 No.3 Razumovsky Elephant House Quartet Programme to be confirmed Christiane Karg soprano Malcolm Martineau piano Gustav Mahler, Rückert Lieder, and selected songs by Alma Mahler Carolin Widmann violin Enescu, Airs dans le genre Roumain Benjamin, Three Miniatures Eugène Ysaye, Sonata No.5 J.S. Bach, Partita in D minor BWV 1004 Cédric Tiberghien prepared piano John Cage, Sonatas & Interludes ‘Rising Star’ concert Artists and programme to be confirmed

Music and Silence Whether at Hindsgavl or Lofoten, Rachel Jones celebrates the choice of two contrasting music festivals in Scandinavia, both offering time for tranquil reflection in natural settings. a wonderful marriage enhanced by guided walks around lakes and through countryside, coach journeys along the coastline, and late-night concerts illuminated by the extraordinary midnight sun.

When thinking of group travel, isolation is rarely your first thought. Yet to be isolated with like-minded companions in rural Scandinavia, with few tourists and fewer English voices, surrounded by natural beauty and a wealth of world-class music?

That is an isolation to be welcomed.

Photographs below courtesy of Lofoten Islands Festival; the bottom picture is of Hauklandssanden in the Lofoten Islands ©Baard Loeken.

DENMARK & NORWAY

There are few better illustrations of the extensive research and specialist knowledge behind our tours than the offer of a choice between two different secluded Scandinavian island-based chamber music festivals. We plan to alternate these by year to make things easier, but neither choice could be a wrong one.

Lofoten Chamber Music Festival July 2021 or 2022

In addition to our Scandinavian offerings, Rachel also works on our tours to German-speaking countries and Spain • Please contact us to register your interest in either the Lofoten or Hindsgavl festival tours in 2021 or 2022.

Performances by national and international artists of the highest standard.

An area of outstanding natural beauty, under the majesty of the midnight sun.

Includes country walks, against a backdrop of dramatic mountains, lakes, fjords and coastline.

Please call us to register your interest or e-mail alerts@martinrandall.co.uk

A far cry from the bustle of Copenhagen, Hindsgavl Slot lies on the coast of Funen, Denmark, with its own deer park and grounds. Wander through the manor house, our base for the week, and hear musicians rehearsing for today’s evening concert in the old stables, or perhaps catch an afternoon concert in the Garden Room.

Walk out to the grounds and the views to the sea could inspire poetry – walk on to the Hans Christian Anderson pavilion and realise that they did.

NEWSLETTER | 2020 tours

Seclusion is tempered by exploration of Funen, Denmark’s middle island; a trip across the Lillebaelt bridge to the art and architecture of Aarhus; a boat trip around said Lillebaelt, the water responsible for those inspiring views. But ultimately you return to the manor, which for a while becomes your own, for home-grown food, wonderful company and a steady supply of excellent chamber music.

Or perhaps you would prefer an expedition further north? The Lofoten islands lie just off the Northern Norwegian coast and boast their own summer music festival. A single night in Oslo offers a stark contrast, an insight into the busier face of Norway, before retreating to the dramatic, remote beauty of the Arctic circle.

Here you become an island-hopper, traversing the archipelago to small, intimate venues, mostly local churches, linked by winding roads through fjords and mountains. If Hindsgavl creates its own musical world within the house, Lofoten blends the music with the landscape of the islands themselves, Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

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Cyprus: stepping stone of history Island civilisation in the Eastern Mediterranean XXX 12–20 September 2020 (mg 368) 9 days • £3,670 Lecturer: Prof. Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones Visits both south and north parts of the island.

Includes a vibrant panoply of archaeology, art and history​. ​ Ancient cities and tombs, churches and monasteries, forts and castles – a legacy of occupations and influences spanning millennia.

Two nights in the Troodos mountains, with its remarkable Byzantine frescoed churches.

NEWSLETTER | 2020 tours

A rich and magical island of sunshine, scenic beaches and magnificent mountains, Cyprus affords the opportunity to delve deep into the histories of both Europe and the Middle East.

The third largest island in the Mediterranean, after Sicily and Sardinia, it is culturally the most diverse of the three, with the earliest history.

Every great power from antiquity to the present day has set foot and left a mark, often using the island as a stepping-stone for imperial conquests: the Assyrians and Persians, the Greeks and Romans, the Anglo-French monarchs and crusader knights, Ottoman sultans and the British army have all made homes here, thereby recognising Cyprus’s vital position in the East Mediterranean and the wider world.

This fascinating tour explores the layers of civilisation which have created Cyprus. It examines the oldest traces of human presence through artefacts found at Khirokitia, the early 18

Mycenaean trading centres at the west end of the island, and even the remaining evidence of the Persian occupation that occurred in the fifth century bce.

In the Greco-Roman world, Cyprus was renowned as the birthplace of the great cosmic goddess Aphrodite; locals still identify a cove near Paphos as the place where she arose from the foam (Greek aphros) of the waves. A cult devoted to her was established in Kato Paphos, where a sanctuary to Apollo is also found, as well as the​monumental remains of late Roman cities with their spectacularly colourful wellpreserved mosaics.

Hellenistic burial sites and early Christian basilicas demonstrate how Cyprus has welcomed successive and diverse occupants. The tiny painted churches and monasteries of the Troodos Mountain Range are unesco gems.

Dating to the Byzantine occupation, each is a masterpiece of Orthodox art and each has its own character and style – a feast for the eyes and balm for the soul. The Troodos is also home to Kykkos monastery, still a functioning religious site, with a magnificent collection of sacred icons. Indeed, icon painting was a hallmark of Cypriot life (and remains so) and you will discover a myriad of magnificent examples in the brilliant museums that dot the island.

When Richard the Lionheart conquered Cyprus in 1190, the island became the centre of the Latin Church in the East. The French Lusignan dynasty ruled for over 300 years, establishing vast fortified castles and mountaintop palaces, as well as exquisite Gothic-style cathedrals. These were subsequently taken over by the Venetians who left their mark on cities such as Nicosia and Famagusta, until they too

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were replaced by the Ottomans when, inevitably, churches and cathedrals became mosques as Islam was brought to the island.

The tour also explores the realities of living in a divided island and we will spend our time visiting the sites of both Greek-speaking southern Cyprus and the Turkish territory of the North. We will examine the British presence here until 1963 and the results of the 1974 hostilities.

Yet in spite of the troubles, the indigenous people of Cyprus, whether Greek- or Turkishspeaking, retain pride in being Cypriots. Their rich multi-lingual dialect is testimony to the depth of history that flows through their veins.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly from London Heathrow to Larnaca (British Airways) at c. 12.30pm. Drive 2 hours to reach Paphos. First of three nights in Paphos.

Day 2: Paphos. The monastery of Ayios Neophytos was founded in the 12th century by the recluse and writer Neophytos. Byzantine paintings cover the cave that he carved out of the mountainside. Several 16th-century icons can be viewed in the church, constructed on the site much later. Of the 100 graves that were once found at the misleadingly named Tombs of the Kings, only nine remain. The majority of Paphos’ unesco listed archaeological park dates from the Roman period. The afternoon is dedicated to arguably Cyprus’ most impressive mosaics, restored and sheltered from the elements under modern wood constructions.

Day 3: Paphos. Today is spent in Ktima, where the city’s best museums can be found. We first visit the District Archaeological Museum, undergoing extensive renovation works and

Why Cyprus?

Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones finds Cyprus both enticing and exciting

Day 4: Paphos to Kalopanayiotis. En route to the ancient city kingdom of Kourion, we pass Episkopi, one of two British sovereign territories on the island. The earliest remains found at the extensive archaeological site date from the Hellenistic period (325–50 bc), although evidence suggests the city kingdom was founded by the Argives of the Peloponnese. We spend the afternoon in Limassol (Lemesos), visiting the fort and castle, originally an early Christian basilica rebuilt in the 16th century under Ottoman rule. Local folklore claims the castle’s chapel as the location for Richard the Lionheart’s wedding to Berengaria de Navarre. Head north into the Troodos mountains for the first of two nights in Kalopanayiotis.

Day 5: Troodos mountains. The Troodos mountain range is famous for its collection of Byzantine churches and monasteries, still in use today. With unprepossessing exteriors, the painted interiors are a revelation. The frescoes are in varying states of preservation, some having been partially removed or destroyed during later expansions. In stark contrast to the modest rural churches, the lavishly decorated Kykkos monastery is one of Cyprus’ wealthiest.

The complex is home to one of three icons attributed to Apostle Luke.

Day 9: Salamis, Famagusta, Larnaca. The ancient coastal city of Salamis lies to the north of the border, near Famagusta (Gazimağusa).

Christians rebuilt sculptures and archways throughout the former Cypriot capital following a fourth-century earthquake. Large parts of the city remain unexcavated – a further example of the differing attitudes of the north and south towards cultural heritage. Founded following the destruction of Salamis, Famagusta, now the northern capital, was the island’s most important sea port before 1974. Fly from Larnaca to London Heathrow, arriving c. 10.00pm.

Practicalities Price, per person. Two sharing: £3,670 or £3,460 without flights. Single occupancy: £4,230 or £4,020 without flights.

Included meals: 1 lunch, 6 dinners, with wine.

Accommodation. Elysium, Paphos (elysiumhotel.com). Casale Panayiotis, Kalopanayiotis (casalepanayiotis.com). Hilton Park, Nicosia (hilton.com).

How strenuous? The tour involves a lot of walking on archaeological sites. Uneven ground, irregular paving, steps and hills are standard.

There is also a lot of standing in museums and churches. The roads in the Troodos mountains are winding and may prove difficult for those suffering from motion sickness. Average distance by coach per day: 59 miles.

Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.

Day 7: Nicosia. The morning is spent at the excellent Byzantine Museum, showcasing amongst others some 230 icons dating from the ninth to the 19th century from churches across the island. The museum also brings to light the issue of preservation of cultural heritage, as some items on display originated in churches in the north that have since been recovered (and restored) through donations. Visit the Leventis Municipal Museum of Nicosia in the Old City, of particular importance is the Caterina Cornaro gallery. The A.G. Leventis Gallery, a separate institution on the outskirts of the capital, displays key Cypriot art, with a focus on the events of 1974 and the consequences felt by the Greek Cypriots.

Day 8: St Hilarion, Kyrenia, Bellapais. Cross the border for the first time into the Turkish occupied north of the island. St Hilarion, a 12th-century castle strategically located among the Pentadaktylos (or Kyrenia) mountains,

What else is included?

See page 2 for a list of components that are included as standard in the price.

Cyprus is a magnificent stepping stone to the east, at the crossroads of world history.

For me, it is one of the most exciting places in the world – as a historian it satisfies my every need. Layer upon layer of civilisation are sandwiched together in this remarkable island paradise.

Unique and fascinating, Cypriot culture is a blend of traditions and ideas from the many people who have walked through its fertile lands. Venetians, Phoenicians, Turks, Greeks, British and many others have left an indelible mark on the island and its people. Food, music, dancing, lifestyle and religious identity all reflect the colourful train of nationalities that has processed through Cyprus down the centuries.

Prehistoric remains date back to before 4,000 bc. In the Bronze Age the Egyptians used Cyprus as a trading colony and the Mycenaeans attempted to settle there. The Persians fortified the island and the Greeks and Romans saw Cyprus as a jewel in the Mediterranean and built villas and palaces, temples and theatres, town and cities right around its beautiful coastline. The natural harbours of the island and its proximity to the Levantine seafront saw merchants, crusaders, pirates and settlers enter the island for the next 2,000 years. Its modern history is as enthralling as it is tragic, and today the Cypriot capital, Nicosia, is the only divided city in Europe.

For me though, the real splendour of Cyprus is hidden away in a myriad of tiny churches high up in the Troodos mountains. Every inch of their walls and ceilings are painted with frescos of astonishing quality – the saints and angels, patriarchs and nuns look down upon their visitors in colours as fresh and as vibrant as they day they were painted. The artists came from the finest schools of Constantinople, bringing their skills to grace these mountaintop sanctuaries. Each church is a treasure; every fresco a masterpiece.

Lloyd also leads Classical Turkey: Greeks & Romans in Anatolia (12–21 April 2021). For full details, please contact us or visit www. martinrandall.com – you may also be interested in William Harvey’s article on page 40.

Illustration: Cyprus, copper engraving c. 1620.

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NEWSLETTER | 2020 tours

Day 6: Kalopanayiotis to Nicosia. Leave the hotel on foot to explore the nearby Ayios Ioannis Lambadistou church and icon museum. Drive across the Mesaoria plain towards the southern capital, Nicosia (Lefkosia, Lefkoşa), divided by the Green Line. We spend the afternoon at the Cyprus Museum, housing the most extensive collection of Cypriot antiquities worldwide. Due to the building’s capacity, only a small amount of the collection can be on display. A new home for the collection is due to open in the near future.

First of three nights in Nicosia.

is claimed to have inspired King Ludwig II’s Schloss Neuschwanstein in Bavaria. Continue via Kyrenia (Girne) castle to Bellapais, immortalised by Lawrence Durrell. Here a 13thcentury church and 14th-century cloister were added to the original Augustinian monastery.

Return to Nicosia for a walking tour of the north, including Buyuk Han, Selimiye Mosque, crossing the border to the south on foot.

CYPRUS

due to reopen in 2020. The Byzantine Museum, to the south of Ktima’s main square, is worthy of note for the 13th and 14th-century icons, as well as a ninth-century icon of Agia Marina, considered the island’s oldest.

Gastronomic Friuli-Venezia Giulia Superb food and wine in Italy’s less frequented north east ITALY

11–17 October 2020 (mg 461) 7 days • £3,040 Lecturer: Marc Millon A cultural melting pot of Italian and central European influences, from rich mountain fare to the freshest seafood.

Some of the finest wines in Italy are from the gently rolling Collio hills.

A full spectrum of gastronomic experiences, from cheese and ham at the tables of their producers to the region’s finest 2* Michelin restaurant.

Regions on the border are often the most complex and interesting in terms of gastronomic culture, and Friuli Venezia Giulia is no exception. A centuries-old history of strife and changing allegiances has resulted in a delicious melting pot that simmers with the flavours and scents of Venice, elsewhere in Italy, Austria and Slovenia. The coffee culture of Trieste is as sophisticated as that found in the old-world cafés of Vienna; dishes such as la jota, a dense and delicious sauerkraut, bean and pork stew, is redolent of Central Europe; pastries and baked goods are at once Austrian-inspired yet display an Italian accent; and the wines are simply among the most exciting not just in Italy but in all of Europe.

After World War II, its vineyards destroyed once more in fierce fighting, a collective decision was made to concentrate on quality through the cultivation and production of a range of varietal wines from both indigenous single grape varieties (Ribolla Gialla, Friulano, Picolit) as well as international (Sauvignon, Pinot Nero, Cabernet Sauvignon). There is tradition but also innovation, experimentation with unusual blends, natural wine-making and more.

Mountain traditions include the curing of meats in those high, rarified places where the air is dry and clean, perfect for the production of Italy’s sweetest cured ham, prosciutto di San Daniele, as well as mountain cheese-making traditions such as the summer transhumance.

Polenta, the staple of the north, is still widely enjoyed here, sometimes cooked outdoors in remote mountain huts. Meanwhile, down on the Adriatic, there is fish and shellfish to enjoy, as well as art and history in towns whose histories pre-date even the Romans.

Gastronomic Friuli is a voyage into flavours from another world, another era, yes, but it is also a pointer to the future: a demonstration of how, out of adversity, an industrious region has learned to embrace European harmony and its past, not least through its richly delicious culinary heritage and history.

Illustration, below: Trieste, gardens at Miramar Castle, watercolour by Mima Nixon, publ. 1916.

‘ Marc is such an expert, it as a pleasure to hear his enthusiasm and love of his subject.’

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 1.30pm from London Gatwick to Venice (British Airways). Drive to Udine for the first of four nights.

Day 2: Udine, San Daniele del Friuli.

In Udine, visit the main piazza with its Gothic and Renaissance loggias, and the cathedral, basically Gothic but much augmented later. Visit and lunch at an artisanal prosciuttificio in San Daniele, home of the lightly salted, sweetest and most delectable of all cured hams. A tasting at a distinguished grappa producer follows. Evening wine tasting given by the lecturer.

NEWSLETTER | 2020 tours

Day 3: north of Udine, Cormons, the Collio.

Discover the inner workings of a traditional polenta mill, where grains are still refined according to age-old tradition. Continue on to a superb one-star Michelin restaurant for lunch, and visit their vinegar production. Afternoon wine tasting at one of the most prestigious wineries in the Collio region.

Day 4: Cividale, Capriva del Friuli. Cividale is a charming town in the hills bordering Slovenia.

See some of the town and sample the delicious local cake (gubana) before continuing on to a local dairy farm where everything is produced organically. There is a rustic lunch and cheese tasting here before returning to Udine for some free time. Dinner this evening is at Agli Amici on the outskirts of Udine, which holds two Michelin stars.

Day 5: La Laguna di Grado. After a brief stop at Palmanova (with its unusual star fort design), today is focused on Friuli’s coast – the captivating lagoon around Grado is a tranquil haven for birds, and dotted with tiny islands where fishermen once lived in traditional straw huts (casoni). Enjoy a simple lunch of the freshest fish before travelling on to Trieste, where the next two nights are spent.

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book online at www.martinrandall.com

A Menu from Friuli-Venezia Giulia What can you expect from this sumptuous tour? Lizzie Watson offers a taste.

Day 7: the Karst. Some of the most interesting and idiosyncratic wine producers in the region are based on the limestone plateau (the ‘Karst’) that runs between Slovenia and the Trieste area. Wine tasting and traditional local snacks (osmizza) before continuing to the airport.

Fly from Venice, arriving at London Gatwick at c. 6.45pm.

Antipasto

Dolce

Saltwater spray, sunlight reflecting off the water (momentarily blinding) and birdcall – these are the first impressions of Grado’s lagoon, a natural haven of small islands and casoni (fishermen’s huts). We begin with antipasto di mare, zero kilometres straight from the waves to our plate. Sarde in saor (sweet and sour sardines) remind us of Venice to the East and its ever present influence; they nestle against carpaccio of the freshest fish from the lagoon.

Fragrant coffee, creamy mascarpone, sweet biscuits and a sprinkling of earthy chocolate – tiramisù is probably Italy’s best-known pudding and pick-me-up.

Friuli-Venezia Giulia lays claim to two distinct original versions of the dessert, despite fierce opposition from Treviso (in the neighbouring region of the Veneto). The only question is whether to try the semifreddo version from Pieris di San Canzian, or the one with mascarpone from Tolmezzo…

Caffè And so to the capital of the region, Trieste, with its grand Viennese streets and piazze, and home to Illy Caffè, one of Italy’s leading coffee producers. We sip a nero (an espresso – Trieste has a long and complicated list of expressions in dialect for all variations of the drink) at a historic café and maybe have a nibble of presnitz (a local sweet pastry) while the hubbub rises and soft lights reflect from gilded mirrors.

Practicalities Price, per person. Two sharing: £3,040 or £2,930 without flights. Single occupancy: £3,260 or £3,150 without flights.

Included meals: 4 lunches, 5 dinners with wine.

Accommodation. Astoria Hotel Italia, Udine (hotelastoria.udine.it). Hotel Duchi D’Aosta, Trieste (duchi.eu).

How strenuous? A good level of fitness is necessary. It should not be attempted by anyone who has difficulty with everyday walking and stair-climbing. Average distance by coach per day: 59 miles.

Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.

Illustration opposite, top right: Cividale, after a drawing

by F. Hamilton Jackson, 1906.

Primo With the Julian Alps towering in the distant mist and the air growing colder, we find robust and delicious fare in Cividale del Friuli – a compact and evocative town close to the Slovenian border. Cialsons are unusual sweet and savoury stuffed pasta often prepared for festivities – every household has their own recipe, with ingredients for the filling often running to double figures (dried fruit, onions, jam, ricotta, herbs, spices).

Secondo

Vino Some of the finest white wines in Italy come from the rolling vine-clad hills of the Collio region, to the north of Trieste.

