Martin Randall Travel 2013: 2nd edition

M A RT I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L 2 0 1 3 : S E C O N D E D I T I O N

M A RT I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L A R T • A R C H I T E C T U R E • G A S T R O N O M Y • A R C H A E O L O G Y • H I S T O R Y • M U S I C • l i t e r at u r e

Voysey House, Barley Mow Passage, London, United Kingdom W4 4GF Telephone 020 8742 3355 Fax 020 8742 7766 info@martinrandall.co.uk Australia: Martin Randall Marketing, PO Box 537, Toowong, Queensland 4066 Telephone 1300 55 95 95 Fax 07 3377 0142 anz@martinrandall.com.au New Zealand: Telephone 0800 877 622 Canada: Telephone 647 382 1644 Fax 416 925 2670 canada@martinrandall.ca USA: Telephone 1 800 988 6168

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www.martinrandall.com

2013

Second edition

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 O N O M Y • A R C H A E O L O G Y • H I S T O R Y • M U S I C • L I T E R AT U R E

Contents

Finland........................................................... 48–49

Britain’s leading provider of cultural tours........................4–6

Germany............................................61–79 (and 61)

Scotland...................................................... 154–158

List of tours by country........................... 7–9

India................................................................ 83–87

Spain............................................................159–176

Armenia.......................................................... 10–11

Italy............................................................... 90–136

Romania...................................................... 150–152

France.............................................49–67 (and 159)

Russia.......................................................... 153–154

Greece.............................................................80–82

Serbia.....................................................................17

Israel................................................................ 88–89

Sweden.................................................................. 23

Switzerland........................................... 177 (and 58)

Austria............................................................ 12–16

Jordan...........................................................137–138

Turkey..........................................................178–183

Bosnia-Herzegovina........................................17–19

Lithuania.............................................................. 44

Uzbekistan.................................................. 190–191

Montenegro...........................................................17

Lecturers’ biographies.....................194–199

Belgium............................................................16–17 Croatia.............................................................17–19 Czech Republic.............................................. 19–22

Denmark......................................................... 23–24

Egypt.............................................................. 24–25

England....................................26–43 (and 49, 192) Estonia............................................................44–45

Ethiopia..........................................................46–47

Latvia.................................................................... 44

U.S.A.......................................................... 184–189

Malta................................................................... 139

Wales...........................................................192–193

Morocco.......................................................140–141

Norway................................................. 142 (and 23) Oman...................................................................143 Palestine................................................144 (and 88)

Portugal.......................................................145–149

Making a booking.................................. 200 Booking conditions................................. 200 Booking form..................................201–202 Tours by date.................................. 203–206

M A RT I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L A R T • A R C H I T E C T U R E • G A S T R O N O M Y • A R C H A E O L O G Y • H I S T O R Y • M U S I C • L I T E R AT U R E

Voysey House, Barley Mow Passage, London, United Kingdom W4 4GF T 020 8742 3355 F 020 8742 7766 info@martinrandall.co.uk www.martinrandall.com

Dear traveller, This is the first time we have produced a second edition of our main brochure. A reckless extravagance or a commercially canny gambit? Some explanation is needed.

For several years our policy has been to publish the brochure earlier than is conventional, not in the autumn but in the summer. This works well for those who like to plan far ahead, but there are disadvantages.

One is that when the peak booking season comes along around the turn of the year, our brochure is no longer to hand in some households, having been buried, forgotten or thrown away as not of immediate interest. The advantage passes to more recent arrivals from other organisations which are closer to the top of the pile.

The other disadvantage of publishing early is that for some tours it is simply not possible to complete the research and make all the necessary reservations so far in advance. This is particularly true of music tours: it is rare for festivals and opera houses to announce programme details before the autumn preceding the event.

Most of the content of this second edition remains unchanged from the first, but there are differences. A number of new tours and extra departures of those that are selling particularly well have been added; details of tours in the autumn of 2012 have been deleted, of course; and in a few cases details which have changed in the interim – flight times, museum closures (or openings) – have been inserted.

Please look through it again. There is much to interest, new or not new. Some parts merit a second reading, in my view, although there’s plenty that makes me wince. Somehow, perfection is always postponed until the next brochure.

With best wishes,

Martin Randall

November 2012

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Directors: Martin Randall (Chief Executive), Sir Vernon Ellis (Chairman), Chris Denton, Ian Hutchinson, Neil Taylor, Fiona Urquhart Registered office: Voysey House, Barley Mow Passage, London W4 4GF. Registered Company no. 2314294 England. VAT no. 527758803

Britain’s leading provider of cultural tours At Martin Randall Travel we aim to provide the best planned, best led and altogether the most fulfilling and enjoyable ‘cultural’ tours available.

Within the areas of the world on which we concentrate – principally Europe, India and the Middle East – we offer an unsurpassed range of holidays focusing on art, architecture, music, archaeology, history or gastronomy.

They are designed for people with enquiring minds and a desire to learn, understand and appreciate.

Inventive and pioneering, MRT has for twenty-five years led the cultural tours market by incessant innovation and by setting the benchmarks for itineraries, operational systems and service standards. Widely emulated, much imitated, never surpassed.

First-rate lecturers Expert speakers are a key ingredient of all our holidays. Academics, writers, curators, broadcasters and researchers, they are selected not only for their knowledge but also for their ability to communicate that learning to a lay audience. Their brief is to enlighten and stimulate, not merely to inform.

And they also have to be good travelling companions.

We select our lecturers through reputation, interview and audition, and provide them with guidance and training. Most of our tours are also accompanied by a trained tour manager, one of our staff or a freelance professional.

MRT is one of the most respected specialist travel companies in the world.

Original itineraries, meticulously planned Our itineraries are original, imaginative, well-paced and carefully balanced. Thorough research and assiduous reconnaissance underpin the design process. Knowledge of the subject matter and the destination combine with meticulous attention to practical matters to ensure an enriching and smooth-running experience.

Many of our holidays incorporate special arrangements for admission to places not generally open to individual travellers, or for access at times when they are closed to the public. In innumerable small ways, we lift the experience for our clients above standards and services which are regarded as normal for tourists.

We bring organisational skills of a high order to our large and complex events, principally our all-inclusive music festivals.

Travelling in comfort We select our hotels with great care.

All have been inspected, and many have been stayed in, by a member of our staff. Hundreds of others have been seen and rejected.

Obviously comfort ranks high among our criteria, together with service standards and warmth of welcome, and we also set high priority on charm and appropriate style. An important consideration is location. For city-based tours, there is a strong preference for the historic centre, where this does not conflict with the criterion of quiet.

Olympia, 20th-century pen drawing of fragments in the ancient sanctuary.

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Most of the hotels we use are rated as 4-star, with some 5-star and a few 3-star. We invest similar efforts into the selection of restaurants, menus and wines.

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For flights and trains, we try to choose the most convenient departure times and airports, although for many routes there is little choice of either. Seats on Eurostar are in ‘superior class’.

We can provide a holiday without the international flights or trains if you prefer, allowing you to make your own arrangements for international travel.

(It is usually possible to make other variations to the package. There is an administrative fee of at least £40.)

Small groups and congenial company We strictly limit the numbers on our small-group tours. The maximum allowed on a tour, which ranges from 15 to 22, is stated in each tour description. The average is somewhere between, though occasionally tours run with as few as 7 or 8.

The higher costs of smaller numbers are outweighed by the benefits of manoeuvrability, social cohesion and access to the lecturer.

The small-group principle is not applied to tours on which there are private concerts, arranged by ourselves.

Not the least attractive aspect of travelling with MRT is that you are highly likely to find yourself in congenial company, self-selected by common interests and endorsement of the company’s ethos.

Engraving by Bernard Lépicié 1733, after a painting by J. B. Pater.

Care for our clients We aim for faultless administration from your first encounter with us to the end of the holiday, and beyond.

Personal service is a feature. And if anything does go wrong, we will put it right or compensate appropriately. We want you to come back again and again – as most of our clients do.

Counter to attitudes widespread in the travel industry, we never forget our clients are responsible adults, deserving of respect and courtesy at all times.

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Value for money, and no surcharges The price includes nearly everything, not only the major ingredients such as hotel, transportation and the costs of the lecturer, but also tips for waiters, drivers and guides, wine with meals, airport taxes and credit card charges.

We do not levy surcharges for fuel price increases, exchange rate changes, additional taxes or for any other reason.

The price published in this brochure is the price you pay.

Fitness and age

Financial security

Ours are active holidays, with walking an unavoidable element. They are also group holidays, which means that participants need to move around together at a pace which is comfortable for the majority.

The amount of walking varies. On some tours there is a lot on streets that are steep or poorly paved, on others you may need to scramble over fallen masonry and uneven ground. More usually it is just a case of getting from one place to another within a town. Coaches can rarely enter historic city centres or get right to the entrance of a country house or concert hall.

Like a convoy, groups move at the pace of the slowest; slow walkers reduce the time at the places everyone has come to see.

Our tours should not present problems for anyone who manages everyday walking and stair-climbing without difficulty. But please consult us if you have any doubts about your ability to cope. If for any stage, including the airports, you would like the use of a wheelchair then these holidays are unlikely to be suitable for you. It is also unlikely that you would cope if you habitually use a walking stick.

We do have some tours which are designated as walking holidays and offer countryside hikes as an integral ingredient. There is another scale of fitness requirements for these.

Age limit. We regret that applications for small-group tours from people who would be aged eighty-one or over at the time of the tour will not be accepted.

We know this is a harsh and somewhat arbitrary rule but it has virtually eliminated instances of tours being spoilt for the majority because of the inability of one or two individuals to cope.

There is no age limit for our own largescale music festivals (Rome, Seville, Bach Journey, Danube, Yorkshire, Rhône), though the same fitness criteria apply, because there is more opportunity to move at your own pace. And there is no limit for our UK chamber music weekends and symposia.

From an Ordnance Survey map, 1920s.

Walking tours

A small but growing number of our tours include country walking as an integral part of the itinerary. They fall, very loosely, into two categories, the less and the more strenuous.

The less strenuous – the majority – have walks usually for only half the day, usually of not more than about 5 miles (8 km), often less. The tours falling into this category in 2013 include Walking the Danube, Walking in Tuscany, The Cotswolds, Walking Hadrian’s Wall and Walking in Madeira.

The more strenuous tours have walks of up to 10 miles (16 km) a day. For 2013, these are Walking in Sicily and Walking to Santiago.

Both categories remain ‘cultural’ tours in that they are accompanied by a lecturer who provides talks and commentary, as on all our other tours. On the less strenuous tours, the mornings or afternoons without walks are spent in the usual MRT activities of looking or listening, or, sometimes, resting.

The Association of Independent Tour Operators. Martin Randall Travel is a member of AITO, an association of specialist travel companies most of which are independent and ownermanaged. Admission is selective, and members are subject to a code of practice which prescribes high standards of professionalism and customer care. To contact the Association visit www.aito. co.uk or call 020 8744 9280.

ATOL. If you book your holiday with flights included you are protected by the ATOL scheme because we hold an Air Travel Organiser’s Licence granted by the Civil Aviation Authority.

In the unlikely event of our insolvency, the CAA will ensure that you are not stranded abroad and will arrange to refund any money you have paid to us for an advance booking.

ABTOT. As a member of the Association of Bonded Travel Organisers Trust Limited (ABTOT), protection is provided in the event of our insolvency for nonflight packages commencing in and returning to the UK and other non-flight packages excluding pre-arranged travel to and from your destination.

See our booking conditions (page 200) for more details.

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For all the walking tours participants need to be well used to country walking and to have a good level of fitness. Invariably there are ascents and descents, climbs over stiles and terrain which is uneven or stony.

Only in weather conditions which are so extreme as to be dangerous would a walk be cancelled. The distance of each walk and the nature of the terrain are given in detail in each tour description, and further information and advice is given to participants in advance.

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Tours by country For a list of holidays by date, see pages 203-206 Armenia

Chamber Music Weekends.............................43

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

Politics & Politicians: A Symposium..............43

Austria

The Welsh Marches.......................................192

Connoisseur’s Vienna......................................12

Mozart in Salzburg.........................................13 The Danube Music Festival........13

Salzburg Summer............................................13 Walking the Danube.......................................13 The Schubertiade.............................................14 Operetta in Austria.........................................15

Belgium Flemish Painting.............................................16

Bosnia-Herzegovina

The Narrow Sea...............................................49

Estonia The Baltic States..............................................44

Ethiopia Ethiopia...........................................................46

Finland Finland: Aalto & Others.................................48

Savonlinna Opera............................................49

France The Narrow Sea...............................................49

‘The Gods’, engraving from Highways & Byways in London, 1903.

The Western Balkans.......................................17

Brittany............................................................51

Croatia

Mediaeval Normandy......................................54

Essential India.................................................83

History of Impressionism................................57

The British Raj.................................................87

Ballet: The Rite of Spring................................60

Kingdoms of the Deccan.................................87

Mediaeval Burgundy.......................................62

The Indian Mutiny..........................................87

The Western Balkans.......................................17

Czech Republic Bohemia...........................................................19 Connoisseur’s Prague......................................21

Music in Prague...............................................22

Denmark Music in Scandinavia......................................23

Egypt Ancient Egypt.................................................24

England Walking Hadrian’s Wall.................................26

The Age of Bede..............................................27 Northumbria....................................................28

The Cathedrals of England.............................30

Mediaeval East Anglia....................................32 The Victorian Achievement.............................33

Art & Industry................................................35 London Days...................................................36

Anjou & Poitou...............................................53 French Gothic..................................................56

India Ashoka & Buddhist India...............................85

Le Corbusier....................................................58

Temples of Tamil Nadu...................................87

Alsace...............................................................61

Bengal by River...............................................87

Châteaux of the Loire......................................64

Painted Palaces of Rajasthan...........................87

Roman & Mediaeval Provence.......................65

Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur.....................66

The Rhône Music Festival...........67

Israel Israel & Palestine.............................................88

The Pyrenees..................................................159

Italy

Germany

The Duchy of Milan........................................90

Alsace...............................................................61

Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes............91

The Ring in Berlin...........................................69

The Ring at La Scala.......................................93

Art & Music in Dresden.................................71

Gastronomic Piedmont...................................94

Music in Berlin................................................68

Verdi at La Scala..............................................92

Berlin, Potsdam, Dresden...............................69

Genoa & Turin................................................93

Bauhaus & Expressionism...............................73

Stresa Festival..................................................95

The J. S. Bach Journey.......................75

Friuli-Venezia Giulia.......................................97

Art in Munich.................................................77

Art History of Venice......................................99

Mediaeval Saxony............................................74

The Venetian Hills...........................................96

Organs of Bach’s Time....................................76

Palladian Villas................................................98

King Ludwig II...............................................78

Opera in Venice.............................................100

Royal Residences.............................................40

Greece

Venetian Palaces............................................102

English Music in Yorkshire.......42

Minoan Crete..................................................82

Great Houses of the South West....................37 Great Houses of the North..............................38

The Thomas Tallis Trail...................................39 The Cotswolds.................................................41

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Classical Greece...............................................80

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Verona Opera.................................................101 Parma & Bologna..........................................103

Courts of Northern Italy...............................104

Tours by country

Tours by country continued

Jordan

Palestine.........................................................144

Essential Jordan.............................................137

Latvia

Lisbon Neighbourhoods................................145

The Baltic States..............................................44

Lithuania The Baltic States..............................................44

Malta

The Douro......................................................146

Walking in Madeira......................................148

Romania Monasteries of Moldavia...............................150 Saxon Transylvania........................................151

Malta..............................................................139

Montenegro Bronze torch-holder, Siena, engraving from The Magazine of Art 1887.

Portugal

The Western Balkans.......................................17

Morocco

Russia St Petersburg..................................................153

Scotland Grampian Gardens........................................154

Morocco.........................................................140

Ardgowan......................................................156

Norway

Edinburgh Festival........................................158

Scotland: the Borders....................................157

Parma Verdi Festival......................................105

Munch in Oslo..............................................142

Ravenna & Urbino.........................................107

Music in Scandinavia......................................23

The Western Balkans.......................................17

Oman

Spain

Oman.............................................................143

The Pyrenees..................................................159

Palestine

The Road to Santiago....................................162

Dark Age Brilliance......................................106

Lucca..............................................................108

Piero della Francesca.....................................110 History of Medicine......................................111

Florence.........................................................112

Florentine Palazzi..........................................113

Medici Villas & Gardens.............................. 114

The Bergen Festival.......................................142

Israel & Palestine.............................................88

Gastronomic Catalonia.................................160 Walking to Santiago......................................164

Tintern Abbey, engraving from Picturesque England, c. 1880.

Walking in Tuscany.......................................116

Serbia

Incontri in Terra di Siena.............................. 117

Southern Tuscany..........................................118

The Heart of Italy..........................................119 Art in Le Marche..........................................120

Trasimeno Music Festival..............................121

The Etruscans................................................122 Connoisseur’s Rome......................................123

Caravaggio.....................................................124

Ancient Rome................................................126

Pompeii & Herculaneum..............................127 Naples: Art, Antiquities & Opera.................128

Normans in the South...................................129

Basilicata........................................................131 Martina Franca..............................................131 Sardinia..........................................................132

Sicily...............................................................133

Walking in Sicily...........................................135 Gastronomic Sicily........................................136

Tours by country

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Awards

Castile & León..............................................166 Aragón...........................................................167

AITO (Association of Independent Tour Operators) Travel Company of the Year: 2006, 2008, 2009.

Art in Madrid................................................169

Extremadura..................................................170

Granada & Córdoba......................................172 Gastronomic Andalucía................................175

Travel Advertising Awards, Best Brochure: Gold Award 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2006, Silver Award 2003.

Sweden

Italian State Tourist Office, The Most Intriguing Tour Operator 1998; Best Cultural Tour Operator 2009.

Andalucía.......................................................173

The Observer, Best Travel Brochure 1996.

Seville: a Festival of Spanish Music................................ 176

Music in Scandinavia......................................23

National Geographic, 50 Tours of a Lifetime 2008, 2009.

Switzerland

Travel Marketing Awards, Best Press.

Le Corbusier....................................................58

Consumer Advertisement, Silver Award 2009.

The Lucerne Festival......................................177

Direct Marketing Awards, Best Use of Copy, Silver Award 2009.

Turkey

Barcelona, towers of the Cathedral, engraving, c. 1890.

Istanbul..........................................................178 Ottoman Turkey............................................179 Connoisseur’s Istanbul...................................180 Classical Turkey.............................................180

Newly-launched

U.S.A.

The following tours have all been launched (or in some cases a new departure has been added due to popularity) since the first edition of our 2013 brochure:

Eastern Turkey...............................................182

The Ring in Seattle........................................184

Santa Fe Opera..............................................186

West Coast Architecture...............................188

Art in Texas...................................................189

Uzbekistan Transoxiana....................................................190

Wales The Welsh Marches.......................................192 Opera in Cardiff............................................193

The Schubertiade.....................................14 Operetta in Austria.................................15 The Western Balkans...............................17 Music in Scandinavia..............................23

Sustainable tourism

We adhere to the AITO charter which includes a commitment to raising the level of environmental awareness. We have been awarded three stars under the AITO Sustainable Tourism assessment scheme.

We travel by rail rather than by air from London on some of our European holidays.

We limit group size, one benefit of which is to reduce environmental impact. All our brochures are printed on paper obtained from sustainable sources.

Our sustainable tourism policy is published in full at www.martinrandall.com.

The Age of Bede (new departure)...........27 Northumbria............................................28 Royal Residences.....................................40 Savonlinna Opera....................................49 Ballet: The Rite of Spring........................60 Art & Music in Dresden.........................71 King Ludwig II (new departure).............78 Verdi at La Scala......................................92 The Ring at La Scala...............................93 Verona Opera (new departure)..............101 Naples: Art, Antiquities & Opera.........128 The Lucerne Festival..............................177

Inside front cover: The Gallerie des Glaces, Palace of Versailles, engraving 1855 from The Illustrated London News.

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Eastern Turkey (new departure)............182 Santa Fe Opera......................................186

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This brochure was produced in-house. Most of the text was written originally by Martin Randall and all staff were involved in editing and proofing, as was Julia Macrae. Lecturers and Lisa Freedman also contributed. It was designed principally by Jo Murray with input also from Fiona Urquhart and Martin Randall. Derek Brown (Harvest Media Ltd.) prepared it for our printers. It was printed by Purbrooks, London in November 2012.

Tours by country

Armenia Monasteries & modern-day Yerevan 20–27 June 2013 (mz 614) 8 days • £2,780 Lecturer: Alan Ogden Monasteries and other sacred buildings from as early as the seventh century.

Outstanding mountainous landscape.

Led by travel writer and historian, Alan Ogden.

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

Comfortable hotels and surprisingly good food.

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

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

It was in large part to keep themselves distinct from the two vast empires on either hand that the Armenians adopted the new religion of Christianity in AD 301, developing a new alphabet a hundred years after that.

These two markers of Armenian identity survived domination by Byzantines, Arabs, Mongols, Turks and Russians, as did many spectacular religious buildings, which were built to withstand not just invasions but earthquakes too.

Armenia’s sacred architecture was a greater influence on mediaeval Europe than is commonly assumed, after its round towers and cross-plans were noted by returning crusaders.

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

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

Armenia

Yerevan, mid-18th-century engraving.

place to spend time. In the north of the country are two more UNESCO-listed monasteries, at Sanahin and Haghpat, and detailed thirteenthcentury frescoes.

Meanwhile Yerevanis live, work and socialise in the literal and metaphorical shadow of Ararat, still Armenia’s most emotive symbol despite now being on Turkish land. Like the resurgent Christianity in the monasteries, like the native alphabet, the land itself is not just a reminder of Armenia’s past but a constant and relevant presence for today.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 10.00am from London Heathrow to Yerevan via Paris, where there is a 55 minute-stop, arriving c. 20.00pm. Transfer to the hotel in the heart of the city. Three nights in Yerevan.

Day 2: Yerevan. A leisurely start this morning.

The afternoon begins with a visit to the comprehensive and fascinating State Museum of Armenian History. At the National Art Gallery see collections from Armenia, Russia and Western Europe.

Day 3: Echmiadzin, Yerevan. The seat of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Echmiadzin is also a UNESCO world heritage site. The Holy Lance that pierced Christ’s side is held

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Practicalities Price: £2,780 (deposit £250). This includes: flights (economy class) with Air France: return London–Paris (Airbus A321) and Paris– Yerevan (Airbus A320); accommodation as below; travel by private air-conditioned coach throughout; breakfasts, all lunches and all dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and local guide. Single supplement £280. Price without flights £2,120.

Visas: These are required for all foreign nationals. We obtain the visa for anyone flying with the group (if flying independently it costs c. £6). Passports must be valid for at least six months after the tour ends.

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

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

How strenuous? You will be on your feet for long periods. Many of the sites are reached by steep, uneven steps often without handrails.

The tour is not suitable for anyone who has difficulties with everyday walking and stairclimbing. Some long coach journeys (average distance by coach per day: 64 miles).

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

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

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Saxon Transylvania, 7–15 June (page 151). in its treasury. The vast ruined cathedral at neighbouring Zvartnots is awe-inspiring.

Back in Yerevan, the Museum of the Armenian Genocide is all the more powerful for its simplicity.

Day 4: Amberd, Dzoraget. In the morning, visit the Matenadaran, a repository of 17,000 illuminated manuscripts before driving to Dzoraget via the idyllic ruins of the 11thcentury Amberd Fortress. First of two nights in Dzoraget.

Day 5: Akhtala, Alaverdi. The thirteenthcentury frescoes in Akhtala are strongly influenced by Byzantium. The monasteries at Haghpat and Sanahin, both UNESCOlisted sites, are perhaps the finest examples of Armenian sacred architecture.

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

Day 7: Khor Virap, Noravank, Yerevan. Visit the Khor Virap monastery in the foothills of Mount Ararat, where St Gregory the Illuminator was imprisoned before converting Armenia to Christianity. Noravank, the masterwork of the architect and sculptor Momik, is perhaps the most beautiful of Armenia’s thirteenth-century monasteries.

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

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Lecturers biographies are on page 194.

Armenia

Connoisseur’s Vienna Art, architecture, music & private visits Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 9.30am from London Heathrow to Vienna. An afternoon walk in and around the Hof burg, the Habsburg winter palace, a vast agglomeration from six centuries of building activity. See the incomparable collection of precious regalia and objets d’art in the Treasury, and the church of St Augustine.

Day 2. Drive around the Ringstrasse, the boulevard which encircles the old centre and is the locus classicus of historicist architecture.

The Secession building, built in 1898 as an exhibition hall for avant-garde artists, contains Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze. Visit the Piaristenkirche, a Rococo church. Concert at the Wiener Konzerthaus with the Berlin Philharmonic, Simon Rattle (conductor), Sarah Fox (soprano), Anne Sofie von Otter (mezzo soprano): Mahler, Symphony No.2, ‘Resurrection’ .

Vienna, Am Hof, engraving 1780.

4–10 June 2013 (mz 588) 7 days • £2,870 (includes 3 performances) Lecturer: Dr Jarl Kremeier Art, architecture, music: the main sites as well as lesser-known ones.

Includes a visit to the newly restored Kunstkammer at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, showcasing artworks from five millennia.

Plus several special arrangements for out-ofhours visits or private buildings.

One opera at the Vienna Staatsoper and two orchestral concerts at the Konzerthaus with the Berlin Philharmonic and Vienna Symphony Orchestra.

With this array of music, visits to the chief sights and museums and privileged access to places not normally accessible to the public, this tour will provide an exceptionally rich and rounded cultural experience. Whether or not you have been to the city before, it will present Vienna in a truly memorable way.

Grandiloquent palaces and labyrinthine mediaeval streets; broad boulevards and quiet courtyards; at times embattled on the frontier of Christendom, yet a treasury containing

Austria

some of the greatest of European works of art; an imperial city without an empire: Vienna is a fascinating mix, a quintessentially Central European paradox.

The seat of the Habsburgs, pre-eminent city of the Holy Roman Empire and capital of a vast multinational agglomeration of territories, Vienna is magnificently equipped with buildings which were created by imperial, aristocratic and government patronage. But the history of Vienna is shot through with diversity, difference and dissent, and some of the choicest items we see were created in defiance of mainstream orthodoxy.

A feature of this tour is the number of specially arranged visits to private palaces or institutions which are not generally open to the public or are off the beaten track. Because of the privileged nature of these visits we can only name a few of them here, but they include Baroque palaces, nineteenth century halls, pioneers of modernism, churches and a synagogue.

And then there is the music. As home for Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Mahler and countless other composers, Vienna is pre-eminent in the history of music. We have chosen to include an opera at the Wiener Staatsoper, and two concerts at the Wiener Konzerthaus.

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Day 3. Walk through the Roman and mediaeval core to see a cross-section of architecture including Gothic and Baroque churches and some of Vienna’s most enchanting streetscapes. A tour of the Parliament building, a splendid example of enriched NeoClassicism, and visit a late-19th-century town house on the Ringstrasse. In the afternoon see the magnificently displayed collection of imperial tableware and the glorious library hall by Fischer von Erlach. Visit to and dinner at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, one of the world’s greatest art collections.

Day 4. See three buildings by Otto Wagner, the leading turn-of-the-century architect: the Emperor’s private railway station at Schönbrunn, the architect’s own villa (exterior) and the hospital church ‘Am Steinhof ’, the finest manifestation of Viennese Secessionism.

Visit the Museumsquartier, an art centre in the imperial stables, including the Leopold Collection of Secessionist art. Concert at the Wiener Konzerthaus with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, James Conlon (conductor), Alisa Wellerstein (cello): Dvořák, Cello Concerto in B minor, Op.104; Zemlinski, ‘The Little Mermaid’.

Day 5. Guided tour of the Synagogue (Josef Kornhäusel, 1824), followed by a private visit to a chapel not normally open to the public.

Another special arrangement to see a grand 18th-century hall. The rest of the afternoon is free. Opera at the Wiener Staatsoper: La Cerentola (Rossini).

Day 6. The Jesuit church was spectacularly refurbished c. 1700 by the master of illusionist painting, Andrea Pozzo. Visit the great hall of the Academy of Art and the magnificent Liechtenstein Palace which was built at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries by the richest family in the Habsburg Empire. b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

The Danube Music Festival Dürnstein, steel engraving after Jacob Alt c. 1840.

Day 7. On sloping ground overlooking Vienna lie the palaces and gardens of Schloss Belvedere, one of the greatest Baroque ensembles, housing museums of Austrian art including paintings by Klimt and Schiele. The flight arrives Heathrow at c. 6.30pm.

Because the itinerary is dependent on a number of appointments with private owners, the order and even the content of the tour may vary – at the time of publication, the music tickets have not yet been confirmed.

Practicalities Price: £2,870 (deposit: £300). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled Austrian Airlines flights (Airbus 320), coach travel for the airport transfers and on two other occasions, music tickets for the opera and concerts costing c. £350, accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 2 lunches and 4 dinners, with wine, water and coffee, admission charges for all included visits to museums, etc., all tips for waiters, hotel staff and drivers, all airport and state taxes; services of the lecturer.

Single supplement £280. Price without flights £2,650.

Music tickets: these will be confirmed in December 2012.

Hotel: a 5-star hotel belonging to an international chain, well located on the Ringstrasse. Decor is traditional. The included lunches and dinners are at the hotel and selected restaurants.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking on this tour. Public transport, metro or tram will be used on some occasions. Average distance by coach per day: 6 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

16–23 August 2013 Details available December 2012 Contact us to register your interest Nine concerts linking the music of the AustroHungarian empire to some of the region’s finest palaces, churches and country houses.

Talks by musicologist, Richard Wigmore.

All are exclusive private performances for festival goers.

World-class musicians.

Accommodation on a luxury river cruiser.

This festival combines music and architecture in a singularly beguiling way. The palaces, churches, abbeys, country houses, concert halls and theatres in which the concerts take place are among the most magnificent or delightful

buildings along the Danube. But the value of the juxtaposition goes deeper than visual attraction. The buildings are generally of the same period as the pieces performed in them, and in some places there are specific historical associations between the two. Matching music and place – that is the governing principle of this festival. 2013 will be its twentieth year.

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

The audience is small – no more than 120 – which when taken with the relatively intimate size of most of the venues results in a rare intensity of musical experience. To this exceptional artistic experience is added a further pleasure, the comfort and convenience of a first-class river cruiser which is both hotel and principal means of travel.

Mozart in Salzburg

Salzburg Summer

Walking the Danube

The winter festival

The greatest festival of them all

Six concerts from ‘the Danube Music Festival’

August 2013 Combine with The Danube Music Festival Details available December 2012 Contact us to register your interest

16–22 August 2013 Details available December 2012 Contact us to register your interest

24–30 January 2013 (mz 460) 7 days • £3,220 Lecturer: Richard Wigmore For full details, contact us or visit www.martinrandall.com Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

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Austria

The Schubertiade with hill walking 14–21 June 2013 (mz 606) 8 days • £3,140 (including 9 performances) Lecturer: Richard Wigmore Four Lieder recitals with Werner Güra, Andreas Schmidt, Bernarda Fink and Maximilian Schmitt.

Three chamber concerts including the Minetti and Pavel Haas Quartets.

Two piano recitals with Piotr Anderszweski and Paul Lewis.

Four country walks in the surrounding hills: three to four hours long, led by a guide and programmed in the morning. (Only for those with stamina.)

Led by music critic and Lieder expert, Richard Wigmore.

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

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

But the festival’s success has not stifled a constant desire for change and experiment, as its periodic peregrinations demonstrate. Having started in the village of Hohenems, it migrated a few years later up the valley to the little town

The Voralberg (Feldkirch), detail from a lithograph c. 1850.

of Feldkirch, which in 2001 it abandoned in favour of mountain villages amidst the beautiful scenery of the Bregenzerwald. The hill village setting recently has been further refined by confining all the concerts to Schwarzenberg, described by Herder as the prettiest village in Europe.

Our tour is based in the neighbouring village of Mellau, seven miles away. It is an excellent base for hill walking, and guided walks are an integral part of the June tour.

Always there is plenty of time for relaxation between the concerts and the walks.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 10.00am from London Heathrow to Zurich. Stop at Winterthur to see the Old Master and Impressionist paintings of the Oskar Reinhart Collection, beautifully displayed in the collector’s home in woods outside the city. Drive through Switzerland and into Austria, arriving early-evening at Mellau in the lovely upland landscape of the Bregenzerwald. Introductory lecture, followed by dinner.

Day 2. An experienced local walking guide leads the walk of c. 4 hours through the hills, including a picnic lunch. Afternoon lecture, then drive to Schwarzenberg for dinner before the performance. Recital in the AngelikaKaufmann-Saal (where all the concerts are held) with Werner Güra (tenor) and Christoph Berner (piano): Lieder by Schubert.

Day 3. Morning concert with the Minetti Quartet and Martin Fröst: Mozart, String Quartet in B flat, K458, ‘The Hunt’; Schubert, String Quartet in E flat, D87; Mozart, Clarinet Quintett in A, K581. Lunch in Schwarzenberg followed by a free afternoon. Evening recital with Andreas Schmidt (baritone) and Helmut Deutsch (piano): Schubert, ‘Winterreise’.

Day 4. Morning walk followed by a free afternoon­. Evening lecture and concert with Hanna Weinmeister (violin), Isabel Charisius (viola), Valentin Erben (violoncello), Alois Posch (double bass), Norbert Täubl (clarinet), Radovan Vlatkovic (horn), Milan Turkovic (bassoon): Mozart, Horn Quintet in E flat, K407; Beethoven, Septet in E flat, Op.20.

Day 5. Morning walk. Afternoon lecture and piano recital with Piotr Anderszewski: programme details TBC. Dinner between the two concerts.

Recital with Bernarda Fink (mezzo-soprano), Marcos Fink (bass-baritone) and Anthony Spiri (piano): Lieder by Brahms, Schumann, Schubert, Mahler, Astor Piazzolla, Carlos Guastavino.

Day 6. Morning walk. Afternoon lecture and piano recital with Paul Lewis: Schubert Sonata in

Austria

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b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Operetta in Austria From a Bavarian cartoon of 1910.

C minor, D958; Sonata in A, D959; Sonata in B, D960. Free evening.

Day 7. Free morning. Afternoon lecture and concert with the Pavel Haas Quartet: Schubert, Movement for String Quartet in C minor, D703; Dvořák, String Quartet in F, Op.96, ‘American’; Brahms, String Quartet in A minor, Op. 51/2.

Dinner between the two concerts. Lieder recital with Maximillian Schmidt (tenor) and Gerold Huber (piano): Schubert, Die schöne Müllerin.

Day 8. Drive into Zurich for lunch followed by a visit to the Kunsthaus, Switzerland’s largest art gallery. The gallery houses Swiss and international art from the Middle Ages to the present day, including a notable collection of twelve works by Edward Munch, the largest outside Norway. Fly from Zurich and arrive at London Heathrow c. 6pm.

Practicalities Price: £3,140 (deposit £300); this includes 9 concert tickets costing c. £580; air travel (economy class) on British Airways flights (Airbus 319); private coach throughout; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 picnic, 3 lunches, and 4 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips for restaurant staff, drivers, guides; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and a local walking guide. Single supplement £120. Price without flights £2,990.

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

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

How strenuous? For the walks it is essential to be in good physical condition and to be used to regular country walking which includes going up and down hills. The terrain is often fairly steep and the ground uneven. Average distance by coach per day: 35 miles.

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

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Connoisseur’s Vienna, 4–10 June (page 12) or Brittany, 5–11 June (page 51).

Lecturers biographies are on page 194.

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31 July–4 August 2013 (mz 644) 5 days • £1,980 Lecturer: Dennis Marks Three of the greatest masterpieces of the genre, La belle Hélène by Jacques Offenbach, Der Bettelstudent by Carl Millöcker and Opernball

by Richard Heuberger.

Traditional operetta remains a living art form in the festivals at Baden and Mörbisch.

Stays throughout in the gracious spa town of Baden, location of two of the productions.

Operetta reached its apogee in Vienna in the late nineteenth century, and it remains very much part of the living culture there. Austria’s annual summer celebrations of operetta are rare indeed in the world of music drama festivals in largely eschewing avant-garde productions in favour of tradition and, dare one say, authenticity. That does not preclude wit, energy, brilliant stagecraft and world-class musicianship, for these are in ample supply, and with a little selectivity theatrical and musical experiences of the highest order can be found.

The 2013 season happily gives rise to the possibility of attending three of the greatest operettas on successive evenings at two different festivals – Operettensommer at Baden bei Wien and the lakeside Seefestspiele Mörbisch – while staying throughout at the same hotel. Two of the performances, as it happens, Der Bettelstudent (The Beggar Student)

by Carl Millöcker (1882) and Der Opernball

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(The Opera Ball) by Richard Heuberger (1898), were works that enjoyed such immediate success that in each case the creator was able to give up his conducting career and devote himself to composing.

Both were premièred in Vienna, where light opera had grown out of the frivolity of the Biedermeier era earlier in the nineteenth century. However, Paris was the principle source of true operetta. If Jacques Offenbach, German-born but French by adoption, didn’t quite invent operetta, he both coined the term and created some of its early masterpieces. An Offenbach classic is the third production in the tour: La belle Hélène (1864, here sung in German with the title Die schöne Helena).

A major Viennese contribution to the genre is the inclusion of dance – an innovation by the Waltz King himself, Johann Strauss II. Usually comic, with romance to the fore, plots are clever if improbable, and the music irresistibly voluptuous and rich in melody. Together with glamorous and Ruritanian settings and heart-string-tugging sentimentality, operetta is undeniably escapist and nostalgic.

The tour stays all four nights at Baden bei Wien, a gracious spa town which was once one of the leading resorts of Central Europe.

Itinerary This is a late addition to the brochure: details of the visits will follow before December.

Day 1. Fly at c. 10.00am from London Heathrow to Vienna, where there is lunch and

Austria

Operetta in Austria continued

Flemish Painting From van Eyck to van Dyck Wood engraving after a triptych by Quentin Metsys, from The Flemish School of Painting, 1885.

a visit before continuing to the hotel in Baden.

Day 2. Reached on foot from the hotel through a park and rose garden, Baden is a charming town in which to wander and relax, largely Biedermeier in style (early 19th-century softcore classicism) with galleries and cafés, alleys and squares. Musical associations abound: Mozart and Beethoven were regular visitors.

After a talk and a pre-theatre supper, there is a performance in the 19th-century festival theatre of Der Opernball (The Opera Ball, Richard Heuberger, 1898).

Day 3. Spend a few hours in the Hungarian town of Sopron, a delightful historic town which is now well restored and full of interest.

Drive from here to Mörbisch for dinner and the operetta. Located on the Neusiedlersee, a lake between Austria and Hungary, the festival has since 1957 been staging spectacular productions at an open-air theatre with an enormous stage.

This year it is Der Bettelstudent (The Beggar Student, Carl Millöcker, 1882).

Day 4. Take a tram for the hour’s journey to the heart of Vienna. A special visit is being planned, after which there is some free time before the return to Baden by coach. The final operetta: La belle Hélène (Die schöne Helena, Jacques Offenbach, 1864).

Day 5. There is a visit to a historic building on the way to the airport. Fly from Vienna to London Heathrow, arriving c. 4.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £1,980 (deposit £200). This includes: three first- and one second-category operetta tickets costing c. £180 (Mörbisch tickets are refunded if rain results in less than an hour of performance); air travel (economy class) on scheduled flights with British Airways (Airbus 319 and A320 Jet); travel by comfortable private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, one lunch and four dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters and drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £120. Price without flights £1,740.

Hotel: a lovely 4-star hotel in Baden bei Wien, the core of which is a 16th-century mansion with an arcaded courtyard. Spacious bedrooms are in a modern wing flanked by gardens and a rosarium. Good restaurant, quiet.

How strenuous? A fair amount of walking is unavoidable, from coach parks to theatre seats, and in order to enjoy the places visited. Average distance by coach per day: 67 miles.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

Austria, Belgium

3–7 July 2013 (mz 631) 5 days • £1,580 Lecturer: Richard Williams An unrivalled opportunity to experience the Golden Age of Flemish painting in the beautiful, unspoilt cities in which it was created.

Visits to all the main centres of Flemish art: Antwerp, Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Louvain.

Central base in Ghent, to keep travelling time to a minimum.

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

First-class train travel from London.

Few travellers are aware just how attractive and unspoilt are the ancient cities of Flanders, or how glorious are the paintings of the Flemish school when displayed in their original environment.

Towards the end of the Middle Ages, Ghent, Bruges, Antwerp and Brussels were among the most prosperous and progressive cities in Europe. Though ruled successively by two of the most illustrious European dynasties – the Burgundian dukes of Burgundy and the House of Habsburg – these great cities were virtually independent. Their flourishing cultural life sustained one of the most brilliant episodes in the history of art.

The Golden Age of Flemish painting was inaugurated at the beginning of the fifteenth century by the brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck, whose consummate skill with the new art of oil painting resulted in pictures which have never been surpassed for their jewel-like brilliance and breathtaking naturalism.

The tradition of exquisite workmanship was continued with the same tranquillity of spirit by such masters as Hans Memling in Bruges and with greater emotionalism by Rogier van der Weyden in Brussels and Hugo van der

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Goes in Ghent. Hieronymus Bosch was an individualist who specialised in the depiction of diabolical nastiness. The sixteenth century saw a shift towards mannerist displays of virtuoso skill and spiritual tension, though the outstanding painter of the century was another individualist, Pieter Bruegel.

A magnificent culmination was reached in the seventeenth century with Peter Paul Rubens, the greatest painter of the Baroque age. His works are of an unsurpassed vitality and painted with a breadth and bravura which exploited to the utmost the potential of the technique of oil painting.

Itinerary Day 1: Leuven, Ghent. Depart at c. 11.00am from London St Pancras by Eurostar to Brussels. Drive to the university city of Louvain, In St Peter, in the chapel for which it was painted, is the marvellous Institution of the Sacrament by Dirch Bouts. Walk around the old centre, including the splendid Gothic town hall and peaceful Béguinage (religious community). Drive to Ghent for dinner. Stay in Ghent for all four nights.

Day 2: Ghent, Bruges. Visit the great altarpiece in the cathedral of Ghent, the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb by Hubert and Jan van Eyck, one of the greatest masterpieces of the Flemish School. Walk around the attractive historic centre, passing canals, guild halls and the castle. In Bruges see the Gothic Church of Our Lady, housing tombs of the Valois dukes and Michelangelo’s marble Madonna and Child and the Groeninge Museum which has a wonderful collection of paintings by van Eyck and other Bruges painters.

Day 3: Antwerp. The great port on the Scheldt has an abundance of historic buildings in the old centre, and possesses museums and b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

The Western Balkans Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro & Bosnia-Herzegovina churches of the highest interest. Three of Rubens’s most powerful paintings are in the vast Gothic cathedral. The Royal Museum of Fine Arts is closed for renovation until 2017.

However, highlights of its impressive collection are on display in the cathedral, and in the recently opened Museum van der Stroom, a striking new structure of red stone and curved glass panels. See also the house and studio Rubens built for himself and the Mayer van der Bergh Museum which has a small but outstanding collection including works

by Bruegel.

Day 4: Bruges. With its extensive and highly picturesque streetscape constructed of melancholy dark red brick, Bruges is the loveliest of Netherlandish cities. The mediaeval Hospital of St John is 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.

Return to Ghent in time to see the Bosch paintings at the Fine Arts Museum.

Day 5: Brussels. Rising to prominence later than the other cities and thriving in the 19th and 20th centuries, Brussels nevertheless retains splendid palaces and guildhouses around the Grand Place. The Fine Arts Museum is one of the best in Europe, and presents the most comprehensive of all collections of Netherlandish painting as well as international works (the 19th- and 20thcentury collections are currently closed for renovation but are due to re-open in November 2012). Take the Eurostar from Brussels to London St Pancras, arriving c. 6.00pm.

23 September– 6 October 2013 (ma 699) 14 days • £3,960 Lecturer: David Gowan A ground-breaking journey through one of the most politically complex and fissiparous yet fundamentally similar regions of Europe.

Led by a former British ambassador in Belgrade, David Gowan.

Rural villages, little-visited towns, imposing capitals; magnificent mountainous landscapes; little tourism.

Exquisite Byzantine wall paintings in the fortress-like monasteries of Southern Serbia, Ottoman mosques, Art Nouveau architecture.

This journey takes us to borderlands where, for much of their history, the South Slavs have been divided by competing empires and cultures. In Serbia, the Nemjanid dynasty flourished from the twelfth until the fourteenth centuries and built monasteries that combined Byzantine and Romanesque influences. But

from the defeat of Prince Lazar in 1389 until the mid-nineteenth century, the Ottoman Turks ruled Serbia and Bosnia. Meanwhile, the Austro-Hungarian Empire reached south into Croatia and Venice dominated the cities of the Adriatic coast.

The modern politics and structure of the Western Balkans were defined by the Congress of Berlin in 1878; the Treaty of Versailles, which created the first Yugoslavia; the Second World War, which ravaged the region and gave birth to Tito’s Yugoslavia; and, most recently, the maelstrom of the 1990s and the emergence of the present seven independent states.

What are the Western Balkans like now?

There has been a major change in the past decade. The capitals and main cities that we shall visit are all lively and welcoming, but each retains a distinct character. Croatia is prosperous and expects to join the EU in 2013.

Its historic links to Vienna and Budapest can be seen clearly in Zagreb and Osijek.

Our other destinations are more complex and multi-layered. Belgrade is historically the extension of a strategic Ottoman citadel Mostar, Bosnia, from Balkan Sketches by Lester G. Hornby, 1926.

Practicalities Price: £1,580 (deposit £200). This includes: rail travel (1st class, standard premier) on Eurostar; private coach travel; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee; light meals and drinks on the Eurostar; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer.

Single supplement £210. Price without rail travel by Eurostar £1,420.

Hotel: all nights are spent in Ghent in a comfortable 4-star hotel, excellently located beside the town hall. Rooms are well-equipped and all have double beds. Included dinners are in good restaurants.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of standing in museums and walking on this tour, often on cobbled or roughly paved streets. Average distance by coach per day: 63 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 19 participants.

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Cr oatia

The Western Balkans continued

Market stall in Sarajevo, from Balkan Sketches by Lester G. Hornby, 1926.

overlooking the Danube and Sava. It has fine and varied architecture (including some from the Art Nouveau period) and a cosmopolitan feel. Sarajevo combines lovely mosques, Orthodox churches, squares and kafanas in a mountainous setting. Its troubled history is not far below the surface, but this is gradually being overcome.

The smaller Bosnian towns on our route (Višegrad, Mostar and Trebinje) have great charm. Kotor is a small fortified Venetian port city with a Romanesque cathedral on the shore of a fjord. Visits to the old capital, Cetinje, and the coast will offer insights into Montenegro’s history and strongly independent national character.

One particular feature of this journey is that it takes in remote and functioning Serbian Orthodox monasteries that are of exceptional architectural and artistic interest, and include unesco World Heritage sites.

This tour is emphatically a journey, with some long days and much driving through hilly terrain. The late-summer timing will show the magnificent countryside at its best.

Itinerary Day 1: Zagreb. Fly at c. 10.00am from London Gatwick to Zagreb. First of three nights in Zagreb (Croatia).

Day 2: Zagreb. The westernmost place on this tour, the capital of Croatia ranks with the loveliest cities of Central Europe. The MeštroviĆ Atelier displaying the works of the renowned Croatian sculptor, the Zagreb City Museum housed in the 17th-century convent of St Clare, the Gothic Cathedral of the Assumption. Walk to the upper town, the Kaptol district, via the bustling market. After lunch the Modern Gallery and Museum of Arts and Crafts. Overnight Zagreb.

Cr oatia

Day 3: Zagreb. The morning is free for exploring the city before an afternoon excursion to Samobor, a small town characterised by beautiful Austro-Hungarian architecture and wine cellars. Final night in Zagreb.

Day 4: Zagreb, Virovitica, Osijek. Drive through Croatia’s rustic north-eastern region of Slavonia via Virovitica to Osijek. Located on the River Drava amid gently undulating countryside, Osijek is the administrative centre of Slavonia. There is a remarkably unspoilt 18th-century quarter built by the Austrians as their military and administrative headquarters when they pushed back the Turks, with cobbled alleys and fortress walls. Overnight Osijek (Croatia).

Day 5: Ilok, Novi Sad. Pass through Vukovar, the Croatian town worst damaged by the 1991 war. Stop at Ilok, a picturesque fortified settlement on a bluff high above the Danube.

Cross the river into Serbia and spend the afternoon in Novi Sad. This has a picturesque core with buildings from the 18th century.

Onwards and, across the Danube, the massive fortress of Petrovaradin which was pivotal in Prince Eugene’s wars with the Turks. First of two nights in Belgrade (Serbia).

Day 6: Belgrade. With its broad avenues and imposing public buildings, Belgrade is unmistakably a capital and instantly recognisable as a Balkan one. After Diocletian divided the Roman Empire in AD 295 it became the westernmost stronghold of the eastern portion. Its kernel is a citadel on a hill above the meeting of the Danube and Sava rivers which holds the record for the number of times it has changed hands between hostile powers. The bulk of its architecture dates from the late 19th century onwards. Liveliness is provided by the café culture typical of the Balkans. Final night in Belgrade.

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Day 7: Belgrade, Manasija. Free morning in Belgrade. Then begin two days visiting what Serbia does best, mediaeval Orthodox monasteries. Tucked in a wooded valley, Manasija is ringed by surely the highest and stoutest walls of any monastery anywhere, built in the early 15th century in expectation of the inevitable Turkish assault. Frescoes of the highest quality survive well. Overnight Kraljevo (Serbia).

Day 8: Studenica, Sopocani. This is a long day, much of it spent driving through spectacular mountain scenery. In the morning visit two more superb mediaeval monasteries, Studenica and Sopocani. Both are located in remote and beautiful valleys, both have amongst the finest 13th-and 14th-century Byzantine frescoes to survive anywhere. Cross from Serbia to BosniaHerzegovina to spend the first of two nights in its capital, Sarajevo. Arrival is estimated to be 8.00–9.00pm.

Day 9: Sarajevo. Famously squeezed by high tree-clad hills at the head of a river valley, Sarajevo was founded in the 15th century by the Ottoman Turks in the wake of their steady conquest of the Balkan Peninsula. The various assorted mosques, churches and synagogues highlight the pluralist nature of the city. It is possible to stand where Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand; in the adjacent museum it is strangely moving to see the trousers of the man who started the First World War. Final night in Sarajevo.

Day 10: Mostar. Driving over the mountains that encircle Sarajevo and following the Neretva river, we arrive in Mostar in the late morning. A thriving trading town since Herzegovina came under Ottoman rule in 1482, this is Bosnia-Herzegovina’s most picturesque town, an open-air museum with narrow cobbled streets and original Ottoman architecture. At its heart is the Old Bridge, shelled until it collapsed in 1993 and rebuilt in 2004. Overnight Mostar (Bosnia-Herzegovina).

Day 11: Stolac, Trebinje, Kotor. This is wine country, and after a stop in the quiet Ottoman town of Stolac lunch is at a winery in Trebinje, the southernmost city of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Walk around the historic old town, including the Ottoman Arslanagic Bridge and water mills. In the afternoon cross from Bosnia and Herzegovina to Montenegro and descend into the Bay of Kotor. First of three nights in Kotor (Montenegro).

Day 12: Kotor, Perast. Kotor nestles at the foot of high hills, a harbour on a sheltered fjord off the Adriatic. This diminutive city retains its fearsome ramparts, much unspoilt streetscape and an astonishing Romanesque b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Bohemia cathedral incorporating Roman columns. In the later afternoon drive around the fjord to Perast, perched between towering mountains and the water, with large mansions, mediaeval to Baroque. A short boat ride allows a visit to an island church, Our Lady of the Rock, before dining on the water’s edge. Overnight Kotor.

2–9 September 2013 (ma 673) 8 days • £2,630 Lecturer: Michael Ivory A selection of the finest places with the most densely packed heritage in Central Europe.

Day 13: Cetinje, Rijeka Crnojevica, Budvar.

Embark on one of the most exciting mountain roads in Europe, a precipitous climb to 1,000 metres (not recommended for vertigo sufferers) and the meagre town of Cetinje which until 1916 was the capital of Montenegro. Visit the Palace of King Nicholas and the Art Museum.

Lunch beside the triple-arched stone bridge in Rijeka Crnojevica before visiting the historic old town of Budvar on Montenegro’s Adriatic coast. Final night in Kotor.

Beautiful historic town centres, architecture from Gothic to Art Nouveau, distinctive Bohemian schools of painting and sculpture.

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

Draw two lines across a map of Europe, from Inverness to Istanbul and from Málaga to Moscow: the place where they cross is Bohemia. The heart of Europe thus crudely determined turns out to be a region whose

Practicalities Price: £3,960 (deposit £350). This includes: flights (economy class) with Croatia Airlines and British Airways, London–Zagreb (Airbus A319) and Dubrovnik–London (Boeing 737400); hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 8 lunches, 9 dinners, with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and a local guide. Single supplement £380. Price without flights £3,740.

The lecturer, Michael Ivory is a landscape architect and writer specialising in the Czech Republic.

Passes through enchanting, rolling countryside.

Can be combined with Connoisseur’s Prague (10–16 September 2013, see page 21).

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

political, social and cultural developments.

(In one of these expansionist moments, over three hundred years before A Winter’s Tale, it acquired a coast.) But Fate seems to have decreed that each rise was soon to be followed by a fall. The most recent was a double fall – dismemberment and desecration by the Nazis was followed by a forty-year incarceration behind the Iron Curtain.

Paradoxically, Communist rule helped to preserve a wonderful architectural patrimony, the most abundant in Central Europe.

Ideologically inspired contempt for and neglect of its heritage was constrained by lack of means to modernise, rebuild or demolish (thanks to a baleful economic model), a mixture that acted like a mildly corrosive aspic: there was deterioration but little destruction. But since the Velvet Revolution of 1989, a surge of restoration and rehabilitation has transformed both the architectural set pieces and the humbler buildings. The built environment and the art of Bohemia have never looked better.

There are towns with streets and squares

Hotels. Zagreb (3 nights): a grand hotel built in 1925 for the purpose of accommodating passengers on the Orient Express, within walking distance of the city centre. Osijek (1 night): a modern and comfortable high-rise hotel on the bank of the river Drava. Belgrade (2 nights): a well located, comfortable hotel built in 1926 with a great deal of character, recently renovated. Kraljevo (1 night): simple but adequate and with welcoming service, the only acceptable hotel in a region with little tourism. Sarajevo (2 nights): a centrally located 5-star hotel, the best in the city, built in the late 19th century but comprehensively renovated.

Mostar (1 night): a modern business hotel within walking distance of the historic centre.

Kotor (3 nights): located within the old city walls, this hotel provides an excellent base from which to explore.

How strenuous? There is a lot of walking in the city centres, some of it on uneven ground and up and down steep flights of steps. Though the average distance by coach per day is only 65 miles, many roads are slow and mountainous and some travelling days are long. Frequent border crossings may entail delays at check points. There are 6 hotel changes.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

Karlštejn, mid-19th-century steel engraving.

exact whereabouts and current political description may challenge not a few of you, and which is synonymous with a decorously dissolute lifestyle.

Yet there were times when Bohemia was a significant European power, enjoyed a thriving economy and marched in the vanguard of

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with façades from every century from the fifteenth to the early twentieth; a remarkable variety of castles and country houses, most retaining fine furnishings and pictures; magnificent churches and abbeys, mediaeval and Baroque; distinctive works of art in excellent galleries. And the landscape is

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Bohemia continued

enchanting, mostly gently hilly, sometimes rugged, much of it wooded interspersed with fertile fields of pasture or arable, large tracts surprisingly empty. The River Vltava is a recurring feature, cutting a curvaceous course from south to north, and so are the many small lakes, most formed in the Middle Ages for the cultivation of fish.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 10.20am from London Heathrow to Prague. Drive to a country house hotel near Liblice where there is time to settle in and for an introductory talk before dinner.

The next three nights are spent here.

Day 2: Kutná Hora, Kačina. In the Middle Ages, the silver mines at Kutná Hora made the city wealthy. Now a small provincial town of great charm, it possesses a wonderful cathedral, perhaps the finest Gothic building in Central Europe, the creation sequentially of Bohemia’s two finest mediaeval architects. Set in a landscaped park, the country house at Kačina is a marvellous classical design of the early 19th century with a circular library, theatre, and a sequence of fine rooms. Overnight Liblice.

Day 3: Nelahozeves, Troja. Nelahozeves is a magnificent house of the mid-16th century, externally retaining the aspect of a fortress but internally embodying Italianate Renaissance elegance. Restituted to the Lobkowicz family, the furnishings and works of art are excellent.

Dvořák’s birthplace museum is in the village.

Built as a riverside retreat, Villa Troja is a fine 17th-century Italianate mansion with painted hall and delightful formal French garden.

Overnight Liblice.

Day 4: Karlštejn, Orlik, Zvikov. Drive to South Bohemia via three castles. Karlštejn was built by Emperor Charles IV, whose reign (1346–78) saw Bohemia reach its apogee. A chapel embedded in the impregnable keep, with its walls of semi-precious stones, gilded vault and 130 panel paintings is the most opulent surviving mediaeval interior. Above the confluence of two gorges, Zvikov has a unique two-storey, 13th-century arcaded courtyard.

Orlik Castle was domesticated in postmediaeval times and has a fine collection of French empire furniture. First of three nights in Hluboká nad Vltavou.

Day 5: Hluboká, Ceský Krumlov.

Summer home of the Schwarzenbergs, dominant dynasty of South Bohemia, the Gothic Revival mansion of Hluboká is sumptuously furnished. The adjacent state art collection has good mediaeval and 20thcentury Czech works. Clustered around a bend in the upper reaches of the Vltava, Ceský

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Krumlov is a highly picturesque little town.

The hilltop castle was largely rebuilt in the 16th and 18th centuries; among its treasures are a hall painted with masked revellers, an excellently preserved theatre and a formal garden. Tickets may be available for a performance of an opera in the Baroque theatre. Please enquire.

Overnight Hluboká.

Day 6: Jindřichuv Hradec, Třebon, Zlatá Koruna. Jindřichuv Hradec is a pretty little town whose extensive aristocratic residence is notable for its Renaissance parts, in particular a beautiful rotunda. At the heart of a district of lakes formed in the Middle Ages to cultivate fish, Třebon is another delightful little town, still partly walled. Zlatá Koruna is a Cistercian monastery with a fine 13th-century chapter house and Baroque halls. Overnight Hluboká.

Day 7: Kratochvile, Plzeň, Kladruby. Secluded within a walled garden amid particularly lovely countryside, Kratochvile is the finest Renaissance villa in the country. Continue to West Bohemia. The centre of the city of Plzeň adheres to its 13th-century grid plan; Gothic cathedral, the world’s third largest synagogue (1880s), good art gallery and varied street frontages. The Baroque-Gothic monastery church at Kladruby (1720s) is a masterpiece by Bohemia’s most original architect, Giovanni Santini. Overnight Mariánské Lázny.

Day 8: Mariánské Lázny (Marienbad).

For most of the 19th century and into the 20th, Marienbad was one of Europe’s most fashionable spas, with patronage from monarchs (Edward VII) to mavericks (Marx, Chopin, Wagner). White, yellow and ochre, from serene classicism to riotous ‘Renaissance’, the hotels and spas gather around a lovely landscaped park. Fly from Prague Airport, arriving Heathrow c. 5.00pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,630 (deposit: £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (Airbus 320); travel by private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, six dinners and three lunches with wine, water and coffee; admission charges for all museums and places visited; all tips for waiters, drivers and guides; all airport and state taxes; the services of the lecturer and local guide. Single supplement £110. Price without flights £2,460.

Hotels. Near Liblice, 40 km north of Prague (3 nights): a recently opened 4-star hotel and conference centre converted from an 18th-cent. country house, charming and well run. In Hluboká nad Vltavou (3 nights): a 4-star hotel converted from an auxiliary building belonging

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to the neighbouring mansion, lavishly and characterfully decorated. In Mariánské Lazny (1 night): a modern hotel in the centre of town, and though adequately comfortable this may disappoint after the other two (few hotels here take bookings for fewer than 7 nights).

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

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Combining Bohemia with Connoisseur’s Prague 9th September. At the end of Bohemia, the coach continues to Prague with anyone who is combining the tour with Connoisseur’s Prague, which begins tomorrow. The rest of the day is free. Overnight Prague.

10th September. Morning walking tour of Prague Castle and the cathedral with a local guide. Connoisseur’s Prague begins at c.3.45pm at the hotel.

Practicalities Price for combining the two tours. You pay the price of Bohemia with flights (£2,630) and the price of Connoisseur’s Prague without flights (£2,370), unless of course you are arranging your own flights. To both these figures you need to add single supplements if you are booking a double room for sole occupancy.

Price of the additional night in Prague. We have arranged a special rate at the hotel of £110 per person sharing a room or £140 for a double room for sole occupancy, including breakfast.

This also includes the walking tour on the morning of 10th September.

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

Lecturers biographies are on page 194. b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Connoisseur’s Prague Art, architecture & design, with privileged access Prague, etching by J.C. Vondrous 1924.

10–16 September 2013 (ma 674) 7 days • £2,540 Lecturer: Michael Ivory Includes inaccessible and hidden glories as well as the main sights of this endlessly fascinating and beautiful city.

The lecturer, Michael Ivory is a landscape architect and writer specialising in the Czech Republic.

Special arrangements and private visits are major features.

Museums and galleries have been transformed in recent years, and new ones added.

Particular focus on art and architecture around the turn of the 19th century. Mucha’s ‘Slav Epic’ will be on display in Prague for the first time for 70 years.

Can be combined with Bohemia (2–9 September 2013, see previous two pages).

This is an experience of Prague like no other.

The capital of Bohemia needs no introduction as the most beautiful city in Central Europe, with plenty to delight the cultural traveller for a week or more. Yet many a façade screens halls and rooms and works of art of the highest interest which can scarcely ever be seen except by insiders. Other fine places are open to visitors but hard to get to. Gaining access to the inaccessible is a major strand of this tour.

Pursuing the private and straying off the beaten track will not be at the expense of the well-known sights, among which are some of the most fascinating buildings and artworks.

But here participants are enabled to focus on the essentials and as far as possible to visit when crowds have subsided.

Prague enjoys an unequalled density of great architecture, from Romanesque to modern, but it is the fabric of the city as a whole rather than individual masterpieces which make it so special. The city has the advantage of a splendid site, a crescent of hills rising from one side of a majestic bend in the River Vltava with gently inclined terrain on the other bank. A carapace of red roofs, green domes and gilded spires spreads across the slopes and levels, sheltering marvellously unspoilt streets and alleys and magically picturesque squares.

Though the whole gamut of Czech art and architecture is viewed, the tour has an emphasis on the period from the 1870s to the 1920s. The spirit of national revival and the achievement of independence (in 1918) inspired a ferment of creativity among artists, writers and composers.

A bewildering variety of styles drew on earlier Bohemian traditions, led Art Nouveau into highly innovatory directions and pioneered Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

some radical and unique features at the dawn of modernism.

Another high point in Prague’s history was the fourteenth century, when Kings of Bohemia were also Holy Roman Emperors and the city became one of the largest in the western world. The Gothic cathedral rising from within the precincts of the hilltop Royal Castle is one of the many monuments of that golden age, and the exquisite panel paintings from this era, now excellently displayed in the Convent of St Agnes, are among the chief glories of the city.

Subordination within the Habsburg Empire from the sixteenth century curtailed Bohemia’s power but not its wealth or architectural achievements: some of the finest Renaissance buildings in Central Europe arose here. In the eighteenth century, some of the richest landowners of the Baroque age built palaces here.

In the city where Mozart had his most enthusiastic audiences and where Smetana and Dvořák reached fulfilment, there is still a

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rich musical life in a range of beautiful historic opera houses and concert halls. There will be the opportunity to attend performances.

The itinerary given below does not list by any means all that you see. Nor does it indicate all the slots for free time, which is necessarily a feature of a tour of such richness and variety.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly from London to Prague at c.

10.30am. After settling into the hotel, there is a first exploration of the ancient core of the city on the right bank of the Vltava. A dense maze of dazzlingly picturesque streets and alleys converges on Old Town Square, surely the prettiest urban space in Europe, with shimmeringly beautiful façades – mediaeval, Renaissance, Baroque and Art Nouveau. Then a special visit to the Obecni dům (‘Municipal House’) to see the glorious suite of assembly rooms created 1904–12, a unique and very Czech mélange of murals and ornament.

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Connoisseur’s Prague continued

the formidable bulk of the Černín Palace and the delightful façade of the Loreto Church, for some free time at the Castle. There is an excellent museum of Czech 19th-cent. art, the Lobkowicz Palace with Canaletto’s paintings of London and the recently installed Treasury of St Vitus. The flight returns to London Heathrow at c. 5.00pm.

Practicalities

The Wallenstein Palace, steel engraving c. 1850.

Day 2. Two very different buildings continue the tour of the Old Town: the Gothic Tyn church, at the heart not only of Prague but also of Czech history, and, by very special arrangement, the superb Art Deco reception rooms of the Mayor’s Residence. There follows the 13th-century Convent of St Agnes, where one of the world’s greatest collections of mediaeval painting is brilliantly installed.

A walk in and around Wenceslas Square, threading through a succession of arcades, takes in some outstanding turn-of-thecentury architecture and decoration and early modernist masterpieces.

Day 3. Drive up to Prague Castle for a first visit to this extensive and fascinating hilltop citadel, residence of Dukes and Kings of Bohemia from the 10th century and now of the President.

The Old Royal Palace rises from Romanesque through Gothic to Renaissance, the chief glory being the largest stone hall in Europe and its extraordinary vaulting. There follows privileged access to a wonderful sequence of halls not open to the public, dating from the 1570s to the 1930s (state occasions permitting). Walk through a sequence of delightful gardens on the south slope down to the Lesser Town.

Day 4. Begin with the Moorish style Jubilee Synagogue of 1908 and the rare Rondo-Cubist Legion’s Bank of the 1920s. The Veletržni (Trade Fair) Palace of 1928 now houses fascinating Czech art of the 19th and 20th cents., a remarkable holding of modern French art and, from 2012, Alphons Mucha’s 20 vast canvases of his ‘Slav Epic’, which ranks as the concluding episode in the 400-year European tradition of history painting. Return to the Castle District to see the delicately arcaded

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Belvedere in the Royal Gardens, the finest Renaissance building in Prague, and the cathedral of St Vitus, a pioneering monument of High Gothic, richly embellished with chapels, tombs, altarpieces and stained glass.

Day 5. The Klementinum is a vast Jesuit complex with library halls and chapels. See also in the Old Town the church of St James, a Gothic carcass encrusted with Baroque finery after a fire in 1689. Walk across 14th-century Charles Bridge, the greatest such structure in Europe, wonderfully adorned with sculptures.

In the Lesser Town visit the infrequently opened Wallenstein Palace, a rare example of a 1630s residence (now the Senate), and St Nicholas, one of the finest of Baroque churches in Central Europe. Free afternoon.

Day 6. Sunday morning traffic enables efficient mopping up by coach of treasures south of the centre, among them St John Nepomuk ‘on the Rock’, a little Baroque masterpiece (rarely accessible), the bizarre phenomenon of Cubist houses and the fortress of Vysehrad, rising high above the river and enclosing a cemetery with the graves of many great Czechs. There is a special tour of the National Theatre (1869–83) to which all the leading Czech artists of the time contributed, and a quick visit to the Prague Museum to see the extraordinarily detailed model of the city made in the 1830s.

A riverside country retreat, Villa Troja is a 17th-cent. Italianate mansion with a French formal garden.

Day 7. Strahov Monastery has commanding views over Prague and two magnificent library halls, which by special arrangement we enter. Then walk down the hill, passing

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Price: £2,540 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (aircraft: Airbus Industrie 320); private coach for airport transfers and some excursions; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts and four dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions to museums, etc.; all tips for restaurant staff, drivers, guides; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer and Czech guide-interpreter. Single supplement £310 (double room for sole occupancy). Price without flights £2,370.

Hotel. Very well located in the Old Town close to Obecní dům, this characterful hotel built in 1904 retains most of its original Art Nouveau decor. Recently refurbished and upgraded, it is given a 5-star rating though elsewhere in Europe it is unlikely it would be rated more than 4-star. Good restaurant, café, small fitness centre.

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

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

Small group: this tour will operate with between 10 and 18 participants.

Music in Prague April 2013 Details available in December 2012 Contact us to register your interest

b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Music in Scandinavia Tannhäuser in Copenhagen, Dudamel in Gothenburg, Salome in Oslo 27 May–3 June 2013 (mz 585) 8 days • £3,240 Lecturer: Richard Stokes Three world-class performances in three Scandinavian cities, with all internal travel by rail.

Begin with Tannhäuser at the extraordinary opera house in Copenhagen and end with Salome in Snøhetta’s equally admired waterfront construction in Oslo.

Between the two, Gustavo Dudamel conducts Lisa Batiasvhili and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra.

The tour is led by musicologist Richard Stokes, with city walks accompanied by local guides, and in Oslo by Munch expert, Frank Høifødt.

Scandinavia has long played a distinguished role in the history of music. From Grieg to Sibelius, from Jenny Lind, the ‘Swedish nightingale’, to Birgit Nilsson, the great Wagnerian soprano, these sparsely populated lands have produced some of the most outstanding talents of the classical tradition.

Today, Norway, Denmark and Sweden have intensified their commitment to this heritage and increasingly offer world-class standards of music, as well as some of the most exciting new opera houses created in recent years.

This tour allows us both to experience Scandinavia’s musical excellence and explore some of northern Europe’s most beautiful cities: Copenhagen, an exciting hub of contemporary culture and design; Norway’s mediaeval capital, Oslo; and Gothenburg, on the west coast of Sweden, a delightful university town built along the canals that helped forge its wealth.

Visits to concerts and operas are accompanied by guided tours and art galleries in each city. In Copenhagen, take in the old inner city, with its Baroque palaces, and the elegant district of Frederiksstaden, one of the finest rococo complexes in Europe, with its impressive Amalienborg Palace and Marble Church. The opera is in Copenhagen’s dazzling new opera house, the best equipped and most lavishly funded in the world.

Oslo, where Grieg finished his famous piano concerto, was also the home of Edvard Munch, Norway’s greatest painter. Here we visit the National Gallery and explore the key historic buildings of this thriving modern metropolis.

But Oslo’s twenty-first-century masterpiece is undoubtedly its recently completed marbleand-glass opera house. Designed by Norwegian firm Snøhetta, this extraordinary building – one of the most determinedly different buildings of its type in the world – is a powerful expression of the country’s commitment to both Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

architecture and music.

Halfway between Oslo and Copenhagen is Gothenburg, Sweden’s second city. The birthplace of Kurt Atterberg (as well as of car manufacturers Volvo), much of the city was built in the eighteenth century, during the period when the East India Company made it an important trading port. Its imposing stone houses erected around its many charming canals give the city the impression of a Scandinavian Amsterdam. Here, however, the star attraction is the chance to see the brilliant young Brazilian conductor, Gustavo Dudamel, conduct the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra.

Itinerary Day 1: London to Copenhagen. Fly at c. 2.00pm from London Heathrow to Copenhagen. There is time to settle into the hotel before dinner. First of two nights in Copenhagen.

Day 2: Copenhagen. Morning lecture on this evening’s opera. The Hirschsprungske Collection is perhaps the finest assembly of 19th-century Danish painting and retains its early 20th-century hang. Ordrupgaard Museum has French Impressionists and Danish art in a 19th-century mansion and a bold extension by Zaha Hadid, surrounded by woodland and gardens. Evening opera: Tannhäuser (Wagner). Overnight Copenhagen.

Day 3: Copenhagen to Gothenburg. A walk along the waterfront and through Frederiksstaden, an 18th-century development, unfurls the post-mediaeval history of the city.

Pass the 1750s palaces of the Amalienborg, the finest such group outside France, the English church, Gefion Fountain, the Little Mermaid, the bastions of the Kastellet and (across the water) the amazing new opera house. Travel to Gothenburg by train (total duration c. 3 hours 30 minutes). First of two nights in Gothenburg.

Day 4: Gothenburg. Morning lecture on tonight’s performance. A guided tour of Gothenburg’s old town followed by the Neoclassical cathedral and the Konstmuseum, with an excellent collection of works by some of Scandinavia’s best-known artists. Evening concert at the Gothenburg Concert Hall with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. Gustavo Dudamel (conductor), Lisa Batiasvhili (violin).

Hillborg, Cold Heat; Prokofiev, Violin Concerto No.1; Dvořák, Symphony No.9 ‘From The New World’. Overnight Gothenburg.

Day 5: Gothenburg to Oslo. Some free time before travelling by train from Gothenburg to Oslo (1 change; total duration c. 4 hours thirty minutes). Arrive at the hotel with time to settle in before dinner. First of three nights in Oslo.

Day 6: Oslo. The introductory walk is led

by Oslo resident and art historian, Dr Frank Høifødt. From the National Theatre pass

Copenhagen, steel engraving c. 1840 by S. Davenport.

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Denmark

Music in Scandinavia continued

Ancient Egypt From Cairo to Abu Simbel

the Royal Palace, University, Parliament and City Hall, and end at Renzo Piano’s recently opened contemporary art museum in the new waterfront developments (visit in your own time). In the afternoon, a tour of Snøhetta’s glacial opera house which has rapidly become one of the social hubs of the city.

Overnight Oslo.

Day 7: Oslo. Morning lecture on this evening’s opera. The rest of the morning is spent at the National Gallery which is hosting a major Munch retrospective. Works on show cover the earlier years including versions of The Sick Child and The Scream. The afternoon is free, perhaps to see part two of the Munch exhibition at the Munch Museum or to visit the Ibsen Museum Evening Opera: Salome (Richard Strauss).

Overnight Oslo.

Day 8: Oslo. Visit the extraordinary Viking Ship Museum in Bygdøy, with three ninth-century ships in an excellent state of preservation. Continue to the airport for the flight to London. Arrive Heathrow c. 4.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £3,240 (deposit £300). This includes: air travel (economy class) with SAS (Airbus Industrie A319 and Boeing 737); rail travel from Copenhagen to Gothenburg and Gothenburg to Oslo; good music tickets for three performances; private coach travel; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 6 dinners with a glass or two of wine, water and coffee; admission to sites and museums; all tips for waiters, drivers and guides; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £340 (double room for single use). Price without flights £3,020.

Hotel. In Copenhagen (2 nights): a traditional hotel in the Nyhavn district, close to some of the museums and the Amalienborg Palace. Rooms are small but comfortable. In Gothenburg (2 nights): a modern, 4-star hotel centrally located on the city’s main boulevard.

In Oslo (3 nights): A 5-star hotel with grand public rooms; bedrooms have a more modest décor. Well located for the National Gallery and other museums and sites.

How strenuous? This involves a lot of walking and standing around in museums and galleries.

Participants need to be able to lift their luggage on and off the trains. Average distance by coach per day: 8 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Denmark, Egypt

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

7–18 October 2013 (ma 743) 12 days • £3,840 Lecturer: Dr Angus Graham A comprehensive introduction to Pharaonic Egypt visiting the principal sites from Giza to Abu Simbel.

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

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

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

Egypt has fascinated European travellers from the time of Herodotus, who wrote the first surviving account of the ancient land. The sheer antiquity and breadth of Egyptian civilization cannot but reduce the visitor to awe, whether it be Napoleon with his famous exhortation to his troops in front of the Pyramids that forty centuries looked down upon them, or the more humble modern traveller exploring the tombs in the Valley of the Kings.

Nearly two thousand years separate King Menes (Narmer), the unifier of Upper and Lower Egypt around 3100 bc, and Rameses II, the builder of Abu Simbel, and it was yet another thousand years before Egypt became a province of Rome.

Throughout this time Egypt has also been a fertile source of legend. The fifty daughters of

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Danaus fled from a marriage threat by the fifty sons of Aegyptus, as recounted by Aeschylus; and if Euripides is to be believed, Helen of Troy may have sojourned on the banks of the Nile. Biblical references abound of a land of both oppression and refuge. Patriarchs found sustenance in Egypt, Moses led his people forth, and the Holy Family fled there from the wrath of Herod.

Egypt was the first major country to be subdued by the forces of Islam, and the line of conquerors reached a turning-point with Napoleon, who brought an army not only of soldiers but also of scholars. He left both groups to continue without him, and the scholars laboured throughout the land to produce the monumental Description de L’Égypte. The vast detective work of deciphering hieroglyphic script was commenced through the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799, thereby eventually producing the key to our present understanding of ancient Egypt.

Nowhere in the world have so many monuments survived for so long, on such a scale and in such good condition. The magnificence of Egypt’s standing monuments, Pharaonic, Coptic and Islamic, is supplemented by an unrivalled series of tomb sculptures and paintings and by superb collections of jewellery and artefacts in the Egyptian museums.

And through the midst of the land, with its origins in the deep south, flows the Nile, which with its annual inundation was the source of all that has made Egyptian civilisation great. b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Itinerary Day 1: Luxor. Fly at c. 3.00pm directly from London Heathrow to Luxor, arriving c. 9.30pm (time in the air: c. 4 hours 45 minutes). First of five nights in Luxor.

Day 2: Luxor. A leisurely day with talks by the lecturer outlining the main themes of the tour. Morning visit to Luxor Museum. Free afternoon. Overnight Luxor.

Day 3: Luxor. Full day visiting the Theban West Bank, the city of the dead and the Valley of the Kings, where the New Kingdom pharaohs are buried in magnificently decorated rock cut tombs, the vast royal mortuary temples erected as Houses of Eternity for the cult of the king. Visit the Tombs of the Nobles containing exquisite reliefs and painted festival and funeral scenes and the village of the royal workmen, Deir el Medina, who built and decorated the royal tombs, a rare settlement site, with their beautifully decorated tombs with perfectly preserved colour. Overnight Luxor.

Day 4: Luxor. The ancient site of Thebes and the vast temple complex of Karnak including the spectacular temple of Amun and the open air museum. Free afternoon. Evening visit to Luxor temple, a well preserved structure completed by Rameses II. Overnight Luxor.

Day 5: Denderah. Morning visit to the wellpreserved and roofed Ptolemaic-Roman Temple of Hathor at Denderah. Return to Luxor experiencing the rural landscape of Upper Egypt providing reflections of ancient times.

Overnight Luxor.

Day 6: Edfu, Kom Ombo, Aswan. Drive south through the agricultural landscape and view the desert edge of Southern Upper Egypt to see the Temple of Horus at Edfu, the most complete of the Egyptian temples. At Kom Ombo visit the remains of the unique double temple to Sobek and Haroeris (Horus the elder), teetering on the banks of the Nile. First of three nights in the ancient border city of Aswan.

Day 7: Kitchener’s Island, St Simeon, nobles’ tombs. Travel by boat to the Old and Middle Kingdom tombs cut into the rock high on the West Bank. Island of Plants (Kitchener’s Island), a lush botanical garden with tropical vegetation imported by the eponymous British soldier. Optional visit by camel to the lonely seventh-century ruined fortress-monastery of St Simeon, situated on the edge of the desert. Alternatively, take a bird watching trip through the cataract at Aswan on a motor boat, accompanied by an ornithologist. The Nubian Museum has excellent collections of Nubian life from the Neolithic to the present.

Overnight Aswan.

Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

Day 8: Temple of Philae, High Dam. The High Dam is one of the engineering wonders of the world. View in the distance the brooding hulk of Kalabsha temple, relocated to the banks of Lake Nasser as the High Dam was built.

Between the High Dam and the Old Dam, the Temple of Philae, dedicated to the goddess Isis, reconstructed on a landscaped island following the flooding of the original island. The ancient granite quarries where a flawed obelisk dating to the 18th Dynasty lies unfinished. A free afternoon. Final night Aswan.

Day 9: Abu Simbel, Cairo. Fly to Abu Simbel to visit the dramatic twin temples of Rameses II and his great royal wife, Nefertari, on the shores of Lake Nasser. Transfer by air to Cairo for the first of three nights.

Day 10: Giza, Cairo. On the edge of Cairo at Giza is the largest and most renowned complex of Pyramids, the solar boat museum and the Sphinx. Afternoon visit to the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities to view the richest collection of Pharaonic art in the world, including treasures from the tomb of Tutankhamun. Overnight Cairo.

Day 11: Dahshur, Saqqarah, Cairo. Drive to the Dahshur pyramid field to view and visit the pyramids predating the Giza pyramids, the cathedral-like interior of the Red Pyramid is an engineering marvel. Saqqarah, the necropolis of the ancient capital city of Memphis. The Step Pyramid complex contains the earliest pyramid and Egypt’s first building in stone, the pyramid of Teti, containing the Pyramid Texts relating the king’s ascent to the stars.

The Mastaba of Mereruka has detailed and finely rendered painted scenes of daily life.

Overnight Cairo.

Day 12: Cairo. Fly from Cairo, arriving London Heathrow at approximately 1.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £3,840 (deposit £300). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled Egyptair flights London to Luxor (aircraft: Airbus A320-100), Aswan-Abu SimbelCairo (aircraft: Airbus 320) and Cairo to London (aircraft: Boeing 777-300). Hotel accommodation as described below. Breakfasts, six lunches (some are picnics) and seven dinners, including wine, water and coffee. All admission to museums, sites, etc., visited with the group. All gratuities for restaurant staff, drivers, local guides. All state and airport taxes.

The cost of the Egyptian visa (if flying with the group). The services of the lecturer and a local guide. Single supplement £340. Price without international flights £3,260.

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Hotels: Luxor (5 nights): locally rated 5-star hotel on the banks of the Nile with delightful gardens, part of the Sofitel group. Aswan (3 nights): a 4-star hotel on the Nile, recently refurbished. Cairo (3 nights): a new 5-star boutique hotel, centrally located. All hotels have open-air pools.

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

Average distance by coach per day: 25 miles.

Visas: required for most foreign nationals.

If you are flying with the group we will arrange for it to be issued on arrival (the cost is included in the tour price); if you are flying independently we can arrange a visa on arrival, with a transfer, for a charge. Passports must be valid for 6 months from entry into Egypt.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

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

Illustration, top: Isis columns at Philae, engraving c. 1890 from The Land of the Pharaohs.

Lecturers biographies are on page 194.

Egypt

Walking Hadrian’s Wall Roman civilization at the edge of an Empire

The Wall near Housesteads, wood engraving c.

1888.

19–25 May 2013 (mz 574) 7 days • £1,790 Lecturer: Professor David Breeze The archaeology and history of the largest Roman construction in northern Europe.

The most spectacular stretches accessible only on foot, this is also a walking tour through some of the most magnificent scenery in England.

Excursions from coast to coast include all the major Roman sites and relevant museums.

One hotel throughout, the best in the region.

The lecturer is Professor David Breeze, author of the English Heritage guide-book to Hadrian’s Wall Traversing England from the Tyne estuary to the Solway Firth, the Wall was conceived and ordered by Emperor Hadrian in ad 122 to mark and control the northernmost limit of the Roman Empire. The ambition was extraordinary, its fulfilment – far from the pools of skills and prosperity in the Mediterranean heartlands of the Empire – astonishing: a fifteen-foot-high wall 75 miles long through harsh, undulating terrain with 80 milecastles, 161 intermediate turrets and flanking earthwork ditches and ramparts.

Fifteen or sixteen forts, many straddling the Wall, housed a garrison of 12–15,000 soldiers from radically different climes elsewhere in the Empire including Syria, Libya, Dalmatia, Spain and Belgium. A populous penumbra of

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supply bases and civilian settlements grew up nearby. As a feat of organisation, engineering and will power, Hadrian’s Wall ranks among the most extraordinary of all Roman achievements. Its story does not end with its completion within Hadrian’s reign because for the remaining three centuries of Roman control there were constant changes both to the fabric and to its administration and occupation.

A study of the Wall leads to an examination of practically every aspect of Roman civilization, from senatorial politics in Rome to the mundanities of life of ordinary Romans – and Britons – who lived in its shadow. But the Wall itself remains the fascinating focus, and the subject of endless academic debate. It’s not even clear what exactly it was for.

For the modern-day visitor the Wall has the further, inestimable attraction of passing some of the most magnificent and unspoilt countryside in England. Happily, archaeological interest is greatest where the landscape is at its most thrilling, and it is in this central section, furthest from centres of population, that the tour concentrates. The principal excavated sites can be visited with no more exertion than on an average sightseeing outing, but to see the best surviving stretches of the Wall, and to appreciate the vastness of the Roman achievement, to view many of its details and to immerse fully in the scenic beauties, there is no substitute for leaving wheels behind and walking along its course.

How strenuous are the walks? On each of the five full days there is a walk of between two and three hours, covering between two and

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four miles. The slow progress is in part due to stops to examine the archaeology and to take in the wonderful views. But also the terrain is often quite rough, and periodically there are rises and falls, sometimes quite steep, though rarely of more than 50 metres and often aided by rough-hewn stone steps recently made for the Hadrian’s Wall Path. It is not a tough trek but nevertheless it should only be attempted by people whose regular country walks include some uphill elements.

A coach takes you to the start of each walk and meets you at the end, eliminating the need to retrace steps or carry much except water and waterproofs. Each day has been planned to provide a balanced mix of archaeology, more general sight-seeing and cross-country trekking, and for this reason the walks do not constitute a linear progression. On most days you return to the hotel by 5.00pm, allowing plenty of time to relax before dinner.

Itinerary Day 1: Housesteads. The coach leaves Newcastle Central Station at 2.15pm (or from the hotel at 1.30pm) and takes you straight out to Housesteads. With standing remains of up to 10 feet, this is the best preserved of the Wall’s forts and evocatively reveals the usual panoply of perimeter walls and gateways, headquarters building, commander’s palatial residence, granaries, hospital, latrines. Remote and rugged, there are superb views.

Day 2: walk Steel Rig to Cawfields; Corbridge.

The first walk is perhaps the most consistently rugged as it follows long, well-preserved stretches of the Wall through moorland above the cliffs of the Whinsill Crag; a thrilling walk (2 3/4 miles, up to 2 1/2 hours). Pub lunch.

Corbridge began as a fort in the chain built

by Agricola c. ad 85 but left to the south by Hadrian’s Wall it became a supply depot and then a largely civilian town.

Day 3: walk Housesteads to Steel Rig; Chesters. Again for much of the route the Wall rides the crest of the faultline of dolerite crags, dipping and climbing. There are spectacular stretches, excellently preserved milecastles, staggering views: moorland, lakes, conifer forests to the north, richly variegated greens, plentiful livestock, distant vistas to the south (3 1/2 miles, up to 2 3/4 hours). Pub lunch. Chesters, the most salubrious of the forts (lavish bath house), built for 500 Asturian cavalrymen, in enchanting river valley setting.

Day 4: Vindolanda, Hexham. The fort and town of Vindolanda is the site of ongoing excavations which are revealing everyday artefacts including, famously, the ‘postcard’ writing tablets which uniquely document b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

The Age of Bede details of everyday life. See the surviving Roman remains in local churches, including the fine 13th-century abbey church in Hexham.

Day 5: walk Gilsland to Birdoswald; Chesters, Brocolitia. Walk through low-lying and pretty farmland with streams and wild flowers. The only mile with both milecastles and turrets visible, and good lengths of Wall (2 miles, 1 hour). Pub lunch followed by a couple of archaeological remains, the Mithraic temple at Brocolitia and the bridge abutments across the river from Chesters.

Day 7: Newcastle, Wallsend. At aptly named Wallsend and now engulfed in the Tyneside conurbation, Segedunum was the most easterly of the forts, the layout clearly seen from a viewing platform. In Newcastle the Great North Museum has the best collection of objects excavated along the Wall. The coach takes you to the Newcastle station by 2.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £1,790 (deposit £200). This includes: hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 3 lunches and 5 dinners with wine, beer, water, coffee; private coach; all admissions (English Heritage members will be refunded c. £20); all tips; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £120.

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

How strenuous? Please read the last two paragraphs of the introduction above. You should not consider this tour unless you possess a well-used pair of walking boots, are more than averagely fit, have good balance and a head for heights.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

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18–22 July 2013 (mz 635) This tour is currently full New departure: 25–29 July 2013 (mz 638) 5 days • £1,100 Lecturer: Imogen Corrigan Examines the remarkable efflorescence of culture and learning in Anglo-Saxon northern England.

Based around a temporary exhibition of the Lindisfarne Gospels lent to Durham Cathedral by the British Library.

Anglo-Saxon illuminated letter, engraving c. 1860.

Day 6: walk Walltown to Cawfields; Carlisle, Bowness-on-Solway. The final walk is spectacularly varied, from rocky hilltops to lowland pasture (3 1/2 miles, 2 1/2 hours). Great Chesters fort has good remains of gates and other structures, with lengths of the Wall up to two metres high. Drive to Carlisle to see the Wall collections in the Tullie House Museum, and continue to the evocative estuarial landscape of the Solway Firth. The Wall ended at the remote village of Bowness-on-Solway.

Anglo-Saxon Northumbria & the Lindisfarne Gospels

Jarrow, Monkwearmouth, Holy Island, Hexham and other Anglo-Saxon sites.

Studies also Durham Cathedral, perhaps the greatest Romanesque building in Europe, with special arrangements.

Imogen Corrigan, a specialist in Anglo-Saxon and mediaeval history, leads the tour.

For a few decades around ad 700, a handful of monasteries in Northumbria became beacons of culture and learning in a Britain that was largely tribal, warlike and unstable. Within a century Viking raiders extinguished these fragile flickers of civilization, and destruction and division again ruled the land. England – as it can now be called – steadily recovered, and on the eve of the Norman Conquest had become one of the best-governed and most prosperous territories in Europe. But in the two decades after 1066 the ever-troublesome north was again laid waste.

It is little short of miraculous therefore that the Lindisfarne Gospels, the greatest work of art of its age, should be among the few surviving remnants of Anglo-Saxon Northumbria. Normally only a couple of leaves are on show in the British Library in London, but in the summer of 2013 several pages will be displayed in Durham to celebrate the opening of the new cathedral treasury.

The Gospels provide a context for visits to the most significant Anglo-Saxon remains in the area – Jarrow and Monkwearmouth, the two-campus monastery to which the Venerable Bede was attached; church architecture at Whittingham and Hexham; and sites of powerful resonance, of the royal court at Yeavering and Lindisfarne itself, now known as Holy Island.

The tour introduces a cast of remarkable men – Benedict Biscop, Aiden, Cuthbert, Bede, characters of extraordinary tenacity, learning, piety and courage. One of the great intellectuals of the Middle Ages, the Venerable Bede (673–735) wrote on science

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and the measurement of time and on languages and literature as well as compiling a work of inestimable value, History of the English People.

Durham Cathedral, last resting place of Cuthbert and Bede, is a subsidiary theme of the tour. In the opinion of some the finest Romanesque church in Europe, its massiveness and defensibility express the often tenuous hold on the region by institutions representing southern-based royal government.