Perhaps we begin with a ribolla gialla, crisp and refreshing, before moving to a powerful pignolo, ending sweetly with a luscious picolit.

Lizzie Watson is responsible for the development of our gastronomy tours. She also looks after musicfocused tours, and oversees Martin Randall Festivals.

Follow us Illustrations: from ‘The Foreign Tour of Messrs Brown, Jones & Robinson’ by Richard Doyle, Publ. 1854.

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NEWSLETTER | 2020 tours

Udine, stately and serene, and still remarkably free of foreign visitors, is where we find our next course. Among her medieval streets and glimpses of Tiepolo, cooking is being taken to exquisite levels. Agli Amici, the only restaurant in the region that holds two Michelin stars, elevates the superb raw materials of the immediate surrounding area (the prized prosciutto di San Daniele, Montasio cheese, Godia potatoes) while retaining the care and intimacy of a restaurant still family run for over 130 years.

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ITALY

Day 6: Trieste. When the Austro-Hungarian empire was at its height and Vienna was the coffee drinking capital of Europe, it was through Trieste that coffee beans arrived from around the world. The city developed its own sophisticated coffee culture and today remains a centre of importance for the Italian coffee industry. A tour of some of its historic, old-world cafés is interwoven with the city’s literary and cultural history. Afternoon visit to the headquarters of the world-famous coffee producer Illy, based just outside Trieste.

Rome on Film Cinema and the Eternal City STAFF FAVOURITES

Practicalities Price, per person. Two sharing: £2,780 or £2,600 without flights. Single occupancy: £3,280 or £3,100 without flights.

Included meals: 1 lunch, 3 dinners, with wine.

Accommodation. Hotel Bernini Bristol (berninibristol.com).

How strenuous? The tour involves a lot of walking as the historic area is vast, and vehicular access is increasingly restricted. Minibuses are used on some occasions but otherwise the city is traversed on foot. A good level of fitness is essential. You will be on your feet for lengthy stretches of time. Average distance by minibus per day: 12 miles.

Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.

Photograph, left: Enzo Staiola in ‘Bicycle Thieves’.

Illustration: Rome, Arch of Titus, watercolour by Alberto Pisa, publ. 1905.

7–12 September 2020 (mg 354) 6 days • £2,780 Lecturer: Dr Pasquale Iannone Please visit www.martinrandall.com for full details, or contact us.

Guided visits to locations made famous in a variety of films – from Italian neorealist classics to international favourites.

Daily lectures illustrated with film excerpts.

Visit Cinecittà, the nerve centre of Italian cinema and the largest film studio in Europe.

Screenings of selected films, with post-film discussions, including Fellini’s Roma in a private cinema at the Villa Borghese.

NEWSLETTER | 2020 tours

This six-day tour explores the various ways in which Rome has been immortalised on film. Through location visits, illustrated lectures and group discussions, we explore the works of directors from across the globe and assess, compare and contrast their distinctive approaches to the Eternal City.

From the Colosseum to the EUR (Esposizione Universale Roma: the site chosen

by Mussolini for the 1942 world’s fair, which never took place), Rome’s stupendous array of ancient and modern structures has left generations of filmmakers enthralled for well over a century. The city was home to Italy’s first motion picture production company in 1905, but came into its own as a filmmaking powerhouse in the post-WWI era, overtaking other production centres, such as Naples and Turin. 1937 saw the founding of Cinecittà studios, which to this day remain the largest facility of this type in Europe, a veritable ‘dream factory’ that continues to welcome scores of film and TV productions. The studio is closely linked 22

to the wild, wandering imagination of director Federico Fellini, who made Cinecittà’s Teatro 5 his cinematic home for more than 30 years.

Fellini’s relationship with Cinecittà, and Rome more broadly, will be explored in detail.

The tour investigates Rome’s role in the development of Italian neorealist cinema in the 1940s, with a focus on Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves (1948), which sought to highlight the hardships suffered by Romans during the Second World War and the immediate postwar years. The 1950s were the period of the Italian ‘economic miracle’ and newfound prosperity and confidence was boosted by the arrival of major Hollywood productions in the capital. This was the era of ‘Hollywood On The Tiber’, with the cream of Tinseltown arriving to savour the Roman dolce vita. One of several high-profile US productions to shoot in Rome was William Wyler’s Roman Holiday, a breakthrough for Audrey Hepburn who starred opposite Gregory Peck.

With Italian art cinema gaining international recognition in the 1960s, directors such as Michelangelo Antonioni turned to lesser-known, more modern areas of the city. The director’s 1962 work L’Eclisse features one of the most stunningly beguiling endings in film history, a scene in which the location – the area in and around the EUR – comes to the fore, refusing to be relegated to mere backdrop.

Across six days, this cinematic tour aims to enrich, enlighten and entertain, using a broad range of films and critical approaches to explore the colourful history of big screen Rome.

book online at www.martinrandall.com

‘­­ The bond between Rome and the cinema of the mid-20th century is strong. It crosses borders to colour the collective imagination of Italy abroad and also informs the self-perception of many Italians.

For people, like me, who have had the luck to live in Rome, it’s kind of normal passing the Fontana di Trevi to expect to see a nice lady stepping out (it can actually happen, despite the ban). Or walking through the historic centre suddenly having to dodge a Vespa with a couple on board. Or, waiting for a bus at Colosseo, finding oneself staring at blokes dressed up as centurions trying to amuse the visitors (with mixed success). Or sitting outside with your friends – sunglasses on even if it’s dark – drinking a glass of wine, feeling a bit like Marcello looking for your Sofia.’

Domenico Laneve, Senior Operations Executive, who devised this tour. Domenico was born in Puglia and lived in Rome while studying for his Masters in Management of cultural events in Rome (La Sapienza University). He has worked at MRT since 2016 and operates Italian, US and Middle East tours.

Lecturers See page 52 for biographies.

The Western Balkans Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro: history past and present

5–18 October 2020 (mg 464) 14 days • £5,360 Lecturer: Elizabeth Roberts May & October 2021 Full details available in April 2020 Please call us to register your interest or e-mail alerts@martinrandall.co.uk A ground-breaking journey through one of the most politically complex and fissiparous yet fundamentally similar regions of Europe.

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.

STAFF FAVOURITES

11–24 May 2020 (mg 214) 14 days • £5,360 Lecturer: Elizabeth Roberts

‘It’s a meaty tour with lots of tumultuous history to get your teeth into!

Encompassing every period of Balkan history from the 12th century to the modern day, each destination offers insights into the contrasting and competing cultural and confessional influences of the last millennium. At once Habsburg and Venetian, Ottoman and Byzantine, this historical complexity is what lends the Western Balkans its richness today.’

Freddie Gold, Operations Executive, who – in addition to The Western Balkans – is responsible for operating tours to Germany, Central and Eastern Europe as well as the UK and India.

St Petersburg Pictures and palaces in the imperial capital 8–15 May 2020 (mg 196) 8 days • £3,290 Lecturer: Dr Alexey Makhrov 11–18 September 2020 (mg 360) 8 days • £3,290 Lecturer: Dr Alexey Makhrov

May & September 2021 Full details available in April 2020 Please call us to register your interest or e-mail alerts@martinrandall.co.uk St Petersburg is perhaps the grandest city in Europe, and one of the most beautiful.

Magnificent architecture of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, especially the palaces of the Romanovs, nobility and merchants.

Outstanding art collections, the Hermitage being the largest art museum in the world.

Illustrations, top: Kotor, watercolour by William Tyndale, publ. 1925. Right: St Petersburg, Winter Palace, 19thcentury wood engraving.

NEWSLETTER | 2020 tours

25 September–2 October 2020 (mg 447) Exclusively for solo travellers 8 days • £3,450 Lecturer: Dr Alexey Makhrov

‘A unique city, projecting outward; a powerful vision of aspiration, imitation, change and complexity. Huge palaces, coloured like confectionery, house magnificent art collections of appropriate size, and their opulent, elegant halls echo with disquiet. A city whose edges are often solid and imposing, concrete blocks of brutalist monotony; while an egg can be exquisite, rare and precious.

A city where they serve beetroot soup, crumbed chicken, caviar and vodka shots the size of a glass, with the soul of the people stoic and warm.

Repin paints us barge haulers who are people used as beast, while the enigmatic seduction of the Russian icon faces attempted annihilation in the revolutionary black heart of Malevich’s square.’

Steph Bourgeois, Client Manager at Martin Randall Australasia Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

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Wagner’s Ring in London Jurowski and the LPO in the Royal Festival Hall UNITED KINGDOM

Performances ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL London Philharmonic Orchestra Vladimir Jurowski conductor Das Rheingold Cast: Alina Adamski, Elizabeth Atherton, Angharad Lyddon, Robert Hayward, Derek Welton, Kai Rüütel, Iwona Sobotka, Andrii Goniukov, Andrew Harris, Christian Elsner, Allan Clayton, Boris Pinkhasovich, Adrian Thompson.

Die Walküre Cast: Burkhard Fritz, Ruxandra Donose, Brindley Sherratt, Svetlana Sozdateleva, Matthew Rose, Kai Rüütel, Sinéad Campbell-Wallace, Natalya Romaniw, Gabriela Istoc, Claire Barnett-Jones, Wallis Giunta, Angela Simkin, Rachael Lloyd, Claudia Huckle.

Siegfried Cast: Torsten Kerl, James Rutherford, Elena Pankratova, Adrian Thompson, Robert Hayward, Andrew Harris, Alina Adamski.

5–11 February 2021 (mh 635) 7 days • £3,390 (including tickets to 4 performances) Lecturer: Barry Millington Concert performances of Wagner’s Ring cycle performed on London’s Southbank.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra under baton of Vladimir Jurowski, and a star-studded international cast.

Talks on the operas by Barry Millington, chief music critic for London’s Evening Standard and editor of The Wagner Journal.

NEWSLETTER | 2021 newly-launched

Guided walks and visits to explore the neighbourhood and places of musical interest.

Stay at the Marriott County Hall, a historic hotel on the Southbank.

Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic Orchestra have been meticulously building up their Ring cycle with one opera a season over the last four years. The announcement that there would be two complete cycles in 2021 was naturally greeted with much excitement. The project marks Jurowski’s final season as principal conductor of the LPO, before becoming its conductor emeritus and assuming a new role as music director at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich.

Jurowski’s Ring has been acclaimed for its flawless pacing and its sensitivity to the dramatic action. One advantage of a semi-staging such as this, where the orchestra is placed onstage, is that the ravishing textures of Wagner’s multifaceted score can be savoured to the full.

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The star-studded cast includes Torsten Kerl as Siegfried, Burkhard Fritz as Siegmund, and Ruxandra Donose as Sieglinde, with Derek Welton and Matthew Rose taking the role of Wotan respectively in Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, and the role of Brünnhilde shared between Svetlana Sozdateleva, Elena Pankratrova and Lise Lindstrom. No less keenly anticipated are portrayals of some of the other roles, notably Patricia Bardon as Erda, Brindley Sherratt as Hunding and Allan Clayton as Froh.

The tour is based at a Marriott hotel in one of London’s iconic buildings, the former County Hall across the Thames from the Houses of Parliament. It is just a few minutes on foot to the RFH.

Itinerary Day 1. The tour begins at the hotel at 3.45pm with a talk, followed by an early dinner. Walk to the Royal Festival Hall for Das Rheingold, beginning at 7.00pm.

Day 2. In the morning there is a walk with expert guide Sophie Campbell to explore the fascinating Southbank neighbourhood. 4.00pm: Die Walküre.

Day 3. Sunday, free morning and evening.

Guided visits in the afternoon are being planned.

Götterdämmerung Cast: Torsten Kerl, Lise Lindstrom, Brindley Sherratt, Stephen Gadd, Anna Samuil, Robert Hayward, Kai Rüütel, Angharad Lyddon, Wallis Giunta, Elizabeth Atherton, Alina Adamski.

Practicalities Price, per person. Two sharing: £3,390.

Single occupancy: £3,990.

Included meals: 1 lunch, 4 dinners, with wine.

Music: first category tickets in rows R, S and T of the front stalls (the back three rows, stage-right) for 4 performances are included, costing £450.

Performances are semi-staged.

Accommodation. Marriott County Hall, London (marriott.co.uk). Please contact us if you would like to upgrade to a river view.

How strenuous? Visits require a fair amount of walking and standing around. There are some late nights but starts are leisurely.

Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.

Illustration: watercolour from ‘The Stories of Wagner’s Operas’, publ. 1915.

Day 4. Free morning. 4.00pm: Siegfried.

Day 5. A series of special arrangements are in preparation for this day (some journeys by tube, the Jubilee Line). Free evening.

Day 6. Free morning. 3.00pm performance: Götterdämmerung.

Day 7. The tour finishes after breakfast.

book online at www.martinrandall.com

What else is included?

See page 2 for a list of components that are included as standard in the price.

Welsh National Opera Der Rosenkavalier, Il trovatore, Faust

The Welsh National Opera in its home theatre, the acoustically and architecturally excellent Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff.

Excursions and talks with Simon Rees, writer, lecturer and former dramaturg of WNO. Stay at a 5-star hotel 15 minutes walk from the opera house, and see some of the highlights of Cardiff ’s arts and heritage.

Day 4. The tour finishes after breakfast.

Performances WALES MILLENNIUM CENTRE Welsh National Opera Der Rosenkavalier | R. Strauss Tomáš Hanus conductor Olivia Fuchs director

Included meals: 2 dinners with wine.

Rebecca Evans Marschallin Lucia Cervoni Octavian Adrian Clarke Von Faninal Peter van Hulle Valzacchi Soraya Mafi Sophie Matthew Hargreaves Police Commissar Madeleine Shaw Annina

Music: top category tickets for 3 performances are also included.

Il trovatore | Verdi Pietro Rizzo conductor

Accommodation. Voco St David’s Hotel & Spa, Cardiff (stdavids.vocohotels.com).

Mary Elizabeth Williams Leonora David Kempster Count di Luna Michal Lehotský Manrico Donald Thomson Ferrando

Practicalities Price, per person. Two sharing: £1,140.

Single occupancy: £1,330.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking; a good level of fitness is necessary. It should not be attempted by anyone who has difficulty with everyday walking and stair-climbing.

Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.

Illustration: Cardiff, National Museum of Wales, after a drawing 1927 by Joseph Pike.

Faust | Gounod Alexander Joel conductor Olivia Fuchs director Jung Soo Yun Faust Wojtek Gierlach Méphistophélès Gareth Brynmor John Valentin Katie Bray Siébel

NEWSLETTER | 2021 newly-launched

In its programming and productions WNO strives to combine adventurousness with accessibility, and commitment to developing new audiences with musical and dramatic integrity.

The company punches far above its weight and has created one of the most admired centres of operatic excellence in Europe.

The three operas in this season have been chosen to show off the best of the company’s work, both with the ensembles of chorus and orchestra, and in the opportunities for exciting casting in the principal roles.

Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal conceived Der Rosenkavalier (The Knight of the Rose) as a tribute to the Vienna of the Empress Maria Theresa. The Marschallin shares her names, and her stateliness and grandeur befit a great Austrian aristocrat.

Verdi wrote Il trovatore to a libretto based on a complicated Spanish romance about a troubadour and the noblewoman he loves.

Leonora is one of Verdi’s greatest female characters; Manrico is the archetypal heroic tenor, and his supposed mother, the gypsy Azucena, is a sorceress in a tradition beloved of mezzo-sopranos.

Gounod’s Faust delighted his Parisian audience, but did not please the Germans, who were offended by what he had done to Goethe’s masterpiece, and insisted for decades on calling it ‘Marguerite’.

Day 3. A guided tour of the Wales Millennium Centre is followed by Cardiff Castle – a medieval keep, a Victorian recreation of the perimeter wall of the Roman Fort and a residence with wonderful Gothic Revival interiors created by Burgess for the Marquess of Bute. Return to the WMC for a lecture, pre-opera dinner and opera: Faust by Gounod.

UNITED KINGDOM

17–20 March 2021 (mh 669) 4 days • £1,140 Lecturer: Simon Rees

Itinerary Day 1. The tour begins at 3.30pm with a short walk from the hotel across the Cardiff Bay development to the Wales Millennium Centre (WMC) for a lecture, pre-opera dinner and opera: Der Rosenkavalier by R. Strauss.

Day 2. Take the boat from Cardiff Bay to the National Museum of Wales which has one of the finest collections of Impressionist paintings in the UK. Return to the WMC for a lecture, preopera dinner and Verdi’s Il trovatore.

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Japanese Gardens Tokyo, Kyoto, Hikone, Nara and Kanazawa JAPAN

gravel. In the latter half of the following century, the great tea master Sen-no-Rikyu sought to reproduce the ambience of forest glades for his tea rooms. Lack of space has never been considered an inhibiting factor, and through the judicious choice and symbolic placing of stones and plants, beautiful panoramic vistas have been created in the tiniest of gardens.

This tour presents a variety of superb gardens from all periods of Japanese history, from the aristocratic ‘paradise’-style temple gardens and the enigmatic Zen Buddhist rock gardens of Kyoto, to the borrowed castle scenery at Hikone and the tea gardens of Kanazawa, to the amalgamation of all these various styles in the imposing gardens of the samurai elite in Tokyo. It offers an insight into the symbolism incorporated into the various styles and the opportunity to appreciate the relationship of gardens to the Japanese way of life.

Itinerary Day 1: Tokyo. The tour begins in Tokyo with lunch in the hotel. (Flights from London are not included – see the information on the opposite page). There is an airport transfer to meet the recommended flight from London. Your room is available from 2.00pm on 17th November to allow for early check-in if required. In the afternoon, visit the Imperial Palace (formerly Edo Castle), and the reconstructed East Palace Garden. First of two nights in Tokyo.

18–29 November 2021 (mh 201) 12 days • £6,920 International flights not included Lecturer: Yoko Kawaguchi

NEWSLETTER | 2021 newly-launched

A study of the evolution of Japanese gardens through the centuries.

From Kyoto’s wealth of exquisite temple gardens to Tokyo’s hill-and-pond gardens, with time in each city to explore other aspects of Japanese culture.

Fine examples of ‘borrowed scenery’ at Nara, with its Buddhist temples and deer park, and Hikone Castle on the eastern shore of Lake Biwa.

Japanese gardens possess an aura of timelessness, against which background the cycle of the seasons unfolds its pageantry.

Throughout the 1,600-year-old Japanese tradition of creating gardens, the chief consideration has consistently been the depiction of a landscape. This approach to design was firmly established with the earliest gardens built in Japan during the fifth and sixth centuries under the expertise of architects and artisans from Korea and China, who introduced their 26

scholarly taste for the elegant pond garden. From the continent, a variety of sacred landscapes deriving from Buddhist as well as Chinese religious cosmographies entered Japanese culture; Mt. Sumeru, the centre of the universe according to Buddhist legend, has frequently been represented through the centuries, as have been the Taoist Islands of the Blessed Immortals.

Above all, the Japanese took the Chinese tradition of landscape gardens and transformed it into an expression of their love for their own native natural landscapes. Verdant mountains sloping down to the sea; waterfalls and streamlets; rugged shores and shingle beaches; an ever-varying coastline of inlets, coves and jutting promontories – these have always provided a beloved subject matter.

Trees and shrubs are carefully selected and arranged to create a seasonal palette, while ponds symbolise the sea, and the rocky outcrops set in them reflect the self-image of the Japanese as an island people.

The idea of landscape links together the two major types of Japanese garden: the pond garden, on the one hand; and the rock garden on the other, a style that emerged during the 15th century, in which serene and contemplative spaces are enhanced by the symbolic representation of water through the use of

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Day 2: Tokyo. At Edo, the daimyo (feudal lords) built grand residences with vast gardens. The 17th-century landscape garden Koishikawa Korakuen reflects their sumptuous, eclectic tastes. Nezu Kaichiro’s collection of Far Eastern arts is well presented in the eponymous museum, which has a delightful wooded garden dotted with teahouses (subject to confirmation due to exhibition schedules). In the afternoon, visit Kiyosumi: a superb, late 19th-century landscape garden built for Iwasaki Yataro, founder of the Mitsubishi conglomerate.

Day 3: Kyoto. Bullet train to Kyoto (luggage by road). In the afternoon, visit the 14th-century Tenryu-ji, a Zen Buddhist temple and its panoramic pond garden with a ‘dragon-gate’ waterfall. First of five nights in Kyoto.

Day 4: Kyoto. Morning visit to Ginkaku-ji (Temple of the Silver Pavilion), whose pavilion overlooks an elaborate dry-landscape garden with raked gravel featuring an enigmatic flattopped conical mound. The superb garden at Chishaku-in resembles an unfolding landscape scroll painting. Optional afternoon visit to the Miho Museum (subject to confirmation due to exhibition schedules), designed by I.M. Pei and harmoniously integrated into a forested nature reserve. The approach on foot via a tunnel and bridge leads to a glass structure on the crest of a hill and a sequence of luminous interiors incorporating traditional Japanese motifs.

Day 5: Kyoto. Ryoan-ji’s walled stone garden, with its 15 boulders, is one of Japan’s most abstract gardens. Nearby, the garden of Kinkaku-

ji (Temple of the Golden Pavilion), a shogun’s villa later turned temple, retains aspects of the ‘paradise’ style. In the afternoon, visit the large walled temple compound of Daitoku-ji, many of whose sub-temples possess notable examples of dry-landscape gardens. One of the finest is at Daisen-in, a miniature landscape heavily influenced by Chinese ink-brush paintings.

Day 6: Nara. A full-day excursion to Nara, first capital of Japan (ad 710–794), modelled on the Tang capital of Chang’an (Xi’an) in China.

The 12th-century Joruri-ji has a rare surviving example of a ‘pure land’ temple garden with a pagoda and hall with nine golden Buddhas.

Much of Nara is parkland dotted with ancient temples, including Todai-ji which contains an arresting monumental bronze Buddha.

Day 7: Kyoto. Nanzen-ji is distinguished by its massive gate and quarters of the abbacy (Hojo), which contain very fine 17th-century painted screens (fusuma) by Kano Tan’yu. Together with its sub-temples, it contains important drylandscapes created by the eminent 17th-century tea master and garden designer Kobori Enshu.

Nearby Murin-an boasts a landscaped pond garden, a masterpiece of the late 19th-century garden designer Ogawa Jihei VII. Day 8: Hikone, Kanazawa. Drive to Hikone, on the shores of Lake Biwa, and its two adjoining parks Genkyu-en and Rakuraku-en. Genkyuen is a famous feudal landscaped garden incorporating the view of the early 17th-century keep at Hikone Castle. Continue to Kanazawa, an attractive city which retains much of its old character. First of two nights.

Day 9: Kanazawa. Kenroku-en, one of Japan’s finest strolling landscape gardens, was created for the powerful local feudal lord of Kagawa.

It has a superb view of its pine trees trained with rope in readiness for winter. The elegant villa Seisonkaku, which sits in the grounds, was built for the widow of the 12th-century lord and has wonderful courtyard gardens.

Day 11: Tokyo. The 18th-century Rikugien offers superb views over its lake. There is free time to explore the colourful, traditional Japanese area surrounding the Asakusa Kannon Temple. Take a local boat down the Sumida River to Hama-rikyu, originally a tidal garden and hunting lodge belonging to the Tokugawa Shogunate and now a peaceful retreat in the heart of the metropolis.

Day 12: Tokyo. The tour ends after breakfast.

Independent departures. There is an airport transfer in time for the recommended direct flight back to London.

required is that you ought to be able to walk briskly at about three miles per hour for at least half an hour, and undertake a walk at a more leisurely pace for an hour or two unaided. The tour involves a lot of walking in gardens. Average distance by coach per day: c. 44 miles.

Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.

Practicalities Price, per person. Two sharing: £6,920.

Single occupancy: £8,820.

Included: high-speed rail travel (first class) from Tokyo to Kyoto and from Kanazawa to Tokyo; private coach for excursions; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 8 lunches and 7 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager.

Flights: international flights between London and Tokyo are not included in the price of the tour. Please see the information on the right.

Accommodation. New Otani, Tokyo (newotani.co.jp). Celestine, Kyoto (celestinehotels.jp); Tokyu Hotel, Kanazawa (tokyuhotelsjapan.com).

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. A rough indication of the minimum level of fitness Illustration, opposite: watercolour by Mortimer Menpes, publ. 1901; above: tea garden, wood engraving c. 1880.

International flights These are not included in the price of our Japan tours. We will send recommended flight options from London with your booking confirmation.

Flights are usually available to book c. 11 months before departure. You can either make your own reservation or we can book on your behalf. The cost of a World Traveller (economy) seat with British Airways at the time of going to press is c. £850 for London–Tokyo return (Art in Japan; Japanese Gardens), or c. £725 for London–Tokyo, Osaka–London (Traditions of Japan).

We provide airport transfers to meet the recommended return flights from London.

For those not taking the recommended flights, transfers can be arranged for an additional cost.

Additional nights It is possible to arrange additional nights at the hotels before or after our tours in Japan. Please contact us if you are interested.

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Day 10: Kanazawa, Tokyo. Bullet train to Tokyo (luggage by road). The afternoon is dedicated to the Tokyo National Museum, which occupies several buildings in Ueno Park and houses some of the finest Japanese art in the world. The main gallery (Honkan) traces the development from prehistoric, sculptural earthenware to exquisite paintings and decorative objects of courtly patronage. First of two nights in Tokyo.

‘ Yoko brought the gardens to life! Her knowledge was extensive and her explanations clear and interesting.’

Traditions of Japan Arts, crafts, history, society JAPAN

10–22 May 2021 (mh 738) 13 days • £6,940 International flights not included Lecturer: Pauline Chakmakjian Modern architecture in Tokyo and traditional buildings in Shirakawa and Takayama.

Extraordinary temples and gardens in Kyoto, and the legendary, ancient shrine at Izumo.

Traditional arts and crafts in Kanazawa.

Overnights in a traditional ryokan and an onsen hotel (with hot spring bathing option).

An exploration of the Japanese character in history and today.

One of the joys of exploring Japan is discovering its many different facets. It is a country of exquisite ancient beauty, but also at the cutting edge of modern design and creativity. Colourfully different characters constantly stride out both in history – such as Minamoto no Yorimoto, the founder of the shogunate – and today, in the pink-haired punks and Cosplay followers of Tokyo’s Shibuya. Japan is known for adapting ideas from elsewhere, but it has also always produced art and ideas of wonderful originality.

This tour has been designed to take us to the heart of Japan, to explore the many aspects of the country and its people: its stunning natural beauty and heritage; the continuing work of its crafts-people; art and architecture both old and new; its history and relations with neighbours; and modern Japan and its position in the world.

In the sixth century, Buddhism arrived in Japan from China. Kyoto, founded as the new capital in 794, perfectly displays this history through its gardens and Buddhist temples, many of which are to be found on the hillsides around the city. Even when the seat of power moved to Kamakura and later to Tokyo in 1603, Kyoto remained at the heart of Japan. A visit to an Imperial villa offers a special insight, as does an exploration of the work of Kyoto’s traditional craftspeople.

The long tradition of craft skills is also found in Kanazawa, which is well known for its Kutani pottery, lacquer and gold leaf. It is one of the few cities where tea houses and geisha are still in evidence. In the mountains not far away is Takayama, with its old merchants’ houses, and Shirakawa’s traditional gassho zukuri farmhouses.

At the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the emperor moved from Kyoto to Tokyo and Japan opened its doors to foreigners. The tour takes in Matsue, where Lafcadio Hearn worked on his studies

of so-called ‘strange things’ – Japanese ghost stories and superstitions – in 1890, as well as the medieval Matsue castle. Ancient myths tell of the creation of Japan through the story of the sun goddess Amaterasu. When she threw her brother Susanoo out of heaven he came to Izumo, home to the great Shinto shrine, whose origins reach back before the Heian period.

Beginning in Tokyo, where there is an abundance of modern architecture, fashion and design, the tour promises to be a remarkable opportunity to engage with many aspects of this multi-layered country.

Practicalities Price, per person. Two sharing: £6,940 Single occupancy: £8,040.

Included: domestic air travel with Japan Airlines: Nagoya to Izumo; high-speed rail travel (first class) from Tokyo to Kanazawa; private coach for transfers and excursions; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 10 lunches and 8 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admission charges to museums; all tips for waiters, drivers and guides; the services of the lecturer and tour manager.

Flights: international flights from London to Tokyo and from Osaka to London are not included in the price of the tour. See page 27.

Accommodation. New Otani, Tokyo (newotani. co.jp): the night of 9th May 2021 is also included in the price of the tour here, to allow for early check-in on Day 1. Tokyu Hotel, Kanazawa (tokyuhotelsjapan.com). Tanabe Ryokan (tanabe-ryokan.jp). Tamatsukuri Grand Hotel Choseikaku, Matsue. Celestine, Kyoto (celestinehotels.jp).

NEWSLETTER | 2021 newly-launched

How strenuous? A good level of fitness is essential. Unless you enjoy entirely unimpaired mobility, cope with everyday walking and stairclimbing without difficulty and are reliably surefooted, this tour is not for you. You may be on your feet for lengthy stretches of time. Uneven ground and irregular paving are standard.

Average distance by coach per day: 38 miles.

Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.

Illustration, left and right: both Japanese woodblocks.

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Art in Japan Art, craft, architecture and design

8–19 November 2021 (mh 178) 12 days • £7,310 International flights not included Lecturer: Dr Timon Screech Many of the finest collections of Japanese art in museums and in situ in temples and shrines.

World Heritage sites at Nikko, Kyoto, Nara and Horyu-ji, and the art island of Naoshima.

Outstanding museum buildings by Tadao Ando, I.M. Pei and other leading architects.

Other aspects of Japanese culture, past and present, including gastronomy and gardens.

Day 1: Tokyo. The tour begins in Tokyo with lunch in the hotel. (Flights from London are not included – see page 27.) There is an airport transfer to meet the recommended flight from London. Your room is available from 2.00pm on 11th April or 7th November to allow for early check-in if required. In the afternoon there is a visit to the Edo-period Korakuen Garden, one of the oldest and best preserved in the city. First of three nights in Tokyo.

Day 2: Tokyo. The morning is dedicated to the Tokyo National Museum, which occupies several buildings in Ueno Park and houses some of the finest Japanese art in the world. The main gallery (Honkan) traces the development from prehistoric, sculptural earthenware to exquisite paintings and decorative objects of courtly patronage. Nezu Kaichiro’s extraordinary and diverse collection of Japanese and other Asian arts is perfectly presented in the eponymous museum, a purpose-built space with a delightful garden. Highlights include world-renowned Chinese bronzes and intricate utensils related to the tea aesthetic (subject to confirmation due to exhibition schedules).

Day 3: Nikko. Full-day excursion to Nikko, an historically important Shinto and Buddhist pilgrimage site in a national park with breathtaking mountain vistas. The 17th-century Tosho-gu Shrine complex was established here by the powerful Tokugawa Shoguns (the first shogun of the Edo period, Tokugawa Ieyasu, is enshrined here): set amid towering Japanese cedars and pines, the architecturally extravagant buildings are decorated with elaborate woodcarvings and beautiful paintwork.

Day 4: Tokyo to Kyoto. The morning is dedicated to the Ota Memorial Art Museum and its collection of ukiyo-e woodblock prints. In the afternoon travel by high-speed train to Kyoto (luggage by road). Kyoto is considered the centre of Japanese culture and today’s city and the surrounding hills are dense with examples of art and architecture of the highest importance. First of five nights in Kyoto.

Day 5: Kyoto. Kyoto’s National Museum opened its Heisei Chishinkan wing in 2014, an impressive construction displaying ceramics, painting, sculpture, sumptuous textiles and much else. At the foot of the forested Higashiyama mountains the zen temple complex

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Japan has one of the richest and most continuously active art traditions in Asia, perhaps anywhere. Some of the earliest known ceramics are found here, as is the world’s oldest-standing wooden building. But Japanese contemporary art also ranks with the best in the world and is eagerly imitated and avidly collected.

Between those chronological poles is a wealth of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines from all periods, and some impressive military architecture. National, regional and private collections are to be found in great profusion throughout the country; Japan has a long and impressive lineage of art-historical scholarship and connoisseurship. Added to this in recent times have been a network of conservation and restoration labs and the latest technology for archaeological investigation. In short, despite the large number of wars and natural disasters that have periodically overwhelmed the country, Japanese arts are to be enjoyed in extraordinary abundance. The great majority of important pieces remain in the country.

Throughout history, Japan has tended to make a less emphatic division between art and craft than is the case in Western countries. Of equal rank alongside the ‘fine arts’ of painting and sculpture there are outstanding examples of ceramic, textile and metalwork, as well as uniquely beautiful gardens and a special aesthetic of food and eating.

This tour exposes participants to Japan across the ages, sampling excellent works from many periods, genres and styles. As a deeply hierarchical society until modern times, there is ‘high’ art and ‘low’ art, from royal and shogunal works to that of the urban populace (the fabled ‘art of the floating world’). Modern Tokyo is part of the experience as well as the ancient capital of Kyoto, as are the yet more ancient city of Nara and the celebrated art colony of Naoshima in the Inland Sea. World Heritage sites figure on the tour, but we also visit less well known sites such as ceramic studios and mausolea.

Itinerary

JAPAN

12–23 April 2021 (mh 699) 12 days • £7,310 International flights not included Lecturer: Dr Monika Hinkel

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Art in Japan continued

JAPAN

‘ I am a complete convert to your tours after a lifetime of independent travel. To have things organised for you and to have access to inspired teaching was an absolute joy.’

Nanzen-ji is distinguished by its massive gate (Sanmon) and the quarters of the abbacy (Hojo) which contain very fine 17th-century painted screens (fusuma) by Kano Tan’yu. The Kodai-ji Temple is richly decorated with early 17thcentury maki-e, gold and silver set in lacquer.

Day 6: Nara and its environs. A full-day excursion to Nara, first capital of Japan (ad 710– 794). Modelled on the Tang capital of Chang’an (Xi’an) in China, Nara was the birthplace of major cultural and religious development.

Here Buddhism firmly established itself and prolific production of splendid temples and devotional art ensued, much of which is in situ.

Here are some of the oldest wooden structures in the world. The temple of Todai-ji contains an arresting monumental bronze Buddha; the dry-lacquer and bronze statues of the Hokke-do and Kofuku Temple are sublime in their detail.

Nearby Horyu-ji is Japan’s earliest Buddhist temple, founded ad 607.

Day 7: Kyoto environs. A morning excursion to the Miho museum (subject to confirmation due to exhibition schedules), designed by I.M. Pei and harmoniously integrated into a forested nature reserve. The approach on foot via a tunnel and bridge leads to a glass structure on the crest of a hill and a sequence of luminous interiors incorporating traditional Japanese motifs.

Collections include Greco-Roman and Islamic

antiquities and important Japanese artworks.

The Sanjusangen-do is an unusually long hall containing 1001 subtly differentiated 12th-/13thcentury gilded statues of Kannon, divinity of Mercy, cumulatively a potent visual effect. The home of potter Kawai Kanjiro (d. 1966), a key figure in the folk art revival of the 1930s, is an intimate space furnished with his work and an intact ‘climbing’ kiln.

Day 8: Kyoto. The large walled temple compound of Daitoku-ji, established in the 14th century, is an important foundation of Japanese Zen. Its many sub-temples contain dry-landscape gardens; one of the finest (and smallest) is in the Daisen-in, a Chinese inkpainting rendered in stone. The Raku Museum holds exhibitions of its eponymous ware, most often in the form of understated tea bowls. Nijo Castle, shogunal residence, has a lavish interior containing brilliantly painted fusuma (screens) by the Kano school.

Day 9: Kyoto to Naoshima. Travel by coach from Kyoto to Uno and from there take the ferry across to Naoshima Island, located in the Inland Sea. Together with the islands of Teshima and Inujima, Naoshima forms part of the ‘Benesse Art Site’. A number of striking galleries by architect Tadao Ando and outdoor installations dot the landscape. The Benesse House Museum is a vast structure of concrete, glass and natural light. In addition to works by contemporary Japanese artists, the collection includes works

by Andy Warhol, David Hockney and Bruce Nauman. First of two nights in Naoshima.

Day 10: Naoshima. The Art House Project is a collection of traditional buildings in the old fishing village of Honmura that have been restored and transformed by artists to house creative contemporary installations. The Chichu Art Museum houses several Monet paintings

as well as sculptures by Walter de Maria in underground spaces lit only by natural light.

Day 11: Naoshima, Tokyo. The eponymous Lee Ufan Museum houses works by this Koreanborn artist and is the latest addition to the collection of Benesse museums. Ferry to Uno and transfer to Okayama for the train to Tokyo (luggage by road). Overnight Tokyo.

Day 12: Tokyo. The tour ends after breakfast.

Independent departures. There is an airport transfer in time for the recommended direct flight back to London.

Practicalities Price per person. Two sharing: £7,310.

Single occupancy: £9,210.

Included: high-speed rail travel (first class) from Tokyo to Kyoto and from Okayama to Tokyo; private coach for excursions; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 8 lunches and 7 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer.

Flights: international flights between London and Tokyo are not included in the price of the tour. See page 27.

Accommodation. New Otani, Tokyo (newotani. co.jp). Celestine, Kyoto (celestinehotels.jp).

Benesse House Hotel, Naoshima – subject to confirmation (benesse-artsite.jp).

NEWSLETTER | 2021 newly-launched

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. The tour involves a lot of standing in museums. A rough indication of the minimum level of fitness required is that you ought to be able to walk briskly at about three miles per hour for at least half an hour, and undertake a walk at a more leisurely pace for an hour or two unaided. The tour involves a lot of walking in gardens. Average distance by coach per day: c. 59 miles.

Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.

Illustration: Kyoto, watercolour by Mortimer Menpes, publ.

1912. Photograph, opposite: Hue, Royal Tomb of Emperor Minh Mang. Photograph taken by Hannah King in 2018.

Lecturers See page 52 for biographies.

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Vietnam: History, People, Food From Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh VIETNAM

17–29 October 2021 (mh 133) 13 days • £6,290 International flights not included Lecturer: Dr Dana Healy Please visit www.martinrandall.com for full details, or contact us.

The entire length of the country in 13 days, featuring several unesco World Heritage Sites.

Several arrangements specially made to avoid the crowds, and more time spent in each city than most mainstream tours.

Stay in some of the best hotels in Asia, in Vietnam’s most lively and enchanting cities.

Covers diverse aspects of Vietnamese culture and history: dynastic kingdoms, colonialism, socialism, ethnology, gastronomy, society.

Option to combine this tour with Cambodia by River, 30 October–12 November 2021 (please see overleaf for full details).

alongside the 19th-century colonial buildings.

The city of Hue, in central Vietnam, is often regarded as the intellectual and spiritual centre of Buddhism. The Nguyen lords, the last feudal dynasty of Vietnam, made Hue their capital in 1802, leaving a complex of impressive monuments.

To the south of Hue, along the majestic Hai Van pass, lies the ancient port of Hoi An, one of the most delightful and vibrant towns in southeast Asia. Once an important trading post, it reflects a blend of indigenous and foreign cultural influences, with its well preserved communal houses, ancient wells and a unique Japanese roof-covered bridge.

In South Vietnam lies the country’s largest metropolis, Ho Chi Minh City. Under its old name, Saigon, it was the capital of French Cochinchina and later of the Republic of South Vietnam. As the country’s main commercial hub, it is dizzying and captivating. North of the city, to the casual eye, the landscape barely seems scarred by the Resistance War against the USA that shattered the region over half a century ago, but beneath this serene landscape the immense network of tunnels dug by the Viet Cong at Cu Chi remains astonishingly intact.

Practicalities Price, per person. Two sharing: £6,290.

Single occupancy: £7,670.

Price, per person, Vietnam: History, People, Food and Cambodia by River combined. Two sharing: £12,570. Single occupancy: £14,980.