Itinerary Day 1: Durham. The tour begins with a talk at 2.45pm at the hotel in Durham (where all four nights are spent). Then walk through the wonderfully unspoilt town to the Palace Green Library, newly redesigned and refurbished, to see the exhibition of the Lindisfarne Gospels.

Among the most celebrated illuminated books in the world, the manuscript was made by Eadfrith, Bishop of Lindisfarne (died ad 721) in honour of St Cuthbert, who is buried in the Cathedral. There is the opportunity to attend Evensong here.

Day 2: Jarrow, Monkwearmouth. The monasteries at Monkwearmouth and Jarrow, ten miles apart but one institution, were founded in 674 and 681 by Benedict Biscop, whose five journeys to Rome resulted in a unique network of international contacts and awareness of European artistry. Parts of the original chapels survive, with stained glass and stone carvings. ‘Bede’s World’ is an excellent museum, with a living Anglo-Saxon farm adjacent. There is the option of time at the National Glass Centre, which displays contemporary glass.

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The Age of Bede continued

Northumbria Countryside, castles, coast & comfort

Day 3: Durham. All day is spent in and around Durham Cathedral, one of the greatest Romanesque churches in Europe and one of the most impressive of English cathedrals.

Mighty towers rise above the encircling river Wear, while the interior cannot but move with its power and piety. The bulk of the building is little altered since the forty-year building campaign begun in 1093. There are special arrangements and access to parts not generally open.

Day 4: Holy Island, Yeavering. The monastery on the little island of Lindisfarne (later ‘Holy Island’) was founded in ad 635 by an Irish monk from Iona, St. Aidan, and became an important centre for scholarship and missionary activity. A place of remarkable charm and tranquillity, there are Anglo-Saxon fragments, ruins of the Norman priory, and a castle, turned into a home by Edwin Lutyens. On the journey back to Durham visit Yeavering, evocative site of a royal settlement.

Day 5: Escombe, Hexham. The tiny Saxon church at Escomb was built c. ad 675, a rare survival. A lovely market town on a bluff above the Tyne, Hexham grew around a monastery founded by in 671 by St Wilfrid.

The magnificent mediaeval church is postConquest except for the crypt, the largest surviving expanse of Anglo-Saxon architecture in England. The coach sets down at Newcastle Central Railway station before 3.00pm and returns to Durham before 3.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £1,100 (deposit £150). This includes: hotel accommodation; private coach travel; breakfasts, 1 lunch, 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £80.

Hotel (18–22 July): the Radisson Blu Hotel is a modern hotel situated on the river and is about 15 minutes on foot to the town centre.

Hotel (25–29 July): the Durham Marriott Hotel Royal County is well located just outside the old city centre between a road and the river.

The building is 17th-century and modern.

How Strenuous? This tour would not be suitable for anyone who has difficulty with everyday walking and who cannot stand for long periods of time. Average distance by coach per day: 55 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Mediaeval Saxony, 15–23 July (page 74).

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Alnwick Castle, wood engraving 1888.

19–27 June 2013 (mz 613) 9 days • £2,650 Lecturer: Professor Gavin Stamp Wide-ranging exploration of the natural and man-made beauties of one of the most interesting but least visited regions of England.

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

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

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

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

But perhaps the most striking and alluring consequence of its buffer-zone heritage is the landscape. Remote and sparsely inhabited, ruffled by majestic undulations and etched with

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dry stone walls, rugged uplands mixing with picturesque farmland, Northumbria has some of the most enthralling scenery in all England.

Such marginal land was a magnet to monastic foundations, and outstanding mediaeval church architecture is another feature.

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

Northumbria was far larger than the (relatively) modern counties of Northumberland, Durham and Tyne and Wear.

This tour presents a grand sweep of history, architecture and landscape by selecting the finest sights in an itinerary that is balanced in content and pace. It is led by an architectural historian whose research interests are 19th- and 20th-century British architecture.

Itinerary Day 1: Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Durham. The coach leaves the hotel at 1.00pm and Newcastle Central Station at 1.30pm. Drive via The Angel of the North, Anthony Gormley’s bold and beautiful sculpture outside Newcastle, to Durham Cathedral, one of the great monuments of Romanesque Europe, its glories enhanced by a hilltop site in one of the loveliest little cities in England. Return via St Paul’s church in Jarrow, the home of the Venerable Bede. First of five nights in Newcastle. b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Day 2: Newcastle. A day in the city, an undulating site tumbling down to the Tyne through fine buildings and streets. Start at the Laing Art Gallery, home to a collection of paintings by north-eastern artist John Martin. Planned and developed by Richard Grainger, Grey Street in the commercial city centre is often described as one of the finest planned streets in England. Outstanding postindustrial regeneration on the quayside with the Millennium Bridge (Wilkinson Eyre) and Foster’s Sage Gateshead.

Day 3: Bywell, Hexham, Hadrian’s Wall.

Nestled in the Tyne Valley, the village of Bywell has two fine churches, one with a Saxon tower. The delightful town of Hexham grew up around an abbey founded in ad 674; the grand 13th-century church survives. An optional walk with an archaeologist along Hadrian’s Wall from Housesteads (3 1/2 miles), scenically and archaeologically perhaps the most spectacular stretch. Non-walkers visit Vindolanda, site of a Roman town; ongoing excavations are yielding exciting discoveries.

wild Northumberland to the ruins of the 14th-century Etal Castle, slighted by James IV of Scotland. Some free time at the hotel or in Bamburgh.

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

Single supplement £200 (double room for single occupancy). Members of the National Trust or English Heritage (with cards) will be refunded c. £30.

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

Berwick and the mouth of the Tweed, engraving from The Art Journal, 1887.

Day 4: Alnwick, Edlingham, Cragside.

Externally still a formidable mediaeval fortress, Alnwick Castle, seat of the Dukes of Northumberland, has sumptuous interiors and a superb painting collection. A beautiful drive via Edlingham to see the Norman church and remains of a 12th-cent. hall house. Cragside, built for Sir William Armstrong, is the masterpiece of Norman Shaw and the interiors form a wonderful sequence of late-Victorian taste and technology.

Day 5: Warkworth, Woodhorn, Seaton Delaval. More palace than castle, the 15thcentury Warkworth Castle towers above the town. Woodhorn Colliery is one of the best surviving examples of a 19th-century coal mine. A shell, baroque Seaton Delaval is a masterpiece by Vanbrugh (bought by the National Trust in 2009).

Day 6: Craster, Dunstanburgh. Byker Wall, Ralph Erskine’s remarkable housing development. Lunch in the pretty seaside town of Craster, kipper capital of the UK. A glorious coastal hillside walk to Dunstanburgh Castle (21/2 miles round trip; optional), in splendid isolation on a rocky promontory. Non-walkers visit the gardens at Howick Hall. Drive to the hotel at Waren Mill two miles away. First of three nights here.

Day 7: Berwick-upon-Tweed, Etal, Bamburgh.

The border town of Berwick has been much fought over by England and Scotland in the past. It is protected by the most complete set of ramparts in England. Barracks, Cromwellian church and Royal Border Bridge. Drive into Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

Day 9: Newcastle. Wallington Hall dates to 1688 but was refurbished in the mid-18th and mid-19th centuries, the latter resulting in an arcaded two-storey hall with scenes of Northumbrian history painted by William Bell Scott. Drive south to Newcastle, dropping off at the station by 1.45pm and at the Jesmond Dene House c. 2.30pm.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking involved, even without the two optional country walks. Coaches can rarely park near the sites and some places visited are extensive.

Average distance by coach per day: 47 miles.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Art in Le Marche, 10–18 June (page 120).

Practicalities Price: £2,650 (deposit £250). This includes: accommodation as described below; private coach throughout; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 7 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admission to houses, sites, museums; private boat to the Farne Islands; all tips for waiters, drivers and guides; the services of the lecturer.

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Looking for the rest of the UK? See pages 154–158 for Scotland and pages 192–193 for Wales.

England

The Cathedrals of England Ten of the greatest buildings in the country 20–28 March 2013 (mz 501) 9 days • £2,520 Lecturer: Tim Tatton-Brown 2–10 October 2013 (ma 732) 9 days • £2,520 Lecturer: Jon Cannon

A new tour for 2013.

A study of ten of Britain’s greatest buildings – their history, architecture, sculpture, stained glass and life today.

Built between the Norman Conquest and Henry VIII’s Reformation, with Coventry Cathedral a moving exception.

Organ recitals exclusively for us and many other special arrangements.

Some lovely unspoilt towns are seen.

Five hotels and quite a lot of driving, but the itinerary is uncrowded with time for rest and independent exploration.

In March, led by Tim Tatton-Brown, who has been Consultant Archaeologist for Canterbury, Rochester, Chichester and Salisbury Cathedrals, and for Westminster Abbey. In October, led by Jon Cannon, writer, lecturer and broadcaster whose research focuses on English cathedrals.

This is an architectural journey that would be hard to equal for intensity of aesthetic delight. As a way into the minds and lives of the people of the Middle Ages, likewise it would be difficult to surpass. Personalities of extraordinary capability and vision will be revealed, and craftsmen shown to possess not only the skills of their trade but also the initiative to work out solutions to practical problems.

The tour ranges across England – north, south, east and west – to see ten of the greatest buildings in the country, and some of the most glorious mediaeval architecture to be found anywhere. Connoisseurs may carp at the omissions, but logistics exclude only a couple of cathedrals of comparable beauty, magnificence and interest. With an average of little over one cathedral a day, there is plenty of time at each to really get to know them, to look, learn and understand, to assimilate, appreciate and contemplate.

All but one are mediaeval, Norman (as Romanesque is generally called in Britain) and Gothic. It is easy to underestimate the length of time the Middle Ages encompasses: the span from the earliest work we see on the tour to the latest, from the Norman Conquest to the Reformation, equals that from the Reformation to the present day. There was huge variety in

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Gloucester Cathedral, drawing reproduced in Francis Bond, An Introduction to English Church Architecture, 1913.

the building arts during those 460 years.

The one non-mediaeval cathedral on the itinerary is Coventry. Rebuilt after the Second World War, not only is it a treasure house of mid-twentieth-century art but it is a moving monument to rebirth and reconciliation.

Everywhere there will be special arrangements to enable you to see more than most visitors. Organ recitals are being organised specially for us at some cathedrals.

There are also opportunities to hear their excellent choirs at Evensong. Cathedrals come with cities, and many of these were little changed during the era of industrialisation and now rank among the loveliest in England.

Much beautiful countryside is traversed as well.

For centuries, British scholars and critics laboured under an inferiority complex,

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believing English Gothic to be a defective derivative of the thoroughbred French version, inferior according to the degree to which it departed from the soaring, clean-limbed and impeccably rational paradigms across the Channel. That cultural cringe has all but evaporated in the last couple of generations, not least because evidence has been piling up that masons and architects in England had entire confidence in their inventiveness and deliberately chose to shun French conventions.

English Gothic is characterised by extraordinarily enriched detail, engaging oddities and knowing inconsistencies, by happily treating each component vessel as a separate unit, by concern for picturesque effects as much as for sublimity of impact of bold engineering. b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Itinerary Day 1: Ely. The coach leaves London at 9.30am for Ely, a surprisingly remote and rural location for one of England’s greatest cathedrals. The mighty Norman nave (c. 1110–30), with its thick walls, tiers of arches and clusters of shafts, leads to the crossing and its unique octagonal tower. Rebuilt after the collapse of its predecessor in 1322, this is a work of genius.

The Lady Chapel, also in the Decorated style, is the largest and perhaps the finest in the country. Overnight Lincoln.

Day 2: Lincoln. Also largely by-passed by modern urban development, Lincoln’s hilltop site above the plain renders the cathedral the more imposing. Largely of the Early English and Decorated phases, it has always been revered as one of the finest of Gothic cathedrals, its fascinations enhanced by myriad minor inconsistencies and variations which reveal the struggle for solutions at the frontiers of artistic fashion and technological capability.

The steep streets of the ancient town are a delight. First of three nights in York.

Day 3: Durham. By train to Durham (40 mins), where the topography and riverside walk provide surely the most exciting approach to any English cathedral. Massive towers rise above the trees which cling to the steep embankment, a defensible bulwark in the frequently hostile North. Largely completed in the forty years after 1070 and little altered since, the nave and quire with their great cylindrical pillars, distinguished by their engraved patterns, constitute perhaps the greatest Romanesque church in the world.

Overnight York.

Day 4: York. York Minster is the largest of English mediaeval cathedrals. A Norman predecessor determines some of the proportions, but above ground it is all Gothic, from Early English to Perpendicular but predominantly 14th-century, demonstrating more French Rayonnant influence than any other major English church. It houses a large quantity of original stained glass, and the polygonal chapter house is without peer.

The city retains its mediaeval walls and an exceptional quantity of historic buildings.

Overnight York.

Day 5: Coventry. Coventry Cathedral is perhaps internationally Britain’s best-known 20th-cent. building. Rebuilt 1956–62 to designs by Sir Basil Spence beside the ruins of the old cathedral bombed in 1940, it is both a showcase for some of the best art of the time (Graham Sutherland, John Piper, Jacob Epstein) and a moving symbol of rebirth and reconciliation. Finish the day with a walk Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

through Stratford-upon Avon, a delightful town which has retained many buildings from Shakespeare’s time there. Overnight Stratford.

Day 6: Gloucester, Bristol. The procession of tall cylindrical pillars in Gloucester’s nave are unadulterated Norman, but, following the burial of the murdered Edward II in 1327, the eastern parts are exquisitely veiled in the first large-scale appearance of Perpendicular architecture. The east window is the largest in Europe. The nave of Bristol Cathedral is by the greatest of Victorian ‘Goths’, G.E. Street, and the eastern parts are among the most innovative and beautiful of early-14th-cent. buildings in Europe. First of two nights in Wells.

Day 7: Wells. All day is spent in Wells, an exceptionally unspoilt little city with a fortified bishop’s palace, 14th-cent. houses of the vicars choral and much else of charm and interest. Wells was one of the first cathedrals in England to be built entirely in Gothic style.

Its screened west front, eastward march of the nave, marvellous sequence of contrasted spaces of the east end, serene chapter house and Decorated cloisters all contribute to the cathedral’s exceptional allure. The strainer arches supporting the sagging tower are among the great creations of the Middle Ages.

Overnight Wells.

Day 8: Salisbury. One of the most uplifting experiences in English architecture, Salisbury is unique among the great Gothic cathedrals in England in that it was built on a virgin site and largely in a single campaign, 1218–58. To homogeneity are added lucidity of design and perfection of detail. Completed a century later, the spire at 404 feet was the tallest building in Britain until 1894. The close is the finest in the country, and the town beyond is an extensive expanse of historic fabric.

Overnight Winchester.

Day 9: Winchester. Winchester Cathedral is Europe’s longest church, reflecting the city’s status intermittently from the 9th to the 17th cents. as the seat of English government. The transcepts are unembellished early Norman (1080s), raw architecture of brute power, whereas the mighty nave was dressed 300 years later in suave Perpendicular garb. The profusion of chantry chapels constitutes an enchanting collection of Gothic micro-architecture. Wall paintings, floor tiles and the finest 12thcent. Bible are among other treasures. Leave Winchester after lunch and return to central London before 4.00pm.

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

Single supplement £230.

Hotels. Lincoln (1 night): a historic building close to the cathedral, the Castle Hotel has recently been thoroughly refurbished. Rooms are not large but are comfortable and welldesigned, and the restaurant is excellent.

York (3 nights): The Grange is also in a historic building with a new wing, bedrooms are individually and charmingly designed, the public spaces are lovely and the service and the restaurant are very good. Stratfordon-Avon (1 night): the modern Q Hotel is located on the edge of the historic centre of the town. The style is contemporary with neutral colour schemes, comfortable if rather lacking in character. Wells (2 nights): The Swan, in a building of 15th-cent. origin in a narrow street close to the cathedral. While retaining its historic atmosphere it has been well refurbished. Winchester (1 night): excellently located overlooking the cathedral, The Wessex (Mercure) is a 1960s building with both traditional and modern elements in the décor. Rooms at all the hotels, being city-centre historic properties, vary in size and outlook.

How strenuous? Unavoidably, there is quite a lot of walking on the tour. You ought to be able to walk at about three miles an hour for up to half an hour, and to negotiate steps. Two of the hotels do not have lifts. There are four days without any coach travel, but there is an average on the remaining five days of 73 miles by coach.

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

Possible linking tours. Combine the March departure with A Schubertiade in Newcastle, 15–17 March (page 43). Combine the October departure with Roman & Mediaeval Provence, 11–17 October (page 65).

Lecturers biographies are on page 194.

The Welsh Marches – Castles, Abbeys & Parish Churches. See page 192.

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Mediaeval East Anglia Cathedrals, castles, parish churches dazzling not only for its scale but for the quality and quantity of its late 15th-century decoration, most famously the great run of stained glass donor portraits which light the north aisle. Then to that other ‘rich clothier’s church’, Ss. Peter and Paul at Lavenham, whose heraldically-enriched elevations and screenwork make such an excellent foil to Long Melford. The afternoon is divided between the de Vere Earls of Oxfords’ mighty 12th-century keep at Castle Hedingham and the stunning late mediaeval elevations of Thaxted.

Day 4: Gipping, Framlingham, Bury St Edmunds. A morning in north Suffolk.

Gipping, Sir James and Lady Ann Tyrell’s jewel of a chantry chapel, remote, moated and all of a piece. Framlingham, a striking complex of church and castle that made the town the most potent symbol of seigneurial power in Suffolk. A free afternoon to wander at leisure in Bury St Edmunds, suggestions include the parish church of St Mary’s with magnificent hammerbeam roof and the remains of the Abbey of St Edmunds.

Bury St Edmunds, St James, late 18th-century engraving.

24–28 June 2013 (mz 617) 5 days • £1,070 Lecturer: John McNeill Two cathedrals, Norwich and Ely, major Romanesque buildings with glorious Gothic additions.

Three great keeps at Castle Rising, Castle Hedingham and Framlingham.

Fine parish churches including Long Melford, Lavenham and East Harling.

Based in Bury St Edmunds.

Led by renowned architectural historian, John McNeill.

Famed for its mediaeval wool churches and for the virtuosic qualities of its Romanesque architecture, East Anglia boasts the greatest concentration of mediaeval buildings to survive in any region of England. It is also an area whose towns and villages have grown little since 1500, and whose mediaeval infrastructure remains relatively clear. This is perhaps most apparent in Bury St Edmunds, whose street plan is still that of the new town laid out, along with the abbey, in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest. Thus Bury is an irresistible and ideal base for the tour.

The major buildings to be visited are, of course, East Anglia’s two mediaeval cathedrals at Ely and Norwich. Both retain a substantial Romanesque core, and were magnificently

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refurbished between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries.

Bury St Edmunds is also within easy reach of some of the finest castles and parish churches in England, and the majority of buildings visited fall into these latter categories – the great twelfth-century castles at Castle Rising, Castle Hedingham and Framlingham, and the incomparable late mediaeval churches of Lavenham, Long Melford and Gipping.

Itinerary Day 1: Ely. The coach leaves the hotel at Bury St Edmonds at 1.00pm and Ely railway station at 2.00pm. At Ely Cathedral study the Lady Chapel, monastic precincts and all, a complex whose Romanesque crossing tower famously collapsed in 1322 and whose replacement is quite simply the most inventive response to disaster 14th-century Europe has to show. All four nights are spent in Bury St Edmunds.

Day 2: Norwich, East Harling, Woolpit.

Visit Norwich Cathedral, beginning with the choir and progressing through transepts and nave to the superlative late mediaeval cloisters.

The afternoon is spent in two contrasting parish churches, aristocratically-financed East Harling (excellent 15th-century screen and glass) and guild-financed Woolpit (spectacular hammerbeam roof ).

Day 3: Long Melford, Lavenham, Castle Hedingham, Thaxted. A short drive south to Holy Trinity at Long Melford, a building

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Day 5: Castle Acre, Castle Rising, King’s Lynn. A morning in west Norfolk. Castle Acre, Cluniac priory church and proud possessor of the finest of all East Anglian Romanesque arcaded façades. Castle Rising, a stunning juxtaposition of a castle built for Henry I’s widowed queen, Alice, and the sumptuously decorated late Romanesque parish church of St Lawrence. Break for lunch in King’s Lynn and return by coach to Ely station by 4.00pm, and then to Bury by c. 5.00pm.

Practicalities Price: £1,070 (deposit £200). This includes: coach transfers from the hotel in Bury or Ely railway station, and throughout the tour; hotel accommodation; breakfasts and 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions and donations; all tips; the services of the lecturer.

Single supplement £140.

Hotel: A 3-star hotel in an historic coaching inn in the centre of Bury St Edmunds. Rooms are warmly furnished and all have ensuite bathrooms. There is a good restaurant. Limited parking space (please request when booking).

How strenuous? There is a lot of standing around for the church and castle visits. You must be able to undertake the necessary walking at the speed of the group. There is quite a lot of driving and getting on and off the coach. You will need to arrange your own travel to Ely or to Bury St Edmunds. Average distance by coach per day: 75 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants. b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

The Victorian Achievement Architecture, Industry & Art in Lancashire & Yorkshire 27 August–3 September 2013 (mz 664) 8 days • £1,850 Lecturer: Dr Paul Atterbury Studies the social history, industrial archaeology, architecture and art of the reign of Queen Victoria, a period when Great Britain led the world in trade, industry and ideas.

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

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

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

of many of the great ideas of the age, free trade among them. The arts, too, particularly architecture, were less Londoncentric than they became subsequently; a very large proportion of the great buildings of Victorian England are in the northern counties. (Liverpool has more listed buildings than any city outside London.)

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

arises from raw functionalism or historicist adornment.

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

Manchester Town Hall, etching by Thomas Riley 1895.

A subsidiary theme is the remarkable postindustrial regeneration of recent years.

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

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

But the era still needs rescuing from twentieth-century disdain. Ignorance and misunderstanding remain deep and widespread.

The truth is that nineteenth-century Britain was one of the most dynamic and innovative societies in history, and that Victorian cities, as the principal material manifestation of that great age – and their post-industrial reincarnation – are among the most fascinating features of the United Kingdom.

In the earlier decades of the century Britain led the world in industrialisation and technology, dominated world trade and became the world’s wealthiest nation. It can also be claimed that Britain was a leader in the development of ideas, the extension of education, the practice of philanthropy and social amelioration and the advance (if haltingly) of political reform. Meanwhile the British Empire grew and grew, almost by accident, and became the most extensive the world has ever seen, and the best administered.

London might have been the world’s biggest city and the seat of government of the Empire, but the crucible of progress did not lie beside the Thames. The great inventors were mainly from the north, railways were at first a northern phenomenon, and the north was the source Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

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The Victorian Achievement continued

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

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

First of two nights in Manchester.

Day 2: Manchester. The industrial landscape of Castlefield encompasses the world’s first passenger railway station (1830), the nodal point of England’s most important canal network and other monuments of the industrial revolution. The City Art Gallery has a superb collection of Victorian paintings, particularly Pre-Raphaelites. An afternoon by coach includes the soaring beauty of Bodley’s St Augustine at Pendlebury.

Day 3: Manchester, Saltaire, Leeds. The John Rylands Library (Basil Champneys) is late Victorian architecture at its most refined.

In 1853 Titus Salt consolidated his five

cloth factories into one, added a model town and named it Saltaire. It survives intact, a monument to Victorian ameliorism and to 21st-century regeneration. Arriving in Leeds, visit the stupendous Classical town hall (Cuthbert Broderick 1853) and dine in a restaurant under the great oval roof of the Corn Exchange (also Broderick), a masterpiece of Victorian commercial architecture. First of two nights in Leeds.

Day 4: Leeds, Bradford. The industrial heritage of Leeds: a vast 1840s mill, an Egyptian-style mill and factory chimneys imitating mediaeval Italian towers. The retail and commercial district is the most extensive and unspoilt area of Victoriana in Britain, with dazzlingly elaborate arcades and endlessly inventive façades. An afternoon in Bradford (20 minutes by train), source in the 1850s of two-thirds of Britain’s woollen cloth. Retaining a mediaeval street pattern on a sloping site, the centre has a magnificent set of Gothic Revival buildings.

Day 5: Leeds, Liverpool. Among the sights today are the 1830s Parish Church, a key monument in the history of the Gothic Revival, an amazing Venetian Gothic warehouse disrupting the Georgian serenity of Park Square and the Municipal Buildings complex with the Art Gallery, Library and Tiled Hall.

By coach from Leeds to Liverpool. First of three nights in Liverpool.

Day 6: Liverpool. The Albert Docks (1843) is one of the most impressive constructions of the century, ruggedly functional but perfectly proportioned. Time for exploration, lunch and a museum or two (Tate Liverpool is here).

See other waterside buildings, including the enormous Tobacco Warehouse. To the

St George’s Hall, Liverpool.

salubrious suburb of Sefton Park and two fine late Victorian churches, St Agnes (JL Pearson 1883) and St Clare (Leonard Stokes 1899).

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

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

Drive to Manchester, reaching Piccadilly Station by 3.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £1,850 (deposit £200). This includes: rail travel between Leeds and Bradford (return); coach travel; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 6 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions and donations; all tips; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £270.

Hotels. All are located within walking distance of much that is seen on the tour and are amongst the more comfortable hotels in each city. Manchester (2 nights): The Midland, a large elaborately adorned Victorian hotel, recent refurbishment blending something of its original character with modern comforts.

Leeds (2 nights): Queen’s Hotel is a very comfortable 1930s establishment which has retained Art Deco interiors and offers excellent service. Liverpool (3 nights): in a salubrious area between the cathedrals, the Hope Street Hotel brings good modern design and comforts into a 19th-century factory and adjacent 1960s police station.

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

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Grampian Gardens, 18–24 August (page 154).

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Art & Industry Invention, manufacture & design in 18th-century England

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

24–30 June 2013 (mz 618) 7 days • £1,670 Lecturers: Dr Paul Atterbury with Dr Tristram Hunt mp A new tour for 2013.

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

Highly significant industrial archaeology.

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

Houses of both employers and employees.

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

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

It is difficult to overestimate the global impact of the technological developments which took place in this relatively out-of-theTe l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

way region of Europe (there were few roads in pre-modern Shropshire and Staffordshire).

Enabled by the abundance of accessible mineral resources, propelled by an Enlightenment spirit of enquiry and experiment and forged by the enterprise and ambition of a few exceptional individuals, Britain came to lead the world in manufacturing, commerce and science through to the middle of the nineteenth century.

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

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

The subsequent two centuries are not ignored. Indeed, much of the industrial archaeology and the art we see takes us well into the later twentieth century. Indeed, in the Potteries the tour may be joined by historian Dr Tristram Hunt, who happens to

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be the local Member of Parliament (subject to confirmation).

The tour concentrates on five centres. Two are the upper reaches of fast-moving rivers, the Seven in Shropshire, now dubbed Ironbridge Gorge, and the Derwent in Derbyshire. (Both, incidentally, are now tranquil and fairly rural, the Derwent Valley in particular being a place of outstanding beauty.) The six towns of the Potteries in Staffordshire were a unique concentration of the pottery industry – as indeed they still are; the fourth is the group of towns in the West Midlands know as Black Country, and the fifth is Birmingham, ‘workshop of the world’.

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

Continue to Telford for the first of three nights there.

Day 2: Ironbridge Gorge. This short stretch of the upper River Severn (a unesco Heritage Site) was at the end of the 18th cent. the most

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Art & Industry continued

heavily industrialised location in the world. The blast furnace at Coalbrookdale where Abraham Darby I in 1709 achieved the smelting of iron with coke, and thus ushered in the modern world, survives as part of a fascinating Museum of Iron. Abraham Darby III was largely responsible for the Iron Bridge of 1779, an epoch-making structure of powerful beauty as well as an icon of the Industrial Revolution.

Two mansions lived in by the Darby family overlooking the works retain original furnishings. Overnight Telford.

Day 3: Dudley, Wightwick. The Black Country is contender for the title ‘birthplace of industry’, named after the smoke from the unequalled density of mines, workshops and factories.

An outstanding museum shows historic industrial installations, including a replica of a Newcomen steam engine of c. 1717, many in working order, and rescued houses, shops and

world’s foremost pottery city despite the loss of much mainstream production. First of three nights in Stoke.

Day 5: Stoke-on-Trent. The Gladstone Pottery Museum is the only complete Victorian pottery factory: original workshops, bottle ovens, historic products. Emma Bridgewater is an inspiring example of success for a new company in an old industry. The factory tour shows traditional crafts in the service of modern designs. The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery in Hanley excellently displays Staffordshire wares and other ceramics, another outstanding museum. Overnight Stoke.

Day 6: Derwent Valley, Derby, Cheadle. A stretch of the River Derwent in Derbyshire is birthplace of the modern textile industry (and another unesco Heritage Site). The world’s first water-powered cotton spinning mill,

among the exhibits. There is a walk to see some of the great architecture from Birmingham’s heyday before finishing at New Street Station by 3.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £1,670 (deposit £200). This includes: hotel accommodation; private coach travel; breakfasts, 3 lunches, 5 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; services of the lecturer. Single supplement £120.

Hotels. Telford (3 nights): The Telford Golf and Spa Hotel (QHotels) is a modern hotel in a quiet location on the edge of town. Swimming pool, fitness centre, spa. Stoke-on-Trent (3 nights): though incorporating the shell Etruria Hall, Josiah Wedgwood’s home, this is also a new hotel, adequately comfortable, lively.

Of both it can be said that the rooms are comfortable, the restaurants not bad and the service willing and that they are the best in their localities.

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

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

London Days China making at Stoke-on-Trent, wood engraving from The English Illustrated Magazine, 1884.

other buildings, furnished as a hundred years ago. Wightwick Manor was built at the end of the 19th century by a factory owner, a veritable shrine to the the Pre-Raphaelites and the Arts and Crafts movement. Overnight Telford.

Day 4: Barlaston, Stoke-on-Trent. Josiah Wedgwood was a genius of the Industrial Revolution, dedicated equally to improvements in design and technology, to natural philosophy and commerce, to social amelioration and progressive politics. The award-winning Wedgwood Museum, one of the finest ceramics museums in the world, well documents the development of an iconic English brand.

Currently there is the threat of closure and dispersal; in that event, the recently re-opened Spode museum would be substituted. In the afternoon there is a special tour of Stoke-onTrent which, subject to his availability, will be with Tristram Hunt MP. Stoke remains the

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built by Richard Arkwright in 1771, survives at Cromford, and his 1783 Masson Mills are equipped with 19th-cent. machinery. The Derby Museum and Art Gallery displays many paintings by Joseph Wright, one of Britain’s finest 18th-cent. painters, who excelled at innovatory scenes of industry and scientific experiment and portraits of industrialists.

The Church of St Giles at Cheadle, 1841–7, A.W. Pugin’s masterpiece, has been called ‘the outstanding English church of the 19th century’. Overnight Stoke.

Day 7: Birmingham. Established in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter in 1881, JW Evans is an exceptional survival of a historic factory where little has changed for a century. At the Museum & Art Gallery the new Birmingham History Galleries are due to open in 2012, and the largest public collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings in the world are

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Several dates through the year Contact us to register your interest Non-residential, day-long events to inform and inspire.

Concentrating on particular themes, predominantly art, architecture and history.

Some Days involve long walks.

Details of London Days are released intermittently, as they are launched.

In 2013 these will include: The London Underground, The Tower of London, Dickens’ London, Sculpture in London, Egypt in the British Museum, Medical London, Michael Douglas-Scott at the National Gallery, Across London on Foot and The Complete London Hogarth.

Contact us now if you would like to receive information as soon as it is published.

Looking for the rest of the UK? See pages 154–158 for Scotland and pages 192–193 for Wales. b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Great Houses of the South West Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Dorset, Devon 3–10 September 2013 (ma 671) 8 days • £2,920 Lecturer: Anthony Lambert Great country houses, historic gardens and parks in Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Dorset and Devon.

Major examples of a huge range of styles from the twelfth century to the twentieth.

Many houses contain outstanding picture collections and exceptional furniture.

Special arrangements and out-of-hours visits.

Hotels in former country houses.

Led by Anthony Lambert who has worked with the National Trust for nearly 30 years and writes regularly for the Historic Houses Association.

The landscapes seen on this tour are immensely varied and endlessly alluring – the noble chalk downs of Wiltshire, the evocative Levels of Somerset, the enchanting patchwork fields of Devon, the verdant hidden valleys of Exmoor, the little hills of Dorset.

The houses seen are equally varied. Lacock and Longleat and Montacute are among the finest of Henrician and Elizabethan mansions in England. The Stuart era is superbly represented by the incomparable Wilton House, star of the first phase of Palladian classicism in England, and by the Dutch classicism of Dyrham, while the eighteenth century is wonderfully exemplified at Stourhead and by the delicious Adam interiors at Saltram.

Victoria’s reign has magnificent ambassadors in Highclere and Tyntesfield, and the Edwardian continuation is beautifully if eccentrically demonstrated at Castle Drogo. Real castles are represented by the extraordinary Berkeley, still a family home, and, if now more picturesque than defensive, at Dunster.

A first-rate country house is more than a house. Clustering around are gardens, auxiliary buildings and a park – at Stourhead, perhaps the most influential one in the world – and beyond lie working farms and enterprises of all sorts. And of course inside the house there are furnishings and works of art and gadgets and utensils and curios: in many of the houses on this tour these moveables are of a quality and a quantity which surpass the collections of all but a couple of dozen of Britain’s museums.

Corsham and Kingston Lacy in particular are renowned for their picture collections.

Word must be added about the hotels on this tour, all three of which are excellent, and two of which are former country houses.

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Longleat, engraving from Historic Houses of the United Kingdom 1892.

Itinerary Day 1: Highclere. Leave London at 11.00am and drive (1h 40m) to Hampshire, arriving at Highclere in time for lunch. Begun in 1838

by Charles Barry (architect of the Houses of Parliament) for the Earl of Carnarvon, it is one of the grandest and most opulent houses of the age. (Now known to millions as Downton Abbey.) The Egyptian antiquities here are of international importance. Spend the first of four nights in a country house hotel in the village of Bishopstrow, Wiltshire.

Day 2: Wilton, Kingston Lacy. Inigo Jones contributed to the design of Wilton House, the outstanding achievement of the first phase of Palladianism in England. The double-cube room, with paintings by Van Dyck, is the most sumptuous English interior of the Stuart period. Also of the 17th century, Kingston Lacy is noted for its lavish interiors and outstanding art collection of Spanish, Italian and Flemish Old Masters. Both houses have important gardens and parkland.

Overnight Bishopstrow.

Day 3: Longleat, Corsham. Longleat was one of the largest and architecturally most progressive of Elizabethan houses, and is set in a ‘Capability’ Brown park. Corsham (Wiltshire) is an Elizabethan mansion enlarged in the 18th century and again in the 19th to display a collection of Old Master paintings, still in situ. Overnight Bishopstrow.

Day 4: Stourhead, Montacute. Though built in two phases, 1720s and 1790s, Stourhead is the perfect classical villa. The landscaped

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park of the 1740s is the most important of its kind, with a lake, temples, careful planting and contrived, if seemingly natural, vistas.

Montacute is a magnificent Elizabethan house with the longest long gallery in England. An outstation of the National Portrait Gallery, it is hung with 16th- and 17th-century pictures.

Garden layout and architecture survive. First of two nights in Taunton.

Day 5: Saltram, Castle Drogo. Drive across Devon to Saltram, a largely 18th-century house with lavish Robert Adam interiors and fine pictures and furnishings. There are dramatic views of the Plym Estuary. A rugged Dartmoor setting overlooking the Teign Gorge matches Sir Edwin Lutyens’s imaginative exercise in mediaevalism at Castle Drogo, though inside there are all the latest in early 20thcentury comforts. Fine Arts & Crafts garden.

Overnight Taunton.

Day 6: Dunster, Tyntesfield. Drive between the Quantocks and Exmoor to the famously picturesque village of Dunster. Atop a wooded hillock, the castle of Norman origin long ago domesticated its defensive features, notably in the Carolean age. The great Gothic Revival mansion of Tyntesfield has hardly changed since the nineteenth century, caught in a time warp and stuffed with the authentic bric-abrac of a Victorian country house. First of two nights in a country house hotel in Colerne, Wiltshire.

Day 7: Berkeley, Lacock. The keep of Berkeley Castle dates to 1117, the bulk of the rest to 1340–61. Little has been altered since, and yet it is still the private home of its builders, a

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Great Houses of the South West continued

Great Houses of the North

family that served Edward the Confessor. The contents – tapestries, paintings, furniture – are magnificent. In one of the loveliest villages in England, Lacock Abbey retains a cloister from the nunnery dissolved by Henry VIII and given to a courtier. There are Georgian modifications and being the home of William Fox Talbot, a window which was the subject of the first ever photograph. Overnight Colerne.

Day 8: Dyrham. Transformed from a Tudor mansion at the end of the 17th century, Dyrham Park externally is mild Baroque in golden Bath stone, and inside exquisitely Anglo-Dutch with pictures and furnishings to match. It has scarcely changed since. Return to central London c. 4.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,920 (deposit £250). This includes: accommodation as described below; breakfasts and five dinners (with wine, water and coffee); transport by luxury private coach; admission to all the houses and gardens; tips for waiters, drivers and guides; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £320.

Hotels. Bishopstrow House (3 nights): the house dates from the early 19th century and has been a hotel for 35 years. Public rooms maintain a country house décor, whilst bedrooms have been recently refurbished to a more modern style and have all mod cons. The Castle Hotel, Taunton (2 nights): an awardwinning family-run hotel, pleasingly decorated and with excellent service. Lucknam Park Hotel, Colerne, Wiltshire (2 nights): this 5 star hotel is a fine example of a country house hotel, set in 500 acres of parkland and with a Michelin-starred restaurant. Bedrooms have a traditional décor with a safe, hairdrier, and teaand coffee-making facilities. There is an indoor and outdoor swimming pool.

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

Average distance by coach per day: c. 95 miles.

Memberships: National Trust members (with cards) will be refunded c. £80. Current annual membership is £53 or £88.50 for a couple.

Small group: the tour operates with between 12 and 22 participants.

Lecturers biographies are on page 194.

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The Gallery, Hardwick Hall, wood engraving from The Magazine of Art, 1887.

13–22 May 2013 (mz 566) 10 days • £3,160 Lecturer: Gail Bent The finest country houses and gardens in northern England, from mediaeval to Victorian, with an emphasis on the eighteenth century.

Unhurried: there is plenty of time to rest, relax and absorb. Only two hotel changes.

Some of the most glorious countryside in England, plus a few items other than houses.

Excellent hotels and good food.

Led by Gail Bent, an expert on British architectural history and historical interiors.

The country house is Britain’s most distinctive contribution to the world’s cultural heritage.

Other countries have them of course, but none in such profusion, such variety, and in such a state of completion and preservation. Cutting a swathe through the northern half of England, from Derbyshire to Northumberland, this tour includes a remarkable number of the greatest and grandest.

One feature of the English country house is that it usually resides in the country; on the Continent the town often presses around the forecourt. And the countryside in England is among the loveliest in the world, and the most varied; on this tour you pass by gently rolling farmland with green fields, ancient hedges, majestic trees and contented livestock, and by

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the rugged beauty of upland moors.

All aspects of the country house are studied – architecture, furniture, decoration, works of art; gardens and parks; historical context and daily life; conservation and custodianship.

Many of the houses have marvellous gardens.

The leisurely pace is a distinctive feature, with an average of fewer than two houses per day and the inclusion of a few items other than country houses. Time is allowed for relaxing and reflecting and exploring on one’s own. Special arrangements comprise another significant feature with many out-of-hours openings and access to parts not normally seen by visitors.

Itinerary Day 1: Kedleston (Derbys). The coach leaves Derby railway station at 1.45pm. One of the supreme monuments of Classical architecture and decoration in England, recreating the glories of Ancient Rome in the foothills of the Peak District, Kedleston Hall (1759–65) was the creation of Sir Nathaniel Curzon and, initially, three architects, of whom Robert Adam emerged the victor. The sequence of grand rooms for entertainment and show are homogeneous and complete (with furnishings designed by Adam), an impeccable manifestation of aristocratic wealth, education and taste. Spend three nights near Chatsworth.

Day 2: Chatsworth, Haddon (Derbys). The home of the Duke of Devonshire, Chatsworth b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Durham, Northumberland

House was rebuilt in the 1690s with the scale and sumptuousness of a palace and further augmented in the 1820s. The steady acquisition of fine furniture, sculpture and pictures created one of the finest private art collections in the world. ‘The most perfect English house to survive from the Middle Ages’, Haddon Hall evolved from c. 1370 to the 17th century after which nearly 300 years of disuse preserved it from alteration. The gardens are exceptionally lovely. Overnight near Chatsworth.

Day 3: Hardwick, Bolsover (Derbys).

Hardwick Hall (1590) is the finest of all Elizabethan great houses, a highpoint of the English Renaissance, the façade famously more glass than stone. The unaltered interiors are decorated with stucco reliefs and filled with contemporary textiles and furniture.

Bolsover Castle is an elaborate Jacobean folly, a splendid late-Renaissance sequence of rooms in mediaeval fancy dress. Overnight near Chatsworth.

Day 4: Harewood (W Yorks). Harewood House is one of the grandest and most beautiful of English country houses, architecture by John Carr (1772) and Charles Barry (1843), interiors

by Adam, furniture by Chippendale and park by ‘Capability’ Brown. There are excellent paintings, Italian Renaissance to modern. First of three nights in York.

Day 5: Newby, York (N Yorks). A Williamand-Mary house (1693), Newby Hall was subject for the next two centuries to refurbishment and extension of the highest quality, one set of rooms (by Adam) designed to house a collection of Roman sculpture.

Twenty-five acres of fine gardens. A free afternoon in York. Overnight York.

Day 6: Burton Agnes (E Yorks), Castle Howard (N Yorks). Burton Agnes Hall is a final flourish of the Elizabethan age, red brick and cream stone, topiary, marvellous carving and plasterwork, Impressionist and modern paintings: ‘the perfect English house’. Designed

by John Vanbrugh in 1699, Castle Howard is one of the few major Baroque buildings in England and the most palatial house on the tour. Excellent works of art and park with famous temples and follies. Private dinner at Fairfax House in York, a Georgian town house.

Overnight York.

Day 7: Raby, Auckland (Co. Durham). Within the formidable 14th-century fortifications of Raby Castle are suites of rooms of the 18th and 19th centuries. There are good paintings, furniture and Meissen animals and a deer park.

Excellent art collections in a vast building in the guise of a French château make the Bowes Museum one of the surprises of the Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

north. Grandest of English episcopal palaces, Auckland Castle was refitted in Neo-Gothic style and contains 12 superb paintings by Zurbarán. First of three nights in Newcastle.

Day 8: Belsay, Wallington (Nthumb). After Sir Charles Monck’s return from Greece in 1805 he built Belsay Hall in a severely Grecian style. Delightful woodland gardens lead to a mediaeval castle. Wallington Hall dates to 1688 but was refurbished in the mid-18th and mid-19th centuries, the latter resulting in an arcaded two-storey hall with scenes of Northumbrian history painted by William Bell Scott. Overnight Newcastle.

Day 9: Seaton Delaval, Cragside (Nthumb).

On a cliff-top site outside Newcastle, Seaton Delaval was the last of Vanbrugh’s magnificent mansions. Innovatory management has followed its acquisition by the National Trust in 2009. A wonderful sequence of lateVictorian taste and technology, Cragside is a romantic Tudor-style pile (1869–84) designed

by Norman Shaw for William Armstrong, inventor and manufacturer.

Day 10: Alnwick (Nthumb), Newcastle.

Since 1309 the seat of the Percys, Dukes of Northumberland, Alnwick Castle externally remains a striking mediaeval fortress while the interiors are a lavish exercise in Victorian mediaevalism. There is a superb painting collection and a new 12-acre garden. The coach takes you to Newcastle railway station by 3.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £3,160 (deposit £300). This includes: hotel accommodation; private coach throughout; breakfasts and 7 dinners with wine, water, coffee; admission to houses, gardens and sites; all tips for waiters, drivers, guides; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £320.

Hotels: near Chatsworth (3 nights): Located on the Chatsworth Estate, the Cavendish Hotel has been an inn for centuries. All bedrooms have good views and elegant décor with original artwork. In York (3 nights): The Grange, ten minutes on foot from the Minster, has been beautifully converted from a Georgian town house and the decoration and furnishings combine period and modern; very good restaurant; no lift. In Newcastle (3 nights): Jesmond Dene House, a 19th-century mansion in a quiet wooded suburb which opened as a hotel in 2007. Stylishly decorated, very comfortable, exceptional service, good amenities, garden, excellent restaurant.

Castle Howard, the temple, engraving from Historic Houses of the United Kingdom, 1892.

be suitable for anyone with difficulties with everyday walking and stair-climbing. Coaches can rarely park near the houses, many of the parks and gardens are extensive, the houses visited don’t have lifts (nor do all the hotels).

Average distance by coach per day: c. 60 miles.

Memberships. National Trust: members (with cards) will be refunded c. £40. Current annual membership is £53 or £88.50 for a couple.

English Heritage: members (with cards) will be refunded c. £15.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Châteaux of the Loire, 26–29 May (page 64).

The Thomas Tallis Trail 1–3 November 2013 Details available January 2013 Contact us to register your interest Five concerts over three days with The Tallis Scholars, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the ensemble’s foundation.

The focus is the music of Thomas Tallis, performed in venues where the composer is known to have worked.

How strenuous? Unavoidably there is quite a lot of walking on this tour and it would not

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Royal Residences Palaces & houses in & around London, with private visits The throne room at Buckingham Palace, wood engraving c. 1880.

6–10 August 2013 (mz 647) 5 days • £2,040 Lecturer: Giles Waterfield Visits ten palaces and homes, half of which are still in use by the royal family.

Up to five very special out-of-hours private tours, including Buckingham Palace.

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

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

Good hotels near Windsor and in Whitehall.

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

The dominant role of royalty in building activity in England ended abruptly with the death of Henry VIII and did not revive until the late eighteenth century under George III and George IV. Subsequently, royal patronage was constrained by the parsimony of Parliament

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and a prevailing dislike of Continental-style absolutism – and, long before constitutional monarchy emerged as the established political order after 1688, shortage of cash. There is no Versailles in England, no Caserta, no Winter Palace.

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

The taste and predilections of the inhabitants of these royal residences also contribute to their appearance, of course.

Some members of the royal family have been passionate about art and architecture and aspired to be enthroned amidst the latest style and in maximum magnificence, but many have been content with – or even yearned for – something more modest.

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

Architecture and decoration are not the sole subjects of the tour. The Royal Collection is one of the greatest in the world; the

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Queen’s palaces are replete with paintings, sculptures, furniture, porcelain and textiles of international importance. The unoccupied palaces are also amply furnished and adorned.

Art, architecture, history, personalities: the theme of royal residences is one which is as rich and stimulating as any that London and her environs has to offer.

Itinerary Note that appointments for private tours cannot be confirmed until January 2013.

Day 1: Tower of London, Whitehall, Windsor.

Start in Westminster at 9.45am. Begun

by William the Conqueror and regularly enlarged and strengthened, the Tower of London remained the principal fortified royal residence throughout the Middle Ages.

Whitehall was one of the largest palaces in Europe but was burnt in 1698; only the epoch-making Banqueting House by Inigo Jones and Peter Paul Rubens survives. Drive to Egham and settle into Great Fosters Hotel. There is a private evening tour of the state apartments of Windsor Castle, which was also founded by William I – the Norman motte and bailey design is still clear. It has been occupied by nearly every monarch since (for the present Queen it is the weekend retreat). Embellishment over the centuries has resulted in one of the most impressive and diverse palaces in the world. First of two nights in Egham.

Day 2: Hampton Court, Frogmore. Hampton Court was begun by Cardinal Wolsey, enlarged

by Henry VIII and 150 years later partly rebuilt

by Christopher Wren for William III and Mary II. The most sumptuous of surviving Tudor palaces is joined to the most magnificent of 17th-cent. buildings in Britain; great interiors, fine works of art, beautiful gardens, a formal park. There follows a private visit to rarelyopen Frogmore House. A farmhouse bought and enlarged by George III, it was used by successive sovereigns as a country residence, and is still used for entertaining.

Day 3: Windsor, Kew, Buckingham Palace.

Return to Windsor Castle to see more of this vast complex, including St George’s Chapel, one of England’s finest Gothic buildings, and the Albert Memorial Chapel. In the botanical gardens at Kew is an early 17th-century mansion that became a favourite residence of George III and his family. Continue to the centre of London and check in to the Royal Horseguards Hotel near Whitehall. In the evening there is a private tour of the state rooms of Buckingham Palace. A mansion of 1703 remains at its core, but periodic refurbishment and enlargement, most significantly by John

b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

The Cotswolds Walking through some of the best English countryside Nash for George IV in the 1820s, led to today’s truly palatial experience. First of two nights in London.

Day 4: Greenwich, Clarence House. By fast river bus down the Thames to Greenwich. Of the great palace, a Tudor favourite, only the Queen’s House remains, designed by Inigo Jones in 1616 and the first truly Classical building in Britain. The rest was replaced by the Royal Naval Hospital built by Wren, Hawksmoor and Vanbrugh, the finest ensemble of Baroque architecture in Britain. In the late afternoon there is a private visit to Clarence House, a Nash mansion which was home to William IV while king, Princess Elizabeth from 1947, the Queen Mother from 1952 and the Prince of Wales from 2002.

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

Practicalities Price: £2,040 (deposit £200). This includes: hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; transport by private coach, and by Thames waterbus; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £320 (double for single occupancy).

Hotels. Egham (2 nights): located between Windsor and Hampton Court, Great Fosters is a Grade One listed building largely of the 16th and 17th centuries, sympathetically restored in the 1920s and surrounded by 50 acres of gardens and park. Now a luxury hotel, bedrooms vary in size and décor, but many are furnished with antiques and all are well equipped with modern conveniences. London (2 nights): just off Whitehall, the Royal Horseguards Hotel is within walking distance of, or a short taxi ride to, most of the London palaces. The style is that of an international hotel and bedrooms are very comfortable with all mod cons. All have a bath and shower.

9–16 September 2013 (ma 694) 8 days • £2,420 Lecturer: Dr Steven Blake Nine walks through some of the loveliest countryside in the world with stops to enjoy buildings and landscape features.

A carefully selected itinerary which favours the lesser-visited and less accessible places over some of the more touristy ones.

Several outstanding gardens are a feature, as are manor houses and a handful of the finest parish churches in the country.

Stay in a 16th-century country house.

Dr Steven Blake leads, a historian specialising in the history of Gloucestershire.

The Cotswolds famously encompasses some of the loveliest countryside in England.

Loveliness belongs not only to the countryside but also to the buildings that go with it – viscerally pretty villages, farmsteads, manor houses and market towns.

An essential ingredient of the winning formula is the building stone, seemingly 80% honey and 20% lichen, extruded from the hills on which they stand and sculpted by generations of masons who honed their craft with instinctive good taste. The vernacular is timeless and utterly beguiling, though it incorporates some of the grandest and proudest town houses in England. Some could almost have been designed by Andrea Palladio himself – and some practically were, the designs transmitted to Gloucestershire artisans through

the innumerable copycat pattern books which buoyed up English provincial building for a couple of centuries.

Parish churches are a particular glory of the Cotswolds. Mostly mediaeval, they range from the diminutive, artless and additive – often blessedly under-restored and un-modernised – to the great churches in the larger villages and towns with soaring arcades, acres of glass, elaborately sculptured tombs and towers and spires to rival any in the country.

Where did the money come from? Wool.

Prized as the best in Europe by the Merchant of Prato in the fourteenth century, wool and cloth manufacturing was the basis for solid prosperity from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution – when the water power of the hills and valleys pushed the region to the forefront before the advent of steam power knocked it back again.

Thus the Cotswolds slumbered, ripe for discovery as a rural idyll by the bicyclemounted aesthetes and romantics of the late Victorian era.

Itinerary Day 1: Coln Valley. The tour starts at Cheltenham Spa railway station at 2.00pm.

Leaving luggage on the coach, walk for five miles following the path of the River Coln, past the picturesque villages of Coln St Dennis, Coln Rogers and Winson. Approach Bibury and the hotel on foot, passing Arlington Row, the renowned terrace of cottages that led William Morris to refer to Bibury as the most beautiful village in England.

Fairford, St Mary’s, wood engraving 1896 after a drawing by W.H.J. Boot.

How strenuous? Participants need to be good walkers and have stamina. On occasion there is a walk of 20 minutes or more between the coach (or water bus) and the palace, and some of the visits are of two hours or more without a break. Average coach travel per day: 20 miles.

Small group: 12 to 22 participants.

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The Cotswolds continued

Day 2: north Cotswolds. A morning visit to the 4,000-year-old Neolithic burial chamber of Belas Knap, the finest long barrow in Gloucestershire, followed by a walk along the Cotswold Way (2 miles) to Sudeley Castle, famous for its honeyed stone and magnificent gardens. After a break for lunch there is another walk (3 miles), through the attractive town of Winchcombe to Hailes, to visit the ruins of a 13th-century Cistercian abbey and a Romanesque church with wall paintings.

Day 3: the Eastleaches, Fairford. Visit the churches of Eastleach Martin, Eastleach Turville and Southrop on foot (2 miles). The magnificent Perpendicular St Mary at Fairford is Britain’s only parish church with a complete set of mediaeval stained glass windows, and of the highest quality too. In the afternoon, walk in Lodge Park, a Cotswold estate containing a rare 17th-century grandstand surrounded by water meadows.

Day 4: Stanway and Sezincote. Visit Stanway House, one of the Cotswolds’ loveliest manor houses. Walk from Stanway to Stanton (2 miles) and have lunch at a local pub. Drive to Sezincote, built in the Mogul style of Rajasthan and the inspiration for the Brighton Pavilion.

English Music in Yorkshire

Day 5: southern Cotswolds. Rodmarton Manor is a supreme example of the Arts and Crafts tradition, having been built and furnished entirely by local craftsmen. Drive to Westonbirt Arboretum, a feast for the eyes regardless of season, whether the wildflowers in early summer or the natural fireworks of autumn. There follows a special visit to the gardens at Highgrove, the country house of the Prince of Wales – to be confirmed.

Day 6: central Cotswolds. Beginning and ending in Sapperton, walk (5 miles) through undulating woodland and pasture, with periodic open vistas. Pass a number of buildings in the Arts and Crafts style.

Cirencester is a flourishing market town with modern metropolitan businesses amidst streets with many 17th- and 18th-century delights.

The soaring magnificence of St John the Baptist is of cathedral-like proportions. Return for a while to Bibury before driving to Quenington for a late afternoon exploration of the village, followed by dinner at a private manor house.

Day 7: Chipping Campden. Walk to Chipping Campden from Dover’s Hill (1 mile), enjoying spectacular views over the escarpment. Possibly the most beautiful of all Cotswold towns,

22–27 September 2013 A new all-inclusive festival Details available December 2012 Contact us to register your interest York, engraving from Cathedrals, Abbeys & Churches of England & Wales Vol.I, 1896.

it is a gilded masterpiece of limestone and craftsmanship and home to one of the very finest wool churches in the area. Walk (4 miles) to the gardens at Kiftsgate and on to Hidcote Manor Gardens, one of the most inventive and influential gardens of the 20th century.

Day 8: Painswick. Visit the unfinished Victorian Woodchester Mansion and then Painswick for lunch at a restaurant. The flamboyant Painswick Rococo Garden is the only compete survivor from the brief 18thcentury period of English Rococo Garden design. The coach returns to Cheltenham Spa railway station by 4.00pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,420 (deposit £250). This includes: accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 2 lunches and 5 dinners with wine, water and coffee; private coach throughout; admissions; all tips; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £330.

Hotel: Bibury Court Hotel is a Grade I listed 16th-century country house. The rooms vary in size, and the décor of the whole hotel has been recently refurbished. The service is friendly, and prides itself on quirky, individual touches.

How strenuous? This tour should only be considered by those who are used to regular country walking, with some uphill content.

The paths are usually on grassy tracks or through woodland, combined with some paved road. Climbing and crossing stiles are a regular feature on these paths. Strong knees are essential, as are a pair of well-worn hiking boots with good ankle support. There are nine walks of between 1 and 6 miles. Average distance by coach per day: 42 miles.

Membership. National Trust: members (with cards) will be refunded c. £15. Current annual membership (2012) is £53 or £88.50 for a couple.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with English Music in Yorkshire, 22–27 September (contact us to register your interest).

Tours travelling to both England and France: The Narrow Sea, 26 June–7 July (see page 49).

The Rite of Spring, 27–31 May (see page 60).

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b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Chamber Music Weekends The Castle Hotel, Taunton & Jesmond Dene House, Newcastle The Endellion String Quartet 18–20 January 2013 (mz 458) Price: £690 (garden room £820) Talks by Geoffrey Norris The Castle Hotel, Taunton The Wihan Quartet 22–24 February 2013 (mz 479) Price: £690 (garden room £820) Talks by Richard Wigmore The Castle Hotel, Taunton A Schubertiade in Newcastle 15–17 March 2013 (mz 494) Price: from £740 Talks by Richard Wigmore Jesmond Dene House, Newcastle The Aronowitz Ensemble 26–28 April 2013 (mz 539) Price: £720 (garden room £840) The Castle Hotel, Taunton

‘Le Concert’, lithograph by Louis-Leopold Boilly (1761–1845).

Contact us for the full details or visit www.martinrandall.com A music weekend arranged by Martin Randall Music Management is a very special experience. There is the pleasure, first, of hearing music performed by artists of the highest calibre, who are all among the very best in their fields. Many come from mainland Europe as well as the UK. Second, the music is performed in an intimate setting, a small hall little bigger than a large drawing room – just the sort of size which composers used to have in mind for chamber music. The audience is rarely more than a hundred and usually fewer, and consists mainly of those who stay throughout the weekend and attend all four concerts.

Third, the weekends take place at two outstanding hotels. The Castle in Taunton and Jesmond Dene House in Newcastle are both among the finest in England, and are famous for comfort, character, and cuisine. We usually have exclusive use of the hotels during these music weekends, and there is opportunity for artists and audience to mingle throughout.

While these events are undeniably indulgent and leisurely retreats, they are also intended to stimulate the mind and enchant the aesthetic sensibilities. Within an over-arching theme, the music is carefully chosen and programmed to provide an illuminating sequence – while each concert is satisfyingly self-sufficient. Some weekends include pre-concert lectures, and musicians often talk during their concerts.

The centenary of Benjamin Britten’s birth is marked by the inclusion of one of his Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

string quartets in each of the four concerts otherwise devoted to Beethoven given by the internationally acclaimed Endellion Quartet in January.

The incomparable Wihan Quartet return in February with an irrestible programme of Mozart, Schubert and Dvořák.

Our Schubertiade in Newcastle in March, concentrating on the last years of the composer’s life, will also be a quite exceptional experience – the artists performing are Stephan Loges (bass-baritone), Elizabeth Watts (soprano), Roger Vignoles (piano), Steven Osborne (piano) and Martin Roscoe (piano).

The seven musicians of the Aronowitz Ensemble, new to our music weekends, perform a variety of music in a variety of permutations, with British composers to the fore in April.

There have been music weekends at The Castle since 1977, and Martin Randall Music Management have been organising them since 2003. The first music weekend at Jesmond Dene House in Newcastle took place in 2011.

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

Fuller details, including programmes and information about the artists, can be found on our website. Alternatively, please contact us to receive the dedicated brochure.

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Politics & Politicians A Symposium in Taunton 8–10 February 2013 The Castle Hotel, Taunton Details available December 2012 Contact us to register your interest Politicians and political commentators talk in a relaxed and non-confrontational environment about what they really care about, why they went into politics, what life as a politician is really like and about what they see as the major issues of the day.

Four sessions of talks and discussions take place during the weekend. There is also ample opportunity to continue discussions with speakers, during breaks and at dinners.

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The Baltic States Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania 6–18 May 2013 (mz 560) 13 days • £3,220 Lecturer: Neil Taylor Three countries with different languages, diverse histories and distinct cultural identities.

The lecturer, Neil Taylor is a leading expert on the Baltic States.

An extensive legacy from German, Polish, Russian and Swedish occupations.

The focus of the tour is history, politics and general culture, rather than art and architecture.

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania: the regaining of independence in 1991 by these three states was a happy outcome of the demise of the Soviet Union. Of all the fragments of that former super-power, the Baltic States are perhaps the countries with the brightest future and the least clouded present.

Though geographical proximity leads the countries to be conventionally thought

Estonia

of together as a single entity, the degree of difference between them is surprisingly great in terms of ethnicity, language, historical development and religion.

The Estonians are of Finno-Ugric origin and their language has nothing in common with their Latvian or Russian neighbours.

Lithuanian history has for much of the postmediaeval era been linked with Catholic Poland, whereas Estonia and Latvia were early recipients of Protestantism.

In the eighteenth century these states succumbed to the bear-hug of the Russian Empire – and only after the First World War did they achieve full independence. In 1940, with the annexation by the Soviet Union, they once more fell under Russian rule. Between 1941 and 1944 they had the additional suffering of the German Occupation. Yet the Baltic States were always among the most prosperous and liberal of the Soviet republics, and among the most independent-minded.

Surprise ranks high among the responses of the visitor now – surprise that there is so

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much of interest and beauty, and surprise that the Iron Curtain was indeed so opaque a veil that most of us in the West could remain so ignorant of these countries and their heritage.

Surprise, perhaps, that on the whole the region functions with considerable efficiency and sophistication.

Itinerary Day 1: Tallinn (Estonia). Fly at c. 1.30pm from Gatwick to Tallinn. First of three nights in Tallinn.

Day 2: Tallinn. The upper town has a striking situation on a steep-sided hill overlooking the Baltic with views over the city. Among the mediaeval and classical buildings are the Toompea Palace (Parliament), Gothic cathedral and late 19th-century Russian cathedral and the 15th-century town hall (visit subject to confirmation). Continue through the unspoilt streets of the lower town with its mediaeval walls, churches and gabled merchants’ houses

b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

and see the church of the Holy Ghost and the City Museum. Visit St Nicholas, a Gothic basilica with a museum of mediaeval art.

Overnight Tallinn.

Day 3: Lahemaa National Park (Estonia).

Drive east into an area now designated as a national park. The charming manor houses of Palmse and Sagadi have full 18th-century classical dress disguising the timber structure.

Lunch is in a roadside inn, with wooden buildings – a former postal service station on the road to St Petersburg. Overnight Tallinn.

Day 4: Tartu (Estonia). Drive through a gently undulating mix of woodland and fertile fields, with traditional vernacular farmsteads.

Tartu is in some ways the cultural capital of Estonia, the university having been founded in 1632. There are fine 18th- and 19th-century buildings, especially the town hall and university and there is a visit to the restored Jaani church. Overnight Tartu.

Day 5: Cesis (Latvia). Enter Latvia travelling through hilly landscape renowned for its beauty. Cesis is an historic and well-preserved small town with church and ruined castle. Its manor house Ungurmuiza (about 10 miles out of town) is constructed in wood with a baroque façade and interior. The drive continues via Straupe, another attractive village. First of three nights in Riga.

Day 6: Riga (Latvia). Explore Latvia’s capital on foot. The Art Nouveau district is a residential quarter of grand boulevards, with classical, historicist and outstanding façades.

Within the extensive Old Town there are mediaeval streets, Hanseatic warehouses, Gothic and Baroque churches and 19thcentury civic buildings. There are visits to the Menzendorff House, a restored merchant’s house and now a museum, Gothic St Peter with its distinctive tall spire and the cathedral, which is the largest mediaeval church in the Baltic States. Overnight Riga.

Tallinn, the Upper Town, lithograph c. 1840.

Day 7: Riga. A drive via the market, formerly Europe’s largest, situated in five 1920s Zeppelin hangars, followed by a visit to the fascinating outdoor museum of vernacular buildings. Free afternoon when possibilities include the National Art Museum, Occupation Museum­or the Jewish Museum.

Overnight Riga.

Day 8: Rundale (Latvia), Siauliai, Kaunas (Lithuania). Rundale was one of the most splendid palaces in the Russian Empire, built from 1736 by Rastrelli for a favourite of Empress Anna. Lunch is in the palace restaurant. Lithuania is entered via the town of Bauska and there is a stop in Kedainiai to visit the regional museum. First of two nights in Kaunas.

Day 9: Kaunas (Lithuania). A diverse historic town with a wealth of architecture. Near the central square are a number of churches and the Town Museum. The Ciurlionis Art Museum has works of Lithuania’s most famous composer and artist. Other afternoon visits include the Resurrection Church and the Synagogue.

Overnight Kaunas.

Day 10: Pazaislis, Vilnius (Lithuania). At Pazaislis is a magnificent Baroque nunnery and pilgrimage church, one of the architectural gems of Eastern Europe. Continue to Vilnius which, far from the sea, has the feel of a Central European metropolis, with Baroque the predominant style. Afternoon walk to the bishop’s palace (now the Presidential Palace), the university, and the Church of St John. First of three nights in Vilnius.

Day 11: Vilnius. Walk to the Gates of Dawn, the Carmelite church of St Theresa, the former

Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

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Jewish ghetto, the cathedral and the exquisite little Late-Gothic church of St Anne. Visit the church of Saints Peter and Paul with outstanding stucco sculptural decoration and see the Museum of Applied Arts. The recently opened National Gallery houses 20th and 21stcentury Lithuanian art. Overnight Vilnius.

Day 12: Vilnius. Kazys Varnelis House Museum is an eclectic private collection of art and maps. Visit the Church Heritage Museum. Free afternoon when suggestions include the Genocide Museum, Vilnius Picture Gallery or the Theatre and Music Museum.

Overnight Vilnius.

Day 13: Vilnius. Fly from Vilnius to London Gatwick, via Riga, arriving c. 12.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £3,220 (deposit £300). This includes: air travel (economy class) on Air Baltic and Estonian Air flights (Boeing 737); travel by private coach throughout; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 3 lunches and 9 dinners (including one light one) with wine, water and coffee; all admission to museums, sites, and donations to churches; tips for restaurant staff, drivers, guides; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer and local guides. Single supplement £390. Price without flights £2,980.

Hotels: in Tallinn (3 nights): a small stylish hotel in a turn-of-the-century building. In Tartu (1 night): modern, centrally located with a good restaurant; decor is quite bright. In Riga (3 nights): a modern well-located hotel with views over the park (but expect some street noise). In Kaunas (2 nights): newly-opened in a 19th-century mansion with modern features. In Vilnius (3 nights): an elegant and comfortable hotel in an excellent location. All hotels have a local 4-star rating with acceptable levels of comfort, good service and a central location.

Showers are more common than baths.

How strenuous? This is a long tour with four hotel changes and some long coach journeys.

There is a lot of walking, some of it on cobbled or roughly paved ground. Average distance by coach per day: 56 miles.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

Lecturers biographies are on page 194.

Estonia

Ethiopia Tracing one of Africa’s most fascinating histories Yeha, the first Christian capital at Aksum, the complexes of rock-hewn churches at Lalibela and their less well-known counterparts in eastern Tigray. Here three days are spent exploring these remarkable places of worship.

The lonely monasteries on the islands of Lake Tana and the imperial capital at Gondar, visited

by James Bruce in the eighteenth century, are also included.

The result is a journey which balances comprehensiveness with selectivity, which sees nearly all the outstanding buildings and artworks without cramming the days to excess.

The modern bustle of the multicultural capital Addis Ababa is also sampled while – and this can scarcely be overstated – providing a sequence of some of the grandest landscapes in the world.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 9.00pm from London Heathrow for the seven-hour flight to Addis Ababa (currently the only direct flight from London).

Adua, wood engraving c. 1875.

27 February–14 March 2013 (mz 473) £4,850 • 16 days Lecturer: Professor David Phillipson 9–24 October 2013 (ma 746) £4,850 • 16 days Lecturer: Professor David Phillipson A new tour for 2013, journeying through the most striking landscapes Africa has to offer.

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

Lalibela: Jerusalem in Ethiopia, one of the wonders of Africa. We spend three nights here.

A full day on the beautiful and eerie Lake Tana, with visits to secluded monasteries.

Led by an archaeologist with over 40 years experience working in East Africa.

A more relaxed pace than is the norm for Ethiopian tours, and maximum 18 participants.

Ethiopia is always a surprise to the first-time visitor. Much of it comprises an isolated plateau, riven by deep gorges, that has ensured its physical separation both from its African neighbours and from the lands across the Red Sea. Its peoples and their cultures are also

Ethiopia

distinct; and for thousands of years this has been reflected in their history and art.

Periodic famines notwithstanding, much of Ethiopia is highly fertile. Its farmers exploit a unique range of crops, some of which are cultivated nowhere else on earth. In rural areas one can still see ox-ploughing, hand-reaping and threshing and grinding using techniques that have been practised for millennia. Yet the country is now modernising itself with enormous rapidity, only a few decades after some areas were first penetrated by outsiders.

Roads are being built into areas previously inaccessible, hydro-electric schemes are bringing electricity to many settlements previously without, and daily flights take visitors to sites that until fairly recently required travelling for more than a week on the back of a mule.

The itinerary concentrates on the country’s northern highlands, with Lake Tana and the headwaters of the Blue Nile, where there have been three thousand years of literate civilisation. Christianity became the official religion even before it enjoyed that status in the Roman Empire, and churches carved from solid rock preserve the sanctified atmosphere of a land where, in Gibbon’s words, ‘the Aethiopians slept near a thousand years, forgetful of the world by whom they were forgotten’.

Sites visited include the ancient temple at

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Day 2: Addis Ababa. Touch-down c. 6.45am.

The rest of the morning is free; hotel rooms are at your disposal and breakfast and lunch are served. The collections of the National Museum of Ethiopia, the most comprehensive in the country, range from 3.5 million-year ‘Lucy’ to the more recent Axumite and Early Christian periods. Overnight Addis.

Day 3: Addis Ababa, Bahir Dar. The Institute of Ethiopian Studies, an ethnographic museum in Haile Selassie’s palace, is dedicated to Ethiopia’s rich mix of ethnic groups and includes an impressive collection of manuscripts and icons. Fly c. 7.00pm to the quiet and picturesque town of Bahir Dar. First of two nights in Bahir Dar. Day 4: Bahir Dar. Through the early morning mist, we take a boat to the Zegie Peninsula.

Under a lush green canopy are the round churches of Ura Kidane Mehret and Beta Maryam. Complete with thatched roofs, ostrich egg-adorned crosses and brightly coloured murals, they are the focus for the local community as well as a sanctuary for the abundant plant and bird life. In the afternoon we visit one of the lake’s more remote churches, Narga Selassie. Built in the 18th century on the island of Dek for the Princess Mentewab, it is different in style from the other Tana churches and includes a stone etching of the 18thcentury Scottish explorer James Bruce. Final night in Bahir Dar. Day 5: Bahir Dar, Gondar. Drive through some wild and unspoilt countryside, we walk over the 17th-century bridge constructed by the b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Portuguese to a view point of the spectacular Blue Nile Falls (during the February departure the water level will be low). In the afternoon we drive along the shores of Lake Tana to Gondar, the seat of the royal family in the 17th and 18th centuries. On arrival visit the church of Debre Birhan Selassie (Mountain of the Enlightened Trinity), founded in 1690 and displaying some of the most beautiful examples of ecclesiastical art in Ethiopia. Overnight Gondar.

Day 6: Gondar, Lalibela. Early start to visit the royal enclosure of Emperor Fasilidas (a unesco World Heritage site) where Indian, Turkish and Portuguese influences are displayed. Fasilidas’ pool, the location for one of Ethiopia’s most colourful Timkat (Epiphany) celebrations is also visited. Fly c. 12.15pm to Lalibela and the remarkable hidden rock-hewn churches, their scale testament to the faith and devotion of early Christian followers. In the afternoon visit the South-Eastern cluster including the fortified twin churches of Gabriel and Rafael, Beta Merkurios (dedicated to the saint martyred in the third century) and the impressive Beta Emmanuel and Beta Abba Libanos, reputedly built overnight with the help of a group of angels. First of three nights in Lalibela.

Day 7: Lalibela. This day is dedicated to the north-eastern cluster where the sophistication and sheer scale managed by the craftsman is best exhibited. Lalibela’s largest church, Beta Madhane Alem (Saviour of the World), as well as Beta Maryam, acknowledged as Lalibela’s oldest and most elaborate, are incorporated.

Beta Masqal, Beta Danagel, Beta Mika’el and Selassie Chapel complete the complex.

Overnight in Lalibela.

Day 8: Lalibela.Choice between two visits in the morning: the monastery of Nakuta La’ab or the remote but remarkable church of Imrahanna Kristos, located in a cave of Mount Abuna Yosef (the drive is uncomfortable and not suitable for those prone to motion sickness).

There is some free time in the afternoon before a sunset visit to Lalibela’s most well-known and breathtaking church, Beta Giyorgis. Final night in Lalibela.

Day 9: Lalibela, Axum. Fly c. 8.55am to Axum. The stelae field in Axum is home to some of the world’s largest free-standing stone monuments, many dwarfing the obelisks found further north in Egypt. Sculpted from a single piece of rock and intricately decorated, these massive structures highlight the city’s prestige in the ancient world when Axum was a flourishing, powerful capital. First of two nights in Axum.

Day 10: Axum. After a free morning, we visit the tombs of King Kalib and Gebre Meskel, Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

the Ezana inscription and the Cathedral of Tsion Maryam – the most sacred Christian site in Ethiopia and, according to local belief, the resting place of the Ark of the Covenant.

Day 11: Axum, Gheralta.Leaving early, our final destination is Gheralta. We pass the ‘Teeth of Adwa’, scene of Emperor Menelik II’s victory over the Italian army in 1896, before visiting the 7th-century bc temple of Yeha and the Church of Abuna Aftse on the way. Arrive in Gheralta early evening. First of three nights in Gheralta.

Day 12: Gheralta. The Teka Tesfai church cluster, including one of the finest churches in the area, Medhane Alem Adi Kasho. Picnic lunch in the countryside. Overnight Gheralta.

Day 13: Gheralta. Eastern Tigray is big sky country, mountain peaks like ragged teeth and arid plains. Scattered throughout this dramatic scenery are several isolated churches, many of them unknown to the outside world until very recently. The day is spent exploring a selection of these, still the focus of worship by the surrounding communities just as they were hundreds of years ago. Final night in Gheralta.

Day 14: Hawzien, Addis Ababa. Free morning before driving to Mekele. Visit Abraha-waAtsbaha church en route. Fly c.4.55 to Addis Ababa. First of two nights in Addis Ababa.

Day 15: Addis Ababa. Visit Entoto Maryam Church, Menelik’s capital prior to the establishment of Addis Ababa and the scene of his coronation in 1882. There is free time in the afternoon to visit Addis’ sprawling market, the Mercato. Overnight Addis Ababa.

Day 16. Fly from Addis Ababa to London, via Rome, arriving Heathrow c. 5.30pm * This is the itinerary for the February-March departure. In October days 1,2,15 and 16 are the same, but otherwise the tour operates in reverse.

Practicalities Price: £4,850 (deposit £400). This includes: flights (economy class) with Ethiopian Airlines (Boeing 767 300 for international flights & Bombardier Q400 for internal); private coach for all other journeys; accommodation as described; all breakfasts, all lunches (including 3 picnics) and 13 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tip; all taxes; the services of the lecturer, tour manager and local guides. Single supplement £530. Price without flights £4,100.

Hotels. Addis Ababa (3 nights): smart, modernised, centrally-located 5-star hotel.

Bahir Dar (2 nights): on the shores of Lake Tana’ this newly opened 5-star lodge has the best accommodation available and includes a

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spa and health centre. Gondar (1 night): high above the town, this hotel has spectacular views of Gondar and the surrounding countryside.

Lalibela (3 nights): a former governmentowned hotel close to the church complexes, quiet and comfortable. Axum (2 nights): the best hotel in the town with excellent views over the stelae park and church. Gheralta (3 nights): lodge with spectacular scenery, accommodation in local style stone houses.

Flight schedule changes are common. We recommend you keep diaries clear for 24 hours either side of the tour dates.

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

Visas. British citizens and most other foreign nationals require a tourist visa. The current cost for UK nationals is around £14. This is not included in the price of the tour because you have to obtain it yourself. We will advise on the procedure but you will need to submit your passport to the Ethiopian Embassy in your country of residence prior to departure.

Processing times vary from country to country, but UK residents should expect to be without their passport for up to 10 days. Passports must be valid for 6 months from entry into Ethiopia.

How strenuous? A good level of fitness is essential. Unless you enjoy entirely unimpaired mobility, cope with everyday walking and stairclimbing without difficulty and are reliably sure-footed, this tour is not for you. Uneven ground and irregular paving are standard.

On some days there are fairly steep ascents to remote churches. There are some long coach journeys on uneven terrain (we will be using modified buses) during which facilities are limited and may be of poor quality. Most sites have some shade but the Ethiopian sun is strong, even in the cooler seasons. Average distance by coach per day: 45 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 18 participants.

Working in partnership with The Ethiopian Heritage Fund. The Ethiopian Heritage Fund, a UK registered charity, was set up in August 2005. Working together with the Ethiopian Church and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in Ethiopia, their aim is to promote and organise the conservation of early Ethiopian churches and their contents and to provide advice on their maintenance.

Possible linking tours. Combine the February departure with Israel & Palestine, 12–21 February (page 88).

Ethiopia

Finland: Aalto & others 20th-century architecture & design 29 June–6 July 2013 (mz 624) 8 days • £2,470 Lecturer: Dr Harry Charrington Journey through Finland surveying the works of Alvar Aalto, ‘the poet of International Modernism’.

See also major buildings by other twentiethcentury Finnish architects and look at other areas of design and art.

Led by Dr Harry Charrington, an architect who lived in Finland and worked in Aalto’s office, and author of Alvar Aalto: the Mark of the Hand.

Design is as associated with Finland as bacon with eggs. It is extraordinary what impact such a small country – which only gained independence in 1917 – has had on the look of things in the twentieth century.

Finland was a late starter. From its time at the periphery of European civilization and the following period as a remote part of the Swedish empire, there is not much to show other than vernacular domestic architecture and castles. Only in 1812, when the territory became a Russian grand duchy, did Helsinki acquire a spacious and monumental Neo-Classical centre to rank among the most impressive.

Really interesting art and architecture begins in the later nineteenth century with National Romanticism, a manifestation of aspiration towards national self-determination.

The music of Sibelius is well enough known, but the architecture of Eliel Saarinen deserves much wider acclaim, and the brilliant, haunting paintings of Albert Edelfelt and Akseli GallénKallela will come as a revelation.

These are not isolated figures, for the turn of the century was a highly productive time. But one name stands out: Alvar Aalto.

Revered by architects around the world, it is not inconceivable that he will come to be regarded as the greatest architect of our era.

His designs differ radically from mainstream mid-twentieth-century modernism architecture in that they are imbued with humanity and an organic beauty. His employment of curved forms and concern with colour and texture provide a spectrum of beauties forbidden to hard-line modernists, and his buildings have a strong sense of place, exemplified by widespread use of that very un-modern but quintessentially Finnish material, wood. Aalto is the poet of International Modernism.

He also invented the bent plywood chair. Some of the twentieth century’s finest furniture, glass, ceramics and textiles have been created in Finland, much of it inspired by the principles which imbued Aalto’s work.

Itinerary Day 1: Helsinki. Fly at c. 10.20am from London Heathrow to Helsinki. Walk around the Neo-Classical heart of the city and see Senate Square, the domed cathedral, then down to the colourful Market Square by the old harbour. Stay two nights in Helsinki.

Day 2: Helsinki, Hvitträsk. A morning architectural walk includes Aalto’s Finlandia Hall (1975) and Saarinen’s Railway Station (1919). The Ateneum, Finland’s foremost art museum, houses a collection of brilliant National Romantic pictures. The open-air museum on the coast at Seurasaari shows the whole history of Finnish vernacular building.

Day 3: Otaniemi, Seurasaari, Paimio. In the morning visit Aalto’s Technical University in Helsinki’s Otaniemi area. Drive out to Hvitträsk, Saarinen’s home and studio. In Paimio is Aalto’s Sanatorium (1929–33), a classic of modern architecture for which he designed widely-imitated timber furniture.

Overnight Turku.

Day 4: Turku, Noormarkku. Turku is Finland’s oldest city, and has a mediaeval cathedral. Visit the cemetery by Aalto’s contemporary Erik Bryggman, followed by a walk through Turku’s city centre. In the afternoon see the Villa Mairea in Noormarkku, the most beautiful of Aalto’s private houses.

Overnight Seinäjoki.

Day 5: Seinäjoki, Petäjävesi. Seinäjoki has a striking complex by Alvar Aalto: the Cross of the Plains church which dominates the townscape, parish hall, town hall-cum-theatre, clad in dark blue tiles, and library. See the UNESCO-listed wooden church by Leppanen in Petäjävesi. Visit the Alvar Aalto Museum, an art museum with a display of Aalto’s life and works. Overnight Jyväskylä.

Day 6: Jyväskylä, Säynätsalo. Aalto went to school in Jyväskylä and set up his first independent practice here. Representative of his early, ‘pre-functionalist’ buildings is the Trade Union Club (1923-5), his first important commission. The Teachers’ Training College (1952-7, now university), is one of the finest manifestations of his ‘red’ period, with warmhued bricks. See Aalto’s town hall (1952) at Säynätsalo and a summer house at Muuratsalo.

Stay two nights in Helsinki.

Finnish tar boats, after a drawing by V. Blomstedt 1900.

Finland

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Day 7: Helsinki. Walk to Aalto’s Rautatalo (The Iron House) Office building (1951-55) and through the ongoing development of the old Aurora railway yards, passing Kiasma Gallery of Contemporary Art. Visit Aalto’s Finlandia Hall (1961-75) and then continue to the Olympic Stadium. Visit the National b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

The Narrow Sea A history of the English Channel Pensions Institute (Aalto, 1952-56), considered by many members of the Aalto atelier as its finest construction. There is some free time in Helsinki. Dinner is in the Savoy Restaurant designed by Aalto.

Day 8: Helsinki. In the morning visit Käpylä, a remarkable wooden garden-city from the 1920s, then on to Finland’s Bloomsbury of Tuusula Lake with its turn of the century villa for Sibelius as well as the Kokkonen Villa by Aalto. Continue to Helsinki airport and fly to Heathrow, arriving at c. 5.15pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,470 (deposit £250). This includes: flights (economy class) with Finnair (Airbus 321); travel by private coach; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts; 2 lunches and 6 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips for restaurant staff and drivers; all airport and state taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £270. Price without flights £2,250.

Hotels: in Helsinki (4 nights in total): a central, recently renovated, modern hotel.

In Turku (1 night): a hotel near the river. In Seinäjoki (1 night): a relatively new, centrallylocated hotel. In Jyväskylä (1 night): a small traditional hotel; there are no lifts but porterage is arranged. All the hotels used on this tour are conveniently located and have a local 4-star rating. They are more functional than charming but with good standards of comfort.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking on this tour and four hotel changes. It should not be undertaken by anyone who has difficulty with everyday walking. Average distance by coach per day: 76 miles.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

Please contact us if you are interested in combining this tour with Munch in Oslo, 26–29 June (page 142).

Savonlinna La Traviata, Macbeth, Lohengrin 16–20 July 2013 (mz 637) 5 days • £2,420 Lecturer: Simon Rees Contact us now for the full details or visit www.martinrandall.com Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

Étretat, wood engraving c. 1885 from The Illustrated London News.

26 June–7 July 2013 (mz 620) 12 days • £3,640 Lecturers: Major Gordon Corrigan & Major Imogen Corrigan Follows the coasts and immediate hinterland of the south of England and the north of France.

Conceived as a history of the English Channel, it visits many of the most famous sites in AngloFrench history.

A variety of art, architecture, townscape and landscape.

Two lecturers: a military historian and a mediaevalist.

Highway for migrants, merchants, invaders and travellers of all sorts, and barrier, moat, defence, between two of the most cussedly independent and self-regarding nations in the world: the English Channel both connects and separates, attracts and repels.

While the history of ‘the Narrow Sea’ is a history of the people – and peoples – who have sailed across, in either direction and for whatever purpose, it is especially a history of the relations between the French and the English. Sometimes it is a history also of the inhabitants of all of Great Britain (occasionally with bit parts played by North American allies), and of the peoples and governments of Continental countries beyond France.

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The journey leads from eastern Kent along the south coast of England as far as Portsmouth. Here you take ship to Normandy and, again hugging the coast, travel almost as far as Flanders before returning to London by train through the Channel Tunnel.

The tour deals primarily with history, not art history, with sites rather than sights; aesthetic and scenic merit is plentiful but incidental. Seeing the location of momentous events and understanding how the topography influenced the outcome adds immeasurably to an understanding of history. Familiarity with place can also be profoundly moving, and a tour which includes the battlefields of Hastings, Crécy, Agincourt, Dunkirk and D-Day is rich in emotional potential.

Most of the sights – and sites – are not military, though castles and fortifications do figure prominently. A Gertrude Jekyll garden, the finest Roman floor mosaics in northern Europe, the mother of all Norman churches, a window designed by Braque; bow-fronted Regency seaside architecture and fairy-tale elaborations of Louis treize style, towns and villages of exceptional charm, one-time ports from which the sea has receded and ‘progress’ has passed by: these are among the sights on offer.

Much is surprisingly off the beaten track, and we have sometimes opted for the less well-known – deserted Winchelsea instead of teeming Rye for example, old-fashioned

Finland, France

The Narrow Sea continued

Eastbourne instead of busy, trendy Brighton.

Of course, the contrasts between France and England will be found fascinating, but there are surprising contrasts within each country as well.

Itinerary Day 1: Pegwell Bay, Sandwich. Leave central London by coach at 10.30am for the east coast of Kent. Some of the most significant landings in the early history of England were on Pegwell Bay and the Isle of Thanet, Romans in AD 43, the first Angles, St Augustine in 597, the first Vikings to settle. Massive walls survive from the principal Roman port of Richborough, a cross marks the site of St Augustine’s first sermon. Visit Sandwich, described by Pevsner as ‘the completest mediaeval town in England’, and which used to be the major port of southeast England. Overnight near Dover.

Day 2: Dover, Deal, Walmer. Rising above the emblematic White Cliffs, Dover Castle, ‘the key to England’, was the most important stronghold in the country; in continuous use until recently, it includes a Roman lighthouse, Norman keep, and World War II tunnels. The little conurbation of Deal and Walmer was site of Julius Caesar’s landings in 56 and 55 BC and preserves two of Henry VIII’s Italian-designed coastal forts. Walmer Castle was converted into a residence by the Duke of Wellington and subsequent Masters of the Cinque Ports.

Overnight near Dover.

Day 3: Romney Marsh, Dungeness, Winchelsea. Martello towers, defence against Napoleon’s planned invasion, punctuate the

coast road though Hythe and Dymchurch.

Romney Marsh is a dead flat expanse whose waterways gradually dried, marooning several ports miles inland. At its seaward apex lies the desolation of Dungeness, shingles, marine flotsam, tumbledown fishermens’ cottages, lighthouses. Oh, and a nuclear power station.

Winchelsea, hill-top Cinque Port laid out to a 13th-century grid plan, with a church of cathedral-like proportions. Overnight near Battle.

Day 4: Battle, Pevensey, Eastbourne, Bexhill.

Study the field of the Battle of Hastings where William Duke of Normandy triumphed over King Harold in 1066. The Normans camped on the eve of battle at Pevensey Castle, a Roman fort with mediaeval additions. The most genteel of English seaside towns, Eastbourne was developed and carefully controlled by Dukes of Devonshire. Take a boat trip to view Beachy Head, the most dramatic of England’s chalk cliffs. Visit the De La Warr Pavilion at Bexhill, a Modernist masterpiece (Mendelsohn & Chermayeff 1935). Overnight near Battle.

Day 5: Portsmouth. First used as a naval base under the Tudors, Portsmouth is now the principal home of the Royal Navy; building and maintaining the fleet constituted Europe’s largest industrial enterprise in the 18th century.

Prize exhibits in the Historic Dockyards are HMS Victory, Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar, and the Mary Rose, pride of Henry VIII’s fleet which sank ingloriously before the monarch’s eyes and was salvaged in 1982; the museum containing personal belongings salvaged from the wreck is as impressive.

Overnight Portsmouth.

Day 6: from England to France. Early start for the 4-hour crossing on a high-speed ferry to Cherbourg. Continue by coach to Bayeux, a pleasant town with a fine mediaeval cathedral.

Overnight Port-en-Bessin (near Bayeux).

Day 7: Bayeux, Utah Beach, Omaha Beach.

Spend the morning studying the outstanding Bayeux Tapestry. Depicting Harold’s perjury and William’s Conquest, this 70 metres of embroidery is without parallel either as artwork or as document of mediaeval life. The afternoon is devoted to the American landings; visit Utah Beach, St Mère Eglise and the American cemetery at Omaha Beach where 9,385 servicemen are buried. Stay at Port-en-Bessin.

Day 8: Operation Overlord. Explore sites of the Allied landings of 6th June 1944. Visit first Pegasus Bridge, captured by the British Airborne Division in the early hours of D-Day. Sword, Juno and Gold were code names for the beaches in the British sector, evocative because they are largely unchanged. Segments of Mulberry Harbour, the floating dock, can still be seen off Arromanches. See also well-preserved German gun emplacements at Longues-sur-Mer, relics of the Atlantic Wall, the largest construction project of the 20th-century, rendered impotent within hours.

Overnight Port-en-Bessin.

Deal Castle, engraving 1832.

Day 9: Caen, Honfleur. Founded by William the Conqueror, the Abbaye aux Hommes at Caen became the model for dozens of Norman churches in England. Drive along the coast through several towns developed as holiday resorts in the 19th century, of which Deauville and Trouville were the most salubrious; hotel and villa architecture adopted bloated variants of historic French styles. There is free time to explore Honfleur, an utterly charming fishing village, now crammed with art galleries and antique shops. There is a good art collection in the Eugene Boudin Museum. Overnight near Honfleur.

Day 10: Le Havre, Etretat, Varengeville, Dieppe. Cross the Seine estuary by the new bridge and drive through Le Havre, rebuilt after the war by Auguste Perret, proselytiser of concrete. Continue to Etretat, a little town on a bay bounded by chalk promontories scooped into arches by wind and sea, famously painted by Monet. Georges Braque is buried at Varengeville in the incomparably sited clifftop church. The gardens of Bois des Moutiers are a Lutyens and Jekyll collaboration and beautifully maintained. Pass through Dieppe, one of the earliest seaside resorts, and scene of the disastrous but salutory Allied raid in August 1942. Overnight Montreuil.

Day 11: Montreuil, Crecy, Agincourt.

There is free time in the pleasant little town

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Brittany Megaliths to Monet of Montreuil, location of General Haig’s headquarters from 1915, and fine views of the countryside from impressive ramparts.

Afternoon excursion to two battlefields, the most famous on French soil in British mediaeval history, both English victories against the odds: Crecy (1346, Edward III and the Black Prince) and Agincourt (1415, Henry V). In both cases little of the topography has changed and even the woods have similar perimeters. Overnight Montreuil.

Day 12: Boulogne, Dunkirk. Travel northwards through open, rolling countryside.

Outside Boulogne, the 50-metre Colonne de la Grande Armée with a statue of Napoleon commemorates the gathering in 1805 of 150,000 troops (preparing for the aborted invasion of England). Continue to Dunkirk from where in 1940 heroic resistance by French and British units enabled the evacuation of 350,000 Allied troops in hundreds of craft.

Board a Eurostar train at Calais Frethun, slip through the Channel Tunnel and arrive at London St Pancras at c. 4.00pm.

Practicalities Price: £3,640 (deposit £300). This includes: ferry crossing from Portsmouth to Cherbourg (Brittany Ferries) and rail travel (first class, standard premier) on Eurostar, Calais to St Pancras; travel by private coach; accommodation as specified below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 11 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all state taxes; the services of the lecturers. Single supplement £370 (double for single use).

Hotels: Wallets Court, near Dover (2 nights), a pleasantly converted manor house and outbuildings situated in farmland. Powdermills Hotel near Battle (2 nights), a Regency country house hotel in extensive parkland. The Queens Hotel in Southsea (1 night) is a three star hotel, the best available near central Portsmouth with opulent public rooms.

In Port-en-Bessin (3 nights): a four-star hotel in an 18th-century château, located 8 km outside Bayeux. Outside Honfleur (1 night), modern, spacious and tranquil 3-star hotel overlooking the estuary. In Montreuil (2 nights), businessoriented 3-star hotel in a recently converted seminary; lacks character but has an excellent restaurant.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking, some long coach journeys and 6 hotels. Average distance by coach per day: 81 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Ardgowan, 20–25 June (page 156).

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A fishing village in Brittany, etching 1909.

6–12 June 2013 (mz 589) 7 days • £1,960 Lecturer: Caroline Holmes Brittany’s landscapes captured and cultivated: gardens, châteaux and historic towns.

Beautiful Belle-Ile, with an optional coastal walk.

The lecturer is Caroline Holmes, a garden historian with close family ties to Brittany.

Some of the finest prehistoric sites in Europe.

The inspiration for colonies of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists.

The landscapes of Brittany are variously dramatic, fertile and rugged, framed by jagged coasts or broad sands. The granite bedrock can be seen carved into poignant sixteenthcentury churchyard calvaries and piled high in Quimper’s two spires. The wealth of stone tools that have been found confirm the early agricultural skills of prehistoric Bretons.

Armorica stems from Ar Mor, literally land of the sea, to distinguish Brittany’s coasts from the forested interior, Ar Goat, that sheltered wolves, boar and deer as well as Druidic rites.

Over the centuries the fruits of its sea, fields, orchards and gardens fed their bodies and souls with a robust simplicity. Large tracts remained remote from and almost untouched

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by metropolitan France. In the late nineteenth century avant-garde artists came to see Brittany as an inspirational rural idyll and flocked from Europe, America and Australia.

It was already popular when in 1888 Paul Sérusier, Emile Bernard and Paul Gauguin formed the School of Pont-Aven. Nearby, Monet painted the wild seas and rocks off Belle-Ile and met the critic who was to become his lifelong friend and biographer, Gustave Geffroy. Australian Impressionist John Peter Russell married Marianna Antoinetta Mattiocco, Rodin’s favourite model, and in 1889 built a house at Port Goulphar where they entertained Sisley, Matisse and numerous other artists. In 1894 Sarah Bernhardt took up summer residence in the Fort; her guest list was to include Edward VII. This tour presents a broad sweep of history, prehistory, art and landscape. It is led by a garden historian and art historian who has close family ties to Brittany.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 11.30am from London City Airport to Quimper, capital of the Cornouaille region and well situated at crossroads between sea and land. In the afternoon visit the Musée Départemental Breton with its fine selection of pottery as well as archaeological finds and local arts and crafts.

First of three nights in Quimper.

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Brittany continued

Quimper, wood engraving c. 1880.

Day 5: Ile de Gavrinis, Locmariaquer. The 23 orthostats in the Cairn de l’Ile de Gavrinis have a wealth of symbolic patterns unmatched elsewhere. There are other stones at the Table des Marchands at nearby Locmariaquer. Catch the late afternoon ferry to Belle-Ile. Two nights are spent on the island: the hotel is on the site of Australian painter John Russell’s house and retains the views which inspired him to live, paint and host here for twenty years.

Day 6: Belle-Ile. Optional morning walk along the beautiful northern Côte Sauvage (c. 8 km), including a visit to the Musée Sarah Bernhardt and the fort that was her summer home at the Pointe des Poulains. Lunch in the small port of Sauzon. Return to the hotel via the Jardin la Boulaye that nestles in the sheltered heart of the islands. Afternoon walk in the footsteps of Monet to view the jagged Aiguilles de PortCoton. Overnight Belle-Ile. Day 7. Return by ferry to mainland France and transfer by coach to Nantes airport via the mediaeval walled city of Guérande, centre of the Fleur du Sel Guèrande industry dating back 1,500 years. The flight from Nantes to London City Airport arrives at c. 6.55pm.

Practicalities Price: £1,960 (deposit £200). This includes: flights with British Airways and Cityjet (economy class, Embraer E170, Fokker 50), coach travel, return ferry to Belle-Ile; accommodation as below; breakfasts and 5 dinners with drinks; all admission to gardens, museums, sites etc.; tips for restaurant staff, drivers; all state taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager; hire of radio guides for better audibility of the lecturer. Single supplement £220 (double room for sole use).

Price without flights: £1,800

Day 2: Quimper. The cathedral of St Corentin is the finest example of Gothic architecture in Brittany, with a sumptuous modern high altar in gilded and enamelled bronze. The Musée des Beaux Arts contains paintings by Dutch, Flemish and Italian artists and an exceptional collection of French paintings and drawings including 19th-century Breton scenes. In 1690 Jean-Baptiste Bousquet created the first faïencerie or pottery in the Locmaria district. Visit the workshop now owned by HB-Henriot.

Day 3: around Quimper. An excursion to three very different gardens. The Parc de Boutiguéry extends to 15 hectares along the banks of the River Odet where new, warm colours have been bred into the rhododendrons. At the Manoir

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de Kérazan sweet chestnuts grow alongside pines, palms and flowering shrubs. The house is a showcase of Breton workmanship: fine collections of the Quimper faïencerie, Bigouden furniture and paintings by local artists. Details of a visit to a third, private garden in the area will be confirmed on the final itinerary.

Day 4: Pont-Aven, Carnac. Towards the end of the 19th century, Pont-Aven was almost overrun by avant-garde and aspiring artists.

The chapel of Trémalo still harbours the 16th-century polychrome statue that inspired Gauguin’s Le Christ Jaune. Drive south to Carnac for a guided tour of the extraordinary wealth of orthostats (upright stones) and menhirs (standing stones) dating to c. 4600 bc.

Overnight Carnac.

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Hotels. In Quimper (3 nights): a functional 3-star hotel five minutes from the cathedral and museums. In Carnac (1 night) a 3-star hotel with an outdoor pool and excellent restaurant.

On Belle-Ile (2 nights): a spa hotel, a member of the Relais and Châteaux group, with fine coastal views.

How strenuous? A lot of walking and standing around. Sure-footedness and walking shoes are essential for the (optional) walk on Belle-Ile. Average distance by coach per day: 44 miles.

Small group: between 10 to 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Mediaeval Normandy, 24–31 May (page 54); Châteaux of the Loire, 26–29 May (page 64); History of Impressionism, 16–21 June (page 57).

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Anjou & Poitou Mediaeval art & architecture 22–30 June 2013 (mz 611) 9 days • £2,240 Lecturer: Dr Alexandra Gajewski Superb Romanesque and early Gothic buildings.

Exceptionally well-preserved historic town centres.

Rural drives along beautiful river valleys.

Led by Dr Alexandra Gajewski, specialist in mediaeval architecture.

First class rail travel on Eurostar.

The ancient counties of Anjou and Poitou boast the richest and the most diverse collection of Romanesque monuments in France. The result of this is that not only does a great deal of ecclesiastical building survive from a specific period, but that the patterns of survival make it possible to piece together something of the circumstances that brought individual churches into being. The idea of the tour is to take advantage of this, combining buildings which are otherwise difficult to get at in the rural hinterland, with the great monuments of Angers, Poitiers and Le Mans.

This region had been a pioneer in the development of feudalism, one of the effects of which was the growth of lay control over abbeys and collegiate churches. This meant that long established buildings were restored and new foundations established, and the region became a crucible of innovation in sculptural and architectural style. The frame of the western French church was subject to a series of changes of form and identity that were among the most dramatic of twelfth-century Europe.

The development of a mature Romanesque and Gothic architecture forms the core of the expedition, and the extravagantly carved screen façades of the Loire valley and Poitou will be a feature. The early 13th-century predilection for aisleless and hall church designs, domedup rib vaulting and polychromed surfaces will be given corresponding prominence. Nor will wall painting be neglected, on both glass and plaster, for the high spaces of St-Savin-surGartempe possesses one of the most beguiling cycles of frescoes of Romanesque Europe, while the east window of Poitiers cathedral frames some of its greatest 12th-century glass.

And though that rich vein of Carolingian and early Romanesque building has been largely superseded, a vein that marked out the Loire valley as one of the great stamping grounds of early mediaeval architectural thinking, enough remains to gain a sense of the range and monumental achievements of eleventh-century design in the region.

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Angers, the Hôtel de Pincé, from Etchings on the Loire by Ernest George 1875.

Itinerary Day 1: by Eurostar from London St Pancras at c. 9.30am to Paris. Continue by coach to Angers. First of four nights in Angers.

Day 2: Cunault, Fontevraud, Chinon. Drive along the south bank of the Loire, stopping at the light and spacious priory church of NotreDame-de-Cunault. Fontevraud, a vast monastic city, houses four communities on the same site: Plantagenet royal mausoleum, octagonal kitchen, Renaissance cloister. Chinon is home to Henry Plantagenet’s ‘beloved castle in the middle of France’.

Day 3: Angers. See magnificent and littleknown Romanesque sculpture from the Benedictine cloister of St-Aubin. Visit the château, a major 13th-century royal castle now housing Louis d’Anjou’s remarkable Apocalypse tapestry, the cathedral, the earliest and grandest of the ‘Angevin Gothic’ churches, and the jewel-like hall choir of St-Serge. Cross the river Maine to the Doutre, where Henry Plantagenet founded the Hôpital St-Jean and the Ronceray abbesses financed the inventive parish church of La Trinité.

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Day 4: Le Mans, Pirmil, Asnières-sur-Verge.

The day is devoted to the Maine with the morning at Le Mans cathedral, a building in very select league indeed, whose nave juxtaposes 11th-century aisles with a 12thcentury elevation, and whose choir stands as one of the supreme statements of Gothic architecture. Spend a gentle afternoon returning via the finest of the Mancelle parish churches and see the sculpture of Pirmil acting as a foil for the marvellous wall paintings at Asnières-sur-Verge. Final night in Angers.

Day 5: St-Jouin-de-Marnes, Poitiers. Slip south over the border with Poitou to St-Jouinde-Marnes whose monastic church carries the earliest of the elaborately carved western French screen façades. The afternoon is spent in Poitiers. See Notre-Dame-la-Grande with its superb show front overlooking the former market place. St-Hilaire was the resting place of a celebrated 4th-century bishop and is a major pilgrimage church. First of four nights in Poitiers.

Day 6: Poitiers. Spend the morning in the mediaeval town. See the cathedral, a majestic 12th- and 13th-century hall church. Ste-

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Anjou & Poitou continued

Mediaeval Normandy Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance

Radegonde demonstrates an engaging amalgam of Romanesque and Gothic themes.

Free afternoon.

Day 7: Civaux, St-Savin-sur-Gartempe, Chauvigny. A day among the painted churches of the valleys of the Gartempe and Vienne.

Civaux has a vast and enigmatic Merovingian cemetery and adjacent early medieval painted crypt. St-Savin-sur-Gartempe has the most extensive, most splendid cycle of Romanesque wall painting to survive in France. At Chauvigny see the dramatically situated seigneurial castle and collegiate church.

Superb examples of Romanesque and Gothic architecture.

A mediaeval architectural history tour, with due attention to other architectural periods.

Led by Dr Cathy Oakes, lecturer of art history at Oxford University.

First-class rail travel on Eurostar.

Based in Rouen and Bayeux in 4 and 5-star hotels.

During the late ninth century, Norse raiding parties first pillaged, then occupied, the coastal reaches of northern France. The effect on Carolingian France was catastrophic and, as its governmental systems collapsed, France disintegrated into a patchwork of small feudal domains.

Normandy was one of the most significant of these, and after the old Norse chieftain, Wrolf the Gangler, was granted the lordship of all lands north of the rivers Epte and Andelle in 911, the duchy was set on expansion. With feudalism came Christianity, the adoption of the French language and the emergence of one of the most far-reaching and influential schools of architecture to grace mediaeval Europe.

It is no exaggeration to see in the events of Rouen, Palais de Justice, steel engraving c. 1850.

Day 8: Melle, Nuaillé sur Boutonne, Aulnay.

Drive along the camino, the pilgrimage road running south-west towards Santiago de Compostela. Visit all three of the great Romanesque churches at Melle, St-Savinien, St-Pierre and St-Hilaire, the last with a majestic ‘Constantinian Rider’ fantastically perched above the north portal. Nuaillé-surBoutonne has a tiny parish church with a beautifully carved portal and Aulnay is home to a spellbinding small-scale pilgrimage church.

24–31 May 2013 (mz 579) 8 days • £2,520 Lecturer: Dr Cathy Oakes

Day 9: Nouaillé-Maupertuis. Final visit to the wonderfully ramshackle and picturesque 12th-century Benedictine abbey at NouailléMaupertuis. Take the TGV (high speed train) from Poitiers to Paris and continue by Eurostar to London St Pancras arriving c. 5.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,240 (deposit £200). This includes: rail travel (1st class, standard premier) by Eurostar and TGV (times confirmed 2 months before departure); travel by private coach; accommodation as below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 6 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Superior room throughout (including a suite in Poitiers, two sharing only) £200 per room. Single supplement £210. Single supplement with superior room in Angers £280. Price without Eurostar £2,030.

Hotels: In Angers (4 nights) a conveniently situated in the centre of town, a 3-star hotel with renovated rooms, varying in size. In Poitiers (4 nights) a centrally located 3-star hotel, refurbished in Art Deco style with spacious if slightly austere rooms.

How strenuous? A considerable amount of walking and standing around is involved. You will need to lift your own luggage on and off the train and wheel it within stations. Average distance by coach per day: 77 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

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1066 something quite central to the English sense of self-identity, events which are relayed in the Bayeux tapestry. But the most visible reminders of William’s success at Hastings are the great Norman castles and churches which are such familiar landmarks of English towns. Their origins lie in the pioneering eleventh-century buildings of Jumièges, Rouen and Caen. This development of a mature Romanesque architecture places Normandy at the forefront of an initiative which was to have profound consequences for later mediaeval Europe – the development of the integrated and articulate church on a colossal scale.

This alone would be justification for the tour, but while Normandy’s Romanesque buildings have often been the subject of lavish praise, that distinctive late twelfth- and early thirteenth-century architecture, of polished surfaces, giddying spires, and inventive geometry, remains less widely appreciated.

It is also the case that the buildings undertaken in the aftermath of the Hundred Years War have been sadly overlooked by historians of the period. And yet these are characterised by an extraordinarily welldeveloped interest in the picturesque and the fantastical, by myriad angles, flickering tracery, and twisted, slate-hung roofs. They number among the most accomplished buildings of late mediaeval Europe.

Itinerary Day 1: Les Andelys, Château Gaillard. By Eurostar at c. 10.30am from London St Pancras to Paris, and by coach to Les Andelys.

From the ruins of the Château Gaillard, a 12th-century fortification, there are fine views of the River Seine. Below in Grand Andely is the church of Notre-Dame (16th- and 17thcentury). First of three nights in Rouen.

Day 2: Rouen. Unquestionably the greatest city of Normandy, and one which retains enough of its historic fabric to rank among the most architecturally enthralling cities of northern Europe. Visits include the wonderfully inventive cathedral, the Palais de Justice, Musée des Antiquités and the important late Gothic churches of St-Ouen and St-Maclou.

Day 3: Caudebec-en-Caux, Fécamp, Jumièges, Boscherville. Drive along the Seine to Caudebec-en-Caux to see the virtuosic parish church of Notre-Dame. Continue to the mighty abbey of La Trinité at Fécamp. The afternoon is spent at the peerless ruined abbey of Jumièges, one of a handful of buildings which might be said to mark the arrival of mature Romanesque architecture in Europe and finally, the altogether more intimate spaces of St-Martin-de-Boscherville.

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Detail of the Bayeux Tapestry, wood engraving 1878.

Day 4: Evreux, Conches-en-Ouche, Bernay.

The transition from Romanesque to Gothic in Norman architecture is most apparent at Evreux cathedral. The nearby church of Evreux St Taurin houses one of the most celebrated mediaeval reliquaries. Conches-en-Ouche displays one the finest sequences of late mediaeval and early Renaissance stained glass.

Bernay Abbey is the essential starting point for an understanding of Norman Romanesque.

First of four nights in Port-en-Bessin.

Day 5: Bayeux. The Bayeux tapestry, subject of much scholarly attention and an object whose splendour and importance can scarcely be overstated, one of those rare ‘marvels’ which exceeds expectations. Bayeux cathedral is an exceptional building whose piecemeal 13th-century rebuilding programme had the effect of producing an essentially Gothicised Romanesque interior. Free afternoon.

Day 6: St-Gabriel-Brecy, Caen, Rucqueville.

At St-Gabriel-Brecy visit the intact mediaeval precinct which houses the remains of a Roman priory. Caen, capital of Basse-Normandie, offers a feast of celebrated Romanesque buildings, the great abbey churches of StEtienne and La Trinité and Henry I’s great castle hall, all buildings of the first rank and all built c. 1065 to c. 1140.

Day 7: Lessay, Coutances, Cerisy-la-Forêt.

An excursion into the granite country of the Cotentin peninsula. Lessay has a hauntingly beautiful Romanesque abbey while the cathedral at Coutances is a superb example of Norman 13th-century Gothic. In the afternoon drive to Cerisy-la-Forêt to visit the stunning Romanesque abbey church.

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Day 8: Sées. Drive to Sées cathedral, arguably the greatest 13th-century church built in Normandy, juxtaposing a breathtakingly light and intimate Rayonnant east end with an altogether sturdier early 13th-century nave.

Drive on to Paris and return by Eurostar to London St Pancras arriving at c. 7.00pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,520 (deposit £250). This includes: return rail travel by Eurostar (first class, standard premier) from London St Pancras to Paris (times confirmed 3 months before departure); coach travel in France; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 6 dinners with wine, water, coffee, plus light meals on the Eurostar; all admissions; all tips for restaurant staff and drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £340. Price without Eurostar £2,290.

Hotels: in Rouen (3 nights): a modern 3–star hotel in the historic centre of Rouen, a few minutes walk from the Cathedral. In Port-enBessin (4 nights): a four-star hotel in an 18thcentury château, located 8 km outside Bayeux.

How strenuous? The tour involves a lot of walking, some on roughly paved streets, and a fair amount of standing around. You need to be able to carry your luggage on and off the train and within the stations. On some days there is a lot of coach travel; average distance per day: 85 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Brittany, 6–12 June (page 51).

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French Gothic Cathedrals of Northern France Soissons Cathedral is a fine example of the rapid changes which took place in architecture at the end of the 12th century.

Day 4: St Denis. On the outskirts of Paris, the burial place of French kings, St Denis was an abbey of the highest significance in politics and in the history of architecture. In the 1140s the choir was rebuilt, and the pointed arches, rib vaulting and skeletal structure warrant the claim that this was the first Gothic building.

100 years later the new nave inaugurated the Rayonnant style of Gothic with windows occupying the maximum possible area. First of two nights in Chartres.

Rheims Cathedral, from The Magazine of Art 1890.

9–15 September 2013 (ma 676) 7 days • £1,980 Lecturer: Dr Matthew Woodworth The cradle of Gothic, northern Europe’s most significant contribution to world architecture.

Nearly all the most important buildings in the development of Early and High Gothic, with an entire day at Chartres.

The lecturer is Matthew Woodworth, specialist in Gothic architecture.

Unparalleled examples of stained glass, sculpture and metalwork.

Gothic was the only architectural style which had its origins in northern Europe. It was in the north of France that the first Gothic buildings arose, it was here that the style attained its classic maturity, and it is here that its greatest manifestations still stand.

From the middle of the twelfth century the region was the scene of unparalleled building activity, with dozens of cathedrals, churches and abbeys under construction. Architects stretched their imaginations and masons extended their skills to devise more daring ways of enclosing greater volumes of space, with increasingly slender structural supports, and larger areas of window.

But Gothic is not only an architectural phenomenon. Windows were filled with brilliant coloured glass. Sculpture, more life-like than for nearly a thousand years yet increasingly integrated with its architectural setting, was abundant. The art of metalwork

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thrived, and paint was everywhere. All the arts were coordinated to interpret and present elaborate theological programmes to congregations which included both the illiterate lay people and sophisticated clerics.

Nearly all the most important buildings in the development of the Early and High phases of Gothic are included, and the order of visits even follows this development chronologically, as far as geography allows. A whole day is dedicated to the cathedral at Chartres, the premier site of the building arts of the mediaeval world.

Day 5: Chartres. The cathedral at Chartres, begun in 1145 and recommenced in 1195 after a fire, is the finest synthesis of Gothic art and architecture. Sculpture and stained glass are incorporated into an elaborate theological programme, creating a whole which is far greater than the sum of its parts. The full day here provides time for unhurried exploration of the building and space to reflect and absorb.

See also the church of St Pierre.

Day 6: Mantes-la-Jolie, Beauvais, Amiens.

Visit the 12th-century collegiate church at Mantes-la-Jolie. Beauvais Cathedral, begun 1225, was, with a vault height in the choir of 157 feet, the climax in France of upwardly aspiring Gothic architecture and the highest vault of mediaeval Europe. Overnight Amiens.

Day 7: Amiens. The cathedral in Amiens is the classic High Gothic structure, its thrilling verticality balanced by measured horizontal movement. Drive to Lille for the Eurostar to London St Pancras, arriving c. 6.15pm.

Practicalities

Itinerary Day 1. Travel by Eurostar at c. 1.00pm from St Pancras to Lille. Continue by coach to Laon and the hotel, in an attractive lakeside setting.

First of three nights near Laon.

Day 2: Noyon, Laon. One of the earliest Gothic cathedrals (c. 1150), Noyon’s four-storey internal elevation marks the transition from the thick-walled architecture of the Romanesque to the thin-walled verticality of Gothic. Laon is spectacularly sited on a rock outcrop. Begun c. 1160, the cathedral is the most complete of Early Gothic churches and one of the most impressive, with five soaring towers.

Day 3: Rheims, Soissons. Rheims Cathedral, the coronation church of the French monarchy, begun 1211, is a landmark in the development of High Gothic with the first appearance of bar tracery and classicizing portal sculpture. At the church of St Rémi the heavy Romanesque nave contrasts with the light Early Gothic choir.

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Price: £1,980 (deposit £200). This includes: Eurostar (1st class, standard premier); private coach travel; hotel accommodation; breakfasts; 5 dinners with wine, water, coffee; admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager; hire of radio guides for better audibility of the lecturer. Single supplement £180. Price without Eurostar £1,800.

Hotels: in Chamouille (3 nights): a few kilometres from Laon, a comfortable 3-star hotel in an attractive position beside a lake.

Chartres (2 nights): a centrally located 4-star hotel; rooms differ in size and decor. Amiens (1 night): a new 3-star; close to the cathedral.

How strenuous? A fair amount of walking and standing around. Some long coach journeys.

You should be able to lift your luggage on and off the train and wheel it within the station.

Average distance by coach per day: 89 miles.

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History of Impressionism Paintings & places in Paris & Normandy 16–21 June 2013 (mz 596) 6 days • £2,220 Lecturer: Dr Frances Fowle

collections of Impressionists paintings.

Continue to Rouen in Normandy where four nights are spent.

Day 2: Honfleur, Le Havre, Etretat.

Honfleur is an utterly delightful fishing village at the mouth of the Seine, now crammed with art galleries and antique shops. In the museum are many works

by Eugène Boudin, a major influence on the Impressionists. Drive in the afternoon to Le Havre. After a recent donation and refurbishment, the Musée André Malraux has become the second largest collection of Impressionists in France and in 2013 hosts the exhibition Pissarro and the harbours. Continue to Étretat to see the Porte d’Amont and the Porte d’Aval, subjects of paintings

by Monet. Overnight Rouen.

The birthplace of Impressionism, with visits to key locations associated with the artists.

The finest collections of Impressionism in France, including the recently renovated Impressionist galleries at the Musée d’Orsay.

Coincides with an Impressionist festival in Normandy with major exhibitions in Rouen, Le Havre and Giverny.

Led by Dr Frances Fowle, Senior Curator of French Art at the National Gallery of Scotland.

First-class rail travel by Eurostar from London and good hotels in Rouen and Paris.

Far more Impressionist pictures can be seen in the region covered by this tour than in any other territory of comparable size. This should be no surprise, as this is the region where Impressionism was born and where it was most practised, and the tour visits some of the key sites in that development. Attention is also paid to the precursors – Pre-Impressionists such as Eugène Boudin and Jongkind – and to some Post-Impressionist successors.

As it was for mainstream artists, so it was for rebels and innovators: throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, Paris was the centre of the art world. All the French Impressionists spent time here, many lived here for most of their lives.

Yet the essence of their art – the recording of the world about them as it presented itself to their eyes in its immediate, transitory aspect – required them to spend time in the countryside.

And the countryside they frequented most was in the north and northwest of Paris, the broad valley of the meandering Seine and of its tributaries the Oise and the Epte, and on to the coast.

This can be illustrated by the case of Claude Monet, the most consistent exponent of Impressionism. He was born in Paris in 1840 and was brought up from 1845 in Le Havre on the Normandy coast before returning to Paris to study painting. Though Paris Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

Etching by Renoir.

remained the centre of his artistic world, he made frequent painting expeditions to river and sea, and from 1871 he made his homes in the suburbs, progressively further downstream at Argenteuil, Vétheuil, Poissy and finally, in 1883, at Giverny.

Impressionism was developing at the same time as seaside tourism on France’s northern coast (the Mediterranean was not a holiday destination until later) and the relationship between the two is fascinating. Water, fresh or salt, was an important ingredient of Impressionist pictures, its fleeting, changing, evanescent qualities similar to the characteristics of light they sought to capture on canvas. Indeed, water is the theme of the 2013 Impressionist festival in Normandy, with the Musée des Beaux Arts in Rouen exhibiting a great many works by Monet, Renoir, Cézanne and Manet, among others, on loan from the USA, Canada and Japan as well as Europe. It will host two exhibitions: one focussing on colour and reflections, the other on paintings by Monet inspired by Normandy’s impressive cliffs and coastline. The Musée Malraux in Le Havre will showcase Pissarro and his harbour paintings while the exhibition at the Musée des Impressionnismes in Giverny will study the use of colour and water in the works of Paul Signac.

Itinerary Day 1: Paris. Leave London St Pancras at c. 10.30am by Eurostar. In Paris visit the Musée Marmottan which, through a donation by Monet’s son, has one of the world’s largest

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Day 3: Giverny. The morning is devoted to the premier site in the history of Impressionism, Monet’s house and garden at Giverny where he lived from 1883 until his death in 1926, designing and tending the gardens which grew in size as his prosperity increased. Also at Giverny is the newly reconstituted Musée des Impressionismes (formerly Le Musée d’Art Américain) displaying the exhibition Signac, the colours of water.

Return in the mid-afternoon to Rouen to study the cathedral, the subject of over 30 of Monet’s paintings.

Overnight Rouen.

Day 4: Rouen. Spend the day in Rouen at the Musée des Beaux Arts, which will host two exhibitions. The first, Reflected colour, Impressionism and the water’s surface, displays paintings depicting the river Seine, rowing boats, bridges, floods and Venice, all such fascinating subjects for the Impressionists. The second is entitled The Cliffs of Monet.

Day 5: Auvers, Paris. Auvers-surOise was a popular artists’ colony, frequented by Impressionists and PostImpressionists. See sights associated with Van Gogh, who spent the last few weeks of his life here, and the studio of Daubigny. Return to Paris and visit the Musée des Beaux Arts in the Petit Palais, an under-appreciated collection for which space has recently been expanded. Overnight Paris.

Day 6: Paris. Walk through the Tuileries Gardens to the Orangerie where an excellent collection of Impressionists, Monet’s famous water-lilies and 20th-century paintings

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History of Impressionism continued

Le Corbusier Through France & Switzerland

are housed. Cross the river to the Musée d’Orsay; here, in newly renovated galleries, are displayed not only the world’s finest collection of Impressionism but also masterpieces by important precursors such as Courbet and Millet. Return to London by Eurostar, arriving St Pancras at c. 5.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,220 (deposit £200). This includes: travel (1st class, standard premier) on Eurostar; private coach within France; accommodation; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager; hire of radio guides for better audibility of the lecturer. Single supplement £290 (double for sole use). Price without Eurostar £1,990.

Hotels: in Rouen (4 nights): a modern 3–star hotel in the historic centre of Rouen, a few minutes walk from the Cathedral. In Paris (1 night): a comfortable 4-star hotel with an excellent location near the Louvre. Refurbished in a traditional style.

How strenuous? There is a fair amount of walking, particularly in the town centres, as well as standing in art galleries. There are also some long drives. You will need to lift your luggage on and off the train and wheel it within stations. Average distance by coach per day: 82 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Brittany, 4–11 June 2013 (mz 589) or Mediaeval Burgundy, 8–15 June 2013 (mz 598).

Modern art & architecture

Finland: Aalto & Others.........................48 Le Corbusier............................................58 Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur.............66 Bauhaus & Expressionism.......................73 Munch in Oslo......................................142 West Coast Architecture.......................188 Art in Texas...........................................189

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Left: La Tourette, photo from The Architectural Review June 1961; right: sketches of the Villa Savoye.

20–28 April 2013 (mz 532) 9 days • £3,240 Lecturer: Dr Harry Charrington A wide survey of works by one of the greatest architects of all time.

From Paris through the east of France and the Swiss Jura to Lyon and Marseille.

The lecturer is Dr Harry Charrington, architect and lecturer in architecture at the University of Bath.

First-class rail travel by Eurostar and TGV. Le Corbusier has left later generations of architects a problem. It sometimes seems that whatever design solutions they may dream up, Corb arrived there before. And that is without conscious imitation of the master, though no architect has been more imitated.

His energy, his gimlet intelligence and his ambition would have made him master of whatever profession he had chosen, but the fertility of his artistic genius and joy in creation turned him into one of the greatest architects of all time, and the most influential one of the twentieth century.

The exploration of the origins of the look of the modern world will be a fascinating aspect of this tour, but it is likely that the dominant impression will be of the sheer beauty of Le Corbusier’s buildings. There is far more of subtlety, nuance, sophistication and variety

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than might be expected of someone often simplistically classed as one of the instigators of International Modernism. He was an individual, not merely a representative of a style or movement. His impact was felt not only through his buildings – which are scattered across four continents – but also through numerous unexecuted projects, voluminous writings, and lecture tours.

This tour concentrates on the rich seam of his works to be quarried in Paris and in an arc out to the east of France, through the Swiss Jura and down through Lyon to Marseille – much of it passing fine natural scenery.

It covers a considerable distance, but does give as complete a picture of Le Corbusier’s architecture as can be expected in a tour of this duration.

Begin in Paris where Le Corbusier settled when he was thirty, and emerged as a central figure in what became the intellectual capital of Europe in the inter-war years. End in Marseille where Le Corbusier finally realised his collectivist vision of the Mediterranean good life.

Some buildings are in private hands and we see them from the outside, others are public and accessible, and a few will be entered by special arrangement. For some participants it will be a voyage of discovery, for others a pilgrimage to long-revered sites. None is likely to be disappointed.

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architecture. Continue south to Lyon. First of two nights in Lyon.

Day 7: Lyon, Firminy-Vert. The new town at Firminy-Vert (1956–70) was one of the few pieces of Corbusian town planning actually executed with the master’s involvement, and the site became the largest ensemble of his buildings outside Chandigarh. Also designed

by Corbusier are the Maison de Culture, with its dramatically canted side wall, the sports stadium, and the Unité d’Habitation. The astonishing church of St Pierre was finally completed in 2007, and there is a revelatory Le Corbusier museum. Free afternoon in Lyon to explore the historic centre or some of Lyon’s striking modern buildings (Tony Garnier, Renzo Piano) or the Jean Nouvel opera house.

Day 8: Marseille. Travel south by TGV. All his life Corb had been concerned with issues of housing, urbanism and community, and the fruits of his thinking are to be found in the ‘Unité d’Habitation’ apartment blocks. The one at Marseille (1945–52), though dogged by opposition and delays, is the most monumental embodiment of these theories. Overnight in Marseille.

Marseilles, rue Cannebière, wood engraving c. 1875.

Itinerary Day 1: Paris. Travel by Eurostar at c.10.30am from London St Pancras to Paris. Paris is the site of Corb’s purest statements and of his first large commissions. Visit Villa la RocheJeanneret which now houses the Fondation Le Corbusier, and the Immeuble Molitor (1934) in which Le Corbusier created the top floor apartment for himself. First of two nights in Paris.

Day 2: Paris. On the western outskirts, at Poissy, is Le Corbusier’s lyrically beautiful Villa Savoye (1929), one of the icons of the 20th century. Back in central Paris see Jean Nouvel’s Institut du Monde Arabe, a remarkable building with splendid views of the city. Walk through the Quartier Masséna, home to the Bibliothèque National de France (Dominique Perrault, 1996) and a new development that includes the Jardin des Grands-Moulins, created in 2011.

Day 3: Paris, Besançon. At the Cité Universitaire, the Pavillon Suisse (hall of residence, 1930) became one of the most influential buildings of International Modernism. The Pavillon Brésilien (1959) attempts an expression of national style while the Atelier Ozenfant (1922) (exterior) was the studio-residence of painter-critic and fellow purist. Take the TGV (high speed train) from Paris to Besançon. First of three nights in Besançon.

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Day 4: La Chaux-de-Fonds (Switzerland).

The son of a watchmaker, Le Corbusier’s home town for thirty years was La Chaux-de-Fonds, and here he built his first houses. The Villa Fallet (1908) (exterior), was a commission obtained by Le Corbusier when he was only 18, and the Villas Stotzer and Jacquemet (exterior) when he was still under the influence of the Arts and Crafts movement and Ruskin.

Classicism, rationalism and modern building techniques began to prevail in the Villas Jeanneret (1912, for his own family) and Schwob (1916) (visit by special arrangement).

See also Le Corbusier archive material in town library (by special arrangement).

Day 5: Ronchamp, Besançon. Drive into the countryside to the Benedictine monastery at Ronchamp, whose hill-top chapel, NôtreDame-du-Haut (1950), resulted in charges of treachery from hard-line modernists but has proved prophetic in embracing organic, sculptural values. Some free time in Besançon, a lovely hill town dominated by a massive citadel.

Day 6: Arc et Senans, L’Arbresle. The route turns southwest, with a break at La Saline Royale, the remarkable industrial complex in romantic Neo-Classical style (1775) by Ledoux, one of Le Corbusier’s inspirations. His second monastic commission, the hillside Couvent de La Tourette at l’Arbresle, was obtained because his agnosticism was regarded as of less significance than the sacred values of his

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Day 9: Marseille. Some free time in Marseille or join the lecturer for a walk through the old town. Return home by plane, arriving at London Gatwick at c. 5.35pm.

Practicalities Price: £3,240 (deposit £300). This includes: travel by Eurostar (1st class, standard premier), TGV (2 journeys) (train times confirmed 2 months before departure); British Airways flight Marseille–London (aircraft: Boeing 737); travel by private coach; hotel accommodation; breakfasts and 6 dinners with wine, water, coffee, plus light meals on Eurostar; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £250. Price without international travel £2,960.

Hotels: Paris (2 nights): a 4-star hotel near the Louvre, refurbished in a traditional style.

Besançon (3 nights): a recently renovated 3-star hotel in the historic centre with contemporary décor. Lyon (2 nights): a stylish 5-star hotel situated on the Presqu’île. Marseille (1 night): a 4-star hotel in a 1950s building overlooking the harbour. Bright, modernist décor.

How strenuous? This is a tiring tour with a lot of travel, several hotel changes and quite a lot of walking within the cities. For train journeys you will need to be able to carry your luggage on and off the train and within the stations.

Average distance by coach per day: 38 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

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Ballet: The Rite of Spring Celebrating the centenary in London & Paris 27–31 May 2013 (mz 583) 5 days • £2,280 Lecturer: Jane Pritchard Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, with Nijinsky’s original choreography, performed by the Mariinsky Ballet on the centenary of its first performance at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris.

Wayne McGregor’s Raven Girl and Georges Balanchine’s Symphony in C at Covent Garden.

Nijinsky’s L’après midi d’un faune, Jerome Robbins’ Afternoon of a Faun and Maurice Béjart’s Firebird at the Opéra Garnier in Paris.

Led by Jane Pritchard, Curator of Dance at the V&A. Two nights in both London and Paris. First class rail travel by Eurostar.

On 29 May 1913, one of the most controversial theatre works of the twentieth-century was created: Le Sacre du Printemps, The Rite of Spring. This tour offers the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to attend a reconstruction of the production precisely a century later in the theatre in Paris in which it was first performed.

The Rite of Spring caught its audience by surprise: Igor Stravinsky’s music was disorientating, Vaslav Nijinsky’s choreography

demanded weighty, turned-in movements quite unlike those the dancers or audience were used to, and the brightly coloured set and costumes by Nicolas Roerich were accused of being ‘fauvist’. Jacques Rivière described it as ‘a biological ballet. It is not only the dance of the most primitive men, it is the dance before man….Spring seen from inside, with its violence, its spasms and its fissions’. When the work was seen at Drury Lane in London a critic described it as ‘the apotheosis of ugliness’. After nine performances the ballet was disbanded but Stravinsky’s score (his third for ballet) gradually gained approval as a powerful concert work.

In 1987, after almost two decades of tracking down information, reconstructors Millicent Hodson (choreographer) and Kenneth Archer (designer) pieced The Rite together and their production gives a real insight into this extraordinary work.

The premiere took place in the new art-deco Théâtre des Champs Elysées, purpose-built for dance and opera, and it is here that the Mariinsky will be presenting the work.

Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev was one of the key figures promoting Russian culture in Paris in the early twentieth century and in 1909 he first brought dancers from the Imperial Russian Ballet who revitalised the art of ballet in Europe. Having already promoted fine art, music and opera he found that the dance stage enabled him to bring together the visual and

performing arts to provide a rich experience.

The ballets Diaghilev presented created so much excitement that in 1911 he established his own company, the Ballets Russes, and was constantly seeking ways to surprise and stimulate his audiences. His impact was such that several of the ballets he produced continue to be performed, the scores he commissioned are constantly re-used by choreographers and many of the world’s leading dance companies continue to acknowledge their debt to him.

Paris and London were two of the most important cities for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, Paris was where most of the company’s premieres took place but London had a different but equally important role as it was in the British capital that almost half the company’s performances were given. The theatres in which the company danced, the sites of rehearsal rooms and even the location of suppliers can still be traced thus our tour shall look at the two cities through the eyes of the 1910s and 1920s. Three programmes of ballets are included – all in theatres at which the Ballets Russes appeared – and includes Nijinsky’s earlier controversial ballet L’aprèsmidi d’un faune. A behind-the-scenes visit to the V&A stores will reveal costumes and drawings relating to the first performances of Le Sacre du Printemps.

Itinerary Day 1: London. Arrive in your own time and check in to the hotel by 2.00pm. An afternoon lecture precedes a walk tracing key locations in London relating to Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, including the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery. Return to the hotel before dinner. First of two nights in London.

Covent Garden, Grand Tier, etching 1957 by Wilfred Fairclough (1907–1996).

Day 2: London. A morning lecture is followed by a followed by a private visit to the V&A archives at Blythe House. Evening ballet at the Royal Opera House: Raven Girl with choreography by Wayne McGregor in collaboration with novelist Audrey Niffenegger and Symphony in C (Bizet) with original choreography by Georges Balanchine (1947). Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, The Royal Ballet, cast and directors tbc.

Day 3: London, Paris. Leave London by Eurostar at c. 11.15am from London St Pancras Station to the Gare du Nord with a light lunch served on board. There is time to settle in to the hotel before an evening lecture and dinner.

Evening ballet at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées: The Rite of Spring (Stravinsky), Vaslav Nijinsky (original choreographer, 1913) and The Prodigal Son (Prokofiev), Georges Balanchine (original choreographer 1929), Valery Gergiev (conductor), , Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra and Ballet. First of two nights in Paris.

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Alsace Both Sides of The Rhine in France & Germany Day 4: Paris. Morning lecture in the hotel followed by a walk through the Tuileries gardens to the Musée de l’Orangerie. Having initially invited Russian artists to design his ballets Diaghilev then turned to Paris-based artists including Picasso, Matisse, Derain and Laurencin to work on productions. See some of their contemporary work in the museum and discover how it related to their designs for the stage. Some free time before the evening ballet at the Opéra Garnier: Firebird (Stravinsky), Maurice Béjart (original choreographer, 1970), L’après-midi d’un Faune (Debussy), Vaslav Nijinski (original choreographer, 1912), Afternoon of a Faun (Debussy), Jerome Robbins (original choreographer, 1958), Boléro (Ravel), Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Damien Jalet (choreographers). Vello Pähn (conductor), Orchestra of the Opéra National de Paris, Les Etoiles, les Premiers Danseurs and le Corps de Ballet.

Day 5: Paris. Some free time before the late morning Eurostar to London St Pancras arriving c. 2.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,280 (deposit £250). This includes: 3 ballet tickets costing c. £200; Eurostar (1st class, standard premier) London–Paris; private coach; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee, plus light meals on the Eurostar; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager.

Single supplement £280 (double room for single occupancy). Contact us if you do not wish to return to London by Eurostar at the end of the tour.

Music tickets: first category tickets have been confirmed for the performances in Paris.

Tickets to the ballet at the Royal Opera House cannot be confirmed until April 2013. Principal dancers for all are not yet confirmed.

Hotels: in London (2 nights): a four star hotel situated in a quiet street in central London that feels more like a private home. Public rooms are pleasant and there is a garden. Rooms have a traditional décor and baths have a shower over them. There is no restaurant. In Paris (2 nights): excellently located a few minutes walk away from the Louvre and a short walk from the Opéra Garnier. A 4-star grand hôtel, although rooms are small. Parisian style brasserie, good breakfasts.

How strenuous? There is a lot of walking in city centres, sometimes on uneven ground, and sure-footedness is essential.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

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Strasbourg, after a late-19th-century drawing.

3–10 September 2013 (ma 672) 8 days • £2,630 Lecturer: Dr Cathy Oakes Architecture, art and history around the Upper Rhine in France and Germany.

Mediaeval and Early Modern periods predominate.

Exceedingly lovely towns and villages, amid lush landscapes of vineyards, rolling farmland and wooded hills.

Stay in one hotel throughout, a beautifully restored 16th-century Alsatian Inn. Led by Dr Cathy Oakes, lecturer of art history at Oxford University.

Rail travel from London to Strasbourg by Eurostar and TGV. It is one of the oddities of modern Europe that Alsace belongs to France. Historically, culturally and linguistically, the region has had more in common with its German neighbour to the east of the Rhine. Alsace is a hybrid.

The Alsatians are descendants of the Teutonic tribes who settled here in the fifth century. In the Middle Ages most of the region, along with a chunk of Switzerland, formed part of the German duchy of Swabia, which owed allegiance to the Holy Roman Empire. Two of the imperial families, the Hohenstaufen and the Habsburgs, had their principal domains in the region, on both sides of the Rhine. The major cities – Strasbourg, Colmar and Freiburg – were among the greatest of the independent free cities of the Rhineland, the economic powerhouse of transalpine Europe.

Only in relatively recent history has the Upper Rhine become a disputed border between antagonistic powers. In the Middle Ages and for long after the river was not a divisive factor but a unifying highway, the meeting place for goods, peoples and ideas from both sides. The acquisition by France in

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1648 of the left bank – modern-day Alsace – paid no heed to linguistic, religious or cultural considerations. Indeed, it reverted to the German Empire for 47 years after the FrancoPrussian war of 1871.

This tour ignores modern national boundaries. This way the rich artistic and cultural heritage can be fully appreciated, and stylistic variations be seen as regional inflections rather than national differences.

A leitmotif of the tour is the exceptionally rich collection of late mediaeval altarpieces.

Alsace is also rich in mediaeval church architecture, both Romanesque and Gothic.

Itinerary Day 1: London to Strasbourg. Leave London St Pancras by Eurostar at c. 9.30am for Paris, and continue by TGV (high-speed train) to Strasbourg. There is plenty of time to settle into the hotel, for an introductory talk and dinner.

Day 2: Strasbourg. Since the High Middle Ages, Strasbourg has been one of the most important intellectual and cultural centres of Europe, and is now seat of the European parliament. The cathedral, constructed and adorned over several centuries, is one of the greatest monuments of Gothic art and architecture in Europe. Visit also the cathedral museum and the church of St Thomas (extravagant tomb of Maréchal de Saxe) and enjoy the picturesque streets and canals.

Day 3: Colmar. Colmar is an exceedingly attractive town with richly ornamented halftimbered and stone buildings lining the streets and canals. The Gothic church of St Martin contains the Virgin of the Rose Garden, an altarpiece by Schongauer (1473). The Musée d’Unterlinden has an outstanding collection of 15th- and 16th-century pictures, chief of which is Grünewald’s Issenheim altarpiece, the most searing of all images of the Crucifixion.

Day 4: Molsheim, Rosheim, Obernai. A day of small places. Molsheim has a Jesuit church and a Carthusian monastery. The chapel of

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Alsace continued

Mediaeval Burgundy Abbeys & churches of the high Middle Ages

St Ulrich in Avolsheim was built in the 10th century and contains 13th-century frescoes. In Obernai, visit the Romanesque church of St Pierre. Rosheim possesses a number unspoilt mediaeval houses and the 12th-century church of St Pierre et Paul. In the heart of wine-producing countryside, Obernai is partly surrounded by fine ramparts.

8–15 June 2013 (mz 598) 8 days • £2,320 Lecturer: John McNeill

Day 5: Kaysersberg, Murbach. Kaysersberg is a remarkably unchanged mediaeval village with delightful houses, castle, bridge, and a church with a very fine carved altarpiece. In the afternoon drive south through the lovely hill scenery of the Massif du Ballon d’Alsace.

Nestling in wooded hills, the Romanesque abbey at Murbach was the most important in the region, and its Romanesque church is correspondingly magnificent.

Rural drives through beautiful landscapes.

Day 6: Niederrotweil, Freiburg, Breisach.

Cross the Rhine to Germany. The parish churches at Breisach and Niederrotweil each have a most beautiful late Gothic altarpiece carved by the so-called Master HL with an extraordinary swirling design. Freiburg im Breisgau is one of the best preserved old towns in Germany. At its centre is the minster, a magnificent Gothic construction with the tallest spire completed in the Middle Ages. The excellent city museum has recently reopened after major restoration.

Superb collection of Romanesque and early Gothic buildings.

Exceptionally well-preserved historic towns.

Led by renowned architectural historian, John McNeill.

First class rail travel.

The key to understanding mediaeval Burgundy is its situation, a cradle of wooded hills drained by three great river systems flowing, respectively, to the north, south and west. Not only did this lend the area the status of a lieu de passage, but it guaranteed its importance,

ensuring that the mediaeval duchy was open to the forms and traditions of far-flung regions.

Remarkably, much of Burgundy’s mediaeval infrastructure survives. Even extending back as far as the ninth century, for in the interlocking spaces of the lower church at St-Germain d’Auxerre one might catch a glimpse of western Carolingian architecture and painting, a glimpse that presents this most distant of periods at its most inventive and personal.

It is equally the case that while the great early Romanesque basilicas which once studded the underbelly of the Ile-de-France are now reduced to a ghost of their former selves, what survives in Burgundy is sublimely impressive, as one might see in that great quartet of crypts at Dijon, Auxerre, Flavigny and Tournus.

As elsewhere, the twelfth century is well represented, though the depth of exploratory work undertaken here cannot fail to impress.

The fundamental Romanesque research was

Day 7: Strasbourg. Free morning followed by a visit to the Palais Rohan and its museums of fine and decorative arts in the afternoon.

Day 8. Leave Strasbourg at c. 10.45am by TGV for Paris and continue by Eurostar to London St Pancras, arriving c. 4.45pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,630 (deposit £250). This includes: rail travel (1st class, standard premier) by Eurostar London–Paris; by TGV Paris–Strasbourg; private coach travel; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 5 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £360. Price without Eurostar £2,410.

Hotel: a beautifully restored 4-star, close to the cathedral and the Palais Rohan. Rooms maintain many of the original features of the building, but decor is contemporary. Dinners are at restaurants elsewhere.

How strenuous? A fair amount of walking and standing around. Many town centres are only accessible on foot, and paving may be cobbled or uneven. You need to be able to lift your luggage on and off trains and wheel it within stations. Average coach travel per day: 55 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

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Vézelay, Abbey of La Madaleine, after a drawing by René Piot, c. 1920.

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probably conducted to the south, at Cluny and in the Brionnais, but the take-up in central Burgundy was immediate, and in the naves of Vézelay and Autun one might see two of the most compelling essays on the interaction of sculpture and architecture twelfth-century Europe has produced.

Nor were Cistercians slow to tailor Burgundian architecture to suit their needs, and though her great early monasteries have now perished at least Fontenay survives, ranking among the most breathtaking monastic sites of mediaeval France. Gothic also arrived early, and there began a second wave of experimentation, tentative at first but blossoming in the centre (where the new choir at Vézelay is the first intimation we have that Gothic architecture had a future outside northern France) into perhaps the most lucid of all architectural styles.

It is thus no surprise that the thirteenth century saw the region at the cutting edge of Europe. At Auxerre a definitive account of space as illusion took shape, and at Semur-enAuxois a theatre of stone clambered aboard the church. Moreover, the patrons invested heavily in glass. No thirteenth-century church was without it - and most have retained it, blazing the interior with a heady combination of light, meaning and colour. This sublime vigour even continued into the later middle ages, where under the Valois dukes of Burgundy Dijon became a major artistic centre, attracting artists of the calibre of Rogier van der Weyden and Claus Sluter.

Day 4: St Thibault, Semur-en Auxois, Fontenay. The church of the market town of St Thibault has a 13th-cent. choir that is the most graceful Burgundian construction of the period. The fortified hill town of Semuren Auxois has a splendid Gothic collegiate church. The tranquil abbey of Fontenay is the earliest Cistercian church to survive and has an exceptionally well-preserved monastic precinct.

Favigny-sur-Ozerain is a lovely little town.

Day 5: Dijon. A day dedicated to Burgundy’s capital and one of the most attractive of French cities with many fine buildings from 11th to 18th centuries. St Bénigne has an ambitious early Romanesque crypt. Notre-Dame is a quite stunning early Gothic parish church.

The palace of the Valois dukes now houses a museum with extensive collections of work from the period of their rule (1364–1477).

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Practicalities Price: £2,320 (deposit £250). This includes: Eurostar (first class, standard premier) London to Paris, and TGV (high-speed train) Paris to Mâcon (times confirmed 2 months before departure); private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 6 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters and drivers; all state taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £280 (double room for sole use). Price without Eurostar and TGV £2,010.

How strenuous? Quite a lot of walking, some of it on steep hillsides, and standing around.

Plenty of coach travel and three hotels. You will need to be able to lift your luggage on and off the train and wheel it within stations. Average distance by coach per day: 70 miles.

Day 1. Take the Eurostar at c. 9.30am from London St Pancras to Paris and then onwards

by TGV (high-speed train) to Mâcon.

Continue by coach to Tournus where two nights are spent.

Day 3: Beaune, Autun, Dijon. The 15thcentury Hôtel-Dieu in Beaune houses Rogier van der Weyden’s Last Judgement. The stalwart Romanesque church of Notre-Dame has fine tapestries. At Autun the cathedral of St Lazare is celebrated for its sublime sequence of Romanesque capitals and relief sculptures by Gislebertus. First of three nights in Dijon.

Day 8: Sens. The striking cathedral of Sens is among the earliest Gothic churches of Europe, housing important glass and an exquisitely carved 12th- and 13th-century west front. The diocesan museum also houses an extensive collection of Roman and mediaeval antiquities.

Take the Eurostar from Paris arriving London St Pancras c. 6.30pm.

Hotels: in Tournus (2 nights): 4-star hotel formerly a 15th-century guard house, located on the ramparts of the town. In Dijon (3 nights): a centrally located, comfortable 4-star hotel furnished to a high standard. In Auxerre (2 nights): a 3-star hotel in a delightful 18thcentury hôtel particulier.

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Day 2: Cluny, Berzé-la-Ville, Tournus. Cluny is the site of the largest church and most powerful monastery in mediaeval France. Study the magnificent remains of the church and monastic buildings. The tiny chapel at Berzé-laVille was perhaps built as the abbot of Cluny’s private retreat, and is embellished with superb wall paintings of c. 1100. At Tournus see the striking and immensely influential early 11thcentury monastery.

Day 7: Auxerre. The morning includes the magnificent Carolingian crypt of St Germain and the cathedral, a pioneering 13th-century building with exceptional glass and sculpture.

The afternoon is free.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with History of Impressionism, 16–21 June (page 57).

Day 6: Saulieu, Avallon, Vézelay. Visit the Basilique St-Andoche in Saulieu, with carved capitals depicting flora, fauna and biblical stories. Drive north to Avallon, whose fine Romanesque church is spectacularly situated above the river Cousin. Vézelay, a picturesque hill town whose summit is occupied by the abbey of La Madeleine, was one of the great pilgrimage centres of the Middle Ages, and has one of the most impressive of all 12th-century churches for both its architecture and its sculpture. First of two nights in Auxerre.

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Illustration: Dijon, Notre Dame, engraving (detail) from the Journal Universel c. 1870.

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Châteaux of the Loire The Renaissance in France Château de Langeais, after a drawing by A.B. Atkinson from Touraine and Its Story 1906.

26–29 May 2013 (mz 581) 4 days • £1,490 Lecturer: Caroline Holmes Only the best of the houses and gardens in the region.

Stay at a château hotel in the centre of the area.

Led by garden historian, Caroline Holmes.

First-class rail travel on Eurostar.

The region around the lower reaches of the Loire was exceptional in a country still dominated by over-mighty French monarchs and riven by factionalism until well into the seventeenth century.

The relative stability of a territory submissive to royal writ, the prosperity arising from highly productive agricultural land and river-borne trade, and the excellent hunting, all provided the conditions for a building boom. Especially towards the end of the fifteenth century and during the first half of the sixteenth, a plethora of palaces, hunting lodges and country retreats were erected at the behest of members of the royal family, their mistresses and their loyal followers.

These beautiful residential buildings have become paradigmatic in popular culture for furnishing the image of a fairy-tale palace.

More importantly they were seminal in architectural history by constituting the first significant ultramontane manifestation of the Italian Renaissance. The sudden and wholehearted admiration for all things Italian documented by the châteaux of the Loire was stimulated, ironically, by French invasions of Italy which began under Charles VIII in 1494 and ended under François I 33 years later.

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The distinctive and affecting feature of these buildings was that Italianate motifs were grafted onto what were essentially Flamboyant Gothic forms. Round-headed arches, square-headed windows, classical pilasters and ancient Roman candelabra decoration blend with cylindrical towers and turrets, conical spires, high-pitched roofs and elaborate dormers to produce an effect which is Italianate but unmistakably French. It was not a case of importing wholesale the principles of Brunelleschi and Bramante but the creation of an original – and highly influential – synthesis.

Most of the châteaux are well furnished and much decoration survives or has been well recreated (contrary to the widespread myth that French châteaux are empty). Several of them have gardens, among which are some extraordinarily fine recreations of the original Renaissance design. This itinerary provides a balanced and varied selection, and aims to sidestep the crowds.

Itinerary Day 1: Chenonceau. Travel by Eurostar at c.

9.30am, London St Pancras to Paris. Continue south by coach to Chenonceau.Of surpassing beauty and surmounting a bridge across the River Cher, the Château of Chenonceau (‘des Dames’) is deservedly one of France’s most treasured sights. Transformation of the castle began in 1515 and continued intermittently for much of the 16th century.Stylistically it leads from an embellished castle keep to the supremely successful Mannerism of the long galleries across the river. Continue to the hotel in Chargé where all three nights are spent.

Day 2: Azay-le-Rideau, Langeais, Villandry Lapped by the River Indre, Azay-le-Rideau

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is a jewel of the French Renaissance, replete with angle turrets, elaborate gables, classicising pilasters and evocative interiors. With its formidable defensive towers Langeais, reconstructed from the 1470s, is scarcely affected by Renaissance taste and has a good collection of mediaeval furniture and tapestries.

Villandry is an excellent 1530s château with three arcaded wings but its chief glories are the tiers of formal gardens, recreated in the 20th century according to 16th-century designs and principles. We visit in the late afternoon, when the crowds have subsided, and return to the hotel at c. 7.00pm.

Day 3: Beauregard, Blois, Chambord.

Beauregard has a unique 17th-century gallery lined with 327 portraits of historical persons.

The three wings of the castle at Blois were built in the latest fashion respectively for Louis XII from 1498, François I from 1515 and, the brother of Louis XIII (by Mansart) from 1635.

There is time in the delightful town of Blois to see its gardens, churches and museums. The creation of François I and the most ambitious of the Loire châteaux, Chambord startles by its vast size. Outstanding are the double helix stairway and the fantastical roofscape of cones, wedges, elaborate gables and chimney stacks.

Day 4: Cheverny. Built in the 1630s, Cheverny is as elegant and restrained as Baroque can get and is unmistakably French with its chiselled façade and dramatic roofline, and sumptuously decorated and furnished interiors. Drive to Paris and then continue by Eurostar to London St Pancras, arriving c. 7.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £1,490 (deposit £200). This includes: return rail travel by Eurostar (1st class, standard premier); private coach travel; hotel accommodation as below; all breakfasts and 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee, plus meals on Eurostar; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer; hire of radio guides for better audibility of the lecturer. Single supplement £180. Price without Eurostar £1,270.

Hotel: a 4-star hotel in Chargé in a converted château and manor house on the river Loire.

Traditionally-furnished, spacious rooms.

How strenuous? Although a short tour there is quite a lot of standing around and walking. You need to be able to lift your luggage on and off the train. Average distance by coach per day: 119 miles (most driving is on days 1 & 4).

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Great Houses of the North, 13–22 May (page 38) or Brittany, 6–12 June (page 51). b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Roman & Mediaeval Provence The south of France in the middle ages 11–17 October 2013 (ma 738) 7 days • £2,060 Lecturer: Dr Alexandra Gajewski The many fine Roman remains had a decisive impact on mediaeval architecture and sculpture.

Truly great secular buildings, including the papal palace at Avignon, and pre-eminent Romanesque churches.

A natural setting of exceptional attractiveness.

Led by Dr Alexandra Gajewski, specialist in mediaeval architecture.

Based throughout at a 4-star hotel in Avignon.

Can be combined with The Rhône Music Festival, 17–24 October 2013.

Famed for its natural beauty, its wealth of Augustan and second-century monuments, and the quality and ambition of its mediaeval work, Provence can seem the very essence of Mediterranean France. But its settlement was – historically – surprisingly concentrated, and the major Roman and mediaeval centres are clustered within the valleys of the Durance and Rhône.

This is the area which was marked out for development in the first and second centuries AD, and the range and quantity of Roman work which survives at Orange, St-Rémy and Arles is impressive. Indeed, as one moves into the Late Antique period it is precisely this

triangle which blossoms – and in Arles one is witness to the most significant Early Christian city of Mediterranean Gaul.

This Roman infrastructure is fundamental, and the pre-eminent Romanesque churches of Provence may come as something of a surprise, being notable both for a predilection for sheer wall surfaces and an indebtedness to earlier architectural norms.

But it is above all the sculpture which is most susceptible to this sort of historicising impulse. The Romanesque sculpture of Provence is more skilfully and self-consciously antique than any outside central Italy, and is often organised in a manner designed to evoke either fourth-century sarcophagi, or Roman theatres and triumphal arches. The façade of St-Trophime at Arles is a well-known examples of this, but it is a theme we also encounter in many of the smaller churches – places such as Pernes-les-Fontaines and Montmajour – where exquisite friezes of acanthus and vinescroll are used to both elaborate and articulate exteriors of stunning delicacy.

For once the truly great late mediaeval buildings we see are secular – René d’Anjou’s superb donjon and château at Tarascon and, supremely, the mighty papal palace at Avignon.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 1.30pm from London Gatwick to Marseille. Drive to Avignon, where all six nights are spent.

Day 2: Avignon. The Palais des Papes is the principal monument of the Avignon papacy, one-time site of the papal curia and by far the most significant 14th-century building to survive in southern France. The collections of late Gothic sculpture and painting in the Petit-Palais act as a splendid foil to the work at the papal palace, while the cathedral houses the magnificent tomb of Pope John XXII. Day 3: Pernes-les-Fontaines, Vaison, Venasque. Gentle stroll through Pernes, a delightful fortified river town with an important Romanesque church and 13thcentury frescoed tower. At Vaison-la-Romaine the sublime late Romanesque cathedral is attached to a northern cloister. Drive in the late afternoon over the Dentelles de Montmirail to the stunning early mediaeval baptistery at Venasque.

Day 4: Villeneuve, Orange, Tarascon, Pontdu-Gard. A day spent mostly within sight of the Rhône, beginning with Pope Innocent VI’s now ruined Charterhouse at Villeneuve-lezAvignon. The day’s real star is Orange, site of the greatest of all Roman theatres to survive in the West. In the afternoon visit René d’Anjou’s mighty riverside château at Tarascon and that astonishing feat of engineering that brought water over the River Gardon at the Pont-du-Gard.

Day 5: St-Rémy-de-Provence. Drive along the northern flank of the Alpilles to St-Rémy-deAvignon, Palais des Papes, aquatint by Sir Francis Barry.

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Roman & Mediaeval Provence continued

Provence, Glanum of old, and proud possessor of one of the truly great funerary memorials of the Roman world, the cenotaph erected in honour of the grandsons of Augustus, Gaius and Lucius. Some free time.

Day 6: Montmajour, Arles. Explore the superlative complex of churches, cemeteries and conventual buildings that once constituted the abbey of Montmajour. In Arles the amphitheatre is a justly famous early 2ndcentury structure of a type developed from the Colosseum. The Romanesque Cathedral of St-Trophime is home to one of the greatest cloisters of 12th-century Europe. The Musée de l’Arles Antique houses a quite spellbinding collection of classical and early Christian art.

Day 7: Silvacane, Aix-en-Provence. At Silvacane, a major late 12th-century Cistercian abbey, the monastic buildings descend a series of terraces down to the River Durance.

Finally visit Aix, where the cathedral provides an enthralling end to the tour, with its extraordinary juxtaposition of Merovingian baptistery, Romanesque cloister, 13th-century chancel and late mediaeval west front. Fly from Marseille, arriving at London Gatwick at c.

5.00pm, or take the train to Lyon at c. 2.00pm to join The Rhône Music Festival.

Practicalities Price: £2,060 (deposit £200); this includes: flights (economy class) with British Airways (aircraft: Boeing 737); travel by private coach; hotel accommodation; breakfasts and 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager; hire of radio guides for better audibility of the lecturer. Single supplement £270. Price without flights £1,840.

Modern art on the Côte d’Azur 5–12 March 2013 (mz 499) 8 days • £2,360 Lecturer: Professor John Milner 10–17 October 2013 (ma 736) 8 days • £2,360 Lecturer: Monica Bohm Duchen Europe’s greatest concentration of classic modern art in the idyllic Mediterranean setting where it was created.

Old and new collections, with outstanding work by Renoir, Bonnard, Braque, Leger, Miro, Giacometti, Cocteau, Chagall, Matisse, Picasso.

The lecturers are experts on 19th- and 20thcentury art.

Visits to the coastal towns and villages which inspired the artists.

Stay in Nice throughout.

Natural resources and climate have drawn invaders and visitors to Nice and its surroundings from the Greek colonists of classical times to the jet-set of today. But from the late nineteenth century a special category of visitor – and settler – has

transformed the Côte d’Azur into the greatest concentration of modern art in Europe.

Monet first visited Antibes in 1883; Signac bought a house in the fishing village of StTropez in 1892. Matisse’s first visit to the Midi in 1904 transformed his art, and from 1918 he spent more time on the Côte d’Azur than in Paris.

Matisse, Chagall and Picasso are merely among the most illustrious of the artists who chose to live in the South of France. Many of their fellow modernisers followed suit: Braque, Bonnard, Dufy, Picabia.

This tour is an extraordinary opportunity to see how modernity relates to the past as well as the present, and how gallery displays can be centred on the art, the location or the patron/collector. In Matisse’s Chapelle du Rosaire at Vence, traditional arts and crafts have been revived by a modern genius, as in the monumental mosaic and glass designs of Léger which can be seen at Biot.

There are also echoes of collecting habits of earlier eras in the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild.

Cannes, etching

by Frederick Farrell, 1920s.

Hotel: a 4-star hotel in Avignon in a converted 16th-century convent. Some rooms are in a modern extension. Excellent location near the Palais des Papes.

How strenuous? Quite a lot of walking is involved, particularly in the town centres.

The tour is not suitable for anyone who has difficulties with everyday walking and stairclimbing. There are some long days and coach journeys. Average distance by coach per day: 53 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with The Cathedrals of England, 2–10 October (page 30) or Pompeii & Herculaneum, 21–26 October (page 127).

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The mixture of past and present and the juxtaposition of the Goût Rothschild with the beauty of its location are breathtaking.

(Graham Sutherland drew exotic flowers and plants in the extraordinary gardens.)

At Antibes the Picasso Museum is housed in the Château Grimaldi, lent to Picasso as studio space in 1946 where he produced lifeaffirming paintings.

Old and new galleries abound, such as the Fondation Maeght, St-Paul-de-Vence, whose building (designed by José Luis Sert, 1963) makes it a work of outstanding sympathy to its natural surroundings, in gardens enlivened by Miró’s Labyrinthe and other sculptures.

Itinerary Day 1: Nice. Fly at c. 11.45am from London Heathrow to Nice (in March from Gatwick at c. 12.00 midday). There is an afternoon visit to the Musée des Beaux Arts Jules Cheret, concentrating on their 19th- and early 20thcentury holdings (Monet, Renoir, Dufy, etc.).

All seven nights are spent in Nice.

Day 2: Nice, Vence. The Marc Chagall Museum has the largest collection of the artist’s works, notably the seventeen canvases of the Biblical Message, set in a peaceful garden in a salubrious Nice suburb. Vence, an artists’ colony, has the Chapel of the Rosary, designed and decorated by Matisse.

Day 3: Antibes, Vallauris. Most of the paintings Picasso produced in his studio in the Château Grimaldi in 1946 have been donated to the town of Antibes. Vallauris is a centre of contemporary pottery revived by Picasso, whose masterpiece War and Peace is here.

Day 4: St-Tropez, Biot. Drive west to StTropez, which has been popular with artists since Paul Signac settled here in 1892. The Musée de l’Annonciade is one of France’s finest collections of modern art (Signac, Maillol, Matisse, Bonnard, Vlaminck, Braque).

Continue to Biot and visit the renovated Musée National Fernand Léger, built to house the artist’s works bequeathed to his wife.

Day 5: Cap Ferrat, St-Paul-de-Vence. Drive east to St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat to see the paintings, sculpture and furniture of the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild, a mansion set in attractive gardens. The Maeght Foundation at StPaul-de-Vence is renowned for its collections (Picasso, Hepworth, Miró, Arp, Giacometti, but not all works are shown at once) and for its architecture and setting.

Day 6: Nice. The Musée Matisse unites a wide range of the artist’s work; sculpture, ceramics, stained glass as well as painting. The afternoon is free in Nice; suggestions include the Musée d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain with its excellent collection of post-war art.

Day 7: Villefranche, Menton. In Villefranche is the small Chapelle St-Pierre, decorated by Cocteau. Along the coast to Menton, the last French town before Italy, is a new Cocteau museum (opened in 2011) and the Salle des Mariages, also painted by Cocteau.

Day 8: Le Cannet. The first museum dedicated to the works of Bonnard opened in Le Cannet in 2011. Fly from Nice arriving at London Heathrow c. 4.30pm (in March arriving at London Gatwick at c. 4.45pm).

In recent years, renovation work has led to museum closures. At the moment all visits listed are possible but we cannot rule out the possibility of changes.

Practicalities Price: £2,310 (2012) £2,360 (2013) (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled flights with British Airways (Airbus 319); private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 5 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters and drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer; hire of radio guides for better audibility of the lecturer. Single supplement £280. Price without flights £2,170 (2012) £2,180 (2013).

Hotel: in Nice, a charming 4-star hotel, a short walk from the Promenade des Anglais. Rooms are comfortable but vary in size. Public areas are limited. Staff are friendly. Dinners are at good restaurants.

How strenuous? There is a fair amount of walking and standing around in museums.

Average distance by coach per day: 51 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine the October departure with Art in Madrid, 2–6 October (page 169).

The Rhône Music Festival 17–24 October 2013 Details available December 2012 Contact us to register your interest The latest addition to our series of all-inclusive music festivals on European waterways.

Private performances by world-class musicians in venues appropriate to the music.

Talks on the music and on the history of the region.

Stay aboard a first-class river cruiser.

The Pyrenees (Spain and France), 7–16 May 2013. See page 159.

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Music in Berlin Art, architecture & music in the German capital 20–25 February 2013 (mz 472) 6 days • £2,470 (including 4 performances) Lecturers: Professor Jan Smaczny & Tom Abbott Excellent collections of fine and decorative arts and first rate architecture.

Accompanied by two lecturers – a musicologist and an art historian.

Includes first category tickets to The Trojans, the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, The Barber of Seville, and Aida.

Berlin possesses some of the finest art galleries and museums in the world and offers the highest standards of music and opera performance. It is endowed with a range of historic architecture and is the site of Europe’s greatest concentration of first-rate contemporary architecture. Once

again a national capital, it is also one of the most exciting cities on the Continent, recent and rapid changes pushing through a transformation without peacetime parallel.

One of the grandest capitals in Europe for the first forty years of the last century, it then suffered appallingly from aerial bombardment and Soviet artillery. For the next forty years it was cruelly divided into two parts and became the focus of Cold War antagonism, a bizarre confrontation between an enclave of western libertarianism and hard-line Communism.

Since the Wall was breached in 1989 the city has been transformed beyond recognition.

From being a largely charmless urban expanse still bearing the scars of war, it has become a vibrant, liveable city, the very model of a modern major metropolis. The two halves have been knitted together and cleaning and repair have revealed the patrimony of historic architecture to be among the finest in Central Europe.

The art collections, formerly split, dispersed

and often housed in temporary premises, are now coming together in magnificently restored or newly-built galleries. Berlin possesses international art and antiquities of the highest importance, as well as incomparable collections of German art. The number and variety of museums and the quality of their holdings make Berlin among the world’s most desired destinations for art lovers.

With three major opera houses and several orchestras, Berlin is a city where truly outstanding performances can be virtually guaranteed.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 2.00pm from London Heathrow to Berlin Tegel. Take an orientation tour by coach: Reichstag, Brandenburg Gate, Pariser Platz and Unter den Linden. Visit the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.

From Pen Drawing & Pen Draughtsmen by Joseph Pennell, 1897.

Day 2. Start with a music lecture as on most mornings. Then walk to ‘Museums Island’, a group of major museum buildings. Visit the Neues Museum, recently restored and recreated

by British architect David Chipperfield, and the Alte Nationalgalerie with European painting of the 19th century including the finest collection of German Romantics. Free afternoon. Evening opera at the Deutsche Oper: The Trojans (Berlioz), Donal Runnicles (musical director), Kurt Streit (Enée), Jana Kurucová (Ascagne), Ildikó Komlósi (Cassandre), Elina Garanca (Didon).

Day 3. Schloss Charlottenburg, the earliest major building in Berlin, is an outstanding Baroque and Rococo palace with splendid interiors. Free afternoon. Evening concert at the Philharmonie with the Berlin Philharmonic, Sir Simon Rattle (conductor), Miklos Perenyi (cello): Henri Dutilleux, Metaboles for large orchestra; Witold Lutoslawski, Cello Concerto; Schumann, Symphony No.2 in C. Day 4. Potsdamer Platz, for 50 years a great expanse of wasteland, became in the 1990s Europe’s greatest building project with an array of international architects participating.

The ‘Kulturforum’ developed before 1989 on land close to the Wall as the site for several major museums, the State Library and Philharmonie. Visit the Gemäldegalerie, one of Europe’s major collections of Old Masters.

Free afternoon. Evening opera at the Staatsoper (Schillertheater): The Barber of Seville (Rossini), Michele Rovetta (musical director), Benjamin Bruns (Almaviva), Stephanie Atanasov (Rosina), Alexander Vinogradov (Don Basilio), Evelin Novak (Berta).

Day 5. Walk to the Pergamon Museum, home to of one of the world’s finest collections

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Berlin, Potsdam, Dresden Art & architecture in Brandenburg & Saxony Potsdam, The Communs in Sansoucci Park, wood engraving c. 1880.

of Near Eastern antiquities including the eponymous Hellenistic altar from Anatolia.

Free afternoon: suggested visits include the Altes Museum (Classical sculpture and artefacts) and the Bode Museum (sculpture and paintings). Evening opera at the Staatsoper (Schillertheater): Aida (Verdi), Leo Hussain (musical director), Tobias Schabel (the King), Ekaterina Semenchuk (Amneris), Oksana Dyka (Aida), Marco Berti (Radames).

Day 6. Visit to the Jewish Museum followed by lunch in the rooftop restaurant in the Reichstag, with the opportunity (without queuing) to walk around Foster’s dome. Fly at c.5.50pm arriving at Heathrow at c. 6.50pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,470 (deposit £250). This includes: music tickets costing c. £325; flights with Lufthansa (Airbus A319); travel by private coach with some use of the metro; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 4 dinners, with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturers. Single supplement £220. Price without flights £2,330.

Hotel: an elegant hotel decorated in Regency style, close to Unter den Linden. Rooms are of a good size and excellent standard.

Music: first category tickets are confirmed for all performances.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking and standing around in art galleries. Average distance by coach per day: 5 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

The Ring in Berlin 3–11 April 2013 (mz 507) This tour is currently full A 21st-century production of the Ring Cycle and collaboration between the Berlin Staatsoper and Teatro alla Scala, Milan.

Conducted by Barenboim.

Visits on most days to study the art, architecture and history of Berlin, especially more recent developments.

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9–16 September 2013 (ma 707) 8 days • £2,440 Lecturer: Dr Jarl Kremeier Chief cities of Brandenburg-Prussia and Saxony, rich in fine and decorative arts.

Internationally important historic and contemporary architecture.

Rebuilding and restoration continues to transform the cities.

Led by Dr Jarl Kremeier, an art historian specialising in 17th- to 19th-century architecture and decorative arts.

Berlin is an upstart among European cities.

Until the seventeenth century it was a small town of little importance, but by dint of ruthless and energetic rule, backed by the military prowess for which it became a byword, the hitherto unimportant state of BrandenburgPrussia became one of the most powerful in Germany. By the middle of the eighteenth century, with Frederick the Great at the helm, it was successfully challenging the great powers of Europe.

Ambitious campaigns were instituted to endow the capital with grandeur appropriate to its new status. Palaces, public buildings and new districts were planned and constructed. At nearby Potsdam, Frederick’s second capital, he created the park of Sanssouci, among the finest ensembles of gardens, palaces and pavilions to be found anywhere. Early in the nineteenth century Berlin became of international

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importance architecturally when Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the greatest of Neo-Classical architects, designed several buildings there.

Berlin has museums of art and antiquities of the highest importance. The Pergamon Museum and Gemäldegalerie are among the best of their kind and the recently opened Neues Museum, designed by David Chipperfield, provides an excellent setting for the Egyptian collection. The reunited city is now one of the most exciting in Europe. A huge amount of work has been done to knit together the two halves of the city and to rebuild and restore monuments which had been neglected for decades.

Dresden was the capital of the Electorate of Saxony. Though it suffered terrible destruction during the War, rebuilding and restoration now allow the visitor to appreciate once again something of its former beauty.

The great domed Frauenkirche has now been triumphantly reconstructed. Moreover, the collections of fine and applied arts are magnificent. The Old Masters Gallery in Dresden is of legendary richness, the Green Vault is the finest surviving treasury of goldwork and objets d’art, and the Albertinum reopened in 2010 to display a fine collection of nineteenth and twentieth-century art.

Itinerary Day 1: Dresden. Fly at 9.10am from London Heathrow to Berlin and drive to Dresden. Take an introductory walk around the old centre of Dresden. First of three nights in Dresden.

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interiors, paintings by Watteau, extensive gardens, pavilions and a mausoleum.

The Berggruen Collection of Picasso and classic modern art is also here and will have reopened after extensive renovation works.

Some free time.

Day 6: Berlin. In the 1990s Potsdamer Platz was Europe’s greatest building project and showcases an international array of architects (Piano, Isozaki, Rogers, Moneo). Scattered around the nearby ‘Kulturforum’ are museums, the State Library and the Philharmonie concert hall (Hans Scharoun 1956–63).

The Gemäldegalerie houses one of Europe’s major collections of Old Masters. Choose between the Neue Nationalgalerie (changing exhibitions in a Mies van der Rohe building) or the Museum of Musical Instruments. In the evening, visit Norman Foster’s glass dome capping the Reichstag and have dinner in the roof-top restaurant.

Statue of Frederick the Great, wood engraving c. 1880 from Pictures From the German Fatherland.

Day 2: Dresden. The Zwinger is a unique Baroque confection, part pleasure palace, part arena for festivities and part museum for cherished collections. Visit the excellent porcelain museum and the fabulously rich Old Masters Gallery. The Green Vault of the Residenzschloss displays one of the world’s finest princely treasuries.

Day 3: Dresden, Pillnitz, Groß-Sedlitz.

Take a boat trip to Pillnitz, a summer palace in Chinese Rococo style, with park, gardens and collections of decorative art. Drive back to Dresden, visiting the terraced garden of GroßSedlitz en route.

Day 4: Dresden, Berlin. Stroll in DresdenNeustadt on the right bank of the Elbe, little damaged in the War. Visit the domed Frauenkirche, the Protestant cathedral. Leave for Berlin by coach in the afternoon. Survey the historic architecture along and around Unter den Linden: the Arsenal, Schinkel’s Guardhouse, Frederick the Great’s Opera House, the Gendarmenmarkt with twin churches and concert hall. Relatively recent additions include the British Embassy (Michael Wilford) and the Holocaust Memorial. First of four nights in Berlin.

Day 5: Berlin. Drive to Schloss Charlottenburg, the earliest major building in Berlin, an outstanding summer palace built with a Baroque core and Rococo wings, fine

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Day 7: Potsdam. The enclosed park of Sanssouci was created as a retreat from the affairs of state by Frederick the Great. It consists of gardens, parkland, palaces, pavilions and auxiliary buildings. In the afternoon, visit his relatively modest single-storey palace atop terraces of fruit trees, the exquisite Chinese teahouse and the large and imposing Neues Palais. Drive through Potsdam town centre with its Dutch quarter and cathedral

by Schinkel.

Day 8: Berlin. Spend the morning on ‘Museums Island’: the Altes Museum, a major Neo-Classical building by Schinkel, displays the collection of Classical antiquities; the Alte Nationalgalerie houses an excellent collection of 19th-century paintings and sculptures; the Neues Museum (elaborately restored under the direction of British architect David Chipperfield) is the new home of the Egyptian Museum (famous for the bust of Nefertiti); the Pergamon Museum has one of the world’s finest collections of Near Eastern antiquities, including the eponymous altar. Fly from Berlin to Heathrow, arriving c. 6.45pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,440 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) on Lufthansa flights (Airbus A320); travel by private coach and metro within Berlin; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 5 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; tips for waiters, drivers, guides; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £280. Price without flights £2,240.

Hotels: in Dresden (3 nights): a traditional 5-star hotel in a reconstructed Baroque

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building, tastefully decorated, with a personal, friendly atmosphere, 20 minutes walk from the Zwinger. Rooms vary in size.; in Berlin (4 nights): an elegant hotel decorated in Regency style, located close to Unter den Linden. Rooms are of a good size and of excellent standard.

Music: details of opera performances will be circulated nearer the time. We will endeavour to obtain tickets as requested.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking required and standing in museums. Average distance by coach per day: 44 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with St Petersburg, 20–26 September (page 153).

Newly-launched The following tours have all been launched (or in some cases a new departure has been added due to popularity) since the first edition of our 2013 brochure: The Schubertiade.....................................14 Operetta in Austria.................................15 The Western Balkans...............................17 Music in Scandinavia..............................23 The Age of Bede (new departure)...........27 Northumbria............................................28 Royal Residences.....................................40 Savonlinna Opera....................................49 Ballet: The Rite of Spring........................60 Art & Music in Dresden.........................71 King Ludwig II (new departure).............78 Verdi at La Scala......................................92 The Ring at La Scala...............................93 Verona Opera (new departure)..............101 Naples: Art, Antiquities & Opera.........128 The Lucerne Festival..............................177 Eastern Turkey (new departure)............182 Santa Fe Opera......................................186

Lecturers biographies are on page 194. b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Art & Music in Dresden 18-24 May 2013 (mz 565) 7 days • £2,350 Lecturer: Dr Jarl Kremeier Once one of the most admired cities in Europe, rebuilding and restoration has reached a peak.

Dresden has outstanding art collections and fine 18th- & 19th-century architecture.

Four performances at four venues, including La Cerentola at the Semperoper.

are steadily being recreated; the glory of Dresden lay as much in the lesser buildings as in the major ones. Some striking new architecture is being added, notably the allglass car factory in the historic centre and the Foster & Partners railway station.­

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 9.00am from London Heathrow to Berlin. An introductory walk of the Altstadt followed by dinner.

Excursions to the surrounding area.

Dresden’s greatness as a city of the arts was very much the creation of a single man, Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony 1694– 1733. Though founded at the beginning of the thirteenth century, for its first five hundred years it was a minor city of little distinction.

His pillaging of the state treasury to feed his reckless extravagance was both symbol and to some extent the cause of his dismal record in most areas of statecraft, but his achievements as builder, patron and collector rank him among the most munificent of European rulers.

Great architecture, a picture collection of legendary richness, magnificent accumulations of precious metalwork and ceramics (porcelain was manufactured here for the first time in Europe) and a glorious musical life transformed Dresden into one of the most admired and visited cities in Europe and a major destination on the Grand Tour.

If to a somewhat lesser degree, subsequent rulers of Saxony continued the tradition of cultural embellishment (and political ineptitude: they had a tiresome habit of joining the losing side). In the nineteenth century, ‘the Florence on the Elbe’ acquired buildings by Schinkel and Semper, and Weber and Wagner were directors of the opera house. In the twentieth century, Richard Strauss added to its illustrious musical history.

Then in February 1945 a tragically propitious set of circumstances conspired to make the air raid on Dresden the most ‘successful’ of Allied bombing missions. Most of the art collections had been removed to safety but 80% of the old centre was destroyed.

Under the Communist regime a few of the chief monuments were grudgingly restored, but since unification the painstaking process of rebuilding and restoration has accelerated.

The great dome of the Protestant Cathedral, the Frauenkirche, again dominates the skyline, and the Green Vault in the royal palace again displays the unequalled magnificence of the treasury. Significantly, rank and file buildings Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

Day 3: Dresden. In the morning visit the New Masters Gallery in the Albertinum, reopened Dresden, lithograph after Samuel Prout 1839.

The tour is led by Dr Jarl Kremeier, an art historian resident in Germany.

Day 2: Dresden. Restoration of the royal palace has advanced significantly, and the wonderful contents of the Green Vault, one of the world’s finest princely treasuries, are now on display. Evening concert at the Palais im Großen Garten with Frank Peter Zimmermann (violin), Emmanuel Ax (piano): Brahms, Violin Sonata No.1 in G, Op.78; Violin Sonata No.2 in A, Op.100; Violin Sonata No.3 in D minor, Op.108.

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Art & Music in Dresden continued

Practicalities Price: £2,350 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on Lufthansa flights (Airbus A320); private coach for transfers and excursions; concert tickets costing c. £200; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, three dinners and three lunches with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; tips for restaurant staff and drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £220. Price without flights £2,200.

Hotel: a traditional 5-star hotel in a reconstructed Baroque building, tastefully decorated, with a friendly, personal atmosphere, c. 20 minutes walk from the Semperoper.

Rooms vary in size.

How strenuous? Vehicular access is restricted in the city centres. Participants are expected to walk to the concert venues and there is a lot of walking and standing around in art galleries and museums. Average distance by coach per day: 12 miles.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

Music: music tickets are due to be confirmed in December.

Opera & ballet

Operetta in Austria.................................15 Music in Scandinavia..............................23 in 2010 after extensive renovations following flood damage. Afternoon visit of the Catholic church and the great domed Frauenkirche, whose restoration is now complete. Some free time before the evening concert at the Albertinum with the Dresden Festival Orchestra, Ivor Bolton (conductor and harpsichord), Giuliano Carmignola (violin), Bejun Mehta (countertenor): J. F. Fasch, Concerto in F, FWV L:F2; Vivaldi, Concerto for Two Violins in C, RV 507; Handel, Concerto Grosso in F, Op.3/4a; J. D. Heinichen, Suite in G, S 205; more details to be confirmed.

Day 4: Meissen. Drive downstream to Meissen, ancient capital of Dukes of Saxony and location of the discovery of hard-paste porcelain. The largely 15th-century hilltop castle overlooking the Elbe, the Albrechtsburg, is one of the first to be more residential than defensive, and within the complex is a fine Gothic cathedral. Visit the porcelain factory and museum before returning to Dresden.

The evening is free.

Day 5: Pillnitz. Travel by boat upstream to Pillnitz, a summer palace in Chinese Rococo

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style, with collections of decorative art and a riverside park. After lunch return to Dresden.

Evening organ recital with Stefan Leuthold (organ) at the Frauenkirche: works by J.S. Bach, C. Franck, M. Duruflé and Wagner. More details to be confirmed.

Day 6: Dresden. Visit the Zwinger, a unique Baroque confection, a pleasure palace, arena for festivities and museum for cherished collections. See the Old Masters Gallery, one of the finest collections in Europe, particularly strong on Italian and Netherlandish painting.

Free afternoon. Evening opera at the Semperoper with the Saxon State Choir and the Dresden Staatskapelle: La Cenerentola (Rossini).

Day 7. Morning walk the Neustadt, taking in amongst others the Baroque Quarter around Königsstrasse, and a Japanese Palace.

Fly from Berlin to London Heathrow, arriving c. 7.00pm.

Savonlinna Opera....................................49 Ballet: The Rite of Spring........................60 Music in Berlin........................................68 The Ring in Berlin...................................69 Art & Music in Dresden.........................71 Verdi at La Scala......................................92 The Ring at La Scala...............................93 Opera in Venice.....................................100 Verona Opera.........................................101 Parma Verdi Festival..............................105 Naples: Art, Antiquities & Opera.........128 Edinburgh Festival................................158 The Ring in Seattle................................184 Santa Fe Opera......................................186 Opera in Cardiff....................................193

Illustration: The Zwinger, wood engraving from Picturesque Europe, Vol. V.

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Bauhaus & Expressionism Weimar, Dessau, Chemnitz, Berlin 11–16 June 2013 (mz 616) 6 days • £2,060 Lecturer: Dr Diane Silverthorne The art, design and architecture of last century’s most influential art school.

Includes the Bauhaus college buildings & several pioneering examples of modernism.

A day is spent in Chemnitz, since 2007, home to excellent collections of Expressionist works.

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Day 3: Chemnitz, Dessau. By coach to Chemnitz, birthplace of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, where the day is spent exploring Expressionist collections in two museums. The Museum Gunzenhauser (opened 2007) shows a range of artists but is particularly strong on Münter and von Jawlensky, and the Museum am Theaterplatz, a Schmidt-Rottluff collection. Lunch at Villa Esche, designed by van de Velde, before continuing to Dessau, whose mayor secured the Bauhaus in 1923 after nationalist forces evicted it from Weimar. First of two nights in Dessau.

Itinerary

Day 4: Dessau. Visit the restored Bauhaus Building (1926), designed by Walter Gropius, incorporating student accommodation, a workshop wing with a spectacular glass wall, a theatre and a canteen. View other Bauhaus buildings in Dessau, among them staff houses, the Labour Exchange (both by Gropius) and the Törten Estate (Gropius, Meyer and Muche). Overnight Dessau.

Bauhaus Foundation Dessau.

The Bauhaus was unquestionably the most influential art school of the twentieth century.

Much of the look of the modern world has been shaped by its principles and practices.

The artists, architects and designers associated with the Bauhaus have exerted an enormous influence, on the modern movement and on art education in many parts of the world. Chief among them were Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe (both directors of the school), Josef Albers, Marcel Breuer, Lyonel Feininger, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Oskar Schlemmer and László Moholy-Nagy.

The influence of the Bauhaus is all the more astonishing since its life was brief – it lasted just fourteen years – and its history turbulent and tragic. Though widely admired internationally from the outset, the school was subjected to constant stresses and strains, from ideological and political opponents, economic crises and governmental interference. Founded in Weimar in 1919, it was forced to relocate first to Dessau and then to Berlin, where, in 1933, it met an ignominious end at the hands of Nazi stormtroopers. Ironically, its closure speeded the rapid world-wide dissemination of its ideas and designs as many of its masters and students fled abroad.

The Bauhaus wanted to eradicate the distinction between artist and craftsman, to stimulate the natural creativity of its students, to understand and exploit fully the inherent qualities of natural and man-made materials, and, above all, to design objects for industrial mass production in a way which took account both of aesthetics and economy. There were constant, often heated debates: between the Expressionists and the Constructivists; the craftsmen and the industrial designers; between the apolitical and the politically engaged.

The intellectual energy generated by these debates contributed to an enormously creative atmosphere.

By studying the surviving work produced at this educational hothouse in the places in which it was made, unique insights can be gained into the nature of our own man-made environment and the development of modernism. This tour visits all the most important sites, some by

special arrangement, of the Bauhaus schools and of buildings designed and furnished by the school’s workshops.