Included: domestic flights (economy class) with Vietnam Airlines (Airbus 321): Hanoi to Hue, Da Nang to Ho Chi Minh City; transport by air-conditioned coach; airport transfers to meet international flights; accommodation; breakfasts, 8 lunches and 8 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer, tour manager and local guides.

International flights are not included in the price of the tour. We will send recommended flight options from London with your booking confirmation (available to book in November 2020). You can make your own reservation or we can book on your behalf. The cost of an economy seat at the time of going to press is c. £850.

Additional nights and airport transfers. We can arrange additional nights at hotels before or after the tour. The night of 16th October 2021 is included in the price of the tour to allow for early check-in on Day 1. Airport transfers are included in the price of the tour – we will ask for your flight details at a later date.

Visas are not required for UK citizens for stays of 15 days or less. Most other foreign nationals require a visa, which is not included in the tour price. We will advise on the process.

Accommodation. Sofitel Legend Metropole, Hanoi (sofitel-legend-metropole-hanoi. com). Bhaya Classic Cruise, Ha Long Bay (bhayacruises.com). La Residence, Hue (la-residence-hue.com). Anantara Hoi An Resort, Hoi An (hoi-an.anantara.com).

The Myst Dong Khoi, Ho Chi Minh City (themystdongkhoihotel.com).

How strenuous? The tour involves a lot of walking in town centres, where coach access is restricted, and a lot of standing in museums and at sites. Uneven ground and irregular paving are standard. 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. There are some long coach journeys during which facilities are limited and may be of poor quality. The tour spans over 1,500 km from north to south, and the weather varies accordingly: it can be chilly in the north and very hot in the south. Average distance by coach per day: 42 miles.

Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.

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‘A thousand years enslaved by China/A hundred years trampled by France/Twenty years of civil war day by day’. The words of the revered 20thcentury poet and songwriter Trịnh Cong Son encapsulate the tribulations of the Vietnamese nation; it is impossible to understand Vietnam without first reflecting on its turbulent past.

The country’s strategic location has made it vulnerable to millennia of invasions. In 111 bc, Vietnam fell to the Han dynasty and became a colonial vassal of China until 938; it was colonised by the French in the mid-1800s.

Following the declaration of independence in 1945, the Vietnamese fought the First Indochina War until 1954, eventually defeating the French in the battle of Dien Bien Phu. Divided in 1954 into a communist state in the North and the Republic of South Vietnam, it fell victim to the polarized ideological struggle of the Cold War and was not reunified until 1975, after another protracted war – referred to in the West as the Vietnam War. Yet today’s visitors find a dynamic country, respectful of its traditions but eager to move forward. Its economic growth rate is currently among the highest in the world, while its society remains firmly anchored by its customs and beliefs. Vietnamese culture is further enriched by the indigenous traditions of the 54 ethnic minorities that share the territory with the main Viet (Kinh) people. The intertwining of various creeds – Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism – has resulted in Tam giao dong nguyen (The Three Teachings from one source), a doctrine of tolerance and peaceful coexistence.

The tour starts in North Vietnam, the cradle of Vietnamese civilisation with its fertile Red River delta. The capital, Hanoi, was established in 1010 and has remained a political and administrative centre ever since. The aesthetic charm of the city derives from its blend of ancient monuments, pagodas and temples,

Cambodia by River From the Mekong Delta to the city of Angkor CAMBODIA

30 October–12 Nov. 2021 (mh 171) 14 days • £6,280 International flights not included Lecturer: Freddie Matthews Journey by river from the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam to Siem Reap, the heart of the city of Angkor.

Six nights in a 5-star hotel in Siem Reap, to see all the major sites of the Khmer empire.

Two visits to Angkor Wat, morning and evening, to see how the colours of the stone change with the light.

Outstanding collection of statuary in the National Museum in Phnom Penh.

Option to combine this tour with Vietnam: History, People, Food, 17–29 October 2021 (please see previous page).

NEWSLETTER | 2021 newly-launched

Our journey is conducted for much of the way on water – a precious commodity in the life of Cambodians, though there is plenty of it.

The Khmer empire built complex systems of channels and reservoirs to manage the seasonal flow; modern-day Cambodians manage it still.

From May onwards Himalayan meltwaters pour down the Mekong River, reversing the flow of its tributary, the Tonle Sap, and tripling the size of Tonle Sap Lake, adjacent to Siem Reap, where people live in stilt houses above the floodwaters.

Water saturates the rice fields that provide Cambodia’s staple crop in an economy that remains essentially rural.

At its apogee in the twelfth century, the Khmer empire that gave birth to Cambodia stretched from modern-day Vietnam in the east to Myanmar in the northwest. In the region of Angkor alone (around the modern city of Siem Reap) digital analysis has recently revealed to us the shadow of a vast ancient city of up to a million inhabitants that would just fit within London’s M25 motorway.

Here and elsewhere, the empire’s kings and craftsmen built temple complexes that count among the most sophisticated and impressive in world history. The best known, Angkor Wat, attracts millions of visitors each year. Yet lying off the beaten track are a great number of temples that arguably rival Angkor Wat in atmosphere and significance.

The Khmer civilisation broke up in later centuries, and power in Indochina shifted to Thailand and Vietnam. Cambodia was a French protectorate from the mid-19th century until independence in 1953. Its late-20th-century history is one of tragedy and horror, from the covert bombing by the US during the Vietnam War to the emergence of the Khmer Rouge which, under its genocidal leader Pol Pot, was responsible for the deaths of at least two million people. Scarcely a single family was untouched by this nightmare. Yet the Cambodian people remain strikingly friendly and good-humoured.

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The contrast between the enduring simplicity of life in the countryside and the mystery and grandeur of the ancient temples distils the distinct character of Cambodia.

From the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam to the region of Angkor we experience its many facets past and present, and explore two of southeast Asia’s most congenial cities. Phnom Penh has undergone a miraculous recovery from the Khmer Rouge era, when it was forcibly evacuated and left to ruin. Scars remain, but overall the city is booming and, despite rapid growth, much historic architecture remains.

Siem Reap meanwhile has completely resisted the blight of high-rise development and preserved its charm and vitality.

Itinerary If combining this tour with Vietnam: History, People, Food, the tour finishes in Ho Chi Minh City on 29th October. That night is included in Ho Chi Minh City for all participants on Cambodia by River.

book online at www.martinrandall.com

Day 1: Ho Chi Minh City, My Tho, Cai Be. Rooms are available in Ho Chi Minh City from 2.00pm on 29th October (flights from London are not included – see Practicalities). Drive to My Tho to join the ship in time for lunch (c. 70km).

Sail to Cai Be, a charming town known for its Catholic church and floating market. First of seven nights on the ship.

Day 2: Mekong Delta, Tan Chau. The tranquil waterways fed by the Mekong Delta are known for a slower pace of life, revolving around tropical fruit gardens, rice cultivation and coconuts. Despite the seemingly unhurried existence of the local people, the area is a hive of activity: these swamplands produce more than a third of Vietnam’s annual food crop, as well as bricks, incense and the many miraculous incarnations of the coconut. Continue sailing to Tan Chau, near the border with Cambodia.

Day 3: Tan Chau, Phnom Penh. Tan Chau is a pleasant town with a sizeable Chinese, Kinh and Khmer community. There is a tour by ‘xeloi’ (tuk-tuk) and a visit to the market. A trip by

Day 13: Siem Reap, Chandara. Free morning in Siem Reap; the Angkor National Museum is worth a visit. In the afternoon travel by boat across the West Baray, a man-made reservoir which was once integral to the complex Angkorian rice irrigation system (constructed 11th cent.). Continue to a private dinner at a villa surrounded by rice paddies and landscaped spice gardens.

Day 4: Phnom Penh. Explore the Royal Palace complex, including the Silver Pagoda: 19thcentury, cast-iron with 5,329 silver floor tiles.

The Khmer Rouge left a shadow over the city for may years; visit Tuol Sleng, a high school turned interrogation prison known as S-21 and now a genocide museum; and Choeung Ek, the harrowing memorial at the Killing Fields to the 17,000 people who died there under Pol Pot.

Day 14: Siem Reap. Tour ends after breakfast.

Day 5: Phnom Penh, Angkor Ban, Kampong Cham. The National Museum of Cambodia houses artefacts dating from prehistoric times to the present. It was looted when the city was emptied by the Khmer Rouge but subsequently restored and re-filled – four galleries surround a peaceful courtyard. Over lunch, sail to Angkor Ban village, known for its traditional stilt houses.

Continue sailing to Kampong Cham.

Included: transport by private air-conditioned coach; accommodation; breakfasts, 10 lunches and 10 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer, tour manager and local guides.

Day 6: Kampong Cham, Kampong Chhnang.

Morning visit to the pre-Angkorian temple (seventh cent.) of Wat Hanchey – a small complex on a hill with spectacular views over the Mekong. See the monastery of Wat Nokor, with astoundingly colourful ‘frescoes’ telling the life of the Buddha. Sail back down the Mekong to join the Tonle Sap River, stopping at the island of Koh Ohnha Tey, known for the manufacture of exquisite silk products. Explore the island by tuk-tuk. Continue north towards Kampong Chhnang, on the edge of the Tonle Sap Lake.

Day 8: Tonle Sap Lake, Siem Reap, Roluos.

Disembark in the morning and transfer to Siem Reap, where in the 16th century the Khmer empire returned to its former capital having defeated (‘reap) the Thais (‘Siam’). It is a busy tourist hub but retains its small-town charm.

The Roluos group consists of some of the earliest structures of the Angkor period (ninth century).

Visit three of the brick-and-sandstone temples: Bakong, Lolei and Preah Ko. First of six nights in Siem Reap.

This tour falls within the high water season, but as water patterns are unpredictable there is a chance

Practicalities Price, per person. Two sharing: £6,280.

Single occupancy: £7,310.

Price, per person, Cambodia by River and Vietnam: History, People, Food combined. Two sharing: £12,570. Single occupancy: £14,980.

the ship may not be able to reach Siem Reap. If this is the case, we transfer by coach (c. 3 hours).

Day 9: Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom. Dominated by its quincunx of corncob-shaped towers, Angkor Wat is exceptional for both its scale and astounding detail. Visit after the sunrise backpackers have left but before most other tourists arrive. In the afternoon enter the 12th-century walled city of Angkor Thom. The Bayon state temple features the supreme tantric Buddha’s face on 59 towers, and another massive pyramidal temple was erected to the glory of Shiva over several decades (Baphuon). The Terrace of the Elephants, with a staggering basrelief frieze, supported the royal reception hall.

Day 10: Beng Mealea, Banteay Srei. Travel northeast of Angkor to the atmospheric jungle temple of Beng Mealea, made accessible by wooden walkways raised above the crumbling ruins, of grand and elegant architectural design.

Loop west to Banteay Srei (‘citadel of women’), a small and exquisite pink sandstone temple covered in pristine carved reliefs. Return to Siem Reap late afternoon.

Day 12: Ta Prohm, Angkor Wat. Visits this morning include Ta Prohm, once an administrative hub for a chain of hospitals (famous for the strangler figs that straddle the walls); Pre Rup, the archetypal ancient Khmer temple mountain (brick); and Neak Pean, unlike anything else at Angkor, a single tower rising from a reservoir. Return to Angkor Wat to study in detail the sandstone carvings enclosing the central sanctuaries. See areas usually not open to the public: an expert from the Apsara Conservation Project explains their conservation work (subject to confirmation).

Day 12: Banteay Chhmar. Drive north to Banteay Chhmar Temple (c. 3 hours), the last great ancient temple to be rescued from the obscurity of a tropical forest. The scale of its construction, the hydraulic engineering required to sustain it and its long gallery of superb relief carvings suggest that it was the twin hub of the empire.

Flights: international flights are not included in the price of the tour. We will send recommended flight options from London with your booking confirmation, which will be available to book in December 2020. You can either make your own reservation or we can book on your behalf. The cost of an economy seat with Thai Airways at the time of going to press is c. £600.

Additional nights and airport transfers. It is possible to arrange additional nights at the hotels before or after the tour. Airport transfers are included in the price of the tour – we will ask for your flight details at a later date.

Visas: for Vietnam are not required for UK citizens for stays of 15 days or less.

Most other foreign nationals require a visa, which is not included in the tour price. We will advise on the process. Visas for Cambodia are required for most foreign nationals and are not included in the tour price. E-visas are not accepted for a border crossing on the river; the cruise company arranges these in advance and we will advise on the process.

Accommodation. The Jayavarman (heritageline.com/cruise/jayavarman). La Residence d’Angkor, Siem Reap (belmond.com).

How strenuous? There is a lot of walking on archaeological sites. Uneven ground, irregular paving, steps and hills are standard. A good level of fitness is essential. Unless you enjoy entirely unimpaired mobility, cope with everyday walking and stair-climbing without difficulty and are very sure-footed, this tour is not for you.

Average distance by coach per day: 22 miles.

Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.

Illustration, left: Angkor Wat, wood engraving c. 1880.

Above: Elephant’s Terrace at Angkor Wat, from ‘Ruins in Cambodia’ by P. Jeannerat de Beerski, publ. 1923.

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Day 7: Kampong Chhnang, Tonle Sap Lake. Kampong Chhnang is one of the most enthralling sailing spots in Cambodia. Visit a village on shore to see Khmer-style pottery being made, then explore the local floating villages by boat. Over lunch sail towards Tonle Sap, the largest freshwater lake in Asia, which can only be crossed in the high-water season.

Enjoy the afternoon on the sun deck watching the great lake pass by – it gives life to millions of people, and is home to a variety of birds, including rare and endangered species. Moor mid-lake near Siem Reap.

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local boat passes floating houses and a floating fish farm. Return to the ship and continue across the border with Cambodia. Sail up to Phnom Penh: located at the confluence of the Mekong, Tonle Sap and Bassac rivers, it has been the capital of Cambodia since 1865. Dinner is a barbecue on the sun deck, with an Apsara dance performance. You are free to leave the ship and explore the busy river promenade after dinner.

Peru: the Andean Heartland Pre-Columbian to present day ceramics. Continue to the Museo de Arte, Lima (MALI) which features around 1,200 pieces of art from the Pre-Columbian era to the mid-20th century. Dinner overlooks the Huaca Pucllana, a vast adobe administrative and ceremonial centre of the Lima culture which flourished here at around 400 ad.

Day 3: Lima. Visit the heart of Colonial Lima (once the ‘City of the Kings’) to see the cathedral and the San Francisco Monastery with its Mudéjar church and important Spanish and Colonial art. Continue to the Amano Museum’s collection of pre-Columbian textiles.

Day 4: Lima, Trujillo. A free morning in Lima before an afternoon flight to Trujillo, a handsome colonial city with a colourful main square. First of three nights in Trujillo.

1–14 September 2021 (mh 873) 13 nights • £5,710 International flights not included Lecturer: Dr David Beresford-Jones A thorough exploration of pre-Columbian civilisations in Peru: Moche, Chimú, Inca.

Two visits to Machu Picchu, as well as sites almost devoid of tourists around Trujillo are included.

See spectacular Andean scenery and sample world famous cuisine.

Option to add a 3-night extension with the lecturer that includes a flight over the Nazca lines, or a private trip to Lake Titicaca.

NEWSLETTER | 2021 newly-launched

Of all the world’s vanished civilisations, few evoke as much mystique as the Incas of Peru.

Stumbled upon and shattered by a handful of Spanish adventurers in 1538, the Inca Empire was the last great pristine civilisation on earth – a current aside from the mainstream of human history. Tawantinsuyu (the ‘Four Realms Together’), as the Incas called their empire, had been conquered with neither pen nor sword.

In many senses ‘Neolithic’, it was administered through the khipu, a record-keeping system of intricate knotted cords, born of the marvellous textile traditions intrinsic to Andean civilisation.

And yet its dominion was vast, stretching over a distance greater than from London to Moscow, along the spines of the world’s highest cordilleras outside the Himalayas and home to scores of different ethnic groups.

This tour seeks to understand and re-imagine the Inca Empire on a journey through its Andean heartland of Cuzco, following the sacred 34

Vilcanota river. We take in classic Inca sites where their cyclopean stonework melds into the grandeurs of the Andean landscape to attain a Zen-like architectural aesthetic. The culmination is the most spectacular site of all, Machu Picchu, perched on the very fringes of Amazonia.

Yet the Incas were but the final flourish of an Andean cultural trajectory with roots many millennia deeper, a roll-call of cultures perhaps more magnificent still. So our exploration begins by the Pacific, from the excellent public and private museum collections in Lima to the vestiges of Moche and Chimor on Peru’s northern coast.

En route we have ample chance to indulge in Peru’s extraordinary cuisine, acclaimed by chefs such as Ferran Adrià as ‘key to the future of gastronomy’. As with the ancient Andean civilisations, that cuisine is founded upon native food crops originating in one of humanity’s precious few ancient hearths of agriculture. It is set amid the world’s richest and densest concentration of ecotones, from desert coast to eternal snows to tropical rainforest, and adjoining one of its richest marine resources. Indeed, it is this that connotes the real importance of the Andes to our wider human story.

Itinerary Day 1: arrival in Lima. The tour begins on day 2, Thursday 2nd September, but accommodation is included for the night of 1st September to allow for arrivals. You may check in to the hotel from 3.00pm. (Flights from London are not included – see Practicalities). First of three nights in Lima.

Day 2: Lima. After an introductory lecture in the hotel, visit the Larco Herrera Museum with its famous collection of Moche and other pre-Inca

book online at www.martinrandall.com

Day 5: Trujillo. The Huaca de la Luna and Huaca del Sol are the core of the ancient capital of the Moche empire. The former is adorned with superb polychrome reliefs indicative of its importance as a ritual and sacrificial centre.

After lunch by the Pacific visit Chan Chan, the world’s largest adobe city and citadel of the Kingdom of Chimor for 500 years before it was destroyed by the Incas in 1470 ad. Its rich marine iconography reflects the importance of the sea to this civilisation.

Day 6: Trujillo. Drive north to El Brujo, a ceremonial centre of the Moche culture (1–700 ad) and the mausoleum of the Lady of Cao, an important priestess of that period. Her tomb is surrounded by painted relief murals, while her mummy still records the vestiges of the tattoos on her hands and legs.

Day 7: the Sacred Valley. Fly to Cuzco, via Lima and on to the Sacred Valley. Here, en route to the Amazon, the Urubamba (or Vilcanota) river twists through stunning mountain scenery and terraced farmland cultivated by the Incas.

Urubamba sits at 2,870m above sea level and so the afternoon is free to rest and adjust to the altitude. First of three nights in Urubamba.

Day 8: Chinchero, Maras, Moray. At Chinchero a 17th-cent. church was built on top of an Inca temple. In the afternoon drive to the impressive Maras salt mines, exploited since before Inca times, and on to the marvellous concentric circular agricultural terraces of Moray.

Day 9: Pisac, Ollantaytambo. Drive to the Inca citadel of Ollantaytambo, one of the last lines of resistance to the Spanish conquest, and site of elaborate water gardens amidst extraordinary cyclopean Inca stonework. Lunch is at an hacienda of one of the valley’s oldest families, with an interesting private collection of art and antiques. In the afternoon, visit the terraces and buildings of an Inca royal estate at Pisac.

Day 10: Machu Picchu. Take the morning train to Machu Picchu, a scenic journey down the valley enjoyed through panoramic windows.

Have lunch and settle in to the hotel before entering the site as the crowds disperse and the light fades. Forgotten during the Spanish conquest, the temples and buildings of Machu

tour is spent at high altitude (2870–3,400m above sea level) which can exacerbate fatigue.

Additional insurance may be required and anyone with heart or respiratory problems should seek advice from their doctor. Average distance by coach per day: 30 miles.

Day 11: Machu Picchu, Cuzco. Free morning to return to Machu Picchu, perhaps at first light, before catching an afternoon train and coach to Cuzco (c. 4 hours). First of three nights here.

Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.