Expressionism is Germany’s other great contribution to twentieth-century art, and this tour includes recently refurbished collections of Expressionist paintings in Chemnitz and Berlin. The movement began before the First World War and flourished until, again, the coming of the Third Reich. A powerful reaction against svelte academic orthodoxy, Expressionism sought to express meaning or emotional experience through raw, primitivist and boldly colourful forms.

Day 1: Weimar. Fly at c. 8.45am from London Heathrow to Berlin. Drive to Weimar, the lovely small court city which as home to Goethe, Schiller, Liszt and other luminaries was a centre of the German enlightenment; the constitution of 1919 was drawn up in the town which gave its name to the ill-fated Republic whose dates coincide with those of the Bauhaus. Visit the Haus am Horn, built and furnished by the Bauhaus workshops. First of two nights in Weimar.

Day 2: Weimar. Visit the original Bauhaus Building by the Belgian Henry van de Velde (1904–5) when director of the school of arts and crafts which was predecessor to the Bauhaus; this contains reconstructed Bauhaus work destroyed by the Nazis (murals and reliefs by Schlemmer, Herbert Bayer and Joost Schmidt). Visit the Bauhaus Museum and van de Velde’s house in Belvederer Allee, his interiors for Nietzsche’s villa, and Gropius’s Expressionist, abstract Trades Union Monument. Overnight Weimar.

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Day 5: Potsdam, Berlin. The Einstein Tower in Potsdam by Erich Mendelsohn is the outstanding example of Expressionist architecture. In outer Berlin see estates inspired by the Garden City Movement and the Brücke Museum which documents the first Expressionist grouping, founded in Dresden in 1905 by Kirchner. The Museum Berggruen, due to re-open in 2012, is a magnificent collection of classic modern art with a focus on Paul Klee, member of the Blaue Reiter group and teacher at the Bauhaus for ten years.

Overnight Berlin.

Day 6: Berlin. The Bauhaus was closed in 1932 by the Dessau authorities and moved

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Bauhaus & Expressionism continued

Mediaeval Saxony Carolingian, Ottonian, Romanesque Quedlinburg, wood engraving c. 1840.

to Berlin, where it survived only six months.

There are two major post-war buildings

by Bauhaus exiles, the Bauhaus Museum designed by Gropius, which has the largest collection of Bauhaus products, and the Neue Nationalgalerie by Mies van der Rohe (changing exhibitions). En route to the airport see architecture with Bauhaus connections, including the AEG turbine factory (Peter Behrens, 1908–9). Fly from Berlin to Heathrow, arriving c. 5.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,060 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on British Airways flights (Airbus 320); travel by private coach travel throughout; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts and three dinners and three lunches, with wine, water and coffee; all admission charges to museums, sites, etc.; all gratuities for restaurant staff, drivers; all airport and government taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £160. Price without flights £1,900.

Hotels: in Weimar (2 nights): a stylish and historic 4-star hotel in a very central location, with good rooms, good service and a good restaurant. In Dessau (2 nights): a 4-star hotel with spacious, modern rooms. In Berlin (1 night): an elegant hotel decorated in Regency style, close to Unter den Linden. Rooms are of a good size and excellent standard.

How strenuous? There is a fair amount of walking and standing around in museums on this tour, and there are some long coach journeys; average distance per day: 79 miles.

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

Modern art & architecture

Finland: Aalto & Others.........................48 Le Corbusier............................................58 Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur.............66 Bauhaus & Expressionism.......................73 Munch in Oslo......................................142 West Coast Architecture.......................188 Art in Texas...........................................189

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15–23 July 2013 (mz 636) 9 days • £2,130 Lecturer: Dr Joachim Strupp One of the most fascinating areas of early mediaeval art and architecture.

Straddling the former border between East and West Germany and still relatively little visited.

Some delightful landscape and attractive towns.

Led by Joachim Strupp, fellow at the University of Buckingham and expert in German art of most ages.

In amassing territory which stretched from the Atlantic to Bohemia and from the Baltic to central Italy, Charlemagne believed that he was recreating the ancient Roman Empire.

Vivid expression was given to this belief by the attempts to emulate Roman forms by the builders and artists who worked on his innumerable projects of construction and embellishment. Few of these survive, but some of the most enlightening are to be seen in Saxony.

The election of Henry of Saxony in 919 to the royal throne of Germany brought to an end a century of disunity and baronial misrule and ushered in a period during which the Saxon kings – two Henrys and three Ottos – achieved a partial reconstitution of Charlemagne’s empire and brought about the emergence of a nation state, arguably the first in Europe.

‘Old’ Saxony, which comprised the Harz mountains and the undulating plains to the north, became the most powerful of the German duchies as well as forming the kernel of the German nation. Subsequently the region gradually lost its pivotal role in national and

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international affairs; even the name slid across the map to denominate another part of Germany.

A consequence of the region’s central importance in the early Middle Ages is that Old Saxony has no peers in northern Europe for the wealth of Ottonian and early Romanesque architecture, sculpture, precious metalwork and other arts. A consequence of subsequent decline is that much of this heritage is situated in some amazingly lovely and unspoilt little towns amidst a largely rural landscape of wooded hills and rolling farmland.

Split after the war between West and East, the region is still far from recovering the popularity it had with travellers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Itinerary Day 1: London to Hanover. Fly at c. 4.00pm from London Heathrow to Hanover Airport and drive down to Paderborn. Overnight in Paderborn.

Day 2: Paderborn, Corvey. At Paderborn are the fascinating archaeological remains of Charlemagne’s palace and a modern reconstruction of the Ottonian replacement.

The 13th-century cathedral has a western tower and spire similar to its pre-Romanesque predecessor. Also see the treasury in the Diocesan Museum. The westwork of the Abbey at Corvey is among the most important of surviving Carolingian buildings. Drive to Hildesheim for the first of two nights.

Day 3: Hildesheim. Hildesheim is of enormous importance in the history of Romanesque art and architecture. The cathedral and its treasury are closed for restoration but some of the major works (it is renowned for some of the earliest b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Day 4: Hildesheim, Goslar. Goslar is a lovely little town with outstanding Ottonian art and architecture, of which the palace is a rare secular survival. Works of art including a bronze altar are in the museum. First of five nights in Quedlinburg.

Day 5: Quedlinburg, Gernrode. Quedlinburg is not only a wonderfully preserved mediaeval town but has the authentic feel of a place not spruced up for the tourist trade. The castle hill is crowned by the collegiate church of St Servatius, begun 1070, and contains another of Germany’s finest treasuries. The Wipertikirche has a 10th-century crypt. St Cyriakus at Gernrode is a church of exceptional beauty; begun 961, it is the oldest large-scale Ottonian building surviving. Overnight Quedlinburg.

Day 6: Halberstadt. Halberstadt was a major city in the Middle Ages. The Romanesque Church of Our Lady contains life-size reliefs of apostles. The cathedral is the largest Frenchstyle Gothic church in Germany after Cologne, and has a very rich treasury, being particularly good for mediaeval textiles. The rest of the afternoon is free in Quedlinburg.

Day 7: Magdeburg. Magdeburg was the favoured residence of Otto the Great. The cathedral, standing on a bluff above the River Elbe, is the first Gothic building in Germany and a veritable museum of mediaeval sculpture.

Overnight Quedlinburg.

Day 8: Königslutter. Königslutter am Elm has a very fine church and cloister from the abbey founded in 1135 and built by Lombard masons; the sculpture is superb. Visit the Monastery and church of St Pankratius in Hamersleben, a hidden gem of Romanesque architecture.

Overnight Quedlinburg.

Day 9: Braunschweig. Braunschweig (Brunswick) was residence of Henry the Lion, one of the most powerful princes in 12thcentury Europe. The Romanesque cathedral has extensive frescoes of c. 1220, a rare survival. Opposite stands Henry’s castle; now a museum, it displays the Lion Monument, the first free-standing monumental bronze sculpture since Roman times. Fly from Hanover and arrive at Heathrow at c. 8.00pm.

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Practicalities

Magdeburg, Cathedral pulpit, wood engraving c. 1880 from Pictures from the German Fatherland.

and best bronze sculpture of that era) are on show at the church of St Michael and the Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum. A pinnacle of Ottonian achievement embodying many influential innovations, the six-towered church of St Michael was begun in 1010.

Overnight Hildesheim.

Price: £2,130 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (economy class) with Lufthansa (operated by bmi and Germany Wings) (aircraft: Embraer RJ145 and Airbus A319); travel by private coach; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 6 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £180. Price without flights £1,950.

Hotels: Paderborn (1 night): modern 4-star hotel in the centre. Hildesheim (2 nights): right in the centre, a modern 4-star hotel.

Quedlinburg (5 nights): a family run hotel converted from a half-timbered house on the main square, tastefully decorated and furnished, and well equipped. All three hotels have good restaurants.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking on this tour, some over uneven ground. Average distance by coach per day: 89 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with The Johann Sebastian Bach Journey, 7–13 July (see below) or The Age of Bede, 25–29 July (page 27).

The Johann Sebastian

Bach Journey 7–13 July 2013 7 days • from £2,670 Speaker: Sir Nicholas Kenyon Contact us for full details or visit www.martinrandall.com A pilgrimage to the places where Johann Sebastian Bach lived and worked.

8 private concerts at 8 different venues in the course of the week.

Talks on the music by Sir Nicholas Kenyon.

Stay in Mühlhausen, Weimar and Leipzig.

Journeying to the places where Johann Sebastian Bach lived and worked is an experience as near to pilgrimage as is offered by the history of music. And hearing his music in buildings which he frequented, or even where it was first performed, must rank among the highest delights available to music lovers. This unique festival provides the opportunity.

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Eight concerts in eight different venues present a comprehensive range of Bach’s output, alongside works by his contemporaries and predecessors. We are engaging artists and ensembles who are world leaders in performance of the repertoire.

The distances travelled are not great, but the event is emphatically a journey, with three changes of hotel. It starts, as Bach did, in the little towns and cities of the principality of Thuringia, and finishes, again like Bach, in the free city of Leipzig. The audience stays in Mühlhausen, Weimar and Leipzig, and the concerts take place here and in three other towns.

Admission to the concerts is exclusive to those who take a complete package which includes hotels, flights from the UK, travel by private coach, dinners and lectures. Except in Mühlhausen, where the only hotels are of 3-star standard, a range of hotels from 3-star to 5-star is offered, enabling a choice between four different prices.

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Organs of Bach’s Time Silbermann & Baroque organs in Saxony & Thuringia in original condition. They are famous – and always were – for their distinctive sounds, from the silver flutes to the strong and characterful 16’ Posaune in the pedal.

Other organ builders whose work we see and hear on this tour include Zacharias Hildebrandt (1688–1757), an apprentice and later a rival of Silbermann, and Heinrich Gottfried Trost (c.1680–1759). All had some sort of collaborative or critical relationship with JS Bach.

This tour selects some of the finest instruments in a region exceptionally richly endowed with historic organs. Many are located in village churches far from cathedral or court, leading the visitor through terrain which is rural and remote. None on this itinerary are in large cities, and most of the towns visited have wonderfully picturesque historic centres.

Some organs have been hardly altered since they were built.

The tour is accompanied by organist James Johnstone, who performs regularly in Europe and America and who has won several prizes for his recordings.

The eight included recitals are exclusive to this group and twenty to thirty minutes long, performed by James Johnstone or the local organist. The maximum number of participants is limited to thirty-two.

Itinerary

Copper engraving c. 1730.

3–7 July 2013 (mz 629) 5 days • £1,680 Lecturers: James Johnstone & Tom Abbott Recitals on the finest Baroque organs to survive, some of them instruments which Bach and Handel knew.

Accompanied by organist James Johnstone, a Bach specialist, who gives recitals and demonstrations in association with the local organists, and by Tom Abbott, art historian.

The organs are located in towns and villages off the beaten track.

For a maximum of 32 participants, the format of this tour is a hybrid between our own-brand music festivals and our small group tours.

The tour can be combined with The Johann Sebastian Bach Journey (7–13 July 2013).

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With clocks, organs were the most complex of mechanical instruments developed before the Industrial Revolution. As such they were a source of awe and admiration far beyond musical cognoscenti and their makers often enjoyed a level of fame greater than the musicians who played them.

The greatest of the composers for the organ, Johann Sebastian Bach, had the good fortune to live at a time and in a place where organbuilding reached a peak of excellence which perhaps has never been surpassed. This was not entirely coincidence: interaction between players and makers was an important element in refining the skills of both sides.

The most famous of these organ builders was Gottfried Silbermann. He was born the son of a carpenter in the mountainous backwoods of Saxony in 1683, gained an almost monopolistic grip on keyboard manufacturing in the region and died a rich man in 1753. Nearly thirty of his fifty Saxon organs survive, some very nearly

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Day 1. Fly at c.11am from London Heathrow to Berlin and continue by coach (c. 2 hours) to Bad Lauchstädt, a charming little town which was a prestigious resort in the 18th century; first of two nights in Bad Lauchstädt.

Day 2: Pomßen, Naumburg. The village of Pomßen has a church with an organ of the 1660s, a delightful instrument which is more Renaissance than Baroque, set in a painted wood ensemble of gallery, chest and panelled ceiling. The church of St Wenceslas in Naumburg has a major Hildebrandt organ of 1748. There is also time for the cathedral with its exceptional 13th-century sculpture.

Overnight Bad Lauchstädt.

Day 3: Rötha, Störmthal, Altenburg. Visit two small towns outside Leipzig with outstanding organs. In the fine mediaeval church of St George in Rötha there is a Silbermann organ tested in 1721 by Johann Kuhnau, Bach’s predecessor in Leipzig. Störmthal has an organ by Hildebrandt which was inspected and approved by Bach in 1723 and is still in its original condition. The court city of Altenburg is one of the rarely visited jewels of the former DDR, with a hilltop ducal residence featuring mediaeval fortifications, Baroque apartments and a quite remarkable collection of Italian b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Art in Munich Renaissance paintings. The chapel has a fine organ by Trost of 1739. Overnight Freiberg.

Day 4: Freiberg, Frauenstein, Helbigsdorf.

Freiberg cathedral is one of the most beautiful of Late Gothic buildings in Germany and has retained an exceptional panoply of furnishings.

The organ by Silbermann (1711–1714) is one of the world’s finest instruments; three manuals, 44 stops, largely unaltered. There also is another Silbermann masterpiece (1718–19), brought here from another church. In the afternoon drive out to Frauenstein, where Silbermann spent his childhood, and visit the museum dedicated to him. Overnight Freiberg.

Day 5. Drive to Berlin and fly to London Heathrow, arriving c. 3.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £1,680 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on British Airways flights (Airbus A319); travel by private coach; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 3 dinners, with wine, water and coffee. All organ recitals, admissions to museums, visits, etc.; all tips for drivers, guides, waiters; all taxes; the services of the two lecturers. Single supplement £40. Price without flights £1,460.

12–16 August 2013 (mz 649) 5 days • £1,580 Lecturer: Tom Abbott A short and sharp study of the art and architecture of the Bavarian capital.

Includes a visit to the Lenbachhaus (due to reopen in Spring 2013), an outstanding collection of German Expressionist painting.

Option of combining with The Danube Music Festival (16–23 August 2013).

Led by Tom Abbott, specialist in architectural history from the Baroque to the 20th century with a wide knowledge of the performing arts.

The capital of Bavaria is perhaps the most attractive of Germany’s cities, and few cities in Europe are better endowed with great art.

The allure of the cityscape, the abundance of cultural activity, the relatively relaxed lifestyle Munich, wood engraving after Samuel Reed from The Illustrated London News 1865.

and generally amenable ambience make it the most sought-after place in which to live and work in Germany. The seat of the Wittelsbachs, who ruled Bavaria from 1255 until 1918 as Counts, then Dukes, as Electors from 1620 and finally in the nineteenth century as Kings, Munich became one of the best-endowed places in Europe artistically and architecturally.

The accompanying lecturer, Tom Abbott, is a cultural historian with a wide range of knowledge and a deep understanding of contemporary Germany.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 11.00am from London Heathrow to Munich. An afternoon walk passes through the core of the historic city.

See the vast Gothic cathedral, the pioneering Baroque Church of the Theatines and the 19thcentury city hall.

Day 2. The morning is spent in the Residenz, rambling palace of the Wittelsbach dynasty, Dukes, Electors and Kings of Bavaria, with sumptuous interiors of the highest art-historical importance from Renaissance to Romantic, and

All recitals are subject to confirmation from the relevant churches. Changes to the itinerary are possible.

Hotels: Bad Lauchstädt: situated in the historic centre of the town, the hotel opened in 2000 and is designed in the late Baroque style of the buildings that surround it. Freiberg: well-situated hotel with a colourful history as a prison, cigar factory and school. Rooms are comfortable and bathrooms have either a shower or a bath.

How strenuous? There is a lot of coach travel with some long journeys. Average distance by coach per day: 105 miles.

Group size: this tour will operate with a maximum of 32 participants.

Lecturers biographies are on page 194.

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Germany

Art in Munich continued

King Ludwig II & the Wittelsbach palaces of Bavaria

a marvellous Rococo theatre. The Königsplatz is a fine assembly of Neo-Classical architecture including the Glyptothek, a museum of Greek and Roman sculpture. The Lenbachhaus has an outstanding collection of German Expressionist paintings (at the time of going to print the Lenbachhaus is due to reopen in Spring 2013, making this visit subject to confirmation).

Day 3. By coach along some of the principal streets and boulevards of the city to see architecture of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Disembark in the vicinity of the main art galleries and visit the Alte Pinakothek, one of the world’s greatest collections of Old Masters and the Neue Pinakothek, paintings from the 18th to the early 20th centuries; some free time; you may choose to also visit the Brandhorst Museum, which opened in 2009, the Pinakothek der Moderne or join a guided tour of the Art Nouveau Villa Stuck.

Day 4. On the edge of Munich, Nymphenburg is one of the finest palace complexes of the 17th and 18th centuries, with main palace, park, gardens and pavilions. The delightful Amalienburg represents the apogee of secular Rococo interiors, and the carriage museum has sleighs made for King Ludwig II. Returning to the centre of Munich, visit the little Baroque church of St John Nepomuk created by the Asam brothers.

10–15 July 2013 (mz 633) This tour is currently full New departure: 28 August–2 September (mz 666) 6 days • £2,100 Lecturer: Tom Abbott Explore eight royal palaces and castles set against the breathtaking backdrop of Germany’s most beautiful state.

Learn about the lives, loves and legacies of King Ludwig II and the House of Wittelsbach, rulers of Bavaria for over 700 years.

Art and architecture from the Renaissance through to Late Romanticism, much of it opulent and theatrical.

Led by Tom Abbott, specialist in architectural history from the Baroque to the 20th century with a wide knowledge of the performing arts.

Germany’s large and beautiful south-eastern state of Bavaria is an established destination for Martin Randall Travel, with a number of tours over the years dedicated to a variety of themes.

This tour, new for 2013, has a different focus, that of the legendary ‘Swan King’ Ludwig II and the House of Wittelsbach from which he hailed, and his extraordinary architectural and cultural legacy.

Architecturally and artistically, the tour encompasses outstanding examples of Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Neo-Classical and Romantic styles as well as Ludwig’s fairytale follies. Historically it examines the eccentric world of one of Europe’s most controversial monarchs and in the story of what, until German unification, counted as one of the continent’s most important little states.

It is true that Ludwig II’s predilection for aesthetic absorption over political and legal leadership gained him fierce opposition and criticism, but this handsome young king

Linderhof, wood engraving from The Magazine of Art 1887.

Day 5. Free morning for revisiting museums, seeing others (the Bavarian National Museum has excellent collections of sculpture and decorative arts) or shopping. Fly from Munich to London Heathrow arriving at c. 4.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £1,580 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled Lufthansa flights (Aircraft: Airbus A320); hotel accommodation for four nights as described below; travel by private coach and U-Bahn (metro); breakfasts and three dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admission charges; all state and airport taxes; all gratuities for restaurant staff, drivers; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £60. Price without flights £1,400.

Hotel: friendly, family-run, centrally located.

Rooms are traditionally furnished, snack bar, but no restaurant. Single rooms are double rooms for single use.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking and standing around in galleries. Participants need to be able to keep up with a group of averagely fit people.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

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and his elaborate castles are responsible for a considerable proportion of Bavaria’s appeal today. Ironically, the dream world into which the sovereign retreated in order to escape the responsibilities of state now benefits Ludwig’s former kingdom in a way it never did when he inhabited it.

Was he, to quote one of his more defamatory monikers, insane? Or simply weak, of solitary disposition, and therefore tragically unsuited to the role imposed upon him at a time of Bavaria’s considerable political fragility and conflict with Prussia, Austria and France?

Once deposed in 1886, was the cause of his untimely death suicide, did it take place at the hand of murderous detractors, or was it mere accident? Was he an impotent and irresponsible sybarite or a luminous benefactor of the arts?

Day 4: Hohenschwangau, Neuschwanstein.

Drive south to Hohenschwangau castle, site of Ludwig II’s childhood, owned by his parents Maximilian II of Bavaria and Princess Marie of Prussia. Majestic lakeside Alpine location, frescoes featuring medieval SwanKnight Lohengrin which led to Ludwig II’s obsession with Wagner. Then continue to Neuschwanstein, the famous fairytale turreted castle ordered by Ludwig II in homage to Wagner though never completed.

Itinerary

Day 6: Berg and Starnberg. Leave Murnau, drive to Berg and the mock Gothic castle to which Ludwig II retreated from his ministers, and where he was placed under house arrest after his forced abdication in 1886 on grounds of insanity. Lake Starnberg surrounds the castle and is the scene of Ludwig II’s death and that of his doctor, officially by drowning. Visit the Memorial Chapel and have lunch in Starnberg.

Fly from Munich, returning to London Heathrow at c. 4.30pm.

Day 1: Schleissheim, Munich. Fly at c. 9.30am from London Heathrow to Munich. Between airport and city, the palace and garden at Schleissheim form a rare ensemble of Baroque taste from an early 17th-cent. retreat, through the 1684 Lustheim pavilion at the far end of a canal of absolutist straightness, to the magnificent Neues Schloss, begun 1701 but whose progress continued haltingly into the Rococo period. There are a gallery of Baroque art, sculpted stucco in the state apartments of exceptional quality, Hofgarten (Court Garden) and a collection of Meissen porcelain in Schloss Lustheim. First of two nights in Munich.

Day 2: Munich. The Residenz in the centre of the city was the principal Wittelsbach palace and seat of government, a magnificent sprawl of buildings, courtyards, state apartments and museums of every period from Renaissance to the end of the 19th century. There are fine works of art and sumptuous interiors of the highest importance, especially the Rococo interiors and the Cuvilliés Theatre (subject to confirmation as the theatre can close for rehearsals at short notice).

Day 3: Nymphenburg, Linderhof, Murnau.

Drive to the city’s outskirts and the palace and park of Nymphenburg, birthplace of Ludwig II. An extensive complex including bathhouses and the Rococo Amalienburg lodge. After lunch drive to Ettal, site of the only one of Ludwig II’s commissioned castles to have been completed. 1870s Linderhof was reputed to have been the King’s favourite castle; draws, like Herrenchiemsee, on French influences, lavish interiors in Renaissance and Baroque styles, extravagant terrace gardens including grottos and Oriental adornments. First of three nights in Murnau am Staffelsee.

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Day 5: Herrenchiemsee. In the countryside southeast of Munich and surrounded by a park, woodland and a great lake, Schloss Herrenchiemsee is a copy of Versailles. Ludwig II’s megalomaniac hymn of homage to the absolutism of Louis XIV, his final folly, brought the Bavarian state to the brink of bankruptcy.

Practicalities Price: £2,100 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on Lufthansa flights (Airbus 319); private coach for transfers and excursions; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 4 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; tips for restaurant staff and drivers; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer.

Single supplement £160. Price without flights £1,940.

Hotels: Munich (2 nights): friendly, familyrun hotel in a central location. Rooms are traditionally furnished, there is a snack bar but no restaurant. Single rooms are doubles for single use. Murnau (3 nights): rambling 5-star hotel on the outskirts of Murnau with a country house feel; rooms vary in size and are restrained in decoration; two restaurants, spa and swimming pool.

How strenuous? This is a strenuous tour with long coach journeys and a lot of walking and standing around in the castles and gardens.

Average distance by coach per day: 65 miles.

‘Rocaille’ cartouche, detail from an engraving c.1750.

Palaces, houses & gardens Great Houses of the South West............37 Great Houses of the North......................38 Royal Residences.....................................40 Brittany....................................................51 Châteaux of the Loire..............................64 Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes....91 Venetian Palaces....................................102 Florentine Palazzi..................................113 Medici Villas & Gardens...................... 114 Walking in Madeira..............................148

Small group: 10–22 participants.

Grampian Gardens................................154

Alsace (travels to France and Germany), 3–10 September 2013. See page 61.

Scotland: the Borders............................157

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Ardgowan..............................................156

Germany

Classical Greece The Peloponnese, Attica & Athens Day 2: Nauplion, Tiryns, Mycenae. Today’s theme is the Mycenaean civilization of the Argolid Plain, the Greece of Homer’s heroes (16th–13th centuries bc). Visit Tiryns, a citadel with massive Cyclopean walls of enormous blocks of masonry, and Mycenae, reputedly Agamemnon’s capital, with Treasury of Atreus (finest of beehive tombs) and Acropolis (Lion Gate). There are spectacular views from the 18th-century Venetian Fortress of Palamidi.

Day 3: Corinth, Epidauros. The site of Ancient Corinth has the earliest standing Doric temple on mainland Greece, and a fine museum with evidence of Greece’s first large-scale pottery industry. Epidauros, centre for the worship of Asclepios, god of medicine, where popular magical dream cures were dispensed, remains here and includes the best-preserved of all Greek theatres.

Corinth, wood engraving from Greek Pictures 1890.

20–29 April 2013 (mz 531) 10 days • £3,160 Lecturer: Henry Hurst 28 September–7 October 2013 (ma 689) 10 days • £3,160 Lecturer: Dr Oswyn Murray A comprehensive survey of the principal Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic sites in mainland Greece.

Highlights include Mycenae, Olympia, Delphi.

The lecturers are ancient Greece experts.

In Athens, a full day on the Acropolis and in the ancient Agora.

The Ancient Greeks had far greater influence on western civilization than any other people or nation. For two and a half millennia, philosophy and ethics, the fundamentals of science and mathematics, prevailing notions of government and citizenship, literature and the visual arts have derived their seeds, and a large amount of their substance, from the Greeks.

In the words of H.D.F. Kitto ‘there gradually emerged a people not very numerous, not very powerful, not very well organized, who had a totally new conception of what human life was for, and showed for the first time what the human mind was for.’

Whatever the depth of our Classical education, there is a deep-seated knowledge in all of us that the places visited on this tour are of the greatest significance for our identity and way of life. A journey to Greece is like a

Greece

journey to our homeland, a voyage in which a search for our roots is fulfilled.

In no field is the Greek contribution to the modern world more immediately evident than in architecture. The grip upon the imagination that the Greek temple has exerted is astonishing, and in one way or another – ranging from straightforward imitation of the whole to decorative use of distorted details – has dominated nearly all monumental or aspirational building ever since. A striking and salutary conclusion, however, which inevitably emerges from participation on this tour, is that the originals are unquestionably superior. This is also true of sculpture.

This tour includes nearly all of the most important archaeological sites, architectural remains ­and museums of antiquities on mainland Greece. It presents a complete picture of ancient Greek civilization beginning with the Mycenaeans, the Greek Bronze Age, and continuing through Archaic, Classical and, to a lesser extent, Hellenistic and Roman Greece.

It also provides a glimpse of the spiritual splendour of Byzantine art and architecture.

It is a full itinerary, but the pace is manageable. Plenty of time is available on the sites and in the museums, allowing opportunity both for adequate exposition by the lecturer and time for further exploration on your own.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at midday from London Heathrow to Athens. The little port of Nauplion is one of the most attractive towns in mainland Greece.

Arrive here in time for dinner. First of three nights in Nauplion.

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Day 4: Arcadia, Bassae. Drive across the middle of the Peloponnese, through the beautiful plateau of Arcadia and past impressive mountain scenery. A stunning road leads to the innovatory and well-preserved 5th-century Temple of Apollo (in a tent for protection) on the mountain top at Bassae (3,700 feet) and through further breathtaking scenery to Olympia. Overnight Olympia.

Day 5: Olympia. Nestling in a verdant valley, Olympia is one of the most evocative of ancient sites; never a town, but the principal sanctuary of Zeus and site of the quadrennial pan-Hellenic athletics competitions. Many fascinating structures remain, including the temples of Hera and Zeus, the workshop of Phidias and the stadium. The museum contains fragments of pediment sculpture, among the most important survivals of Classical Greek art. First two nights in Delphi.

Day 6: Delphi. Clinging to the lower slopes of Mount Parnassos, Delphi is the most spectacularly evocative of ancient Greek sites. Of incalculable religious and political importance, the Delphic oracle attracted pilgrims from all over the Hellenic world. The Sanctuary of Pythian Apollo has a theatre and Athenian Treasury, and the Sanctuary of Athena has a circular temple. The museum is especially rich in Archaic sculpture. Some free time amidst the austere beauty of the valley.

Day 7: Hosios Loukas, Athens. Visit the Byzantine monastery of Hosios Loukas in a beautiful setting in a remote valley, one of the finest buildings of mediaeval Greece with remarkable mosaics. Walk in the Plaka district of Athens. First of three nights in Athens.

Day 8: Athens. The Acropolis is the foremost site of Classical Greece. The Parthenon (built 447–438 bc) is indubitably the supreme b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

achievement of Greek architecture. Other architectural masterpieces are the Propylaia (monumental gateway), Temple of Athena Nike and the Erechtheion. At the Theatre of Dionysos plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides were first performed. The new Acropolis museum has superb Archaic and Classical sculpture, including some by Phidias and his assistants. The Agora (market place) was the centre of civic life in ancient Athens, with the small Doric Hephaisteion, the bestpreserved of Greek temples.

Day 9: Athens. Kerameikos Cemetery was where Athenians were buried beyond the ancient city walls. The refurbished National Archaeological Museum has the finest collection of Greek art and artefacts to be found anywhere. The vast Corinthian Temple of Olympian Zeus was completed by Hadrian 700 years after its inception. Some free time.

Day 10: Athens. Drive to the 5th-century Temple of Poseidon at Sounion, overlooking

the sea at the southernmost tip of the Attic peninsula, visited by Byron in 1810. Fly from Athens, arriving Heathrow c. 4.40pm.

Practicalities Price: £3,160 (deposit £300). This includes: air travel (economy class) on British Airways flights (Airbus A320); private coach travel (day 8 is on foot); accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 2 lunches and 7 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters, drivers and guides; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer and a local guide. Single supplement £370. Price without flights £2,930.

In Athens (3 nights): smart hotel near the picturesque Plaka quarter.

How strenuous? This tour has three hotel changes and some long journeys. You will be on your feet for lenghtly stretches of time in some cases on exposed sites and walking over rough terrain. Sure-footedness and agility are essential. Average distance by coach per day: 70 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine the April departure with Classical Turkey, 8–17 April (page 180). Combine the September departure with Morocco, 14–25 September (page 140).

Hotels: in Nauplion (3 nights): a small comfortable hotel in a converted 19th-century mansion situated near the harbour. In Olympia (1 night): a characterful hotel outside the town. In Delphi (2 nights): a modern hotel a short coach ride from the archaeological site.

Athens, Library of Hadrian, from a drawing by J. Fulleylove reproduced in The Studio 1895.

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Greece

Minoan Crete History, archaeology, landscape 15–24 April 2013 (mz 540) 10 days • £2,550 Lecturer: Dr Alan Peatfield

Day 7: Gournia, Vasiliki. The largest excavated Minoan town, Gournia’s over seventy cramped houses lie dotted about the hillside with a minipalace at the top. Situated on the Ierapetra isthmus, Vasiliki shows the beginnings of palatial architecture in its use of a west court.

Concentrates on the extraordinary civilization of the Minoans, but also pays due attention to Classical and later cultures.

Dr Alan Peatfield is an archaeologist specialising in the Minoan Bronze Age civilisation of Crete.

Plenty of time for Knossos and the main sites and includes many remote and little-visited ones.

Wonderful, contrasting landscapes at a beautiful time in the island’s calendar.

‘Land of contrasts’ is the king of clichés, but for Crete it is difficult to avoid, not only because of the variety of natural environments but also because of the influence these have had on the built environment and the history of the island.

The contrasts in the landscape, vegetation and people are dramatic. Crete has its ‘deserts and jungles, its arctic and its tropics’. The high mountains and upland plains are bleak and remote; the gorges in the highly erosive limestone are lush. The west provides a retreat from the more developed stretch of north coast between Iràklion and Agios Nikolaos. The south is difficult of access, scored by gorges and with the Asterousia mountains dropping sharply to the sea. The Sphakia region further west on the south coast is one of the most culturally distinct regions.

Lying between Europe, Africa and the Near East, variety also marks the island’s cultural legacy. The tour will focus primarily on the Bronze Age civilization of the Minoans.

Flourishing in the second millennium BC, the Minoans created the first great palace civilization of Europe. Their art is wonderfully expressive, and its influence spread throughout Greece, Egypt and the Near East. Pottery, sealstones, frescoes and architecture reached peaks of excellence unforeseen in the prehistoric Aegean.

Mycenaean, Hellenistic, Classical Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Venetian and Turkish domination followed. The books written on the island’s World War II history alone fill a bookshelf. And yet throughout these millennia of foreign occupation and domination, Crete remained strong and proud and retained its own unique and captivating character.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 12.15pm from London Heathrow to Iràklion via Athens. First of four nights in Iràklion.

Greece

Crete, Mount Ida, wood engraving 1890.

Day 2: Knossos, Iràklion. The capital of Minoan Crete and centre of the Bronze Age Aegean, Knossos is shrouded in myth both ancient and modern. At its peak it comprised a magnificent palace with courts, religious buildings and mansions. Excavated by Sir Arthur Evans at the turn of the century, his reconstructions not only protect the excavated remains but grandly illustrate the splendour of palatial civilization. Visit the Archaeological Museum which houses the island’s largest collection of Minoan art.

Day 3: Gortyn, Phaestos, Agia Triada, Matala. A day in the Mesara, a rich agricultural plain along the south coast. Gortyn was the Roman capital of Crete; a famous 5th-century bc inscription has details of Greek law. On a ridge Phaestos is the second largest Minoan palace. Agia Triada, interpreted as the summer resort for Phaestos, has beautifully sited and architecturally elaborate villas. Visit the charming town of Matala, a harbour of Roman Gortyn, with rock-cut tombs.

Day 4: Arhanes, Vathypetro, Iràklion.

Another pretty town, Arhanes possesses remarkable archaeological remains and one of the best excavated cemeteries on Crete, Phourni (this is a closed site and permission for access can be withdrawn). The town also has a beautiful museum. Another ‘villa’ site, Vathypetro is situated in verdant farmland overlooking the Pediadha district of Central Crete. Some free time in Iràklion.

Day 5: Malia, Agios Nikolaos. At Malia visit the Minoan Palace and houses belonging to the Minoan town. The Archaeological Museum at Agios Nikolaos houses a fine collection of Minoan art. First of three nights in Sitia.

Day 6: Sitia, Toplou, Zákros. The museum at Sitia has a good collection of artefacts from eastern sites of the island. Positioned in the barren low hills of east Crete, Toplou monastery has a history of fierce resistance to the island’s various invaders. Káto Zákros, at the foot of the Gorge of the Dead, is an excavated Minoan palace.

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Day 8: Knossos, Hania. Second visit to Knossos and a private visit of outer-lying buildings. Drive to Hania, the spiritual capital of Crete, a beautiful town with delightful restaurants and good craft shops. First of two nights in Hania.

Day 9: Aptera, Hania. One of the most powerful Graeco-Roman city states, Aptera is a huge site with Roman ruins, a theatre and a Turkish fort. See the British war cemetery at Souda Bay. Moni Agias Triadas on the Akrotiri peninsula above Hania was founded in 1630

by Venetian nobles and has some of the finest monastic architecture on the island.

Day 10. Fly to London Heathrow via Athens, arriving c. 3.30pm.

The opening of sites on Crete is arbitrary and can be influenced by the politics at the time of the tour.

This may mean that at short notice not all sites listed can be visited.

Practicalities Price: £2,550 (deposit £250). This includes: flights (economy class) with Aegean Airways via Athens (aircraft: Airbus A321 & A320); travel by private coach; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 4 lunches and 5 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and a local guide.

Single supplement £160. Price without all flights £2,280.

Hotels: Iràklion (4 nights): family-run 3-star hotel with small but well-appointed rooms.

Good location by the Venetian port. In Sitia (3 nights): Large, 4-star resort hotel on the edge of the town. In Hania (2 nights): 4-star hotel well located close to the old town and port.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking and scrambling over archaeological sites. Surefootedness is essential. Average distance by coach per day: 56 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Pompeii & Herculaneum, 8–13 April (page 127) or Eastern Turkey, 27 April–12 May (page 182).

Lecturers biographies are on page 194. b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Essential India Delhi, Varanasi, Khajuraho, Orchha, Agra 22 February–8 March 2013 (mz 480) This tour is currently full 15–29 November 2013 (ma 771) This tour is currently full Details for our next season of tours to India (2013–2014) will be available in December 2012. Register interest now.

Includes some of India’s most celebrated sites and also lesser-known but quintessential places.

Arrangements for special access a feature.

Spends more time at the centres visited than most mainstream tours, and free time is allowed for rest or independent exploration.

Varanasi, one of the oldest continously inhabited cities in the world, and the most sacred in India; the Hindu temples of Khajuraho; Rajput and Mughal forts, palaces and funerary monuments.

No less than seven unesco World Heritage Sites visited.

The rich and fertile riverine plains of northern India have long formed a corridor allowing migrations and invasions to spread across the Subcontinent. The result is an area of fascinating cultural diversity.

Like the Ganges and the Yamuna, the sacred rivers of Hindu lore, this tour runs through the modern state of Uttar Pradesh and neighbouring Madhya Pradesh. But these geo-political boundaries do not restrict it thematically. Participants are treated to a comprehensive overview of the history of the Subcontinent, from the emergence of Hinduism and Buddhism to the decline of the Mughal Empire, the last Islamic power before the British Raj of the nineteenth century.

Located on the banks of the Ganges, Varanasi is India’s most sacred place and claims to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. Founded by Lord Shiva, the city is mentioned in scriptures dating from the early Vedic period, in the second millenium bc. It was known as Kanchi, the Luminous, during the life of the Buddha who visited on several occasions on his way to Sarnath nearby where he preached his first sermon. Pilgrims still flock here to wash away their sins in the holy Ganges. The modern Varanasi is also a place of learning and culture, with the first Hindu university in India.

The Chandelas of Khajuraho and the Bundelas of Orchha are two Rajput clans tracing lineage to the Lunar Dynasty from Varanasi, a commonly used device to claim political authority. The eleventh-century Chandelas built intricately carved temples Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

in Khajuraho, today celebrated (and often misunderstood) for their sensual carvings. They are superb examples of the Nagara or northern style of sacred architecture, with its linear succession of halls leading to the sanctum, topped by a Sikhara, or mountain-peak tower.

Later Bundela Rajputs built impressive palaces and temple-like cenotaphs in the lush landscape of northern Madhya Pradesh. Their palaces bring together elements borrowed from both the Rajput and Mughal traditions, while their funerary architecture asserts their dynastic authority.

The buildings and arts of the Mughals in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are often regarded as the apex of India’s artistic achievements, a prestige due no doubt in no small part to its best-known representative, the Taj Mahal, a creation which hovers somewhere between architecture, jewellery and myth.

White marble is typical of the late period, while earlier buildings are of red sandstone – the deserted capital of Akbar at Fatehpur Sikri, and the Red Forts of Agra and Delhi.

Delhi is among a rare elite of the world’s cities which have been capital of several successive regimes. With most new ruling powers establishing their headquarters on a site adjacent to its predecessors, the architectural legacy ranges from a monumental thirteenthcentury minaret to the majestic expansiveness of Lutyens’s New Delhi. Empire succeeds

empire; eighteen years after the Viceroy took up residence in Government House it was handed over to an independent India.

Itinerary Days 1 & 2: London to Delhi. Fly from London Heathrow at about noon and after a 51/2 hour time change reach the hotel in New Delhi c. 3.00am. Free morning, lunch in the hotel. The severely beautiful 15th-cent. tombs of the Sayyid and Lodi dynasties are located in the serene Lodi Gardens, close to the hotel.

Humayun’s striking tomb, with its high-arched faÇades set in a walled garden, is an important example of early Mughal architecture. First of two nights in Delhi.

Day 3: Delhi. Visit the imposing Red Fort, founded in 1639 under Shah Jahan. Exquisite pietra dura work remains intact in the throne pavilion. Together with the fort, the Jami Masjid, India’s largest mosque, dominates Old Delhi with its minarets and domes. Rickshaw through the labyrinthine streets near Chandni Chowk. After lunch, visit New Delhi where Lutyens, Baker and other British architects created a grand city with unique designs.

Baker’s Secretariat buildings on the Raisina hill are Classical buildings at first glance but closer attention reveals Mughal motifs. Subject to special permission, it may be possible to

The fort at Agra, wood engraving from The Illustrated London News, 1857.

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India

Essential India continued

visit the manicured gardens and interior of the vast Rashtrapati Bhavan, the former Viceroy’s residence.

Day 4: Delhi to Varanasi. Fly from Delhi to Varanasi at c. 10.30am. After lunch in the hotel, drive to Shivala Ghat for a walk, visiting the hidden shrines of the old town and experiencing the busy life along the river.

Ends at Dasaswamedha Ghat, named after the ancient ten horse sacrifice which took place here in mythical time. A boat ride along the Ganges ends with the evening prayer ceremony (Aarti), a ritual going back to the Vedic Age. First of three nights in Varanasi.

Day 5: Sarnath, Varanasi. Buddha preached his first sermon at Sarnath and the site remains an active Buddhist centre. The Dhamek stupa in the Deer Park marks the spot where the Buddha sat to preach. The museum houses the 3rd-cent. bc lion capital which has become the symbol of modern India since independence.

An afternoon visit to the Bharat Kala Bhavan, the university museum, is followed by a private visit to a contemporary art gallery.

Day 6: Jaunpur. Drive to Jaunpur where the ruins of the fort and mosques are striking reminders of its brief importance as an Islamic centre in the 14th and 15th cents. The 16thcent. Akbari Bridge has magnificent arches that span the Gomati River. Return to Varanasi for some free time.

Day 7: Varanasi to Khajuraho. An early morning boat ride to witness the morning prayers and ablutions of the devout is followed by a walk amongst the sacred temples and holy ponds of the south part of the city, near the Assi Ghat. Breakfast on the ghats (stepped embankments). Fly at noon to Khajuraho. First of two nights in Khajuraho.

Day 8: Khajuraho. Visit the spectacular group of temples built during the Chandela Rajput dynasty, famous for the beautifully carved erotic scenes. The awe-inspiring 11th-cent.

Kandariya Mahadev Temple is one of the finest examples of North Indian temple architecture, richly embellished with sensuous sculptures.

Nearby, the Jagadambi Temple contains excellent carvings of Vishnu. The Lakshman Temple has attractive female brackets. In the afternoon visit the intricately carved Jain Temple. The Chaturbhuj Temple is unique in its absence of any erotic depictions.

Day 9: Khajuraho to Orchha. Drive to Orchha. Located close to the Betwa River on dramatic rocky terrain, Orchha’s former glory as capital of the Bundela kings is evident in the multi-chambered Jehangir Mahal with lapis lazuli tiles and ornate gateways. The Raj

India

Mahal palace contains some beautiful murals with religious and secular themes. Elegant Royal Chhatris (cenotaphs) line the ghats of the Betwa. First of two nights in Orchha.

Day 10: Orchha. A walk in the old town includes a visit to the Lakshmi Temple whose architecture incorporates fortress elements and whose 19th-cent. frescoes depict scenes of the 1857 Mutiny. The high-ceilinged Chaturbhuj Temple follows a cross plan, representing the four-armed Krishna. Lunch is on the banks of the Betwa before driving the short distance to the towering 18th-cent. fort of Barua Sagar which played an important role in the Mutiny.

The rest of the day is free.

Day 11: Datia, Dholpur, Agra. Drive to the little-visited rural town of Datia to see the 17th-cent. palace of the Bundela ruler Bir Singh Deo. Here Mughal and Rajput styles blend in the decoration of the many-layered residence. Drive to Dholpur for lunch at a former royal residence before continuing to Agra. Take an evening stroll near the Yamuna river for a rewarding view of the Taj Mahal.

First of three nights in Agra.

Day 12: Agra. Rise early to visit the Taj Mahal in the first light of day. Return to the hotel for breakfast and then visit the magnificent Red Fort. The Jehangiri Mahal despite its name was built by Akbar and is the best preserved of the palaces built during his reign. Later additions

by Shah Jahan include the glorious mirrorinlaid Sheesh Mahal and the elegant marble Khas Mahal. Free afternoon.

Day 13: Fatehpur Sikri, Agra. Drive to Fatehpur Sikri, a new capital built by Akbar (1570) but abandoned after a mere 15 years.

The walled city occupies a ridge with excellent views. The palace complex consists of a series of courtyards and beautifully wrought red sandstone pavilions. In the Diwan-i-Khas an intriguing column fuses architectural styles and religious symbols. On return to Agra, visit the Itamad ud Daula, an exquisite garden tomb, and the Chini ka Rauza Tomb, notable for its tiled exterior.

Day 14: Sikandra, Delhi. Drive to Delhi via Akbar’s mausoleum at Sikandra, built on his death in 1605. Set in a traditional char-bagh, it has no central dome unlike other Mughal mausolea. In Delhi, visit the Qutb Minar, site of the first Islamic city of Delhi, established in 1193 on the grounds of a defeated Rajput fort.

The towering minaret and its mosque survive as testament to the might of the invaders.

Overnight Delhi.

Practicalities Price: £5,360 (February), £5,550 (November), (deposit £450). This includes: air travel (economy class) on flights with British Airways: return London to Delhi (Boeing 747–400) and with Jet Airways: Delhi to Varanasi (Boeing 737–800), Varanasi to Khajuraho (Boeing 737–800); travel by private air-conditioned coach; accommodation as described below, breakfasts, 11 lunches (including 2 packed) and 9 dinners with wine or beer, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; airport taxes; the service of a lecturer. Single supplement £760 (February), £820 (November). Price without international flights: £4,670 (February), £4,960 (November).

Hotels. Delhi (4 nights) dating to early 1900s, it retains colonial charm and is ideally situated in the heart of Lutyen’s Delhi. Attractive garden and swimming pool. Varanasi (3 nights) a large, functional yet comfortable 4-star hotel with contemporary touches to the recently renovated rooms. It is conveniently located close to the centre, but removed from the bustle in its 40-acres of private garden, with a pool.

Khajuraho (2 nights) a modern hotel, walking distance from the main site, surrounded by a well-tended garden. Rooms are spacious and light with large windows overlooking the pool or garden. Orchha (2 nights) the most basic of the hotels on this tour, located very near to the main sites. The rooms are adequately equipped and have air conditioning. There is a garden and pool. Agra (3 nights): a comfortable, wellrun, modern 4-star close to the main sites with a spacious internal garden with pool.

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 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. Uneven ground and irregular paving are standard. There are some long coach journeys during which facilities are limited and may be of poor quality. Most sites have some shade but the Indian sun is strong, even in the cooler seasons.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Day 15: Delhi. Fly from Delhi at c.12.30pm to London Heathrow, arriving c.4.30pm.

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Ashoka & Buddhist India Art & Architecture of the Mauryan Empire 1–14 March 2013 (mz 485) 14 days • £4,920 Lecturer: Charles Allen Two places remaining.

In the third century bc Ashoka united much of India, and established Buddhism as the imperial religion.

This tour visits India’s major Buddhist sites (Sarnath, Bodhgaya, Vaishali, Sanchi) and sees much of the finest Buddhist and Hindu sculpture (at museums in Delhi, Sarnath, Patna and Calcutta).

Studies the life of the historical Buddha, the spread of the new religion and its doctrine.

Includes places rarely visited: Bihar, heartland of Indian civilization but now India’s least developed state, the lovely old city of Bhopal and incomparable Calcutta.

Led by Charles Allen, acclaimed authority on South Asian history and British India.

The Great Ashoka, celebrated ruler of the Mauryan dynasty, is said to have converted to Buddhism after witnessing the horrors of the Kalinga war in 261 bc. He is credited with spreading the new religion across the Subcontinent. Through his patronage, Buddhism and its symbolism became associated with Ashoka’s imperial doctrine, visible today in the so-called Ashokan pillars and rockengraved edicts.

The historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, was born and spent his life in India. The religion based on his preaching flourished here for over 1,200 years. By the twelfth century, however, Buddhism had been eradicated – assimilated and subordinated by resurgent Hinduism and extirpated by conquering Muslims. The religion of peace and enlightenment became confined, as today, to the periphery of East Asia and insular Sri Lanka.

This itinerary includes the Buddhist heartland and most of the major Buddhist sites in India: Bodhgaya, where the Buddha attained enlightenment; Sarnath, where he preached his first sermon; the pillar at Vaishali; and the Great Stupa at Sanchi. Visits to the most relevant museums in India provide insight into the development of Buddhist art, from the early aniconic period to the anthropomorphic sculptures of the later centuries.

A feature of the tour is that time is spent in places where few tourists go. Bihar was the crucible of Indian civilisation and the birthplace of Buddhism, but is now one of India’s most underdeveloped states, with Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

Sanchi, stupa and gateway, wood engraving from India & its Native Prices by Louis Rousselelt 1876.

poor infrastructure, villages where life has scarcely changed for centuries and cities where ancient and modern coexist in pullulating, congested streets. The lush countryside presents a captivating scene of simple agriculture and unchanging rural life. It may be that for days you will not see other westerners.

Kolkata (Calcutta) is also surprisingly little visited, a bewitching city which from 1690 to 1911 was the principal city of British India.

The highly important Buddhist sculptures in the Indian Museum draw us here, but there is time to see something of the rest of the city with its broad avenues, extensive parks and monumental buildings in European styles. A hectic, teeming place, the infamous poverty is retreating and the city is enjoying a revival on the back of the new IT wealth.

Bhopal is not on the tourist map at all, but it is a charming city built around two lakes with corniche roads and picturesque palaces.

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Itinerary Days 1 & 2: London to Delhi. Fly from London Heathrow at noon, and after a 51/2 hour time change reach the hotel in Delhi at c. 3.00am. Towards the end of the morning there is an introductory talk by the lecturer.

After lunch, drive to the Feroz Shah Kotla to look at the Ashokan pillar. Second of two nights in Delhi.

Day 3: Delhi to Varanasi. Fly to Varanasi (Benares) in the morning. After a late lunch there is a walk through the old city and a boat ride on the holy Ganges at sunset to witness the Aarti ritual. This fire offering, which dates back to the time of the Buddha himself, is a daily blessing ceremony and a central element of the religious life of this sacred city. First of three nights in Varanasi.

Day 4: Sarnath, Varanasi. Sarnath near Varanasi is where the Buddha preached his first

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Ashoka & Buddhist India continued

sermon and is an active Buddhist centre. The Dhamek stupa in the Deer Park marks the spot where the Buddha sat to preach. The Sarnath museum houses the Ashokan lion capital, which has become the symbol of modern India since independence. An afternoon visit to the Bharat Kala Bhavan, the university museum, is followed by a walk along the ghats. Overnight Varanasi.

Day 5: Varanasi. An optional early morning boat ride to witness the morning prayers and ablutions of the devouts is followed by a walk to look at buildings in the old city, said to be the oldest inhabited place on earth. The afternoon is free. Overnight Varanasi.

Day 6. Bodhgaya. Take the train from Varanasi to Gaya (10.30–13.30). This is the start of three days in Bihar, India’s least developed state. The Mahabodhi temple complex at Bodhgaya has fragments from the 3rd cent. bc and a richly elaborate 55-metre-high temple of the 6th cent. ad, a rare survival. The site of Buddha’s enlightenment, it is of great religious significance and attracts pilgrims from around the world. Overnight Bodhgaya.

Day 8: Vaishali, Patna. Remote and beautiful, Vaishali was once a great city and site of important episodes in the Buddha’s life.

The Ashokan Pillar, an 18-metre polished sandstone monolith topped by a magnificently carved lion, rises above a brick stupa. The museum in Patna has the Didarganj Yakshi, a wonderful 3rd-cent. bc female sculpture. The Golghar, a 27-metre high ovoid granary built in 1784, is without parallel in British or Indian architecture. Fly from Patna to Kolkata where two nights are spent.

Day 11: Bhopal. An easy-going day, with time for relaxing in the lovely hotel, a former palace with gardens, verandas and a 25-metre swimming pool. Till 1947 one of the major princedoms in India, Bhopal remains an attractive little city, a sequence of evocatively dilapidated palaces and other historic buildings built around two large lakes. In the morning, drive to Pangaruria to study the rock edict.

Free time in the afternoon. Overnight Bhopal.

Day 12: Sanchi, Bhopal. Remotely located in open, hilly and sparsely populated countryside, Sanchi is one of the treasures of India and a unesco heritage site. On top of a hill with lovely views all around, a 2nd-cent. ad stupa survives almost intact, with stone railings and four magnificently elaborately carved gateways, amid many other structures from its thousandyear history. A couple of other little-visited sites are seen. Overnight Bhopal.

Day 9: Kolkata (Calcutta). The Indian Museum, founded in 1814, has one of the biggest collections of antiquities in Asia. The Bharhut sculptures, elaborately ornamented stone railings of the 2nd cent. bc, are among the first and finest of early Indian sculptures, and there are many other outstanding Buddhist and early Hindu sculptures and bronzes. The astoundingly lavish Victoria Memorial (1906– 21) represents the apogee of the British Raj; the Gothic Revival cathedral of St Paul has a fine Burne-Jones window. Overnight Kolkata.

Bodhgaya, Mahabodhi Temple, engraving after Thomas Daniell 1834.

Day 7: Rajgir, Nalanda. Long drives through lush countryside of ‘unimproved’ agriculture, mainly rice, with plenty of tree cover and numerous villages. Rajgir was the capital of the Mauryan Empire in the 3rd cent. bc, and the massive wall around the quadrangular citadel survives to a height of 2 or 3 metres. There are spectacular remains of brick-built temples and monasteries at the world’s oldest university at Nalanda, mainly of the 5th-12th cents. One night is spent in Patna.

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Day 10: Kolkata. Walk around the heart of the city which was largely built by the British.

Government and administrative buildings are of a scale and grandeur the equal of any city in Britain, mainly in western classical styles with adaptations to the Bengalese climate.

At the Park Street Cemetery lie buried under magnificent mausolea hundreds of Britons who died before 1830, an architectural cornucopia.

Fly in the afternoon to Bhopal for the first of three nights.

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Day 13: Delhi. Fly to Delhi in the morning. In the afternoon drive around the magnificently spacious capital of New Delhi and visit the National Museum, the country’s most important collection of art and antiquities.

The Buddhist sculpture here is outstanding.

Overnight Delhi.

Day 14: Fly from Delhi to London Heathrow, arriving c. 4.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £4,920 (deposit £400). This includes: air travel (economy class) on flights with British Airways: London to Delhi (Boeing 747–400) and Delhi to London (Boeing 777), with Jet Airways Delhi to Varanasi (Boeing 737–800) and Kolkata to Bhopal (ATR72), with IndiGo Patna to Kolkata (Airbus 320), and with Air India Bhopal to Delhi (Airbus 319); travel by private air-conditioned coach and train (one journey in the best class available); accommodation as described below, breakfasts, 9 lunches (including 2 packed lunches) and 9 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions to museums and sites; all tips for drivers, restaurant staff, and local guides, airport taxes, the service of a lecturer. Single supplement £680. Price without international flights: £4,340.

Hotels. Delhi (first two nights and the last): dating to the early 1900s, it retains colonial charm and is ideally situated in the heart of the city. Attractive garden and swimming pool. Varanasi (3 nights): a large, functional yet comfortable 4-star hotel with contemporary touches to the recently renovated rooms. It is conveniently located close to the centre, but removed from the bustle in its 40-acres of private garden, with a pool. Bodhgaya (1 night):

b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

India 2013 though adequately comfortable (the showers are commendable) this is the simplest of the hotels on the tour. It is a spacious modern building with green marble floors. Patna (1 night): a fairly modern hotel in the centre of the city, rated as 5-star and the most comfortable in the region, somewhat pretentious but standards and service are acceptable. Kolkata (3 nights): a long-established luxury hotel conveniently located in the city centre. An oasis of colonial charm, defined by impeccable service. There is a pool in central courtyard, surrounded by high palms. Bhopal (3 nights): a former palace on the edge of the city with gardens, verandas and a swimming pool. Bedrooms vary but all are comfortable and well equipped.

Visas. British citizens and most other foreign nationals require a tourist visa. The current cost for UK nationals is around £45 including service fees. This is not included in the price of the tour because you have to obtain it yourself.

We will advise on the procedure but you will need to submit your passport to the India Visa Application Centre in your country of residence prior to departure. Processing times vary from country to country but UK residents should expect to be without their passport for up to 10 days.

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, these tours are not for you.

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.

Uneven ground and irregular paving are standard. On many tours there are fairly steep ascents to hilltop forts and temples. Usually there are some long coach journeys during which facilities are limited and may be of poor quality. Most sites have some shade but the Indian sun is strong, even in the cooler seasons.

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

Temples in Bihar, aquatint 1812.

The British Raj 5–17 January 2013 (mz 451) This tour is currently full

Temples of Tamil Nadu

Ashoka & Buddhist India 1–14 March 2013 (mz 485) This tour is nearly full

14–26 January 2013 (mz 450) This tour is nearly full

Painted Palaces of Rajasthan

Kingdoms of the Deccan

4–15 November 2013 Details available in December 2012 Contact us to register your interest

1–14 February 2013 (mz 470) This tour is currently full

Bengal by River 10–23 February 2013 (mz 474) This tour is currently full 8–21 December 2013 Details available in December 2012 Contact us to register your interest

The Indian Mutiny 19 November–2 December 2013 Details available in December 2012 Contact us to register your interest Our programme for 2014 tours to India will be available in December 2012.

Contact us to register your interest.

Essential India Lecturers biographies are on page 194.

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22 February–8 March 2013 (mz 480) 15–29 November 2013 (ma 771) These tours are currently full 87

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Israel & Palestine Archaeology, architecture & art in the Holy Land 12–21 February 2013 (mz 476) 10 days • £3,990 Lecturer: Dr Garth Gilmour 1–10 October 2013 (ma 726) 10 days • £4,130 Lecturer: Dr Garth Gilmour

Some of the most significant and evocative archaeological sites in the western hemisphere.

Ancient and mediaeval and modern architecture, from Herod to Bauhaus – Jewish, Roman, Christian and Islamic.

Dr Garth Gilmour is a biblical archaeologist who has lived and worked in Israel.

Enthralling vernacular building in ancient walled towns; varied landscapes, from rocky deserts to verdant valleys.

Several days in Jerusalem – surely the most extraordinary city on earth?

Ancient Canaan, the bridge between Egypt, Phoenicia, Syria and Mesopotamia; land of the Patriarchs, home to the Philistines, the Jebusites and the tribes of Israel. A land where the kingdom of David triumphantly rose around 1000 bc and where the splendour of Solomon’s Temple was created. Jews, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans and Turks all made their mark; the history of the land is characterised by conquest and exile.

Herod the Great (37–4 bc) was one of the greatest builders of the ancient world. Christianity brought a new wave of construction after Emperor Constantine and his mother, St Helena, in the fourth century ad consecrated the sites associated with Jesus.

The final monotheistic religion to arrive was Islam when in ad 637 Caliph Omar conquered Jerusalem. Another religion, and yet another monumental building, this time the Dome of the Rock.

The Crusaders instigated another burst of building activity, planting European Romanesque and Gothic churches and castles tempered by local techniques. Mamluks and Ottomans trampled and rebuilt, and after the First World War, with Jewish immigration accelerating, the British were left to hold the rope until the establishment of Israel in 1948.

Jerusalem is the most extraordinary city in the world. Within the walls – and the complete circuit survives, the current edition being sixteenth-century – it is a vibrant, authentic Middle Eastern city, but one with sharply distinct communities and largely composed of ancient and mediaeval masonry. Nowhere else is the historical interpretation of archaeological remains so crucial to current political debate.

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The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, steel engraving after Thomas Allom c. 1850.

Israel and Palestine are extraordinary places where Biblical names on road signs demonstrate the closeness of the distant past and where history, politics and religion are impossible to separate. The tour is led by an archaeologist, and uses the remains to illuminate peoples and civilizations of the past. It is not a pilgrimage tour in that buildings and sites are selected for intrinsic aesthetic or historical merit rather than religious association.

The tour ranges across two countries (Palestine may be recognised as a sovereign state by the time these tours run), and in none: strictly speaking, the old walled centre of Jerusalem is neither Israel nor Palestine.

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Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 2.20pm from London Heathrow to Tel Aviv, and then drive to Jerusalem, reaching the hotel c. 10.30pm. Four nights are spent here.

Day 2: Jerusalem. The buildings in the Old City and around (the walled kernel has shifted over the millennia) comprise an incomparable mix of ages and cultures from the time of King David to the present day, while continuing to be a thriving, living city. The massive stones and underground tunnels of Herod’s Temple Mount are highly impressive survivals from the b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

ancient world. In the afternoon a walk along a section of the ramparts leads to further Romanera structures in the Ecce Homo Convent and the Bethesda Pools, and to the Crusader church of St Anne. View the seeming panorama of belfries, domes, minarets and city wall from the Mount of Olives. Overnight Jerusalem.

Tzefat. The churches of the Heptapegon are locations of Jesus’s ministry where pilgrims from all over the world share the sites. See the remains of the fishing village of Capernaum, Jesus’s most permanent residence and site of a 5th-century synagogue. Take a boat on the Sea of Galilee, and overnight Tiberias.

Day 3: Jerusalem, Bethlehem. The intact 7thcent. Dome of the Rock stands majestically in the vast Haram ash-sharif complex, complete with Umayyad and Mamluk buildings and the El-Aqsa Mosque, all on the site of Solomon’s Temple. Drive through the ‘Separation Wall’ into occupied territory on the West Bank. On the edge of the Judaean Desert, the Herodion is a remarkable fortified palace and tomb complex built for King Herod. The 4th/6thcentury Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem is one of the greatest buildings of its era, and probably the oldest church in continuous use for Christian worship. Overnight Jerusalem.

Day 8: Akko, Caesarea. Akko (Acre) was the principal city of the Crusaders, though the vaulted halls surviving from that period lie below an enthralling maze of narrow streets, Ottoman khans and modern suqs. Drive beside the Mount Carmel range to Caesarea, founded by Herod the Great and capital of Judaea for over 600 years. Once the largest city of the eastern Mediterranean, remains include the Herodian theatre, Byzantine residential quarters and a Crusader church. First of two nights Tel Aviv.

Day 4: Jerusalem. Mainly Constantinian and Crusader, but confusingly complex, compartmentalised and embellished with later ornamentation, a proper study of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre reveals a deeply fascinating building. Among the items seen during the rest of the day are the Roman colonnaded Cardo, the largely 13th-century Armenian Cathedral, and a 17th-century synagogue. Free time is an alternative, possibly with a visit to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum. Overnight Jerusalem.

Day 5: Masada, Ein Gedi. Drive through Israel to the Dead Sea Valley, the lowest place on earth. Rising high above the Judaean desert, Herod’s fortified palace of Masada, last redoubt of the Jewish rebellion against Roman occupation, is one of the most impressive archaeological sites in the Levant. A little to the north lies the oasis of Ein Gedi, where there is time to enjoy the botanical gardens or for a swim in the Dead Sea. One night is spent at Ein Gedi.

Day 6: Qumran, Jericho, Galilee. Re-enter occupied Palestinian Territories. Qumran is the site of the settlement of the Essenes, a Jewish sect, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. The palm-shaded oasis of Jericho is the world’s most low-lying town and perhaps its oldest continuously inhabited one, the Tell as-Sultan dating back 10,000 years. Nearby, Hisham’s Palace is a remarkably well preserved 8th-century Umayyad palace. Continue north, re-enter Israel and spend the first of two nights in Tiberias.

Day 7: Sea of Galilee, Tzefat. Visit first the archaeological site of Tell Hazor, and then ascend the Galilean highlands to the mediaeval synagogues and cobbled streets of the town of Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

Day 9: Tel Aviv, Jaffa. Tel Aviv began as an English-style garden city suburb of Jaffa, sprouted a Bauhaus extension (the ‘White City’, a unesco Heritage Site) and grew remorselessly in the later 20th century. The Museum of Art has Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, the Eretz Israel Museum incorporates the Tell Qasile excavations and an outstanding collection of ancient and mediaeval glass. Jaffa (Japheth) was a port city from the time of Solomon and remains a charmingly picturesque enclave. Overnight Tel Aviv.

Day 10: Jerusalem. Drive back to Jerusalem to visit the excellent Israel Museum. This incorporates, among other collections, the Shrine of the Book which houses the Dead Sea Scrolls and the outstanding archaeological collection. Fly in the afternoon from Tel Aviv, returning to Heathrow at c. 9.00pm.

Practicalities Price: £3,990 (February), £4,130 (October) (deposit £300). This includes: flights (economy class) with El Al (Boeing 777-200); private coach travel; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 5 lunches and 7 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer, tour manager and local guides. Single supplement £650 (both departures). Price without flights £3,610 (February), £3,750 (October).

Visas: are obtained on arrival at no extra charge for most nationalities.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking, some of it over rough ground and uneven paving, and sure-footedness is essential.

Average distance by coach per day: 36 miles.

Small group: between 14 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine the February departure of this tour with Ethiopia, 27 February–14 March (page 46).

Archaeology

Ancient Egypt.........................................24 Walking Hadrian’s Wall.........................26 Ethiopia...................................................46 Classical Greece.......................................80 Minoan Crete..........................................82 Israel & Palestine.....................................88 The Etruscans........................................122 Ancient Rome........................................126 Pompeii & Herculaneum......................127 Basilicata................................................131 Sardinia..................................................132 Sicily.......................................................133 Essential Jordan.....................................137 Malta......................................................139 Morocco.................................................140 Oman.....................................................143 Palestine.................................................144 Istanbul..................................................178 Classical Turkey.....................................180 Eastern Turkey.......................................182 Transoxiana............................................190

Hotels. In Jerusalem (4 nights): a 5-star hotel in West Jerusalem within walking distance of the Old City. In Ein Gedi (1 night): a renovated kibbutz near the Dead Sea with comfortable cottages set among beautiful botanic gardens. In Galilee (2 nights): a longestablished 5-star hotel by the lake in Tiberias.

Tel Aviv (2 nights): a 5-star hotel with all expected amenities and well-appointed rooms.

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The Duchy of Milan Territory of Visconti and Sforza 6–13 May 2013 (mz 551) 8 days • £2,470 Lecturer: Dr Luca Leoncini

city after Milan. Outstanding here are the Romanesque churches, S. Michele and S. Pietro, the brick-built Renaissance cathedral and the vast 14th-century Visconti Palace, which survives remarkably intact, and houses a museum. A late afternoon drive out to the Certosa di Pavia, perhaps the most richly endowed monastic foundation in Italy, and mausoleum of both the Visconti and the Sforza.

First of four nights in Milan.

Palaces, castles, abbeys – the heritage of some of the richest and most powerful rulers in late mediaeval Europe.

Great fresco paintings a major feature.

Based in Milan and the attractive small town of Cremona.

Day 5: Milan. Visit the spectacular marble Gothic cathedral and the surrounding area, site of the headquarters of the rival powers of municipality, bishop, duke and commune.

Then, S. Ambrogio, a most important early mediaeval church with a very rich treasury and S. Satiro, a jewel of the early Renaissance. Visit the Brera, one of Italy’s finest art galleries with most of the greatest Italian artists represented and the Poldi Pezzoli collection.

The lecturer is Dr Luca Leoncini, expert art historian specialising in 15th-century Italian painting.

Passes through some beautiful Lombard countryside and little-visited historic towns.

A telling indication of the esteem that Milan enjoyed is that Leonardo da Vinci chose to spend much of his working life there rather than in other Italian cities which are now more commonly associated with artistic endeavour.

It is often forgotten that the wealthiest and most powerful territory in mediaeval and Renaissance Italy was the Duchy of Milan, and its eponymous metropolis was probably the largest city in Europe.

The ruling dynasties here were the Visconti and, after their extinction in 1450, the Sforza.

They produced a succession of the most feared tyrants in Italy – but also created around them the most glittering court in the peninsula, the rival of any in Europe. Artists, musicians and men of letters flocked here to participate in the unending spectacle of court life, and to compete for the unparalleled opportunities for the exercise of their genius.

It was not only in the metropolis that the Visconti and Sforza and men of talent left their mark. Throughout their Duchy – approximately coterminous with modern-day Lombardy – there is an abundance of beautiful old cities, buildings and works of art. It is an additional pleasure, moreover, to discover an area of Italy little frequented by tourists.

One of the most distinctive features of the region is the quantity of very fine Romanesque churches. Gothic buildings demonstrate the Duchy’s close connections with northern Europe. With the presence of Leonardo and Bramante, the Duchy was a cradle of the High Renaissance and Lombard builders exported the Italian style all over Europe.

A fascinating feature is the series of Visconti and Sforza strongholds; the fierce and functional forms, tempered by the region’s principal building material, a lustrous red brick, can achieve great beauty. The fertile plains with their centuries-old farmsteads and villages are most alluring, and are surprisingly

Italy

Pavia, after a drawing by Inglis Sheldon-Williams 1928.

unspoilt by industrial development. Much of the countryside through which you pass is designated a National Park.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at midday from London Heathrow to Milan. First of three nights in Cremona.

Day 2: Cremona. The birthplace of Monteverdi, Stradivarius and Guarini, Cremona has one of the finest squares in Italy, composed of the cathedral, Italy’s tallest mediaeval campanile, baptistery and Gothic civic buildings. The Romanesque cathedral here is magnificent, and richly embellished with 16th-century paintings. Visit S. Sigismundo, a basilica built to commemorate a Sforza marriage. Other visits include S. Agostino where there is a Perugino, and the civic museum.

Day 3: Soncino, Lodi. Morning visit to the little walled town of Soncino, which has one of the finest of Sforza fortresses. Then on to Lodi, another highly attractive town, with L’Incoronata, a richly decorated Renaissance church, and nearby at Lodi Vecchio, an impressive Gothic church.

Day 4: Pavia, Certosa di Pavia. Drive through the National Park straddling the River Ticino to Pavia, the most illustrious Lombard

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Day 6: Vigevano. A 25-mile drive from Milan, Vigevano is another surprisingly attractive little town, with one of the largest castles in Italy, a major Sforza palace and stables. Adjacent is a beautiful arcaded square and several churches of interest. Some free time in Milan.

Day 7: Milan. Visit the Renaissance church of Sta Maria delle Grazie, in whose refectory is Leonardo’s Last Supper. Then the vast and imposing Castello Sforzesco, which contains Michelangelo’s Pietà and finally the Ambrosiana gallery.

Day 8: Castiglione Olona. The last morning is spent in the tiny hill town of Castiglione Olona with its wonderful frescoes by Masolino. Fly from Milan, arriving Heathrow at c. 5.00pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,470 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (Airbus 320); private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 4 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters, drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £360 (double room for sole use).

Price without flights £2,260.

Hotels: Cremona (3 nights): stylish, small 4-star close to the main square. The very modern design may not be to everyone’s taste. Milan (4 nights): a smart, traditionallyfurnished 4-star hotel close to the Duomo.

Dinners are at selected restaurants.

How strenuous? A lot of walking, some on uneven ground. Average distance by coach per day: 40 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants. b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes Como & Maggiore 18–24 April 2013 (mz 520) 7 days • £2,560 Lecturer: Steven Desmond 19–25 September 2013 (ma 700) 7 days • £2,560 Lecturer: Steven Desmond Among the loveliest and most romantic spots on earth – the summer retreat of the wealthy, aristocratic and intellectual since the time of Pliny.

Some of the finest gardens in Europe, glorious in their design and range.

Led by Steven Desmond, landscape consultant, specialist in the conservation of historic parks and gardens and architectural historian.

Sublime mountain scenery, the inspiration of Shelley and Stendhal.

Historic lakeside hotels.

The gardens of the Italian lakes fall into two categories: formal, terraced, parterred, allegoried and enclosed summer residences of native landowners, and the expansive, landscaped villa grounds of the rich and splendid. Some are small, others huge; some ostentatious, others retiring; some immaculate, others picturesquely mouldering. Many are the former homes of Austrian aristocrats, Napoleonic grandees, bel canto composers or British seasonal emigrants. All respond to the setting, gazing out across bays and peninsulas, or up to mountain scenery of heroic dimensions.

The tour is divided between Lake Como and Lake Maggiore. Lake Como, the home of Pliny, is intensely romantic: Shelley, Bellini and Stendhal found inspiration here on the shores of a long and slender lake divided in three parts. The little town of Bellagio surveys all three from its glittering headland, and provides a convenient (and luxurious) base for visiting the lakeside villa gardens.

Lake Maggiore is altogether broader and more open, extending northwards into Switzerland, with the air of an inland sea. The great western bay includes the famous Borromean Islands, among them the contrasting garden retreats of Isola Bella and Isola Madre. As early as 1686 Bishop Burnet gushed that these were ‘certainly the Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

loveliest spots of ground in the World, there is nothing in all Italy that can be compared to them’.

Our tours are scheduled at times of the year when there is the possibility of clear, brilliant sunshine. Each lake, each shore, each promontory and island, has its own character, but everywhere is pervaded by the abundance of light, perfume and natural beauty.

Itinerary Day 1: Bellagio. Fly at midday from London Heathrow to Milan. Drive to Bellagio on Lake Como. First of three nights in Bellagio.

Day 2: Bellagio. The neoclassical Villa Melzi at Bellagio was built in 1810 for Francesco Melzi d’Eril, vice-president of Napoleon’s Italian Republic. It overlooks the lake in an undulating English landscape park, richly planted and decorated with ornamental buildings. The Villa Serbelloni, probably built on the site of one of Pliny the Younger’s two villas on Lake Como, occupies the high ground above Bellagio. The woods offer magnificent views to all parts of the lake. The mediaeval remnants, 16th-century villa and later terraces are the setting for planting schemes in a backdrop described by Stendhal as ‘a sublime and enchanting spectacle’.

Day 3: Lake Como. Villa Carlotta on the western shore of Lake Como, built as a summer residence for a Milanese aristocrat, combines dramatic terracing, parterre and grottoes with an extensive landscape park and arboretum. The house contains notable collections from the Napoleonic period. The Villa Balbianello occupies its own headland projecting into the middle of Lake Como, and can only be approached by boat. This glorious site is terraced to provide sites for lawns, trees, shrubs and a chorus of statuary. The villa stands among groves of oak and pine.

Day 4: Renaissance villa gardens.

At the Villa Cicogna Mozzoni at Bisuschio, north of Varese, the 16th-century house and garden are thoroughly intertwined; the courtyard of pools and parterres leads to a water staircase, grottoes and giochi d’acqua.

Lunch at the villa. The Villa della Porta Bozzolo, tucked away in a mountain valley near Lake Maggiore, is a hidden

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Lake Como, wood engraving c. 1880, from Picturesque Europe Vol III.

treasure of a garden, shooting straight up a dramatic hillside from the village street of Casalzuigno. The beautiful 17thcentury villa is unexpectedly set to one side to increase the visual drama. First of three nights in Pallanza.

Day 5: the Borromean Islands. Isola Bella is one of the world’s great gardens (and correspondingly popular), a wedding cake of terraces and greenery floating improbably in Lake Maggiore. The sense of surrealism is enhanced by the symbolic statuary and the flock of white peacocks. Isola Madre is the

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Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes continued

Verdi at La Scala

ideal dessert to follow Isola Bella: a relaxed, informal landscape garden around a charmingly domestic villa. Visual entertainments include the marvellous plant collection, revitalised by Henry Cocker in the 1950s, the chapel garden, puppet theatre and ambulant aviary.

Day 6: Pallanza. The Villa San Remigio at Pallanza is an Anglo-Italian evocation of a Renaissance garden made at the turn of the 20th century. Intensely overlaid with sentiment and stuffed with detail, it lingers in romantic decay. The Villa Taranto is an extravagant piece of 20th-century kitsch created by Henry Cocker for his patron, the enigmatic Neil MacEachern. The alarmingly gauche design is superbly planted and maintained with loving zeal by the present staff.

Day 7. Fly from Milan to London Heathrow, arriving at c. 5.00pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,560 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (Airbus 319); travel by private coach, boat and public ferry; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters and drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £240 (double room for sole occupancy). Price without flights £2,340.

Hotels: Bellagio (3 nights): excellently situated on the edge of the lake, a historic 5-star hotel with lavishly decorated public rooms and well-appointed bedrooms (they vary in size).

Pallanza (3 nights): a recently renovated, privately owned 4-star Belle Epoque hotel with lakeside gardens; bedrooms vary in size. Rooms with a lake view are available on request and for a supplement.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking as some of the gardens are extensive, and all have uneven ground. Participants need to be fit and sure-footed. The average distance by coach per day is 23 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine the April departure of this tour with Parma & Bologna, 8–15 April (page 103) or Normans in the South, 9–17 April (page 129). Combine the September departure with Dark Age Brilliance, 29 September–6 October (page 106).

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La Scala, aquatint c. 1830.

31 January–3 February 2013 (mz 466) 4 days • £2,560 Lecturers: musicologist to be confirmed, and Dr Luca Leoncini Two performances at the world’s most renowned opera house, both by Verdi in celebration of his bicentenary (Nabucco and Falstaff).

Visits to Milan’s finest historical, artistic and cultural sites.

Led by both a musicologist and Dr Luca Leoncini, an expert art historian.

Includes a guided tour of La Scala and its museum.

The world’s most famous opera house, with an unrivalled history and prestige, the Teatro alla Scala in Milan was inaugurated in 1778. After its extensive refurbishment from 2002 to 2004 and the melodrama of various management controversies, La Scala is now very much back to its artistic best, the world’s greatest performers ensuring a packed house.

The world premiere of Nabucco was performed at La Scala on 9th March 1842, and later on in the century Falstaff followed suit, on 9th February 1893. The former brought Verdi, not yet thirty, an international success on both sides of the Atlantic. This new international production, conceived by director Daniele

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Abbado, is told on a two-fold narrative level which interweaves the past and present.

Falstaff, by contrast, was Verdi’s last opera, and is one of only two comedies by the composer.

Conducted by Daniel Harding and directed

by Robert Carsen, this production deliberately creates a ‘British’ atmosphere, with the action unfolding against a backdrop of the world of fox hunting in the Fifties.

While rightly renowned as the world capital of fashion (as well as opera), and as a commercial and financial powerhouse, Milan’s fascinatingly rich historical character is often overlooked. Indeed, it has one of the proudest and most illustrious histories of all Italian cities, not least its influential role in the Risorgimento. Characteristically eschewing such short-sightedness, we have allowed time to visit several of the city’s historical and artistic treasures.

There is a visit to the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie, whose dining hall walls boast the fresco of The Last Supper by Leonardo.

Time is also devoted to La Scala’s museum, which provides a fascinating insight into the theatre’s history.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. midday from London Heathrow to Milan Linate. Take an afternoon stroll around the centre of the city.

Day 2. There is a guided tour of the La Scala b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Genoa & Turin PALACES & GALLERIES museum, containing portraits of Verdi, Puccini and others, plus a wealth of historically significant instruments. In the afternoon, see the spectacular marble Gothic cathedral.

Evening performance at La Scala of Nabucco (Verdi), Nicola Luisotti (conductor), Daniele Abbado (staging); soloists include Leo Nucci (Nabucco), Aleksandrs Antonenko (Ismaele) and Vitalij Kowaljow (Zaccaria).

Day 3. Visit the Renaissance church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, in whose refectory is Leonardo’s Last Supper. Optional afternoon visit to Castello Sforzesco, the vast fortified palace of Leonardo’s ducal patrons, which has room decorations attributed to him and houses a wonderful variety of works of art and artefacts. Evening performance at La Scala of Falstaff (Verdi), Daniel Harding (conductor), Robert Carsen (staging); soloists include Bryn Terfel (Sir John Falstaff), Massimo Cavalletti (Ford) and Antonio Poli (Fenton).

Day 4. Visit the Brera, one of Italy’s finest art galleries with most of the greatest Italian artists represented. Return to Heathrow at c. 4.45pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,560 (deposit £300). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (aircraft: Airbus 320); travel by private coach; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts and three dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions to museums, galleries etc. visited with the group; all tips for restaurant staff and drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturers; single supplement £260 (double room for single occupancy), price without flights £2,340.

Hotel: a 4-star superior hotel in a Belle Epoque-style located in the city centre, 100 metres from the Piazza del Duomo and La Scala.

How strenuous? There is a fair amount of walking as much of the centre is closed to traffic. Participants need to be averagely fit and able to manage everyday walking and stairclimbing without any difficulty. The average distance by coach per day is 4 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

The Ring at La Scala 16–23 June 2013 (mz 608) This tour is currently full.

Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

Turin, from Incidents of Travel & Sketches of Remarkable Places 1875.

15–21 April 2013 (mz 527) 7 days • £1,920 Lecturer: Dr Luca Leoncini Two cities, often unaccountably overlooked.

One, a leading republic of mediaeval Italy and birthplace of Columbus; the other developed on a grand scale in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Magnificent palaces and churches, from mediaeval to Baroque.

Led by Dr Luca Leoncini, expert art historian and Director of the Palazzo Reale in Genoa.

Exceptional picture collections with particularly fine examples of Van Dyck and Rubens.

Secret cities, despite the allure of botched alliteration, would have been an absurd subtitle for two such major places, but did seem to suggest itself because of the rarity with which Britons find themselves there. But every art lover should go.

The prevailing images are perhaps still predominantly commercial and industrial, but not only do both Genoa and Turin have highly attractive centres but both are distinguished by the preservation of a large number of magnificent palaces and picture collections.

Genoa lays claim to the largest historic centre of any European city. It was one of the leading maritime republics of mediaeval Italy (with Marseilles it remains the largest port in the Mediterranean), and enjoyed a golden age during the seventeenth century. In the 1990s

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civic improvements and building restorations were undertaken to prepare the city for celebrations connected with the quincentenary of Columbus’s first voyage to the Americas, and the cultural momentum has continued.

In the earlier seventeenth century, Genoa was artistically the equal of almost anywhere in Italy except for Rome and Naples. More than any other Italian school of painting, the Genoese was indebted to the Flemish school: Rubens made a prolonged visit to Genoa in 1605 and Anthony Van Dyck was based there from 1621 to 1627. Many of his paintings remain here.

Turin, the leading city of Piedmont, was formerly capital of Savoy and later of the kingdom of Sardinia. Developed on a grand scale in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the historic centre is laid out on a regular plan with broad avenues and spacious piazze. Architecture is mainly Baroque and classical. Guarino Guarini and Filippo Juvarra, among the best architects of their time, worked here for much of their lives.

Itinerary Day 1: Genoa. Fly at c. 10.30am from London Gatwick to Genoa. In the afternoon see palaces in the Via Balbi, one of the grandest streets in Europe, including the Palazzo Reale which has a magnificent stairway, splendidly furnished rooms and a fine collection of pictures. First of three nights in Genoa.

Day 2: Genoa. Visit some of the main monuments of mediaeval Genoa. The Cathedral of S. Lorenzo, built 12th–16th centuries, possesses many works of art and a fine treasury. Palazzo Spinola has good pictures, Van Dycks in particular. Visit the church of S. Luca with its beautifully decorated interior and the churches of Il Gesù and San Donato.

Day 3: Genoa. See the Via Garibaldi, lined with magnificent palazzi, most from the 16th century and retaining sumptuous interiors of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Palazzo Rosso has fine furnishings and excellent pictures. See also the adjacent church of the Annunciation, the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj with Perin del Vaga frescoes and the Piazza S. Matteo, formed by the imposing palaces of the Doria family, which overshadow the small family church of S. Matteo. Free time in the afternoon. Possible visits include the refashioned dock area (architect: Renzo Piano) and further churches and galleries.

Day 4: Cherasco, Turin. Leave Genoa and take a cross-country route through the beautiful countryside and wine-producing area of Le Langhe. Stop in Cherasco which

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Genoa & Turin continued

Gastronomic Piedmont Some of the finest food & wine in Italy

has a 14th-century Visconti castle for a typical Piedmontese lunch. See the magnificent royal hunting lodge of Stupinigi (Filippo Juvarra, 1730) en route to Turin. First of three nights in Turin.

Day 5: Turin. A morning walk through beautiful Piazza S. Carlo, with arcades and 18th-century churches. Visit the little church of S. Lorenzo, a Guarini masterpiece, the cathedral, with Guarini’s Chapel of the Holy Shroud, and the sumptuous Consolata church.

Afternoon visit to the Palazzo Madama in the centre of Piazza Castello, now housing the City Art Museum, and the Royal Palace, built 1660, with wonderful interiors from the 17th–19th centuries. Walk via the metal dome and spire of the 19th-cent. Mole Antonelliana and the Palazzo Carignano by Guarini.

Day 6: Turin. Morning visit to the Galleria Sabauda, an excellent picture collection housed inside the Guarini’s Palazzo Dell’Accademia.

Visit the votive church of Superga, a magnificent hilltop structure by Juvarra.

Day 7: Turin, Venaria. Visit the Pinacoteca Giovanni and Marella Agnelli at Lingotto which has a small but excellent quality collection in a building designed by Renzo Piano. Outside Turin is the magnificent royal palace of Venaria (Amedeo Castellamonte, 1659) reopened in 2007 following extensive renovation work. Fly from Turin returning to Gatwick c. 6.15pm.

Practicalities Price: £1,920 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (Airbus 319); private coach for excursions and transfers; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 3 lunches and 4 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters, drivers and guides; all taxes; the services of the lecturer.

Single supplement £330 (double room for sole use). Price without flights £1,770.

Hotel: Genoa (3 nights): a 5-star hotel close to the Palazzo Reale. Turin (3 nights): a 4-star hotel, comfortable, elegantly furnished and very central. Meals are in the hotels and carefully selected restaurants.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking and standing in museums. Average distance by coach per day: 25 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Pompeii & Herculaneum, 8–13 April (page 127); Lucca, 22–28 April (page 108); Palladian Villas, 23–28 April (page 98).

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5–11 October 2013 (ma 731) 7 days • £2,660 Lecturer: Marc Millon One of the most celebrated gastronomic regions in Italy, centre of the ‘Slow Food’ revolution.

Wine and food production studied at source, including visits to Alba, white truffle capital of the world, and a number of Barolo wineries.

Superb restaurants, from simple trattorias to the Michelin-starred.

Beautiful landscapes: upland pasture, rolling hills, sloping vineyards and hazelnut woods.

The lecturer is Marc Millon; wine, food and travel writer, and author of The Food Lover’s Companion Italy.

Time also for exploring the art and architecture of ancient towns and villages.

Gastronomically, Piedmont is undoubtedly one of Italy’s most interesting regions. Its wines are superb, the food produced there is varied and the delicious cooking ranges from traditional country fare to creatively modern cuisine. Moreover, the region is the centre of the Slow Food revolution which is transforming gastronomy in Italy and beyond.

There is also another winning feature: many Piedmontese in the food and wine business have a desire to share their passion, and welcome interested visitors with generous amounts of their time and produce. In part this may be because visitors are relatively few, despite the high reputation which Piedmont enjoys.

For this tour we have bypassed Turin in favour of spending time in the countryside, seeing the origins of the food and wine and meeting the producers. This bucolic exile is not at the expense of culinary excellence; you will find superb restaurants, from simple rustic trattorias where Granny’s recipes are still gospel, to Michelin-starred and innovative establishments, all serving some of Italy’s finest food.

The study and enjoyment of wines is a large part of the tour. Barolo is the dominant wine – noble, austere and complex, and the Nebbiolo grape is used for the elegant, tarry Barbaresco, and various other DOCs. We meet makers, chosen as much for their charm and communicativeness as for their wines, in some cases study their vines and the wine-making process, and taste the results. Among the foods we investigate, truffles are significant – Alba is something of a truffle capital – but the mountain cheeses, particularly the prestigious Castelmagno, make an equally powerful impression.

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Landscape is another of the great pleasures of the tour. As its name suggests, Piedmont reaches from high pastures to alluvial plains, and much of it is used for agriculture (or small family-run farms). The Langhe hills are among the most beautiful in Italy, the flanks almost entirely carpeted with vineyards, the summits sporting castles, little mediaeval towns or ancient farmsteads.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 10.15am from London Gatwick to Genoa and drive north to Bra, an attractive market town with some fine architecture.

Dinner is at a Slow Food restaurant. Stay four nights in Bra. Day 2: La Morra, Alba. There is a tasting at Rocche Costamagna, a winery in the hilltop village of La Morra which has been in the family for 300 years, a well-known producer of Barolo and other Nebbiolo and Barbera wines. There is a truffle seminar and lunch in Alba, chief town of the Langhe. Dinner is in Pollenzo at a Michelin-starred restaurant. b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

The Val Lucerne, Piedmont, steel engraving after William Brockedon (1787–1854).

been installed here. Lunch here at one of the best restaurants in Piedmont, Combal Zero. Fly from Turin, arriving London Gatwick at c. 6.15pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,660 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (Boeing 737); travel by private coach throughout; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 5 lunches, 1 picnic and 4 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions to museums, etc. visited with the group; all food and wine tastings; all tips for waiters and drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and the tour manager. Single supplement £180 (double room for sole use).

Price without flights £2,550.

Hotels: Bra (4 nights): a 4-star hotel refurbished to a very modern but enjoyable design using locally-made materials as much as possible. Service is enthusiastic, rooms are comfortable and it is a 10-minute walk from the city centre. Cuneo (2 nights): an excellently situated 4-star just off the ancient arcaded Via Roma, the decor is traditional and tasteful with dark woods and faux-Rococo wall paintings.

Staff are helpful and there is a good restaurant.

How strenuous? There is a fair amount of walking involved. Participants on the optional 6 km walk on Day 5 need to be used to hiking up and down hills. Surefootedness is essential for truffle hunting in the woods. Average distance by coach per day: 57 miles.

Day 3: Bra, Monforte d’Alba, Piozzo. Study the local wine-making process at the Ascheri winery adjacent to the hotel. Wine tasting and lunch at a small, family-run estate.

Truffle hunting in woods around Piozzo. The landscape between Dogliani and Murrazano is a patchwork of vineyards and rumpled hills, woods and pasturage. Dinner is independent in Bra (plenty of choice, including the hotel).

Day 4: Asti. The lovely little city of Asti, centre of another famous wine and food area, is set amidst the gently undulating Monferrato hills.

Barbera and Dolcetto grapes predominate, but white wines are also produced, including the sparkling Moscato d’Asti. Visit a nougat producer and there is time to see something of the town: narrow, twisting mediaeval streets, the grand Gothic cathedral, tower houses and 18th-century palaces. Lunch and cooking demonstration at an outstanding restaurant.

Some free time in Bra. Day 5: Bra, Cherasco, Cuneo. Most of the morning is free in Bra. There is the option of visiting a traditional sausage maker or a wine Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

tasting. Alternatively, there is a guided walk of c. 6 km across the vine-clad hills of the Barolo region. Leave Bra for Cherasco, a little walled town with good architecture and the Italian capital of snail farming. Lunch is at a familyrun restaurant here. In the castle at Manta there are some marvellous mediaeval frescos.

Continue to Cuneo where two nights are spent.

Day 6: Castelmagno, Cuneo. The steep-sided valley of the river Grana is the sole source of one of Italy’s finest cheeses, Castelmagno.

Visit a farm to see aspects of its production.

Continue to mountain pastures (c. 1,700 metres) above Castelmagno to a pilgrimage church for a picnic of bread and cheese bought today and wine acquired during the week. In the evening there is a cooking demonstration followed by dinner at a Michelin-starred restaurant.

Day 7: Rivoli. Drive to Castello di Rivoli, one of the palaces of the royal house of Savoy established in hunting grounds around Turin.

Rebuilt in the 18th century, though never finished, a museum of contemporary art has

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Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Ancient Rome, 13–19 October (page 126) or Sicily, 14–25 October (page 133).

Stresa Festival September 2013 Details available March 2013 Contact us to register your interest

Lecturers biographies are on page 194.

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The Venetian Hills Renaissance art in the foothills of the Dolomites Cadore, Titian’s house, wood engraving from The Magazine of Art 1883.

to the birthplace of Giambattista Cima del Conegliano, the lovely town from which the artist took his name, that spreads down a hillside below the remains of a castle. Visit Cima’s house and the cathedral to see one of his greatest works (1492).

Day 3: Pieve di Cadore, Belluno. Titian was born in the little town of Pieve di Cadore; see here the family home and the parish church with paintings by Titian and family. In the afternoon drive north along the valley of the Piave into an ever more dramatic mountain landscape. Sitting athwart a promontory looped by the Piave, Belluno is a beautiful little city with a Renaissance cathedral and Venetianstyle palaces. Among the fine paintings is an exquisite Madonna and Child by Cima in the Museo Civico.

3–7 October 2013 (ma 729) 5 days • £1,680 Lecturer: Dr Joachim Strupp Ravishingly beautiful landscapes from vine-clad foothills to the peaks of the Dolomites.

Altarpieces and frescoes by Venetian masters, mediaeval to Rococo.

Some of the loveliest hill towns in Italy, including the birthplace of Titian.

The lecturer is Dr Joachim Strupp, an expert in Italian art.

This tour easily combines with Friuli-Venezia Giulia, 7–13 October 2013 (ma 733).

‘Hills’ and ‘Venice’ are not accustomed to finding themselves in the same sentence; sited on (and sometimes under) an estuarial lagoon, elevation above (or below) sea level in Venice is measured in centimetres. But on a clear day a range of hills can be seen rising to the north.

On a very clear day the snowy peaks of the Dolomites come into view.

Towards the end of the Middle Ages the proud little communities which populated these hills one by one submitted to the rule of La Serenissima, as did much of northern Italy. Political hegemony was followed by cultural influence, clearly manifested still in the disorientating sight of Venetian-style Renaissance palazzi set against precipitous pine-clad hillsides.

But the cultural forces did not flow only in one direction. As is often the case with an artistically flourishing metropolis, many of the creators were outsiders. Titian was born in the rugged Cadore mountains, Cima from the

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gentler hillside town of Conegliano, Marco Ricci from hilltop Belluno, Il Pordenone from the town on the plain from which he took his name. These and many other artists enjoyed successful careers in Venice, but most kept in contact with their natal towns, accepting commissions for, or donating paintings to, their parish church.

These hill towns are among the loveliest in Italy, and they are set in ravishing landscapes which range from vine-clad foothills to soaring limestone peaks. Most of them are quite small, but the architectural ambitions of their inhabitants were otherwise: the historic centres are dense with fine buildings and arcaded streets which give protection from mountain downpours and summer sun.

The ostensible theme of this tour is painting of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but other aspects of the art and history of the region will not be ignored. The base is Follina, a tiny community which grew up around a monastery in the mountains.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 1.45pm from London Gatwick to Venice. Drive through the hills to Follina where all four nights are spent.

Day 2: Vittorio Veneto, Conegliano. The tiny city of Serravalle (now joined with Cèneda to form Vittorio Veneto), occupying a gorge scoured by the River Meschio, has a fine group of mediaeval and Renaissance buildings, 15th-century frescoes in the chapel of S. Lorenzo and a Titian in the cathedral. Cèneda has a small diocesan picture collection and in the church of Santa Maria an exquisite Annunciation by Previtali. Drive

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Day 4: Bassano, Feltre. Bassano del Grappa is a highly attractive town in the foothills of the Dolomites with a series of picturesque squares with painted façades. Home of the prolific Bassano family of painters, there are several of their works in the art gallery. Stacked up along the ridge of a hill, Feltre is another architectural outpost of Venice with striking buildings in various styles. See the Rizzarda collection of early 20th-century arts and crafts and the 1802 theatre in the town hall.

Day 5: San Fior, Pordenone. Descend to see a string of Renaissance altarpieces in little towns on the densely populated plain at the foot of the hills. San Fior, riven by canals and streams, has an altarpiece by Cima. Pordenone has a delightful arcaded main street, widening towards the town hall. In the cathedral are several works by Il Pordenone and other 16thcentury painters. Fly from Venice airport, arriving at Gatwick c. 6.45pm.

Practicalities Price: £1,680 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (economy class) with British Airways (Boeing 737); private coach; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 2 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £70. Price without flights £1,510.

Hotel: a 4-star hotel installed in former abbey buildings (the abbey clock strikes throughout the night). Very modern design; comfortable, with air-conditioning. There is a good restaurant in the sister hotel across the road.

How strenuous? Quite a lot of walking, some uphill. Average coach travel per day: 62 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Linking tours. It is also possible to link this tour with Palladian Villas, 8–13 Oct. (page 98). b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Friuli-Venezia Giulia The border lands of northeast Italy 7–13 October 2013 (ma 733) 7 days • £1,720 Lecturer: Dr Joachim Strupp A wide variety of Italian art and architecture: Roman, Byzantine, Gothic, Renaissance, Palladian.

The lecturer is Dr Joachim Strupp, expert in Italian art.

Tiepolo is a predominant theme and the tour is based in Udine where he worked early in his career.

This tour easily combines with The Venetian Hills, 3–7 October 2013 (ma 729).

Cumbersome by name, complex by history, the region of Friuli–Venezia Giulia is tucked within the north-eastern borders of Italy and bound by Austria, Slovenia, the Veneto and the Adriatic. Much of the region was ceded to Italy by Austria only after the First World War; a border dispute with Yugoslavia rumbled into the 1970s. Understandably, it is marked by variety – ethnic, linguistic, cultural, gastronomic and topographical.

The south and centre consist of a broad alluvial plain whose glistening fecundity is fed by rivers descending from the Julian Alps and the Dolomites. The mediating foothills produce some of the finest white wines in the world.

Populous and prosperous, there are many towns with historic kernels where virtually every period of Italian art and architecture is represented, from Roman to modern. Some of the early mediaeval buildings are particularly striking and important – Aquileia, Grado and Cividale.

There is much fine Renaissance painting and architecture: Palladianism was the dominant creed for a couple of centuries after Palladio’s death, and in addition to painters who established themselves in Venice there are several lesser-known figures of talent who are not well known outside the region. Painting reached another climax in the eighteenth century as Tiepolo spent the years of his early maturity in Udine.

Udine is the base for the tour. A lively city, it has an extensive historic centre with a succession of enchantingly picturesque streets and squares and a central piazza as fine as almost any in Italy. The other big city visited is Trieste, for centuries the principal AustroHungarian outlet to the sea and one of the most important ports in the Mediterranean.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 1.45pm from London Gatwick to Venice and drive to Udine.

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Cividale, by F. Hamilton Jackson 1906.

Day 2: Udine, Cividale. In Udine, visit the main piazza with its Gothic and Renaissance loggias, and the cathedral, basically Gothic but much augmented later. The main theme is Tiepolo, the greatest painter of the 18th century, who created several major works in the cathedral, the Oratorio della Purità and the Archbishop’s Palace. Cividale is in the hills bordering Slovenia. Founded by Julius Caesar and capital of the first Lombard duchy in Italy, the ‘Tempietto Longobardo’ possesses the finest 8th-century sculpture to survive in Europe.

Day 3: Aquileia, Grado, Palmanova. See two of Italy’s best early-mediaeval churches, the Basilica at Aquileia, rebuilt in the 11th century but retaining a 4th-century mosaic floor, and S. Eufemia at Grado with mosaics, pulpit and silver altar frontal. Aquileia was a major Roman city and seat of the patriarchate while Grado was its outer port. Palmanova was begun in 1593 as a frontier fortress town by a Venetian state fearful of the encroaching Turks. With

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a nonagonal plan, it is equipped with the full panoply of Renaissance fortifications.

Day 4: Trieste. Before 1919 Trieste was the principal seaport of the Habsburg Empire and the busiest port in the Mediterranean, and its broad straight streets and 19th-century buildings have a distinctly Viennese cast.

After a troubled 20th century its fortunes have revived since 1989. This is demonstrated through grand seafront architecture and the Museo Revoltella, the well-stocked mansion of a 19th-century financier. Towering above, the ancient Capitol has remains of the Roman forum, castle and the cathedral of S. Giusto, an agglomeration of buildings from the 5th century onwards with Byzantine mosaics.

Day 5: Udine. A hillock at the centre is the site of the castle, an imposing 16th-century residence housing the art gallery, a fine collection of paintings by artists from the region. Other places visited include S. Maria di Castello, the oldest church in Udine, S.

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Palladian Villas The greatest house builder in history

Giacomo with its Renaissance façade and the chapel of the Monte di Pietà with its Baroque sculpture. Free afternoon; possibilities include the Museum of Modern Art.

Elevation from Quattro libri dell’ architettura by Andrea Palladio 1570.

Day 6: San Daniele, Spilimbergo, Pordenone.

Three towns in the broad valley of the River Tagliamento. The Renaissance frescoes by Pellegrino di San Daniele in the church of Sant’Antonio at San Daniele are the finest in the region. Spilimbergo has a Gothic cathedral with 14th-century frescoes, and a castle courtyard with painted façades. Snaking through Pordenone an arcaded street widens towards the town hall and cathedral, which contains fine paintings including some by G.A. Sacchis, called Il Pordenone.

Day 7: Villa Manin. The property of the last doge of Venice, the Neo-Palladian Villa Manin is one of the largest villas in Venetia. Built during the 17th and 18th centuries, it has extensive arcaded courts, Baroque sculpture in the vast garden and frescoed interiors. Fly from Venice, arriving Gatwick c. 6.45pm.

Practicalities Price: £1,720 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (Boeing 737); travel by private coach; breakfasts and 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips for restaurant staff, drivers and guides; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer.

Single supplement £140 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,550.

Hotel: a well established 4-star hotel in one of the principal squares in the centre of Udine.

Meals are in the hotel and carefully selected restaurants.

How strenuous? Quite a lot of walking necessitated, some of it uphill. Average distance by coach per day: 53 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Linking tours. It is also possible to combine this tour with Ravenna & Urbino, 2–6 October (page 107) or Sicily, 14–25 October (page 133).

Lecturers biographies are on page 194.

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23–28 April 2013 (mz 535) 6 days • £1,760 Lecturer: Dr Joachim Strupp 4–9 June 2013 (mz 591) 6 days • £1,760 Lecturer: Dr Michael Douglas-Scott 8–13 October 2013 (ma 737) 6 days • £1,760 Lecturer: Dr Michael Douglas-Scott A survey of nearly all the surviving villas and palaces designed by Andrea Palladio (1508-80), the world’s most influential architect.

Stay throughout in Vicenza, Palladio’s home town and site of many of his buildings.

Led by experts specialising in the Renaissance.

With many special appointments, this itinerary would be impossible for independent travellers.

Utility is the key to understanding Palladio’s villas. In sixteenth-century Italy a villa was a farm, and in the Veneto agriculture had become a serious business for the city-based mercantile aristocracy. As the Venetian maritime empire gradually crumbled before the advancing Ottoman Turks, Venetians compensated by investing in the terra ferma of their hinterland.

But beauty was equally the determinant of form, though beauty of a special kind. Palladio was designing buildings for a clientele who, whether princes of commerce, traditional soldier-aristocrats or gentlemen of leisure, shared an intense admiration for ancient Rome.

They were children of the High Renaissance and steeped in humanist learning. Palladio was the first architect regularly to apply the colonnaded temple fronts to secular buildings.

But the beauty of his villas was not solely

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a matter of applied ornament. As can be seen particularly in his low-budget, pareddown villas and auxiliary buildings there is a geometric order which arises from sophisticated systems of proportion and an unerring intuitive sense of design. It is little wonder that Andrea Palladio became the most influential architect the western world has ever known.

Most of his finest surviving villas and palaces are included on this tour, as well as some of the lesser-known and less accessible.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 1.45pm from London Gatwick to Venice. Drive to Vicenza where all five nights are spent.

Day 2. See in Vicenza several palaces by Palladio including the Palazzo Thiene and the colonnaded Palazzo Chiericati. His chief civic works here are the Basilica, the mediaeval town hall nobly encased in classical guise, and the Teatro Olimpico, the earliest theatre of modern times. The hilltop ‘La Rotonda’ is the most famous of Palladio’s buildings, domed and with four porticoes. Adjacent is the 17th-century Villa Valmarana ‘ai Nani’ with frescoes by Giambattista and Domenico Tiepolo.

Day 3. The Villa Pisani at Bagnolo di Lonigo, small but of majestic proportions, is considered by many scholars to be Palladio’s first masterpiece. The Villa Badoer at Fratta Polesine, from the middle of his career, is a perfect example of Palladian hierarchy, a raised residence connected by curved colonnades to auxiliary buildings.

Day 4. In the foothills of the Dolomites, Villa Godi Malinverni is an austere cuboid design with lavish frescoes inside, and at the town of Bassano there is a wooden bridge by Palladio.

The Villa Barbaro at Maser, built by Palladio b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Art History of Venice Painting, sculpture, architecture for two highly cultivated Venetian brothers, has superb frescoes by Veronese, while the Villa Emo at Fanzolo typically and beautifully combines the utilitarian with the monumental.

11–17 March 2013 (mz 488) 7 days • £2,320 Lecturer: Polly Buston

Day 5. Drive along a stretch of the canal between Padua and the Venetian Lagoon which is lined with the summer retreats of Venetian patricians. The Villa Foscari, ‘La Malcontenta’, is one of Palladio’s best known and most enchanting creations. Explore one of Palladio’s most evolved, most beautiful and most influential buildings, the Villa Cornaro at Piombino Dese.

Wide-ranging survey of art and architecture with an emphasis on the Renaissance.

Day 6. The Villa Pojana, an early work, is restrained but of noble proportions and contains models of Palladio’s works. The Villa Cordellina Lombardi is a fine example of 18th-century Palladianism. Fly from Venice to London Gatwick, arriving c. 6.45pm.

For the world’s most beautiful city, Venice had an inauspicious start. The site was once

Private after-hours visit to San Marco.

Led by Polly Buston, lecturer at the Courtauld Summer School and co-author of Titian’s Venice.

Avoids the crowds of busier months, and has a lower maximum number than most of our tours.

Trade with the East was the source of that wealth and power, and the eastern connection has left its indelible stamp upon Venetian art and architecture. Western styles are here tempered by a richness of effect and delicacy of pattern which is redolent of oriental opulence.

It is above all by its colour that Venetian painting is distinguished. And whether sonorous or poetic, from Bellini through Titian to Tiepolo, there remain echoes of the transcendental splendour of the Byzantine mosaics of St Mark’s.

That Venice survives so comprehensively from the days of its greatness, so little ruffled by modern intrusions, would suffice to make it the goal of everyone who is curious about the

Most of the villas are privately owned and require special permission to visit. The selection and order of visits may therefore vary a little from the description here.

Practicalities Price: £1,760 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (economy class) with British Airways (Boeing 737); travel by private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £140. Price without flights £1,580.

Hotel. We use two different 4-star hotels in Vicenza for these tours. In June & October: just outside a city gate of Vicenza, well located and comfortable. A fairly undistinguished exterior screens attractively furnished, moderately sized, air-conditioned bedrooms. In April: a small establishment in the centre of Vicenza, opened in 2008. It occupies a historic building but the decor is contemporary. Rooms are quite small and are air-conditioned.

How strenuous? Quite a lot of walking. The coach can rarely get close to villas or enter town centres. Average coach travel per day: 70 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine the April departure with Genoa & Turin, 15–21 April (page 93); Ravenna & Urbino, 17–21 April (page 107); Basilicata, 3–8 May (page 131).

Combine the June departure with Art in Le Marche, 10–18 June (page 120). Combine the October departure with Ravenna & Urbino, 2–6 October (page 107); The Venetian Hills, 3–7 October (page 96); Sicily, 14–25 October (page 133).

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The Circumcision, engraving c. 1820 after Giovanni Bellini.

merely a collection of mudbanks, and the first settlers came as refugees fleeing the barbarian destroyers of the Roman Empire. They sought to escape to terrain so inhospitable that no foe would follow.

The success of the community which arose on the site would have been beyond the wildest imaginings of the first Venetians. By the end of the Middle Ages Venice had become the leading maritime power in the Mediterranean and possibly the wealthiest city in Europe.

The shallow waters of the lagoon had indeed kept her safe from malign incursions and she kept her independence until the end of the eighteenth century. ‘Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee, and was the safeguard of the West, Venice, eldest child of liberty.’

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man-made world. Thoroughfares being water and cars nonexistent, the imagination traverses the centuries with ease. And while picturesque qualities are all-pervasive – shimmering Istrian limestone, crumbling stucco, variegated brickwork, mournful vistas with exquisitely sculpted details – there are not half-a-dozen cities in the world which surpass Venice for the sheer number of major works of architecture, sculpture and painting.

Venice in early spring has one overwhelming advantage over other seasons: fewer tourists.

With most of the noisy, gaudy trappings of the tourist industry packed away, the beauties of the city are more readily appreciated, and the sense of her past greatness even more captivating.

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Art History of Venice continued

Practicalities Price: £2,320 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) on British Airways flights (aircraft: Airbus 320); travel between Venice Airport and hotel by water-taxi, some journeys within Venice by vaporetto; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 3 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions to museums, galleries, etc.; all tips for restaurant staff, drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £380 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,210.

Hotel: an elegant and historic hotel on the Grand Canal, opposite the Salute. It is maintained to a high standard and has a good restaurant. Rooms are elegantly furnished and decorated.

Santa Maria dei Miracoli, engraving c. 1820.

There may be rain, there will probably be morning mists and it will be overcast for at least some of the time, but equally likely are days of unbroken sunshine and brilliant blue skies, with a wonderful clarity in the air.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at midday from London Gatwick to Venice. Cross the lagoon by motoscafo (water taxi) to the hotel. There is an introductory walk in Piazza San Marco.

Day 2. The morning walk includes S. Zaccaria and S. Giovanni in Bragora, two churches with outstanding Renaissance altarpieces by Vivarini, Bellini and Cima. The Scuola di S. Giorgio degli Schiavoni has a wonderful cycle of painting by Carpaccio. In the afternoon cross the bacino to Palladio’s beautiful island church of S. Giorgio Maggiore and then to the tranquil Giudecca to see his best church, Il Redentore. In the evening there is a special after-hours private visit to the Basilica of S. Marco, an 11th-century Byzantine church enriched over the centuries with mosaics, sculpture and various precious objects.

Day 3. In the morning see the incomparably beautiful Doge’s Palace with pink Gothic revetment and rich Renaissance interiors. Cross the Grand Canal to the Dorsoduro district, location of the great Franciscan church of S. Maria Gloriosa dei Frari which has outstanding artworks including Titian’s Assumption, and the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, with dramatic paintings by Tintoretto.

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Day 4. Cross the lagoon by motoscafo to the island of Torcello, once the rival of Venice but now scarcely inhabited. Virtually all that remains of the city is the magnificent VenetoByzantine baptistry and cathedral with its 12th-century mosaics. Continue by vaporetto (water bus) to the pretty glass-making island of Murano. Back in Venice, see Titian’s St Lawrence in the Gesuiti.

Day 5. In Dorsoduro, visit the church of S. Sebastiano with decoration by Veronese, and the nearby Scuola Grande dei Carmini with fine ceiling paintings by Tiepolo. In the afternoon visit the vast gothic church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, the early Renaissance S. Maria dei Miracoli with its multicoloured stone veneer, and S. Giovanni Crisostomo with its Bellini altarpiece.

Day 6. Spend the morning in the Accademia, Venice’s major art gallery, where all the Venetian painters are well represented. The afternoon is free.

How strenuous? The nature of Venice means that the city is more often than not traversed on foot. Although part of her charm, there is a lot of walking along the flat and up and down bridges; standing around in museums and churches is also unavoidable.

Small group: between 8 and 18 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this this tour with Venetian Palaces, 5–9 March (page 102); Sicily 18–29 March (page 133); Normans in the South, 19–27 March (page 129).

Opera in Venice November 2013 Details available May 2013 Contact us to register your interest

Day 7. The Ca’ Rezzonico is a magnificent palace on the Grand Canal, now a museum of 18th-century art. Travel by motoscafo to Venice airport. Fly to London Gatwick, arriving c.

5.00pm.

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Verona Opera Lyric spectacle in the Veneto 4–8 July 2013 (mz 632) This tour is currently full

Verona from the Giusti Gardens, wood engraving 1887.

29 August–2 September 2013 (mz 668) This tour is currently full New departure: 8–12 August 2013 (mz 653) 5 days • £2,050 Rigoletto • Aida 1913 • Nabucco Lecturer: Dr R. T. Cobianchi In the setting of a Roman amphitheatre, the most famous of open-air festivals.

Each tour is accompanied by an expert art historian who lead walks and visits during the day.

A choice of hotels. In July, a friendly 4-star a short walk from the Arena. In August, a luxurious 5-star, still in the centre but with a shuttle to the operas.

A threefold celebration: 2013 is the hundredth anniversary of the Verona Opera Festival, of the first performance there of Aida, and is also Verdi’s bicentenary.

The first magic moment comes well before the conductor raises his baton. Unless you have led a team on to the pitch at Wembley, or won the New Hampshire primaries, you are unlikely to have experienced anything quite like the wall of heady high spirits which hits you as you emerge from the entrance tunnel into the arena.

Filling the vast ellipse of the nineteenhundred-year-old Roman amphitheatre are fourteen thousand happy people, bubbling with joyous expectation of the spectacle which is to follow. Even the most dour of dusty-hearted opera purists cannot help but be uplifted.

Then the floodlights go down, the chaotic chatter quietens to a reverential whisper, and the enveloping dusk is pierced only by flickering candle flames as uncountable as the stars above.

Magic again; for these special moments the Verona Festival remains without rival.

The list of unique assets continues. There is the inestimable advantage of the stage and auditorium, one of the largest of ancient amphitheatres which, though built for rather less refined spectacles (‘arena’ is Latin for sand, used in quantity after the slaughter of animals and gladiators) provides miraculously sympathetic acoustics. The elliptical form also seems to instil a sense which can best be described as resembling an embrace, bonding the audience however distant or disparate the individual members might be.

Then there is the benefit of being at the heart of one of the most beautiful of Italian cities. Verona is crammed with magnificent Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

architecture and dazzlingly picturesque streets and squares. Surprisingly, the city seems scarcely deflected from a typically Italian dedication to living well and stylishly by the annual influx of festival visitors.

Enough of the spectacle, what of the music?

Most performances reach high standards, with patches of stunning singing. For the (largely Italian) casts, to perform at Verona is still a special event, and there remains as an incentive to excellence the typically Italian expression of audience disapproval, instant and merciless.

Besides, the younger singers know that they will be judged by more agents, casting directors and peers in one performance than usually would see them in a season.

Opinions vary concerning the best place to sit. All the seats we have booked are numbered and reserved (no queuing for hours and elbowing to seize the best of what remains), and a proportion are poltronissime, cushioned stalls seats, which we offer for a supplement.

The rest are on the lowest tiers, the gradinate numerate, with clear sight lines, while plastic seating is mercifully interposed between you and the marble.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 4.00pm from London Gatwick to Verona. Overnight Verona where all four nights are spent.

Day 2. Take an introductory walk in Verona, passing through the beautiful streets and squares at the heart of the city. Visit the church of Sant’Anastasia with its Pisanello frescoes, and the spectacular mediaeval tombs of the ruling della Scala family. In the afternoon, visit the lush Giardino Giusti, a sculpted garden with sweeping views across the city. Some free time; evening opera in the Arena.

Day 3. A walk leads to the Romanesque cathedral, across the River Adige to the

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well-preserved Roman theatre. Alternatively, there are bus and train services offering the opportunity to see more of the region, perhaps Lake Garda or Venice. The afternoon is free or take an optional visit to the church of S. Zeno, a major Romanesque church with sculpted portal and a Mantegna altarpiece; evening opera in the Arena.

Day 4. The morning walk includes the Castelvecchio, a graceful mediaeval castle and fortified bridge, now housing an art museum.

Lunch is at a privately owned villa in the countryside (by special arrangement). There is some free time; evening opera in the Arena.

Day 5. Fly from Verona, arriving London Gatwick at about 1.00pm.

Practicalities Price for 8–12 August 2013: £2,050 (deposit £200). This includes: 3 opera tickets costing c. £215; flights (economy class) with British Airways (Boeing 737); hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Supplement for poltronissime seats £300. Single supplement £160 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,930.

Hotel (8–12 August): a luxurious 5-star, a longer walk from the Arena (c. 20 minutes).

A shuttle is provided to and from the operas.

Rooms are opulent and all have baths and airconditioning.

How strenuous? To participate fully in the itinerary, a fair amount of walking is involved.

Average distance by coach per day: 18 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine the 8–12 August departure with The Danube Festival of Music (page 13 for brief details).

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Venetian Palaces The greatest & best-preserved palaces of La Serenissima 5–9 March 2013 (mz 486) This tour is currently full 12–16 November 2013 (ma 770) 5 days • £2,080 Lecturer: Dr Michael Douglas-Scott Explores many of the finest and best-preserved palaces, once homes to the city’s wealthiest nobles and merchants.

Access to many by special arrangement, including some which are still in private hands.

Also a private after-hours visit to San Marco.

Led by Dr Michael Douglas-Scott, Associate Lecturer in History of Art at Birkbeck College, and specialist in 16th-century Italian art and architecture.

Stay in a converted palace on the Grand Canal, now a 4-star hotel.

Just as Venice possesses but a single ‘Piazza’ among dozens of campi, it has only one building correctly called a ‘Palazzo’. The singularity is important: the Doge’s Palace (Palazzo Ducale), like the Piazza San Marco, was the locus of the Serenissima’s public identity and seat of her republican government. Unlike her rivals in Florence and Milan she had no ruling dynasties to dictate polity, by contrast developing a deep aversion to individual aggrandizement and over-concentrated power. While the person and Palazzo of the Doge embodied their municipal identity, it was in their private houses that Venice’s mercantile oligarchs expressed their own family wealth and status.

These Case (in Venetian parlance Ca’) were built throughout the city. In the absence of primogeniture, many branches sprung from many of the two hundred-odd noble families, leading to several edifices of the same name – an obstacle for would-be visitors.

These houses were unlike any other domestic buildings elsewhere in the world: erected over wooden piles driven into the mud flats of the lagoon, they remained remarkably uniform over the centuries in their basic design, combining the functions of mercantile emporium (ground level) and magnificent residence (upper floors).

They were however built in a fantastic variety of styles, Veneto-Byzantine, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo. Sometimes there is a touch of Islamic decoration. As new families bought their way into the aristocracy during the long period of the Republic’s economic and political decline, they had their residences refurbished in Rococo splendour by master artists such as Giambattista Tiepolo.

Many of these palaces have survived the virtual extinction of the Venetian aristocracy and retain their original, if faded, glory.

Palaces for nobles will be considered in conjunction with those for the non-noble cittadino (wealthy merchant) class and the housing projects for ordinary Venetian popolani, which rise cheek by jowl in the dense urban fabric.

Some of the places visited are familiar and readily accessible to the public. Others are opened only by special arrangement with the owners, whether a charitable organisation, branch of local government, or descendants of the original occupants. Some of these cannot be confirmed until nearer the time.

A private, after-hours visit to the Basilica San Marco, the mosaic interior illuminated for your benefit, is a highlight of this tour. As is an opportunity to see up close ‘the most beautiful street in the world’, the Grand Canal, from that most Venetian of vantage-points, a gondola.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at midday from London Gatwick to Venice. Cross the lagoon by motoscafo (water taxi) and travel up the Grand Canal to the doors of the hotel. There is an introductory walk in Piazza San Marco.

Day 2. Visit the Palazzo Ducale, supremely beautiful with its 14th-century pink and white revetment outside, late Renaissance gilded halls and paintings by Tintoretto and Veronese inside. See the palazzi on the Grand Canal from the viewpoint of a gondola. The former Casinò Venier (by special arrangement) is a uniquely Venetian establishment that was part private members’ bar, part literary salon, part brothel. There is an after-hours private visit to the Basilica San Marco, an 11th-century Byzantine style church enriched over the centuries with mosaics, sculpture and various precious objects (by special arrangement).

Day 3. Designed by Longhena (c. 1667) and Giorgio Massari (c. 1751), the Ca’ Rezzonico is perhaps the most magnificent of Grand Canal palaces, and contains frescoes by Tiepolo; it is now a museum of 18th-century art. Visit the grand ballroom of late 17th-century Palazzo Zenobio (by special arrangement). In the afternoon visit the Ca’ Grande (16th-century, now publicly owned) and the Palazzo Grimani, a monumental edifice of the early 16th century

by Sanmicheli.

Day 4. With its elegant tracery and abundant ornamentation, the Ca’ d’Oro, also on the Grand Canal, is the most gorgeous of Venetian Gothic palaces; it now houses the Galleria Franchetti. The 13th-century Fondaco dei Turchi is a unique survival from the era; today it is the natural history museum. In the afternoon visit the 16th-century Palazzo Corner Spinelli that now houses the Rubelli fabrics archive and Palazzo Contarini dal Zaffo-Polignac (both by special arrangement).

Palazzo Pisani Moretta.

Day 5. Visit Palazzo Pisani Moretta on the Grand Canal, a Gothic palace with lavish 18th- and 19th-century interiors (by special arrangement). The 17th-century Palazzo Albrizzi has some of the finest stucco decoration in Venice (by special arrangement).

Travel by motoscafo to Venice airport. Fly to London Gatwick, arriving c. 6.00pm.

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Parma & Bologna The Via Emilia Bologna, steel engraving c. 1850.

Practicalities Price: £2,020 (March), £2,080 (November) (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on British Airways flights (Airbus 320); travel between Venice Airport and hotel by private water-taxi, some journeys by vaporetto and one by gondola; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 3 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters, porters; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £280 (both departures) (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,870 (March), £1,930 (November).

Hotel: a 4-star deluxe in a converted palace on the Grand Canal near Campo Sant’Angelo and the Rialto Bridge. The decoration is 18th-century Venetian style. Canal view rooms and suites are available on request. There is a small bar and lounge but no restaurant.

How strenuous? The nature of Venice means that the city is more often than not traversed on foot. Although part of her charm, there is a lot of walking and crossing of bridges; standing around in museums and palaces is also unavoidable.

Small group: between 8 and 18 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine the March departure with Art History of Venice, 11–17 March (page 99).

Combine the November departure with Florentine Palazzi, 6–10 November (page 113).

Itinerary 8–15 April 2013 (mz 514) 8 days • £2,100 Lecturer: Dr R. T. Cobianchi Art and architecture in major cities and small towns in the region of Emilia-Romagna which lie along the Roman road, the Via Emilia.

Romanesque architecture and 16th-century painting are particularly strongly represented.

Led by Dr R. T. Cobianchi, expert art historian.

Based in the utterly charming ducal city of Parma and in the university city of Bologna, ennobled with miles of arcaded streets.

Lecturers biographies are on page 194.

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constructed mighty town halls, vast churches and splendid palaces, and caused great works of art to be created.

At the beginning of the modern era, they were parcelled out between a motley collection of usually foreign and invariably unenlightened rulers, and they slumped into a torpor from which they did not recover until the Risorgimento.

Nevertheless, a succession of great artists continued to appear, particularly in sixteenth-century Parma and seventeenth-century Bologna, while the relative lack of prosperity resulted in the preservation of the city centres.

One aspect of the allure of Bologna, one of the two bases for this tour, and other towns here is that they successfully reconcile the often incompatible features of economic well-being and ancient, unspoilt and enchantingly picturesque streetscape.

The cities now enjoy an envied reputation within Italy for quality of life and gastronomic excellence. Parma, one of the loveliest of the smaller cities in Italy, has been chosen as the other base for this tour.

Bound by the River Po to the north and the Apennines to the south, this wedge of Italy is replete with fascinating cities and great works of art, yet is still undeservedly neglected by cultural travellers. With probably not one hundredth of the visitors which Florence and Venice receive and many fewer than, say, Verona or Siena, one can view great architecture and world-class art works without the dispiriting intrusions of a large-scale tourist industry.

Across this undulating plain, one of the most fertile in Italy, the Romans founded a large number of prosperous towns and linked them by the Via Emilia which ran from Milan to the Adriatic coast. In the Middle Ages the region fragmented into a number of independent city states which, whether under a communal or despotic form of government,

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Day 1: Parma. Fly at c. 3.00pm from London Gatwick to Bologna, drive to Parma. First of five nights in Parma.

Day 2: Parma. Parma is of great importance in particular for its High Renaissance school of painting. The cathedral and baptistery are outstanding for their Romanesque architecture and sculpture. See the astonishingly vital and illusionistic frescoes by Correggio in the cathedral, as well as the church of S. Giovanni and the exquisite Camera di S. Paolo. In the Palazzo della Pilotta is a good art collection and a rare Renaissance theatre.

Day 3: Cremona, Fidenza. Once a major Lombard city state, Cremona has one of the handsomest squares in Italy with a Romanesque cathedral, Italy’s tallest mediaeval campanile, baptistery and Gothic civic buildings. Fidenza has a beautiful Romanesque cathedral, with excellent sculpture.

Day 4: Piacenza, Parma. Piacenza, which is on the border of Lombardy, has many mediaeval buildings on its Roman grid plan, among them an outstanding town hall and Romanesque cathedral. From the Renaissance

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Parma & Bologna continued

there is the beautiful church of the Madonna di Campagna and the equestrian statue of Alessandro Farnese is a masterpiece of Baroque sculpture. Some free time in Parma.

Day 5: Fontanellato, Sabbioneta. Fontanellato is a little town with an enchanting moated castle containing wonderful frescoes by Parmigianino. Sabbioneta was built as an ideal city on an almost miniature scale: a magical assembly of ducal palace, theatre, one of the world’s first picture galleries and all the appurtenances of a Renaissance ducal town.

Day 6: Modena, Torrechiara. Modena, capital since the 16th century of the Este dukedom, has one of the finest Romanesque cathedrals in the region, with marvellous 12th-century sculpture by Wiligelmo. The Galleria Estense is particularly good for 16th- and 17th-century painting. The castle in Torrechiara has 15thcentury frescoes. First night in Bologna.

Courts of Northern Italy 12–19 May 2013 (mz 558) 8 days • £1,980 Lecturer: Dr Michael Douglas-Scott 22–29 September 2013 (ma 708) 8 days • £1,980 Lecturer: Dr Fabrizio Nevola Northern Italy’s independent city states: Mantua, Ferrara, Parma, Ravenna and Urbino.

Some of the greatest Renaissance art and architecture, commissioned by the powerful ruling dynasties: Gonzaga, Este, Sforza, Farnese, Montefeltro and others.

Led by expert art and architectural historians.

Highlights include the most glorious concentration of Byzantine mosaics and important work by Alberti, Mantegna, Piero della Francesca and Correggio.

After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Italy gradually fragmented into numerous little territories. The city states became fiercely independent and were governed with some degree of democracy. But a debilitating violence all too often ensued as the leading families fought with fellow citizens for dominance of the city council and the offices of state. A common outcome from the thirteenth century onwards was the imposition of autocratic rule by a single prince, and the suspension of democratic structures: but such tyranny was not infrequently welcomed with relief and gratitude by a war-weary citizenry.

Their rule may have been tyrannical, and warfare their principal occupation, but the Montefeltro, Malatesta, d’Este and Gonzaga dynasties brought into being through their patronage some of the finest buildings and works of art of the Renaissance. Many of the leading artists in fifteenth- and sixteenth-

Day 7: Bologna. Bologna is one of the most attractive of the larger cities in Italy, with Renaissance arcades flanking the streets. At its mediaeval heart are massive civic buildings and the vast Gothic church of S. Petronio, with sculpture by Jacopo della Quercia. The Pinacoteca Nazionale is one of Italy’s finest picture galleries (Raphael, Carracci family, Guido Reni). Finally, see the early mediaeval S. Stefano and S. Domenico, with the tomb of St Dominic. Second and final night in Bologna.

Day 8: Bologna. See Carracci frescoes in former Palazzo Magnani Salem (subject to confirmation, by special arrangement). Fly Bologna to Gatwick arriving c. 2.15pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,100 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (economy class) with British Airways (Boeing 737, Airbus 319); private coach travel; accommodation as below; breakfasts and 5 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer.

Single supplement £260. Price without flights £1,990.

Hotels: Parma (5 nights): a 4-star hotel in the historic centre. Rooms furnished in a variety of styles. Bologna (2 nights): a 4-star hotel well-located in the historic centre. Rooms are elegantly furnished and are of an adequate size.

How strenuous? There is a lot of walking on this tou. Average distance by coach per day: 50 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours: Ravenna & Urbino, 17–21 April (page 107) or Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes, 18–24 April (page 91).

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b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Princely Art of the Renaissance

century Italy worked in the service of princely courts.

As for court art of earlier epochs, little survives, though a glimpse of the oriental splendour of the Byzantine court of Emperor Justinian can be had in the mosaic depiction of him, his wife and their retinue in the church of San Vitale in Ravenna. It is not until the fifteenth century, in Mantegna’s Camera degli Sposi at Mantua, that we are again allowed an unhindered gaze into court life.

Day 2: Mantua, Sabbioneta. In the morning visit Alberti’s highly influential Early Renaissance church of Sant’Andrea, the Romanesque Rotonda of S. Lorenzo and Giulio Romano’s uncharacteristically restrained cathedral. In the afternoon, drive to Sabbioneta, an ideal Renaissance city on an almost miniature scale, built for Vespasiano Gonzaga in the 1550s; visit the ducal palace, theatre and one of the world’s first picture galleries.

Itinerary

Day 3: Parma, Fontanellato. Parma is a beautiful city; the vast Palazzo della Pilotta houses an art gallery (Correggio, Parmigianino) and an important Renaissance theatre (first proscenium arch). Visit the splendid Romanesque cathedral and octagonal baptistery and see the illusionistic frescoes of tumultuous heavenly host by Correggio in Camera di S. Paolo. In the afternoon, visit the moated 13th-century castle and Farnese theatre in Fontanellato, seeing frescoes

by Parmigianino.

Day 1: Mantua. Fly at c. 8.45am from London Heathrow to Bologna. Drive to Mantua where the first four nights are spent. After a late lunch, visit the Ducal Palace, a vast rambling complex, the aggregate of 300 years of extravagant patronage by the Gonzaga dynasty (Mantegna’s frescoes in the Camera degli Sposi, Pisanello frescoes, Rubens altarpiece).

Parma, theatre in the ducal palace, lithograph 1822.

Day 4: Mantua. After a free morning, an afternoon walk takes in the exteriors of Alberti’s centrally planned church of S. Sebastiano, and the houses that court artists Mantegna and Giulio Romano built for themselves. Also visit Palazzo Te, the Gonzaga summer residence and the major monument of Italian Mannerism, designed and with lavish frescoes by Giulio Romano.

Day 5: Ferrara was the centre of the city-state ruled by the d’Este dynasty, whose court was one of the most lavish and cultured in Renaissance Italy. Pass the Castello Estense, a moated 15th-century stronghold, and the cathedral. The Palazzo Diamanti houses the art gallery. The Palazzo Schifanoia is an Este retreat with elaborate allegorical frescoes. First of three nights in Ravenna.

Day 6: Ravenna, Classe. The last capital of the western Roman Empire and subsequently capital of Ostrogothic and Byzantine Italy, Ravenna possesses the world’s most glorious concentration of Early Christian and Byzantine mosaics. Visit the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, lined with 5th-century mosaics, the splendid centrally planned church of S. Vitale with 6th-century mosaics of Emperor Justinian and Empress Theodora, and S. Apollinare Nuovo basilica with mosaic Procession of Martyrs. Drive to Classe, Ravenna’s port, which was once one of the largest in the Roman world; virtually all that is left is the great Basilica of S. Apollinare.

Day 7: Urbino. Drive into the hills to Urbino, the beautiful little city of the Montefeltro dynasty. See the exquisite Gothic frescoes

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in the Oratorio di San Giovanni. In the afternoon, visit the Palazzo Ducale, a masterpiece of architecture which grew over 30 years into the perfect Renaissance secular environment. See the beautiful studiolo of Federico of Montefeltro and excellent picture collection here (Piero, Raphael, Titian).

Day 8: Cesena, Rimini. The Biblioteca Malatestiana in Cesena is a perfectly preserved renaissance library established by Malatesta Novello, and contains over 300 valuable manuscripts. In Rimini visit the outstanding Tempio Malatestiano, designed by Leon Battista Alberti for the tyrant Sigismondo Malatesta, which contains superb decoration

by Agostino di Duccio and particularly fine sculptural detail. Fly from Bologna, arriving at London Heathrow c. 8.00pm.

Practicalities Price: £1,980 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (economy class) with British Airways (Boeing 737); private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £230. Price without flights £1,870.

Hotels: Mantua (4 nights): a 4-star hotel a short walk from the historic centre. The decor is minimalist but stylish. Ravenna (3 nights): a bland modern façade hides a small, welcoming 4-star hotel. The room decor is a little austere but comfortable.

How strenuous? There is a lot of walking, much of it on steep and roughly paved streets: agility, stamina and sure-footedness are essential. Coaches are not allowed into historic centres. Many of the historical buildings visited are sprawling and vast. Average distance by coach per day: 88 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine the May departure of this tour with Basilicata, 3–8 May (page 131) or Medici Villas & Gardens, 22–26 May (page 114).

Parma Verdi Festival October 2013 Details available May 2013 Contact us to register your interest

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Dark Age Brilliance Late Antique & Pre-Romanesque throughout the whole of the Adriatic seaboard, and the second half of the tour embraces Aquileia, Grado, Poreč (Parenzo) in Croatia and Concordia Sagittaria. The theme is rounded off with the astonishing little eighthcentury church in Cividale in the foothills of the Julian Alps which preserves the earliest monumental sculpture of the Middle Ages.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 3.00pm from London Heathrow to Bologna. Drive to Ravenna for the first of three nights.

Ravenna, Santa Vitale, engraving 1906 from The Shores of the Adriatic.

29 September–6 October 2013 (ma 724) 8 days • £1,920 Lecturer: Dr Ffiona Gilmore Eaves A journey through north-east Italy to Croatia, via Ravenna, Torcello and Cividale.

Includes some of the finest art and architecture of the Early Middle Ages to be found anywhere.

Led by Dr Ffiona Gilmore Eaves, whose PhD was written on the early church at Porec, visited during this tour.

Byzantine heritage of unique range and richness, with exceptional mosaics.

It is now commonplace to believe, contrary to the assumptions of centuries, that the Dark Ages which succeeded the glories of the Roman Empire were not so dark, and that the later history of the Empire was not so glorious.

A concomitant reappraisal has led to the acceptance of Early Christian and Byzantine art not as a regression to primitivism – an aspect of the decline and fall – but as one of the most brilliant chapters in the history of Western art.

But it remains true that in the territories of the Western Empire from the fifth to the ninth century there was little in the way of

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monumental building or large-scale artistic production. Only in a few dispersed pockets was the flame of ambitious artistic and intellectual endeavour kept alive.

A string of such pockets gathered around the northern end of the Adriatic and northeast Italy, the last redoubt of the Empire in the West. Born of an Umbrian past and raised in Imperial retreat, Ravenna remains anchored in the Adriatic marshes, humbled by the rise of her great neighbours, Bologna and Venice, and unhindered by later political commerce. The effect of this marginal status has been to spare her Early Christian buildings and leave a Byzantine heritage of unique range and richness. Given the intensity with which Ravenna developed between 402, when Honorius chose it as his capital, and 751, when the last of the Exarchs returned to Constantinople, it makes a fitting introduction to Early Christian and early mediaeval culture in north-eastern Italy.

Arising from the need to cater for the spiritual requirements of newly-emancipated Christianity, the clarity and humanism of the classical tradition were superseded by images and decoration designed to instil a kind of sacred dread, and to intimate the glories of the world to come. Mosaic was the key element in creating church interiors of awesome splendour and intense spirituality.

Early Christian forms were endorsed

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Day 2: Ravenna. Begin with an exploration of the 5th-century forms at the cathedral and Orthodox Baptistery, and the superlative 6th-century ivory throne of Maximian in the Museo Arcivescovile. In the afternoon study Arian Ravenna at the Arian Baptistery and Theodoric’s great Palatine church of Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo. Investigate the 5th-century basilica design which provided Theodoric’s court with its most immediate models, Galla Placidia’s splendid ex-voto basilica of San Giovanni Evangelista and Bishop Neon’s San Francesco.

Day 3: Ravenna, Classe. The Mausoleum of Galla Placidia is the earliest Christian structure in Europe to retain its mosaic decoration in its entirety. The church of San Vitale is the greatest 6th-century building of the West; the invention with which form, colour, space and narrative meaning are combined is breathtaking. This is followed by the collections of the Museo Nazionale, which complement Ravenna’s buildings. Travel by coach to Theodoric’s superb Mausoleum and to the ancient port of Classe for the great 6th-century basilica of Sant’Apollinare.

Day 4: Pomposa, Concordia Sagittaria. Drive north to the Po delta. Pomposa is an important 8th-century Benedictine abbey, richly extended

by Abbot Guido’s magnificent 11th-century porch and campanile. Lunch in Chioggia. The Roman road station at Concordia Sagittaria, whose modest mediaeval cathedral was built alongside a 4th-century basilica and martyrium, is splendidly revealed through archaeological excavation. First of four nights in Cividale.

Day 5: Cividale. Although founded as Forum Julii in the 1st century bc, Cividale is best known to historians as the site of the earliest Longobard settlement in northern Italy, and most celebrated by art historians for the astonishing quality and quantity of the 8thcentury work which has survived here. See the superb ‘Tempietto’ of S. Maria in Valle, Longobardic work in the cathedral museum, b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Ravenna & Urbino Byzantine capital, Renaissance court Ravenna, Mosaics in S. Apollinare, 20th-cent. engraving.

and spectacular early mediaeval collections in the archaeological museum. The afternoon is free in Cividale.

Day 6: Poreč (Croatia). Drive south, cross Slovenia and enter the part of Croatia formerly known as Istria. The sole object of the excursion is to visit Poreč (Parenzo), a longish journey justified by the existence of an unusually complete 6th-century cathedral complex: basilican church, baptistery and bishop’s palace. The church proper was built above an earlier basilica c. 540 by Bishop Euphrasius, whose complete episcopal throne is set within an apse which, for once, has retained its full complement of furnishings and fittings.

Day 7: Aquileia, Grado. Aquileia was a major Roman city whose influential cathedral was complete by 319. Sections of walls and mosaic pavements were preserved within the present 11th-century cathedral, a wonderful survival.

The Longobard sack of 568 resulted in the removal of the see to the more defensible position on the coast at Grado, whose two great 6th-century churches, S. Maria della Grazie and the cathedral, also have outstanding floor mosaics.

Day 8: Torcello. Drive to the Adriatic and take a water taxi to the island of Torcello in the Venetian lagoon, a major city while Venice was little more than a fishing village. Visit the largely 11th-century cathedral of S. Maria Assunta and adjacent Greek-cross reliquary church of S. Fosca. Continue to Venice Airport and fly to Heathrow, arriving at c. 8.15pm.

Practicalities Price: £1,920 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (Boeing 737); travel by private coach throughout; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 5 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer.

Single supplement £180 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,770.

Hotels: Ravenna (3 nights): a bland modern façade hides a fairly basic but friendly and comfortable 4-star hotel. Cividale (4 nights): a simple, functional and friendly 3-star, located in the centre of town. Dinners are at a selection of local restaurants.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking in town centres, some of it over uneven ground.

Average distance by coach per day: 76 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes, 19–25 September (page 91).

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17–21 April 2013 (mz 518) 5 days • £1,350 Lecturer: Dr Michael Douglas-Scott 2–6 October 2013 (ma 728) 5 days • £1,350 Lecturer: Dr Luca Leoncini A study in contrasts: one a city with origins as a major Roman seaport, the other an enchanting little Renaissance settlement high in the hills.

In Ravenna, some of the greatest buildings of late antiquity with the finest and best-preserved Byzantine and Early Christian mosaics.

In Urbino the ducal palace, the greatest secular building of the Early Renaissance.

Led by expert art historians.

Why combine them? Both are somewhat out of the way, yet near to each other. First run 28 years ago and still a firm favourite.

Ravenna was once one of the most important cities in the western world. The last capital of the Roman Empire in the West, she subsequently became capital of the Gothic kingdoms of Italy and of Byzantine Italy. Then history passed her by. Marooned in obscurity, some of the greatest buildings and decorative schemes of the late antique and early mediaeval era were allowed to survive unmolested until the modern age recognised in them not the onset of decadence and the barbarity of the Dark Ages but an art of the highest aesthetic and spiritual power. The Early Christian and Byzantine mosaics at Ravenna are the finest in the world.

Urbino, by contrast, is a compact hilltop stronghold with a very different history and

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an influence on Renaissance culture out of all proportion to her size. The Ducal Palace, built by the Montefeltro dynasty over several decades, is perhaps the finest secular building of its period. Piero della Francesca, Raphael and Baldassare Castiglione were among those who passed through its exquisite halls.

The justification for joining in one short tour these two centres of diverse artistic traditions is simple. They are places to which every art lover wants to go but which are relatively inaccessible from the main art-historical centres of Italy, yet are close to each other. For many years this has been one of our most popular tours.

Itinerary Day 1: Ravenna. Fly at c. 3.00pm from London Heathrow to Bologna. Drive to Ravenna, where all four nights are spent.

Day 2: Ravenna. The so-called Mausoleum of Galla Placidia has the earliest mosaic scheme in Ravenna (mid-5th century, with 4th-century insertions). The National Museum is outstanding, particularly for Byzantine ivory carvings. The Orthodox baptistry has superlative Early Christian mosaics. S. Apollinare Nuovo has a mosaic procession of martyrs marching along the nave. The centrally planned church of S. Vitale is Ravenna’s finest and has some of the most magnificent mosaics (including portraits of Emperor Justinian, Empress Theodora and their entourage).

Day 3: Ravenna. The Cathedral Museum possesses fine objects, including an ivory throne. Visit the Cooperativa Mosaicista, a laboratory for the restoration of mosaics (by appointment only, subject to confirmation) and the Mausoleum of Theodoric. Free afternoon.

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Ravenna & Urbino continued

Lucca Sculpture & architecture in northern Tuscany

Day 4: Urbino. The Palazzo Ducale grew during 30 years of Montefeltro patronage into the perfect Early Renaissance secular environment, of the highest importance for both architecture and architectural sculpture.

The picture collection in the palace includes works by Piero della Francesca, Raphael and Titian. There are exquisite International Gothic frescoes by Salimbeni in the Oratory of St John.

22–28 April 2013 (mz 522) 7 days • £1,980 Lecturer: Dr Antonia Whitley

Day 5: Classe, Rimini. Drive to Classe, Ravenna’s port, which was one of the largest in the Roman Empire. Virtually all that is left is the great basilica of S. Apollinare. Continue to Rimini and visit the Tempio Malatestiano, church and mausoleum of the Renaissance tyrant Sigismondo Malatesta (designed by Alberti, fresco by Piero della Francesca, sculpture by Agostino Duccio). Drive on to Bologna airport for a late afternoon flight arriving at Heathrow at c. 8.00pm.

The lecturer is Dr Antonia Whitley, expert art historian and lecturer specialising in the Italian Renaissance.

Practicalities Price: £1,350 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (aircraft: Airbus 319); travel by private coach for transfers and excursions; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 3 dinners including wine, water and coffee; all admissions to museums, sites, etc; all gratuities for restaurant staff, drivers and guides; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £140 (double room for sole occupancy). Price without flights £1,230.

Hotel: a bland modern façade hides a somewhat basic but friendly and comfortable 4-star hotel. Decoration of its rooms is rather austere. Included dinners are at a selection of nearby restaurants.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking and standing in museums. The coach cannot be used within the town centres. Average distance by coach per day: 65 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine the April departure with Pompeii & Herculaneum, 8–13 April (page 127); Parma & Bologna, 8–15 April (page 103); Lucca, 22–28 April (page 108); Palladian Villas, 23–28 April (page 98). Combine the October departure with The Etruscans, 23–29 September (page 122); Palladian Villas, 8–13 October (page 98); Caravaggio, 7–13 October (page 124); FriuliVenezia Giulia, 7–13 October (page 97).

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A leisurely exploration of one of the most beautiful and engaging of Tuscan cities.

Exceptional Renaissance ramparts enclosing a city rich in sculpture, painting, and Romanesque architecture.

Excursions to Prato, Pistoia, Pisa, Barga and a villa. Work by Florentine masters, including Filippo Lippi, Donatello and della Robbia.

Nowhere in Tuscany can claim to be undiscovered. Some places are more undiscovered than others, however, and for no good reason Lucca is one of the most underrated of ancient Tuscan cities. Many know of its exceptional attractions, but few allow themselves the opportunity of getting to know it properly. Only by staying for several nights, and by allowing time to absorb, observe and reflect can real familiarity develop – not only with its historic fabric and works of art but also with the rhythm of life of its current inhabitants. For Lucca is not a museum but an agreeable and vital lived-in town.

To the approaching visitor, Lucca immediately announces its distinctiveness and its historical importance, while at the same time secreting the true extent and glory of its built heritage. The perfectly preserved circumvallation of pink brick, ringed by the green sward of the grass glacis, is one of the most complete and formidable set of Renaissance ramparts in Italy.

Unlike many Tuscan cities, Lucca sits on the valley floor. This and the traces of the gridlike street pattern – albeit given a mediaeval inflection – betray its Roman origin. Within the walls, the city is a compelling masonry document of the Middle Ages. There is a superb collection of Romanesque churches with the distinctive Lucchese feature of tiers of arcades applied to the façades and flanks.

There is good sculpture, too, including the exquisite tomb of Ilaria del Carretto, and some quite exceptional (and exceptionally early) panel paintings. Looming over the dense net of narrow streets are the imposing palazzi of the mercantile elite, including some grand ones from the age of Baroque.

The Romanesque theme of the tour will be continued on the excursions to the nearby cities of Prato, Pistoia and Pisa, where the style has its greatest manifestation in Tuscany in the ensemble of cathedral, baptistery and

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campanile (the now not-quite-so-leaning tower) at Pisa. Likewise mediaeval sculpture features prominently in all these places.

The Renaissance is represented by some of the best loved works of the Florentine masters – by Filippo Lippi and Donatello at Prato cathedral, for example, and by the della Robbia workshop in Pistoia. There are also visits to small towns and to a country villa of the eighteenth century.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 11.00am from London Gatwick to Pisa and drive to Lucca. On the way visit the Romanesque basilica of San Piero a Grado.

Day 2: Lucca. Visit San Michele in Foro and the cathedral of San Martino, Romanesque churches with important sculptures (tomb of Ilaria del Carretto) and paintings, and Torre Guinigi. In the afternoon drive to the Villa Torrigiani which has a 19th-century landscaped garden with a sunken garden from the 1750s.

Day 3: Prato. Drive inland to Prato, a city that built its wealth on cloth-working.

The mediaeval cathedral has outstanding Renaissance sculpture and painting, notably Donatello’s pulpit with dancing putti and the Filippo Lippi frescoes, restored in the last decade. Santa Maria delle Carceri is a rare example of an Early-Renaissance centrally planned church. The Museo della Pittura Murale has good paintings by both Lippis, Lorenzo Monaco and Paolo Uccello.

Day 4: Barga, Lucca. Drive up through forested hills to Barga, a delightful little town with a fine Romanesque cathedral at its summit. The afternoon in Lucca is free.

Day 5: Pistoia. The exceptionally attractive town of Pistoia has important art and architecture. Buildings include the octagonal baptistry and the cathedral, both at one end of the main square, and the Renaissance hospital, Ospedale del Ceppo. Sculpture includes the pulpit in Sant’Andrea carved by Giovanni Pisano, one of the finest Gothic sculptures south of the Alps, a unique silver altarpiece in the cathedral, the product of 150 years’ workmanship, and the coloured terracotta frieze by the della Robbia workshop on the Ospedale.

Day 6: Pisa. In the High Middle Ages Pisa was one of the most powerful maritime city-states in the Mediterranean, the rival of Venice and Genoa, deriving great wealth from its trade with the Levant. The ‘Campo dei Miracoli’ is a magnificent Romanesque ensemble of cathedral, monumental burial ground, campanile (‘Leaning Tower’) and baptistry, all b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Lucca, San Martino, engraving c. 1800.

of gleaming white marble. Among the major artworks here are the pulpit by Nicola Pisano (1260) and the 14th-century Triumph of Death fresco. There is an optional afternoon walk to the historic centre.

Day 7: Lucca. Visit the Romanesque church of San Frediano, one of the finest in Lucca, with façade mosaics and a chapel sculpted by Jacopo della Quercia. The Villa Guinigi, a rare survival of a 14th-century suburban villa, is now a museum with outstanding mediaeval panel paintings. The flight from Pisa arrives London Gatwick at c. 4.00pm.

Practicalities Price: £1,980 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (economy class) with British Airways (Boeing 737); travel by private coach for; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts and four dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions to museums, galleries, etc. visited with the group; all gratuities for restaurant staff, drivers; all state and airport Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £240 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,870.

Hotel: an excellently situated 4-star, within the city walls of Lucca. The staff are helpful and friendly. Dinners are at selected restaurants outside the hotel.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking, much of it on roughly paved streets. The tour is not s­ uitable for anyone with any difficulties with everyday walking and stair climbing.

Average distance by coach per day: 38 miles Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Music festivals 2013

Martin Randall Travel organises its own music festivals, presenting music in appropriate historic buildings. These are the titles for 2013: The Danube Music Festival.....................13 English Music in Yorkshire.....................42 The Rhône Music Festival.......................67 The Johann Sebastian Bach Journey........75 Seville: a Festival of Spanish Music...... 176

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Piero della Francesca, 13–18 April (page 110); Genoa & Turin, 15–21 April (page 93); Ravenna & Urbino, 17–21 April (page 107).

Lecturers biographies are on page 194.

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Piero della Francesca 13–18 April 2013 (mz 524) 6 days • £1,960 Lecturer: Dr Antonia Whitley A journey to nearly every surviving work in Italy by the Early Renaissance master.

The lecturer is Dr Antonia Whitley, expert art historian and lecturer specialising in the Italian Renaissance.

Big cities and tiny country towns: Urbino, Monterchi, Arezzo, Sansepolcro, Perugia, Florence and Milan.

This tour is an exhilarating study of one of the best-loved and most intriguing artists of the fifteenth century. It also takes you to a select handful of some of Italy’s loveliest places and best-stocked galleries, and through some of her most enchanting countryside.

Though the theme is a specialised one, the tour is by no means intended only for serious students of the subject. Few art lovers are untouched by the serenity and beauty of the high-key palette of Piero’s works; even fewer would be unmoved by seeing most of his surviving works in the towns and landscapes in which he created them.

Born about 1412 in the small town of Sansepolcro on the periphery of Florentine territory, Piero spent little of his life in the Tuscan capital to which most provincial artists flocked. Though he was not without influence, he had no ‘school’ or direct successors. A mathematician, his images beguile with their perfect perspective, architectonic form and monumentality.

There is little documentation for his life, and he seems to have been a slow worker. Few works survive, despite the fact that he lived until the age of eighty.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 8.45am from London Heathrow to Bologna. Drive to the hotel in Città di Castello for the first of four nights.

Day 2: Urbino. Drive through mountains to the hilltop town of Urbino. As one of the most enlightened and creative courts of the Renaissance, it has an importance in the history of art out of all proportion to its small size. Piero possibly contributed to the design of the beautiful Ducal Palace, which houses his exquisite Flagellation of Christ and the Madonna di Senigallia. Visit San Bernardino, where Federigo da Montefeltro was buried.

Day 3: Perugia. Perugia, the capital of Umbria, is one of Italy’s most beautiful towns. The National Gallery of Umbria in the mediaeval town hall has a polyptych with The

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Street in Arezzo, wood engraving 1888.

Annunciation by Piero. There is a wealth of other monuments, including a fine merchants’ hall with frescoes by Perugino. Some free time in Città di Castello.

Day 4: Sansepolcro, Arezzo, Monterchi. Borgo Sansepolcro was Piero’s birthplace and home town. Visit the museum in the former town hall, where Piero’s early masterpiece, Madonna della Misericordia, a panel of St Julian, and the marvellous Resurrection fresco are housed.

Walk around the town centre, passing Piero’s house and the Romanesque Gothic cathedral.

Drive on to Arezzo: San Francesco, where in the choir is Piero’s great fresco cycle, The Legend of the True Cross, executed over a twenty-year period. In the cathedral is the fresco Mary Magdalene. At Monterchi see Piero’s beautiful fresco The Madonna del Parto.

Day 5: Florence. The Uffizi contains the portrait panels of Federigo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, and his wife Battista Sforza.

Travel by first class rail to Milan (c. 2 hours).

Overnight Milan.

Day 6: Milan. In Milan the Poldi-Pezzoli Museum and the Pinacoteca di Brera contain paintings by Piero. Fly from Milan Linate to London Heathrow, arriving at c. 5.00pm.

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Practicalities Price: £1,960 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (economy class) with British Airways (Boeing 737, Airbus 319); travel by private coach and 1st class rail; hotel accommodation; breakfasts and 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £210 (double for sole use). Price without flights £1,830.

Hotel: Città di Castello (4 nights): a central 4-star hotel, renovated respecting the original architecture; a successful blend of old and new, with helpful staff. Milan (1 night): a smart, traditionally-furnished 4-star hotel close to the Duomo. Dinners are at selected restaurants.

How strenuous? There is a fair amount of walking, some up and down hills and cobbled streets. The historic centres are generally closed to traffic. This tour involves a lot of driving.

Average distance by coach per day: 77 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Lucca, 22–28 April (page 108).

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History of Medicine Florence, bologna & Padua in the age of humanism 16–22 September 2013 (ma 695) 7 days • £2,220 Lecturers: Professor Helen King & Dr Luca Leoncini Italy’s two oldest university towns, Bologna and Padua, where Galileo once lectured.

Fascinating early anatomical theatres, with an exploration of the anatomical work of Leonardo and Michelangelo.

Day 3: Pisa. In the High Middle Ages Pisa was one of the most powerful maritime city-states in the Mediterranean, the rival of Venice and Genoa, deriving great wealth from its trade with the Levant. The ‘Campo dei Miracoli’ is a magnificent Romanesque ensemble of cathedral, monumental burial ground, campanile (‘Leaning Tower’) and baptistry.

The ‘Campo Santo’, for centuries the burial

Some of the best scientific museums in Italy, plus a special arrangement to see the earliest pharmacy in the world.

Galileo’s chair, William Harvey’s emblem and, above all, the sixteenth-century Anatomical Theatre, the oldest in the world. The Palazzo Ragione has representations of early alchemy and medicine, and frescoes that make up one of the largest existing astrological cycles. See also Giotto’s fresco cycle in the Arena chapel, one of the landmarks in the history of art.

Day 7: Bologna. Some free time. Fly from Bologna to London Gatwick, arriving at c. 1.45pm.

Accompanied by both a leading historian of medicine and an expert art historian.

It is almost impossible to over-emphasise the leading role that Italy played in creating the civilization of the modern world.

Developments in the arts of painting, sculpture and architecture during the Italian Renaissance came to dominate the art of the western world until the beginning of the last century. Humanism, a range of intellectual endeavour which built on the achievements of the classical world, matured into the critical, liberal attitude which underlies current modes of thought and ideas about education.

From patisserie to opera, boarding schools to astronomy, in countless areas of human endeavour and intellectual achievement a seminal Italian input can be traced.

In no field is the contribution of Italy greater than in the science of medicine. Bologna and Padua are homes to the oldest universities in Italy – indeed, in Europe – and their medical schools have for centuries made important contributions to the study of anatomy and the practice of surgery. Florence also has a good range of historical medical institutions, as well as the finest artistic patrimony of any city in the world.

This unique tour is jointly-led by a leading Professor of Classical medicine and an art historian.

Itinerary Day 1: Florence. Fly at c. 11.00am from London Gatwick to Pisa. Visit the Museo Galileo, which covers scientific studies from the Medici right through to current theory.

First of three nights in Florence.

Day 2: Florence. Visit the Natural History Museum, ‘La Specola’. The oldest scientific museum in Europe, it also houses an excellent anatomical section. In the afternoon visit the Museo del Bigallo, a 14th-century orphanitropium.

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Bologna University, engraving c. 1900 after Margarite Janes.

place of the Pisan upper classes, was built using earth brought back from Golgotha during the crusades and has frescoes depicting death. In the afternoon visit the botanical gardens.

Day 4: Florence. See the Ospedale degli Innocenti, a children’s orphanage designed by Brunelleschi, before visiting Casa Buonarotti, house of Michelangelo’s family, which has models revealing his unprecedented knowledge of anatomy. Lunch is at a restaurant on the Piazzale Michelangelo before a visit to San Miniato al Monte, the Romanesque abbey church with panoramic views of the city. Some free time. Leave Florence for Bologna, where the next three nights are spent.

Day 5: Bologna. The Archiginnasio has an eighteenth-century anatomical theatre and écorché figures by Lelli. At the oldest university in Italy visit the Museo di Palazzo Poggi, which has sections devoted to obstetrics and anatomical waxworks. The museum of mediaeval art is housed in a Renaissance palace, notable for tomb reliefs depicting university lectures of the period.

Day 6: Padua. A full-day excursion to Padua, an important university city where Galileo once lectured. In the university itself, items include

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Practicalities Price: £2,220 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (economy class) with British Airways (Boeing 737); private coach travel; hotel accommodation as below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of both lecturers. Single supplement £350. Price without flights £2,070.

Hotels: Florence (3 nights): a delightful 4-star hotel in a very central location. The rooms are stylishly decorated. Bologna (3 nights): an elegant 4-star hotel in the heart of Bologna, rooms vary in size and decor but are all classically furnished and comfortable. Dinners are at selected restaurants close to the hotels.

How strenuous? There is a lot of walking on this tour and it would not be suitable for anyone who has difficulties with everyday walking or stair-climbing. Average distance by coach per day: 63 miles.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with The Etruscans, 23–29 September (page 122); Walking in Tuscany, 23–30 September (page 116); Sicily, 23 September–4 Oct. (page 133).

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Florence Cradle of the Renaissance 18–24 February 2013 (mz 475) 7 days • £2,100 Lecturer: Dr R. T. Cobianchi The world’s best location for an art-history tour: here were laid the foundations of the next 500 years of western art.

Still retains an astonishingly dense concentration of great works of art.

The Renaissance is centre stage, but mediaeval and other periods also figure prominently.

Led by Dr R. T. Cobianchi, expert art historian.

Avoids the crowds of busier months, and a smaller group than usual, 8–18 participants.

A first visit to Florence can be an overwhelming experience, and it seems that no amount of revisiting can exhaust her riches, or stem the growth of affection and awe which the city inspires in regular visitors.

For hundreds of years the city nurtured an unceasing succession of great artists. No other place can rival Florence for the quantity of first-rate, locally-produced works of art, many still in the sites for which they were created or in museums a few hundred yards away.

Giotto, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Masaccio, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo – these are some of the artists and architects whose works will be studied on the tours, fully justifying Florence’s epithet as the cradle of the Renaissance.

Florence is, moreover, one of the loveliest cities in the world, ringed by the foothills of the Apennines and sliced in two by the River Arno.

Narrow alleys lead between the expansive piazze, supremely graceful Renaissance arcades abound while the massive scale of the buildings impressively demonstrates the wealth once generated by its precocious economy.

It is now a substantial, vibrant city, yet the past is omnipresent, and, from sections of the mediaeval city walls, one can still look out over olive groves.

Though the number of visitors to Florence has swelled hugely in recent years, it is still possible during winter, and with careful planning, to explore the city and enjoy its art in relative tranquillity.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 10.45am from London Heathrow to Pisa and transfer by coach to Florence in time for a late afternoon visit to the Byzantine mosaics and Renaissance sculpture in the baptistry.

Day 2. In the morning visit the Piazza della Signoria, civic centre of Florence

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with masterpieces of public sculpture. The Palazzo Vecchio, fortified civic centre of the republic, has several rooms designed by Vasari and containing works by Michelangelo, Donatello and Ghirlandaio. Study further Renaissance statuary at the church-cumgranary of Orsanmichele. In the afternoon visit the cathedral and associated buildings and artworks: the polychromatic marble cathedral capped by Brunelleschi’s massive dome and the museum with works of art from both the cathedral and baptistery.

Day 3. A Medici morning includes San Lorenzo, the family parish church designed

by Brunelleschi, their burial chapel in the contiguous New Sacristy with Michelangelo’s largest sculptural ensemble and the chapel in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi which has exquisite frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli. Visit the Laurentian Library, Michelangelo’s most substantial building in Florence. The afternoon is devoted to the Uffizi, Italy’s most important art gallery, which has masterpieces by every major Florentine painter as well as international Old Masters.

Day 4. Brunelleschi’s Foundling Hospital, begun in 1419, was the first building to embody stylistic elements indisputably identifiable as Renaissance. See Michelangelo’s David, the ‘Slaves’ in the Accademia and the frescoes and panels of pious simplicity by Fra Angelico in the Friary of S. Marco. Lunch is at a restaurant

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on the Piazzale Michelangelo before a visit to San Miniato al Monte, the Romanesque abbey church with panoramic views of the city.

Day 5. Walk to the vast Franciscan church of Santa Croce, favoured burial place for leading Florentines and abundantly furnished with sculpted tombs, altarpieces and frescoes.

The museum of sculpture at the Bargello has famous works by Donatello, Verrocchio, Michelangelo and others. Free afternoon.

Day 6. See the frescoes by Masaccio in the Brancacci Chapel, which constitute the single most important work of painting of the Early Renaissance. Visit Santo Spirito, Brunelleschi’s last great building, with many 15th-century altarpieces, and the extensive Boboli Gardens at the top of which is an 18th-century ballroom and garden overlooking olive groves. In the afternoon visit S. Maria Novella, the Dominican church with many works of art (Masaccio’s Trinita, Ghirlandaio’s frescoed sanctuary) and S. Trinità with fine frescoes by Ghirlandaio.

Day 7. In the morning visit the redoubtable Palazzo Pitti which houses several museums including the Galleria Palatina, outstanding particularly for High Renaissance and Baroque paintings, before driving to Pisa Airport. The flight arrives at Heathrow at c. 4.15pm.

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Florentine Palazzi Defence, humanism, magnificence & beauty Practicalities Price: £2,100 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (Airbus 319); private coach for airport transfers; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 4 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions for museums, etc.; all tips for restaurant staff, drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer.

Single supplement £240 (double for sole use).

Price without flights £1,870.

Hotel: a delightful 4-star hotel in a very central location. Rooms are stylishly decorated.

Dinners are at selected restaurants nearby.

How strenuous? There is a lot of walking on this tour and it would not be suitable for anyone who has difficulties with everyday walking or stair-climbing. Average distance by coach per day: 16 miles.

Small group: between 8 and 18 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Connoisseur’s Rome, 26 February–3 March or 27 February–4 March (page 123).

Left: Florence, Duomo, wood engraving c. 1880; below: Gian Bologna’s Virtue Chaining Vice in the Barghello, engraving from The Magazine of Art 1883.

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6–10 November 2013 (ma 769) 5 days • £1,920 Lecturer: Dr Joachim Strupp A new tour for 2013.

An examination of one of the most fascinating aspects of the Florentine Renaissance, the private palace.

Mediaeval, Baroque, Neo-Classical and 19thcentury examples as well.

Led by Dr Joachim Strupp, Italian art expert who lived in Florence for several years.

Several special arrangements to see palaces not usually open to the public.

Renaissance Florence experienced one of the most spectacular property booms of all time.

From the second half of the fourteenth to the beginning of the sixteenth century as many as 100 private palazzi were built throughout the city. The period was also one of the pivotal moments of western architecture, witnessing a design revolution that was to have an impact on the rest of Europe and the Americas for 500 years.

In the preceding couple of centuries, intense clan and class rivalries required palazzi to be highly defensible structures. Like many Italian cities, Florence bristled with tower houses, of which several stubs can still be seen, and the massive Palazzo Vecchio, the town hall, retains its fortress-like aesthetic. While an intimidating monumentality remained a design feature of the Renaissance palace, decreasing lawlessness and increasing wealth fortuitously combined with new humanist concepts of ‘magnificence’ and ‘virtue’ by which the elite were required to demonstrate their greatness with ‘fitting expenditure’.

Constructed on a magnificent scale, three times the height of a three-storey building today, its spread was equally expansive, frequently swallowing up a multitude of smaller dwellings. And the design of these highfashion mansions represented a dramatic shift in architectural language. The credit for their creation, however, remained the patron rather than the architect. A Renaissance palazzo was intended as a statement of dynastic ambition, its facade emblazoned with coats of arms, its interior trumpeting the family name in every visual detail.

Fortunes were spent – and lost – keeping up with the Medici. Many palaces remained unfinished through lack of funds (neither the Gondi nor the Rucellai were complete at the time of their founder’s death); and even more – including the Pitti and the Davanzati – changed hands through financial necessity

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Palazzo Strozzi, engraving after a drawing by Mrs Oliphant, c. 1888.

within a generation.

By the end of the sixteenth century, the Florentine palazzo was being adapted to accommodate more elaborate households and lifestyles, but splendour remained their defining characteristic. Certainly no Renaissance patron would have felt embarrassed by the endeavours of his 17th- and 18th-century successors, such as Alessandro Capponi or the Corsini family.

Outline itinerary More details are available on application.

Day 1. Fly at c. 10.45am from London Heathrow to Pisa and transfer by coach to Florence in time for a late afternoon visit to the Palazzo Vecchio.

Day 2. Palazzo Davanzati, Palazzo Strozzi, Palazzo Rucellai. By special arrangement, Palazzo Corsini and Palazzo Lanfredini.

Day 3. Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, and by special arrangement Palazzo Pandolfini and Palazzo Capponi all’Annunziata.

Day 4. Uffizi, Vasari Corridor (special arrangement), Palazzo Pitti (private visit to some parts).

Day 5. Fly from Pisa to London Heathrow, arriving at c. 4.15pm.

Continued overleaf...

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Florentine Palazzi continued

Medici Villas & Gardens Renaissance design in the Tuscan countryside

Practicalities Price: £1,920 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (Airbus 319); private coach for airport transfers; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 3 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions for museums, etc.; all tips for restaurant staff, drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer.

Single supplement £160 (double for sole use).

Price without flights £1,750.

Hotel: a delightful 4-star hotel in a very central location. Rooms are stylishly decorated.

Dinners are at selected restaurants nearby.

How strenuous? There is a lot of walking on this tour and it would not be suitable for anyone who has difficulties with everyday walking or stair-climbing. Average distance by coach per day: 21 miles.

Small group: between 8 and 18 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Venetian Palaces, 12–16 November (page 102).

Palaces, houses & gardens Great Houses of the South West............37 Great Houses of the North......................38 Royal Residences.....................................40 Brittany....................................................51 Châteaux of the Loire..............................64 King Ludwig II.......................................78 Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes....91 Venetian Palaces....................................102 Florentine Palazzi..................................113 Medici Villas & Gardens...................... 114 Walking in Madeira..............................148 Grampian Gardens................................154 Ardgowan..............................................156 Scotland: the Borders............................157

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Villa del Poggio a Caiano, engraving c. 1830.

22–26 May 2013 (mz 577) 5 days • £1,730 Lecturer: Dr Katie Campbell Visits many of the surviving Medici villas and gardens around Florence, together with other outstanding examples in the region.

Ideal time of year to see Tuscany in bloom.

Led by Dr Katie Campbell, an expert in landscape history.

Based in Florence throughout, with time to explore the city.

Towards the end of his life, when he was the most successful banker in Europe and effective ruler of Florence, Cosimo de’ Medici, Pater Patriae, liked nothing better than to visit his county estate to prune his vines, tend the garden and enjoy the company of family, scholars and poets. Already the Renaissance ideal of villa life had been born: relaxation through simple country pursuits away from the stench and stress of city life, an agreeable house and garden attached to the estate, and intellectual and aesthetic stimulation.

Plague and siege had periodically driven patricians into the countryside during the Middle Ages, but it needed the more settled conditions of the 15th century and the decline of banditry to allow this practice to become regular and voluntary. The century also saw the rise of a new impulse: the growing intensity of interest in the writings of classical authors and the desire to emulate all things ancient Roman.

Virgil’s pleasure in the countryside and the Younger Pliny’s encomia upon the charms of villa life were powerful catalysts in bringing about the notion of what constitutes a good weekend, which survives to this day.

The earliest Medici villas were essentially

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fortified farmhouses, though Cosimo’s architect, Michelozzo, added a certain comfort and grandeur. However, architecturally the biggest step forward was taken by Cosimo’s grandson, Lorenzo il Magnifico when in 1480 he commissioned Giuliano da Sangallo to design the villa of Poggio a Caiano with a classical temple front – the first time one had been added to a residence.

Raised in the 16th century to Grand Ducal rank with virtually absolutist powers in Tuscany, the Medici family built and re-built extravagantly on their various country estates, lavishing particular attention on the gardens.

With their grand scale, formal avenues, varying altitudes, complex parterres, sculptural incidents, grottoes, fountains and bizarre jokes, they led the world. The villas absorbed much of the energy of Bernardo Buontalenti, Bartolomeo Ammanati, Giambologna and many of the other leading architects, sculptors, and engineers of the day.

Itinerary Day 1: Poggio a Caiano. Fly at c. 11.00am from London Gatwick to Pisa. Visit Poggio a Caiano, built 1480 for Lorenzo il Magnifico

by Giuliano da Sangallo, the first substantial country residence to incorporate symmetrical planning and have a classical temple front.

Drive to Florence.

Day 2: Fiesole. Unlike earlier Medici villas which were all adapted from older structures, the Villa Medici at Fiesole was built ex novo.

The first to provide a stunning view over Florence, it was built by Michelozzo in the 15th century and later became home to Sibyl Cutting and her daughter Iris Origo. The garden of the adjacent Villa Le Balze was designed by Cecil Pinsent for the American philosopher Charles Augustus Strong as a

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revival of the Italian Renaissance ideal, and is arguably the most charming and best-preserved of Pinsent’s work. In the afternoon, see the Villa La Pietra, once the property of Sir Harold Acton, and originally built by Francesco Sassetti, general manager of the Medici Bank in the 15th century. There is an Italianate garden, formal but imaginative, and much sculpture.

Day 3: Trebbio, Settignano. Drive through the very attractive Mugello region north of Florence to an early Medici villa rebuilt by Michelozzo, Il Trebbio, a grandly fortified manor house with machicolations and battlemented towers. Lunch nearby. The Villa Gamberaia at Settignano is one of the most perfect examples of garden architecture. Its present form originated in the 18th century and was then adapted into a late-19th-century marvel with formal water garden and tall hedges, beautifully maintained.

Day 4: Florence. The museum ‘Firenze com’era’ is now housed in the Palazzo Vecchio, and has paintings by Utens of the principal Medici villas in 1599. Visit also the Boboli gardens, the grandest and most famous of all Medici gardens, situated behind the Palazzo Pitti, the main seat of the Medici grand dukes. Free afternoon in Florence.

Day 5: Castello. The Villa Medicea at Castello was designed by Tribolo and completed by Buontalenti for Duke Cosimo I. Its gardens were laid out in the 1540s, and were claimed

by Vasari to be the ‘richest, most magnificent, most ornate…of all Europe’. Nearby is the Villa della Petraia, with its frescoed courtyard, fountain by Giambologna and fine park: given to Cardinal Ferdinando by his father in 1568, it was transformed by Buontalenti in 1576 and adapted in the 19th century for the King of Italy. Fly from Pisa to London Gatwick, arriving c. 4.00pm.

Most of the villas on the itinerary are privately owned and many require special permission to visit.

It must be understood therefore that the selection and order of visits may vary from the description given here.

drivers; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £210 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,550.

Hotel: a delightful 4-star hotel in a very central location; rooms are stylishly decorated.

How strenuous? There is a lot of walking.

Some gardens are very large, many are on sloping ground and the coach is often not able to set down at the entrance to sites. Average distance by coach per day: 44 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Courts of Northern Italy, 12–19 May (page 104) or Southern Tuscany, 13–19 May (page 118).

Practicalities Price: £1,730 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (Boeing 737); private coach for transfers and excursions; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 3 dinners with wine, water and coffee; admission charges for all included visits; all airport, city and other taxes; all tips for restaurant staff and

Lecturers biographies are on page 194.

Florence, The Boboli Gardens, aquatint c. 1820.

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Walking in Tuscany Art, architecture & landscapes in Val d’Orcia & Chianti 6–13 May 2013 (mz 550) 8 days • £2,370 Lecturer: Dr Antonia Whitley 23–30 September 2013 (ma 712) 8 days • £2,370 Lecturer: Dr Antonia Whitley Five half-day walks through exquisite landscape of soaring Cypress, olives and vines.

Art history away from the tourist throngs – mediaeval fortress towns, Romanesque churches, Renaissance palazzi, Sienese painting.

Based in two tiny towns in topographically diverse areas of Tuscany.

Led by Dr Antonia Whitley, expert art historian and lecturer specialising in the Italian Renaissance.

Three wine tastings, in Montalcino, Chianti and Badia a Coltibuono.

To walk through quintessentially Tuscan landscapes, along chalky tracks lined with soaring cypress trees and flanked by neat rows of vines and well-kept olive trees, must surely be one of life’s great pleasures. The walks selected here pass through farmland and woodland, where primrose, violet and cyclamen nestle below chestnut, holm oak and beech.

Pine trees grace the higher terrain. Walking is conducive to observing at close quarters the variations of plant, animal and birdlife in this enchanting countryside.

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But if seeing the artistic and architectural delights in these parts of Tuscany is your aim, this tour also offers opportunity to do so. We avoid the tourist throngs in the larger towns and cities and concentrate on the smaller and less-visited places. Mediaeval fortress towns, Romanesque churches, Renaissance palazzi and paintings of the Sienese school are particularly in evidence here. Sometimes these are seen at the beginning or the end of a morning’s walk, sometimes during a half day spent in leisurely exploration of one of the enchanting little cities or settlements. All are seen in the enlightening company of an art historian.

And while the walks are taxing enough to ensure that hearty evening meals are fully deserved, they are not so strenuous as to detract from enjoying the ever-changing views and natural, agricultural and constructed sights.

We take trouble to ensure that much of what you eat is produced from fine local ingredients, including Pecorino cheese (whose pungent flavour is due to the herbs grazed by ewes on the unique clay soils south of Siena) and the prized salami of the cinta senese pigs. The food is often perfectly complemented by a glass of one of the world’s finest red wines.

As this tour is based for three nights in Radda in Chianti, today still the nucleus

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of Tuscan viticulture and where the noble Sangiovese vine is most prevalent, opportunity is allowed for tastings of these robust reds.

We also visit a producer of some of the finest Chianti Classico, in a former monastery where thirsty monks made a wine similar to the sophisticated Chianti produced today.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 8.45am from London Heathrow (May) or c. 11.00am from London Gatwick (September) to Pisa. Drive to Pienza, a gem of Renaissance architecture created by Pope Pius II as a tribute to his place of birth, which is the base for four nights.

Day 2: San Quirico, Pienza. Drive to the little walled town of San Quirico d’Orcia. Visit the Collegiata with its splendid portals and the Horti Leonini, public gardens dating to the 17th century. Walk back to Pienza (c. 6 miles) through rolling, open farmland of rare beauty, visiting the Romanesque church of Corsignano before the steady climb to Pienza. In the afternoon, gently explore this little city where at the centre the cathedral, episcopal palace and Pius’s own palazzo form a harmonious group.

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Day 3: Sant’Antimo, Montalcino. Walk down from near Montalcino through a pretty valley, part vineyard, partially wooded, punctuated by farmsteads, and arrive at the remote and serene monastery of Sant’Antimo (c. 5.5 miles).

This most beautiful of Romanesque churches is in part constructed of luminous alabaster.

Once an impregnable fortress and now centre of Brunello wines, Montalcino is a hilltop community with magnificent views and a collection of Sienese paintings in the civic museum. There is a wine tasting here. Return by coach to Pienza.

Day 4: Montepulciano, Monticchiello.

Montepulciano is one of the most picturesque of Tuscan hill towns, with grey stone palaces piled up towards the main square at the apex.

The cathedral here is rich in Renaissance works of art, while outside the walls is a centrally planned church, a Renaissance masterpiece.

The mediaeval hamlet of Monticchiello, with views across Val d’Orcia, is the starting point for a late-afternoon walk through a valley leading to Pienza (c. 4 miles).

Day 5: Monte Oliveto Maggiore, Asciano.

The monastery of Monte Oliveto Maggiore is a fine complex of Early Renaissance art and architecture, the cloister having 36 frescoes

by Signorelli and Sodoma (1505–8). Break the journey in Asciano, a delightful town sitting in the heart of the Crete Senesi, a name Montepulciano, aquatint c. 1830.

deriving from the chalky Sienese earth. Radda in Chianti, once the capital of the Chianti League established in 1250, is one of the most attractive of the region’s settlements. Stay three nights in Radda.

Day 6: Gaiole in Chianti, Badia a Coltibuono.

From Gaiole, walk a pleasantly varied route through Chianti countryside with woodland, vineyards and breath-taking vistas (c. 6 miles).

Badia a Coltibuono, a former abbey founded by Vallombrosan monks, has an important history of viticulture. Lunch and wine tasting at the estate restaurant before a visit to the abbey’s 16th-century frescoed refectory, gardens and wine cellars.

Day 7: Volpaia. The well-preserved hamlet of Volpaia hides sophisticated wine cellars within its mediaeval walls. The village is dedicated to the arts and wine-making, ensuring its original architectural features remain intact.

Walk down through the estate’s impressively maintained vineyards to the valley floor before a climb to Radda (c. 5 miles).

Day 8: Fly from Pisa, arriving London Heathrow at c. 2.30pm (May), or London Gatwick at c. 4.00pm (September).

Practicalities Price: £2,370 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (Airbus 320); travel by private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 2 lunches (including wine-tasting) and 5 dinners with wine, water and coffee; 1 separate wine tasting with a talk on Chianti Classico; all admissions; all tips for restaurant staff and drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £290 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,140.

Hotels: Pienza (4 nights): a former friary dating to the 15th century close to the main square; bedrooms vary in size and are simply decorated; terrace with formal gardens and impressive view and restaurant serving good Tuscan cooking. Radda (3 nights): a 17thcentury manor house with historical links to Chianti wine production; several lounges, terrace with valley view, restaurant and outdoor pool; rooms vary in size.

There are five walks of between 4 and 6 miles.

Average distance by coach per day: 44 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 18 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine the September departure with The Heart of Italy, 15–22 September (page 119) or History of Medicine, 16–22 September (page 111).

Incontri in Terra di Siena July 2013 Details available November 2012 Contact us to register your interest A series of chamber concerts in the stunning surroundings of Villa La Foce and other venues in the hills of the Val d’Orcia.

Directed by Antonio Lysy, the festival is in its 24th year and brings together varied performances in intimate settings.

Highlights include performances by the Quartetto di Cremona and Ralph Kirschbaum.

Based throughout in the charming Renaissance town of Pienza.

Walking

Walking the Danube...............................13 The Schubertiade with Hill Walking.....14 Walking Hadrian’s Wall.........................26 The Cotswolds.........................................41 Walking in Tuscany...............................116 Walking in Sicily...................................135 Walking in Madeira..............................148 Walking to Santiago..............................164

How strenuous? This tour should only be considered by those who are used to regular country walking, with some uphill content.

Strong knees and ankles are essential, as are a pair of well-worn hiking boots with good ankle support. Walks have been carefully selected but some steep rises are unavoidable and terrain can be loose under foot, particularly in wet weather.

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Southern Tuscany The Sienese Contado & the Val d’Orcia 13–19 May 2013 (mz 575) 7 days • £2,040 Lecturer: Dr Fabrizio Nevola

Day 5: Siena. Siena, City of the Virgin, is the most beautiful of Italian hill towns. You can opt to join the lecturer for her personal selection of some of the choicest items or go your own way (the itinerary assumes that you will be familiar with the main places of interest). Palazzo Piccolomini (1460s) contains the archives and a museum displaying beautifully painted covers of civic records. Visit the art collection of the Palazzo Chigi Saracini.

The imposing cathedral, a Romanesque and Gothic construction of white and green marble, offers an outstanding array of sculpture and painting. Especially deserving of close attention are the crypt and Pinturicchio’s frescoes in the Piccolomini Library.

Hilltop towns and villages, spectacular countryside.

Based throughout in the charming Renaissance town of Pienza.

The lecturer is Dr Fabrizio Nevola, a specialist in architectural history.

A good mix of architecture and art with a day spent in Siena.

This tour is representative of a type in which there is a shift of emphasis away from the major masterpieces of a region towards the lesser delights, from a concentrated diet of cultural achievement familiar from text books towards a mélange of landscape, less accessible art and a sense of the continuity of life and community amidst ancient masonry.

All six nights of the tour are based in the small hill town of Pienza. Formerly called Corsignano, it was the birthplace of Pope Pius II, humanist, historian, traveller, autobiographer and patron of architecture.

Between his election in 1458 and his death in 1464, he commenced the rebuilding of his home town and provided it with a cathedral, bishop’s palace, town hall, a palace for himself and a new name. Consequently Pienza entered the annals of architectural history as the earliest example of Renaissance town planning.