Day 12: Cuzco. The Korikancha, the most sacred precinct and centre of the Inca Empire today beneath the Dominican Monastery, still preserves the finest examples of mortar-less Inca stonework with its trapezoidal doors and windows. Visit the massive Inca fortress of Sacsayhuaman with its monumental walls built using stones up to 400 tons in weight and the Inca ceremonial site of Qenko. The Inca Museum contains some 10,000 artefacts while Cuzco Cathedral has wonderful ‘Cusqueña School’ paintings of the Colonial Period.

Day 13: Cuzco. The day is free for independent exploration. Suggestions include the preColumbian art museum, or an optional walk through the city with the lecturer to view the many vestiges of its Inca palaces, fine Colonial churches and bustling markets.

Day 14: Cuzco, Lima/Paracas. Fly in the morning from Cuzco to Lima, landing at c. 1.00pm, where the tour ends.

Practicalities Price, per person. Two sharing: £5,710.

Single occupancy: £6,810.

Included: 3 internal flights with LATAM (Airbus 320 & 319); 2 train journeys; transport by private coach; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 8 dinners and 8 lunches (including 2 picnics) with beer, water, and coffee, plus wine with dinner; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer, tour manager and local guides.

Accommodation. AC Miraflores, Lima (marriott.co.uk). Wyndham Costa del Sol, Trujillo (costadelsolperu.com). Hotel Sol y Luna (hotelsolyluna.com). Inkaterra, Machu Picchu Pueblo (inkaterra.com). Palacio del Inka, Cuzco (starwoodhotels.com).

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. On archaeological sites uneven ground, irregular paving, steps and hills are standard. Half of the

Illustration, left: Ollantaytambo, wood engraving c. 1880.

Right: engraving 1874, from a set of ethnographic studies of Peru. Below, inset: Lake Titicaca, lithograph 1854.

Optional tour extensions

Paracas & the Nazca lines 14–17 September 2021 Extra 3 nights • £1,780 Lecturer: Dr David Beresford-Jones We offer the opportunity to remain in Peru for a further three nights and discover the Nazca lines, one of the world’s greatest archaeological mysteries. Spread over 500 square miles of arid countryside are 300 geoglyphs representing animals, plants and shapes up to 180m in length, thought to have been created by the Paracas and Nazca cultures between 900 bc and 600 ad. Many theories attempt to explain their existence and purpose, given that they can only be properly appreciated from the air.

A stay in the scenic bay of Paracas with an excursion to the wildlife-rich Ballestas islands, combined with the desert scenery of Ica, Peru’s most successful wine-growing region, makes for a relaxing end to the tour.

Day 14, continued. Drive south from Lima airport to the coastal resort of Paracas (c. 4½ hours). An evening lecture explores the theories behind the creation of the Nazca lines. First of three nights in Paracas.

Day 15: Nazca lines, Ica. Morning flight over the Nazca lines (c. 1 hour 40 minutes) to observe c. 18 different figures (airline: Aerodiana. 12 seater planes, all window seats) followed by lunch and tasting at a nearby vineyard.

Day 16: Paracas, Ballestas islands. A morning boat trip passes a candelabra-shaped geoglyph

etched on to a sandy hillside, associated with the Nazca, before continuing to the Ballestas islands.

Observe a wide range of birdlife from the boat including Peruvian Boobies, Guanay cormorants as well as Humbolt penguins and sea lions.

Free afternoon.

Day 17. Drive at c. 12.00 noon to Lima airport, arriving at c. 5.00pm.

Practicalities Price, per person. Two sharing: £1,780.

Single occupancy: £1,930.

Included: flight over the Nazca lines with Aerodiana (aircraft: Cessna Gran Caravan; weather dependent; cancelled trips can sometimes be rearranged for the following day); transport by private coach; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 2 dinners and 1 lunch with wine or beer, water, and coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and local guide.

Accommodation. La Hacienda Bahia Paracas (lahaciendabahiaparacas.com).

How strenuous? Please refer to the guidelines for Peru: the Andean Heartland. You may not find the flight over the Nazca lines enjoyable if you suffer from motion sickness.

Group size: between 4 and 22 participants.

Should numbers reach 10, the tour manager of Peru: the Andean Heartland will also accompany the group.

Lake Titicaca We can also organise private extensions with a local guide to Lake Titicaca. We suggest two or three extra nights including luxury train travel from Cuzco to Puno (3,830m above sea level), a boat trip on the lake to visit the floating islands of the Uros people and the stone mausoleums at Silustani. Please contact us for more information and a quote.

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Flights: international flights between London and Lima are not included in the price of the tour. We will send recommended flight options from London with your booking confirmation, which are available to book in October 2020.

You can either make your own reservation or we can book on your behalf. The cost of a World Traveller (economy) seat with British Airways at the time of going to press is c. £700.

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Picchu are consequently uniquely wellpreserved, which, together with its setting high above the river amidst spectacular mountain landscapes, makes it the most extraordinary archaeological site in South America. Overnight Machu Picchu.

The Making of Argentina A creative history from the Atlantic to the Andes Itinerary Day 1: Buenos Aires. Hotel rooms are ready from 3.00pm on 28th October, allowing for an early check in. The tour begins with lunch at 12.15pm on 29th October. After an introductory talk, walk to the nearby Recoleta cemetery, with its architecturally diverse and ornate tombs, burial place of many of the country’s leaders and cultural figures, including Eva Perón.

Day 2: Buenos Aires. Walk down the grand Avenida de Mayo, with fine belle-époque architecture, to the Casa Rosada, seat of the government of Argentina. Tour its beautiful interiors and gain further insight into the country’s history and politics (subject to confirmation). See the neoclassical cathedral and the Teatro Colón, one of the world’s finest concert halls with renowned acoustics, and where is also the possibility of attending an evening performance (programmes are announced in February 2021).

29 October–9 November 2021 (mh 166) 11 nights • £5,970 International flights not included Lecturer: Chris Moss A comprehensive overview of history, politics, art, architecture, gastronomy and music.

Spectacular scenery and geology in the Calchaquí Valleys.

Delicious high-altitude wines of Bodega Colomé and Cafayate.

A private tango show in one of Buenos Aires’ historic cafés.

Led by Chris Moss, journalist, author and former resident of Buenos Aires.

NEWSLETTER | 2021 newly-launched

Tango, Evita, Las Malvinas, Maradona, meat and Malbec… much about Argentina is familiar to many of us, and yet it remains something of an enigma. It’s about as far from Europe as a South American country can be, and yet is famously – or perhaps infamously – European in so many regards.

Argentina is South America’s second-biggest country and the eighth-largest in the world, ranking between India and Kazakhstan. Yet it has a population smaller than that of Spain and its economic power has more often than not brought it woe instead of wealth. After giving the continent one of its great liberators, José de San Martín, the country was plunged into decades of civil war. For much of the twentieth century, military dictators and populists squandered the nation’s huge potential and repressed its citizens.

How has this decline been managed, and how did Argentines manage to retain their creative vigour and distinctive glamour? What about Argentina’s relationship with the UK, an 36

important trading partner, builder of South America’s most ambitious railway network and colonialist villain in the Falkland Islands? When and how did the remote backwater of Buenos Aires emerge to become a world-class city? Is ‘Paris of South America’ anything other than a nostalgia-laden nickname?

This tour aims to forge an understanding of Argentina through its multi-layered history and multi-faceted culture. Starting in Buenos Aires, we visit aspiring cities and civic palaces, museums and art galleries, cafés and steakhouses, and the necropolis where Evita is entombed alongside the society figures she spurned. It’s a short hop from the capital to the pampas, one of the world’s great breadbaskets and stockyards, and the backdrop against which the figure of the gaucho emerged.

Follow the old Camino Real or Royal Highway, that once connected Buenos Aires with the silver mines of Alto Peru and the seats of Spanish power. In the northwest visit the Jesuit ranches and religious sites of Córdoba, Argentina’s second city. From here, continue towards the Andes to survey a pre-Columbian site at Quilmes, see the cactus-strewn landscapes of the Calchaquí Valleys and visit the colonial treasures of Salta.

Along the way, we taste the criollo cuisines of the pampas as well as the foods of the Andean Valleys, many of which have their origins in pre-Hispanic societies. As with so many aspects of Argentine reality, from music to literature to religion, there has been a complex interplay between native identity and nationhood, indigenous traditions and imported values.

We also sample the country’s famous wines in Cafayate, south of Salta, where vines grow at altitude. Huge alternations in temperature favour small-grained grapes with a high concentration of aromas and flavours.

book online at www.martinrandall.com

Day 3: Buenos Aires. Explore Latin American art at the Museo de Bellas Artes and modern art gallery, MALBA. Trace the life and work of Eva Perón at the Museo Evita, housed in a 1923 mansion that belonged to her social foundation.

Private tango show and dinner at one of Buenos Aires’ historic cafés.

Day 4: San Antonio de Areco, Pampas. Journey outside the city to the Pampas grasslands to discover gaucho history and culture in the delightful town of San Antonio de Areco, home to renowned silversmiths. Enjoy an Argentine beef lunch, grilled in front of you at a majestic estancia in the countryside, surrounded by horses and cattle.

Day 5: Córdoba. Fly in the morning from Buenos Aires to Córdoba (1 hour 30 minutes, Aérolineas Argentinas). Visit on arrival the country’s first university, founded by the Jesuits in 1610, and their most historic church, Templo de la Compañía de Jesús, dating to 1675.

Overnight in Córdoba.

Day 6: Córdoba. Drive outside of the city to see the 17th-century Jesuit estancia and church of Alta Gracia. Fly in the late afternoon to Salta (1 hour 30 minutes, Aérolineas Argentinas). First of two nights in Salta.

Day 7: Salta. A day to explore the charming town of Salta with its fine colonial and neoclassical architecture. The rose-coloured cathedral houses the tomb of another Argentine liberator, General Güemes, while the italianate church of San Francisco was designed by Luigi Giorgi. Salta’s excellent archaeological museum presents the incredible Inca ritual of child sacrifice. Free afternoon and evening lecture by a local expert on the geology of the Calchaquí Valleys, in preparation for the onward journey.

Day 8: Calchaquí Valleys, Cachi, Molinos. In two minibuses drive through the dramatic and constantly changing scenery of the Calchaquí Valleys (c. 4 hours 30 minutes). From lush green countryside and deep red mountains, through fields covered in thousands of giant cacti we

Love in a cold climate What could be more romantic than a honeymoon trek in the southernmost region of the world? Sophie Watts, née Wright, was brave enough to try out­­­­.

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reach the tiny and pretty town of Cachi with a small archaeological museum. Continue to our hotel in Molinos, opposite the 18th-century church. Overnight in Molinos.

Day 9: Bodega Colomé, Cafayate. Nestled deep in vine-clad hills, drive to Bodega Colomé for a tasting and lunch with their aromatic and flavourful wines. Owner Donald Hess has combined his love of wine and art by building a James Turrell museum on-site, a fascinating playground of light and space. The drive to Cafayate (c. 3 hours) reveals yet more astonishing geological features. Light dinner with El Esteco wines, whose bodega belongs to our hotel. First of two nights in Cafayate.

Day 10: Quilmes, Cafayate. Morning excursion to the pre-Inca remains at Quilmes. Inhabited from the 9th century ad, its 3000 inhabitants resisted evangelisation and enslavement resulting in bitter punishment. Taste some of Cafayate’s best wines with lunch in the vineyards of El Porvenir and dinner at Finca las Nubes, the vineyards of José Luís Mounier.

Day 11: Cafayate to Buenos Aires. Another breathtaking drive through the reds, ochres and pinks of the Cafayate gorge (c. 4 hours 30 minutes). Return to Salta for a flight to Buenos Aires (2 hours, Norwegian Airlines) and a final dinner in the capital.

Day 12. The tour finishes after breakfast.

Practicalities Price, per person. Two sharing: £5,970.

Single occupancy: £6,840.

Included: domestic flights with Aérolineas Argentinas and Norwegian Airlines (Boeing 737); travel by private coach or minibus; accommodation; breakfasts; 7 lunches (including one box lunch), 9 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; services of the lecturer, tour manager and local guides.

Music: we hope to be able to secure tickets to a performance at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. To be confirmed in February 2021.

Accommodation. Sofitel Recoleta, Buenos Aires (accorhotels.com). Hotel Windsor, Córdoba (windsortower.com). Solar de la Plaza, Salta (solardelaplaza.com.ar). Hacienda de Molinos (haciendademolinos.com.ar). Patios de Cafayate (patiosdecafayate.com).

How strenuous? A long tour with a lot of walking and standing. Drives are long, roads are not paved and the terrain dictates travel by minibus. Cachi sits at 2,531 metres above sea level. Average coach travel per day: 63 miles.

Group size: between 10 and 22 participants.

Leaving balmy Santiago behind we landed to more familiar temperatures in Punta Arenas. A walk around the town revealed the region’s history as we were introduced to Ferdinand Magellan’s statue in the main square before gazing out across his eponymous Strait, trying to imagine what his journey across the Atlantic would have been like 500 years ago. A drink in the basement bar of the French, neoclassicalstyle one-time residence of the Latvian born Sara Braun allowed us to contemplate the lives of those, like her, who made their fortunes here through sheep farming and shipping in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, at the expense of the indigenous Selk’nam tribe.

We caught a boat to the Island of Santa Magdalena where we walked among 120,000 Magellanic penguins (so called because they were first spotted by Ferdinand himself in 1520) – an activity that participants on the tour will be able to enjoy in Punta Ninfas, Argentina. A truly unforgettable experience, we loved observing the interactions between couples, spotting their fluffy babies peeping out from their burrows and chuckling as they waddled nonchalantly across our path.

The focus of our visit to Patagonia was a 4-day hike in Torres del Paine National Park – absolutely not for the faint hearted as our aching legs would attest, but truly the most stunning place imaginable. The ever-present cuernos (horns) or spiky, granite peaks of the Paine Massif didn’t fail to mesmerise, and condors were often seen circling above us. Paine means blue and it was easy to see why, as we were dazzled by the varying hues of huge lakes, floating icebergs from Grey glacier, rivers, waterfalls and rapids.

We spent the final days of our trip relaxing in Puerto Natales, a quaint town of colourful, corrugated iron houses with views out to the Ultima Esperanza fjord, so called by explorer Juan Ladrilleros who in 1557 declared it his ‘last hope’ of escaping this maze of water, back out into the Strait of Magellan. In the early 1900s Puerto Natales was a port in the midst of the Patagonian sheep farming boom, and the tour hotel, The Singular, was a former meat packing factory. And so fittingly, as we watched our lamb lunch crisp up on the BBQ, with a glass of local Cab Sav in hand, we decided that we would heartily recommend Patagonia to anyone.

Patagonia: Uttermost Part of the Earth: History, legends, landscapes and wildlife in southern Argentina & Chile (26 November–11 December 2020): a search for stories as well as some of the best sightseeing in South America. (This tour is full, but please contact us to join a waiting list or to register your interest in future departures.)

Photograph: Sophie and Chris in Torres del Paine National Park. Illustration opposite: Argentina, cowboys on the Pampas, copper engraving c. 1840 by P. Wurster.

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NEWSLETTER | 2021 newly-launched

Flights: international flights are not included in the price. We send recommended flight options from London with your booking confirmation, available to book in December 2020. You can either make your own reservation or we can book on your behalf. The cost of a World Traveller (economy) seat with British Airways at the time of going to press is c. £950.

In December Sophie Wright became Sophie Watts and with husband Chris, travelled to Chile on honeymoon for a taste of our Patagonia tour.

Beyond Bauhaus George Jerger shares his enthusiasm for a new tour that reflects Germany’s modern architectural development and engages with history and ideas, as much as with buildings.

MODERN ARCHITECTURE

My interest in modern architecture developed while growing up in southern Germany, before joining MRT I worked for the UK Twentieth-Century Society and I am married to an architect. Consequently, Moving on: Memory & Architecture in Stuttgart & Munich has some very personal resonance. Designing it has been a highly stimulating experience.

Boosted by the popularity of our Bauhaus architectural tours, the concept of this one is to explore the evolution of modernist architecture in pre-war and inter-war Germany, its suppression under National Socialism and its re-emergence from ashes and devastation after the Second World War. The tour will show how architecturally and intellectually Munich dealt with the aftermath of wartime destruction, and especially, how it tackled difficult questions of reconstruction; whether to attempt to rebuild the city as it was, or to recreate it with entirely newly designed buildings.

We will explore the arguments and ask ourselves these questions, but having lived in Munich for over 10 years I feel the city managed to get the mixture just right.

NEWSLETTER | 2021 tours

I am a big fan of Hans Döllgast, for example, whose creative reconstruction of the Alte Pinakothek, rather than disguising bomb damage, visibly and attractively incorporates repairs to the building, sensitively embodying its scarred history.

I also admire Sep Ruf, another leading modern architect of postwar Germany, who has somehow been largely forgotten.

We will see his high-rise social housing apartment block (Munich’s first), as well as the American embassy and the Neue Maxburg, which integrates a ruined 16thcentury tower, into a 1950s office block.

As with many Münchner, my favourite site is the groundbreaking Olympic stadium and park, designed by Frei Otto and Günter Behnisch for the 1972 Olympics.

The biggest discovery for me scoping the tour was Ulm, west of Munich, where recent architectural innovations have impressively superseded postwar preoccupations with the car. An immense 1960s motorway that dissected the centre 38

has been decommissioned and space reclaimed for some fine new architecture, such as the Kunsthalle Weishaupt. An earlier more worthwhile postwar legacy is the Design School, founded in 1953 by Inge Aicher-Scholl (Sophie Scholl’s sister), Otl Aicher and Max Bill (a Bauhaus pupil) and designed by the latter.

In Stuttgart, the Corbusier house in the Weissenhoffsiedlung has been renovated, the last time I visited in early 2000 it was in a rather sad state. The time is right for this tour. I am excited – I hope you will be, too!

George works on our German tours and supervises our USA programme • Full details for Moving on: Architecture & Memory in Stuttgart & Munich (25–31 May 2021) will be available in May this year – please call us to register your interest or e-mail alerts@martinrandall.co.uk

Photographs, top left to right: Stuttgart, House Nos 14 & 14 Le Corbusier; Munich, Olympic Site (Behnisch and Partners, 1972).

Right, clockwise from main image: Stuttgart, library (Eun Young Yi, 2011); Munich, Führerbau now College for Music and Theater (Paul Ludwig Trost, 1937) and NS Documentation center (Georg Scheel Wetzel Architekten, 2015); Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie (Stirling, 1984).

book online at www.martinrandall.com

Modern architecture tours 2021

Frank Lloyd Wright 12–23 June 2020 (mg 255) 11–22 September 2020 (mg 370)

Frank Lloyd Wright 4–15 June 2021 (mh 777) Please visit www.martinrandall.com for full details, or contact us.

Danish Art & Design 4–12 July 2020 (mg 290)

MODERN ARCHITECTURE

2020

Still to come:

Dutch Modern 10–14 September 2020 (mg 365)

Moving on: Architecture & Memory in Stuttgart & Munich, 25–31 May 2021

West Coast Architecture 11–22 September 2020 (mg 363)

Czech Modernism, May 2021

Tom Abbott’s Berlin 5–9 October 2020 (mg 457)

Connoisseur’s New York, May 2021 Berlin: New Architecture, May 2021

Please visit www.martinrandall.com for full details, or contact us.

Finland: Aalto & Others, June 2021 Modernism in Turin & Milan, September 2021 Swiss Modern, September 2021 Galleries of the American Midwest, September 2021 More to be announced.

Please call us to register your interest or e-mail alerts@martinrandall.co.uk

NEWSLETTER | 2021 tours

Background image: Berlin, dome of the Reichstag building.

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At one with the Gods The Classical Turkey itinerary visits the finest group of Hellenistic and Roman city ruins to be found anywhere. The natural settings in which they are found are a prism through which to understand them, says Will Harvey.

TURKEY

I’m sometimes asked how I can derive so much satisfaction from visiting ancient ruins. To be fair, it can be difficult to envisage the full glory of an ancient site, particularly if the passage of time has worn it down to an unrecognisable extent. What I have increasingly discovered is that, in many cases, one can appreciate a site in the same way the ancients did by observing the marriage of nature and architecture.

The theatre at Pergamon sits at the top of the sky. It provides what is surely one of the most spectacular – and dizzying – settings of the ancient world. Perched at the crest of a windswept mountain, the theatre is one of the steepest of its kind and cascades down the slope of the acropolis. The light is clear, the air is crisp (particularly in early

architecture and the natural beauty it sought to cultivate within its walls. Very unusually, the adyton was situated at ground level and exposed to the azure blue of the Aegean sky, meaning a grove of laurel trees could be planted. In the midst of this grove was the oracular spring. The ancient architects clearly wanted to impress

spring when the tour takes place) and the feeling one encounters from perching atop is almost spiritual. Greek architects liked to situate their theatres in places that gave the audience a spectacular view, not just of the actors on the stage but also of the landscape behind. The theatre at Pergamon is a brilliant –and easily understood – example of this philosophy.

About 11 miles south of the city of Miletus is the Hellenistic Temple of Apollo at Didyma. Even in its ruinous state, it is simply enormous and reflects the fact that the temple’s oracle was second only in importance to that at Delphi. It was built around the site of a natural spring, believed to be the source of the oracle’s immense power. After climbing the marble steps to the temple platform, one walks back down through one of two sloped tunnels to the adyton (inner chamber), to which access was restricted. This enclosure was (and continues to be) surrounded by incredibly high walls that reach for the heavens.

upon the visitor a dramatic sense of mortal insignificance – but also to remind them that the oracular power they sought had its origins in nature and its abundance.

What is most striking about this Greek temple is the contrast between its imposing

Illustration below: Miletus, steel engraving c. 1860.

NEWSLETTER | 2021 tours

Classical Turkey 12–21 April 2021 (mh 696) 10 days • £3,780 Lecturer: Professor 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.

Includes all the major sites, many of which are off the beaten track or difficult to get to.

Scenically varied and spectacular: coast, mountain and plain.

Please visit www.martinrandall.com for full details, or contact us.

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book online at www.martinrandall.com

Will accompanied ‘Classical Turkey – Greeks and Romans in Anatolia’ in 2019. He studied Law and Classics at the University of Otago in Dunedin (his hometown), before going on to complete a Master of Arts in the area of Ancient Greek Religion. He supervises the Middle East, as well as Scotland, Ireland and Wales.

Photographs (taken by Will). Left: the theatre at Pergamon; above centre: Aphrodisias; above right: Temple of Apollo at Didyma.

Opposite page: Xanthos, 20th-century etching.

Gently by gulet Plans are afloat for a new water-based tour of Turkey’s mesmerising southwestern coast.

Tour leader and Turkey specialist Jeremy Seal explains the allure.

JOURNEYS BY WATER – GULET CRUISES

Jeremy Seal leads Turkey by Gulet in September 2021. Full details will be available in July 2020 – please call us to register your interest or e-mail alerts@martinrandall.co.uk

MORE JOURNEYS BY WATER

Sailing the Dalmatian Coast Maritime beauty, natural and architectural 25 April–5 May 2020 (mg 184) | Lecturer: Dr Ffiona Gilmore-Eaves 5–15 May 2020 (mg 192) | Lecturer: Dr Zoe Opacic April 2021 – call us to register your interest or e-mail alerts@martinrandall.co.uk

Bengal by River Calcutta and a week’s cruise along the Hooghly

NEWSLETTER | 2021 tours

‘There’s nothing like discovering southwest Turkey by gulet. Rather than the usual hotels, and the coach journeys they tend to entail, these traditional timber schooners combine all the comforts with winningly romantic lines. You can watch the coast slip by from the spacious pillowstrewn stern deck, as the vessel delivers you within easy striking distance of ruin-scattered shores; in the case of places like Knidos, so that you can step straight into the standing remains.

Then it’s back to the gulet for lunch and a swim in magical Mediterranean waters, perhaps followed by a doze, as we motor on to our next overnight stop – doubtless in another idyllic deserted cove. Truly, there is no better way of getting around Turkey’s world-beating archaeological sites.’

16–27 November 2020 (mg 580) Lecturer: Dr Anna-Maria Misra

Cambodia by River From the Mekong Delta to the city of Angkor 30 October–12 November 2021 (mh 171) Lecturer: Freddie Matthews See page 32

MARTIN RANDALL FESTIVALS | RIVER CRUISES IN 2021 Please contact us to register your interest in Music Along the Rhine or Music Along the Danube in 2021 – see page 42 for preliminary details.

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CELEBRATING MUSIC AND PLACE Martin Randall Festivals bring together world-class musicians for a sequence of private concerts in Europe’s glorious historic buildings, many of which are not normally accessible. We take care of all logistics, from flights and hotels, to pre-concert talks.

2020 MUSIC ALONG THE RHINE 30 JUNE–7 JULY 2020 MUSIC IN THE LOIRE VALLEY 7–13 JULY 2020 THE DANUBE: CELEBRATING BEETHOVEN 24–31 AUGUST 2020 THE DIVINE OFFICE 28 SEPTEMBER–2 OCTOBER 2020 VENICE: PAGEANTRY & PIETY 2–7 NOVEMBER 2020 Please contact us for full details or visit www.martinrandall.com

2021 POLYPHONY IN PORTUGAL 16–21 MAY 2021 MUSIC ALONG THE RHINE 15–22 JUNE 2021 MUSIC IN SUFFOLK 5–8 JULY 2021 MUSIC ALONG THE DANUBE 20–27 AUGUST 2021 OPERA IN SICILY 2–8 NOVEMBER 2021 To register your interest, please call us or e-mail alerts@martinrandall.co.uk

Repeat performances welcome!

Architectural historian John McNeill accompanied our latest Opera in Sicily festival, to lead walking tours of the region.

Here he describes the appeal of participating in this joyful event.

OPERA IN SICILY

Opera in Southern Sicily. Would I like to be involved?

Not in the opera, obviously – but could I take a few walking tours, talk about the art and architecture of Ortygia, Modica, Noto, mainland Siracusa? ‘The only pause for reflection is to question the dates.

For an architectural historian with an interest in music, Martin’s music festivals are a joy. Carrying no more than the lightest of ‘task-lists’ (check toilets at end of interval, tier 2), you get Così fan tutte in the Teatro Comunale on Ortygia, followed by dinner in the archbishop’s palace. There is an extraordinary cast list – of clients, musicians, office staff, a couple of fellow lecturers – endless opportunities for distraction and conversation. And then there are the walking tours for which you were invited in the first place. Another joy.

Impossible to imagine you would rather be anywhere other than the Castello Maniace at sunset on Tuesday, 5th November. Or on the roof of Santa Chiara in Noto the following morning.

John McNeill leads a number of tours in 2020, including the Medieval Pyrenees, West Country Churches, Civilisations of Sicily and Churches, Castles & Roman Ruins in the Italian Alps (Early Architecture in Aosta and Como) | New tours planned for 2021 include Calabria & Basilicata, and Early Christian Rome – please call us to register your interest or e-mail alerts@ martinrandall.co.uk

Photographs, taken by festival staff on Opera in Southern Sicily in November 2019. Top: Ortygia, Piazza Duomo. Centre: Ragusa.

NEWSLETTER | martin randall festivals

This part of Sicily, known to geologists as the Hyblaean foreland, is famed for its ravines, underground rivers, fine building stones, and earthquakes. Combined with a position at the centre of the Mediterranean, they have given rise to one of the most enthralling clusters of towns in Europe.

It really is a privilege to be able to revisit this corner of Sicily and come better to understand its architectural character. With or without the music, it really shouldn’t be missed. And for me, the good news is that we’re running another southern Sicily festival in November 2021.

Wigmore Hall | Thursday 23 July 2019 Join us for an exclusive event at Wigmore Hall to find out more about our 2021 Music Festivals.

With music by Stile Antico and the opportunity to find out more about each Festival, this promises to be an engaging and informative occasion.

Refreshments will be provided for a mid-morning start, ending by lunch time. Spaces are limited and so you are advised to register your interest. Please call us, or e-mail: alerts@martinrandall.co.uk

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The Alentejo: peaceful, pretty and perfect for polyphony Our new music festival Polyphony in Portugal celebrates the region to its fullest extent, says Fiona Charrington.

POLYPHONY IN PORTUGAL

The Vasco da Gama bridge in Lisbon is the most exhilarating drive.

At least it should be. In late January it was wrapped in mist and lashed with rain, both times we crossed it.

‘It will be different in May’, we confidently nodded.

Our trip to the Alentejo was the second recce for our new Martin Randall Festival Polyphony in Portugal, which will take place 16–21 May 2021. By then spring will be entering summer, and the deep rurality of this little-visited pocket of Portugal will be at its best: gentle warmth, wildflowers, everyday life in the town squares.

The idea is that our audience of up to 140 will choose between three hotels, in three different places. Elvas, the largest of our bases (population 16,500), is up against the border with Spain, and on a clear day you can make out Badajoz.

Entirely contained within its 16th-century ramparts, this handsome town has much to recommend it. Winding, narrow, whitewashed streets lead up (and down) to some incredible churches, fortifications, shops(!) and good restaurants.

NEWSLETTER | martin randall festivals

At Vila Viçosa, some 17 miles away, we stay in the former convent adjacent to the Ducal Palace. This is a town built with style, ambition and a firm hand on planning.

The castle precinct (housing the beautiful Igreja de Conceiçao) rises up one incline, a further church on another, with a very appealing square joining the two. And of course, there’s the palace and its associated chapels. Whiling away a sunny day here would be easy.

Our third base, and the one that captivated me beyond all expectation, is the Hotel Convent of São Paolo. Set on a hillside surrounded by cork and holm oak and grazing livestock, it retains its monastic tranquillity but with comparative comfort and much charm.

Peter Philips (director of The Tallis Scholars) stayed here in 2019 and said, ‘essentially this is a dream hotel’. I agree. For those wishing for a countryside experience, this is the place.

Whichever base you choose, you will hear all the concerts. Some just with those in your hotel, some with everyone.

The three audiences move around the region and spend time at each-other’s 44

base. The logistics we take care of, and we will not rush you.

The Tallis Scholars, Odhecaton and Cupertinos accompany the festival, and each group performs two different programmes of choral music, from Portugal and beyond. Tallis make a third appearance to round off the week. Given the remote locations, the musicians are very likely to be staying in our three chosen hotels allowing you time to sit and chew the fat.

We hope you join us on this one.

Obviously, I am biased, but I really do think it will be special.

Fiona Charrington is Chief Executive. She prospected the Alentejo with Edward Fairbain, Festival Manager of Polyphony in Portugal.

POLYPHONY IN PORTUGAL 16–21 MAY 2021 Seven private concerts by worldclass musicians: The Tallis Scholars, Odhecaton and Cupertinos.

The churches and chapels of the Alentejo provide a variety of venues; some gloriously baroque, others beautifully tiled, many not usually accessible.

Talks on the music by Professor Owen Rees and Peter Phillips.

Choose one of three hotels in Elvas, Vila Viçosa, or a converted countryside convent.

Travel by plane or train, with the option of joining a pre- or postfestival tour.

Photographs (taken by Fiona). Top: the Ducal Palace square at Vila Viçosa. Bottom left: Elvas, Igreja dos Terceiros. Bottom right: Elvas, 17th-century azulejos at the Igreja das Dominicas.

book online at www.martinrandall.com

Full details available in May 2020.

Call us to register your interest or e-mail alerts@martinrandall.co.uk

LONDON CHORAL DAY | CHAMBER MUSIC SHORT BREAKS

LONDON CHORAL DAY FRIDAY 24 JULY 2020 (lg 317) Our London Choral Days put outstanding and exciting choral ensembles in some of the most beautiful buildings in the capital. They take the form of a day-long sequence of performances, talks, lunch and refreshments, the audience moving between the venues on foot.

Kensington and Knightsbridge are two of London’s more affluent addresses. The area is an intriguing blend of grand residential properties and some of London’s bestknown institutions. During the course of the day we are a stones throw from Imperial College, the Royal College of Music, the V&A, Natural History and Science museums and Harrods. An area known for its tranquil private squares, tree lined streets and handsome architecturally diverse churches.

THE PERFORMANCES St Columba’s Church of Scotland: Siglo de Oro Brompton Oratory: Choir of The London Oratory Holy Trinity, Prince Consort Road: Contrapunctus PRACTICALITIES

Start: 11.30am at St Columba’s Church of Scotland.

Finish: c. 6.50pm at Holy Trinity, Prince Consort Road.

Walking: for those who do not choose the taxi option, there are walks at a leisurely pace of, at most, 20 minutes (waiting at pedestrian crossings included).

Lunch and refreshments: the audience is split between several good restaurants for lunch. Refreshments are served in the afternoon.

Audience size: c. 100 –160.

For a more comprehensive description of this London Choral Day, please contact us or visit: www.martinrandall.com

CHAMBER MUSIC SHORT BREAKS

NEWSLETTER | martin randall festivals

Price: £225 (additional £25 with taxis between venues).

This includes lunch and afternoon refreshments, as well as exclusive admission to the three concerts and the lecture.

THE NAVARRA STRING QUARTET 23–25 February 2021 The Swan, Lavenham THE ELIAS STRING QUARTET 26 –28 March 2021 The Castle Hotel, Taunton WILLIAM HOWARD & THE CARDUCCI STRING QUARTET 16 –18 April 2021 The Castle Hotel, Taunton Please visit www.martinrandall.com for full details, or contact us.

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Tours & events by date | 2020

22–30 The Cathedrals of England (mg 175)

Jon Cannon 23– 4 Baroque Music in the Bolivian Missions

(mg 185) William Lyons 24– 26 Chamber Music Short Break:

The Leonore Piano Trio (mg 168) 25– 5 Sailing the Dalmatian Coast (mg 184)

Dr Ffiona Gilmore Eaves 27– 2 Pompeii & Herculaneum (mg 181)

Dr Mark Grahame 27– 3 Southern Tuscany (mg 180)

Professor Fabrizio Nevola 29–12 East Coast Galleries (mg 186)

Mary Lynn Riley 30– 6 Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes

(mg 177) Steven Desmond

May 2020

April 2020

NEWSLETTER | 2020 tours & events

2 Mother, Maiden, Mistress (lg 152)

Dr Catherine McCormack 8–17 Albania: Crossroads of Antiquity

(mg 160) Carolyn Perry 13–24 Art in Japan (mg 170) Meri Arichi 14–20 Gardens & Villas of the Veneto

(mg 167) Amanda Patton 15–19 Opera & Ballet in Copenhagen

(mg 162) Dr Michael Downes 15–19 Ravenna & Urbino (mg 172)

Dr Luca Leoncini 16–23 Gastronomic Provence (mg 173)

Marc Millon 18–25 The Cornish Peninsula (mg 166)

Anthony Lambert 18–26 Essential Jordan (mg 171)

Felicity Cobbing 19–24 A Festival of Impressionism (mg 183)

Professor Frances Fowle 19–26 Gardens of the Bay of Naples (mg 182)

Steven Desmond 19–26 The Ring in Chicago (mg 169)

Barry Millington & Tom Abbott 20–26 Cities of al-Andalus (mg 165)

Professor Amira Bennison 20–27 Gastronomic Valencia (mg 174)

Gijs van Hensbergen 20– 2 Civilisations of Sicily (mg 178)

Dr Philippa Joseph 20– 2 Traditions of Japan (mg 179)

Pauline Chakmakjian 21–25 Opera in Berlin (mg 164)

Dr John Allison 21–26 Palladian Villas (mg 176)

Dr Michael Douglas-Scott 22 London’s Underground Railway

(lg 159) Andrew Martin 46

4 Roman London Walk (lg 194)

Professor Simon Esmonde Cleary 4–11 Footpaths of Umbria (mg 190)

Nigel McGilchrist 5–12 Roman Southern Britain (mg 191)

Professor Simon Esmonde Cleary 5–15 Sailing the Dalmatian Coast (mg 192)

Dr Zoe Opacic 7–18 Japanese Gardens (mg 200)

Kristina Taylor 8–15 St Petersburg (mg 196)

Dr Alexey Makhrov..................................23 8–18 Concertgebouw Mahler Festival

(mg 203) Stephen Johnson 10–15 At Home at Ardgowan (mg 204)

Caroline Knight 11–16 Wines of Tuscany (mg 210)

Michelle Cherutti-Kowal mw 11–17 Opera in Prague & Brno (mg 211)

Professor Jan Smaczny 11–24 The Western Balkans (mg 214)

Elizabeth Roberts.....................................23 14 The London Backstreet Walk (lg 209)

Martin Randall 15 London Organs Day (lg 881) 15–20 New English Gardens & RHS Chelsea

(mg 218) Amanda Patton 17–20 Norman Conquest & Plantagenet Power (mg 215) Dr Marc Morris 18–23 Gardens of Sintra (mg 216)

Dr Gerald Luckhurst 18-24 Walking Hadrian’s Wall (mg 221)

Graeme Stobbs 19 London’s Top Ten (lg 213)

Sophie Campbell 19–21 Chamber Music Short Break:

The Albion String Quartet (mg 219) 19–25 The Ring in Leipzig (mg 220)

Barry Millington 19–28 The Medieval Pyrenees (mg 217)

John McNeill Illustration: ladies of the Minoan Court, after a painting

by John Duncan, c. 1910. Opposite: engraving 1742 after Johann Nikolaus Lentzner.

book online at www.martinrandall.com

20–27 Iceland’s Story (mg 222)

Dr Emily Lethbridge 20–27 Gastronomic Veneto (mg 224)

Marc Millon & Dr R. T. Cobianchi 21–24 Georgian Dublin (mg 223)

Dr Conor Lucey 21– 25 Opera in Turin & Milan (mg 230)

Dr John Allison & Dr Luca Leoncini 21–27 Early Spain: Asturias & Cantabria

(mg 225) Gail Turner 23– 1 Classical Greece (mg 212)

Professor Antony Spawforth 25– 2 Great Irish Houses (mg 233)

Anthony Lambert 27 Hampstead in the 1930s (lg 234)

Monica Bohm-Duchen 29– 6 Textile Collections in Russia with HALI (eg 889)

Dr Alexey Makhrov & Ben Evans 31– 7 Courts of Northern Italy (mg 235)

Dr Michael Douglas-Scott

June 2020 1– 5 The Oberammergau Passion Play (eg 401) Tom Abbott 3 Art & Artefacts of Antiquity (lg 239)

Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones 3–10 German Gothic (mg 240) Andreas Puth 5– 8 Glyndebourne & Garsington (mg 246)

Dr John Allison.........................................11 5–17 The Road to Santiago (mg 247)

Dr Richard Plant 6–13 Medieval Burgundy (mg 242)

John McNeill 8–14 Art in Tyrol, South & North (mg 250)

Dr Ulrike Ziegler 8–15 The Duchy of Milan (mg 249)

Dr Luca Leoncini 10–19 Great French Gardens (mg 252)

Steven Desmond 11–15 Medieval East Anglia (mg 253)

Dr Jana Gajdošová 12–17 Leipzig Bach Festival (mg 251)

Dr David Vickers 12–19 Gastronomic Sweden (mg 254)

Håkan Jönsson 12–23 Frank Lloyd Wright (mg 255)

Professor Neil Jackson 15–20 Walking to Derbyshire Houses

(mg 257) Anthony Lambert 21–27 The Schubertiade (mg 258)

Richard Wigmore 22 The Tudors (lg 278) Dr Neil Younger 22–28 Great Swedish Houses (mg 280)

Ulrica Häller 22–29 Gdańsk & Eastern Pomerania (mg 282)

Dr Agata Gomólka 25 The London Backstreet Walk (lg 277)

Sophie Campbell 25– 3 Finland: Aalto & Others (mg 283)

Professor Harry Charrington

27–30 Dutch Painting (mg 285)

Dr Guus Sluiter 27– 3 Yorkshire Houses (mg 287)

Dr Adam White 29 Royal Parks Walk (lg 281)