If you delight in places which lie off the beaten track, in tiny hill towns where vineyards clamber up to the fourteenth-century walls, in majestic landscapes of storm-tossed hills punctuated by cypresses, in the discovery of great architecture and exquisite paintings in unexpected places, in tracing a maze of alleys scarcely changed for 500 years, this tour is likely to please.

Itinerary Day 1: Pienza. Fly at c. 11.00am from London Gatwick to Pisa Airport. From there drive to Pienza, arriving in time to settle into the hotel before dinner. All six nights are spent here, with its trailblazing Renaissance architecture and set in some of the best of Tuscan landscape.

Day 2: Pienza, Monte Oliveto Maggiore. In the morning, a leisurely exploration of Pienza, the tiny hill town rebuilt 1459–64 by Pope Pius II in accordance with Renaissance ideals. The cathedral and palaces grouped around the main piazza were designed by Bernardo Rossellino in collaboration with his papal patron. Visit the Palazzo Piccolomini, and the cathedral.

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Siena, The Palazzo Pubblico, engraving c. 1890.

In the afternoon visit the monastery of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, an exquisite complex of Early Renaissance art and architecture, the main cloister having 36 frescoes by Signorelli and Sodoma (1505–8).

Day 3: Sant’Antimo, Montalcino, Bagni Vignoni, La Foce. Located in a remote valley, the partly ruinous monastery of Sant’Antimo has a strikingly beautiful Romanesque church, in part constructed of luminous alabaster.

Once an impregnable fortress and now centre of Brunello wines, Montalcino is a walled hilltop village with magnificent views and a collection of Sienese painting in the museum.

Bagni Vignoni has a central square occupied by an arcaded Renaissance piscina. Villa La Foce, former home of Iris Origo, has a garden designed by Cecil Pinsent.

Day 4: San Leonardo al Lago, Montesiepi, Cetinale, San Galgano. In the parish churches of San Leonardo al Lago and Montesiepi are two remarkable Sienese paintings of the Annunciation, respectively by Lippo Vanni and Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Villa Cetinale is a fine 17th-century garden excellently restored by the late owner Lord Lambton. At San Galgano are the impressive Gothic ruins of what in the 13th century had been one of the richest Cistercian abbeys in Italy.

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Day 6: Montepulciano, Pienza. The main thoroughfare of Montepulciano, lined with grand palaces, winds circuitously through this once important city, with the Piazza Grande at the summit. The cathedral here is rich in Renaissance works of art. Outside the town, the centrally planned church of San Biagio by Antonio da Sangallo is one of the masterpieces of the Renaissance. Return mid-afternoon to Pienza and visit the diocesan museum in the restored Palazzo Borgia.

Day 7: Pienza. Fly from Pisa to London Gatwick, arriving c. 4.00pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,040 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (Airbus 320); travel by private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 4 dinners with wine, water and coffee; a wine tasting; all admissions; all tips for restaurant staff and drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager.

Single supplement £290 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,920.

Hotel: The hotel is a former convent dating back to the 15th century excellently situated off the main square of the town. Rooms vary in size and are simply decorated. Some bathrooms have a bath with shower fitment and some a shower only. There is a terrace with formal gardens and impressive views. The restaurant offers good Tuscan cooking.

How strenuous? There is a lot of walking on this tour, much of it on the steep and roughly paved streets of the hill towns. Average distance by coach per day: 76 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Medici Villas & Gardens, 22–26 May (page 114).

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The Heart of Italy Tuscany & Umbria Assisi, etching c. 1930.

15–22 September 2013 (ma 692) 8 days • £2,160 Lecturer: Dr Fabrizio Nevola One of our most popular tours – an excellent survey of the art and architecture of Umbria and Tuscany, heartland of the Renaissance.

Based throughout in the hilltop town of Spello, amidst ageless undulating countryside.

The lecturer is Dr Fabrizio Nevola, a specialist in architectural history.

Perugia, Arezzo, Assisi and significant smaller towns away from the main tourist centres.

Avoiding the major centres, this tour concentrates on a selection of the smaller towns and cities – the centri minori – of Umbria and Tuscany. Spread across the heart of Italy, these regions contain a disproportionately large quantity of what the country is most loved for: ancient streetscapes crammed onto hilltops, exquisitely undulating countryside of olive, cypress and vine, and an abundance of wonderful art.

Rarely can the spirit of the Middle Ages be so potently felt as in the hill towns of central Italy. That such small communities could have built each dwelling so massively, raised churches and public buildings of such magnificence and created works of art of such monumentality inspires awe bordering on disbelief among today’s visitors.

This is also the heartland of the Renaissance, and several of the leading artists of the era were natives who worked here before being inveigled to the great metropolises of Florence and Rome.

Many of the most important and beautiful of Italy’s incomparable patrimony of paintings and frescoes are included on this tour. The great Giottesque cycle at Assisi stands at the beginning of the modern era of art, Piero della Francesca’s Arezzo frescoes are among the greatest achievements of the Early Renaissance and the Last Judgement frescoes by Signorelli in Orvieto are on the cusp of the High Renaissance. While in the field of architecture Romanesque and Gothic predominate, there are many major Renaissance buildings, including the centrally planned churches at Todi and Montepulciano.

The man-made environment melds with the natural in a picturesque union of intense beauty. It is a landscape of rumpled hills, sometimes rugged and forested, sometimes tamed in the struggle to cultivate, always speckled with ancient farmsteads, fortified villages and isolated churches. Even from the central piazze of many of these towns there are Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

views of countryside which seems scarcely to have changed for centuries.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 10.30am from London Heathrow to Rome. Drive to Spello, the small, quiet town which is the base for this tour.

Day 2: Assisi. Drive the short distance to Assisi and spend much of the morning at San Francesco, mother church of the Franciscan Order. Here is one of the greatest assemblages of mediaeval fresco painting, including the controversial cycle of the Life of St Francis.

In the afternoon walk through the austere mediaeval streets and visit the church of S. Chiara and the Romanesque cathedral.

Day 3: Spello, Montefalco. The small hilltop town of Spello has fine Roman remains and richly coloured Renaissance frescoes

by Pinturicchio in the church of S. Maria Maggiore. Montefalco is another delightful hilltop community with magnificent views

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of the valley below and hills around. In the deconsecrated church of Francesco are frescoes

by Benozzo Gozzoli. Some free time in Spello.

Day 4: Perugia, capital of Umbria, is one of the largest and loveliest of Italian hill towns and has both major works of art and architecture and an authentic, age-old liveliness of a prosperous market town. Morning visits include the Palazzo dei Priori, the mediaeval town hall now housing the National Gallery of Umbria, and a merchants’ hall. An afternoon walk includes an impressive Etruscan city gateway, the mediaeval walls and the richly carved façade of the Renaissance church of S. Bernardino.

Day 5: Pienza, Montepulciano. The humanist Pope Pius II was born in the tiny town of Pienza and instigated the rebuilding of its centre in accordance with Renaissance ideals. The cathedral, episcopal palace and his own palazzo form a harmonious group.

Montepulciano is one of the most picturesque of Tuscan hill towns with a centrally planned

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The Heart of Italy continued

Art in Le Marche a wealth of lesser-known fine art & architecture

Renaissance church and a cathedral with several outstanding works of art.

Day 6: Sansepolcro, Arezzo, two cities which were laid out on alluvial plains. Borgo Sansepolcro, with a regular grid pattern betraying its Roman origin, was the home town of the 15th-century painter Piero della Francesca; see his Resurrection and other works by him in the local museum. Arezzo was one of the great cities of Tuscany in the Middle Ages, and was also a Roman foundation. In the church of S. Francesco is Piero della Francesca’s masterpiece, the fresco cycle of The Legend of the True Cross. See also the cathedral and a Romanesque church with an altarpiece by the 14th-century Sienese painter Pietro Lorenzetti.

Day 7: Todi, Orvieto. Visit S. Maria della Consolazione, Todi, a centrally planned Renaissance church influenced by Bramante’s ideas. Continue to Orvieto where the glistening marble Gothic cathedral dominates this entrancing hilltop town. Among its treasures are the low relief sculptures by Maitani and the apocalyptic Last Judgement frescoes by Signorelli (1505).

Day 8: Bagnaia. Break the return journey to Rome with the wonderful Renaissance gardens at the Villa Lante at Bagnaia. Lunch here before flying from Rome, arriving London Heathrow at c. 7.00pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,160 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (economy class) with British Airways (Airbus 319); private coach travel; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £170 (double for sole use). Price without flights £1,950.

Hotel: a modest 4-star in the centre of Spello, converted from a family palazzo dating back to the 17th century. Furnishings are in keeping with the history of the building. There is a frescoed lounge and a terraced garden with views of the countryside. Rooms are comfortable but vary in size.

How strenuous? There is a lot of walking, much of it on steep and roughly paved streets: agility and sure-footedness are essential. This tour involves a lot of coach travel. Average distance by coach per day: 95 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine with The Etruscans, 23–29 September (page 122); Walking in Tuscany, 23–30 September (page 116); Sicily, 23 September–4 Oct. (page 133).

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Loreto, engraving 1700.

10–18 June 2013 (mz 600) 9 days • £2,460 Lecturer: Polly Buston Explores the small cities in the hills and valleys of the Marche.

Paintings by Crivelli and Lotto provide pegs around which the tour is planned.

Led by Polly Buston, expert art historian and lecturer at the Cortauld Summer School.

Wonderful landscape and streetscape.

Nearly everywhere hilly and in some parts mountainous, the Italian Marches have always been difficult of access. Even now, away from the coast the roads are slow, as is the pace of life. The Marches look and feel much like the Italy of a generation ago, and compared with Tuscany and Umbria there are few tourists.

For some travellers these are sufficient reasons for going there immediately, and that is without citing the captivating landscape and the innumerable unspoilt hilltop towns.

Ragged hills are spattered untidily with pasturage, fruit trees, vineyards and woods, and each peak is crowned with a pink-grey clump of

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walls and towers. The topography did not lead to poverty or cultural backwardness, however, and tucked away in churches and museums are many gems of mediaeval and Renaissance art.

If you seek a succession of mainstream masterpieces which provide the shock of recognition, the Marches should not be a priority for you. For the adventurous aesthete, however, the region has plenty to delight and much of great merit. Two painters in particular are associated with the area, Carlo Crivelli and Lorenzo Lotto, and the best of the pictures by these wayward geniuses are pegs around which this tour has been designed.

Carlo Crivelli (c. 1435–1494) was one of the greatest artists of the Early Renaissance.

Avidly collected in the nineteenth century, he became an embarrassment to art historians in the twentieth because he didn’t fit into the received schemes of stylistic development. He persevered with gold backgrounds, low relief ornament and elaborate framing long after they were abandoned elsewhere in Italy. But within these conservative conventions he created an emotionally charged use of line, powerfully tactile detail, virtuosic use of perspective and intensity of expression.

Lorenzo Lotto (c. 1480–1557) was similarly b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Gothic frescoes by the Salimbeni brothers.

Drive to Recanati for the first of four nights.

Day 3: Recanati, Loreto. A charming town, Recanati spreads along the ridge of a neighbouring hill; four of Lotto’s paintings are in the museum, including the famous Annunciation. Then spend the afternoon in Loreto, another great pilgrimage centre, where some of the finest artists and architects of Renaissance Italy worked, including Bramante, Signorelli, Melozzo da Forli and Lotto, several of whose last works are here.

Day 4: Cingoli, Tolentino. From the perimeter of the hilltop town of Cingoli there are magnificent views over vast tracts of rolling landscape. Arising from dour mediaeval streetscape, the church of San Domenico contains a masterpiece by Lotto, the Rosary Madonna. Now something of a backwater, the shrine of S. Nicola da Tolentino once made the town a major pilgrimage destination and the sumptuous church has fine mediaeval frescoes.

individualistic, and his works evince similar emotional power. Also born in Venice, most of his long and peripatetic career was spent in small cities in the Venetian Empire and the Marches. While the major figures of Italian painting – Bellini, Raphael and Titian – provided the foundations of his style, he was also influenced by the angular expressiveness of German painting.

Itinerary Day 1: Urbino. Fly at 9.30am from London Heathrow to Bologna, and drive to Urbino, Duke Federico da Montefeltro’s principal residence and one of Italy’s loveliest towns.

Overnight Urbino.

Day 2: Urbino, Recanati. Unravel the building history and examine the interior of the finest Renaissance palace in Italy, built over half a century from the 1450s for the dukes of Urbino, with the loveliest of all arcaded courtyards, serene halls of state, beautifully carved ornament and exquisite study. The art collection includes paintings by Piero della Francesca, Raphael and Titian. An afternoon walk takes in the outstanding International Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

Day 5: Ancona, Jesi. The ancient port of Ancona clings to the cliffs around a busy harbour with the beautiful pre-Romanesque cathedral of S. Ciriaco at the summit. Other churches contain an Assumption by Lotto and a Crucifixion by Titian, and the art gallery has works by Crivelli, Lotto and Titian. From here drive through some of the loveliest landscape so far, high and hilly but undulating and cultivated, to Jesi, a handsome little city with a Renaissance town hall and a superb Rococo palace, now an art gallery.

Day 6: Monte S. Giusto, Fermo, Montefiore dell’Aso. Drive through the hills and towards the coast, first stopping at Monte San Giusto to see the great Crucifixion by Lorenzo Lotto, described by Berenson as the finest of the 16th century. In the hilltop town of Fermo there is a sequence of architectural delights and at Montefiore dell’Aso a Crivelli is preserved in the Collegiata. First of three nights in Ascoli Piceno, an exceedingly attractive little city, ringed by rivers and wooded hills.

Day 7: Ascoli Piceno. Explore the centre of Ascoli, an unspoilt agglomeration of mediaeval, Renaissance and Baroque buildings around arcaded squares and narrow streets. One of Crivelli’s finest altarpieces is in the cathedral and paintings by him and others in his circle are in the diocesan and municipal museums.

In the afternoon, there is some free time to see other churches and their artworks and to explore other picturesque parts of the town.

Martino. Here, there is a little church with four excellent 15th-century polyptychs, by Carlo Crivelli, his brother Vittore and two ‘Crivelleschi’. Offida is built on a spur and ringed by walls with a 13th-century church at its apex and a delightful 18th-century theatre in the main square.

Day 9. Fly from Rome Fiumicino, arriving at London Heathrow c. 3.15pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,460 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (aircraft: Airbus 319 and Boeing 737); hotel accommodation as described below; travel by private coach throughout; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 6 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions to museums, galleries, etc.; all tips for restaurant staff, drivers, guides; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £260. Price without flights £2,250. Contact us for a price for a room with a hill view.

Hotels: Urbino (1 night): converted from a monastery building and the most centrally located hotel, opposite the Ducal Palace.

Recanati (4 nights): a former private palazzo, the rooms are furnished and decorated in a contemporary style. Ascoli (3 nights): a converted Renaissance palace in the heart of the city, which retains many original features.

Rooms are spacious, stylishly decorated and comfortable. All three hotels are rated locally as 4-star.

How strenuous? There is a lot of hilly driving and walking on steep, cobbled streets. Average distance by coach per day: 86 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Palladian Villas, 4–9 June (page 98) or Northumbria, 19–27 June (page 28).

Trasimeno Music Festival July 2013 Details available February 2013 Contact us to register your interest

Day 8: Monte S. Martino, Offida. Drive through the foothills of the Monti Sibillini, among the most dramatic ranges in the Apennines to the village of Monte San

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The Etruscans Italy before Rome 23–29 September 2013 (ma 710) 7 days • 1,780 Lecturer: Dr Nigel Spivey Two spaces remaining.

A new tour for 2013.

Visits some of the most important and bestpreserved Etruscan sites in Lazio and Tuscany.

Led by Dr Nigel Spivey, Senior Lecturer in Classical Art and Archaeology at the University of Cambridge.

Explores a remote part of Italy’s history, and areas of Italy’s heartland which few tourists reach.

‘The mysterious Etruscans’. For several centuries they flourished in the area between Rome and Florence, creating a federation of twelve cities and living in notorious splendour. Then, as the little village of Rome expanded into an empire-building Republic, the Etruscans succumbed, and were almost obliterated from history. Only since the nineteenth century has the extent of Etruscan civilization been brought to light, and the Etruscans restored as ‘true ancestors’ of modern Italy.

Our route is an exploration of the best archaeological sites and museums in northern Lazio, southern Tuscany and along the Tyrrhenian coast. By burying their dead with

care and extravagance in cemeteries laid out with urban grandeur, the Etruscans left many clues as to their existence. We follow their trail, which leads to museums in mediaeval castles and tombs cut from cliffs and rocks amid rich agricultural land, a ‘city of the dead’ shaped in volcanic stone. Brightly-painted scenes of feasting and dancing have been revealed on subterranean walls. This is a landscape riddled with tombs (about half a million of them), but the atmosphere is far from morbid.

The tour offers an opportunity to visit a series of fascinating places on an itinerary that would challenge the independent traveller, journeying through beautiful countryside via some of the most charming and under-visited towns in Lazio and Tuscany. It is accompanied, as always, by an expert in the field. Nigel Spivey has excavated at the sites of Cerveteri and Tuscania, both visited by the group, and studied Etruscology at Rome, Cambridge and Pisa for a dissertation on Etruscan vases.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 11.00am from London Heathrow to Rome Fiumicino. Drive to Viterbo, where the first three nights are spent.

Day 2: Tarquinia, Barbarano Romano. The unesco site of the Necropoli dei Monterozzi, part of a once thriving Etruscan city, has outstanding examples of painted tombs depicting everyday life and scenes of the journey to the next world. The charming but

rarely visited town of Tarquinia has possibly the best Etruscan museum in Italy, housed in the splendid 15th-century Palazzo Vitelleschi. Its extensive collection of pottery, jewellery and carved sarcophagi is testament to the prosperity attained by Tarquinia over the course of the 7th and 6th centuries bc. In the afternoon visit the rock tombs of San Giuliano within the natural park at Barbarano Romano, and Castel D’Asso, which has examples of cube tombs dating from the 4th century bc.

Day 3: Tuscania. Prosperous and powerful in Etruscan times, Tuscania is now a pretty hill town. Visit three tombs in the surrounding area, including the monumental Tomba del Dado, which provides fascinating insight into Etruscan residential architecture. Articles found in some of these tombs and others in the area are in the archaeological museum in Tuscania, visited this afternoon.

Day 4: Vulci, Grosseto. The vast archaeological park in Vulci contains many Etruscan remains above ground, a startling contrast to the subterranean sites. The ruins of the Casa del Criptoportico (2nd–1st century bc) map out rooms with mosaic floors, and a long dromos leads to an underground covered portico. In the afternoon visit the archaeological museum inside the Castello della Badia and the vertiginous adjoining bridge. Drive to Grosseto where the next three nights are spent.

Day 5: Vetulonia, Sovana. In the morning visit the tombs surrounding the town of Vetulonia, Paintings from Cerveteri, wood engraving from Cities & Cemeteries of Etruria, 1878.

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b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Connoisseur’s Rome With private visits including the Sistine Chapel Rome, Basilica of St Peter, copper engraving c. 1780.

including the Tomba della Pietrera (630–600 bc), a particularly large example of a tholos tomb topped with a mound of earth. Continue to picturesque Pitigliano for lunch before exploring the nearby archaeological park at Sovana. Walk along one of the Etruscan roads flanked by towering walls of tufaceous rock and see several noteworthy tombs, including the Tomba della Sirena, decorated with a sculpture of the mythological Scylla.

Day 6: Populonia. Drive to the coast to visit the archaeological park at Populonia. The burial grounds here date to the 9th century bc and the sculpted legs of stone funeral beds can be seen. The highest point of the park offers a spectacular view of the bay of Baratti and the Necropoli delle Grotte, with two storeys of tombs. The afternoon is free in Grosseto.

Day 7: Cerveteri. In the morning drive down the coast to the unesco site at Cerveteri, a city of necropolises ranging from the hut-like to the sumptuous based on the homes of the city’s wealthy inhabitants. Fly from Rome Fiumicino, arriving at London Heathrow c. 5.00pm.

Practicalities £1,780 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (Airbus 319); travel by private coach; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 2 lunches (including 1 picnic) and 4 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admission charges to museums, sites etc; all tips for restaurant staff and drivers; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £90. Price without flights £1,570.

Hotels: Viterbo (3 nights): a functional hotel within walking distance of the historic centre.

Rated locally as 4-star but more comparable to a 3-star. Grosseto (3 nights): a comfortable 4-star hotel, excellently located within the city walls, elegantly furnished, and with friendly staff.

How strenuous? Unavoidably there is a lot of walking on this tour, much of it over uneven ground. It is not suitable for anyone who has difficulties with everyday walking and stairclimbing, as fitness and sure-footedness are essential. Coaches cannot always park near the sites, many of which are vast. Average distance by coach per day: 92 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with The Heart of Italy, 15–22 September (page 119); History of Medicine, 16–22 September (page 111); Ravenna & Urbino, 2–6 October (page 107).

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26 February–3 March 2013 (mz 477) 6 days • £2,480 Lecturer: Dr Michael Douglas-Scott 27 February–4 March 2013 (mz 478) 6 days • £2,380 Lecturer: Dr Joachim Strupp Extraordinary artistic riches which are difficult to access or are rarely open to the public, including an out-of-hours visit to the Sistine Chapel.

Highlights of the Renaissance and Baroque.

Led by expert art historians.

As appealing for those new to the city as for frequent visitors.

Many of Rome’s artistic riches are not easily accessible to the visitor. The emphasis of this tour is on places which are difficult of access or are rarely open to the public – on treasures which lie beyond normally impenetrable portals.

Privileged access also takes the form of visits to places outside their normal opening hours.

Instead of sharing the Sistine Chapel with hundreds of other visitors, around forty Martin Randall Travel clients, from two tours which apart from one other private visit do not meet, will have the place to themselves for a couple of hours. The two tours overlap so that the high cost of private admission to the Vatican museums is spread between the two.

What we manage to include varies each time we run the tour. Though it is likely that most of the places mentioned in the itinerary given

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below will be visited, arrangements depend on the generosity of owners and institutions and are occasionally subject to cancellation, but our network of contacts and know-how would enable us to arrange alternatives.

Some better known and generally accessible places are included in the itinerary as well, so the tour should appeal both to those who are unfamiliar with the city as well as to those who have been many times before.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 12.45pm from London Heathrow to Rome.

Day 2. See Bernini’s oval church of S. Andrea, and in the monastery the rooms of St Stanislav Kostka with sculpture by Pierre Legros. The ceiling fresco by Guido Reni in the Casino dell’Aurora in the garden of the Palazzo Pallavicini Rospigliosi is one of the greatest works of 17th-century classicism. In the afternoon visit the early-Christian basilica San Clemente, notable for its three historical layers.

The Sancta Sanctorum, adjacent to St John Lateran, part of the mediaeval papal residence, is decorated with Cosmati mosaics (1278).

Day 3. The Palazzo della Cancelleria, begun in 1485 by Cardinal Raffaele Riario, is a masterpiece of early Renaissance secular architecture and has frescoes by Vasari of the life of Pope Paul III. The Palazzo Colonna is an agglomeration of building and decoration of many centuries, and has a collection which includes works by Bronzino, Titian, Veronese and Guercino. The 17th-century Great Hall is surely one of the most magnificent secular

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Connoisseur’s Rome continued

Caravaggio From Lombardy to Rome

rooms in Rome. Palazzo Doria Pamphilj holds a famous picture collection. S. Ignazio has illusionistic ceiling painting by Andrea del Pozzo.

Day 4. By special arrangement, visit the 16th-century Villa Medici, now the seat of the French Academy. The Villa Madama (now used for diplomatic receptions), designed by Raphael and Antonio da Sangallo the younger for Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, is one of the most important, as well as most beautiful, of Italian Renaissance villas. The delightful Villa La Farnesina has frescoes by Raphael.

Day 5. Within the private precincts of the Order of the Knights of Malta is a church

by G.B. Piranesi. In the evening there is a private visit to the Vatican palace to see the Sistine Chapel and the adjacent Stanze.

With Michelangelo’s ceiling fresco, his Last Judgement on the end wall and the quattrocento wall frescoes, together with Raphael’s frescoes in the Stanze, this is the most precious assemblage of painting in the western world.

Day 6. See Borromini’s trick of perspective in the arcade of the Palazzo Spada. Visit the Ara Pacis, Augustus’s monumental altar of peace.

Fly from Rome, arriving Heathrow c. 7.00pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,480 (mz 477), £2,380 (mz 478), (deposit £250). This includes: flights (economy class) with British Airways (Airbus 319); travel by private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts; 1 lunch and 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions, including a private visit to the Vatican Museums; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and the tour manager. Single supplement £390 (mz 477), £310 (mz 478). Price without flights £2,260 (mz 477), £2,160 (mz 478).

Hotels: 26 Feb.–3 March: a 5-star hotel in a 17th-century palazzo, just off the Via Condotti at the bottom of the Spanish Steps. Public rooms are relatively small but comfortable, while bedrooms are furnished in traditional style with antiques. 27 Feb.–4 March: recently renovated 4-star, a former 17th-century convent just south of Piazza del Popolo. Public areas and rooms mix traditional and contemporary styles. Rooms are spacious and comfortable.

How strenuous? Despite the central location of the hotel there is unavoidably a lot of walking.

The historic area is vast, and vehicular access is increasingly restricted. A coach is used occasionally but otherwise the city is traversed on foot. Average coach travel per day: 9 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

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The Entombment of Christ, engraving after Caravaggio’s painting in The Art Journal 1862.

7–13 October 2013 (ma 734) 7 days • £2,870 Lecturer: Dr Helen Langdon Unhurried appreciation of the finest painter of the Italian Baroque, in the company of his foremost biographer.

Almost twenty Caravaggio canvasses in all: most in some of Italy’s greatest art museums, some in their original chapels, and one in private hands.

The lecturer is Dr Helen Langdon, Caravaggio expert and author of Caravaggio: a Life.

First class rail travel between Milan and Rome.

When Caravaggio died in 1610 aged 38 he was the most famous painter in Italy, and the most influential. His reputation slumped in subsequent centuries but in recent decades his stock has risen steadily to a new peak. His

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works are now widely regarded as the most immediately compelling and dramatically charged in the whole history of Italian art.

With unflinching realism, stark contrasts of light and shade and intense emotional power, his art burst upon the tired, febrile artistic scene of fin-de-siècle Italy like a Damascene conversion. His paintings were radically innovatory, even shocking; his personality was arrogant, tempestuous and violent. Accused of murder, he fled Rome and sought exile successively in Naples, Malta and Sicily, time and again obliged by further conflict to make a fresh start.

Nevertheless, in his own lifetime connoisseurs clamoured for works. His patrons and protectors were among the richest and most powerful of cardinals, bankers and aristocrats. Though paintings by him now hang in museums around the world, many remain in the cities where he produced them, some still in the chapels for which they were made. b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

This tour begins in Lombardy, including the small town from which the artist took his name. It ends in Rome, where he established both his reputation and his notoriety.

Throughout it allows unhurried viewing of many of his finest paintings. The focus on a single artist provides not just a thematic stringency, but also a springboard to enhance the appreciation of the arts of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Italy.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. midday from London Heathrow to Milan. There is an introductory lecture in the hotel. Stay two nights in Milan.

Day 2: Milan, Caravaggio. Visit the Brera, one of the premier art collections in Italy, which includes the Supper at Emmaus. In the afternoon drive out to the town of Caravaggio for an introductory walk.

Day 3: Milan, Rome. Visit the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana to see Caravaggio’s Still Life: Basket of Fruit. In the afternoon travel to Rome in first class on a Frecciarossa train, a journey of less than four hours. Stay four nights in Rome.

Day 4: Rome. Walk in the street where Caravaggio rented rooms near the Corso, and see three churches containing major religious paintings, including San Luigi dei Francesi (The Calling of St. Matthew), Sant’Agostino (Madonna di Loreto), and Santa Maria del Popolo (The Conversion of St. Paul and The Crucifixion of St. Peter). In the afternoon visit the Galleria Doria-Pamhilj to see Caravaggio’s Rest on the Flight into Egypt and Penitent Magdalene.

Day 5: Rome. The Palazzo Barberini holds several important works, including Judith beheading Holofernes. Continue to the Villa Ludovisi, which houses Caravaggio’s early ceiling painting Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto (special arrangement). More paintings by Caravaggio and his peers are seen in the Capitoline Museums, which also house a breathtaking and recently-renovated collection of Ancient Roman statuary.

airport. Fly from Rome arriving at London Heathrow at c. 7.00pm.

There is a possibility that not all of the works mentioned above will be seen; sometimes galleries loan them at very short notice.

New

2013 will be the first year in which the following new tours and music festivals will be offered:

Practicalities

The Western Balkans...............................17

Price: £2,870 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel with British Airways (economy class); travel by coach, minibus and rail (first class); accommodation as described below; breakfasts; 1 lunch; 4 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters, porters and drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £460 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,660.

Music in Scandinavia..............................23

Hotels: Milan (2 nights): a 4-star Belle Epoque style hotel excellently located 50 metres from the Duomo. Rome (4 nights): a 4-star hotel a short walk from Piazza Farnese, traditionally furnished and has a courtyard garden.

How strenuous? Despite the central location of the hotels there is unavoidably a lot of walking in this tour. In Rome, the historic area is vast, and vehicular access is increasingly restricted.

On many occasions we get about on foot and even when a coach is used there is often a walk of several hundred metres due to traffic restrictions. This tour would not be suitable for those who have difficulty with everyday walking and stair–climbing. Participants need to be able to lift their own luggage onto and off coaches and trains. Average distance by coach per day: 14 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Art in Madrid, 2–6 October (page 169); Ravenna & Urbino, 2–6 October (page 107); Ancient Rome, 13–19 October (page 126); Sicily, 14–25 October (page 133).

The Age of Bede......................................27 The Cathedrals of England.....................30 Art & Industry........................................35 Royal Residences.....................................40 English Music in Yorkshire...................................42 Ethiopia...................................................46 Ballet: The Rite of Spring........................60 The Rhône Music Festival..............................67 King Ludwig II.......................................78 Essential India.........................................83 Ashoka & Buddhist India.......................85 The British Raj.........................................87 Temples of Tamil Nadu...........................87 Kingdoms of the Deccan.........................87 Bengal by River.......................................87 Verdi at La Scala......................................92 The Ring at La Scala...............................93 Stresa Festival..........................................93 Parma Verdi Festival..............................105 Florentine Palazzi..................................113 Incontri in Terra di Siena...................... 117 The Etruscans........................................122 Martina Franca......................................131 Munch in Oslo......................................142 Walking in Madeira..............................148

Day 6: Rome, Vatican City. Cross the river into Trastevere for the gallery in Palazzo Corsini (St. John the Baptist) and the nearby Santa Maria della Scala. Later visit the Vatican’s painting gallery, including Caravaggio’s Entombment of Christ, for long his most famous work. Some free time to explore the rest of the Vatican follows.

Grampian Gardens................................154 Scotland: the Borders............................157 Connoisseur’s Istanbul...........................180 Santa Fe Opera......................................186

Day 7: Rome. In the morning visit the Villa Borghese, which contains Sick Bacchus and Boy with a Basket of Fruit amongst others. The rest of the day is free before transferring to the Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

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Ancient Rome Art, architecture, history, with the Augustus exhibition 410. At one point during the Middle Ages the population shrunk to a hundredth of its ancient peak. As late as the nineteenth century the Forum was known as the Campo Vacchino because cows grazed among the ruins.

After more than a millennium of destruction it is surprising that so much remains. Again, the sheer scale impresses the observer, but so also does the extraordinary high level of skill in art, craft and construction, and the sophistication of a society which produced such accomplishments. This tour will look at the visible remains of Ancient Rome and bring them alive by placing them in the context of the tumultuous history and of everyday life, which reached peaks of refinement and ease while never banishing the lewd, violent and squalid.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 11.00am from London Heathrow to Rome. Walk around the temples of the Largo Argentina, the Theatre of Marcellus and the Forum Boarium.

Day 2. Morning walk, including the Ara Pacis, Augustus’ monumental altar of peace.

The Pantheon is the most complete of Roman buildings to survive. The Forum Romanum, the civic, religious and social centre of Ancient Rome, has the remains of many structures famed throughout the Empire. Walk along the Via dei Fori Imperiali, past Trajan’s Column and Trajan’s Market, a remarkable shopping centre.

13–19 October 2013 (ma 739) 7 days • £2,880 Lecturer: Angus Haldane A comprehensive exploration of Rome’s ancient remains, in situ and in museums.

A new addition for 2013 – an extra day of visits, including the temporary exhibition Augustus: The Vision of a New Era which celebrates the bimillenial of the first Roman emperor’s death.

Also includes visits outside Rome: Ostia, the well-preserved ancient port of Rome, and Tivoli, for Hadrian’s enormous villa complex.

Led by Angus Haldane, an expert on the ancient world.

Good 4-star hotel near Piazza Farnese.

When the Aurelian walls were built around Rome in the third century ad, the area enclosed was about fifty times that of Londinium and the present-day City of London. Rome’s

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population at that time was around a million, a figure not surpassed by any city in the world until the nineteenth century (by which time the world’s population had increased tenfold).

Such was the scale of ancient Rome – formidable to any modern city-dweller with a little historical imagination, awesome, incredible even, to most citizens and subjects of the Empire. The size was appropriate for the capital of an empire which stretched from Upper Egypt to the Cairngorms, and from Atlantic Africa to Babylon, but the impedimenta of imperial administration were not the sole determinants of its size and status.

As a kernel from which the Empire grew, and protagonist in myth and history, it was a spiritual home for every Roman citizen, and the fount of civilization.

Of course, decline and fall ensued. Rome was relieved of responsibility for half the Empire when Constantinople was founded; it lost its capitular status first to Milan and then to Ravenna; it was sacked by the Goths in ad

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Day 3. Visit the Colosseum, the largest of ancient amphitheatres, and the Arch of Constantine, sculpturally the richest of triumphal arches. The Palatine Hill was the site of the luxurious palaces of successive emperors. In the afternoon, visit the Capitoline Museums which have important collections of ancient sculpture.

Day 4. See the awesome bulk of the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla. Drive to Ostia, the ancient port of Rome, comparable to Pompeii for its state of preservation.

Day 5. Drive to Tivoli to see Hadrian’s Villa, designed entirely by him and inspired by sites he visited during his travels in the Empire, undoubtedly the richest building project in the Roman Empire. Lunch is in a good restaurant.

Some free time in Rome.

Day 6. Morning visit to the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, built on the site of the Baths of Diocletian. Palazzo Massimo, home to the majority of the National Roman Museum’s collection, contains wonderful Roman frescoes and stuccoes. b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Pompeii & Herculaneum Antiquities of the Bay of Naples Day 7: Augustus Imperator. Visit the Scuderie del Quirinale (Papal Stables), a splendid 18th-century building restored to become a museum and only accessible to the public for just over a decade. See here the exhibition Augustus: The Vision of a New Era, which celebrates the bimillenial anniverary of the first Roman emperor’s death. The Museo della Civiltà Romana houses an impressive and comprehensive collection, illustrating the history of Roman civilization, from its origins to the 6th century ad. Fly from Rome Fiumicino to Heathrow, arriving at c. 7.00pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,880 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (aircraft: Airbus 320/321); private coach travel for transfers and excursions; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 4 dinners including wine, water, coffee; all admission charges to museums, exhibitions, sites etc; all tips for restaurant staff, drivers, guides; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer.

Single supplement £510 (double room for sole occupancy). Price without flights £2,670.

Hotel: a 4-star hotel in an excellent location a short walk from Piazza Farnese and Trastevere.

Bedrooms are furnished with traditional cherry wood furniture. There is a courtyard garden.

How strenuous? There is unavoidably quite a lot of walking. The historic area is vast, and vehicular access to the centre is increasingly restricted. A coach will be used on several occasions, but otherwise the city is traversed on foot. Average coach travel per day: 19 miles.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

8–13 April 2013 (mz 512) 6 days • £1,820 Lecturer: Angus Haldane 21–26 October 2013 (ma 745) 6 days • £1,820 Lecturer: Angus Haldane One of the most exciting tours possible dealing with Roman archaeology.

Two principal sites, both buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in ad 79 and preserved with unparalleled completeness.

A unique insight into everyday life in the Roman Empire.

Led by Angus Haldane, an expert on the ancient world.

Important early Greek settlements, including Paestum, Cumae and Pozzuoli.

Campania’s felicitous climate, fertile soil and natural harbours have attracted settlers since ancient times. Prosperity invariably ensued. The Greeks founded some of their earliest colonies here, among them Naples and Paestum, the site of the latter preserving three of the most complete Doric temples to be found anywhere.

Campania was one of the most favoured areas in the Roman Empire. To the riches generated by trade, agriculture and naval dockyards there were added the proceeds of leisure industries as it became a holiday destination for wealthy citizens from Rome.

Some of the most desirable towns and private villas in the peninsula were built here.

However, the infamous eruption in ad 79 of Mount Vesuvius completely buried two busy

and salubrious towns on the Bay of Naples, Pompeii and Herculaneum, one with volcanic ash and the other with mud.

Paradoxically, this sudden obliteration preserved the towns with a level of completeness which has no parallel with any other archaeological site in the world.

Excavation has revealed them almost in their entirety, providing a unique insight into everyday life in the Roman Empire. Even the smallest and most fragile objects of daily use have survived, along with wall paintings, floor mosaics, precious jewellery and household utensils. The immediacy and vividness with which the imagination is able to grasp a past civilization is startling and unique.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 8.00am (April) or c. 1.00pm (October) from London Gatwick to Naples.

Drive to the hotel above the town of Vico Equense where all five nights are spent.

Day 2: Paestum. Paestum was a major Greek settlement and is one of the most interesting archaeological sites in Italy. Three outstanding Greek Doric temples stand in a remarkable state of preservation. Visit also the excellent museum which has a very rare ancient Greek painting and early metopes.

Day 3: Cumae, Baia, Pozzuoli. Spend the day around the Bay of Naples at some littlevisited but exciting sites. Cumae was the first Greek settlement on mainland Italy. The archaeological museum of the Phlegraean fields in Baia has interesting marble and bronze statues from the Imperial period. The port of Pozzuoli with a well-preserved amphitheatre and market.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Gastronomic Piedmont, 5–11 October (page 94); Caravaggio, 7–13 October (page 124); Pompeii & Herculaneum, 21–26 October (page 127).

Illustration, previous page: Arch of Titus, wood engraving c. 1880. Right: Vesuvius, engraving c. 1820.

Lecturers biographies are on page 194.

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Pompeii & Herculaneum continued

Naples: Art, Antiquities & Opera Naples, Teatro San Carlo, late 19th-cent. engraving.

Day 4: Pompeii. Since the first excavations in the 18th century, ancient Pompeii has been one of the world’s most famous archaeological digs. The fascination of the site lies not only in the major public buildings such as the theatre, temples and the forum but also in the numerous domestic dwellings, from cramped apartments to luxurious villas.

Day 5: Herculaneum, Naples. At Herculaneum, engulfed by mud rather than ash, timber and other combustibles are better preserved. A smaller settlement consisting largely of villas for the well-to-do, private dwellings are the centre of interest. The Archaeological Museum in Naples has one of the finest collections in the world, and is the principal repository for movable objects excavated at Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Day 6: Oplontis. Visit the newly excavated villa at Torre Annunziata (ancient Oplontis), which may have been the home of Poppaea, wife of Nero. It is one of the loveliest of ancient sites, with rich wall paintings and a swimming pool. Fly from Naples to London Gatwick, arriving c. 7.00pm.

Practicalities Price: £1,820 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (economy class) with British Airways (Boeing 737); private coach travel; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager; local guides where required. Single supplement £260 (double room for single use).

Price without flights £1,670.

Hotel: a smart, modern 5-star on the hilltop above Vico Equense. Rooms are bright, spacious and air-conditioned. The hotel restaurant has a Michelin star. There is a swimming pool and a terrace with views of the Bay of Naples and Vesuvius. Rooms look out on the hotel garden. Rooms with a sea view are available on request and for a supplement.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking, some of it over the rough ground of sites. Surefootedness is essential. Average distance by coach per day: 65 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine the April departure with Ravenna & Urbino, 17–21 April (page 107); Walking in Sicily, 15–22 April (page 135); Genoa & Turin, 15–21 April (page 93); Minoan Crete, 15–24 April (page 82). Combine the October departure with Ancient Rome, 13–19 October (page 126) or Roman & Mediaeval Provence, 11–17 October (page 65).

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20–25 May 2013 (mz 573) 6 days • £1,980 Lecturer: Angus Haldane Selects the best of the art, architecture and antiquities in Naples.

Performance of Verdi’s Rigoletto at the glorious Teatro San Carlo.

Also visits the palaces and gardens at Caserta.

Naples is one of those rare places whose very name kindles a kaleidoscope of conflicting images. A highlight of the eighteenthcentury Grand Tour, it is now all but ignored by mainstream tourism. Royal capital of the largest of the Italian kingdoms, in the twentieth century it became a byword for poverty and decline. Once it basked in a reputation for supreme beauty – ‘see Naples and die’; now it enjoys notoriety as a pit of urban ills – chaos, congestion, corruption and Camorra.

Until recently there was some truth in all of these images of modern Naples. But the city has changed – not entirely, but it is one of the most heartening examples of inner-city regeneration of the last decade or so. Traffic is still appalling, but much of the historic centre is now pedestrianised. A burst of prosperity has transformed the ancient shopping and artisan districts. Restoration of buildings and works of art has further increased the beauty of the city, and more churches and museums are more often open and accessible.

Its museums display some of the finest art and antiquities to be found in Italy, and major architectural and archaeological sites are

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located nearby. The Teatro San Carlo is one of the most important in operatic history, with many premières to its credit. One of the oldest and largest in Europe, it was built in 1737, restored after a fire in 1818, and emerged just a few years ago in all its glory from major refurbishment.

Naples is a city of the south. In many ways it has more in common with Seville or Cairo than with Florence or Milan. It is a city of swaggering palaces and stupendous churches, of cacophonous street life and infectious vitality. Exciting, exhausting, energising.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 1.00pm from London Gatwick to Naples. Visit the Royal Palace in the afternoon, a majestic pile in the heart of the city overlooking the harbour. Begun at the beginning of the 17th century, it was extended and refurbished in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Day 2. A first walk through the teeming old city centre includes the cathedral of San Gennaro which has an interior of astounding richness and major paintings by Domenichino and Lanfranco. Also seen are two works

by Caravaggio, his Martyrdom of St Ursula in a bank and his Seven Acts of Mercy in the chapel for which it was commissioned. In the afternoon drive into the hilly suburbs to visit the palace of Capodimonte, originally a giant hunting lodge. Here is located one of Italy’s greatest art galleries, with a magnificent range of art from the Middle Ages onwards.

Day 3. Among the treasures seen on the second walk in the centre of Naples are the Cappella b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Normans in the South Castles & cathedrals in Puglia & Campania San Severo, a masterpiece of Baroque art and craft with multi-coloured marbles and virtuoso sculptures, and Santa Chiara, an austere Gothic church with a delightful Rococo tile-encrusted cloister. The afternoon is spent at the National Archeological Museum, one of the world’s greatest collections of Greek and Roman antiquities. Many items come from the excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Day 4. High on a hill which provides stunning views over the city and the Bay of Naples, the monastery of San Martino has a church of extraordinary lavishness of art and decoration and a museum of fine and decorative arts.

The afternoon is free before the evening performance at the Teatro San Carlo, the oldest major working theatre in Europe and renowned for its acoustic despite its 3000-seat capacity. Rigoletto (Verdi), Pier Giorgio Morandi (conductor), Arnauld Bernard (director).

Day 5. Situated a few miles outside Naples, the royal palace at Caserta, begun 1751, is Italy’s most magnificent and accomplished emulation of Versailles. An awesome absolutist statement, the apartments are superbly decorated and furnished and it is set within parkland and gardens equally magnificent in scale. In Caserta there is also a visit to the 18th-century gardens at the Casale dei Duchi di Bovino, a cross between the formal Italian and the landscaped English style. Lunch is at a private villa.

19–27 March 2013 (mz 498) 9 days • £2,320 Lecturer: John McNeill 9–17 April 2013 (mz 516) 9 days • £2,320 Lecturer: Christopher Newall An architectural tour of one of the most sophisticated kingdoms in mediaeval Europe.

Splendid Norman legacy of Romanesque, with churches of unprecedented size and grandeur.

Later architecture of equal magnificence, with an elaborate flowering of Baroque.

Led by experts on the art of the region.

Attractive, well-preserved town centres and a dramatic landscape of raw limestone.

The Norman conquest of southern Italy was one of the most remarkable episodes in mediaeval history. Whereas England was subjugated by a

southern Italy was ruled by one Norman king.

This cosmopolitan kingdom was one of the best administered and most culturally sophisticated in Europe. As in England, in the wake of conquest there arose splendid new churches of unprecedented size and grandeur.

A mixture of French, Lombard, Byzantine, Saracenic and ancient Roman elements, south Italian Romanesque is one of the most distinct and beautiful of the variants of this truly international style.

Prosperity and creativity continued after the extinction of the Norman dynasty in 1194 by the Hohenstaufen from Germany. In the first half of the thirteenth century the region was dominated by the extraordinary Emperor Frederick II, ‘Stupor Mundi’, ‘Wonder of the World’. He was as courageous and ambitious in artistic and intellectual spheres as he was in administration, diplomacy and war.

Much later there was another artistic outburst, appropriately international but characteristically idiosyncratic: a highly elaborate version of Baroque architecture and decoration.

S. Valentino, Bitonto, from The Shores of the Adriatic by F. Hamilton-Jackson, 1906.

Day 6. Fly from Naples to London Gatwick, arriving at c. 2.15pm.

Practicalities Price: £1,980 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (economy class) with British Airways (Boeing 737); private coach travel; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 1 lunch, 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; one opera ticket (1st category); all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £290 (double for sole use). Price without flights £1,840.

Hotel: 4-star hotel on the waterfront c. 10 minutes walk from the Royal Palace. Dating from the turn of the 19th century, the style is vaguely Classical tempered with Art Nouveau.

Rooms are elegantly decorated but do vary in size. Sea-view rooms are available on request (supplement: £140 per room).

How strenuous? A large swathe of central Naples is inaccessible to traffic. Pavements are often uneven, some roads are steep, traffic can be unpredictable. Participants need to be averagely fit and able to manage everyday walking and stairclimbing without difficulty.

Average daily coach travel: 10 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

sizeable and highly organised Norman army, the ‘Kingdom in the Sun’ was won by small bands of soldiers of fortune. They trickled in during the eleventh century when the tangled political situation and incessant feuding made the area ripe for exploitation by ambitious knights in search of adventure and personal gain.

By the end of the century they had expelled the Byzantines from the mainland and the Saracens from Sicily, and by 1127 all Sicily and

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The heel and spur of boot-shaped Italy, Puglia is remote from the better-known parts of the peninsula, and its raw limestone landscape wholly different from the silky richness of central and northern Italy. The last day of the tour is spent across the Apennines in Campania. This region presents another face of Italy, distinctly southern but with an equally cosmopolitan and pan-Mediterranean cultural history.

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Normans in the South continued

strategic Roman colonia, Lombard Duchy and Norman from 1081. The arch of Trajan is one of the finest surviving Roman triumphal arches. Sta Sofia has a magnificent 12thcentury cloister. The seaport of Salerno has an 11th-century cathedral with a fine sculpted portal and a 12th-century ivory altarpiece.

Overnight Vico Equense.

Day 9: St Angelo in Formis. The Basilica of St Angelo in Formis has outstanding 11th-century frescoes. Fly from Rome to London, arriving Heathrow at c. 7.15pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,320 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (economy class) with Alitalia (aircraft: Airbus 321); private coach travel; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 5 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all taxes; all tips; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £360 (double for sole use). Price without flights £2,140.

Castel del Monte, lithograph after Edward Lear c. 1850.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 12.30pm from London Heathrow to Brindisi, via Rome, and drive on to Lecce. First of three nights in Lecce.

Day 2: Casarano, Gallipoli, Otranto. Explore the Salentine Peninsula, the southernmost tip of the heel of Italy. Visit the church at Casarano (5th-century mosaics and frescoes).

Gallipoli was the centre of Byzantine Italy until conquered by the Normans in 1071; the old town is on an off-shore island. Otranto, captured by Normans in 1068, has a cathedral with outstanding 12th-century floor mosaics.

Day 3: Lecce. Lecce is distinguished by an elaborate style of Baroque and Rococo decoration wrought in the soft, honey-coloured tufa of the region, the outstanding examples being the cathedral and the church of Sta Croce. See also the Norman church of SS Nicolò e Cataldo, founded by Tancred. Some free time.

Day 4: Brindisi, Bitonto. Possessing the safest natural harbour on the Adriatic, the provincial capital of Brindisi has been of intermittent strategic importance for over twenty-four centuries. Visit the Romanesque church of Sta Maria del Casale, with Byzantine frescoes and polychrome façade. Bitonto has one of the finest of Romanesque cathedrals with good

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sculpture and an Early Christian lower church.

Continue to Trani where the next four nights are spent.

Day 5: Bari, Trani. Bari, capital of Puglia, has an extensive and unspoilt mediaeval quarter beside the sea. The Basilica of S. Nicola, begun in 1087, is not only the first but also the greatest of Puglian Romanesque churches; the episcopal throne here is remarkable. Also visit the cathedral (1170) and later mediaeval Angevin castle. Back in Trani, visit the magically beautiful Romanesque cathedral on the waterfront.

Day 6: Castel del Monte, Canosa. Castel del Monte, situated on an isolated peak, is Frederick II’s extraordinarily sophisticated hunting lodge and one of the most intriguing secular buildings of the Middle Ages. Canosa di Puglia has an 11th-century cathedral and the tomb of Bohemond.

Hotels: Lecce (3 nights): a stylish 5-star hotel in an excellent location near the church of Sta Croce in the historic centre. Rooms are spacious and elegantly furnished. Trani (4 nights): a charming 4-star hotel converted from a 15th-century convent, although service and maintenance are not always quite up to North European standards. In Vico Equense (1 night): a smart, modern 5-star hotel in the village of Seiano, close to the town of Vico Equense. Rooms are bright, spacious and air-conditioned; there is a terrace with views of the Bay of Naples. Dinners are in the hotels or selected restaurants.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking on this tour, some of it over rough ground.

Average distance by coach per day: 88 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine the March departure with Art History of Venice, 11–17 March (page 99). Combine the April departure with Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes, 18–24 April (page 91).

Day 7: Troia, Melfi, Venosa. Troia is a lovely town with a Pisan-style Romanesque cathedral.

The hilltop town of Melfi was for a while the main centre of Norman power in Italy. The impressive but unfinished monastery of La Trinità at Venosa was built from the 12th century over an early Christian church.

Day 8: Benevento, Salerno. Cross the Apennines to Campania. Benevento was a

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Lecturers biographies are on page 194. b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Basilicata Italy’s undiscovered south 3–8 May 2013 (mz 547) 6 days • £1,720 Lecturer: Rowena Loverance

century frescoes. There is a picnic lunch here.

Visit the Museo Archeologico della Siritide in Policoro which has exhibits from the former Greek colonies of Siris and Heraclea.

A region rich in archaeological collections and Norman and Romanesque architecture.

The lecturer is Rowena Loverance, expert art historian.

Day 6: Matera. The Crypt of Original Sin outside Matera is known as the ‘Sistine chapel’ of cave wall paintings; only recently opened to the public it is not only an outstanding discovery for the history of early mediaeval art but is also an example of the most advanced conservation techniques. Fly from Bari to Heathrow, via Milan, arriving c. 6.00pm.

Based throughout in Matera, a unesco World Heritage Site, staying in a cave hotel.

Practicalities

Unknown and unspoilt – a chance to explore the countryside and small towns of southern Italy with few other tourists.

While it may be tendentious to claim that anywhere in Italy remains ‘unknown’, the region of Basilicata does seem to offer one of the few remaining opportunities to experience an unspoilt and unfamiliar region.

As in-step to the heel of Puglia and the toe of Calabria, Basilicata has always missed out on the flow of visitors and the concomitant income that its neighbours have attracted as springboards to the eastern Mediterranean and to Sicily. This also partially explains its historic reputation as one of the poorest regions of Italy. But while undeniably without the more spectacular or influential cultural achievements other Italian regions may boast, humble Basilicata has sufficient fascinating sites and a varied cultural heritage to enthral the visitor.

Matera is the cultural capital. Most impressive are the Sassi, the hundreds of caves that are attractively tiered along the two ravines that thrust into the heart of the town. Developed, enhanced and inhabited for over a thousand years, the caves were cleared as slums around the 1950s but are now being thoughtfully and sympathetically re-developed.

Equally surprising is the rest of Matera, which feels more like a vibrant historic town located in say Emilia Romagna or the Veneto than in one of the allegedly least developed parts of Italy. This energetic if provincial atmosphere is heightened by the improvements that have recently transformed the town.

But the tour enjoys the whole of Basilicata.

Passing through verdant and rolling hills, there are visits to Melfi and Venosa, both of which possess mighty Norman fortresses and evocative Romanesque churches, and lovely Montescaglioso to the south, sprawling across the hills and whose imposing Benedictine abbey flourished under the Norman lords. On the coast, there are the important Ancient Greek settlements of Metaponto and Policoro.

Basilicata seems set to become a major destination for discerning visitors. We would recommend this tour to those who would like to experience it before this happens.

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Detail of a map 1833.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 9.30am from London Heathrow to Bari, via Milan. Drive to Matera where the tour is based throughout.

Day 2: Matera. The morning walk includes the church of San Giovanni Battista (1220), the Baroque church of San Francesco d’Assisi and the archaeological museum. The cathedral (exterior only), a fine example of southern Italian Romanesque, dominates the city. Lunch is provided today: local cheese, cured meats and wines. Afterwards walk down the Sasso Caveoso to see a handful of cave churches, many of them with frescoes.

Day 3: Venosa, Melfi. Drive to Venosa to visit the impressive but unfinished monastery of La Trinità built over an early Christian church. Walk through the charming town centre and see the archaeological collection in the late 15th-century castle. Continue to Melfi for lunch in a family-run restaurant.

The impressive Norman castle hosts a good archaeological museum. The Norman origins of the cathedral, rebuilt in the late 17th century, are still visible in the splendid bell tower.

Day 4: Montescaglioso, Matera. Drive to the hilltop town of Montescaglioso, overlooking the Bradano valley, to visit the Benedictine abbey of St Michael the Archangel, one of the largest and most impressive abbeys in southern Italy. Visit the recently excavated subterranean city at Piazza Vittorio Veneto. The afternoon is free in Matera.

Day 5: Metaponto, Santa Maria d’Anglona, Policoro. The Ancient Greek city of Metaponto was one of the most important Greek settlements in the West; though its site is ruinous the museum display charts most of its history. Isolated in countryside, Santa Maria d’Anglona is a lovely church rich in late 12th-

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Price: £1,720 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled Alitalia flights (Airbus 319 and Embraer 190); private coach for excursions and transfers; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 2 lunches, 1 picnic and 3 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admissions to museums, etc., visited with the group; all gratuities for restaurant staff, drivers and guides; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer and the tour manager. Single supplement £110 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,490.

Hotel: in Matera, a stylish 4-star hotel located in the Sasso Caveoso, overlooking the ravine.

The cave-rooms, spread over different levels, are spacious and furnished with all modern comforts. Dinners are in carefully selected restaurants.

How strenuous? Matera’s topography and the hotel’s location mean that there is a lot of walking up and down hills and cobbled steps which can be slippery. Coaches cannot be used within the town centres. Good mobility, surefootedness and agility are essential. Average distance by coach per day: 66 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Palladian Villas, 23–28 April (page 98) or Courts of Northern Italy, 12–19 May (page 104).

Martina Franca July 2013 Details available January 2013 Contact us to register your interest

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Sardinia Archaeology, architecture & art 7–15 May 2013 (mz 549) 9 days • £2,460 Lecturer: Dr R. T. Cobianchi Includes the best of the island’s material culture, from Neolithic and Bronze Age, through Punic and Roman to mediaeval and Renaissance.

The unique Bronze Age nuraghi are a striking feature, as are Tuscan-style Romanesque churches and 16th-century Catalan altarpieces.

Led by Dr R. T. Cobianchi, expert art historian.

Wonderful mix of sites from the south to the north following the west coast of the island.

Despite being the second largest island in the Mediterranean, Sardinia’s cultural treasures remain largely undiscovered by travellers. Its extraordinary jagged coastline and clear blue seas have earned it a deserved reputation for beach tourism, with villas and resorts clinging to the cliffs along the Costa Smeralda. Yet the wealth of prehistoric sites, Punic and Roman

which were forts, palaces and simple domestic dwellings. Much is left to the imagination as little is known about these edifices, though digs are leading to some fascinating insights.

Evidence of Phoenician power on the island can be seen at Tharros on the west coast, established in the eighth century bc in a strategic position jutting into the sea in the Gulf of Oristano. Later colonized by the Romans, the site is a remarkable example of a coastal city-state. Finds can be seen in Sardinia’s superlative collection of archeological museums, in Cagliari, Sassari and Oristano.

The decline of the Roman Empire left Sardinia open to Goths, Lombards, for a short spell the Byzantines, and to the new Muslim empires of North Africa and Spain. The Pisans and Genoese in the eleventh century left an indelible mark on the island with their superb Romanesque churches in the Logudoro region, indeed some of the finest in Europe.

Rule by the Kingdom of Aragón brought a Spanish dimension to the island’s culture, most evident today in the Catalan-Gothic

gateway to the Castello district. The cathedral has a remodelled Pisan-Romanesque façade and a sculpted pulpit from 1160. The Museo Diocesano has a 15th-century Flemish triptych.

The afternoon is spent in the Cittadella dei Musei: the excellent archaeological museum has important finds from the Nuraghic, Phoenician and Roman periods and the art gallery has works by the foremost Sardinian retable painter, Pietro Cavaro.

Day 3: Barumini, Tuili. The Nuraghe Su’ Nuraxi is the largest of the Bronze Age nuraghi, with an impressive central tower constructed of basalt. At nearby Tuili, the unprepossessing Chiesa di San Pietro houses an exquisite retable by the Maestro di Castelsardo (c. 1500).

Return to Cagliari for a free afternoon. Stroll around the mediaeval ramparts or visit the few Baroque churches.

Day 4: Paulilatino, Oristano. The Basilica di Santa Giusta, erected in 1135, is one of the earliest of the Tuscan Romanesque churches.

The Nuraghe Santa Cristina is the most picturesque nuraghic site, surrounded by olive groves and with an astounding underground shrine from the second century bc. At Oristano there is a fine collection at the archaeological museum, a 14th-century polychrome statue by Nicola Pisano in the cathedral and a Catalan crucified Christ in San Francesco. First of two nights in Oristano.

Day 5: Tharros, San Salvatore. Tharros is a magnificently located Punic and Roman site, with fine views over the Gulf of Oristano. The nearby Byzantine Church of San Giovanni in Sinis is the oldest of Sardinia’s churches.

Visit the Church of the Saviour, which has an underground hypogeum with fourthcentury frescoes depicting animals and Roman mythology. Return through the marshes of the lagoon, stopping for lunch at a fish restaurant by the lake where ancient fishing techniques are still in use.

Gagliari, Sardinia, late-19th-century engraving from Gazetteer of the World, Vol.II.

remains and Pisan-Romanesque churches make it a fascinating destination for those prepared to forego the luxury of the north-west coast and explore inland.

As with all the larger islands in the Mediterranean, Sardinia was plundered and settled by a succession of pirates and empire builders, though due in large part to its rugged and impenetrable landscape, Sardinian identity was never wholly extinguished. Her Bronze Age settlements truly set it apart. Deep gorges, craggy limestone and slate mountain ranges and swathes of verdant countryside hide over 7000 nuraghi, peculiar conical stone structures

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architecture of the fishing port at Alghero and, concealed in mediaeval churches in tiny villages the length of the island, sumptuous sixteenthcentury retables which rival coeval ones on the Italian mainland.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 12.15pm from London Heathrow to Cagliari, via Rome. First of three nights in Cagliari.

Day 2: Cagliari. Walk up the Bastione St. Remy, an immense late nineteenth-century

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Day 6: Borruta, Bonorva, Torralba, Sassari.

San Pietro di Sorres is the most superbly situated Romanesque church in Sardinia, with typical Tuscan black and white stone banding.

The church overlooks the Valle dei Nuraghi where there is a concentration of nuraghic sites. Visit Nuraghe Santu Antine, the most complex nuraghic site in Sardinia. The cliff necropolis of Sant’Andrea Priu was used for burial in the second and third centuries bc. In the main chamber are exquisite fragments of later Roman and Byzantine frescoes. Continue to Sassari for the first of three nights.

Day 7: Alghero, Churches of the Logudoro.

Alghero is a picturesque seaside town, still functioning as a commercial fishing port. b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Sicily Centre of Mediterranean Civilizations A Catalan colony for nearly 400 years, the Spanish influence can be seen in the Catalan-Gothic architecture of the old town.

Visit the nearby domus de janus site Anghelu Ruju, a fine example of the pre-nuraghic hypogea found all over the island. Drive to see two examples of Pisan-Romanesque churches, each in a very different setting in the rural landscape. Santa Maria del Regno has a magnificent ornate retable from 1515.

Sant’Antioco di Bisarcio, built in 1090, has been rebuilt over the centuries and has a French Gothic-style portico.

Day 8: Sassari, Porto Torres. The morning is spent in Sassari, which has a network of charming mediaeval streets culminating in stately 19th-century piazze. The cathedral of San Nicola has one of Italy’s most lavish Baroque façades. There is a large collection of pre-historic, Punic and Roman artefacts in the Museo Sanna, as well as excellent models of the nuraghi and tomb complexes. At Porto Torres, the Basilica di San Gavino is a monumental Romanesque structure, Sardinia’s earliest and finest, with almost thirty Roman columns flanking the nave. The Copper Age sanctuary of Monte D’Accoddi is entirely unique in the Mediterranean, reminiscent of the tombs of the Aztecs.

Day 9. Fly from Alghero to London Heathrow, via Rome, arriving c. 3.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,460 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (economy class) with Alitalia (Airbus 319); private coach; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 4 lunches (including 1 picnic), 5 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £180 (double for sole use). Price without flights £2,220.

Hotels: Cagliari (3 nights): a recently refurbished 4-star hotel, externally unattractive but internally clean and bright, with spacious rooms. Oristano (2 nights): the only centrallylocated 4-star hotel in the town, in need of refurbishment. Bedrooms are a good size if a little dated. There is a pleasant garden, and the restaurant is good. Sassari (3 nights): a 3-star hotel close to the historic centre, rooms are simple, small and ill-lit. These hotels are the best in their localities, but possibly among the least best on any of our tours.

How strenuous? A lot of walking, some over rough ground at archaeological sites or over cobbled or uneven paving. Fitness and surefootedness are essential. Some long journeys.

Average distance by coach per day: 44 miles.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

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Syracuse, engraving from The Picturesque Mediterranean Vol.II 1891.

18–29 March 2013 (mz 497) 12 days • £3,620 Lecturer: Dr Luca Leoncini 23 September–4 October 2013 (ma 717) This tour is currently full 14–25 October 2013 (ma 747) 12 days • £3,780 Lecturer: Dr R. T. Cobianchi Covers the whole island, including the main sights and many lesser-known ones.

The whole gamut – Ancient Greek, Roman, mediaeval (particularly Norman), Renaissance, Baroque and later.

Led by a variety of expert art historians.

A full tour but carefully paced. Hotel changes have been kept to a minimum – only three hotels in twelve days.

By virtue of both size and location, Sicily is the pre-eminent island in the Mediterranean.

It is the largest, and it is also close to the sea’s centre, a stepping stone between Europe and Africa and a refuge between the Levant and the Atlantic.

The result is that throughout history Sicily has been viewed as a fortuitous landfall by migrating peoples and a prized possession by ambitious adventurers and expansionist princes. And as the Mediterranean has been

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catalyst and disseminator of a greater variety of civilizations than any other of the world’s seas, the island has acquired an exceptionally rich encrustation of art, architecture and archaeological remains.

For the Phoenicians, Sicily was a nodal point in their far-reaching trading empire, but from the seventh century bc they were increasingly displaced by colonies established by the Greeks. Exploiting the enormous potential of the island, these rapidly outpaced their rugged home territories to become the most prosperous of all Hellenic colonies.

At Segesta and Agrigento there survive some of the finest standing Doric temples to be seen anywhere.

Great wealth accrued under Roman rule when the island was clothed in fields of corn, and endless oak forests and abundant fauna provided sport for grandees and emperors.

One of them has bequeathed to us on the floor of his luxurious villa the most splendid Roman mosaics to have survived. Overrun by Germanic barbarians in the fifth century, Sicily was wrested back for the twilight of classical civilization by the Byzantines, but at the cost of military campaigns which devastated the island.

Byzantine rule was in turn supplanted from the ninth century by Muslim Arabs, and a period of prosperity and advanced civilization ensued. Two hundred years later Arab rule was swept aside by conquering Normans, who, by succumbing to the luxuriant sophistication of

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Sicily continued

their predecessors, distanced themselves as far as is imaginable from their rugged northern roots. The unique artistic blend of this golden age survives in the Romanesque churches with details of Norman, Saracenic, Levantine and classical origin. Byzantine mosaicists were much employed. The wealth and power of Sicily began to wane again from the later Middle Ages as a succession of German, French and Spanish dynasties exploited the island with colonial disregard for longterm interests, but pockets of wealth and creativity remained as Gothic and Renaissance masterpieces demonstrate. Artistically, however, a final flourish was reached in the Age of Baroque which saw the erection of churches and palaces as splendid and exuberant as anywhere in Europe.

The raw beauty of the landscape changes continually across the island. The Sicilians can be as welcoming as Italians anywhere, but the island continues to retain its enigmas, and differences with the mainland sometimes seem profound.

There may be itinerary changes due to closures for restoration work which happen fairly frequently in Sicily.

Itinerary Day 1: Palermo. Fly at c. 12.15pm from London Heathrow, via Rome, to Palermo, the largest and by far the most interesting city on the island; capital of Sicily from the period of Saracenic occupation in the 9th century, it reached a peak under the Normans and again during the Age of Baroque. First of six nights in Palermo.

Day 2: Palermo. Morning walk through the old centre includes a visit to several oratories and outstanding Norman buildings including San Cataldo. Drinks at a private palace, usually closed to the public. In the afternoon see the excellent collection of pictures in the 15thcentury Palazzo Abatellis.

Day 3: Monreale, Cefalù. Monreale dominates a verdant valley southwest of Palermo, and its cathedral is one of the finest Norman churches with the largest scheme of mosaic decoration to survive from the Middle Ages. Cefalù, a charming coastal town, has a massive Norman cathedral with outstanding mosaics and an art gallery with painting by Antonello da Messina.

Day 4: Segesta, Selinunte. With its magnificently sited temple and theatre, Segesta is one of the most evocative of Greek sites. Selinunte, founded c. 650 bc, is a vast

archaeological site, renowned for its wellpreserved temples on the eastern hill and the acropolis.

Day 5: Agrigento. A full day in Agrigento to see the ‘Valley of the Temples’, one of the finest of all ancient Greek sites with two virtually complete Doric temples, other ruins and a good museum.

Day 6: Palermo. Visit the 12th-century Palace of the Normans, containing the Palatine Chapel and Hall of King Roger, both with outstanding mosaics. S. Giovanni degli Eremiti is a Norman church with five cupolas and a charming garden. The cathedral, a building of many periods, has grand royal and imperial tombs. Free afternoon.

Day 7: Palermo, Piazza Armerina. In Palermo visit the Zisa, an Arab-Norman Palace. Drive through the interior of Sicily. At Piazza Armerina are the remains of one of the most sumptuous villas of the late-Roman Empire, whose floor mosaics comprise the most vital and colourful manifestation of Roman figurative art in Europe. Continue across the island for the first of three nights in Taormina.

Day 8: Taormina. Visit the famed Roman theatre, with spectacular views over the sea to Calabria and inland to Mount Etna, an active Taormina and Mt Etna, steel engraving c. 1850.

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Walking in Sicily Crater & coast: in the footsteps of history volcano. The rest of the day free: one of the earliest and still one of the most attractive of Mediterranean resorts, Taormina has an area of secluded beaches joined by funicular to the delightful hilltop town.

Day 9: Taormina, Catania. Drive along the coast to Catania, with a fine Baroque centre.

Here there are special visits to a Byzantine chapel (subject to confirmation) a private palazzo where there is a light lunch.

Day 10: Syracuse. Founded as a Greek colony in 733 bc, Syracuse became the most important city of Magna Græcia. Afternoon walk on the island of Ortygia, the picturesque and densely built original centre of Syracuse and see the Caravaggio painting in the church of Santa Lucia alla Badia. Visit the 5th-century bc Greek theatre, the largest of its type to survive, the stone quarries and the Roman amphitheatre. First of two nights in Syracuse.

Day 11: Noto, Syracuse. Rebuilt after an earthquake in 1693, Noto is one of the loveliest and most homogenous Baroque towns in Italy.

Day 12: Syracuse. Visit the excellent museum of antiquities in Syracuse. Fly from Catania, via Rome, to London. Arrive Heathrow c. 7.00pm.

Practicalities Price: £3,620 (March), £3,780 (Sept. & Oct.) (deposit £350). This includes: flights (economy class) with Alitalia (Airbus 319); travel by private coach; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 5 lunches (including 1 picnic) and 7 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £390 (March), £430 (Sept. & Oct.). Price without flights £3,390 (March), £3,550 (Sept. & Oct.).

Hotels: Palermo (6 nights): a 16th-century palazzo renovated to become a 4-star hotel in the centre, furnished to a high standard.

Taormina (3 nights): a 3-star, charming, family-run hotel, in the old town, with its own garden (rooms vary in size and outlook).

Syracuse (2 nights): a 4-star hotel, centrally situated on the island of Ortygia.

How strenuous? A lot of walking, some of it over rough ground at archaeological sites and cobbled or uneven paving. Some long journeys.

Average distance by coach per day: 73 miles.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine the 14–25 October departure with Gastronomic Piedmont, 5–11 October (page 94); Friuli-Venezia Giulia, 7–13 October (page 97); Caravaggio, 7–13 October (page 124); Palladian Villas, 8–13 October (page 98).

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Tourists inspecting Mount Etna, engraving c. 1830.

15–22 April 2013 (mz 533) 8 days • £2,280 Lecturer: Dr Ffiona Gilmore Eaves Five walks of between 3 and 7 miles through immensely varied scenery, from the lava fields of Etna to salt lake flats along the coast.

Much of archaeological interest, and visits to Syracuse, the greatest of west Greek cities, and to the Baroque city of Noto.

Led by Dr Ffiona Gilmore Eaves, an archaeology specialist.

Two hotels, in Taormina with beautiful sea views and in the centre of Syracuse.

Sicily is well chronicled in history and literature as one of the most fascinating destinations in Europe. Her archaeological and historical sites delight visitors to the Mediterranean’s largest island, but, fortunately, few of them explore the hugely varied landscapes on foot. Locals rarely indulge in country walking, and shepherds met on mountain paths are aghast that people choose to walk for a holiday. Yet walking can provide the key to understanding and appreciating this intoxicating island. We have included walks that are relatively unknown and countryside that is not easily accessible, but keeping in mind the principles of travelling less and seeing more, we hope to have designed an itinerary giving a fuller flavour of what Sicily can really offer.

Mount Etna, peaking as Europe’s highest active volcano at nearly 11,000 feet, and sitting within a designated regional park covering 224 square miles, demands attention but also respect. Volcanologists venture perilously close

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to the crater’s lip in the name of research, but for hikers there are remarkably varied and interesting paths to explore on the northern flank.

The distinctive climate and volcanic soils nurture a plethora of wild flowers, with orchids flourishing in both spring and late autumn. On the lower slopes, areas that were once covered with holm oak are now cultivated for citrus fruits and for wine, intensely flavoured reds and whites that are garnering approval throughout Italy and beyond. Above these, at 6,500 feet, Europe’s southernmost beech trees are thriving, as are birch, considered an endemic species.

Another thousand feet and the thorny shrub known locally as spino santo (Astragalus siculus) covers the ground, and mountain flowers such as senecio, violets and cerastium flourish.

Twenty miles inland from Syracuse, the ten-square-mile Pantalica Nature Reserve, set on a plateau with gorges plunging through the limestone to the Anapo and Calcinara river valleys. It contains what is thought to be Europe’s most extensive open-air necropolis, where the earliest rock tombs can be dated to the thirteenth century bc. Later civilisations have also left their mark; the faint frescoed walls in an almost-hidden cave church have lasted remarkably well in this somewhat harsh environment.

A coastal walk alongside the salt-water lagoons of the Vendicari Nature Reserve provides another category of experience.

The pantani are a haven for birds, and with luck flamingos can be spotted in all seasons.

Mediaeval watchtowers, an old tonnaro (tuna cannery) and a fishery punctuate this landscape, highlighting the importance of sea-faring trade in this part of Sicily. Fifteenth-century

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Walking in Sicily continued

merchants in Noto shipped carob, grain and almonds from the port of Vendicari, and until the 1940s tuna was caught and tinned here.

These walks have been chosen to make the most of the protected parks in Sicily, thus helping efforts to restore, waymark and maintain the paths in this remarkably unspoilt land on the edge of Europe.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 12.15pm from London Heathrow to Catania via Rome. Drive to Syracuse in time for dinner.

Day 2: Vendicari Nature Reserve, Syracuse.

Drive south to the salt-lagoons and nature reserve at Vendicari for a level walk along the sandy paths, c. 5km. Visit the Villa Romana del Tellaro, where a small but superb set of Roman mosaics depicting scenes of hunting has been beautifully restored at this former masseria. Return to Syracuse in time for an early evening walk on Ortygia, including the magnificent Duomo and the recently re-opened Museo Regionale in Palazzo Bellomo, home to Antonello da Messina’s Annunciation. First of three nights on Ortygia.

Day 3: Pantalica Nature Reserve, Syracuse.

Drive to Pantalica, where a series of paths within this spectacular reserve follow the Anapo river bed and former railway lines or meander high along the plateaux; water levels in the river and local conditions determine today’s walk, maximum 10 km. Return to Syracuse to see pieces recovered from the site, as well as some of the highlights of sculpture and ceramics from Sicily’s Greek colonies in the excellent Archaeological Museum.

Day 4: Syracuse, Noto, Taormina. Visit the 5th-century bc Greek theatre, the stone quarries and the Roman amphitheatre in Syracuse’s Archaeological park. There is a short walk (c. 3 km) exploring the Greek ruins at Palazzo Accreide. Drive to Noto, one of the loveliest and most harmonious Baroque towns, before driving north to Taormina, in time for an introductory walk through the town before dinner.

Day 5: Taormina, Castello Saraceno. A moderate-strenuous circular walk of 5km starts from the hotel on a paved path, and continues uphill to near the Castello Saraceno. Perched on the hilltop at 400m above sea level, and thought to be the site of the lower part of Tauromenion’s Acropolis, the apex of the walk offers spectacular views of the town and the Ionic coast. Visit Taormina’s famed GrecoRoman theatre and the small Roman Odeon.

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Day 6: Mount Etna, Piano Provenzano. Lessvisited and less-well known than the southern slopes, Etna’s northern flank nonetheless provides plenty of interest and atmosphere. A moderate circular walk (c. 5km) on the lava fields from the great eruptions of 2002 with a local volcanologist allows time to appreciate what was known as Mongibello, mountain of mountains. Lunch at a rustic restaurant, returning to Taormina for a free afternoon.

Day 7: Forza d’Agrò, Taormina. An unspoilt village with panoramic views of the Peloritani mountains and Etna, Forza d’Agrò is the starting point for an 8km countryside walk, reaching 547m above sea level. It follows shepherds’ tracks through olive groves and terraces; some terrain is very uneven on this path and requires sure-footedness. Return to Taormina for a tasting of some Sicilian wines.

Small group: between 10 and 18 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Gastronomic Andalucía, 5–12 April (page 175) or Pompeii & Herculaneum, 8–13 April (page 127).

Gastronomic Sicily September 2013 Details available January 2013 Contact us to register your interest

Day 8: Taormina. Drive to Catania for the flight to London Heathrow via Rome, arriving at c. 7.00pm.

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Practicalities

The Schubertiade with Hill Walking.....14

Price: £2,280 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled Alitalia flights (Airbus 320); travel by private coach; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 3 lunches (including two picnics) and 4 dinners with wine, water and coffee, and 1 wine-tasting; all admission charges to museums, sites etc; all tips for restaurant staff, drivers, guides; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager.

Single supplement £290. Price without flights £2,050.

Walking the Danube...............................13 Walking Hadrian’s Wall.........................26 The Cotswolds.........................................41 Walking in Tuscany...............................116 Walking in Sicily...................................135 Walking in Madeira..............................148 Walking to Santiago..............................164

Hotels: Taormina (4 nights): a 3-star, charming, family-run hotel in an excellent location in the old town with its own garden and swimming pool (open subject to weather conditions). Service is friendly and efficient; rooms are spacious but not opulent and vary in outlook. Syracuse (3 nights): located moments from the Duomo in the heart of Ortygia, this 4-star hotel is efficiently run.

Rooms may overlook an inner courtyard or streets and rooftops.

How strenuous? This tour should only be considered by those who are used to country walking with some uphill content. Strong knees and ankles are essential, as are a pair of well-worn hiking boots with good ankle support. Walks have been carefully selected but some steep rises are unavoidable and terrain can be loose underfoot, particularly in wet weather. The walk on Etna involves walking at an altitude of c.1,800 metres above sea level for c. 5km. There are five walks of between 5 and 8km. Average coach travel per day: 34 miles.

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Lecturers biographies are on page 194. b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Essential Jordan The major Roman, Christian & Islamic sites 26 March–3 April 2013 (mz 505) 9 days • £3,180 Lecturer: Jane Taylor 26 October–3 November 2013 (ma 761) 9 days • £3,180 Lecturers: Sue Rollin & Jane Streetly Outstanding monuments of several civilizations – Nabatean, Roman, Early Christian, Umayyad, Crusader.

The lecturers have travelled widely in the Middle East and are authorities on Jordan.

Petra is the most spectacular archaeological site in the Middle East; we spend three nights here.

Jordan possesses the most spectacular archaeological site in the Middle East – Petra, ‘rose-red city, half as old as time’, that easternly fascinating, westernly Baroque, altogether extraordinary city of the desert.

Hidden in the mountains at the confluence

of several caravan routes, much of its finest architecture is hewn out of the living rock, brilliantly coloured sandstone striated with pinks, ochres and blue-greys. Its builders, the Nabateans, drew on a range of Mediterranean and oriental styles to create a novel synthesis reminiscent of the more ebullient examples of Imperial Roman architecture. Egyptian, Assyrian and Hellenistic influences are also evident.

The Nabateans were an Arabian people who were first recorded in the 4th century bc and grew rich by controlling the trade routes across an empire which stretched from Saudi Arabia to Syria. With Petra their capital, nomadic desert traders became administrators and city-dwellers. They eventually submitted to incorporation in the Roman Empire. Decline, however, soon set in, and it seems that by the 8th century ad Petra had virtually become uninhabited.

Jordan is also rich in remains of many other civilizations. It lay within the wealthy Roman provinces of Syria and Arabia; Jerash is one

of the best preserved and most beautiful of Roman cities. The remains of many Byzantine churches and some very fine floor mosaics are scattered through the hills and valleys which were the setting of many events recorded in the Old Testament. The art of Islam is represented by the forts, hunting lodges and desert retreats of the sophisticated and pleasure-loving Umayyad dynasty of the 8th century. The castles of the Crusaders and their Arab opponents are among the most impressive examples of military architecture anywhere.

As a constant backdrop are mountains, gorges and deserts of awesome beauty.

The current Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan started life after the First World War, following the downfall of the Ottoman Empire, its borders an almost arbitrary outcome of the Franco-British re-ordering of the Levant.

Something of a backwater then, and constantly buffeted since by the disputatiousness of larger neighbours, Jordan has against the odds succeeded in steering a precarious course to survival, stability and modest prosperity.

Petra, Ed-Deir (‘The Monastery’), lithograph by Louis Haghe after David Roberts c. 1850.

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Jordan

Essential Jordan continued

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 5.05pm from London Heathrow to Amman (time in the air: c. 5 hours). Arrive at the hotel at c. 12 midnight.

First of three nights in Amman.

Day 2: Jerash. Drive north through red earth hills with olive groves and Aleppo pine woods.

Jerash, ancient Gerasa, a leading city of the Decapolis and very prosperous in the 2nd and 3rd centuries ad, is one of the best-preserved and most beautiful of ruined Roman cities and we spend a whole day there. Among the more spectacular remains are an oval piazza, the Cardo with its flanking colonnades, triumphal arches, food market, hippodrome, theatres, magnificent temples of Zeus and Artemis and several early Christian churches.

Day 3: Umayyad desert residences. In the desert to the east of Amman are remarkable survivals from the early Islamic Umayyad dynasty, 7th- and 8th-century small pleasure palaces, hunting lodges and forts. Qasr Amra (a UNESCO world heritage site) the best preserved and most beautiful, with wall paintings; the fortress-like desert complex of Qasr Kharana; the fort of Azraq, originally Roman, rebuilt in the 13th century and used

by T.E. Lawrence as his HQ for two months 1917–18.

climb, via the Soldier Tomb complex, up to the High Place of Sacrifice (c. 800 steps) where the sacrificial furnishings are still clearly visible.

church. Reach the hotel on the shore midafternoon, relax and swim. First of two nights in Sweimeh.

Day 6: Petra. For the second day in Petra walk again through the Siq and pass through the necropolis gorge, the ‘Street of Façades’ to study the more open area around the paved and colonnaded street. The remains of various structures include two mighty buildings, the ‘Great Temple’ and Qasr al Bint. Recent excavations have revealed what is almost certainly a cathedral with mosaic floors. Climb up (over 800 steps) to one of the finest rockcut façades, Ed-Deir (the Monastery), and some staggering views of hills and valleys of contorted rock.

Day 8: Mount Nebo, Madaba. Drive up from the Dead Sea, flanked by dramatic mountain scenery. Visit the Byzantine church with remarkable mosaics on Mount Nebo, the reputed burial site of Moses. At Madaba visit the archaeological park, where many mosaics are preserved, and see the unique 6th-century mosaic map of the Levant in the church of St George.

Day 7: Little Petra, Dead Sea. ‘Little Petra’, a narrow gorge with three natural widenings, is seen as a religious centre, perhaps connected with vine or grain harvest with carved façades and chambers and a fragment of naturalistic Nabatean painting. A spectacular descent through rugged and ragged sandstone leads to Wadi Araba, part of the Jordanian section of the Great Rift Valley. Here, the lowest place on Earth, Bedouin encampments give way to banana and tomato plantations and then to the Dead Sea. Stop at the Sanctuary of Lot, containing the remains of a 7th-century Wood engraving after Carl Haag, from The Graphic, 1887.

Day 4: Amman, Karak. The citadel in Amman was the religious and political centre of the ancient city. Here are the remains of the Temple of Hercules, the rebuilt Umayyad palace and the city Archaeological Museum.

Leaving Amman, drive southwards along the Biblical King’s Highway. The 12th-century Crusader castle of Karak, modified by the Mamluks in the 13th cent., is an impressive example of mediaeval military architecture with many chambers surviving. First of three nights in Petra.

Day 5: Petra. The Siq, the narrow milelong crevice with its Nabatean carvings and hydraulic system would itself merit a detour, but it is just the prelude to one of the most astonishing archaeological sites in the Middle East (also a UNESCO world heritage site). Emerging from the Siq, the visitor is confronted by the temple-like façade of the ‘Treasury’, vast in scale, classical in vocabulary, Hellenistic in inspiration but uniquely Nabatean, the first of innumerable carved façades, mainly tombs, created in the living rock. There are also impressive remains of built monuments in the heart of the city, from grand temples, public buildings and churches to houses. Not the least striking feature is the multicoloured, striated but predominantly red sandstone. After lunch, return to the hotel or

Jordan

Day 9. Drive to Amman airport (1 hour).

Arrive Heathrow c. 3.30pm.

There may be slight variations to this itinerary depending on the preferences of the lecturer.

Practicalities Price: £3,180 (deposit £300). This includes: scheduled flights (economy class) with Royal Jordanian (Airbus A310); travel by private coach; breakfasts, 7 lunches (including 2 picnics) and 4 dinners (plus meals on flights) with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters, drivers, guides; all taxes; the cost of the group visa; the services of the lecturer and a Jordanian guide. Single supplement £420.

Price without flights £2,780.

Hotels: all the hotels are locally rated as 5-star.

In Amman (3 nights): a modern hotel with well-equipped and comfortable rooms. In Petra (3 nights): hotel close to the site, modern but in part fitted out in traditional Arab style; comfortable, capacious and well-equipped bedrooms, several restaurants and cafés, swimming pool. In Sweimeh (2 nights): on the Dead Sea, an extensive hotel with buildings scattered through lush tropical gardens; shady lounges, antique or traditional-style furnishings, spa and health centre. Included dinners are good quality buffets.

Visas: required for most foreign nationals.

Passports do not have to be submitted in advance. A group visa is issued on arrival (the cost is included in the price of the tour as long as you are travelling with the group). Passports must be valid for six months beyond the dates of the tour.

How strenuous? This tour is quite demanding and you must be capable of walking all day over rough sites. Fitness and sure-footedness are essential. Average distance by coach per day: 72 miles.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

Looking for Latvia or Lithuania? Try page 44 for The Baltic States, 6–18 May 2013.

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Malta World heritage Malta, from Neolithic to now 14–20 October 2013 (ma 735) 7 days • £2,100 Lecturer: Juliet Rix

the most complex in Malta and would have been the most decorative. The afternoon is free in Valletta.

Day 5: Gozo. A thirty-minute ferry crossing to the island of Gozo, which is more rural and less populated than Malta. See the temple of Ggantija, amongst the oldest of Malta’s prehistoric monuments. The chief town is Victoria, which has a citadel, cathedral, museum and SiciloNorman houses. Fungus Rock, Gharb and Ramla Bay are all of geological, historical and mythical interest respectively.

A wonderful exploration of this fascinating, diverse island, led by the author of its most comprehensive guide.

A visit to the world’s earliest stone temples, amongst a concentration of other astonishing major historic sites.

Led by the author of definitive guide to Malta (Bradt Guide: Malta and Gozo) and expert on the area, Juliet Rix. Visit the rural and picturesque Gozo Island, with stunning natural features.

Malta has an extraordinary 7000-year history beginning with the arrival of a little-known people from Sicily who became the creators of Malta’s unique Neolithic temples. Older than the Great Pyramids and the famous standing stones at Stonehenge, Malta’s temples were built between 3600 and 2500 bc – they are megalithic architecture constructed a millennium before Mycenae.

All the temples are unesco World Heritage Sites, as is the unique Hal Saflieni Hypogeum, the extraordinary triple-layered tomb complex cut from solid rock where the ‘Temple People’ buried their dead.

And this is just the start of the story.

Malta, with its perfect natural harbours, was desired by every trading or invading nation in the Mediterranean from the Phoenicians and Romans to both sides in the Second World War. Each occupier has left its mark from RomanByzantine catacombs to British red letter boxes.

The Knights of St John Hospitaller, commonly referred to as ‘The Knights of Malta’ have, of course, left the greatest impression. Ousted from Jerusalem and then Rhodes, this order of maritime warrior monks arrived in Malta in 1530 and ruled until 1798. After nearly losing the country to the Ottoman Turks in The Great Siege of 1565, the Knights built a near-impregnable new city on a rocky peninsula between two harbours: Malta’s delightful diminutive capital, Valletta.

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Day 6: Mdina, Rabat, Mosta. Mdina, Malta’s ancient capital, is an unspoilt citadel of great beauty, centre of the indigenous aristocracy, with mediaeval walls, grand palazzos and Baroque cathedral. Spreading below is the town of Rabat, with Early Christian catacombs. Afternoon drive to Mosta with the third largest dome in Europe.

Valetta, engraving after Charlie Wyllie c. 1890.

bombed and minimally restored, the City Gate area has been redesigned by Renzo Piano, the architect of the Pompidou Centre and the London Shard.

Itinerary Day 1: Valletta. Fly at 11.00am from London Heathrow to Malta. Drive to Valletta, a peninsula flanked by fine natural harbours and once the most strongly fortified city in Christendom. Here, survey the massive fortifications protecting the landward approach and view the Grand Harbour from the ramparts.

Day 2: Hagar Qim, Mnajdra, Ghar Lapsi. Drive through attractive countryside to the prehistoric temples overlooking the sea, Hagar Qim and Mnajdra. In the afternoon, see the ancient trackworks, Clapham Junction cart ruts.

Day 3: Valletta. The morning is spent in two museums housed in important Knights’-period buildings - The National Museum of Archaeology, home of the unique ‘Fat Ladies of Malta’ and other original carvings from the Neolithic Temples; and the Museum of Fine Art. Visit the charming Manoel Theatre, a rare survival of the early 18th century and the Co-Cathedral of St John, one of the most interesting of Baroque buildings, which has lavish carved wall decoration, ceiling paintings by Mattia Preti, magnificently carved tombs and two paintings by Caravaggio. Finally, see the Grand Master’s Palace with state rooms, tapestry hall and armoury.

Day 4: Paola, Valletta. In Paola, the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum is a unesco World Heritage Site and the only prehistoric underground temple in the world. The Tarxien Temple site is

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Day 7: Vittoriosa. Cross the Grand Harbour by boat, to see churches, forts, and the World War II museum in Vittoriosa. Fly to London Heathrow arriving at 7.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,100 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) with scheduled Air Malta flights (Boeing 737, Airbus 320); travel by private coach; breakfasts, two lunches and three dinners with wine, water, coffee; admissions to museums and sites; gratuities for waiters, drivers and local guides; the services of the lecturer and local guide. Single supplement £240.

Price without flights £1,990.

Hotel: a deluxe 5-star in Valletta, furnished with style and character, the best in Valletta and just outside the city gates.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking on this tour, some of it over the rough ground of sites. Valletta is relatively hilly. Average distance by coach per day: 15 miles.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

Lecturers biographies are on page 194.

M alta

Morocco Cities & empires caravans wended their way north and east to the great entrepots of North Africa, Egypt and the Middle East. Within a couple of decades, Fez was founded in North Morocco as a rival political centre and another stage in the great caravan trade across the Maghrib. In the late 11th century Marrakech emerged in the same way. This rich trade could not help but attract Christian European attention and by the 15th century, the Portuguese had captured Ceuta hoping for a share of the profits. Spain, England, the Netherlands and even the Scandinavian countries were quick to follow, using the Mediterranean ports like Tangier to access the riches of Morocco. Sultanates rose and fell on the profits of this trade which finally dwindled in the 19th century.