Steven Desmond 29– 3 Castles, Campaigns, Conquest

(mg 292) Dr Marc Morris.......................12 29– 4 Wines of the Côte d’Or (mg 284)

Michelle Cherutti-Kowal mw 29– 5 Lusatia: Germany’s Eastern Borderlands (mg 279) Dr Jarl Kremeier 29– 6 Walking the Rhine Valley (mg 286)

Richard Wigmore 30– 7 MUSIC ALONG THE RHINE (mg 228)

July 2020

September 2020 1– 7 Cave Art in Spain (mg 350)

Dr Paul Bahn 2– 6 Flemish Painting (mg 352)

Dr Sophie Oosterwijk...............................15 5–11 Lombardy: Gastronomy & Opera

(mg 359) Fred Plotkin 6–12 Genoa & Turin (mg 355)

Dr Luca Leoncini 7–12 Goya (mg 414) Dr Xavier Bray 7–12 Rome on Film (mg 354)

Dr Pasquale Iannone...............................22 7–13 Literature & Walking in the Lake District (mg 388) Christopher Newall 8 The London Backstreet Walk (lg 362)

Barnaby Rogerson 8–12 Champagne: vines,

cellars and cuvées

(mg 358) Giles MacDonogh 8–19 Walking to Santiago (mg 357)

Dr Rose Walker 9–13 Arts & Crafts in the Cotswolds

(mg 366) Janet Sinclair 10–14 Dutch Modern (mg 365)

Professor Harry Charrington

11–18 St Petersburg (mg 360)

Dr Alexey Makhrov..................................23 11–22 Frank Lloyd Wright (mg 370)

Tom Abbott 11–22 West Coast Architecture (mg 363)

Professor Neil Jackson 12 The London Squares Walk (lg 367)

Martin Randall 12–18 Gastronomic Emilia-Romagna

(mg 372) Marc Millon &

Dr R. T. Cobianchi 12–20 Cyprus: stepping stone

of history (mg 368)

Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones..............18 12–22 Georgia Uncovered (mg 371) Ian Colvin 13–20 Courts of Northern Italy (mg 373)

Professor Fabrizio Nevola 14–20 Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes

(mg 364) Steven Desmond 14–20 Gastronomic Catalonia (mg 375)

Gijs van Hensbergen 14–20 The Etruscans (mg 374)

Dr Nigel Spivey 14–20 Walking Hadrian’s Wall (mg 377)

Graeme Stobbs 14–21 The Kingdom of Bohemia (mg 380)

Dr Jarl Kremeier 14–26 Civilisations of Sicily (mg 376)

John McNeill 16 London’s Underground Railway

(lg 379) Andrew Martin

NEWSLETTER | 2020 tours & events

3– 6 Versailles: Seat of the Sun King (mg 289) Professor Antony Spawforth...14 4–12 Danish Art & Design (mg 290)

Shona Kallestrup 6–10 West Country Churches (mg 291)

John McNeill 6–12 French Gothic (mg 297)

Dr Jana Gajdošová 6–12 Gastronomic West Country (mg 293)

Marc Millon 7–13 MUSIC IN THE

LOIRE VALLEY (mg 294) 8–11 Verona Opera (mg 310)

Dr Michael Douglas-Scott 8–14 Hindsgavl: Chamber Music

in Denmark (mg 298)

Dr Michael Downes.................................16 9–14 ‘A terrible beauty’ (mg 295)

Patrick Mercer obe 12–19 Rock Art in Scandinavia (mg 300)

Dr Paul Bahn 17–24 Medieval Normandy (mg 303)

Dr Richard Plant 19–24 Gardens of Cheshire & Shropshire

(mg 311) Amanda Patton 20–26 Western Ireland Archaeology (mg 313)

Professor Muiris O’Sullivan 21–27 Oberammergau (mg 315) Tom Abbott 24 LONDON CHORAL DAY (lg 317)....45 24– 28 Opera in Munich (mg 314) Patrick Bade 25–31 Orkney: 5000 years of culture (mg 316)

Caroline Wickham-Jones

19–26 The Hanseatic League (mg 343)

Andreas Puth 24– 31 THE DANUBE: CELEBRATING BEETHOVEN (mg 345) 31– 7 The Douro (mg 349) Martin Symington

August 2020 3– 8 The Industrial Revolution (mg 321)

Paul Atterbury 3–11 Estonia – a modern history (mg 322)

Neil Taylor 16–21 The Lucerne Festival (mg 344)

Dr Michael Downes 17–24 Franconia (mg 337) Dr Jarl Kremeier 18–24 Oberammergau (mg 340) Tom Abbott 19–24 A Schubertiade in Catalonia (mg 342)

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Tours & events by date | 2020

16 Great Railway Termini (lg 834)

Steven Brindle 16–25 Albania: Crossroads of Antiquity

(mg 378) Carolyn Perry 17–22 Isambard Kingdom Brunel (mg 399)

Anthony Lambert 21 John Nash (lg 415) Geoffrey Tyack 21–26 Pompeii & Herculaneum (mg 422)

Dr Nigel Spivey 21–27 Walking a Royal River (mg 381)

Sophie Campbell 21–28 Footpaths of Umbria (mg 382)

Dr Thomas-Leo True 22–26 The Victorian Renaissance (mg 423)

Christopher Newall 22–28 Connoisseur’s Prague (mg 424)

Martina Hinks-Edwards 23–27 Ravenna & Urbino (mg 427)

Dr Luca Leoncini 23–27 San Gimignano & Siena (mg 428)

Dr Michael Douglas-Scott 25– 2 St Petersburg (mg 447)

Dr Alexey Makhrov..................................23 26– 5 Bulgaria (mg 442) Dr Nikola Theodossiev 27– 5 Gastronomic Crete (mg 441)

Rosemary Barron 28– 2 THE DIVINE OFFICE: CHORAL

MUSIC IN OXFORD (mg 440) 28– 4 Lucca (mg 443)

Dr Michael Douglas-Scott 28– 4 The Imperial Riviera (mg 435)

Richard Bassett 28– 4 World Heritage Malta (mg 434)

Juliet Rix 28– 7 Castile & León (mg 444)

Gijs van Hensbergen 29– 4 Modern Art in Sussex (mg 448)

Monica Bohm-Duchen 29– 5 In Search of Alexander (mg 445)

Professor Antony Spawforth

NEWSLETTER | 2020 tours & events

October 2020 Ancient Egypt at the British Museum (lg 451) Lucia Gahlin 2– 9 Ancient & Islamic Tunisia (mg 474)

Henry Hurst 3–14 Morocco (mg 452) James Brown 5– 9 Tom Abbott’s Berlin (mg 457)

Tom Abbott 5–11 Istanbul Revealed (mg 453) Jeremy Seal 5–11 The Romans in

Mediterranean Spain (mg 455)

Professor Simon Esmonde Cleary 5–18 The Western Balkans (mg 464)

Elizabeth Roberts.....................................23 6– 9 Connoisseur’s Pompeii (mg 459)

Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill 6–11 Palladian Villas (mg 456)

Dr Sarah Pearson 6–13 Medieval Alsace (mg 458)

Dr Richard Plant

2

48

LONDON LECTURE AFTERNOON November 2020 Full details available in April 2020 Please call us to register your interest or e-mail alerts@martinrandall.co.uk 9–20 Samarkand & Silk Road Cities (mg 454)

Dr Venetia Porter 10–17 Gastronomy & the Golden Age

(mg 462) Gijs van Hensbergen 10–19 Classical Greece (mg 369)

Professor Antony Spawforth 11–17 Gastronomic Friuli-Venezia Giulia

(mg 461) Marc Millon.............................20 11–18 Churches, Castles & Roman Ruins in

the Italian Alps (mg 460) John McNeill 12–17 Ancient Rome (mg 466)

Dr Mark Grahame 12–18 Piero della Francesca (mg 463)

Dr Michael Douglas-Scott 12–20 Palestine, Past & Present (mg 484)

Felicity Cobbing 12–24 Civilisations of Sicily (mg 465)

Christopher Newall 14–20 Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur

(mg 470) Monica Bohm-Duchen 14– 22 Two Spains: The Spanish Civil War

& its Aftermath (mg 472) Giles Tremlett 15–19 Verdi in Parma & Busseto (mg 469)

Dr John Allison & Dr R.T. Cobianchi 16–24 Essential Jordan (mg 477)

Sue Rollin & Jane Streetly 18–24 Art in the Netherlands (mg 510)

Dr Guus Sluiter 19–24 Pompeii & Herculaneum (mg 512)

Dr Mark Grahame 19–25 Art & Medicine (mg 513)

Professor Helen King & Dr Luca Leoncini 19–26 Bilbao to Bayonne (mg 514)

Gijs van Hensbergen 19–29 Essential Andalucía (mg 511)

Dr Philippa Joseph 19–30 Art in Japan (mg 515) Dr Monika Hinkel 20–29 Israel & Palestine (mg 500)

Dr Matthew J. Adams 23–29 Roman & Medieval Provence (mg 480)

Dr Alexandra Gajewski 24– 3 Oman, Landscapes & Peoples (mg 535)

Dr Peter Webb 26– 1 Tintoretto, Titian & Veronese (mg 521)

Dr Michael Douglas-Scott 26– 1 The Wines of Bordeaux (mg 520)

Roderick Smith mw 26– 2 Gastronomic Puglia (mg 522)

Christine Smallwood 28–30 Symposium in York:

Tudor Encounters (mg 516)..................13

book online at www.martinrandall.com

28– 5

29

29– 1

29– 2

30

The Cathedrals of England (mg 450) Jon Cannon The Italian Renaissance (lg 546) Dr Antonia Whitley Historic Musical Instruments (mg 545) Professor Robert Adelson Naples: Art, Antiquities & Opera (mg 548) Dr Luca Leoncini Venetian Art in London (lg 547) Lucy Whitaker

November 2020 1–12 Textiles in Japan with HALI (eg 551)

Ben Evans & Alan Kennedy 2– 7 VENICE: PAGEANTRY

& PIETY (mg 553) 3–15 Painted Palaces of Rajasthan (mg 552)

Dr Giles Tillotson 4– 8 Art in Madrid (mg 554)

Dr Zahira Veliz-Bromford 5–16 Japanese Gardens (mg 555)

Yoko Kawaguchi 7–13 Beethoven in Amsterdam (mg 558)

Misha Donat 9–14 Venice Revisited (mg 559)

Dr Susan Steer 10–14 Venetian Palaces (mg 560)

Dr Michael Douglas-Scott 11–22 Art in Texas (mg 570)

Gijs van Hensbergen 12–15 Les Années Folles (mg 575) Patrick Bade 16–27 Bengal by River (mg 580)

Dr Anna-Maria Misra 26–11 Patagonia: ‘Uttermost Part of the Earth’

(mg 595) Chris Moss 29– 7 The Ring in Paris (mg 600)

Barry Millington

London Lecture Afternoon

December 2020 3 Ancient Greece (lg 602)

Anthony Spawforth 21–27 Vienna at Christmas (mg 614)

Dr Jarl Kremeier 21–27 Prague at Christmas (mg 613)

Professor Jan Smaczny

& Martina Hinks-Edwards 21–27 Milan at Christmas (mg 615)

Dr Luca Leoncini 21–27 Siena at Christmas (mg 610)

Dr Michael Douglas-Scott 21–27 Christmas in Holland (mg 617)

Dr Sophie Oosterwijk 21–28 Provence at Christmas (mg 612)

Dr Alexandra Gajewski 21–28 Christmas in Western Sicily (mg 611)

Rowena Loverance 22–27 Paris at Christmas (mg 616)

Patrick Bade 27–2 Music in Berlin at New Year

Advent Choral Day

Tours & events by date | 2021 preview

DATES PUBLISHED HERE For 2021, dates are subject to change (except for tours that are available to book now – those listed with a tour code here).

Though most are unlikely to move by more than a day or two either side.

Please call us to register your interest or e-mail alerts@martinrandall.co.uk This list was correct on 5th March 2020.

January 2021 9–19

25–31

28–10

Oman, Landscapes & Peoples (mg 620) Dr Peter Webb Mozart in Salzburg (mh 629) Richard Wigmore Essential South India (mh 630) Asoka Pugal

February 2021 5–11

8–13 9–15 22– 1 23–25

24– 6

28– 7

Wagner’s Ring in London (mh 635) Barry Millington......................................24 Palaces & Villas of Rome Essential Rome Florence & Venice Chamber Music Short Break: The Navarra String Quartet (mh 645) Speaker: Richard Wigmore New Orleans to Natchitoches (mh 644) Professor Jeremy Black Istanbul Revealed Opera in Nice & Monte Carlo The Ring in Dresden

March 2021

6–12 6–13 7–11 7–14 9–16 12–17 12–21

12–23

12–24 14–23 15–22 16–18

16–27

20–25

21–29 22–28 24– 2 25– 2 29– 4

May 2021

Romans in the Rhône Valley Basilicata & Calabria Ravenna & Urbino Augustus to Charlemagne Gastronomic Andalucía Pompeii & Heculaneum Classical Turkey (mh 696) Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones..............40 Art in Japan (mh 699) Dr Monika Hinkel....................................29 Civilisations of Sicily Albania: Crossroads of Antiquity Gastronomic Provence Chamber Music Short Break: William Howard & the Carducci String Quartet (mh 628) Samarkand & Silk Road Cities for solo travellers Palladian Villas (mh 707) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott The Cathedrals of England Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes Essential Jordan Courts of Northern Italy Liguria: the Italian Riviera Sailing the Dalmatian Coast Opera in Berlin The Ring in Berlin Gastronomic Crete Madrid & Toledo Opera in Spain

5– 9 Châteaux of the Loire 6–15 Extremadura 10–22 Traditions of Japan (mh 738)

Pauline Chakmakjian..............................28 7–14 St Petersburg 8–17 Classical Greece 10–15 Gardens & Villas of

Campagna Romana (mh 732)

Dr Katie Campbell 10–15 Gardens of Sintra 10–16 Walking Hadrian’s Wall 10–18 Great Irish Houses 10–23 The Western Balkans 13–22 The Grand Duchy of Tuscany 15–20 Modernist Moscow 16–21 POLYPHONY

IN PORTUGAL 17–21 Arts & Crafts in the Lake District 17–24 Walking in the Cotswolds 17–24 Leipzig Mahler Festival 18–22 Berlin: New Architecture 19–27 Two Spains: The Spanish Civil

War & its Aftermath 20–26 The Medieval Heart of Portugal 25–31 Moving On: Architecture

& Memory in Munich & Stuttgart...... 38 31– 8 Mitteldeutschland

Prague Spring

Czech Modernism

Ballet in Copenhagen

Maritime England

Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

49

NEWSLETTER | 2021 tours & events

1–7 Art History of Venice 2–11 Israel & Palestine 8–14 The Art of Florence 9–17 Normans in the South 13–24 Morocco 15–24 Eastern Andalucía 16–20 Venetian Palaces 16–27 Indian Summer (mh 666)

Raaja Bhasin 17–20 Welsh National Opera (mh 669)

Simon Rees................................................25 18–24 Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur 22–28 World Heritage Malta 25–31 Dante 700: Heaven & Hell

in Italian Art & Manuscripts 26–28 Chamber Music Short Break:

The Elias String Quartet (mh 679)

Speaker: Richard Wigmore 26– 1 Gardens of the Riviera

Hamburg: Opera & ‘Elphi’

Opera in Vienna

Music & Ballet in Paris

April 2021

Tours & events by date | 2021 preview

Treasures of Moravia

Nevill Holt & Buxton Opera Brittany

The Leipzig Bach Festival

West Cork Chamber Music Festival

Gardens & Landscapes

of the Dutch Wave

Ballet in St Petersburg

July 2021

Music in the Regions

Wines of Southern England

Dresden Music Festival

Iceland’s Story

Lombardy: Gastronomy & Opera

Footpaths of Umbria

Gastronomic Campania Lisbon

Connoisseur’s New York

Remote Uzbekistan: Buddhists,

Sufis & Desert Castles

NEWSLETTER | 2021 tours & events

June 2021

1– 9 5– 8 5–11 5–11 12–18 25– 7

Finland: Aalto & Others MUSIC IN SUFFOLK French Gothic Gastronomic Friuli-Venezia Giulia Western Ireland Archaeology The Baltic Countries Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival Danish Castles & Gardens Hindsgavl: Chamber Music in Denmark The Victorian Achievement Tudor England Medieval Suffolk Ryedale Music Festival Shakespeare & his World Savonlinna Opera Opera in Aix The Beaune Music Festival Opera in Munich & Bregenz Lofoten Chamber Music Festival Scottish Gardens Churches of Gotland

August 2021 15–20 18–25

20–27 20–27 21–24 31– 4

King Ludwig II The Hanseatic League (mh 864) Andreas Puth Walking the Danube MUSIC ALONG THE DANUBE The Age of Bede Dorset Churches The Schubertiade Summer Music in Austria Walking in Southern Bohemia The Sibelius Festival Bavarian Organs Rossini in Pesaro Scotland: the Making of a Nation Ancient Shetland Drottningholm & Confidencen Opera in Santa Fe

1–12 4–15

5–12 7–14 11–18 11–19 14–21 14–21 14–22

15–22 21–25

21–27 22–25 28– 3

Walking to Santiago Frank Lloyd Wright (mh 777) Tom Abbott Medieval Burgundy Gastronomic Le Marche Gastronomic Sweden Textile Collections in Russia with HALI The Venetian Terra Ferma Cave Art of France Medieval Saxony (mh 795) Andreas Puth MUSIC ALONG THE RHINE Medieval West Midlands (mh 803) John McNeill Connoisseur’s Vienna Dutch Painting Wines of the Côte d’Or The Schubertiade

50

book online at www.martinrandall.com

September 2021 1–14

3– 5 3–11

Peru: the Andean Heartland (mh 873) Dr David Beresford-Jones........................34 Medieval Art in Paris Sacred Armenia

6–12 Verona & Lake Garda 6–13 The Douro 6–14 Moscow & St Petersburg 7–11 Champagne: vines, cellars and cuvées 6–17 Walking to Santiago 10–21 Samarkand & Silk Road Cities 11–20 Classical Greece for solo travellers 12–19 Courts of Northern Italy 12–22 Georgia Uncovered 13–19 Lusatia: Germany’s

Eastern Borderlands 13–19 The Imperial Riviera 13–20 Gastronomic Galicia 13–25 Civilisations of Sicily 17–24 St Petersburg for solo travellers 19–26 Essential Puglia 20–26 Walking a Royal River 20–27 The Heart of Italy 21–27 In Search of Alexander 22– 4 Galleries of the American Midwest 27– 2 Pompeii & Heculaneum 27– 4 Granada & Córdoba 27– 5 Aragón: Hidden Spain 29– 3 Ravenna & Urbino 30– 6 Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes

Flemish Painting Bulgaria

At home at Weston Park

Literary England

The Cornish Peninsula

The Ring in Helsinki

Paris: New Architecture

Pilgrimage & Heresy

Design & Modernism in Turin & Milan

Footpaths of Umbria

Walking in Slovenia

Gastronomic Asturias & Cantabria

Cities of Catalonia

Swiss Modern

Ancient & Islamic Tunisia

Turkey by Gulet......................................41

October 2021 4–11 Walking in Southern Tuscany 4–12 Palestine, Past & Present 4–16 Civilisations of Sicily 6–10 Ravenna & Urbino 6–15 Albania: Crossroads of Antiquity 7–11 The Venetian Hills 7–15 Berlin Potsdam Dresden (mh 983)

Dr Jarl Kremeier 9–20 Morocco 11–16 Friuli-Venezia Giulia 11–24 The Western Balkans 12–17 Palladian Villas (mh 107)

Dr Sarah Pearson 12–21 Israel & Palestine

16–22 Gastronomic Piedmont 17–24 Court Centres of the Po Valley 17–29 Vietnam: History, People, Food

(mh 133) Dr Dana Healy........................31 18–27 Castile & León 18–28 Essential Andalucía 18–30 Civilisations of Sicily 20–26 Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur 23–31 Sardinia 23–31 Essential Jordan 29– 9 The Making of Argentina (mh 166)

Chris Moss................................................36 30–12 Cambodia by River (mh 171)

Freddie Matthews.....................................32

North Cyprus & Israel

Opera North

Wexford Opera

Houghton & Holkham

Churchill and WW2

Versailles: Seat of the Sun King

Hidden Gardens of Venice

Opera in Naples & Rome Pompeii

Southern Sicily

Walking in Western Sicily

World Heritage Malta

Gastronomy & the Golden Age

The Romans in Western Iberia

November 2021 The Art of Florence OPERA IN SICILY Art in Madrid Les Années Folles Gastronomic Sicily Art in Japan (mh 178) Professor Timon Screech..........................29 Venetian Palaces Florentine Palaces Oman, Landscapes & Peoples Early Christian Rome Japanese Gardens (mh 201) Yoko Kawaguchi.......................................26 Art in Paris

Fitness Ours are active holidays. We ask that everyone wishing to join a tour take the quick and simple self-assessment fitness tests described here. It is a condition of booking that you have passed these tests. (You do not have to pass the tests to attend music weekends and symposia in the UK.) 1: Chair stands. Sit in a dining chair, with arms folded and hands on opposite shoulders. Stand up and sit down at least eight times in thirty seconds.