The sites along the tour’s route tell of the mediaeval Islamic empires of Morocco, founded by Arab conquerors and the Berbers of the region, and of their European trading powers, lured to Africa by tales of gold and other exotic treasures. The long drives, often winding along the ancient trade routes, reveal the dramatic landscapes of Morocco from fertile olive groves to snow-capped mountains and long deep green palm oases which taper into the desert like ribbons trailing from mountain to desert.

Marrakesh, woodcut from Agenda P.L.M., 1926.

14–25 September 2013 (ma 690) 11 nights • £3,960 Lecturer: James Brown From Tangier to Marrakech, including the imperial cities of Fez and Meknes.

Led by James Brown, an historian specialising in Morocco.

Spectacular landscapes: the Atlas Mountains, valleys, palm groves, woodland, desert.

See the sun set over the sand dunes at Merzouga and visit the magnificent Roman ruins at Volubilis.

Quite a demanding tour with some long drives.

Morocco, just a cannon’s shot from Gibraltar and the ports of Spain, has always commanded the respect and fascinated the imagination of Europe. It was one of the last nations to fall under colonial occupation in 1912 and the first to win its independence from the French in 1956. The very same Grand Vizier who greeted the first French Governor had the satisfaction

Morocco

of ushering out the last colonial ruler before his death.

Even to fellow Muslims, it was the near legendary ‘al-Maghrib al-Aqsa’, the land of the setting sun, perched on the north-west corner of the African continent where the known world ended and the sea of darkness began. Its boundaries are defined by four mountain ranges which shelter the fertile Atlantic plains and by three seas: the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the sand sea of the Sahara.

Unlike some parts of the Middle East and North Africa, Morocco was not heavily settled

by Arabs after the Islamic conquest in the late 7th to early 8th century. Instead the indigenous Berber tribes of the area converted gradually to Islam and created cities and empires with a uniquely Moroccan flavour. One of the first of these cities was Sigilmassa in the Tafilalt oasis, a tribal watering hole which became a thriving Saharan port city from whence camel caravans set out for West Africa laden with salt from mines in the desert and other northern products which were exchanged in ancient Ghana and Mali for gold, slaves, ostrich feathers, ivory and gum. From Sigilmassa,

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Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 7.30pm from London Heathrow to Tangier (time in the air: c. 2 hours 45 minutes). There will be a snack in your hotel room on arrival. First of two nights in Tangier.

Day 2: Tangier. A morning walk investigates both the traditional walled Muslim city and the relics of the famous turn-of-the-century international city. Visit the Anglican Church, the Kasbah quarter, including the museum, the Petit Socco square and the Mendoubia garden.

Some free time.

Day 3: Tetouan, Chefchaouen. The heirs of Granada. Drive east over the Anjera hills to the city of Tetouan, settled by refugees from Andalucía whose Moorish culture is clearly identifiable in the streets of the old city, the products of the artisan school and the archaeological museum. Drive south to Chefchaouen to visit the kasbah and then on to Fez for the first of three nights.

Day 4: Volubilis, Meknes. In impressive isolation on the edge of the olive-covered Zerhoun hills lie the ruins of Volubilis, the capital of Roman Morocco, with triumphal arch, basilica and mosaics. Though it boasts an old walled trading city, a Merenid Madrassa and an intimate palace museum to rival Fez, Meknes is yet overwhelmed by the vast ruins of the 17th-century imperial city established by b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

the powerful Sultan Moulay Ismail to house his Negro slave army.

Day 5: Fez. A full day to explore the extraordinary walled mediaeval city of Fez that stands at the heart of Moroccan culture.

Highlights include the Bou Inania Madrassa and the Karaouyine Mosque, as well as the pungent Tanneries. Afternoon tour of the city walls and some free time.

Day 6: the Middle Atlas. Pick up the old caravan trail south, stopping at Midelt before crossing the nomad-grazed high plateau of the Middle Atlas and descending along the Ziz valley to the Tafilalt oasis on the edge of the Sahara. First of two nights in Erfoud.

Day 7: the Tafilalt Oasis, Merzouga. Visit Tafilalt, including the exposed mounds and ruined mud walls that were once the glittering mediaeval city of Sigilmassa. Evening excursion to see the sunset over the sand dunes of the desert of Merzouga.

Day 8: Erfoud to Ouarzazate. Follow a chain of palm-filled valleys west, crossing through the old market town of Tinerhir and the Dades valley. See the extraordinary tapering towers of the kasbahs dotted along the route. Leave the main road for the Todra Gorge with its vividly contrasting colours of bright green vegetation set against red, brown and orange rock faces.

Overnight Ouarzazate.

celebrated kasbah village of Aït Benhaddou before twisting through the high passes.

Descend through woodland on the north face of the mountains down to the red city of Marrakech for the first of three nights.

Day 10: Marrakech. A morning devoted to the architectural achievements of the Saadian dynasty, paid for by the sale of sugar produced nearby. The dazzling decorative excess of the Saadian tombs and the gaunt simplicity of the ruins of the El Badi Palace are balanced by the calm munificence of the Ben Youssef Madrassa.

There is an afternoon visit to the Marjorelle gardens, with its bamboo groves and date plantations.

Day 11: Marrakech. The Koutoubia minaret is the oldest of the three Almohad towers constructed in the 12th century in Marrakech, Rabat and Seville and it stands 70 metres high.

The late-19th-century Bahia Palace of the chief minister Ba Ahmad shows the continuity of artistic styles from Saadian era. Free afternoon to visit the world famous markets and Djemaa el-Fna square.

Day 12. Fly from Marrakech to London via Casablanca arriving Heathrow c. 4.45pm.

Practicalities Price: £3,960 (deposit £350). This includes: flights (economy class) with Royal Air Maroc (Boeing 737); private air-conditioned coach; accommodation as below; breakfasts, 7 lunches and 8 dinners with wine or soft drinks (not all restaurants serve alcohol), water, coffee or tea; all admissions; all tips; the services of the lecturer and local guides. Single supplement £440. Price without flights £3,690.

Hotels: Tangier (2 nights): comfortable but dated 5-star hotel, centrally located; Fez (3 nights): excellent 5-star hotel within the medina; Erfoud (2 nights): friendly but comparatively basic hotel; Ouarzazate (1 night): functional 4-star hotel; Marrakech (3 nights): characterful and tranquil riad-style hotel, within the kasbah quarter of the medina; rooms vary in size. All hotels have swimming pools.

Visas: not required by British citizens.

Nationals of other countries should check their requirements.

How strenuous? A long and tiring tour with a lot of walking on rough ground, through narrow streets and busy markets, frequent hotel changes and some lengthy coach journeys.

Average distance by coach per day: 80 miles.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Castile & León, 30 Sept.–8 Oct. (page 166) or Classical Greece, 28 Sept.–7 Oct. (page 80).

Day 9: the High Atlas. Cross the High Atlas mountains, stopping at Taourirt and the

The Atlas Mountains with Fez in the foreground, aquatint 1811.

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Munch in Oslo Celebrating 150 years since the artist’s birth 26–29 June 2013 (mz 622) 4 days • £1,660 Lecturer: Dr Frank Høifødt Two exhibitions form this major retrospective of Edvard Munch (1863–1944), in Norway’s National Gallery and in the Munch Museum.

Visit also Munch’s summer home at Åsgårdstrand and his studio at Ekely. Special arrangements to see paintings beyond the galleries.

Based in a family-owned 5-star hotel in the centre of this sleek Nordic capital.

Led by Dr Frank Høifødt, a former curator of the Munch Museum.

Edvard Munch (1863–1944), Norway’s greatest artist, created one of modern art’s most recognised images. For its multitude of admirers, his 1893 painting The Scream encapsulates all the angst of the modern age. This tour provides an exhilarating and unrepeatable opportunity to explore the artist’s work and to understand his development as an artist and a man.

Munch himself was a conflicted character.

After a sickly childhood, marked by the death of his mother and beloved sister, he was raised by an aunt and his doctor father, a difficult, melancholic figure. At the age of seventeen he began training at the Oslo School of Design.

Though his early work was influenced

by Impressionism, by the time he was in his twenties he had begun to develop an art intended to express profound emotion. With its violent exaggeration of line and colour, his ‘soul painting’ (generally regarded as the precursor to Expressionism) both scandalised and revolutionised.

The Oslo of Munch’s childhood was a small, provincial town and in the 1880s Munch left to paint in Paris, where he was inspired by the work of Van Gogh and Gauguin, and then in Berlin, where his Bohemian lifestyle caused as much outrage as his art. By 1902, however, he had begun to receive widespread critical recognition.

Munch’s Frieze of Life, begun in the late 1880s, is his (never completed) masterwork.

This monumental series took as its themes the most fundamental human experiences – love, death, jealousy, separation – themes Munch was to explore repeatedly through his paintings, pastels, prints and sketches. Reworked and revised over a thirty-year period, the Frieze of Life includes many of his most celebrated works.

After a nervous breakdown in 1909 Munch returned to Oslo, where he lived, in solitude, at his estate Ekely at Skøyen. On his death

Norway

in 1944, he bequeathed over 1,000 paintings, 4,500 drawings and 18,000 prints to the city of Oslo, now housed in the Munch Museum.

Our tour focuses on two major retrospectives marking the 150th anniversary of Munch’s birth, but also offers the opportunity to explore Oslo, now an exciting capital, and various significant locations in Munch’s life, including his boyhood homes and the sites of many of his paintings.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 10.15am from London to Oslo (Gardamoen Airport) and drive to the hotel in the centre of the city. An introductory walk sets the scene with sites related to Munch’s family and his paintings in the town hall and university.

Day 2. The exhibition at the National Gallery is dedicated to the years up to 1903 and includes the most extensive reconstruction of The Frieze of Life to be displayed since Munch’s death. Other significant works include his early versions of The Sick Child and The Scream.

The afternoon walk covers areas of the city where Munch lived, the cemetery where he is buried and motifs in his paintings such as the Old Aker Church. End at the Freia chocolate factory where Munch painted a mural in the staff canteen.

Day 3. The second part of the retrospective, at the Munch Museum, covers the years 1903– 1944. It includes Munch’s experiments with Modernism, his landscape paintings of rural life in Norway, and later versions of The Scream and The Sick Child. Spend the afternoon at Åsgårdstrand, Munch’s summer house on the Oslofjord which is now a small museum. Here he painted The Girls on the Bridge. Return to Oslo for dinner at the 1930s Kunstnernes Hus (Artists’ House).

Practicalities Price: £1,660 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) with SAS (Boeing 737); private coach travel; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 2 dinners with a glass or two of wine, water and coffee; admission to the exhibitions and all other admission costs; all tips for waiters, drivers and guides; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £260 (double room for single use).

Price without flights £1,480.

Hotel. A family-run 5-star hotel in the heart of Oslo, a very short walk from the National Gallery. Decoration throughout is classical but restrained; bedrooms are comfortable and well equipped. There is a bar and good restaurant.

How strenuous? This is a short tour but nonetheless involves a lot of walking and standing around in museums. Participants need to be fit. Average distance by coach per day: 49 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 19 participants.

Combining tours: please contact us if you are interested in combining this tour with Finland: Aalto & Others, 29 June–6 July (page 48).

The Bergen Festival May 2013 Details available December 2012 Contact us to register your interest

Day 4. There is free time this morning.

Among Oslo’s other museums are the National Museum of Architecture and the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Contemporary Art, newly installed in a building by Piano. Then, by special arrangement, visit Munch’s studios at Ekely in Oslo’s suburbs. The artist died here in 1944. Continue to the airport for the flight to London. Arrive Heathrow c. 6.30pm.

Lecturers biographies are on page 194.

Music in Scandinavia, 27 May–3 June 2013, travels to Norway, Denmark and Sweden.

See page 23.

Looking for tours to Montenegro? Try page 17 for The Western Balkans (also travels to Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia).

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Oman The essence of Arabia 4–14 January 2013 (mz 453) This tour is currently full Contact us to register your interest in a second departure in November 2013.

Remarkable landscape, hill forts, traditional souqs, archaeological sites.

The toehold of Arabia, with a diverse population reflecting its mercantile past.

Accompanied by a social anthropologist long involved in the Middle East.

All the hotels are comfortable, some are superb, plus a night in a desert camp.

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Other features of this tour are the opportunity to camp overnight in the Wahiba Sands, stay by the Indian Ocean and shop in souqs suffused with the scent of frankincense.

Oman is opening up to a privileged few.

Practicalities – in brief Price: £4,380 (deposit £400). Single supplement £530. Price without flights £3,780.

Hotels: Muscat: (2 nights): 5-star hotel within an exclusive resort. Nizwa (2 nights): comfortable 4-star hotel. Wahiba Sands (1 night): luxury camp in individual tents with private facilities. Sur (1 night): modern 4-star hotel. Salalah (3 nights): 5-star hotel, high standards of comfort and service.

Small group: between 8 and 18 participants.

This could be Oman (due to the water system and architecture) but it is infact Algeria, engraving c. 1875.

Wilfred Thesiger was motivated to cross the Empty Quarter not only by his desire to gain further recognition as a traveller but by the hope that he would find peace and solitude in the remote desert landscapes. He also yearned to gain the friendship of the Bedu who journeyed with him and whom he encountered during his traverse. The possibility of travelling to little-visited locations, relaxing in inspiring surroundings and developing understanding with new peoples is no less possible in Oman in 2013 than it was in 1946.

The country provides a diverse range of extraordinary natural beauty: deserts, mountains, wadis, beaches. Visitors also experience the kindness and friendliness of the Omanis. With relatively few, although gradually increasing number of visitors a year, Oman is still not over-developed, unlike some of its neighbouring Gulf states.

Evidence of settlement dates back to the fourth millennium BC with early indications of dependence on trade. First copper and then frankincense (southern Oman is one of the few places in the world where the ‘sacred frankincense’ still grows) played a key role in the country’s history. Desire to control the supply of frankincense led to incorporation in the Achaemenid and Sassanian empires until the Persians were forced out in the seventh century.

Omanis readily embraced Islam and submitted to the Umayyad and the Abbasid Caliphate. Trade and naval power continued to expand. Occupied by the Portuguese from 1507 to 1650, Oman flourished again after their departure with an empire reaching into East Africa, particularly Zanzibar, and the Indian Ocean. Treaties agreed with the British to protect communications with India marked the beginning of a special relationship, which continued beyond the formal termination of the protectorate in 1971.

Meanwhile, the division of the Omani empire between the sultan of Zanzibar and the

sultan of Muscat in 1856 resulted in economic decline for both and internal conflicts in the latter. Successive sultans failed to tackle the problems and Oman stagnated.

The coming to power of Sultan Qaboos bin Said in 1970 heralded a new era. Though its oil revenues are relatively small, they have been used wisely to the benefit of the Omani people, for infrastructure, employment and education.

Development has been rapid but controlled, guided by a determination to preserve Omani traditions.

Our comprehensive itinerary includes the highlights of this vast country: from the inland forts of Nizwa and Jabrin to the little-visited archaeological sites of Al-Balid and Khor Rori, from the mountain scenery in the Western Hajar to the remoteness of the Wahiba Sands, from the bustling capital Muscat to the contrasting landscapes of the southern region of Dhofar.

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Oman

Palestine Archaeology & architecture of the West Bank Hebron, steel engraving c. 1860.

18–26 March 2013 (mz 502) 9 days • £3,250 Lecturer: Dr Felicity Cobbing A pioneering tour which includes the major archaeological sites and the most significant historic buildings on the West Bank.

Led by Dr Felicity Cobbing, curator of the Palestine Exploration Fund.

There are two nights in East Jerusalem.

Provides an insight into a territory much in the news but little visited in recent years.

Palestine is a land of limestone hills with the humped contours of a children’s picture-book.

The surface is generally a grey-green impasto of olives and scrub, sometimes beautified with the striations of ancient terraces, farmed intermittently in clefts and nooks, grazed where vegetation is harsh and coarse. Then there are the hills of the Judaean desert, crinkled, barren rock, khaki with a dusting of white.

Straggling along crests and down hillsides, Palestinian towns and villages are given visual unity by white limestone cladding – a requirement introduced during the British mandate and still adhered to. They express individualism, enterprise and struggle. By contrast, the Israeli settlements crowning many a peak are fortress-like high-density clusters.

Recent history and current affairs cannot be ignored in this part of the world but the focus of the tour is archaeology, architecture and more distant history. Scattered across the West Bank are some very remarkable sites and

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buildings. There are unique remains form the very earliest periods of settled, some fascinating remnants of the Canaanite and Israelite civilizations of the Bronze and Iron Ages, often with biblical associations. The creations of Herod the Great, among the most impressive structures of the ancient world, feature prominently, and there are significant remains from the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad, Crusader and Ottoman eras. A particular feature are the desert monasteries, often in dramatic and inaccessible locations.

Tourism is hardly new to Palestine: pilgrimage tours follow well-worn routes, quickly bouncing back after intermittent periods of strife, but other sorts of specialist tours are relatively rare. There has been investment in hotels and infrastructure in recent years, and the people are generally very welcoming.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 8.30am from London Heathrow to Tel Aviv (Israel) and drive through the Separation Wall to Bethlehem (Palestine). Reach the hotel in time for a lecture and dinner. Four nights are spent here.

Day 2: Herodion, Solomon’s Pools, Mar Saba.

Herodion is an extraordinary fortified palace built by King Herod 24–15 bc on an artificial hill. There are extensive remains of defences, cisterns and baths and superb views. It was supplied with water from ‘Solomon’s Pools’, a series of reservoirs 9 km away, visited next.

Return to Bethlehem for lunch and drive into the Judaean desert to visit the Orthodox

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monastery of Mar Saba, perched in a gorge and with a beautiful chapel (limited access for women).

Day 3: Hebron (Al-Khalil), Judaean Desert.

The Herodian phase of the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron is one of the most impressive buildings of the ancient world.

The interior is Crusader and Mamluk, and is now divided between Muslims and Jews.

We visit the Muslim mosque which contains the cenotaphs of the Patriarchs. We also see a 19th-century Russian church here. Hebron is volatile and this visit may be cancelled at short notice. The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is one of the greatest of Early Christian buildings; five aisles and monumental Corinthian colonnades.

Day 4: Jerusalem. Spend the day in the Old City of Jerusalem (ruled de facto by Israel but claimed by Palestine). This is the most extraordinary city on Earth, a vibrant Middle-Eastern enclave split between rival communities and composed of mediaeval and ancient masonry. Walk along the city’s impressive ramparts, visit the Church of St Anne and Armenian Cathedral.

Day 5: Bethlehem to Jericho. The journey down to the Dead Sea is broken at a modern museum of ancient mosaics. The palm-shaded oasis of Jericho is a place of superlatives, the world’s most low-lying town and arguably its oldest continuously inhabited one. The lowest strata of Tell as-Sultan, the site of ancient Jericho, are 10,000 years old and there is a unique tower of c. 7000 bc, as well as impressive Bronze Age remains from the third and second millenniums bc. Hisham’s Palace is a remarkably well-preserved 8th-century Umayyad palace. The Monastery of Temptation is inserted in the high cliff overlooking the site and can now be reached by cable car. First of two nights in Jericho.

Day 6: desert monasteries. The theme of the day is monasticism in the Judaean hills, beginning with the community of Jewish zealots at Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, and continuing to functioning Christian monasteries in the wadis. According to Muslim tradition, Nabi Musa is the burial place of Moses and has Mamluk, Byzantine and Ottoman parts. There is an optional walk to the 19th-century Greek Orthodox monastery of St George in Wadi Kelt with free time in Jericho as an alternative.

Day 7: Sebastia, Nablus, Jerusalem. Amid lovely countryside north-west of Nablus, Sebastia (Samaria) is a fascinating site with extensive remains spreading over a hill, principally Roman and Hellenistic but reaching

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Lisbon neighbourhoods Art, architecture & gardens in & around the capital back much earlier to the time of the Israelite kings, Omri and Ahab. In Nablus, Jacob’s Well is enshrined in a church which was begun by the Crusaders and completed last century. Stay in East Jerusalem for two nights.

Day 8: Jerusalem. Haram ash-Sharif, alias the Temple Mount, Herod’s great retaining wall supporting a platform now adorned with some of the earliest and finest Islamic buildings, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Constantinian and Crusader. Free afternoon in the old city.

Day 9: Jerusalem. The Rockefeller Museum, formerly the Palestinian Archaeological Museum, has finds from some of the sites visited on this tour, including Hisham’s Palace, ancient Jericho, Samaria and Jerusalem. After lunch drive to Tel Aviv airport. The flight arrives at Heathrow c. 8.00pm.

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Superb and varied collections of decorative and fine arts as well as some of the best examples of Portuguese ceramic tiles.

Palaces and gardens are well represented including the National Palace at Sintra and the Rococo Royal Palace at Queluz.

Led by Adam Hopkins, journalist and author, specialist in Spanish and Portuguese history and culture.

Rejuvenation in the last decade has transformed Lisbon into a vibrant and attractive city.

Each of Lisbon’s neighbourhoods has its own atmosphere and its own treasures – and the same is emphatically true of the nearby hill – or mountain – of Sintra, with palaces and gardens, and a tendency for mist to hang romantically about its peak. Despite the nation’s money troubles and the city’s pockets

Belém tower, feet washed by the river, and the gorgeous Jerónimos Monastery, itself once standing on the foreshore. Add to these, museums and galleries with fine and applied arts of the highest level, swelling hills and the constant presence of the river, glimpsed when least expected, not to mention the world’s finest grilled sardines.

Itinerary Day 1: Lisbon. Fly at c. 1.30pm from London Heathrow to Lisbon. Drive to the hotel and settle in. Introductory talk before dinner.

Day 2: Belém, Alfama. Drive out to the Jerónimos Monastery at Belém, an outstanding example of the exuberant Manueline style with fine carving and vaulting. On the banks of the Tagus are the monument to the ‘Explorers’ and the Torre de Belém (fortress) – also Manueline with Moorish decoration. Continue to the Castelo de São Jorge - arab castle conquered by the Christians in 1147, embellished over centuries by Portugal’s kings, destroyed and now restored. Descend with views of the Lisbon, Rossio Square, wood engraving 1890.

Price: £3,250 (deposit £300). This includes: flights (economy class) with British Airways (Boeing 767); private coach; accommodation as below; breakfasts, 7 lunches and 5 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; airport taxes; the services of the lecturer, tour manager and local guides. Single supplement £310. Price without flights £2,780.

8–13 April 2013 (mz 530) 6 days • £1,720 Lecturer: Adam Hopkins

Hotels. The first two are international chain hotels used largely by religious package tours but they are comfortable and well equipped, rated locally respectively as 4-star and 5-star. In Bethlehem (4 nights): a flamboyant late 19thcentury mansion with bedrooms in a modern building around a garden to the rear; in Jericho (2 nights): a high-rise building outside the centre. In Jerusalem (2 nights): the most prestigious 5-star hotel in East Jerusalem.

Visas: are obtained on arrival at no charge for most nationalities.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking, some of it over rough ground and uneven paving, and sure-footedness is essential.

Average distance by coach per day: c. 41 miles.

Small group: between 14 and 22 participants.

Working in partnership with the Palestine Exploration Fund. By booking on this tour, you will automatically become s PEF member, have access to the extensive PEF library and resources as well as benefit from expert advice on the ancient Levant from members of staff.

Israel & Palestine, 12–21 February 2013 and 1–10 October 2013. See page 88.

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of poverty, Lisbon itself remains one of the most romantic capitals of Europe. The Alfama neighbourhood rises high to east of centre, its castle synonymous with the fortunes of early Lisbon and with fine views of the bellying Tagus below. The centre itself – the ‘Baixa’, at river level, was built on a grid plan by the dictator Pombal in the eighteenth century, one of the great successes of early town planning.

Above to the west rises the ever more lively – and stylish – Bairro Alto or High District and far beyond, where the Tagus reaches out towards the Atlantic, comes Belém. King Manuel the Fortunate, his coffers swelling with the riches of India, envisaged a new Bethlehem for a new Christian mission to the East. The result: two of Portugal’s great buildings: the

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labyrinthine Alfama to the Romanesque cathedral. Once fortified, now much remodelled, it has a fascinating and important archeological site in its cloister. End the day at the Museu Nacional do Azulejo (ceramic tiles), a superb collection of one of Portugal’s great art forms with work from the 15th century to now.

Day 3: Lapa, Bairro Alto. Drive to Lapa to the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga with 15thand 16th-century Portuguese works of art – displayed in a beautiful palace. Back in the centre of Lisbon, walk around the Bairro Alto, a now fashionable hub of theatres, boutiques, cafés and restaurants. Visit the highly ornate church of São Roque and the ruined Convento do Carmo and its archaeological museum.

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Lisbon Neighbourhoods continued

The Douro From Porto to Pinhão

Day 4: Queluz, Sintra. Drive to the royal palace and gardens at Queluz, built for the Infante Dom Pedro, a version of Versailles tempered by a Rococo elegance and a more intimate scale. Continue to the beautifully situated town of Sintra, the favoured summer residence of the kings of Portugal for six centuries, and much praised in poetry and prose. Visit the Palácio Nacional with its curious oast-house-like conical towers and remarkable 16th- and 17th-century azulejos.

Lunch in the elegant 18th-century Palácio de Seteais, now a hotel. Visit the gardens of Quinta da Monserrate, laid out in 1856 for Sir Francis Cook, first Visconde de Monserrate, and his curious Mughal style mansion with restoration nearing completion.

Day 5: Benfica. The morning is free. In the afternoon drive to Benfica and visit by arrangement the Palácio dos Marqueses de Fronteira. The tile work is excellent, particularly the Battle Room depicting the War of Independence against Spain 1640–68.

Drive back to the centre to visit the Medeiros e Almeida Foundation, an excellent and varied collection of decorative and fine arts, assembled by the Medeiros family in the 20th century, housed in the family home. Highlights include the French and Chinese collections, and an impressive British thunder box.

Day 6: Lisbon. The morning is spent at the Gulbenkian Museum, an outstanding private art collection given to the city of Lisbon and beautifully displayed in a modern building.

Continue to the airport for the flight to Heathrow, arriving c. 6.45pm.

Practicalities Price £1,720 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (economy class) with TAP (Airbus 320); private coach; hotel accommodation as below; breakfasts, 1 lunch, 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager.

Supplement for a superior room £150 (per room, two sharing). Single supplement £300.

Price without flights £1,540.

22–29 May 2013 (mz 576) 8 days • £2,170 Lecturer: Adam Hopkins One of the most remote and picturesque corners of Europe.

Variety of visits including major museums, mediaeval and Baroque architecture, gardens, Paleolithic art and wine tastings at private estates.

Journeys of immense beauty by rail and boat.

Led by Adam Hopkins, journalist and author, specialist in Spanish and Portuguese history and culture.

One of our more leisurely tours.

The upper reaches of the Douro in Portugal present a landscape of extraordinary beauty and tranquillity. The banks rise steeply into the surrounding hills which are clothed with terraced vineyards, patches of woodland, little villages and quintas. Until recently one of the remotest clefts in western Europe, the region remains remarkably unspoilt and difficult of access. It is best approached by train; a journey into mountains that begins at the mouth of the river in Porto (Oporto).

The capital of northern Portugal, Porto is synonymous with the port wine trade, which since time immemorial has been dominated by the British. Hence an architectural peculiarity of Porto: the serene Neo-Palladianism of buildings by John Carr of York and his imitators cheek-by-jowl with the highly wrought, startlingly pigmented and lavishly gilded Baroque style of churches and public buildings. Baroque was virtually introduced by

another foreigner, the Tuscan painter-architect Nicolau Nasoni who had a hand in the design of many churches and houses in the city and along the Douro.

Porto is also relatively unspoilt, retaining a jumble of historic architecture on its undulating even precipitous site, but it is also a city of parks and gardens and the occasional flash of ultramodern architecture.

This is not a tour in pursuit of masterpieces, rather an exploration of delicious scenery and ancient townscapes in a most beautiful but often overlooked corner of Europe. The port wine industry is a subsidiary theme, along with the excellent red wines now produced here. The pace on this tour is slower than on many.

Itinerary Day 1: Porto. Fly at c. 12.00 midday from London Gatwick to Porto. Introductory talk and time for a stroll along the river front before dinner. First of three nights in Porto.

Day 2: Porto. Porto is dense with historic architecture and falls steeply down to the River Douro. The principal monuments are set amidst the rise and fall of the upper part of the town, reached by steep alleys and steps. The cathedral is basically 13th-century with later embellishments, many by the painter-architect Nicolau Nasoni. The Clerigos Church with its wonderful Baroque tower is also by Nasoni, the church of the Misericordia has good Flemish paintings and São Francisco has an amazingly rich carved and gilded interior. Also see the magnificent decorative tiles, azulejos, in the railway station and visit the Factory House (by special arrangement), a club of British port wine traders founded in the 18th century.

Portuguese muleteer, engraving c. 1820.

Hotel: a comfortable hotel of generous proportions with an air of faded grandeur and old-world charm. Bedrooms are bright although some are in need of updating.

Adjacent to Rossio Square and rated locally as 5-star but more comparable to 4-star.

How strenuous? A short but busy itinerary with a lot of walking and standing around.

Terrain is often uneven and steep. Average distance by coach per day: 12 miles.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

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Day 3: Porto. See the façade of the Hospital de São António designed by John Carr of York (1770). The Soares dos Reis was Portugal’s first national museum and has collections of Portuguese fine and decorative arts, and the nearby Museu Romântico in the Quinta da Macieirinha has a garden and 19thcentury furnishings. Álvaro Siza’s Fundação de Serralves is set in an attractive park and houses contemporary art. Rem Koolhaas’s new concert hall is stunning. Cross the Douro for a tasting at a port lodge and study the scene of Wellington’s impulsive and brilliant 1809 river crossing which enabled him to finish Marshal Soult’s still-warm lunch.

Day 4: Porto, Douro Valley, Pinhão. Free morning in Porto. Early afternoon train journey up the Douro Valley which becomes increasingly rural, unspoilt and beautiful, with vineyards, patches of woodland and quintas clinging to the hills. Pinhão is a tiny town with a hotel in a former port lodge overlooking the Douro. First of four nights in Pinhão.

Day 5: São João de Tarouca, Lamego. At the village of São João de Tarouca, there are paintings by Grão Vasco (1506–42) and Gaspar Vaz (1490–1569) in the church beside which are the ruins of the first Cistercian abbey in Portugal (1169). Continue to the busy little town of Lamego, replete with Baroque mansions and dominated by the pilgrimage church of Nossa Senhora dos Remédios atop a ceremonial stairway. The town museum in the former episcopal palace contains a series of panels by Grão Vasco. See also the cathedral, largely Renaissance behind a Romanesque belfry and has a Gothic west front.

Day 6: Vale do Côa. Up the Douro is the small town of Vila Nova Foz Côa with church with Manueline doorway. Close to the border with Spain the River Côa valley holds one of the greatest archaeological finds of recent years, an extensive array of outdoor Paleolithic art, the largest in Europe. There are well-preserved engravings of auroch, horse, deer and goat along a long stretch of steeply slate-banked river. Visit one of the key sites by 4WD, then continue on foot. Return to Pinhão on the train beside the Douro.

Day 7: the Douro by train and boat: a leisurely day in the heart of the wine-making area.

Travel by rail downstream to the Quinta do Vallado; visit and lunch here. Sail back to Pinhão on a private rabelo boat.

Day 8: Vila Real. The Palácio de Mateus at Vila Real, a Nasoni design made familiar by the rosé wine label, is a fine 18th-century manor house, well furnished and with gardens including a box tree avenue. Drive to Porto airport for the flight to London Gatwick, arriving c. 3.45pm.

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Porto, wood engraving c. 1870

Practicalities Price: £2,170 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled TAP (Air Portugal) flights (Airbus 319); private coach for transfers and some excursions, some rail and boat travel; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, two lunches and five dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admission to museums, churches, wine estates, etc.; all tips for restaurant staff and drivers; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £320 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,010.

(4 nights): a delightful hotel surrounded by vineyards and with gardens and terrace overlooking the river.

How strenuous? Visits in Porto are on foot and uphill (via some flights of steps). The archaeological park requires sure-footedness.

Travel is by coach, train and boat. Average distance by coach per day: 37 miles.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Walking to Santiago, 4–15 June (page 164).

Hotels: in Porto (3 nights): an excellently situated 4-star hotel in the historic centre, on the right bank of the river Douro. In Pinhão

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Walking in Madeira Garden of the Atlantic 4–10 March 2013 (mz 487) 7 days • £2,380 Lecturer: Gerald Luckhurst 28 October–3 November 2013 (ma 760) 7 days • £2,380 Lecturer: Gerald Luckhurst Five half-day walks through Madeira’s magnificent landscapes: coastal, woodland and mountainous.

A focus on both Madeira’s formal gardens and its natural flora and wildlife. The lecturer is an academic ecologist with a speciality in islands.

The lecturer is Gerald Luckhurst, landscape architect and author on Madeira’s gardens.

Two contrasting hotels: Madeira’s most famous hotel located in bustling Funchal and a tranquil Quinta in a spectacular coastal location.

Sitting in the sub-tropical Atlantic, closer to Morocco than to Portugal, Madeira is a startling island, rising high and steep from the ocean. Consisting overwhelmingly of basalt rock, which started spewing from the earth’s core around 130 million years ago, the land of Madeira itself is probably two-and-a-halfmillion years old.

The volcanic nature of this island produces not only steep gorges radiating from the rugged central mountains – the highest of which, Pico Ruivo, stands at 1,861 metres above sea level – but also accounts for the spectacular coastal scenery. This tour explores both settings. A well maintained footpath gives access to the summit of Pico Ruivo, and the gardens of our hotel at Santana on the north coast have direct access to a stunning coastal path.

A hugely varied number of plants and trees enjoy this dynamic combination of fertile soil and warm temperatures. Bananas and vines, two of Madeira’s major exports, flourish on the coastal plains, while lush deciduous vegetation covers the higher mountain slopes.

As is standard on remote islands, there has been considerable speciation, and more than seven hundred plant species are indigenous to Madeira. Of particular interest are the laurisilva woodlands, the large house leeks, woody sow-thistles and marguerites, the beautiful shrubby Echium species and the curious Dragon tree. By exploring the terrain on foot we examine these species and their setting in greater and more rewarding detail.

Aside from the ecological and horticultural aspects of this tour, there is also the opportunity to study the history of the island’s greatest export, Madeira wine. Although

established as a Portuguese colony since Prince Henry the Navigator’s expedition landed in the early fifteenth century, it was during the period of Spanish ownership that a commercial treaty was established with the British in 1660.

This marked the beginning of the wine trade, which has been significant ever since. We have organised a private tasting and visit to a winery that has been operating on the island for over two hundred years.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 1.30pm from London Heathrow to Lisbon and connect to a flight to Funchal, arriving in time for a late dinner. First of four nights in Funchal.

Day 2. Morning walk (level and easy terrain, with short descent at end, c. 5 km) along the Levada dos Tornos. Starting in the hills above Funchal, we walk to the Blandy family estate at Palheiro for lunch and a guided visit. The extensive sub-tropical gardens, first acquired

by John Blandy in 1885, have been continually developed by the family. Some free time to enjoy the camellias, centennial trees, the rose garden and myriad other flowers and climbers.

Overnight Funchal.

Funchal, wood engraving c. 1870.

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Day 3. A guided tour of Funchal’s historic centre. The Mercado dos Lavadores (farmers’ market) is a brilliantly vibrant showcase of the island’s produce. Visit the Gothic Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption, with its whitewashed walls and mudéjar-inspired ceiling, and the lush gardens of the English Church. Drive to Madeira’s easternmost peninsular, Ponta do São Lourenço, for an afternoon walk (c. 5 km, level terrain) in a rugged, almost lunar landscape, home to fossils, cacti and the odd flash of desert flowers.

Overnight Funchal.

New

2013 will be the first year in which the following new tours and music festivals will be offered: The Western Balkans...............................17 Music in Scandinavia..............................23 The Age of Bede......................................27 The Cathedrals of England.....................30 Art & Industry........................................35

Day 4. A morning lecture at the Jardim Orquídea which houses the rarest and most unusual collection of orchids on the island.

The Jardim Botánico located in the Quinta of Bom Sucesso is home to over 100 species of indigenous plants, as well as tropical and subtropical fruit trees and coffee trees, sugar cane and popular medicinal plants. Private evening visit to the Blandy Wine Lodge and a Madeira wine tasting. Overnight Funchal.

Day 5. In the cool hills above Funchal is the unesco Biosphere site at Ribeiro Frio, where a botanical garden and trout hatchery sit among quiet glades. Walk (3 km) along the path to Balcões and back, with views of the craggy valleys below, followed by a picnic lunch.

Continue to Santana for the first of two nights.

Day 6. Morning walk (4 km, level terrain) along the Levada do Caldeirão Verde from Cova da Roda to Queimadas, in the shade of holm oak, eucalyptus and ginger; a picnic lunch is provided here. Afternoon walk (moderate, 5.6 km, a stoney path with some steep sections) to Madeira’s highest peak, Pico Ruivo, with wonderful 360° views stretching to the horizon, and a dramatic vista down to the small town of Curral das Freiras. Overnight Santana.

Day 7. Drive to Funchal airport at Machico for the flight to Lisbon, whence a connection to London. Arrive Heathrow c. 5.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,380 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) on TAP (Air Portugal) flights (Airbus 320); travel by private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 3 lunches (2 picnics) and 5 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters, drivers and guides; all taxes; the services of the lecturer, tour manager and additional guides for the country walks and town visit. Single supplement £370 (double room for single use).

Price without flights £2,140.

Hotel. In Funchal (4 nights): arguably the best hotel on the island, this famous 5-star luxury Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

Royal Residences.....................................40 English Music in Yorkshire...................................42 Ethiopia...................................................46 Ballet: The Rite of Spring........................60 The Rhône Music Festival..............................67 King Ludwig II.......................................78 Essential India.........................................83 Ashoka & Buddhist India.......................85 From The Foreign Tour of Brown, Jones & Robinson, 1904.

The British Raj.........................................87 Temples of Tamil Nadu...........................87 Kingdoms of the Deccan.........................87

hotel is set in subtropical gardens overlooking the Atlantic. Rooms are elegant in décor with sea or garden views. There are three excellent restaurants to choose from. In Santana (2 nights): a tranquil 4-star hotel located on the northern coast with wonderful views of unspoilt Madeira. Included meals are in the hotels and selected restaurants.

Bengal by River.......................................87

How strenuous? These walks can be rated as easy to moderate, but this tour should only be considered by those who are used to regular country walking with some uphill and downhill content. Strong knees and ankles are essential, as are a pair of well-worn hiking boots with good ankle support. Walks have been carefully selected but some steep rises and falls are unavoidable and terrain can be loose under foot, particularly in wet weather. This tour is not suitable for people who suffer from vertigo. There are five walks of between 3 km and 5.6 km. Average distance by coach per day: 19 miles.

Incontri in Terra di Siena...................... 117

Verdi at La Scala......................................92 The Ring at La Scala...............................93 Stresa Festival..........................................93 Parma Verdi Festival..............................105 Florentine Palazzi..................................113 The Etruscans........................................122 Martina Franca......................................131 Munch in Oslo......................................142 Walking in Madeira..............................148 Grampian Gardens................................154 Scotland: the Borders............................157 Connoisseur’s Istanbul...........................180 Santa Fe Opera......................................186

Small group: between 10 and 18 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine the March departure with Extremadura, 14–22 March (page 170). Combine the October departure with Andalucía, 14–24 October (page 173).

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Lecturers biographies are on page 194.

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Monasteries of Moldavia In the foothills of the Carpathians 4–10 October 2013 (ma 730) 7 days • £1,920 Lecturer: Alan Ogden Fortified 15th and 16th-century Orthodox monasteries, wonderfully painted.

Led by travel writer and historian specialising in Romania, Alan Ogden.

Scenically enchanting.

Also provides insight into modern Romania.

Some long coach journeys and two internal flights.

During the second Millennium, Romanian history was defined by its geographical juxtaposition to expansionist states. Resistance to foreign domination from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries led to the gradual establishment of independent principalities – Wallachia (c.1310), Moldavia (1359) and Transylvania (1541).

Four years after the fall of Constantinople (1453), Stefan cel Mare (Stephen the Great)

became Prince of Moldavia and for the next fifty years led a spirited defence against constant Turkish invasions, safeguarding much of Western Europe in the process.

It was against this backdrop that Stefan and his son, Petru Rares, established almost thirty fortified monasteries and churches deep in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains in Southern Bucovina, the north-western region of the present-day Romanian province of Moldavia. Keeping church and state intact was key to their survival as one of the last Christian states in south-eastern Europe.

Peasant armies would gather for battle inside the monasteries’ walls, and to educate and entertain the illiterate soldiers and campfollowers the exteriors of the churches were adorned with paintings of biblical stories and other Christian themes, including a number of anti-Ottoman messages. Byzantine in style as befits their Orthodox congregation, the frescoes have remarkable finesse of draughtsmanship and chromatic refinement.

Although the north-facing walls have been damaged by centuries of rain and wind, the images on the other walls have astonishingly

Convent of St Mary (Romania?), early 19th-century aquatint.

retained their original vivacity, including the remarkable intensity of colour – from the greens of Sucevita, to the pinks of Humor and the famous blue at Voronets.

Annexed by the Habsburg Empire in 1775, Southern Bucovina remained under Austrian control until 1918 when it was ceded to Romania. During this period of Catholic rule, many of the monasteries had to close and thus fell into disrepair; others continued to function but with greatly reduced roles. Persecuted by the Communist regime from 1948 onwards, it is only since 1990 that the monastic communities have become active again.

The Bucovina landscape is one of gently rolling hills, dense woods, broad rivers and picturesque villages with pastel painted houses and riotous flower beds. Horses are still to be found in harness, ploughing the fields and transporting produce to markets. The welcome you will receive in Romania is sure to be warm and the hospitality generous.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at 2.30pm from London Heathrow to Bucharest. Overnight Bucharest.

Day 2. Bucharest. The National Art Museum with its comprehensive collection of 14th- to 20th-century Romanian art. Visit the world famous Peasants Museum and its outdoor collection of village house. Stavropoleos Church (1724), a harmonious blend of Renaissance and Baroque features. Internal flight from Bucharest to Suceava. Drive to Gura Humorului. First of four nights in Gura Humorului.

Day 3. Humor, Rasca, Voronets. The interior frescoes at the church at Humor (1530) are unsurpassed. Rasca (1540), located in a remote valley, is a charming working monastery and boasts a Ladder of St John on its South wall.

Voronets Monastery (1488), considered by many to be the most splendid in Bucovina, offers a magnificent Last Judgment. Overnight Gura Humorului.

Day 4. Arbore, Sucevita, Moldovitsa. Arbore’s (1501) superbly executed frescoes on the western wall, with a notably green cast, contain scenes from the Lives of St Nicholas, St George and St Paraskeva. In bucolic surroundings, Sucevita (1595) with its beautifully preserved frescoes is the last of the great painted monasteries in Bucovina. Moldovitsa’s (1532) remote position and fortifications have protected its frescoes from invaders and marauders alike. Overnight Gura Humorului.

Day 5. Dragomirna, Putna. Dragomirna, now a community of nuns, was founded in 1608 by Anastasie Crimca whose magnificent legacy

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Saxon Transylvania Towns, villages & fortified churches on the edge of Europe of writing and illumination can be seen in the museum. Putna, built between 1466 and 1481, is where Stefan the Great is buried; it still houses an active community of monks and its museum displays many priceless treasures including mediaeval manuscripts. Overnight Gura Humorului.

Day 6: Iasi. Drive through Bucovina to explore Iasi, the capital of the former Principality of Moldavia. The Church of the Three Hierarchs built by Basil the Wolf in the 17th century and its Cathedral which hosts the relics of St Paraskeva. The magnificent Palace of Culture with a fine collection of Grigorescus.

Overnight Iasi.

Day 7. Fly early morning from Iasi to Heathrow via Bucharest, arriving at c. 2.00pm.

Practicalities Price: £1,920 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled international and national Tarom Airlines flights (Airbus A318 and Aerospatiale ATR42); accommodation as described below; travel by private coach throughout; breakfasts, all lunches and all dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admission to museums, churches and sites; all tips for restaurant staff, drivers, guides; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer and a local guide. Single supplement £160. Price without all flights £1,650.

Hotels: in Bucharest (1 night): a centrally located 5-star hotel with excellent service and facilities. In Gura Humorului (4 nights): a recently built 3-star hotel located 37km southwest of Suceava, ideally located for exploring the surrounding area, bathrooms have showers, not bath tubs. The standards of comfort, equipment and service are quite acceptable and commensurate with its category. In Iasi (1 night): a small 4-star hotel in the historic centre, rooms are reasonably sized and elegantly furnished. In Bucharest and Iasi single rooms are doubles for sole occupancy, in Gura they are real singles.

Flights: these can change, in time and/or routing, even at short notice.

How strenuous? Participants must be reasonably fit as you will be on your feet for long periods. The tour would not be suitable for anyone who has difficulties with everyday walking and stairclimbing. Some long coach journeys. Average distance by coach per day: 64 miles.

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

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Fortified Transylvanian church, etching c. 1930.

7–15 June 2013 (mz 597) 9 days • £2,290 Lecturer: Bronwen Riley A region of Romania with enclaves of Hungarian and German culture.

Led by Transylvania specialist and writer, Bronwen Riley.

Gothic churches massively fortified against eastern incursions, a unique phenomenon.

Towns emerging from Communist-era depredations to rank with the most picturesque in central and eastern Europe.

Exceedingly attractive countryside where traditional rural life continues.

A tour of Transylvanian fortified churches: surely catering to a somewhat specialist taste? The case in favour: first, this unique phenomenon is visually astounding and historically enthralling. Second, of dozens of surviving examples, we have selected a choice few, each of which exhibits a feature which sets it apart from the others. Third, seeing these places necessitates seeing some extraordinarily unspoilt villages and a way of life you will not see anywhere else. And all this amidst enchanting countryside.

Horses still pull carts and ploughs, chickens and ducks wander the unpaved streets, rows of handsome houses of identical design and layout follow a plan set out in the Middle Ages. Many

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of these ‘Saxon’ villages date to the twelfth or thirteenth centuries when north Europeans, predominantly Germans, were recruited to migrate to Europe’s borderlands to farm, build, mine and trade. In due course they also became bulwarks against incursions from the East, first Tartars and then, beginning in the fifteenth century, the Ottomans, a more formidable foe.

Hence the extraordinary fortifications around their village churches, constructed as citadels to protect the whole village, permanently stocked in expectation of a sudden siege.

Oscillating between independence and Hungarian and Romanian suzerainty, Transylvania is one of the principalities which make up modern Romania (a large country, two thirds the size of Germany). Through good times and bad, the ‘Saxons’ remained a prominent, even dominant, feature of the region until the end of Communism in 1989.

Then, within a couple of years, 90% moved to Germany.

The time to see these villages is now.

Congregations are tiny or nonexistent, the villages partially repopulated with people who care nothing about heritage. With the scant resources of the poorest member of the EU, their fate seems to be either irreversible decay or emasculation and Disneyfication for the tourist industry.

The final argument in favour of this tour is that there is plenty else to see. The towns are marvellous survivals, emerging from grime and dereliction to reveal cityscape as lovely and architecturally interesting as anywhere in the

Romania

Saxon Transylvania continued

former Austro-Hungarian empire. There are the finest collections of 16th to 18th-century oriental carpets you will ever see – hanging in churches. There is a nineteenth-century palace as exquisitely wrought as any in Europe. Oh, and there is a Jan Van Eyck which you can bet the Joneses next door haven’t seen.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 11.00am from London Heathrow to Bucharest where the first two nights are spent.

Day 2: Bucharest. Ceausescu obliterated swathes of the capital’s historic architecture but good things remain. The Lipscani quarter was surprisingly little molested and is now undergoing comprehensive restoration. The Orthodox Stavropoleos Church (1720s) is splendid, and the Peasant Museum well displays artefacts from all Romania. The National Art Museum has a superb collection of mediaeval art as well as Romanian impressionists and masterpieces of European painting.

Day 3: Sinaia, Viscri. The road north passes through the Transylvanian Alps and the royal summer resort of Sinaia. Here visit the

beautiful series of Art Nouveau rooms in a little palace built 1899–1903 for the heir apparent Ferdinand and Queen Marie. Continuing northwards, see the first of that unique Transylvanian phenomenon, the fortified church. A spectacular eruction of walls and towers overlooks the remote, impoverished but well preserved Saxon village of Viscri. First of four nights in Sighisoara.

Day 4: Sighisoara, Biertan. On top of a hill, natural defensiveness supplemented by impressive military engineering, Sighisoara is a highly picturesque little town. Buildings range from the 13th to the 19th centuries with a fine 15th-cent. church with good furnishings and a superb altarpiece of 1490. Located in an exceptionally lovely valley, hillsides striated with terraces for (now vanished) vines, the splendid Gothic church of Biertan soars above its formidable fortifications and the charmingly modest village below.

Day 5: Sibiu. One of the best preserved of the ‘Seven Towns’ of Saxon Transylvania, Sibiu has been only patchily restored but contains beautiful squares, fine architecture and a picturesque net of streets, stairways and alleys.

The remarkable art gallery in the Brukenthal Palace includes works by Van Eyck, Titian, Lotto and Brueghel. Nearby is an open-air museum, one of the best of its kind in Europe with a collection of 350 re-erected vernacular buildings from all over Romania.

Day 6: Targu Mures, Malancrav. Targu Mures is endowed with an array of buildings in a Hungarian version of Arts & Crafts and Secessionist styles. The 1913 Palace of Culture – concert hall, art gallery, ceremonial halls – is as fine as any comparable building in Central Europe. Orthodox churches range from the timber and artisanal to the grand and splendidly painted. The village church at Malancrav is celebrated for the remarkably well preserved murals of 1421.

Day 7: Sighisoara, Prejmer. There is free time in the morning in Sighisoara. Possible activities include the Monastery Church and the History Museum. On the way to Brasov, stop at Prejmer for one more fortified church. The inner face of the 12m curtain wall is spectacularly encased with emergency accommodation and storage chambers. First of two nights in Brasov, formerly the leading city of Transylvania.

Sighisoara, woodcut c. 1930.

Lecturers biographies are on page 194.

Romania

Day 8. Brasov. With a wonderful jumble of facades from, principally, the 18th to the early 20th centuries, Brasov is as handsome a provincial city as anywhere in eastern Europe.

The Black Church is the largest Gothic church in Romania, and the interior is enlivened with nearly 100 oriental carpets. Much of the day

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is free to enjoy the streetscape, the cafés, the museums (the Ethnographical collection is fascinating). Outside the walls, there is a cable car to the top of an adjacent hill.

Day 9: Sinaia. Return to the mountain resort of Sinaia, this time to see Peles Castle, summer retreat of the Romanian royal family, built, extended and embellished 1875–1914.

The sequence of sumptuous interiors, with astonishingly richly carved woodwork, is as fine as any of its sort in Europe, and the original contents are intact. Descend to the Wallachian plain and fly from Bucharest, returning to Heathrow at c. 6.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,290 (deposit £250). This includes: flights (economy class) with British Airways (Airbus 320); travel by private coach; accommodation as described below; 3 lunches and 6 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £240. Price without flights £2,020.

Hotels. Bucharest (2 nights): a centrally located 5-star hotel with excellent service and facilities. Sighisoara (4 nights): a new hotel in the lower town 8 minutes on foot to the upper town. Decor tends to peasant chic, but it is comfortable and rooms are of a good size and standard. Brasov (2 nights): a large multi-storey slab conveniently (if shockingly) situated next to the historic centre. Pretentious but adequately comfortable despite traces of its communist-era genesis. Service in all these hotels is generally helpful, smiley and efficient.

All are locally rated as 5-star, though they would be 4-star or less in most other countries.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking in city centres and in villages over terrain that is often uneven, sometimes unpaved and not infrequently steep. Sure-footedness is essential; if you regularly use a walking stick, this tour would be challenging. Participants ascend the higher parts of churches and fortifications entirely at their own risk! There is a lot of coach travel, including six journeys of around two hours, over roads of variable quality.

Outside big towns, loos are nonexistent or dire.

Average distance by coach per day: 130 km.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Armenia, 19–26 June (page 10).

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St Petersburg Pictures & palaces 10–16 May 2013 (mz 555) 7 days • £3,320 Lecturer: Dr Alexey Makhrov 20–26 September 2013 (ma 705) 7 days • £3,320 Lecturer: Dr Alexey Makhrov St Petersburg is perhaps the grandest city in Europe, and one of the most beautiful.

Magnificent architecture of the 18th and 19th centuries, especially the palaces of the Romanovs, nobility and merchants.

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

Led by Dr Alexey Makhrov, a Russian Art Historian and graduate of the St Petersburg Academy of Arts.

Founded by Peter the Great in 1703, the city of St Petersburg was intended to demonstrate to the world not only that Russia was a European rather than an Asian nation, but also that it was an immensely powerful one. This ‘window on the West’ became the capital of the Russian Empire until the government moved back to Moscow in 1918.

Peter’s wish was amply fulfilled: with the assistance of Dutch, Italian and French architects – Russians were to take over later in the century once they had mastered the mysteries of Western art and architecture – St Petersburg was laid out as the grandest city in Europe, with buildings on a monumental scale.

The palaces of the imperial family and of the fabulously wealthy magnates vied with each other, and with the military establishments and government institutions, to dominate the river front, the broad avenues and the vast squares.

Although one of the newest of Europe’s great cities, St Petersburg is the one least affected by 20th-century building. Despite the well-publicised economic and political troubles Russia has undergone in recent years, there has been a surge of cleaning and restoration which has accentuated the beauty of the city.

As impressive as the architecture of St Petersburg are the contents of the museums and art galleries. The Hermitage is one of the world’s greatest art museums, with an immensely rich collection of paintings, sculpture, antiquities and decorative arts filling the enormous Winter Palace of the Romanovs.

The Russian Museum comes as a revelation to most visitors, for apart from icons (and there is a wonderful collection) the great achievements of Russian painters, particularly during the 19th century, are scarcely known outside the country.

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Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 9.30am from London Heathrow to St Petersburg (time in the air: c. 3 hours 15 minutes). There is time to settle into the hotel before dinner.

Day 2. Explore the north bank of the Neva and Vasilevskiy Island which, as the original intended site of the city, has some of St Petersburg’s earliest buildings including the Twelve Colleges and the Peter-Paul Fortress.

Visit the Menshikov Palace, an early 18thcentury residence with impressive Petrine decoration. Drive via the Kazan Cathedral with colonnaded forecourt to the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, an extensive Baroque layout and cemetery with graves of many famous Russians.

Day 3. Walk to the remarkable Neo-Classical buildings of the Synod, Senate and Admiralty.

The first visit to the Hermitage, one of the world’s greatest art collections, housed in Rastrelli’s Winter Palace and contiguous buildings; walk around to understand the layout and to see the magnificent interiors. An afternoon by coach taking in the sumptuous Marble Palace (exterior), designed by Rinaldi in Baroque and Neo-Classical style and the

wonderful group of Smolny Convent and Cathedral, also by Rastrelli.

Day 4. A full-day excursion to two of the summer palaces about 20 miles from St Petersburg, both set in extensive landscaped parks with lakes and pavilions. At Tsarskoye Selo, formerly Pushkin, the main building is the outsized Rococo Catherine Palace

by Rastrelli, its richly ornamented interiors painstakingly restored after war damage.

At Pavlovsk, also well restored, the graceful Neo-Classical Great Palace with encircling wings was in part built by Scotsman Charles Cameron.

Day 5. The Russian Museum, in the imposing Mikhailovsky Palace, has Russian painting from mediaeval icons to the vast canvases of the Romantics and Realists of the 19th century.

An afternoon excursion to Peterhof (by hydrofoil, weather permitting), the magnificent palace on the Gulf of Finland with cascades and fountains.

Day 6. Drive through the city. The Baroque Cathedral of St Nicholas, with its gilded domes, is a memorial to Russian navy sailors who perished at sea. Visit the late 19th-century

St Petersburg, The Winter Palace, north-west corner, wood engraving c. 1870.

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Russia

St Petersburg continued

Grampian Gardens Houses, castles & the Granite City

Yusupov Palace, one of the finest in the city and scene of Rasputin’s murder. The second visit to the Hermitage to concentrate on specific aspects of the collections and to pursue individual passions.

Day 7. Some free time for independent exploration: perhaps the Hermitage again, or places not yet visited such as the Dostoyevsky Museum, City Museum, Academy of Arts, or a boat ride on the Neva. Fly to Heathrow, arriving c. 5.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £3,320 (deposit £300). This includes: air travel (economy class) on British Airways flights (Airbus 321); travel by private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 5 dinners, with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips for drivers, restaurant staff, guides; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer and a local guide. Single supplement £410 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £3,010.

Hotel: an excellently located superior hotel in the city centre, within easy walking distance of the Hermitage. Very comfortable, with good service and restaurant.

Visas: British citizens and most foreign nationals require a visa (current cost c. £85 – not included in the price of the tour). We will advise on the procedure but you will need to send your passport to the Russian Consulate in the two month period before departure. Visa issuing times vary from country to country but UK residents should expect to be without their passport for approximately 2 weeks.

Music: details of opera and ballet performances will be sent to participants about one month before the tour and tickets can be requested.

How strenuous? There is a fair amount of standing in galleries and walking on this tour.

Traffic congestion means coach journeys can be long and frustrating. Average distance by coach per day: 13 miles.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine the September departure with Berlin, Potsdam, Dresden, 9–16 September (page 69).

Russia, Scotland

18–24 August 2013 (mz 663) 7 days • £1,970 Lecturer: Caroline Holmes A new tour for 2013.

Varied garden concepts from the Renaissance to the present day, with equally diverse architectural accompaniments.

Special arrangements to visit private gardens.

Breathtaking landscapes.

One hotel throughout, a five-star country house hotel on the outskirts of Aberdeen.

The long summer days bring the gardens of north-east Scotland into their floral zenith.

Their settings vary from a laird’s stronghold to Victorian Scottish Baronial, while the concepts range from Renaissance symbolism to a retired physics professor’s evolutionary planting.

Aberdeen, the Granite City, was described as the one haunting and exasperatingly lovable city in Scotland. Its public parks and gardens are legendary, and has been ten times winner of the Royal Horticultural Society’s Britain in Bloom award. Visits within Aberdeen include the Cruickshank Botanic Garden in the mediaeval burgh of Old Aberdeen which hosts a nationally important collection of over 2,500 plants. This tour, however, concentrates on a unique collection of highly personal gardens created over the past 400 years.

A number of outstanding early walled gardens are amongst the highlights. The fascinating garden – or Pleasaunce – at ruined Edzell Castle was created at the time of the accession of James VI to the English throne.

Its carved walls and recreated parterre pressent a unique example of Renaissance symbolism, a tribute to the newly united crown and to fashionable intellectual games.

The Baroque is represented by the gardens at Pitmedden, originally laid out in 1675. They have been restored by the National Trust for Scotland to enable visitors to delight in the elaborate parterres and dazzling herbaceous borders characteristic of the seventeenth century. Newly restored Victorian formal terraces frame elegant Haddo House, designed by William Adam in the 1730s, in its eighteenth-century setting of beautiful park and woodland landscaping.

Grampian’s numerous castle gardens are as instructive as they are inspiring. The glorious, floriferous 1920s gardens punctuated with historic topiary below the enchanting sixteenth-century tower house, Crathes Castle, are considered to be Scotland’s Sissinghurst.

The walled garden at Drum Castle is as noted for its exceptional collection of historic roses

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as the magnificent baronial fortress of Fyvie Castle is for its range of indigenous Scottish fruit and vegetables.

The visits have been designed to provide the greatest possible insight into the relationship between the gardens and their architectural setting. At many of the destinations, we will be joined by the designer, owner or head gardener.

Itinerary Day 1: Drum. You join the tour either at the hotel in Aberdeen at 1.45pm or at Aberdeen Airport at c. 2.15pm. Owned by the Irvine family, Drum Castle consists of a mediaeval keep, a Jacobean mansion and a Victorian extension. The walled garden has been designed to illustrate the history of roses. Return to Aberdeen where all six nights are spent.

Day 2: Kildrummy, Douneside. One of Scotland’s finest water gardens, Kildrummy was reputedly planned by Japanese designers for the Edwardian soap manufacturer James Ogston. Water and plants flow abundantly in a setting of historic significance. After the deaths of their three aviator sons in WWII, Lady Rachel MacRobert created a trust in their memory which runs Douneside House and its newly planted gardens as a holiday country house for serving or retired officers.

Day 3: Arbuthnott, Glenbervie, Edzell. The Arbuthnott House gardens were laid out in 1685 and have been evolving ever since, with an emphasis on flowers. Glenbervie House dates back to the 13th century and the walled garden has been in continuous cultivation for 300 years, latterly around a Victorian folly. The Moncrieff greenhouses are filled to capacity with passionflowers, bougainvilleas and vines. At Edzell, the walled garden perfectly encapsulates the educated mind in 1604 – Liberal Arts, Cardinal and Moral Virtues, the seven known planets. The family heraldic device dominates in stone and plantings.

Day 4: Findrack, Torphins, Crathes. Findrack is a private garden, redesigned by Michael Balston over the last 15 years, a harmonious mixture of traditional pavilions and doocot with exuberant planting and excellent streamside water garden. Crathes Castle, a turreted fantasy dating to 1553, has famous gardens featuring great yew hedges and colourful double herbaceous borders. One of the finest in north-east Scotland, it was created from 1926 by Sir James and Lady Sybil.

Day 5: Haddo, Fyvie, Pitmedden.

Aberdeenshire’s first classical house, Haddo was built in the 1730s and became home of the Lord Aberdeen, Prime Minister 1852–55.

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Haddo House, Aberdeen, engraving from The Illustrated London News, 1857.

leading to lakes, walks and monuments. Fyvie is the Edwardian dream of a Scottish castle and possesses an American woodland garden with rhododendrons and an 18th-century walled garden newly replanted with Scottish fruit and vegetables. The architectural framework of the Great Gardens at Pitmeddon is excellent – Le Notre influence is evident – and the clipped box and yew, colourful bedding and uplifting mottoes have been magnificently restored.

Day 6: Aberdeen. The Botanic Garden was endowed by Miss Anne H. Cruikshank in 1898 for teaching and research in botany at the University of Aberdeen. There is an independent afternoon or an optional visit to Provost Skene’s House, dating from 1545 and showing rooms in 17th-, 18th- and 19th century décor.

Day 7: Rubislaw Den. In Rubislaw Den is an acre of immaculate, imaginative gardens created by Tom Smith, retired Professor of Physics, original but at the same time a microcosm of Charles Jencks and Ian Hamilton Finlay in his use of words and rocks. The coach returns you to the hotel in Aberdeen by 2.30pm and the airport by c. 3.00pm.

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Practicalities Price: £1,970 (deposit £200). This includes: private coach travel; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, one lunch and four dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admission to gardens, houses, museums; tips for restaurant staff, drivers; all gratuities; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £340 (double room for sole use).

Hotel: The only five-star hotel in Aberdeen and a member of the Small Luxury Hotel of the World group. It is stylish, very comfortable and offers good amenities. There is a garden, an excellent restaurant serving local Grampian produce and spa facilities.

How strenuous? A lot of walking and standing in gardens. Paths are often uneven so surefootedness is essential. Quite a lot of time is spent on the coach on narrow, country roads.

Average distance by coach per day: 62 miles.

Houses & gardens

Great Houses of the South West............37 Great Houses of the North......................38 Royal Residences.....................................40 Brittany....................................................51 Châteaux of the Loire..............................64 Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes....91 Medici Villas & Gardens...................... 114 Walking in Madeira..............................148 Grampian Gardens................................154 Ardgowan..............................................156 Scotland: the Borders............................157

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

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Scotland

Ardgowan A country house weekend in the west of Scotland 20–25 June 2013 (mz 612) 6 days • £2,340 Lecturer: Caroline Knight Stay as guests at Ardgowan, a grand 18th-century country house which remains a private home, not a hotel nor a museum.

Visit other country houses in the vicinity, some not generally open to the public, all by special arrangement or with privileged access.

Pass through the stunning coastal and Lowland landscapes of western Scotland.

A country house party as much as a study tour, there is time for leisure around the house and garden of Ardgowan.

Architectural historian, Caroline Knight, leads the tour.

The key feature of this tour is that the participants are not accommodated in a hotel. They are guests in a private home. A biggish home admittedly, an architecturally distinguished eighteenth-century country house with excellent pictures, exceptional furniture and gardens which spread out to the coast overlooking the Firth of Clyde.

Some negatives. You will find no minibar in your room, no television, let alone airconditioning. Rugs may reveal generations of

use, the bathroom may be a few yards down the corridor, the shower may be Edwardian and there is no reception (although staff are on hand).

If you are not put off so far, the compensations include bedrooms the size of an average sitting room laden with antiques and books, and the opportunity to roam at leisure through the hall, drawing room, library and dining rooms. You are also free to wander in the adjoining gardens and woods.

Ardgowan is a superb mansion of the 1790s designed by a follower of Robert Adam. For this very special tour it is the base for excursions to other country houses in the vicinity, at nearly all of which special arrangements will have been made exclusively for this group. In journeying between them, you pass through some heart-stoppingly lovely landscapes – lochs and sea, lowland heath and mountains, rolling farmland and forests.

As much country house party as study tour, there is plenty of time at leisure at Ardgowan.

The house is a textbook case of the challenges facing current owners of historic properties of the first rank. Our hostess, Lady Shaw Stewart, is an art historian and a prominent figure in the field of historic buildings in Scotland. The lecturer, Caroline Knight, is her sister. She is also an art historian and has a speciality in the country houses of Britain.

Itinerary Day 1: Ardgowan. The coach leaves Glasgow Railway Station at 2.15pm and leaves Glasgow Airport at 3.00pm. Continue west to the coast of the Firth of Clyde and reach Ardgowan in time for afternoon tea. After settling in to your rooms, there is a tour of the house and gardens followed by some free time, drinks and dinner.

Day 2: Mount Stuart. Cross by ferry to the Isle of Bute. Magnificent in scale and in lavishness of decoration and furnishing, Mount Stuart was built in the last two decades of the 19th century by one of the richest men in the world, the third Marquess of Bute. The picture collection is superb. Beautifully maintained by the current Marquess, the house is surrounded by extensive gardens and noble woods.

Day 3: Culzean, Dumfries House. Drive through rolling Ayrshire farmland to Burns Cottage, the poet’s birthplace. Continue to the clifftop Culzean Castle, Robert Adam’s boldest creation, with oval stair hall and round drawing room with views out to sea. Also by Adam, Dumfries House, famously saved for the nation with the help of the Prince of Wales in 2007, is a perfect Palladian composition which retains unspoilt interiors and a unique set of Chippendale furniture. We have an after-hours tour followed by dinner in the house.

Ardgowan, engraving c. 1820 by William Daniell.

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Scotland: the Borders Castles, houses, gardens & abbeys Day 4: Ardgowan, Kelburn. The morning is spent at Ardgowan, entirely free or with the option of an in-depth tour to study some aspects of the house. In the afternoon visit Kelburn Castle, property of the Earl of Glasgow and in the same family for 800 years.

Part remains a defensible tower house, and there is a lovely set of rooms of c. 1700.

Day 5: Strachur, Inveraray. Take a ferry across the Firth of Clyde to the Cowal Peninsula and drive to Strachur House. The property of Sir Charles and Lady Maclean is a fascinating 18th-century mansion of middling size; its 20th-century history is entwined with the western Balkans. Inveraray Castle is the ancestral home of the Dukes of Argyll. Despite its four corner towers and Gothic windows, it is entirely 18th-century, and inside are some extraordinarily fine rooms and a very good art collection.

Day 6: Glasgow. Holmwood House was designed by Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson and was built in 1857–8 for James Cooper, a local businessman. From here the coach takes you to Glasgow Railway Station by 12.30pm and to Glasgow Airport by 1.10 or 4.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,340 (deposit £250). This includes private coach for transfers and excursions; ferry to the Isle of Bute and the Cowal Peninsula; accommodation as described above and below; breakfasts, three lunches and five dinners with wine, water and coffee; admission charges; all gratuities; all taxes; the services of the lecturer.

Single supplement £250.

Accommodation. It cannot be emphasised enough that Ardgowan is a private house, not a hotel. Please read again the first two paragraphs of this tour description. Bedrooms vary in size, furnishings and facilities. While each room has its own bathroom, in some cases this is a few yards along a corridor. All have baths, some have showers over the bath as well.

Towels, bathrobes and toiletries are provided.

There is a lift to the first floor.

How strenuous? A fair amount of walking is unavoidable. Coaches can rarely park near the entrance to houses and grounds are often extensive. Most of the houses visited do not have lifts. However, the pace is relatively leisurely with more free time than is usual for a short tour. Average distance by coach per day: 56 miles.

Small group: 10 to 18 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with The Narrow Sea, 26 June–7 July (page 49).

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Abbotsford, mid-19th-century steel engraving.

7–13 July 2013 (mz 640) 7 days • £2,180 Lecturer: Amanda Herries A new tour for 2013.

Special arrangements and out-of-hours visits.

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

Dramatic Borders landscapes, from lowlands to uplands.

One hotel throughout, a country house in the grounds of the Roxburghe Estate.

Led by an art historian, author and lecturer, who lives in south-west Scotland.

The Scottish Borders are bounded to the north by brooding Highlands and to the south by the uplands of England, and consist largely of lowland but very varied countryside, hills and moorland in the west and agricultural plains in the east.

Throughout the Middle Ages, the demarcation between England and Scotland was a matter of incessant dispute, the turbulence of the times expressed by the remains of fortifications and of powerful religious foundations. The majestic ruins of Scotland’s great abbey churches – Jedburgh, Dryburgh, and Melrose (where the heart of Robert the Bruce lies in a leaden casket) – are a memorable feature of the tour.

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The ascent of James VI of Scotland to the English throne in 1603 and the Act of Union of 1707 marked a steady cessation of mutual antagonism, though intermittently there were outbreaks of hostility. Echoes of the past remained ever present. It’s still possible, for example, to view the cradle in which Mary Queen of Scots rocked her baby son, James, at Traquair House, the oldest inhabited house in Scotland. Originally a royal hunting lodge, it retains the secret passage and priest hole once necessary in a Catholic household.

Perhaps, however, the house which encapsulates the Borders above all others is Sir Walter Scott’s Abbotsford. Scott is one of the most influential figures in Scotland’s later history, with a reputation which reached far beyond his best-selling ‘Waverley’ novels.

Scott created a Scotland of noble deeds and swashbuckling heroes, and Abbotsford, built near the site of the Battle of Melrose, was a mansion to match his vision, and a meeting place for the greatest figures of the age. The template for the Scottish ‘Baronial’ style, the exterior is encrusted with sculpted stones from mediaeval ruins, the interiors hung with heraldry and arms.

While the need for fortifications receded with the first Stuart king, castle imagery remained a constant. At Georgian Mellerstain, the family home of the Earls of Haddington, Scotland’s finest architect, Robert Adam, created an elegant battlemented conceit, the first in his ‘castle style’, soon to be replicated

Scotland

Scotland: the Borders continued

throughout the country.

The Borders are as rich in art and artefacts as they are in architecture, and the ducal mansions at Bowhill, the Duke of Buccleuch’s 46,000-acre estate, and Floors, the castellated fantasy belonging to the Duke of Roxburghe, boast exceptional collections of paintings, silver, porcelain and furniture. At Manderston, a no-expense-spared Edwardian country house near Berwick on Tweed, visitors can enjoy the only silver staircase in the world.

Garden visits complete the picture of this mellow landscape, threaded with rivers famous for their fishing and which powered the Scottish textile industry, the region’s source of wealth. There are visits to the arboretum of the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh at Dawyck, the Japanese inspired valley at Stobo, a secret gem and a complete contrast to the more urban residential garden at Inveresk in the Georgian outskirts of Edinburgh.

Itinerary Day 1: Edinburgh. The coach leaves Edinburgh Airport at 2.00pm and Edinburgh Waverley Station at 2.45pm. Stop at Inveresk Lodge Garden, a surprising haven in a Georgian hamlet on the outskirts of Edinburgh.

Continue to the Roxburghe Country House Hotel where all six nights are spent.

Day 2: Manderston, Paxton. Built in the late 18th century, Manderston was completely rebuilt in the early 1900s with breathtaking ‘Adam Revival’ interiors. Paxton House, designed by John Adam in grand 18th-

century Palladian style and almost untouched, houses paintings from the National Galleries of Scotland and a remarkable collection of Chippendale furniture original to the house.

Day 3: Bowhill House, Melrose, Dryburgh.

Bowhill House is one of the three family seats of the Dukes of Buccleuch and has been in the family of the Montagu-Douglas-Scotts since the mid 18th century. It contains an outstanding collection of paintings, decorative arts and furniture. Contrasting with its opulence, the ruins of the great mediaeval abbeys of Melrose and Dryburgh serve as a reminder of the former wealth and power of religious orders destroyed in the Reformation.

Day 4: Mellerstain, Floors Castle. Unique in being built by both William Adam and his son Robert, Mellerstain House has some of the finest Adam interiors, with a classic enfilade of rooms, exquisite plasterwork and a magnificent Great Gallery. Floors Castle, the largest inhabited house in Scotland, is on a grand scale. Started by William Adam and built for the first Duke of Roxburghe in the 1720s, it was given the fairytale touch in the 19th century and houses tapestries, art and antiques collected through three centuries.

Day 5: Hawick, Jedburgh, Monteviot House Gardens. A brief visit to Hawick illustrates the former source of wealth of the Borders, the textile industries based on the lush pasturelands for the sheep and the tumbling rivers for water power. In the pretty market town of Jedburgh the Romanesque walls of the Augustinian Abbey survive. Monteviot House has 30 acres

Melrose Abbey, steel engraving c. 1860 from Gazetteer of the World Vol.V.

of gardens in a variety of styles benefitting from the Borders climate.

Day 6: Traquair, Dawyck, Stobo. One of the most romantic houses in the Borders, Traquair is an almost untouched 16th- and 17thcentury Scottish castle house, a high Catholic stronghold still lived in by a royal Stuart descendant. Dawyck arboretum, an offshoot of the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, takes advantage of an inland climate, while Stobo, by contrast, is a secret Japanese valley.

Day 7. Abbotsford. Built on the banks of the River Tweed by the novelist, poet and man of letters Sir Walter Scott, Abbotsford has become an atmospheric shrine full of Scott’s memorabilia. His interpretations of Scottish history earned him a worldwide reputation still intact today. Return to Edinburgh Waverley Station by 3.00pm and Edinburgh Airport by 4.00pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,180 (deposit £200). This includes: private coach travel; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 5 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £340 (double room for single occupancy).

Hotel: The Roxburghe Country House Hotel, based in an 18th-century manor house, is set in the grounds of the 50,000 acre Roxburghe Estate. The hotel has a traditional décor and public rooms are comfortable and pleasant.

Service is excellent. Bedrooms in the main house have a country house décor whilst those in the courtyard are more contemporary.

Bedrooms include all mod cons. There is a good restaurant and lovely garden.

How strenuous? A lot of walking and standing in gardens and houses. Paths are often uneven so sure-footedness is essential. Quite a lot of time is spent on the coach on narrow, country roads. Average distance by coach per day: 55 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Edinburgh Festival August 2013 Details available April 2013 Contact us to register your interest

Scotland

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b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

The Pyrenees Catalonia, Rousillon & the Comte de Foix 7–16 May 2013 (mz 553) 10 days • £2,830 Lecturer: John McNeill Thorough survey of Romanesque and Gothic architecture.

Delves deep into the Pyrenees but also takes in low-lying and coastal Catalonia.

Led by renowned architectural historian, John McNeill.

Scenically and architecturally stunning, but a lot of driving on minor roads, and five hotels.

During the Middle Ages the Pyrenees supported two very distinct ways of life: the fundamentally urban civilisation of the coastal reaches, mercantile in ambition and Mediterranean in outlook, and that unsung, tireless village culture which flourished in the high places and valleys inland.

Here in the remote mountains a rural and essentially feudal Christianity emerged, consecrated in innumerable small Romanesque churches and largely immune to news from elsewhere. The mediator was monasticism, introduced uncertainly at first but becoming in fact a vehicle of political will under the mighty Oliba of Cerdagne.

Oliba’s early foundations, at Ripoll, Cuxa and Canigou, embody this ambition and are among the seminal essays of Romanesque architecture in Europe. They found a reflection in the parish churches of the High Pyrenees and, moderated by the vernacular of Catalonia, resulted in some of the most serene and beautiful buildings of twelfth-century Europe.

Even more remarkably, these churches were largely spared the calamities of the post– Renaissance period, leaving their glorious marble sculpture intact and preserving, albeit often in museums, the finest of their paintings.

These early achievements were enhanced by the arrival of the Cistercians, invited by Count Ramón Berenguer to fill the void left by the expulsion of the Moors from south–western Catalonia, and their monasteries at Poblet and Santes Creus remain even more complete than Fontenay or Fossanova. Neither were the cities neglected: ever more responsive to distant developments, Girona, Barcelona and Lérida were provided with cathedrals of the first rank.

Shortly after came that extraordinary flowering of late mediaeval mercantile culture which transformed the previously neglected market towns of the north, St-Girons, Foix and StBertrand-de-Comminges.

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Monastery of Poblet, late-18th-century engraving.

Itinerary Day 1: Terrassa, Vic. Fly at c. 11.15am from London Heathrow to Barcelona. Drive to Terrassa, a stunning and largely early medieval precinct arranged around three churches.

Continue to Vic for the night.

Day 2: Ripoll, San Juan de Las Abadesas, Arles-sur-Tech, Collioure. Oliba’s astonishing monastery of Sta Maria at Ripoll has one of the greatest libraries of early mediaeval Europe.

San Juan de las Abadesas is a Romanesque church founded in 887 by Count Wilfred the Hairy as a Benedictine nunnery. Cross into France to Arles-sur-Tech, famed for its tranquil cloister and 12th-cent. sculpture. Continue to the pretty seaside town of Collioure for the first of four nights.

Day 3: Serrabone, St Martin de Canigou, St Michel de Cuxa. Drive in the morning into the foothills of the Canigou Massif. Serrabone abbey church has a magnificent 12th-cent. carved choral tribune in pink marble. The extraordinary Benedictine monastery of St Martin du Canigou is pinned against a steep spur of Mont Canigou. St Michel de Cuxa, important early mediaeval foundation, was gloriously refurbished by Abbot Oliba during the early 11th cent. Overnight Collioure.

Day 4: Girona, St Pedro de Roda. Back into Spain to visit Girona. The Gothic Cathedral, perhaps the finest in Catalonia, houses important illuminated manuscripts

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and tapestries in the chapterhouse. The early Romanesque abbey of San Pedro de Roda has wonderful views of the coast.

Day 5: St Martin de Fenollar, Elne. The Romanesque chapel at Fenollar has tiny spaces that carry the most complete cycle of mediaeval wall paintings to have survived in French Catalonia. See also the fortified cathedral at Elne and fine Pyrenean marble sculpture at St Genis des Fontaines. Free time in Collioure.

Day 6: Montségur, Foix. Drive in the morning drive beneath the northern flank of the Pyrenees to Montségur, the great Cathar redoubt and scene of the virtual obliteration of the Albigensian cause. There is an arresting three-towered feudal castle at Foix and a spacious late mediaeval preaching church at St Volusien. Overnight St Girons.

Day 7: St Lizier, St Bertrand de Comminges, Arties. The Cathedral of St Lizier has a Romanesque cloister and a 14th-cent. brick tower. St Bertrand de Comminges is aisleless and majestic and perhaps the most accomplished late mediaeval building in the High Pyrenees. Drive via the secluded Aran Valley to Arties. Walk over the bridge to the 12th-cent. Sta Maria with a fine sculpted north door and baptismal font. Overnight Arties.

Day 8: Vielha, Taull, Val de Boí. See remote Romanesque churches of the high mountains.

Vielha is abundant with Romanesque sculpture.

Taull has a superb pair of 12th-cent. churches:

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The Pyrenees continued

Gastronomic Catalonia Fine food & wine, art & architecture

San Climent, with columnar nave and slender bell-tower and Sta Maria has a bell-tower to outdo even that of its great neighbour. San Joan de Boí has a small and beautifully proportioned single-apsed church. First of two nights in Lérida.

Day 9: Lérida, Poblet, Santes Creus. Lérida Cathedral is a sprawling complex of Gothic architecture, painting and sculpture. Poblet has a breathtaking Cistercian church containing tombs of the mediaeval monarchs of Aragón and a magnificent group of conventual buildings. Santes Creus has a slightly later Cistercian abbey with a superbly sculpted cloister and chapter house.

Day 10: Barcelona. Drive to Barcelona and visit the Museum of Catalan Art; a superb collection of mediaeval painting and sculpture from many of the churches visited on the tour. The mid afternoon flight from Barcelona arrives at Heathrow at c. 5.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,830 (deposit £300). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (Airbus 320); travel by private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 7 dinners, with wine, water and coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters and drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Supplement for a superior room in Collioure £150 (price per room for two sharing). Single supplement £260 or £420 (superior room in Collioure). Price without flights £2,660.

Hotels: In Vic (1 night): an excellent 4-star Parador. In Collioure (4 nights) a comfortable 4-star overlooking the bay. In St Girons (1 night): a splendid 3-star French coaching house with good restaurant. In Arties (1 night): a 4-star Parador in the Arán Valley. In Lérida (2 nights): a centrally located 4-star, member of a reliable Spanish chain.

How strenuous? A fairly full tour with a lot of driving, at times on minor roads, and walking, some of it over steep terrain. Average distance by coach per day: 96 miles.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

Looking for Serbia? Try page 17 for The Western Balkans (also travels to Bosnia, Croatia and Montenegro).

Spain

Barcelona, La Rambla, engraving c. 1890.

16–22 September 2013 (ma 721) 7 days • £2,660 Lecturer: Gijs van Hensbergen Eat well, drink well: 3-Michelin-starred lunches, the second best restaurant in the world, award-winning chefs and quality wine producers.

Sightseeing ranges from mediaeval to Modernist art and architecture.

Contrasting bases: the centre of Barcelona and a converted farmhouse outside Figueres.

Also includes the lesser-visited city of Girona, and a day in the northernmost reaches of the region, crossing into France.

Food is at the very core of Catalan existence, and the glorious variety of Catalan gastronomy reflects both the universal passion for food and the diverse cultural history of Catalonia. Food culture, husbandry and interest in medical and dietary matters reach back to the period when the Greeks first settled at Empúries to worship the healing image of Asklepios.

The Carthaginians followed, bringing lentils, chickpeas and fava beans; the Romans introduced the vine and olive.

Four centuries of Moorish domination brought a passion for sweetmeats, spices and aubergine. The Catalan larder expanded further in the late Middle Ages when control over Mediterranean trade routes brought pasta from Naples and the discovery of the

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Americas introduced the key ingredients for the Provençal and Catalan table: tomato, potato and paprika.

The Barcelona food markets are among the most beautiful and enticing in the world.

Set out in cartwheels under ceilings of Art Nouveau stained glass, the stalls fan out from their fresh fish hub. Marble sinks soak the milky salt cod; cornucopia of fruit and vegetables are displayed with the subtlety of a still-life; butchers offer specialities and recipes upon request; the mushroom man has thirty varieties, fresh and dried. At the outer edges are the dealers in frutos secos and artisan cheeses that never find their way out of Catalonia.

In the city of the exuberance and riotous colour of Antoni Gaudí’s architectural confections, it is but a little way to the tour de force of a zarzuela fish stew, shot through with a firework display of saffron, bright red peppers and the creamy smooth burnt allioli sauce. The mar i muntanya dishes – the original surf and turf – marry together a remarkable blend of game, fowl or rabbit with langouste, enriched with a subtle chocolate sauce. The pioneering Nouvelle Catalan cuisine offer new tastes and complex techniques which find their echo deep into France, even to the Lycée Palace. The chefs that create them are some of the most talked about in and outside Barcelona. Sergi Arola was Spanish chef of the year 2004 and is the former assistant of Ferrán Adriá. The late Santi Santamaría was the first Catalan chef to be awarded 3 Michelin stars; his restaurant Can Fabes is now run by Xavier b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Pellicer, also the chef at one of the most up to date establishments in town. The brothers Joan and Josep Roca are the masterminds behind El Celler de Can Roca with 3 Michelin stars and voted second best restaurant in the world in 2012.

However, there is far more to Catalonia than Barcelona, and historically the region extends into France. There are the fishing ports and the countryside, the Pyrenees and the Vallées Orientales, and the wines: Priorato, rich and tannin-steeped; Cavas which demonstrate brilliance and clarity; sweet Moscatel, peasant foil for the great Gewürztraminer experiments of the last decade; Penedès reds, as good with meat as slightly chilled with fish. Catalan wine is enjoying an extraordinary renaissance.

Itinerary Day 1: Barcelona. Fly at c. 11.15am from London Heathrow to Barcelona, capital of Catalonia and cosmopolitan market place.

Take an afternoon walk and visit a chocolate emporium. Dinner has a 1900s theme with recipes from the gent de bé – Barcelona’s legendary good families – at the neo-Baroque Casa Calvet designed by Gaudí. First of three nights in Barcelona.

Day 2: Barcelona. Spend the morning in the Art Nouveau Boquería with its extraordinary displays of fresh produce. The Barri Gotíc is the most complete surviving Gothic quarter in Europe is still the location of some of the finest eating establishments and food suppliers in Catalonia­. A wine tasting includes rarities from the Priorato and Penedès. In the afternoon visit the Palau de la Música, the highly ornate concert hall designed by Gaudí contemporary Domenech i Montaner. Dinner takes the form of a tapas walk. Overnight Barcelona.

Day 3: Barcelona. On the slopes of Montjuïc are the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, which houses the greatest collection of Romanesque frescoes in the world, plus fine Gothic and modern collections, and the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion. Lunch is in the rooftop restaurant of the stylish 5-star Hotel Arts where Sergi Arola (chef of the year, 2004) has added yet another twist to contemporary Catalan cooking. In the afternoon visit Gaudí’s La Pedrera building of 1906–10.

Day 4: Barcelona, Sant Celoni, Mas Pau. Take a morning walk in Gaudí’s Parc Güell before leaving Barcelona. Lunch is in the small town of Sant Celoni, in the late Santi Santamaria’s three Michelin starred restaurant, now run by Xavier Pellicer. Continue to the 16th-century manor house of Mas Pau. First of three nights in Mas Pau. Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

Day 5: Girona. Girona has a compact mediaeval Jewish quarter and Gothic cathedral towering over the river. Important illuminated manuscripts and tapestries are displayed in the chapterhouse. Lunch is at El Celler de Can Roca, recently voted second best restaurant in the world. Overnight Mas Pau. Day 6: Collioure (France), La Selva de Mar, Mas Pau (Spain). Drive into France to the pretty port of Collioure, a favoured retreat for Matisse and the Fauves. Light lunch of anchovies, a key local industry. Return to Spain, and the coastal town of La Selva de Mar to visit the vineyard of one of the Empordà’s finer producers. Dinner in the Michelin-starred restaurant at Mas Pau, home to chef Xavier Sagrista, founding partner of El Bulli with Ferran Adrià.

Day 7: Figueres. Free time in Figueres to visit the Dalí museum. Drive south to Barcelona for the flight to Heathrow, arriving c. 5.30pm.

renowned for its restaurant with comfortable rooms alongside.

How strenuous? Meals can be long and large and so expect some late nights. There is a lot of walking in Barcelona, some of it over uneven paving. Average distance by coach per day: 52 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Castile & León, 30 September–8 October (page 166).

Illustration, this page: from The Foreign Tour of Brown, Jones & Robinson, 1904.

Newly-launched The following tours have all been launched (or in some cases a departure has been added due to popularity) since the first edition of our 2013 brochure: The Schubertiade.....................................14 Operetta in Austria.................................15 The Western Balkans...............................17 Music in Scandinavia..............................23 The Age of Bede (second departure).......27 Northumbria............................................28 Royal Residences.....................................40 Savonlinna Opera....................................49 Ballet: The Rite of Spring........................60 Art & Music in Dresden.........................71

Practicalities Price: £2,660 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (Airbus A320 jet) travel by private coach with some use of the metro in Barcelona; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 4 lunches and 5 dinners (including 3 light ones), with wine, water, coffee; all wine and food tastings; all admission charges; all tips for restaurant staff, drivers; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer.

Single supplement £220. Price without flights £2,440.

Hotels: in Barcelona (3 nights): a 4-star hotel very well placed for buildings by Gaudí; rooms are modern, comfortable but on the small side; rooftop terrace and Michelin-starred restaurant (though the chef is Basque – Martín Berasategui – and so this is an option for an independent meal). Near Figueres (3 nights): converted 16th-cent. farmhouse set in gardens;

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Verdi at La Scala......................................92 The Ring at La Scala...............................93 Verona Opera (third departure).............101 Naples: Art, Antiquities & Opera.........128 The Lucerne Festival..............................177 Eastern Turkey (second departure).......182 Santa Fe Opera......................................186

Lecturers biographies are on page 194.

Spain

The road to Santiago The pilgrimage route through Northern Spain Procession leaving Santiago Cathedral, after Muirhead Bone 1938.

town of Sangüesa has superb architectural sculpture, including some by a craftsman from Burgundy. The monastery of San Salvador de Leyre maintains Gregorian offices in a fascinating church with a good crypt and western portal. Jaca, below the Somport pass, has a Romanesque cathedral with a magnificent collection of mediaeval wall paintings.

Overnight Sos del Rey Católico.

Day 4: Eunate, Puente la Reina. At Eunate a mysterious round chapel with encircling arcade, rising from the midst of a cornfield.

Puente la Reina is the point where pilgrim roads from France converged, and is equipped with hospices, churches and an amazing bridge.

Overnight Sto Domingo de la Calzada.

30 August–11 September 2013 (mz 669) 13 days • £3,420 Lecturer: John McNeill One of the great historic journeys of the world.

Includes all the major sites and deviates to many lesser-known ones.

An architectural pilgrimage by coach – not a spiritual one on foot – for lovers of Romanesque and Gothic.

Led by renowned architectural historian, John McNeill.

‘By land it is the greatest journey an Englishman may go.’ So wrote Andrew Boorde, physician and former bishop of Chichester in his 1542 First Book of the Introduction of Knowledge. The road to Santiago has rarely been without plaudits, from Godescalc, bishop of Le Puy in 950, to Paula Gerson, scholar and sceptic in 1993.

What was claimed to be the tomb of St James was discovered in 813 in the wilds of Galicia and soon began to attract pilgrims.

Roads and bridges were built along the approaches which soon coalesced into a standard route. Hospices and monasteries were founded and secondary shrines became established. Variously described as the Camino Francés, the Milky Way and the Road Beneath the Stars, the route exerted a pull which was pre-Christian, but the discovery of an Apostolic tomb and the renewal of the infrastructure conspired to make Santiago the most celebrated of all mediaeval journeys – a byword for Chaucer’s pilgrims, a destination to vie with Jerusalem and Rome.