2: Step test. Mark a wall at a height that is halfway between your knee and your hip bone.

Raise each knee in turn to the mark at least sixty times in two minutes.

Illustration, previous page: Split, cathedral square, steel engraving c. 1850. Opposite: Menton, watercolour by William Scott, publ. 1907. Above right: Marrakesh, woodcut from Agenda P.L.M., 1926.

An additional indication of the fitness required is that you should be able to walk unaided at a pace of 3 miles per hour for at least half an hour at a time, and to stand unsupported for at least 30 minutes.

If you have a medical condition or a disability which may affect your holiday or necessitate special arrangements being made for you, please discuss these with us before booking – or, if the condition develops or changes subsequently, as soon as possible before departure.

3: Agility test. Place an object 3 yards from the edge of a chair, sit, and record the time it takes to stand up, walk to the object and sit back down. You should be able to do this in under seven seconds.

Te l e p h o n e + 4 4 ( 0 ) 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

51

NEWSLETTER | 2021 tours & events

1– 7 2– 8 3– 7 4– 7 8–15 8–19

9–13 10–14 12–22 16–23 18–29

Lecturers Photographs, top row, left to right: John Allison; David Beresford-Jones; Pauline Chakmakjian; Michael Downes; Monika Hinkel; Pasquale Iannone; Yoko Kawaguchi; Alexey Makhrov.

Bottom row, left to right: Barry Millington; Marc Millon; Chris Moss; Sophie Oosterwijk; Simon Rees; Elizabeth Roberts; Timon Screech; Antony Spawforth.

Dr John Allison. Editor of Opera magazine and music critic. He has written two books and has served on the juries of various international music competitions. He co-founded the International Opera Awards in 2013.

Dr David Beresford-Jones. Fellow of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge University. His research interests include the ancient south coast of Peru, the origins of agriculture, PreColombian textiles and the synthesis of archaeology and historical linguistics, particularly in the Andes.

Pauline Chakmakjian. Specialist in the history, fine arts and culture of Japan. She lectures widely for several organisations. She was elected onto the Board of the Japan Society of the UK from 2008–14 and the Japan Society of Hawaii from 2015–17. In 2014, she was appointed a Visit Kyoto Ambassador by the Mayor of the City of Kyoto.

Dr Michael Downes. Director of Music at the University of St Andrews, musical director of St Andrews Chorus and founding artistic director of Byre Opera. He writes programme notes for Wigmore Hall and Aldeburgh Music and reviews music for the Times Literary Supplement. He is author of a highly praised study of British composer Jonathan Harvey.

Dr Dana Healy. Senior lecturer in Vietnamese studies at SOAS, University of London, specialising in modern Vietnamese cultural studies. She studied at Charles University in Prague, where she also obtained her PhD. Her academic work covers a broad spectrum of topics relating to Vietnamese language and culture.

NEWSLETTER | Lecturers

Dr Monika Hinkel. Lecturer and curator specialising in Japanese woodblock prints and Research Associate of the Japan Research Centre at SOAS. She studied at Bonn University, was curator for Japanese art at the Museum of East Asian Art in Cologne, and a researcher at Gakushuin University, Tokyo. She has lectured at Birkbeck, the V&A and Morley College.

Dr Pasquale Iannone. Senior Teaching Fellow in Film Studies at the University of Edinburgh, critic and broadcaster. He obtained his PhD from Edinburgh, where he has taught since 2005. He has published widely on Italian cinema and contributes regularly to BBC Radio and Sight & Sound magazine. He Director of the Italian Film Festival in Scotland.

Yoko Kawaguchi. Writer and cultural historian specialising in the relationship between Japan and the West. She holds an MA from Kyoto University and has undertaken postgraduate research at Newnham College, Cambridge. Her books include Butterfly’s Sisters: The Geisha in Western Culture, Japanese Zen Gardens and Authentic Japanese Gardens.

52

Professor Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones. Chair of Ancient History at Cardiff University and specialist in the history and culture of ancient Iran, the Near East and Ancient Greece. His books include Ctesias’ History of Persia and Creating a Hellenistic World. He has contributed to TV documentaries and BBC radio programmes and is a regular reviewer for The Times.

Chris Moss. Journalist and writer specialising in Argentina, where he lived for a number of years.

He studied theology, English literature and education. He has written for BBC History and the Daily Telegraph and has edited several guidebooks, as well as a cultural history of Patagonia. He also writes on South American music for the publication Songlines.

Dr Alexey Makhrov. Russian art historian and lecturer. He graduated from the St Petersburg Academy of Arts and obtained his PhD from the University of St Andrews followed by postdoctoral work as a Research Fellow at Exeter. He now lives in Switzerland where he teaches courses on Russian art.

Dr Sophie Oosterwijk. Researcher and lecturer with degrees in Art History, Medieval Studies and English Literature. Her specialisms are the Middle Ages, and the art and culture of the Netherlands.

She has taught at the universities of Leicester, Manchester and St Andrews, and lectures at Cambridge. She is Vice President of the Church Monuments Society.

Freddie Matthews. Head of Adult Programmes at the British Museum. He has worked at the V&A, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, Bagri Foundation, as well as several established art galleries. He is an independent scholar specialising in Buddhist art across Asia, and regularly gives lectures on the subject in the UK and abroad.

John McNeill. Architectural historian of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. He lectures for Oxford University’s Department of Continuing Education and is Honorary Secretary of the British Archaeological Association. Publications include articles in learned journals and guidebooks to Normandy and the Loire Valley.

Barry Millington. Chief Music Critic for London’s Evening Standard and founder/editor of The Wagner Journal. He is the author/editor of eight books on Wagner including The Sorcerer of Bayreuth. He also contributed the articles on Wagner and his operas to The New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians and The New Grove Dictionary of Opera.

Marc Millon. Wine, food and travel writer. Author of 14 books on wine, food and travel, including The Wine & Food of Europe, The Wine Roads of France, The Wine Roads of Italy, The Food Lover’s Companion Italy, and The Taste of Britain. He also has his own wine company, importing Italian wines from small family estates. When not on the road, Marc lives on the River Exe in Devon.

Dr Marc Morris. Historian and broadcaster specialising in the Middle Ages. He studied and taught at the universities of London and Oxford.

He presented the highly acclaimed TV series, Castle. Books include The Norman Conquest, A Great & Terrible King: Edward I & the Forging of Britain and King John: Treachery, Tyranny & the Road to Magna Carta.

book online at www.martinrandall.com

Simon Rees. A freelance dramaturg, Simon translates opera librettos for singing and surtitles and lectures and writes on opera, theatre, art and architecture. He is an Associate Lecturer at the Wales International Academy of Voice, and also teaches at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama. A novelist, poet and librettist, he was dramaturg at Welsh National Opera 1989–2012.

Elizabeth Roberts. Historian, writer and lecturer, specialising in the Balkans. She is Academic Advisor for the Weidenfeld-Hoffmann Scholarships Programme, University of Oxford, and former expert witness for the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee on Kosovo and Montenegro.

Her books include Realm of the Black Mountain: A History of Montenegro and The Sandžak: A History.

Professor Timon Screech. Professor of History of Art at SOAS, University of London. He is an expert on the art and culture of the Japanese Edo period, including its international dimension, and has published widely on the subject. His books include Sex & the Floating World and Obtaining Images.

Jeremy Seal. Travel writer and tour leader specialising in Turkey. His award-winning books include A Fez of the Heart and Meander, the last an account of a solo canoe journey he made down western Turkey’s Buyuk Menderes River. He has written about the country for the Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph and others. He is currently writing a book about Turkey’s fraught political history, due for publication in 2020.

Professor Antony Spawforth. Emeritus Professor of Ancient History at Newcastle University. A historian and broadcaster specialising in Greek and Roman antiquity and in rulers’ courts. In 2018, he published The Story of Greece and Rome. Other books include Versailles: A Biography of a Palace.

BOOKING FORM TOUR NAME(S)

DATES

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NAME(S) – As you wish them to appear on the list of participants. We do not use titles unless included here.

Participant 1 Participant 2

CONTACT DETAILS – for all correspondence

ROOM TYPE ☐ Single occupancy room(s)

Address

☐ Double room (two sharing) ☐ Twin room (two sharing)

Postcode/Zip

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TRAVEL ARRANGEMENTS

Mobile

☐ Group travel from London. (air or rail), if applicable to this tour.

Telephone (home)

☐ No travel. Making your own arrangements for travel to and from the destination.

Telephone (other – please specify) FELLOW TRAVELLER – if applicable E-mail For speed and efficiency, we provide your tour and reservation documents online, with an alert by e-mail. Your final itinerary is available to download c. 2 weeks prior to departure, with a hard copy provided on tour, or posted to a UK address. ☐ Please tick if you do NOT wish to receive documents online.

Please complete this section, even if you have told us your preferences before.

If you have made a booking for someone who does not share your address, please give their details here. We will then send them copies of all tour documents.

Please tick if you would like us to send them a separate invoice: ☐

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How would you like to be kept informed about our future tours and events?

Brochures sent by post: ☐ Yes ☐ No

What prompted this booking? Please be as specific as possible – e.g. did you see an advertisement

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in a particular publication? Did you see the tour in our brochure? Or on our website?

FURTHER INFORMATION or special requests. Please mention dietary requirements, even if you have told us before.

Postcode/Zip Country E-mail Telephone

NEWSLETTER | Booking form

E-newsletter: ☐ Yes

☐ No

PASSPORT DETAILS. Essential for airlines and in case of emergency on tour (not applicable for tours in the UK if you are a UK resident).

Title

Surname

Forenames

Nationality

Place of birth

1.

2.

Date of birth (dd/mm/yy)

Passport number

Place of issue

Date of issue (dd/mm/yy)

Date of expiry (dd/mm/yy)

1.

2.

NEXT OF KIN or contact in case of emergency.

Participant 1:

Participant 2 (unless the same as for participant 1):

Name

Name

Telephone

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Relation to you

Relation to you

PAYMENT

NEWSLETTER | Booking form

We prefer payment by bank transfer, cheque or debit card. We also accept payment by credit card. All money paid to us is fully protected regardless of payment method. Please tick an option:

Please tick payment amount:

☐ BANK TRANSFER. Please give your surname and tour code (eg. MH123) only as a reference and ask your bank to allow for all charges.

☐ OR Full Payment. Required if you are booking within 10 weeks of departure.

Account name: Martin Randall Travel Ltd Bank: Handelsbanken, 2 Chiswick High Road, London W4 1TH

For transfers from UK (Sterling) bank accounts: Account number 8663 3438 • Sort code 40-51-62

Carbon offset donation. If you are taking a tour with flights and wish to make a donation to the India Solar Water Heating project, please tick an option below. Read about this project, and about our other sustainable tourism activities, by visiting martinrandall.com/sustainable-tourism.

For transfers from non-UK bank accounts: Please instruct your bank to send payment in pound sterling (GBP) IBAN: GB98 HAND 4051 6286 6334 38 Swift/BIC code: HAND GB22

☐ EITHER Deposit(s) amounting to 10% of your total booking cost.

☐ Add £5 per person for short-haul return flights ☐ Add £10 per person for mid- or long-haul return flights

☐ CHEQUE. I enclose a cheque payable to Martin Randall Travel Ltd – please write the tour code on the back (e.g. MH123).

TOTAL PAYMENT: £

☐ DEBIT OR CREDIT CARD. I authorise Martin Randall Travel to contact me by telephone to take payment from my Visa credit/Visa debit/Mastercard/AMEX.

Please sign and date below

I have read and agree to the Booking Conditions and Privacy Policy (www.martinrandall.com/privacy) on behalf of all listed on this form.

Signature: Date:

Martin Randall Travel Ltd Voysey House Barley Mow Passage London W4 4GF, United Kingdom

ATOL 3622 | ABTA Y6050 | AITO 5085

Tel +44 (0)20 8742 3355 info@martinrandall.co.uk www.martinrandall.com

Martin Randall Australasia PO Box 1024, Indooroopilly QLD 4068, Australia Tel 1300 55 95 95 New Zealand 0800 877 622 Fax +61 (0)7 3371 8288 anz@martinrandall.com.au

North America 1155 Connecticut Avenue NW Suite 300 Washington, DC 20036, USA Tel 1 800 988 6168 usa@martinrandall.com

MAKING A BOOKING 1. Optional booking. We recommend that you contact us first to make an optional booking which we will hold for seven days. To confirm it please send the booking form and deposit within this period – the deposit is 10% of your total booking price. Alternatively, make a definite booking straight away through our website.

2. Definite booking. Fill in the booking form and send it to us with the deposit. 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 confirmation. Upon receipt of the booking form and deposit we shall send you confirmation of your booking. After this your deposit is nonreturnable except in the special circumstances mentioned in the Booking Conditions. Further details about the tour may also be sent at this stage, or will follow shortly afterwards.

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.

If you cancel. If you have to withdraw from a tour on which you had booked, there would be a charge which varies according to the period of notice you give. Up to 57 days before the tour the deposit would be forfeited. Thereafter a percentage of the total cost of the tour will be due: up to 57 days: deposit only between 56 and 29 days: 40% between 28 and 15 days: 60% between 14 days and 3 days: 80% within 48 hours: 100% If you cancel your booking in a double or twin room but are travelling with a companion who chooses to continue to participate in the tour, the companion would have to pay the single-occupancy price.

If you cancel a non-residential event (normally a London Day) we will return the full amount if you notify us 22 or more days before the event. We will retain 50% if cancellation is made within three weeks and 100% if within 3 days.

We take as the day of cancellation that on which we receive written confirmation of cancellation.

If we cancel the tour. We may decide to cancel a tour if there were insufficient bookings for it to be viable (though this would always be more than eight weeks before departure). We would refund you with everything you had paid us.

Safety and security. Cancellation may also occur if civil unrest, war, natural disaster or other circumstances amounting to force majeure arise in the region to which the tour was due to go. If the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office advises against travel, we would either cancel or adjust the itinerary to avoid risky areas.

Health and safety. We have a safety auditing process in place and, as a minimum, request that all of our suppliers comply with local health and safety regulations. However, we operate tours in parts of the world where standards are lower than those you are used to at home, particularly in the areas of accessibility, handrails and seatbelts. We ask that you take note of the safety information we provide.

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 or event 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 in your view an adequate substitute, we would give a full refund.

Financial protection. Any money you have paid to us for a tour which includes an international flight is protected by our Air Travel Organiser’s Licence (ATOL, number 3622). Payments for tours which do not include a flight from/to the UK are protected

by ABTA –The Travel Association. So, in the (highly unlikely) event of our insolvency in advance of

the tour, you would get your money back, or if we failed after the tour had begun, the tour would be able to continue and you would be returned to the UK at its conclusion. Clients living elsewhere who have arranged their own flights should ensure their personal travel insurance covers repatriation in the event of holiday supplier failure.

BOOKING CONDITIONS

Financial protection: the official text. We are required to publish the following. We provide full financial protection for our package holidays which include international flights, 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. Most of our flights and flight-inclusive holidays on our website and in our brochure are financially protected by the ATOL scheme. But ATOL protection does not apply to all holiday and travel services listed. Please ask us to confirm what protection may apply to your booking. If you do not receive an ATOL Certificate then the booking will not be ATOL protected. If you do receive an ATOL Certificate but all the parts of your trip are not listed on it, those parts will not be ATOL protected. In order to be protected under the ATOL scheme you need to be in the UK when you make your booking and/or one of the flights you take must originate or terminate in the UK with the group.

We provide full financial protection for our package holidays that do not include a flight, by way of a bond held

by ABTA The Travel Association.

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.

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.

Privacy. By signing the booking form you are stating that you have read and agree to our Privacy Policy, which can be found online at www.martinrandall.com/privacy.

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NEWSLETTER | Booking details

Please read these You need to sign your assent to these booking conditions on the booking form.

Our promises to you • We aim to be fair, reasonable and sympathetic in all our dealings with clients, and to act always with integrity.

• We will meet all our legal and regulatory responsibilities, usually going far 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.

What we ask of you That you read the information we send to you.

Specific terms Our contract with you. From the time we receive your signed booking form and initial payment, a contract exists between you and Martin Randall Travel Ltd. Eligibility. You must be in good health and have a level of physical and mental fitness that would not impair other participants’ enjoyment by slowing them down or by absorbing disproportionate attention from the tour leaders. Please read ‘Fitness’ on page 51 and take the self-assessment tests described there; by signing the booking form you are stating that you have understood what we are asking of you and are fit to participate. If you have a medical condition or a disability which may affect your holiday or necessitate special arrangements being made for you, please discuss this with us before booking – or, if the condition develops or changes subsequently, as soon as possible before departure. If during the tour it transpires, in the judgement of the tour leaders, that you are not able to cope, you may be asked to opt out of certain visits or to leave the tour altogether. This would be at your own expense. We reserve the right to refuse to accept a booking without necessarily giving a reason.

Foreign Office advice. Before booking, please refer to the FCO website – www.fco.gov.uk – to ensure you understand the travel advice for the places to which the tour goes. Non-UK citizens should look at the advice issued by their governments, which may differ significantly.

Insurance. It is a requirement of booking that you have adequate holiday insurance cover. The insurance must cover, at minimum, medical treatment, repatriation, loss of property and loss of payments to us in the event that you cancel the tour. If you are making your own arrangements for international travel, please ensure you have insurance that protects you in the rare event of Martin Randall Travel cancelling the tour.

Experience indicates that free travel insurance offered by some credit card companies is not to be relied upon.

Passports and visas. British citizens must have valid passports for all tours outside the United Kingdom. The passport needs to be valid for six months beyond the date of the tour. In the event of a ‘no-deal’ Brexit, additional validity may be required.

Martin Randall Travel Ltd Voysey House Barley Mow Passage London W4 4GF United Kingdom Tel +44 (0)20 8742 3355 info@martinrandall.co.uk www.martinrandall.com Martin Randall Australasia PO Box 1024 Indooroopilly QLD 4068, Australia Telephone 1300 55 95 95 New Zealand 0800 877 622 Fax +61 (0)7 3371 8288 anz@martinrandall.com.au North America Martin Randall Travel Ltd 1155 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 300 Washington DC 20036 USA Telephone 1 800 988 6168 usa@martinrandall.com

Directors: Fiona Charrington (CEO), Sir Vernon Ellis (Chairman), Ian Hutchinson, Martin Randall, Neil Taylor | Registered office: Voysey House, Barley Mow Passage, London W4 4GF, UK | Registered Company no.

2314294. VAT no. 527758803.

Illustration: Rome, Castel Sant’Angelo, copper engraving c.

1770. Front cover: ‘Departure from the Island of Cythera’ (1717), engraving by Nicolas-Henri Tardieu after the painting by Jean-Antoine Watteau.

ATOL 3622 ABTA Y6050 AITO 5085 Best Special Interest Holiday Company at the British Travel Awards: 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019.

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