The funds poured into such an enterprise were immense, resulting in an incomparable range of mediaeval – particularly Romanesque – and Renaissance monuments. With cathedrals such as Burgos, León and Santiago,

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monasteries of the calibre of San Millán de la Cogolla, Silos and Leyre, the paintings of Jaca and Miraflores, the metalwork of San Isidoro, the textiles of Las Huelgas, the road to Santiago does not want for masterpieces.

But equally impressive is the landscape, a memorial backdrop through which all must pass – the limestone cliffs and tumbling watercourses of Aragón and Navarra, the forests of chestnut, oak and acacia of the Rioja, the vast wheat fields of Castile and the green, slate-divided fields of Galicia.

We have two itineraries in 2013: The Road to Santiago – travelling by coach – and Walking to Santiago. They are markedly different in focus; the former is very much an architectural tour, and the latter a walking tour. But both are journeys in which you are conscious always of participating in a thousand-year-old flow of humankind which constitutes one of the most powerfully felt shared experiences in the spiritual and aesthetic history of Europe.

Itinerary Day 1: fly at c. 5.15pm from London Heathrow to Bilbao. Drive to Argómaniz (80 km), arriving at c.10.00pm. Overnight Argómaniz.

Day 2: Pamplona, Roncesvalles. The day is spent in the foothills of the Pyrenees.

Reflecting its proximity to France, Pamplona cathedral has a cloister which constitutes perhaps the finest achievement of High Gothic in Spain. Roncesvalles Pass was scene of the famed rearguard action of Charlemagne’s paladin Roland, and has a renowned pilgrims’ church and hospice. Drive through the spectacular gorge of the Urrobi river. First of two nights in Sos del Rey Católico.

Day 3: Sos del Rey Católico, Sangüesa, Leyre, Jaca. At Sos, the church of San Esteban has a frescoed apse. Sta María la Real in the little

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Day 5: Nájera, Sto Domingo de la Calzada, Burgos. See the Royal tombs at Santa María la Real in Nájera. Sto Domingo cathedral has Renaissance and Baroque accretions, and a cockerel still crows over the shrine of the saint. Arrive at Burgos, which grew up at the foot of the fortress of the Kings of Castile.

The magnificent cathedral is crowned by a multitude of pinnacles and open-work spires and combines French and German styles; remarkable vaults, 16th-cent. choir stalls and a wealth of sculpture. Two nights in Burgos.

Day 6: Burgos, Quintanilla de las Viñas, Sto Domingo de Silos. Free morning in Burgos. In the afternoon drive to the Visigothic chapel at Quintanilla de las Viñas. Sto Domingo de Silos is the largest and finest Romanesque monastery in Spain, and has an epoch-making 12th-cent. cloister with magnificent sculpture. Overnight Burgos.

Day 7: Burgos, San Miguel de la Escalada. The Carthusian monastery and royal mausoleum of Miraflores has superb 15th-cent. sculpture

by Gil de Siloé. Just outside Burgos is the Early Gothic convent of Las Huelgas Reales, a place of royal burial. Pressing westwards, we stop at San Miguel de la Escalada, an elegant Mozarabic gem. First of two nights in León.

Day 8: León. Former capital of the ancient kingdom of León, the city has many outstanding mediaeval buildings. The royal pantheon of San Isidoro is one of the first, and finest, Romanesque buildings in Spain, with important sculptures. The cathedral is truly superb: Rayonnant Gothic, with impressive stained glass. The monastery of San Marcos (our hotel) has a splendidly exuberant Plateresque façade. Overnight León.

Day 9: Lena, Orbigo, Villafranca del Bierzo.

Drive through the Puerto de Pájares (mountain pass) to Sta Cristina de Lena, an exquisite 9th-cent. church. Return to the camino via the valley of the Luna. Puente de Orbigo is a b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

13th-cent. bridge which carried pilgrims over the River Orbigo. Villafranca del Bierzo was an ancient haunt of hermits and anchorites and subsequently studded with churches and hospices. Overnight Villafranca del Bierzo.

Day 10: Villafranca to Santiago. Three churches punctuate the final stretch of the journey: O Cebreiro, site of a great Eucharistic miracle, Portomarín, a Templar foundation guarding the bridge over the Miño and Vilar de Donas, decayed and evocative knights’ church.

Finally: Santiago de Compostela, goal of the pilgrimage. Three nights in Santiago.

Day 11: Santiago de Compostela. The morning is dedicated to the great pilgrimage church, the shrine of St James, one of the most impressive of all Romanesque churches; also outstanding treasuries. Explore the university quarter and the narrow picturesque streets and visit Sta María del Sar, where walls splayed and buttressed support a charming Romanesque church against its cloister. Overnight Santiago.

Day 12: Santiago de Compostela. Free day.

Day 13: Santiago de Compostela. Drive around midday to La Coruña. The flight arrives in London Heathrow at c. 4.45pm.

Practicalities Price: £3,420 (deposit £350). This includes: air travel (economy class) on Vueling flights (Airbus 320); private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 2 lunches and 9 dinners, with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips for drivers and waiters; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £390 (double room for sole use).

Price without flights £3,210.

Hotels: in Argómaniz (1 night): 4-star parador out of town, simple rooms. In Sos del Rey Católico (2 nights): 4-star parador with views of surrounding countryside. In Sto Domingo de la Calzada (1 night): 4-star parador in the heart of town. In Burgos (2 nights): 4-star hotel in the centre of town. In León (2 nights): 5-star parador in grandiose Plateresque pilgrim hostel. In Villafranca del Bierzo (1 night): 4-star parador, recently renovated. In Santiago de Compostela (3 nights): 5-star parador, for centuries the abode of the grander pilgrims.

Most paradors insist on half-board so dinners are mainly in hotels.

How strenuous? We stress that this is a long tour with a lot of coach travel, seven hotels and a lot of walking, often on uneven ground.

Average distance by coach per day: 85 miles.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

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Santiago Cathedral, Pórtico de la Gloria, wood engraving c. 1870.

Music festivals 2013

Martin Randall Travel organises its own music festivals, presenting music in appropriate historic buildings.

The Danube Music Festival.....................13 English Music in Yorkshire.....................42 The Rhône Music Festival.......................67 The Johann Sebastian Bach Journey........75 Seville: a Festival of Spanish Music...... 176

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Lecturers biographies are on page 194.

Spain

Walking to Santiago on foot for selected sections of the pilgrims’ way 4–15 June 2013 (mz 590) This tour is currently full 10–21 September 2013 (ma 682) 12 days • £2,980 Leaders: Adam Hopkins & Gaby Macphedran The last great pilgrimage route in Christendom which still attracts walkers; scenically wonderful with much fine architecture.

Selected sections from the Pyrenees through northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela.

Walking in comfort: good hotels; luggage transferred separately; maximum of 15 participants.

The lecturer is Adam Hopkins, journalist and author, specialist in Spanish history and culture.

Still one of the most splendid walking routes in Europe, the Camino de Santiago runs almost 500 miles across northern Spain to the supposed tomb of St James, Sant Iago.

Normally, the journey takes a month on foot.

We are setting out to walk the highlights in twelve days, taking in the most historically charged and beautiful sections.

For earlier pilgrims, the lure was a reduction of the soul’s time in Purgatory; now the motives are more usually historical and cultural, and sometimes also deeply personal.

Religious commitment is less in evidence. But for many who undertake the magnificent walk there is also a spiritual dimension.

Asceticism is not a necessary ingredient.

Instead of staying in bunk beds in pilgrim hostels, we repose in hotels, some among Spain’s finest. Instead of carrying huge packs with all our necessities, we carry only our own day sacks while the luggage moves by road.

Our vehicles intersect with walkers every two or three hours, allowing respite to anyone who

needs to ride. We eat well, often picnicking in deep country, and try some of the fine wines grown along the route. But as with all pilgrimages this is a linear walk, involving a new hotel each night except on two rest days.

We are like pilgrims, rather than tourists, visiting monuments along the route and what time and tiredness allow at the end of the day’s walking. There will be interpretative commentary by the lecturer and an introduction to the major buildings. But the experience of walking the camino is what is essentially on offer, along a route which has for centuries compelled the imagination.

Itinerary Day 1: Biarritz to Roncesvalles. Leave from Biarritz Airport following the arrival f the flight from London Stansted (currently 3.05pm) (flights are not included – see ‘Practicalities). Drive to Roncesvalles for the night.

Burgos, copper engraving c. 1700.

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Day 2: Roncesvalles to Lintzoáin/Erro, total walk 14.7 km. Weather permitting, we start at the summit of the pass and drop down on foot to Roncesvalles, traditional starting point of the pilgrimage in Spain. It has a fine collegiate church preserving memories of Sancho the Strong of Navarre. From here, walk downward through rustic, gentle sub-Pyrenean landscape and stately stone-built villages. After a picnic lunch, drive to the Monasterio de Yuso at S. Millán de la Cogolla. Overnight S. Millán.

Day 3: Nájera to Santo Domingo de la Calzada, total walk 21 km. Drive to Nájera, another of the burial places of the royal house of Navarre. Climb through red sandstone with vines in rocky corners, through varied irrigated crops and out into rolling wheat country with mountains lying north and south - this is a good day for striding out. Lunch is in a village café. Afternoon walkers continue to Santo Domingo de la Calzada where there is time to visit the cathedral. Overnight Sto Domingo.

Day 4: Villafranca Montes de Oca to Agés, total walk 15.8 km. Begin with an hour’s walk uphill into mildly mountainous country, passing a disturbing monument to victims of Civil War assassination. Cross a plateau and continue through pine and oak forest to a beautiful valley enclosing the monastery of San Juan de Ortega (fine Gothic church). Picnic in the woods. Afternoon walkers continue to the village of Agés. Drive to Burgos for the first of two nights.

Day 5: Burgos, rest day. Rest, nurse feet and loiter in this Castilian city rich in memories of El Cid and mediaeval pilgrimage, Wellington and Franco. There is time to see the magnificent cathedral, the charterhouse of Miraflores (superb sculpture by Gil de Siloé), and the monastery of Las Huelgas (fine architecture and images relevant to the camino).

Day 6: Castrojeriz to Boadilla del Camino, total walk 18.9 km. After an uphill start continuing over high ground, the walk then descends to a river and lush irrigated land. It then climbs again more gently and drops to the dovecote country of Boadilla where the plains of León begin. Picnic lunch here before driving to León with its fine Gothic cathedral and Spain’s finest stained glass. The Parador of S. Marcos, our hotel, is one of the major historic buildings of the pilgrim route. Overnight León.

Day 7: Puente de Orbigo to Astorga, total walk 16.2 km. About one hour into the walk, we make a modest ascent and suddenly the plains are over. There are two or three small climbs this morning through remote-feeling countryside and wheat fields ending in shady corners under small oaks. We picnic with views down to the cathedral of Astorga. Stalwarts Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

continue the walk into town. Here, the bishop’s palace was designed by Gaudí and there is a charming town hall. Overnight Astorga.

Day 8: Astorga to Rabanal del Camino, total walk 20.6 km. Walk out through Astorga’s old town. An hour and a half brings us to wellpreserved Castrillo de Polvazares, former centre of the interesting Maragatos tribe, obscure in its origins but throughout history Northern Spain’s muleteers. A mix of path and lane leads slowly upwards with views opening into the mountains of León. After a picnic lunch continue walking to Rabanal del Camino.

Drive from here to Villafranca del Bierzo for the night.

Day 9: Triacastela to Sarriá, total walk 18.5 km. Drive to Triacastela via O Cabreiro, first port of call in Galicia for pilgrims, with Celtic buildings and ancient church. The walk starts low and climbs through Galician-green valley and into country of tiny hamlets where cows chew the cud in dark mediaeval sheds. Sunken tracks, ferns and ivy abound and there is later a fine upland feel. After a picnic lunch we begin a slow descent to Sarriá. Overnight Sarriá.

Day 10. Phase 1: Sarriá to Ferreiros. Phase 2: Monte del Gozo to Santiago de Compostela.

Total walk 18.2 km. Walk 13.2 km from Sarriá to Ferreiros and take a picnic lunch before driving on to Monte del Gozo. Here pilgrims once fell to their knees at the first view of the cathedral spires of Santiago (harder to see now through eucalyptus). Walk a further 5 km through suburbs into increasingly ancient city centre and right into the Parador, another important and beautiful historic building. First of two nights in Santiago de Compostela.

Day 11: Santiago. The cathedral is a Romanesque masterpiece with a magnificent carved portal. Here those who wish may attend Pilgrim’s mass at midday. The rest of the day is free.

Day 12. Drive to La Coruña Airport in time for the flight to London Heathrow (currently departing at 2.40pm).

Practicalities Price: £2,980 (deposit £300). This includes: airport transfers from Biarritz (day 1) and to La Coruña (day 12) and all other road travel by comfortable 9-seater vans (flights not included); accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 8 lunches (6 are picnics) and 8 dinners, with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; the services of the lecturer and tour manager and additional driver/ baggage handler. Single supplement £340 (double room for single occupancy).

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Flights are not included in the cost of the tour as the most convenient outbound flight is with Ryanair and we cannot make a booking without knowing the passenger name. We can book flights on your behalf, quoting the fare at the time of booking, or you can make the bookings yourself using the details below.

We provide airport transfers around the following flights: Day 1: depart London Stansted 12.15, arrive Biarritz 15.05 (Ryanair flight FR 372).

Day 12: depart La Coruña 14.40, arrive London Heathrow 15.40 (Vueling VY 7100).

Hotels: as quasi-pilgrims we lodge in a different place each night except on rest days, ranging from relatively workaday to very grand: Roncesvalles (1 night): recently opened 3-star hotel in an 18th-cent. building. In S. Millán de la Cogolla (1 night): 4-star hotel beside the monastery of Yuso. In Sto Domingo de la Calzada (1 night): 4-star parador, former mediaeval pilgrim hospital. In Burgos (2 nights): 4-star hotel in a converted palace. In León (1 night): 5-star parador in grandiose Plateresque pilgrim hostel. In Astorga (1 night): 3-star modern hotel in the centre.

In Villafranca del Bierzo (1 night): a 4-star, newly-refurbished parador. In Sarriá (1 night): a modern hotel near river. In Santiago de Compostela (2 nights): 5-star parador, in the former pilgrims’ hospital.

How strenuous? We cover up to 82 miles of the 500-mile route with an average of 10–14 miles walking per day. Fitness is essential; do not book this tour in order to get fit. Participants should be used to walking cross-country, uphill and down and be able to walk pleasurably for several hours at a time. Safety and comfort are our main concern and there are opportunities to retire.

Packing: with limited luggage space in vans and almost daily hotel changes it is essential to pack light and small. Dress is informal throughout.

Small group: between 7 and 15 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with The Douro, 22–29 May (page 146).

Lecturers biographies are on page 194.

Spain

Castile & León Ancient kingdoms in the heart of Spain the vast and austere plateau in the centre of the Iberian peninsula. Here are many of Spain’s finest cities, buildings and works of art. Lovers of Romanesque will feel particularly satisfied for there are many excellent examples of the style. Great Gothic churches are another magnificent feature, the cathedrals at León, Burgos, Segovia and Salamanca among them.

French, German and English influences are to be found, though the end result is always unmistakably Spanish.

Another striking aspect of the tour is the wealth of brilliant sculpture, especially of the late-mediaeval and Renaissance periods.

Castles, of course, abound, and some of the

Sto Domingo de Silos, lithograph c. 1840.

30 September–8 October 2013 (ma 696) 9 days • £2,420 Lecturer: Gijs van Hensbergen Spain’s most beautiful cities: Salamanca, Segovia, Avila.

Architectural magnificence throughout including the cathedrals of Burgos and León.

Much fine sculpture as well.

Walled villages, grand monasteries, hilltop castles and a backdrop of vast, undulating landscape.

Includes the Palace of El Escorial (16th-century).

Good food: suckling pig, slow-roast lamb and kid; good wine of the Ribera de Duero.

Led by Gijs van Hensbergen, art historian and author specialising in Spain.

Since their fusion under one crown in the eleventh century, the ancient kingdoms of Castile and León have been responsible for some of the most emblematic periods of Spanish history. These former rival territories established themselves as the heart of Spain and exerted great influence over language, religion and culture far across the mediaeval map.

Innumerable castles were built here (hence ‘Castile’) for this was the principal battleground of the Reconquista, the five-hundred-year war of attrition against the Moors which reclaimed Spain for Christendom.

The region occupies much of the Meseta,

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defensive curtain of frontier cities such as Avila are remarkably well preserved.

As well as the prominent cities, we include a number of lesser-known places, all strikingly attractive, many with outstanding buildings or works of art, all barely visited by tourists.

Itinerary Day 1: Avila, Salamanca. Fly at c. 11.00am from London Heathrow to Madrid. Drive to Avila: a fortress town built during the Reconquista, it retains its entire circuit of 11thcentury walls complete with battlements and 88 turrets. The 12th-century Basilica of San Vicente has fine sculpture. First of two nights in Salamanca.

Day 2: Salamanca. Distinguished by the honey-coloured hue of its stone, Salamanca is one of the most attractive cities in Spain and home to its most prestigious university. See the magnificent 16th-century Gothic ‘New Cathedral’ and austere Romanesque ‘Old Cathedral’, the 18th-century Plaza Mayor and superb, elaborate Plateresque sculpture on the façades of the university and church of San Esteban. The University has 15th- and 16th-century quadrangles, arcaded courtyards and original lecture halls. The Convento de las Dueñas has a Plateresque portal and an irregular, two-tiered cloister.

Day 3: Zamora, León. On the Roman road that connected Astorga to Mérida, Zamora rose to importance during the Reconquista as a bastion on the Duero front. Much of its

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Romanesque architecture survives, including the cathedral of Byzantine influence. Drive to León, former capital of the ancient kingdom and visit the monastery of San Marcos (our hotel) with an exuberant Plateresque façade, magnificent late-Gothic church, Renaissance chapels and fine choir-stalls. First of two nights in León.

Day 4: León. A morning walk to some of the outstanding mediaeval buildings of the city.

The royal pantheon of San Isidoro is one of the first, and finest, Romanesque buildings in Spain, with important sculptures. The cathedral is truly superb Rayonnant Gothic with impressive stained glass. Free afternoon.

Day 5: Palencia, Lerma, Santo Domingo de Silos. The small town of Palencia has a fine cathedral which contains sculpture by Gil de Siloé and Simon of Cologne and paintings by El Greco and Pedro Berruguete. The village of Lerma has a wealth of buildings from the early 17th century including an arcaded main square with ducal palace and the Collegiate church of San Pedro. After a lamb lunch, drive in the late afternoon to Santo Domingo de Silos, which has the finest Romanesque monastery in Spain, outstanding for the sculpture of the 12thcentury cloister. First of two nights in Lerma.

Day 6: Burgos, Quintanilla de las Viñas, Covarrubias. Drive to Burgos, the early capital of Castile, whose cathedral combines French and German Gothic styles and has remarkable vaults and 16th-century choir stalls. On the outskirts is the convent of Las Huelgas Reales with its important early Gothic church. Visit the Visigothic chapel at Quintanilla de las Viñas. Covarrubias is an attractive walled village with a mediaeval Colegiata containing fine tombs.

Day 7: El Burgo de Osma, San Esteban de Gormaz, Segovia. El Burgo de Osma is a walled town with arcaded streets and one of the finest Gothic cathedrals in Spain. At San Esteban de Gormaz see the 12th-century churches of San Miguel and Del Rivero with exterior galleries. Built on a steep-sided hill, Segovia is one of the loveliest cities in Spain and architecturally one of the most richly endowed. First of two nights in Segovia.

Day 8: Segovia. Straddling the town, the remarkable Roman aqueduct is one of the biggest in Europe. See the outstanding Romanesque exteriors of San Martín, San Millán and San Esteban and the circular Templar church of La Vera Cruz. An afternoon walk includes the cathedral, a soaring Gothic structure, and the restored Alcázar (castle), dramatically perched at the prow of the hill.

Day 9: El Escorial. This vast retreat-cumb o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Aragón Hidden Spain: Teruel, Zaragoza, Jaca palace-cum-monastery-cum-pantheon was built from 1563 to 1584 for Philip II, successfully embodying his instructions for ‘nobility without arrogance, majesty without ostentation, severity in the whole’. Fly from Madrid, arriving Heathrow at c. 5.45pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,420 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled Iberia flights (aircraft: Airbus 321); travel by private coach for transfers and excursions out of town centres; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 6 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager; hire of radio guides for better audibility of the lecturer. Single supplement £270 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,290.

Hotels: In Salamanca (2 nights): an attractive 4-star hotel in a converted palace, close to the Cathedrals and other key sites. In León (2 nights): 5-star Parador in grandiose Plateresque building; public areas are impressive, bedrooms less so. In Lerma (2 nights): a 4-star Parador in the Ducal Palace. In Segovia (2 nights): a centrally located 4-star hotel in a converted 16th century casa-palacio. Rooms vary in size and some are small but all are well-equipped.

How strenuous? This is a fairly long tour with a lot of walking in town centres, some of it on cobbled streets and uphill. It should not be undertaken by anyone who has difficulty with everyday walking and stairclimbing. Average distance by coach per day: 117 miles.

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

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Gastronomic Catalonia, 16–22 September (page 160) or Morocco, 14–25 September (page 140).

The Pyrenees near Jaca, lithograph c. 1850.

1–9 October 2013 (ma 727) 9 days • £2,440 Lecturer: Adam Hopkins One of the least-visited regions of Spain and yet one of the richest in history, architecture and landscapes.

Stretches from Teruel to Jaca – in the foothills of the Pyrenees.

As diverse a tour as we offer with Paleolithic and Neolithic cave painting, Roman remains, Moorish palaces, Spain’s finest examples of Mudéjar, Romanesque castles and churches.

Themes of military history: El Cid, Peninsular War, Civil War. Visit Goya’s birthplace and see his ‘Horrors of War’.

The lecturer is Adam Hopkins, journalist and author, specialist in Spanish history and culture.

You cannot know Spain unless you know Aragón, that former kingdom rich in fine landscape, history and architecture, including Arab works and the Arab-Christian style known as Mudéjar, here at its most extravagant and surprising.

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It is the swiftly-flowing River Aragón, running down from the High Pyrenees, which gave its name to one of the most dynamic mini-kingdoms of early mediaeval Europe.

Soon Aragón advanced to meet the Moorish occupiers of the Ebro basin and wrested Zaragoza (Roman Caesar Augusta) from them.

From there, it was on to smaller Teruel and the rugged sierras which flank it, to establish, in the end, a shield-shaped territory.

With Catalunya, Aragón came to rule Sicily, southern Italy and most of Greece, truly a power in the Mediterranean. Later, in the fifteenth century, it became a partner for Castile in forging the identity for what we know today as Spain. But since then it has been side-lined in the political structure, enabling it, through misfortune, to retain and still convey a sense of its early origins.

The landscape is as dramatic as the history.

The peaks and summer pastures of the highest Pyrenees fall almost entirely within Aragón.

Dropping south, the Ebro valley is like a winding oasis between deeply eroded, dry clay banks. South again lies steppe country, sometimes desert-like, turning finally to a territory of cliff and gorge. Here Neolithic man left paintings in rock shelters.

The architectural legacy is outstanding. The early stonemasons and architects of Aragón,

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Aragón continued

in tandem with French craftsmen on the Pilgrims’ Way to Santiago, produced some of the most charming Romanesque buildings in Spain, marked by particularly engaging stone carving. The castle of Loarre is arguably Spain’s finest Romanesque military construction.

This is matched in beauty and surprise-value by the Arabesques and interlocking arches of the (Arab) Aljaferia Palace in Zaragoza.

The intermingling and development of the two styles gives us Mudéjar, built by Moorish artisans and architects for Christian masters, full of fantasy, in brick and multiple ceramic decoration. The four Mudéjar towers of Teruel are among the wonders of Spain.

Military history gives us El Cid Campeador.

Though touted as a Christian hero, he worked for years as a mercenary general for the Moorish rulers of Zaragoza. During the Peninsular War – known in Spain as the War of Independence – Zaragoza endured two exceptionally bitter sieges. During the civil war of 1936–39, Belchite, close to Zaragoza, was furiously contested – and left in ruins as a warning for the future. The three-month battle for Teruel, fought in sub-zero temperatures from December 1937, was one of the most cruel of defeats for the Spanish Republic.

Add to all of this four different wine regions, each with its own denominación de origen; pottery still made in the Arabic tradition; intriguing country towns; and robust, big-city Zaragoza, studded with major monuments.

Itinerary Day 1: London to Teruel. Fly at c. 9.15am from London Heathrow to Madrid. Drive to Teruel with a stop en route (c. 190 miles) arriving at the hotel at about 6.30pm. First of two nights in Teruel.

Day 2: Teruel, Albarracín. Albarracín is a gorge-ringed hill town founded by Arabs and long ruled by its Christian reconquerors as an independent enclave. The defensive wall high on the ‘landward’ side, mediaeval streets and narrow site make it one of the most remarkable spots in Aragón. Close by lies a tract of wellwooded country above red sandstone cliffs.

Here Palaeolithic and Neolithic communities painted animals and humans in rock shelters.

More serious walkers can trek out to Albarracín through a gorge (there is a less energetic walk on offer). Back in Teruel, see the little city’s famous Mudéjar towers. The cathedral has a painted ceiling which gives an extraordinary insight into mediaeval life. Overnight Teruel.

Day 3: Teruel, Daroca, Zaragoza. Spend the morning in Teruel and visit the mausoleum of the famous Lovers of Teruel who perished for

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formations of Riglos de los Mallos. Emerge from the sierras to encounter the Castle of Loarre, arguably the finest Romanesque military building in Spain. Drive up to Jaca in the western Pyrenees for three nights.

Day 7: Sos del Rey Católico, Leyre, Jaca. In remote hill country, Sos del Rey Católico is one of the chief sites of the mediaeval kingdom: Ferdinand of Aragón was born here in 1452 and the town retains much of its mediaeval atmosphere. The monastery of San Salvador de Leyre maintains Gregorian offices in a fascinating church with a good crypt and western portal. Visit the cathedral of Jaca with fine stone carvings. Overnight Jaca.

Day 8: San Juan de la Peña, Echo, Jaca. The monastery of San Juan de la Peña, dramatically sited under a bulging rock face is the burial place of the kings and queens of early Aragón.

Some free time in Jaca. Overnight Jaca.

Zaragoza, steel engraving c. 1840. The leaning tower did eventually fall.

love of one another, and the fine Provincial Museum housed in an Aragonese mansion.

Drive north to Daroca, a well-preserved mediaeval town of great beauty and curiosity.

Continue to Zaragoza, capital of Aragón. First of three nights in Zaragoza.

Day 4: Zaragoza. Visit the mediaeval/ Renaissance cathedral with Mudéjar work and the Lonja, fine Gothic/Renaissance Exchange.

In the newer part of town, see the Fine Arts Museum and the adjacent monument to the Napoleonic sieges of the city. The Aljaferia is an Arab palace incorporating brilliant additions by Ferdinand and Isabella. The Basilica of El Pilar is the 18th-century site of modern pilgrimage built around the pillar on which the Virgin Mary appeared to St James. Ceiling paintings include works by Goya. Overnight Zaragoza.

Day 5: Belchite, Fuendetodos, Zaragoza.

Belchite was the site of fierce fighting in 1937 which left the town completely ruined. In open and semi-desert country, the visit is an eerie experience. At Fuendetodos, in equally bleak country, Goya’s birthplace has been wellrestored. The Museum of Etching contains the Caprichos, Disparates, and Horrors of War. Free afternoon in Zaragoza. Overnight Zaragoza.

Day 6: Huesca, Loarre, Jaca. Huesca, second ‘capital’ of infant Aragón, has a cathedral, with a dramatic altarpiece. Follow the river Gállego as it flows past the extraordinary rock

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Day 9: drive east out of Aragón into Catalonia; a journey of some two-hundred miles, broken by a stop for lunch. Fly from Barcelona Airport, arriving at London Heathrow at c. 6.00pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,440 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled Iberia Airlines and British Airways flights (aircraft: A321 and A319) travel by private coach throughout; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 4 lunches and 6 dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admission to museums, sites, etc.; all tips for restaurant staff and drivers; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager.

Single supplement £170 (double room for sole use). Price without flights £2,290.

Hotels: in Teruel (2 nights): 3-star parador on the outskirts of town, rooms are comfortable if slightly soulless. In Zaragoza (3 nights): new 4-star hotel in an attractive turn-of-the-century building in the historic centre; comfortable, well-equipped rooms. In Jaca (3 nights): charming, friendly 3-star hotel, recently refurbished. Dinners are in hotels and good restaurants.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking on this tour, some of it fairly strenuous. It should not be undertaken by anyone who is not sure-footed. Average distance by coach per day: 98 miles.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Andalucía, 14–24 October (page 173).

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Art in Madrid The great galleries 6–10 May 2013 (mz 552) 5 days • £1,460 Lecturer: Gijs van Hensbergen Can be combined with Seville: A Festival of Spanish Music, 10–15 May 2013.

2–6 October 2013 (ma 741) 5 days • £1,460 Lecturer: Gail Turner Two visits to the Prado plus the ThyssenBornemisza Collection and the Reina Sofía, home to Picasso’s Guernica.

Lesser-known places include the Sorolla Museum, Archaeological Museum and Goya frescoes at San Antonio de la Florida.

The lecturers Gail Turner and Gijs van Hensbergen are art historians specialising in Spain.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 11.15am from London Heathrow to Madrid. Start with a first visit to the Prado Museum, which is among the world’s greatest art galleries; concentrating on the Spanish school. Settle into the hotel before dinner.

Day 2. The morning walk includes the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, home to works by Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

The festival begins this evening with the first concert and dinner.

Day 10, 15th May. After the festival, fly from Seville via Madrid, arriving at London Heathrow at c. 2.00pm.

Practicalities

Day 3. Begin at the Archaeological Museum, good on ancient Iberian civilization and Roman Spain (currently closed for renovation but due to re-open in early 2013). Continue to the Lázaro Galdiano Museum, with works by El Greco, Goya and Murillo. The afternoon is free to allow for temporary exhibitions (details nearer the time) or a visit to the 18th-century Royal Palace.

Price: £1,460 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel (economy class) on scheduled Iberia Airlines flights (Airbus 320); coach for transfers and excursions; accommodation as described below; breakfasts and 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters, drivers and guides; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £230. Price without flights £1,310.

Day 4. Travel by coach to the Sorolla Museum, in the charming house of the eponymous Impressionist painter. Continue to the chapel of San Antonio de la Florida, Goya’s burial place and home to his ceiling frescoes, and

How strenuous? There is lot of standing.

Average distance by coach per day: 5 miles.

Hotel: a small and excellently located 5-star hotel, part of a reliable Spanish chain. Rooms are comfortable and décor is contemporary.

Madrid, The Prado, after a drawing by Joseph Pennell 1903.

While the Museo del Prado alone might justify a visit to Madrid – and this tour has two sessions there – the city has other excellent collections which reinforce its reputation as one of the great art centres of Europe.

This city of Velázquez and Goya has been enormously enhanced over the years by the installation of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection and the Reina Sofía Museum. Both these and the Prado have undergone major extension work under architects Jean Nouvel (Reina Sofía), Manuel Baquero and Francesc Plá (Thyssen) and Rafael Moneo (Prado).

New exhibiting spaces, restaurants and lecture theatres lend even greater lustre to these worldclass galleries. Our stints at the ‘big three’ are interspersed with less-visited collections, many of them recently restored.

The great Spanish painters – including El Greco, Murillo, Velázquez, Goya, and Picasso – are of course magnificently represented on the tour, but the collecting mania of the Habsburgs and Bourbons and their subjects has resulted in a wide range of artistic riches which will surprise and delight. There is a large number of outstanding paintings by Titian and Rubens, for example, and the Prado has by far the largest holding of the bizarre creations of Hieronymus Bosch.

Goya, Zurbarán, Ribera and Murillo, and the Museum of Decorative Arts, with an 18thcentury tiled Valencian kitchen. The afternoon is spent at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, housed in the 18th-century Palacio de Villahermosa; one of the world’s largest private art collections until its purchase by the Spanish state in 1993.

the arcaded, balconied Plaza Mayor, centrepiece of Habsburg town planning. In the afternoon there is a second visit to the Prado, this time primarily to see the Italian and Netherlandish schools.

Day 5. Walk to the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, one of the greatest modern art museums and home to Picasso’s Guernica plus works

by Miró, Dalí and Tàpies. Fly to London Heathrow, arriving c. 5.45pm.

Small group: between 8 and 19 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine the May departure with Seville: A Festival of Spanish Music, 10–15 May (page 176 for brief information – see our website for full details or contact us). Combine the October departure with Caravaggio, 7–13 October (page 124) or Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur, 10–17 October (page 66).

May 2013: if combining with Seville: A Festival of Spanish Music, take a mid-afternoon AVE (high-speed train) to Seville arriving c. 5.15pm.

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Spain

Extremadura Landscape, architecture, rural life 14–22 March 2013 (mz 495) 9 days • £2,140 Lecturer: Adam Hopkins Remote and unspoilt: one of the most consistently beautiful regions in Europe.

Monumental cities of the Conquistadors: Trujillo, Cáceres, Plasencia, packed with palaces and churches. Mérida has excellent Roman remains.

Monasteries of Guadalupe and Yuste, both in splendid isolation in the hills.

Other visits include a livestock farm with tractor ride, opportunity to walk in the hills.

The lecturer is Adam Hopkins, journalist and author, specialist in Spanish history and culture.

Extremadura means ‘beyond the Douro’, a designation coined by the conquering Christians as they bludgeoned their way southwards against the Moors. The Moors were

finally defeated; but much of the countryside of Extremadura remains unsubjugated. Together with the adjoining Alentejo in Portugal, this, though tawny as a lion’s pelt in sweltering midsummer, is the largest ‘green’ region in western Europe.

Monfragüe in the Tagus gorge has a colony of griffon vultures, the Iberian lynx is still a resident in these parts, hawks and other birds of prey abound. The Sierra de Gata in the north, the Sierra de Guadalupe in the centre and the wild country of the south-west round Jerez de los Caballeros all remain rough and uncultivated.

Equally, Extremadura is cattle country, with fighting bulls and the local Retinta breed making the most of some of the gentler lands.

In the autumn, when there are acorns to be eaten, the black-foot pig, source of the finest of mountain hams, comes on the scene. The landscape has a mixed array of well-spaced trees, mainly holm oak and cork oak, which together with the wild grasses constitute the habitat known as dehesa. The river valleys,

notably the Tiétar and Guadiana, are now well-irrigated and grow fruit and vegetables: apricots, cherries and peppers. From the south comes wine, much improved of late. There is virtually no industry which is not based on agriculture.

This tour offers a walk in the Guadalupe mountains, hoping to come close to the spirit of a countryside where many ancient ways survive. However, the history and architecture are as rewarding as the landscape. Before the Visigoths and Moors, this was a major Roman centre, with Mérida – Augusta Emerita – the capital of the western province of Lusitania. It remains the major Roman site in Spain.

Above all, this is conquistador country.

An astonishing proportion of the leaders of the rough bands which savaged South and Central America, in the names of king and queen and Christianity, came from Extremadura. Trujillo and Cáceres are wellknown for the rich monumentality of palaces assembled by conquistadors returning with their ill-gotten gains.

‘A Village in Spain’, by Isabel Codrington, etching and drypoint c. 1920.

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The spiritual centre was and remains the shrine of Guadalupe. Here a rich and beautiful Hieronymite monastery grew up, with swirling Moorish-Gothic tracery and a suite of paintings by Zurbarán. The little mountain town which formed beneath the monastery is balconied and full of geraniums, one element of a varied vernacular architecture which is a particular Extremeñan pleasure.

Zafra, in the south, is a white town, intermediate between Andalucía and the stony sobriety of Old Castile. Most curious is Plasencia in the north, where seven roads lead out of the arcaded plaza and two cathedrals stand back to back. The most moving is Yuste, the monastery to which the Emperor Charles V retired, gout-ridden and exhausted. He chose it, he said, because of its climate of continual springtime.

In its deep rurality and concentration of human monuments, Extremadura is a far cry from ‘ordinary’ Europe.

Itinerary Day 1: Zafra. Fly at c. 10.00am from London Heathrow to Seville, via Madrid. Drive north to the small town of Zafra. The towered castle where Hernán Cortés was received by the Duke of Feria en route for the conquest of Mexico is now the parador. Overnight Zafra.

Day 2: Zafra, Jerez de Los Caballeros. In Zafra begin with the two adjacent squares, the Plaza Grande and the (smaller) Plaza Chica and the Collegiate Church (with an altarpiece by Zurbarán). Lunch is in a rural restaurant. The afternoon is spent in Jerez de los Caballeros, once a Templar town, with famously ornate Baroque church towers. Overnight Zafra.

Day 3: Mérida, Guadalupe. The Roman legacy of Mérida includes architecture both grand and domestic: theatre, villas, temples, fortresses.

See also Moneo’s outstanding National Museum of Roman Art. The tiny town of Guadalupe, is hidden in hills. Columbus prayed here and gave its name to a Caribbean island.

Overnight Guadalupe.

Day 4: Guadalupe. There is the choice of a walk in the Guadalupe mountains, or time to stroll at leisure through the village. In the afternoon see the monastery, with splendid church, Mudéjar cloister and sacristy with Zurbarán’s paintings. The museum contains exceptional vestments. Overnight Guadalupe.

Day 5: Trujillo. Drive down the mountains to Trujillo, a hilltop conquistador town (birthplace of Pizarro). The magnificent, irregular main square is surrounded by conquistador mansions and the grand church of S. Martín. Climb up to the Gothic church of Sta María and Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

the castle with fine views of the surrounding countryside. Continue to Cáceres for the first of three nights.

Day 6: Cáceres. The historic town centre is enclosed within almost perfectly preserved Moorish walls and is a myriad of narrow streets and squares lined with Renaissance mansions.

Visit the Provincial Museum housed in the 17th-century Casa de las Valetas, built over an 11th-century Arabic cistern. Free afternoon.

Overnight Cáceres.

Day 7: Arroyo de la Luz, Alcántara, El Vaqueril. The 16th-century church at Arroyo de la Luz has a remarkable altarpiece by Luís de Morales. At Alcántara, the Roman bridge spanning the Tagus dates to 106 bc. Finca el Vaqueril is an Extremaduran ranch with Retinta cattle and pata negra pigs. Our visit includes lunch, a tour of the ranch on a tractor-trailer and an optional walk.

Overnight Cáceres.

Day 8: Monfragüe, Plasencia, Yuste, Jarandilla de la Vera. Pause in Monfragüe Natural Park to see colony of griffon vultures at Salto de Gitano on the Tagus. At Plasencia, start in the arcaded Plaza Mayor and then visit the two cathedrals, Renaissance and Gothic backing into one another (restoration work in progress), also a fine ethnographic museum of traditional rural life and handcraft. Drive into the hills to the monastery of Yuste to which the Emperor Charles V retired in 1556, building a gent’s des. res. right up against the fabric of the Gothic monastery. Get a moving insight into the last days of the man who once ruled most of Europe and Latin America. Spend the final night in the Parador at nearby Jarandilla de la Vera.

Day 9: leaving Extremadura. Drive to Madrid Airport for the lunchtime flight which arrives at London Heathrow c. 3.40pm.

ceilings in some public rooms. In Guadalupe (2 nights): 4-star parador in the converted 15th-century pilgrims’ hospital of St John the Baptist. In Cáceres (3 nights): 4-star hotel of character adjoining the historic centre of town.

Rooms are comfortable and functional. In Jarandilla de la Vera (1 night): 4-star parador with historic connections to Charles V. Rooms vary in outlook. Included meals are largely in the hotels with a couple in restaurants.

How strenuous? There is a lot of walking in town centres, sometimes on uneven ground, and sure-footedness is essential. The optional walks on the finca and in the Sierra de Guadalupe require a greater level of fitness.

There is also a large amount of coach travel.

Average distance by coach per day: 80 miles.

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

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Walking in Madeira, 4–10 March (page 148).

Tours led by Adam Hopkins

Lisbon Neighbourhoods........................145 The Douro..............................................146 Walking to Santiago..............................164 Aragón...................................................167 Extremadura..........................................170 Grenada & Córdoba..............................172 Andalucía...............................................173

Practicalities Price: £2,140 (deposit £200). This includes: air travel on British Airways and Iberia (economy class) flights (aircraft: Airbus 320) travel by private coach throughout; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, two lunches and six dinners with wine, water and coffee; all admission charges to museums, sites, etc.; all tips for drivers, waiters, guides; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer and tour manager. Single supplement £210 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £1,960.

Hotels: in Zafra ( 2 nights): 4-star parador in the 15th-century castle with a marble Renaissance patio and decorated Mudéjar

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Lecturers biographies are on page 194.

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Granada & Córdoba With Málaga, Úbeda & Baeza 22–29 April 2013 (mz 534) 8 days • £2,380 Lecturer: Adam Hopkins 4–11 November 2013 (ma 768) 8 days • £2,380 Lecturer: Gijs van Hensbergen Ample time at the key sites of Moorish Spain: the Alhambra in Granada and the Mosque in Córdoba, with time also for the lesser-known.

Visits the Picasso Museum and newly opened Carmen Thyssen collection in Málaga and the small Renaissance towns of Úbeda and Baeza.

The lecturers, Adam Hopkins and Gijs van Hensbergen, have written extensively on Spanish art and history.

Southern Spain - savage peaks soar over passes that are snow-bound in winter, while plains below are well-watered by spring rivers, hot, harsh and arid in the summer, mellow in late autumn and winter.

The cities reveal the magnitude of past achievements through the greatness of the architecture and the brilliant elaboration of decoration. Andalucía was a bountiful Roman

province, in Arab times the scene of highly sophisticated Umayyad and Nasrid princedoms and a major province of the most powerful kingdom in (Christian) Europe’s sixteenth Century. The artistic riches are immensely varied, though the unique distinguishing mark is the heritage from eight hundred years of rule

by Muslims from North Africa and Arabia.

Arab Córdoba became the capital of alAndalus and the largest city in Europe, market for all the luxuries of East and West and scene of Europe’s most splendid court until its fall to the Reconquistadors in 1236. The mosque, La Mezquita, was one of the largest anywhere, and arguably the most beautiful; Christian possession in the sixteenth century created within it a totally contrasting cathedral.

Granada was the last Islamic princedom in Spain, only falling to the Christians in 1492.

The concatenation of palaces and gardens of the Alhambra, with its cascading domes and gilded decoration like frozen fireworks, is one of Spain’s most enthralling sights.

Although millions of tourists pour through Málaga Airport every year en route to the Costa del Sol, comparatively few set foot in the old town. The narrow streets, palm-lined squares and seafront promenades conserve Phoenician, Roman, Moorish,

Córdoba, the Puerto del Sagrario of the Mosque, steel engraving c. 1840.

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Gothic, Baroque and late-nineteenth-century monuments. Birthplace and childhood home of Pablo Picasso, the city boasts a major collection of his works, while the new, eponymous museum of Carmen Thyssen Bornemisza includes some excellent 19th-century Spanish art with Andalusian themes.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 10.00am from London Gatwick to Málaga. Visit the recently-opened Carmen Thyssen museum with its fine collection of old masters and 19th-century Spanish painting. Overnight Málaga.

Day 2: Málaga. Begin at Picasso’s birthplace, which houses a small collection of his belongings and some ceramics. The Picasso Museum is magnificent, combining Phoenician ruins beneath, a fine 16th-century palace and a collection which places emphasis on his earlier works and the women in his life. There is time also to see the Alcazaba, a predominantly 11thcentury Moorish construction with fine views from its terraces. In the afternoon drive north to Granada. First of three nights in Granada.

Day 3: Granada. The 13th-century Arab palaces of the Alhambra ride high above the city. They are often reckoned to be the greatest expression of Moorish art in Spain, with exquisite decoration and a succession of intimate courtyards. Adjacent are the 16th-century Palace of Charles V and the Generalife, summer palace of the sultans, with gardens and fountains.

Day 4: Granada. Morning walk through the Albayzín, the oldest quarter in town, including El Bañuelo (Arab baths). (The Archaeological Museum - with a fine façade - is currently closed for renovation.) Climb up to San Nicolás from where there are fine views of the Alhambra.

In the late afternoon visit the Cathedral and Royal Chapel which retains Isabel of Castile’s personal collection of Flemish, Spanish and Italian paintings.

Day 5: Baeza, Úbeda. Drive to Baeza, once a prosperous and important town and now a provincial backwater of quiet charm set among olive groves stretching to the horizon.

It has a 16th-century cathedral by outstanding regional architect Andrés de Vandelvira and many grand houses of an alluring lightcoloured stone. In Úbeda walk to the handsome Plaza Vázquez de Molina, flanked by elegant palaces including Vandelvira’s Casa de las Cadenas and the present day parador. The church of El Salvador was designed by Diego de Siloé in 1536. Continue to Córdoba for the first of three nights.

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Andalucía Spain’s southern province Day 6: Córdoba. From the middle of the 8th century Córdoba was the capital of Islamic Spain and became the richest city in Europe until its capitulation to the Reconquistadors in 1236. Visit the Alcázar, mediaeval with earlier architectural remains (and good Roman mosaics), and the narrow streets of the old Jewish quarter, including the 14th-century synagogue. The Fine Arts Museum (optional visit), with Plateresque façade and one delightful ceiling, houses some good Spanish paintings. La Mezquita (mosque) is one of the most magnificent of Muslim sites, for some the greatest building of mediaeval Europe. It contains within it the 16th-century cathedral.

Day 7: Córdoba. Morning visit to the Archaeological Museum, housed in brand new galleries and a Renaissance mansion, with a fine collection of Roman and Arab pieces. Drive out to the excavations of Medina Azahara, with remains of a huge and luxurious 10th-century palace complex. Free afternoon in Córdoba.

Day 8. Drive back to Málaga via the pretty town of Antequera. The flight arrives at London Gatwick at c. 4.15pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,380 (deposit £250). This includes: air travel (economy class) with British Airways (Boeing 737); private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 4 dinners, with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters, drivers, guides; all taxes; the services of the lecturer, tour manager and a local guide. Single supplement £260 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,230.

Hotels: in Málaga (1 night): a functional and comfortable 4-star hotel in the centre.

In Granada (3 nights): a 5-star hotel in a converted convent, close to the Royal Chapel; rooms are comfortable and contemporary; more comparable to a 4-star. In Córdoba (3 nights): 4-star hotel in a converted 18th-century mansion; a short walk from the mosque.

How strenuous? There is a lot of walking, some of it uphill and some over uneven ground.

Average distance by coach per day: 44 miles.

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

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Seville Cathedral, mid-18th-century engraving.

14–24 October 2013 (ma 740) 11 days • £3,140 Lecturer: Adam Hopkins Three nights in each of the major cities: Granada, Córdoba and Seville.

Begin in Málaga with the Picasso Museum and newly opened Carmen Thyssen collection, and also visit the lesser-known towns of Baeza, Úbeda and Ecija.

The lecturer is Adam Hopkins, journalist and author, specialist in Spanish history and culture.

Varied itinerary covering the great Moorish sites, mediaeval, Renaissance and Baroque architecture, fine art collections and gardens.

Andalucía is Spain’s most fascinating and varied region. Varied geographically: stretching southwards from the Sierra Morena to the Mediterranean, it encompasses the permanent snow of the Sierra Nevada as well as the sunscorched interior.

And varied culturally: here it is possible to see great art and architecture of both Islamic and Christian traditions side by side – even, at Córdoba, one within the other. For Spain is unique in Western Europe in having been conquered by an Islamic power. The Moors first crossed from Africa in ad 711, and in the south of the country they stayed for nearly eight centuries. The Moorish civilization of the cities of Andalucía was one of the most sophisticated of the Middle Ages.

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There are also tantalising glimpses of the preceding Visigothic kingdom, and remains of the still earlier Roman occupation – the province of Baetica was one of the most highly favoured in the Roman Empire. Later, both Jews and gypsies made their influence felt, but overwhelmingly the dominant contribution to man-made Andalucian heritage has been created by and for unwavering adherents to Catholicism. The Christian religion does not get much more intense than in southern Spain, and its artistic manifestations rarely more spiritually charged.

The unification of Spain which was ensured by the marriage in 1469 of the ‘Catholic Kings’, Ferdinand and Isabella, ushered in the period when Spain became the dominant power in Europe. This also coincided with the discovery of the Americas. The cities of the south, particularly Seville, were the immediate beneficiaries of the subsequent colonisation and inflow of huge quantities of bullion and of boundless opportunities for trade and wealth creation.

The result was a boom in building and a cultural renaissance, a Golden Age which lasted into the eighteenth century, long after the economy had cooled and real Spanish power had waned. The poverty and torpor of subsequent centuries allowed much of the beauty of the glory days to survive to the present time, when a revival of prosperity has enabled extensive restoration and proper care of the immense artistic patrimony.

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Andalucía continued

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 10.00am from London Gatwick to Málaga. Visit the recently-opened Carmen Thyssen museum with its fine collection of old masters and 19th-century Spanish painting on Andalusian themes.

Overnight Málaga.

Day 2: Málaga. Begin at Picasso’s birthplace, which houses a small collection of his belongings. The Picasso Museum is magnificent, both the 16th-century building and the collection, which places emphasis on his earlier works. There is time also to see the Alcazaba, a predominantly 11th-century Moorish construction with fine views from its terraces. In the afternoon drive north to Granada. First of three nights in Granada.

Day 3: Granada. On a hilltop site is the Palace of the Alhambra, the greatest expression of Moorish art in Spain, with exquisite decoration and a succession of intimate courtyards.

Adjacent are the 16th-century Palace of Charles V and the Generalife, summer palace of the sultans, with gardens and fountains.

Day 4: Granada. Morning walk through the Albayzín, the oldest quarter in town, including El Bañuelo (Arab baths), the Archaeological Museum (currently closed for renovation) and a climb up to San Nicolás from where there are fine views of the Alhambra. In the late afternoon visit the Cathedral and Royal Chapel which has a fine collection of Flemish, Spanish and Italian paintings.

Day 5: Baeza, Úbeda. Drive to Baeza, once a prosperous and important town and now a provincial backwater of quiet charm set among olive groves stretching to the horizon with a 16th-century cathedral and many grand houses of an alluring light-coloured stone. In Úbeda walk to the handsome Plaza Vázquez de Molina, flanked by elegant palaces including Casa de las Cadenas and the present day parador. The church of El Salvador was designed by Diego de Siloé in 1536. Continue to Córdoba for the first of three nights.

Day 6: Córdoba. From the middle of the 8th century Córdoba was the capital of Islamic Spain and became the richest city in Europe until its capitulation to the Reconquistadors in 1236. Visit the Alcázar, mediaeval with earlier architectural remains and the narrow streets of the old Jewish quarter including the 14thcentury synagogue. The Fine Arts Museum, with Plateresque façade, houses paintings by the best Spanish masters. La Mezquita (mosque) is one of the most magnificent of Muslim shrines, and contains within it the 16th-century Christian cathedral.

Day 7: Córdoba. Morning visit to the Archaeological Museum, housed in a Renaissance mansion, with a fine collection of Roman and Arab pieces. Drive out to the excavations of Medina Azahara, a 10th-century palace complex of considerable luxury. Free afternoon in Córdoba.

Day 8: Ecija, Seville. The many church towers of Ecija are visible from afar across the surrounding plain. Of the numerous Baroque

Málaga, engraving c. 1890.

mansions see the Palacio de Peñaflor and Palacio del Marqués de Benameji, and visit the Gothic-Mudéjar church of Santiago. Drive to Seville. Walk­through the Barrio de Santa Cruz, a maze of whitewashed alleys and flowerfilled patios, to the Casa de Pilatos, the best of the Mudéjar style palaces, with patios and azulejos. First of three nights in Seville.

Day 9: Seville. Walk to the church and hospital of the Caridad, Seville’s most striking 17thcentury building, with paintings by Murillo and Valdés Leal. The cathedral is one of the largest Gothic churches anywhere (‘Let us build a cathedral so immense that everyone... will take us for madmen’). The Capilla Mayor, treasury and sanctuary are of particular interest. Free afternoon.

Day 10: Seville. The Alcázar, the fortified royal palace, is one of Spain’s greatest buildings; built by Moorish architects for Castilian kings, it consists of a sequence of apartments and magnificent reception rooms around courtyards and gardens. Further exploration of the Barrio de Santa Cruz. Afternoon at the Fine Arts Museum, the best in Spain after the Prado.

Day 11. Drive back to Málaga for the afternoon flight to London Gatwick arriving c. 4.15pm.

Practicalities Price: £3,140 (deposit £300). This includes: air travel (economy class) on British Airways flights (Boeing 737); private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 7 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters, drivers and guides; all taxes; the services of the lecturer, tour manager and guides. Single supplement £510 (double room for single use). Price without flights £3,000.

Hotels: Málaga (1 night): a functional 4-star in the centre. Granada (3 nights): a 5-star in a former convent; rooms are comfortable and contemporary; more comparable to a 4-star.

Córdoba (3 nights): a 4-star in an 18th-century mansion, a short walk from the mosque. Seville (3 nights): a charming 4-star hotel located a short walk from the cathedral and Barrio de Santa Cruz. Included meals are in carefully selected restaurants.

How strenuous? A lengthy tour with four hotels, a lot of walking on uneven ground and uphill, and a fair amount of coach travel. You need to be fit. Average distance by coach per day: 33 miles.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Aragón, 1–9 October (page 167) or Walking in Madeira, 28 October–3 November (page 148).

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Gastronomic Andalucía Food, wine, art & architecture From Voyage en Espagne, engraving 1864 after Gustave Doré.

5–12 April 2013 (mz 510) 8 days • £2,920 Lecturer: Gijs van Hensbergen Journey south from Las Pedroñeras in La Mancha in a sweeping curve through Andalucía: Ubeda, Baeza, Córdoba, Seville, Jerez, Cádiz, Aracena.

Surveys the history of the region with its cuisine: Roman, Jewish, Moorish, Christian; from the simplest cooking to the elaborate and contemporary.

Some of Spain’s greatest monuments are here including the mosque at Córdoba and Seville Cathedral, but also good museums, small towns and spectacular countryside.

Led by Gijs van Hensbergen, art historian and author of books on Spanish art and food.

‘Al-Andalus’ (the Andalucía of the Moors) are words which immediately evoke fantasies of displays of sweetmeats, saffron stained rice and jewels of livid red pomegranate. Exotic flavour combinations are countered by the simplicity of perfectly prepared fish; flaking, moist and ivory white. Sophisticated techniques are often tempered by the deeply felt philosophy that, yes, less can be more.

Gastronomic Andalucía is a true feast of the senses: earthy smells are countered by elusive and piquant tastes; sherries, montillas and punchy red ‘caldos’ of La Mancha wine stand up perfectly to the pickled escabeches of game, the deep-flavoured fish soups, and the marriage of almonds, lemon-steeped olives and air-dried tenderloin of albacore tuna. The backdrop of Gastronomic Andalucía is no less exotic: Ubeda and Baeza, the twin cities of Spain’s Renaissance, are surrounded by stands of olive trees that lead the eye out to the horizon and the sierras beyond. The mosque in Córdoba, at the very heart of the Caliphate, makes a complete nonsense of the received wisdom about the so-called Dark Ages. Seville’s barrio of the Santa Cruz still offers up phantom vistas of an extraordinary cosmopolitan past.

Andalucía, it must be remembered, has a large variety of climates. In the mountains above Seville the hams of the wild Iberian pig dry perfectly into a product that is second to none. Sea breezes around Sanlucar signal the flavour of salt on the tongue. South to Baeza, off the tourist track, we enter the land of olives, and a tasting at the family run Castillo de Canena, where Spain’s Business Woman of the Year 2008, Rosa Vañó, inducts us into the arcane wonders of olive oil tasting, and where, close by, the unpretentious Casa Juanito, the Spanish gourmet’s choice of ‘true’ authenticity has for decades put it in the Top Ten of Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

restaurants in Spain. Córdoba, of course, needs no advertising but a fourteenth-century convent restaurant on the edge of the gypsy quarter is just one way of retiring from the Caliphate’s wealthy past and the powerful midday sun.

Perfectly fried aubergines are a foil for the oxtail, fillets of fish with herbs and oil are trapped in a flash, in a film of the lightest batter and laid out on a bed of the speciality, fried lettuce. Oaky Montilla wine is taken standing.

Seville, Jerez, Cádiz are worlds on their own. Sherry houses are famous for producing unique tastes. Less known are the almacenistas, passionate amateurs, whose houses, basements, shops, and even living rooms are turned over to storing and nursing their barrels. Cádiz’s legendary restaurant El Faro takes fish frying to a new level with wafer thin pancakes of miniature shrimp and is the best place in Spain to eat line caught bass baked in a salt crust.

The tour ends in Seville with Michelin-starred and Basque chef, Martin Berasategui’s take on Andalusian cuisine.

Itinerary Day 1: London to La Mancha. Fly c. 9.15am from London Heathrow to Madrid. Drive south into La Mancha to the small walled town of Belmonte. In the surrounding countryside visit the vineyards of Pesquera, of Ribera de Duero fame, for a tasting and dinner.

Overnight in Belmonte.

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Day 2: La Mancha to Andalucía. In Belmonte visit the Gothic church of San Bartolomé and the superbly sited 15th-century castle before leaving for lunch in nearby Las Pedroñeras.

Here Michelin-starred chef Manuel de la Osa marries bohemian bonhomie with a passion for garlic. Drive through the magnificent pass of Desfiladero de Despeñaperros and enter Andalucía. The handsome town of Ubeda has streets and squares lined with palaces, one of which is our hotel. Stay two nights in Ubeda.

Day 3: Ubeda, Baeza. The twin towns of Ubeda and Baeza thrived in the 16th-century and are richly endowed with Renaissance monuments. Spend time in both with lunch in Baeza at Casa Juanito. The Arab Castle of Canena is deep in olive-grove country of the Guadalquivir valley and home to the Vañó family, famed producers; tasting and visit here.

Day 4: Córdoba, Seville. Drive west to Córdoba and focus on La Mezquita, one of the largest and most beautiful mosques in the world, and within it the 16th-century cathedral. Walk through the old Jewish quarter, with 14th-century synagogue, to a chilled aperitif and a Moorish lunch. Continue to Seville for an evening tapas walk through the flower-filled Barrio de Santa Cruz. First of four nights in Seville.

Day 5: Seville. Begin at the Alcázar, one of Spain’s greatest buildings, built by Moorish

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Gastronomic Andalucía continued

Practicalities

architects for Spanish kings, with its courtyards, gardens and magnificent tapestries.

The 15th-century cathedral is one of the largest Gothic churches anywhere, with a Late Gothic retable and paintings by Murillo, Zurbarán and Goya. In the afternoon visit the Fine Arts Museum, the finest collection in Spain after the Prado.

Dinner is at a local family-run restaurant with a private Flamenco show.

Price: £2,920 (deposit £250). This includes: flights (economy class) with Iberia (Airbus A321, A318 & A340); private coach travel throughout; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 5 lunches (including 1 ‘tasting’ lunch) and 5 dinners (including one light dinner and a tapas walk) with wine, water, coffee; all other tastings; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £230 (double room for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,720.

Day 6: Jerez de la Frontera, Cádiz.

Drive south to Jerez, at the heart of sherry production. Special arrangements include a tasting at the Lustau bodega and Bodegas Tradición with its own art collection. Continue to the historic port of Cádiz; laid-back and unspoilt, and with a renowned fish restaurant. There is time after lunch to visit the city museum with a significant archaeological collection.

Day 7: Sierra de Aracena, Jabugo.

Drive north to the Sierra de Aracena, the low mountains which form the border with Extremadura. Here we taste the exquisite jamón ibérico. There is an optional walk in the foothills along farm tracks lined with oak, chestnut and olive trees and livestock.

Alternatively remain in the town of Aracena.

The evening is spent at Martin Berasategui’s Michelin-starred restaurant, Santo.

Hotels: in Belmonte (1 night): a rustic hotel in a 16th-century house in the old town; simple but charming. In Ubeda (2 nights): a 4-star Parador in a Renaissance palace on the most handsome square in town; comfortable rooms, traditionally furnished. In Seville (4 nights): a pretty hotel in the Barrio Sta Cruz created from several contiguous palaces connected by open-air patios; rooms vary in size and outlook, locally rated as 4-star.

Córdoba, La Torre de la Carrahola, engraving c. 1870.

Day 8: Seville. Free morning in Seville; we suggest visiting the church and hospital of the Caridad, with paintings by Murillo and Valdés Leal. Drive to Seville airport for the flight to London, via Madrid, arriving c. 5.15pm.

How strenuous? Quite a lot of walking over uneven ground and up and down hill (and an optional country walk). Average daily distance by coach day: 101 miles.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Walking in Sicily, 15–22 April (page 135).

Seville: a festival of Spainish Music 10–15 May 2013 (mz 554) 6 days • from £2,270 Contact us for full details or visit www.martinrandall.com Nine concerts – all of which are private – in a series of historic buildings in southern Spain’s most beautiful city.

Top class musicians: Ex Cathedra, the Dufay Collective, Orphénica Lyra, Carlos Bonell, Javier Perianes, London Haydn Quartet, the Orlando Consort, Contrapunctus Choir.

Lectures on the music and other aspects of Sevillian history and culture.

Option of booking a pre-festival tour: Off-Beat Andalucía or Art in Madrid.

Andalucían musicians, Mid-19th-century engraving.

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The package includes accommodation, flights between the UK and Seville, most meals and much else besides.

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Renaissance and Baroque Seville was a place of prosperity and dynamism, and as a consequence the arts flourished. Musicians and composers in particular found many eager patrons, and the city became a centre of music the equal of anywhere in Europe.

This festival is a journey from Islamic, Jewish and Christian music of mediaeval Spain, through the musical glories of Seville’s Golden Age, to the works of Spanish composers of the early 20th century, so heavily influenced by Andalucían culture. Leading exponents of Spanish music – from Spain, Britain and Morocco – perform in a variety of beautiful historic buildings. Matching music with place – that is the raison d’etre of this festival. Carefully planned with regard to pace, balance, musical type and architecture, the experience is enhanced with talks, dinners, optional visits and the company of like-minded fellow participants.

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The Lucerne Festival music in Switzerland 6–11 September 2013 (ma 677) 6 days • £3,120 (including tickets for 6 concerts) Lecturer: Professor Jan Smaczny

Op.29; Stravinsky, ‘Le roi des étoiles’; Bartók, ‘Cantata Profana’; Pierre Boulez ‘Le visage nuptial’.

A summer music festival of the first rank in the loveliest of Swiss cities.

Orchestras include the Pittsburgh Symphony, Bavarian Radio Symphony, Budapest Festival, Lucerne Festival Academy and Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden.

Conductors are Christian Thielemann, Mariss Jansons, Ivan Fischer, Pierre Boulez and Manfred Honeck, and among the soloists Mitsuko Uchida, Anne-Sophie Mutter and Johan Botha.

Led by musicologist Professor Jan Smaczny, who gives daily talks on the concerts.

Ever since its inauguration over seventy years ago, with a concert conducted

by Arturo Toscanini in the grounds of the lakeside house where Wagner had stayed, the Lucerne Festival has been regarded as one of the most prestigious music festivals in Europe.

The event has been further enhanced by a brilliant venue. The KKL (Kulturund Kongresszentrum) is a giant glass-and-steel arts complex located right on the lake just a few hundred yards from the old town of Lucerne.

Designed by Frenchman Jean Nouvel and completed in 2000, this is modern European architecture at its finest. Its colossal cantilevered roof projects over the water’s edge, bringing the changing moods of the lake right into the building, and water channels separate the various wings. The most advanced acoustical science has been lavished on the beautiful Konzertsaal. All six concerts are here.

And could there be a lovelier city in which to attend a summer music festival? Lucerne occupies one of the most picturesque settings in Switzerland, divided into two parts by its river, bordering on the dramatic shores of the Vierwaldstätter Lake and overlooked by craggy mountains. Its mediaeval prosperity is still visible in the squares, guildhalls and churches that line its riverbanks. The nineteenth century was a heyday for Lucerne as it led the way in attracting tourism to Switzerland.

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Lucerne, wood engraving c. 1890.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 12.15pm from London Heathrow to Zurich. Drive to Lucerne, a lively, historic city amidst lake and mountain. Early evening dinner followed by a concert with Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, Christian Thielemann (conductor) and Johan Botha (tenor): Wagner, Overture from ‘The Flying Dutchman’; Faust Overture; ‘Rienzi’s Prayer’; Overture from ‘Rienzi’; Prelude to ‘Lohengrin’; Overture from ‘Tannhäuser’.

Day 2. Morning walking tour of Lucerne (Part I), starting at the oldest road bridge in Europe, the richly decorated Chapel Bridge, and continuing to the Spreuerbrücke, another historic covered bridge notable for its ‘Dance of Death’ roof panels. See the Rococo interior of the huge Jesuit Church and the 13th-century Franciscan Church before visiting the Sammlung Rosengart, an extraordinary collection devoted to 20th-century art including many works by Picasso. Free afternoon to explore the historic town centre. Evening concert with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Mariss Jansons (conductor) and Mitsuko Uchida (piano): Beethoven, Piano Concerto No.4; Berlioz,‘Symphonie Fantastique’.

Day 3. Concert with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, Ivan Fischer (conductor): Bartók, ‘Romanian Folk Dances’; music from ‘The Miraculous Mandarin’; Dvořák, Legends, Op.59 and Symphony No.8. Free time before the evening concert with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Choir, Mariss Jansons (conductor), Genia Kühmeier (soprano), Anna Larsson (alto): Mahler, Symphony No.2, ‘Resurrection’.

Day 4. The village of Beromünster has an 11th-century church containing fine carved choir stalls and altar frontals and a rare collection of mediaeval church treasures, some dating from the 7th–century. Return to Lucerne for lunch. Concert with the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra, Pierre Boulez (conductor): Webern, Cantata No.2, Op.31; Variations, Op.30’; Cantata No.1,

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Day 5. Walking tour of Lucerne (Part II) starting at the Hof kirche, a 17thcentury church with a lovely Italianate cloister and two Romanesque towers.

Visit the city’s chief 19th–century monuments including the famous Löwendenkmal, a great lion-statue hewn from a cliff-face in 1821 in honour of Swiss mercenaries killed in the French Revolution, and the Bourbaki Panorama, a giant circular mural depicting events of the FrancoPrussian War of 1870. In the afternoon visit Richard Wagner’s home on a headland by the lake where the composer spent some of his happiest years. Evening concert with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Manfred Honeck (conductor), Anne-Sophie Mutter (violin): Dvořák, Violin Concerto in A Minor, Op.53; Shostakovich, Symphony No.11, ‘The Year 1905’.

Day 6. Drive to Zurich and visit the Kunsthaus, Switzerland’s finest gallery with collections of Swiss and international painting and sculpture from all periods. After lunch drive to Zurich Airport for the flight to London Heathrow, arriving c. 6.00pm.

Practicalities Price £3,120 (deposit £250). This includes: tickets for 6 concerts­costing c. £680; flights (economy class) with British Airways (Airbus 320); private coach travel; breakfasts, 3 lunches, 3 dinners with wine, water, coffee; admissions; tips; taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £80.

Price without flights £2,980.

Music: tickets are due to be confirmed in January. Programmes are likely to change as the final programme was not published at the time of going to print.

Hotel: a four star hotel dating back to the 13th century located in the heart of the historic town centre.

How strenuous? Some walking is essential. The concert hall is located half a mile from the hotel. Average distance by coach per day: c. 16 miles.

Small group: 12–22 participants.

Le Corbusier, 20–28 April 2013 (travels to France and Switzerland). Page 58.

Switzerland

Istanbul Byzantine & Ottoman metropolis 23–29 September 2013 (ma 713) 7 days • £2,240 Lecturer: Professor Judith Herrin An extraordinarily diverse city: Roman remains; outstanding Byzantine buildings; glorious mosaics and frescoes; Ottoman mosques and palaces.

Led by one of the most prominent Byzantine and Mediaeval historians.

Stay in the heart of the Sultanahmet.

Istanbul has evolved into a melting-pot of cultures, with a lively streetlife and colourful bazaars. The city’s international outlook is epitomised by its division between Europe and Asia, now linked by modern bridges crossing the mighty Bosphorus.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at 11.30am from London Heathrow to Istanbul. A short stroll around the Hippodrome before dinner, originally constructed c. ad 200 by Septimius Severus,

restoration), masterpiece of the great architect Sinan, with his beautiful small Rüstem Pasha Camii. Brief walk through the Spice Bazaar.

The excellent Islamic Museum in the Ibrahim Pasha Palace has textiles and various artefacts.

Finish with another small Sinan mosque, the Sokollu Mehmet Pasha Camii.

Day 5. Topkapı Palace was the Sultan’s residence and the political centre of the Ottoman Empire. Now used to display the Imperial Treasury, it contains the finest surviving collection of Islamic precious objects and an outstanding collection of Chinese porcelain. Free afternoon.

Day 6. Travel by private boat along the Bosphorus, the historic and beautiful strait which divides Europe from Asia, for superb views of Istanbul and the villas and castles of its suburbs. See Beylerbei Palace, an imperial summer residence during the late Ottoman Empire. The Sadberk Hanim Museum is a mansion with fine collections spanning the whole period of Anatolian civilizations­.

Istanbul, the Golden Horn, from a drawing c. 1890.

The radical transformations this city underwent are vividly expressed by its changes of name: Byzantium, Constantinople and Istanbul.

The capital successively of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, it is one of the most beautiful and fascinating cities in the world.

Initially a modest Greek city, it was chosen

by Constantine as the site of the new capital of the Roman Empire and inaugurated in ad 330. The Byzantine Empire continued in direct succession to the Roman, and its capital became one of the largest cities in mediaeval Europe, the guardian of classical culture and a bastion of Christianity.

The city walls were the most powerful in the western world, and while the Byzantine empire gradually shrank before the onslaughts of Persians and Arabs and Latin Crusaders, it was not finally extinguished until 1453 when Ottoman Turks captured the city.

In the century and a half after the Ottoman conquest the city steadily acquired some of the finest Islamic architecture in the world, aided by the example of Haghia Sophia, the architect Sinan and the brilliant tile factories at Iznik.

Minarets and mosques now dominate the skyline, but churches, temples, palaces and other pre-Ottoman buildings, whole or fragmentary, and the arts which decorated them, are to be found in abundance.

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it was completely rebuilt on a larger scale by Constantine and inaugurated in ad 330. It was at the centre of civil life in Byzantine Constantinople.

Day 2. A day spent concentrating on the Byzantine monuments. Begin with Haghia Sophia, the 6th-century church which is the chief monument of Christian Byzantium.

The ornamental pavement belonging to the Byzantine Great Palace is displayed in the small Mosaic Museum. Fethiye Camii, former church of the Pammakaristos, now part functioning mosque, part mosaic museum. The Kariye Camii (St Saviour in Chora) possesses the finest assemblage of Byzantine mosaics and frescoes to survive anywhere.

Day 3. Yerebatan Saray is a remarkable colonnaded cistern. The Archaeological Museum has an outstanding collection of ancient art and artefacts, Hellenistic and Roman sculpture, and sarcophagi. Visit the mosque complex of Sultan Beyazit II, with fine portals, minarets and courtyards. Optional walk through the Grand Bazaar and free time.

Day 4. Sultan Ahmet Camii (Blue Mosque) is the last of Istanbul’s imperial mosques.

Contrast the large and imposing Süleymaniye complex (the tombs are currently undergoing

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Day 7. Drive beside the Golden Horn to the suburb of Eyüp where there is an important Islamic shrine. Continue along the massive Byzantine land walls to the Yediküle Fortress.

Fly from Istanbul and arrive London Heathrow at c. 3.15pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,240 (deposit £200). This includes: flights (economy class) with Turkish Airlines; (Airbus 310, Boeing 737); travel by private coach and boat; accommodation as below; breakfasts, 1 lunch and 5 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and a Turkish guide.

Single supplement £290 (double for single occupancy). Price without flights £2,000.

Hotel: An elegant hotel, locally rated as 5-star, in the heart of the Sultanahmet, close to the Blue Mosque; rooms are spacious, stylishly furnished and well equipped; roof terrace with views of the Bosphorous; included dinners are at the hotel or selected restaurants.

Visa: British nationals need a visa. This is obtained upon arrival at the airport and currently costs £10 (not included in the tour price). Nationals of other countries should check their requirements.

How strenuous? There is a lot of walking and standing around. Istanbul is quite hilly and not suitable for anyone with difficulties with everyday walking and stairclimbing. Average distance by coach per day: 9 miles.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants. b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Ottoman Turkey Bursa, Iznik, Istanbul, Edirne 12–19 May 2013 (mz 557) 8 days • £2,520 Lecturer: Jane Taylor Stay in Istanbul, capital from 1453, and the earlier Ottoman capitals of Bursa and Edirne.

See fine Ottoman buildings, which constitute perhaps a high point of Islamic architecture.

Led by Jane Taylor, a Mediaeval historian, writer and photographer.

Study Iznik ceramics and tiles, as well as textiles and craft work in wood and metal.

In the world of Islam the 16-century architecture of the Ottoman Empire has few peers. The supreme architect, and the most prolific, was Sinan. With the 6th-century church of Haghia Sophia as the inspiration for many of his buildings, the pupil constantly strove to surpass the master in engineering skill and aesthetic refinements.

Bursa, the first capital of the embryonic Ottoman Empire, is now a vibrant growing town, in an attractive setting at the base of the Uludağ mountain. The tour appropriately begins here, in order to trace the development of Ottoman art and architecture by seeing its early manifestations first.

At nearby Iznik, in the 16th century, the era of Süleyman the Magnificent, ceramics achieved a peak of perfection, not only in tableware but also in tiles, using a process which has amazingly been lost to history.

Istanbul, formerly Constantinople, was the largest city in the world both in late antiquity and in the Middle Ages. Its fall to the Ottomans in 1453 put their empire on a level with the Persian and Roman empires of the past. It is a deeply fascinating place, with a bewildering history and a mix of opposing cultures, but mosques and minarets still dominate the skyline.

Edirne, formerly Adrianopolis, is an astonishing town, a once thriving capital, rich in architectural treasures, now beached on a byway and rarely reached by tourists. The greatest of all Sinan’s mosques is here.

Byzantines in 1326 retains the sights of the old centre, but the new town now sprawls onto the plateau beneath. Mosques were built by each Sultan from 1326 to 1451, outstanding being the Yeşil Cami (Green Mosque) and Yeşil Türbe (Green Tomb) with extensive tilework by the Masters of Tabriz. See the mosque and tombs of the Muradiye complex. Situated in the old commercial centre are Ulu Cami (Great Mosque) and the caravanserais whose rents funded the mosques and served the textile trade, famous for its silk velvets.

Day 3: Iznik. Drive to Iznik, formerly the flourishing Roman town of Nicæa, capital in the 13th century of the Byzantine emperorsin-exile; now a charming and unspoilt country town within concentric circuits of Roman and Byzantine walls. The museum in the beautiful hospice of Nilüfer Hatun tells the story of ceramic production from the Byzantine period to the great frit wares of the 16th century. Continue northwards and re-cross the Bosphorus. First of three nights in Istanbul.

Day 4: Istanbul. Begin with monuments of the Byzantine city around the hippodrome, chief of which is Haghia Sophia, greatest of all Byzantine buildings and the inspiration for many Ottoman mosques. The nearby Yerebatan Saray is a remarkable colonnaded cistern. There is an excellent museum of Islamic and Turkish

art in the Ibrahim Pasha Sarayi. The Kariye Camii (St Saviour in Chora) has some of the finest Byzantine mosaics and wall paintings in the world. Optional visit to the old commercial district and Covered Bazaar.

Day 5: Istanbul. Topkapi Sarayi, the palace of the Ottoman Sultans, is arranged around a series of courtyards. Apart from the magnificent Harem (living quarters of the royal family), other buildings house fine collections of Turkish arts and Chinese porcelain. A fine work by the great Ottoman architect Sinan is the Süleymaniye Mosque, the enormous and elegant complex includes medreses, shops and tombs (currently undergoing restoration) overlooking the Golden Horn. The mosque of Rüstem Pasha is small but brilliantly embellished with tiles. Nearby is the colourful and aromatic spice market.

Day 6: The Bosphorus. Travel by private boat along the Bosphorus to Sariyer. Visit the Sadberk Hanim Museum, which combines two exceptional private collections, one ethnographic and the other archaeological.

Lunch by the Bosphorus. Overnight in Edirne, near the border with Greece and Bulgaria.

Day 7: Edirne. European capital of the Ottoman Empire until 1453. The Eski Camii (Old Mosque) shows the continuation of one of

Edirne, copper engraving c. 1800.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 10.30am from London Heathrow to Istanbul (approximate time in the air: 3 hours 30 minutes). Cross the Bosphorus from Europe to Asia. A short ferry ride across the Sea of Marmara cuts the journey time.

Continue the drive south through mainly agricultural land with peach trees and olive groves. First of two nights in Bursa.

Day 2: Bursa. This first settled capital of the Ottoman Empire after its capture from the Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

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Ottoman Turkey continued

Classical Turkey Greeks & Romans in Anatolia

the traditions established at Bursa. The mosque and hospital complex of Sultan Beyazit II, is delightfully situated on the banks of the Tunca.

The Üç Serefeli Mosque was the first Ottoman mosque to have a courtyard, and the first step towards the classical building style of the 16th century, exemplified by the nearby Selimiye, Sinan’s masterpiece. Return to Istanbul for the final night.

Day 8: Istanbul. Sultan Ahmet Camii (Blue Mosque), despite its fame, marks the beginning of the decline of Ottoman architecture. Drive past the massive Byzantine walls to Eyüp Sultan Camii. Fly from Istanbul to Heathrow, arriving at c. 7.30pm.

Practicalities Price: £2,520 (deposit £250). This includes: flights (economy class) with British Airways (Boeing 767); travel by private coach; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 2 lunches and 6 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and of a local guide. Single supplement £70. Price without flights £2,290.

Visa: British nationals need a visa. This is obtained upon arrival at the airport and currently costs £10 (not included in the tour price). Nationals of other countries should check their requirements.

Hotels: Bursa (2 nights): a recently refurbished modern hotel conveniently located near the city centre. Istanbul (4 nights in total): well located in the Sultanahmet area, this hotel is locally rated as 5-star, with elegant rooms and a roof terrace. Edirne (1 night): a converted 16th-century caravanserai with a sense of the traditional local hostelry, the best available hotel, fairly basic but adequate.

How strenuous? There is quite a lot of walking within the towns, and paving is uneven. On some days there are several hours of driving.

There are three hotel changes. Average distance by coach per day: 66 miles.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

Connoisseur’s Istanbul Autumn 2013 Details available Spring 2013 Contact us to register your interest

Turkey

Ruins at Ephesus, English aquatint 1830.

8–17 April 2013 (mz 513) 10 days • £3,390 Lecturer: Dr Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones The most prosperous region of the ancient Mediterranean world.

The finest collection of Hellenistic and Roman city ruins to be found anywhere.

Accompanied by leading classicists.

All the major sites and many which are off the beaten track or difficult to get to.

Scenically varied and spectacular: coast, mountain and plain.

The Turks were latecomers to Turkey. Greeks had settled on the western fringes over two thousand years before and, as recounted in The Iliad, had been meddling in Anatolian affairs a few centuries earlier still.

After the demise of the Mycenaean civilization of Homer’s heroes, large numbers of Hellenes migrated from Greece to Aegean Anatolia and its offshore islands. First, around 1100 bc, Aeolians came to settle in the northern part of this coastal area, then Ionians moved into terrain further down the coast, to be followed at the end of the tenth century by Dorians who established themselves yet further south.

They founded cities all along the Aegean coast and in due course along the river valleys into the heart of Anatolia and along the

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Mediterranean coast to the south. Most of the peoples the Greeks encountered eventually became Hellenised.

No less than the Greeks of Greece proper, Asian Greeks contributed to the ‘Greek miracle’ by supplying philosophers, mathematicians, sculptors, architects and other civilization-builders of genius. The canon of classical architecture owes much to the Asian cities – not least the Ionic order, which appears in the gigantic temples of the Ionic coast, prodigies of architecture produced by the confluence of civilisations in the region.

The Asian Greek cities succumbed willingly to Alexander. Freed from the Persian threat, they piled up the riches – material and architectural – of the Hellenistic period and became more numerous, more prosperous and more progressive than the western Greeks.

They slipped with equal ease into membership of the Roman Empire.

Imperial Rome was besotted by the Greek achievement. Greek culture proved more enduring than Roman, and after the fifthcentury collapse of the western empire the use of Latin soon languished. Despite the subsequent collapse of trade, the destruction of the Aegean cities by the Sassanids and the invasions of Anatolia by Selçuk and Ottoman Turks, the Greek language and other aspects of Greek culture and Christianity, the new religion of the Greeks, were never entirely extinguished in Asia Minor.

The abandoned ancient cities now comprise b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Didyma, elevation of the Temple of Apollo (now a ruin), steel engraving c. 1850.

the most magnificent set of Archaic, Classical and, particularly, Hellenistic and Roman remains. While the proximity of some of the sites to holiday resorts and cruise ports means that they are also among the most visited, others are still relatively difficult of access and far from the beaten track. And the settings are usually ravishing: whether coastal, mountain or plateau, the landscapes provide a backdrop for this tour of extraordinary beauty.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 11.25am from London Heathrow to Izmir (via Istanbul). Dinner in the hotel. First of three nights in Izmir.

Day 2: Pergamon. Under the Hellenistic Attalid dynasty, Pergamon became the most powerful city-state in Asia Minor, rivalling Athens and Alexandria as a centre of culture.

On a steep-sided hill are remains of Attalid palaces, Temple of Dionysus and Altar of Zeus (most of which is now in Berlin), the Greek theatre and remains of the library, Temple of Athena and Attalid palaces. The Asclepieon and ‘Temple of Serapis’ (Red Fort) lie on flat ground below.

Day 3: Sardis, Izmir. Drive inland to Sardis, capital of the Kingdom of Lydia, whose last independent ruler was the fabulously wealthy Croesus (560–546 bc), it later became an important Roman city. See the impressive remains of the Temple of Artemis, the reconstructed ‘Marble Court’, gymnasium and the 3rd-century synagogue, the largest in the ancient world. Free time in Izmir, Greek Smyrna.

Day 4: Ephesus. Drive south to Ephesus, the principal port and commercial centre on the Aegean coast under the Roman Empire and capital of the province of Asia, with a population of 400,000 in the 2nd-century ad.

The most popular pagan pilgrimage destination in the Graeco-Roman world, the city was also key to the development of Christianity.

Ruined by the sedimentation of its estuary and finally sacked in the 7th-century, Ephesus has become the most extensively excavated site of the ancient world. Begin with the remains of the Temple of Artemis, before the first visit to the main site which has an abundance of paved streets, public buildings, temples, gymnasia and courtyard houses. Among the more striking buildings are the Library of Celsus and the theatre, originally seating 24,000 and scene of the protest against St Paul described in the Acts of the Apostles. Three nights in Kusadasi.

Day 5: Priene, Didyma, Miletus. A small city of the Dodecapolis in southern Ionia, Priene is magnificently sited above the Maeander Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

plain. Its hillside site ill-suiting it for Roman commerce, the remains date largely from the late Classical and early Hellenistic periods, and it exhibits one of the earliest of grid street layouts. The Temple of Athena Polias at the summit was designed by the architect Pythius.

Didyma was a sanctuary with an oracle which, for a time, rivalled that at Delphi. Impressive remains of the colossal Hellenistic Temple of Apollo. Miletus, massive, well-preserved Roman theatre, baths of Faustina, wife of Marcus Aurelius.

Day 6: Selçuk, Ephesus. In Selçuk see the restored Basilica of St John at the top of Ayasuluk hill, and the Isla Bey mosque at the bottom. A second visit to the vast site of Ephesus, or a free afternoon in Kusadasi.

Day 7: Aphrodisias. Leave the coast and drive into the interior of Anatolia. One of the most beautiful classical sites in Turkey, Aphrodisias was the centre of a Roman cult of Aphrodite.

An important school for the production of high quality and widely exported sculpture, there are many fine examples in the museum. Among the architectural remains are the Temple of Aphrodite and the largest and most complete stadium to have survived from the ancient world. Overnight Pamukkale.

Day 8: Hierapolis, Antalya. Hierapolis prospered under the Romans and Byzantines as a centre of thermal healing, and the nearby modern resort of Pamukkale still prospers.

Founded by (and named after) Attalus II of Pergamum, Antalya was the principal port in Pamphylia in ancient and Byzantine times.

Some free time to explore the charming old town with restored Ottoman period houses.

Two nights in Antalya.

Day 9: Perge, Aspendos, Termessos, Antalya.

Colonised by the Greeks after the Trojan War, Perge has substantial Hellenistic and Roman gates and colonnaded streets. While the Roman aqueduct at Aspendos is the best-

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preserved in Asia Minor, the marvellously complete theatre is the best-preserved in the whole of the Roman world. Afternoon visit to the one of the country’s finest archaeological museums with exhibits from prehistory to Ottoman.

Day 10. Fly from Antalya (via Istanbul) arriving Heathrow c. 3.15pm.

Practicalities Price: £3,390 (deposit £350) This includes: flights (economy class) with Turkish Airlines (Airbus A330, Boeing 738); travel by private coach; hotel accommodation; breakfasts, 7 lunches (some are picnics) and 8 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer and of a Turkish guide. Single supplement £370. Price without all flights £3,080.

Hotels: Izmir (3 nights): large, modern 5-star overlooking the Citadel and old port. Kusadasi (3 nights): old-fashioned yet elegant 4-star, rooms have balconies and views across the Aegean. Pamukkale (1 night): large, impersonal spa hotel with swimming pools. Antalya (2 nights): beautiful boutique hotel within the old city walls with original 19th-century frescoes.

Visa: British nationals need a visa, this is obtained upon arrival at the airport and currently costs £10 (not included in the tour price). Nationals of other countries should check their requirements.

How strenuous? This tour covers long distances by coach and much of the walking is over rough ground at sites which requires agility and stamina. There are three hotel changes.

Average distance by coach per day: 80 miles.

Small group: 12 to 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine this tour with Classical Greece, 20–29 (page 80).

Turkey

Eastern Turkey Archaeology, architecture, history & landscapes

Kars, steel engraving c. 1840.

New departure: 27 April–12 May 2013 (mz 541) 16 days • £4,270 Lecturer: Dr Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones 18 May–2 June 2013 (mz 571) 16 days • £4,270 Lecturer: Rowena Loverance A journey through lesser-known Turkey from Gaziantep to Lake Van, to Mount Ararat and the Black Sea. Wide ranging themes, spectacular landscapes and varied architecture: mountains, valleys, plains and coast; Byzantine and Georgian churches, Seljuk mosques and Armenian monasteries.

The tour tells a story as much about the neighbouring countries it doesn’t visit as the country it does.

The majestic scenery of eastern Anatolia is the setting for this ambitious tour, which, while remaining firmly within the borders of modern-day Turkey, encompasses an extraordinary range of historic and

Turkey

contemporary cultures. From the broad river valleys of the south to the vertiginous Alpine passes in the north, this part of Anatolia has always been a crossroads, whether for Abraham, patriarch of the three Near Eastern faiths, as he followed the Fertile Crescent from Ur to Canaan, or for the Greek mercenaries hired to fight for the Persian king Cyrus, who had to make their way back to their homeland across the Anatolian plateau and the Pontic Mountains.

The tour journeys through the cradle of civilization between the Euphrates and the Tigris, where human settlement in the towns of Urfa and Harran goes back to the fifth millennium BC. It includes a Neolithic religious sanctuary, Urartian citadels and Roman frontier towns, Byzantine churches and Seljuk mosques and madrassas. It reveals cultures and civilizations which have almost disappeared from the historical record – early Christian monasteries of the Tur Abdin, Georgian churches of Tao-Klarjeti and the lost Armenian city of Ani. It even takes in the sites of two mediaeval coronations – of the Armenian king Gagik Artzruni on the island of Aktamar in 908 and the Byzantine emperor of Trebizond, Alexius III Comnenos, at the

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monastery of Sümela in 1349.

Far from being backward-looking, though, this tour offers a remarkable opportunity to meet people trying to forge their present-day identities: the Kurds of Diyarbakir, the Syrian Orthodox monks and nuns of the Tur Abdin and of course, the Muslim population of Turkey itself, whose efforts to work out what it means to live in a secular Islamic country are and will continue to be of huge significance for us all.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at 12 midday from London Heathrow to Istanbul and then to Gaziantep, reaching the hotel c. 11.30pm (total flying time c. 4 hours 30 mins). Overnight Gaziantep.

Day 2: Gaziantep to Şanliurfa. After a leisurely start, visit the Gaziantep Museum home to one of Turkey’s most extraordinary collections of mosaics, relocated from the nearby site of Zeugma before the area was flooded by the construction of the Birecik Dam. The mosaics, dating from the 2nd and 3rd centuries bc, are testament to the wealth of the region and are amongst the finest examples anywhere to be found. Drive to the banks of the Euphrates for b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

a boat excursion before continuing to Şanliurfa.

First of two nights in Şanliurfa.

Day 3: Şanliurfa, Harran. Şanliurfa, or Ancient Edessa as named by Alexander the Great, an early Christian centre of learning and now a pilgrimage town for Muslims.

See the complex of 12th-century mosques purported to mark Abraham’s birthplace and the citadel which dominates the skyline. In the afternoon visit Harran, settled since the 5th millennium BC and crossroads of trade routes linking Assyria to Anatolia. See the beehive houses scattered throughout the plain and the archaeological remains of the 8th-century Ulu Camii and Crusader Citadel.

Day 4: Şanliurfa to Mardin. With views of the Taurus mountain range drive through groves of olive trees into the surrounding hills to see the extraordinary excavations at Göbekli Tepe. Dated to c. 10,000 BC, it is perhaps the earliest known man-made place of worship and challenges current ideas about the Neolithic.

Continue East, driving parallel to the Syrian border, to Mardin, with Artukid monuments and tiers of stone-built houses. Spend the first of two nights in Mardin.

Day 6: Dara, Diyarbakir. Visit Dara, the remains of a Roman city built in the 6th century to protect the Roman border with Sassanian Persia. See the necropolis, church and water cistern, so vast in size it exceeds even the Basilica cistern in Istanbul. Continue to Diyarbakir renowned for its basalt architecture and as a symbol of Kurdish identity. See the Byzantine walls and the Ulu Camii with its adjoining madrassa; built in 1091, the first of the Seljuk mosques of Anatolia, but retaining Byzantine elements. Overnight Diyarbakir.

Day 7: Diyarbakir to Van. Take a late morning flight from Diyarbakir to Ankara, connecting with the early afternoon flight to Van. Arrive at the hotel at c. 5.00pm. Spend the first of three nights at Lake Van. Day 8: Akdamar Island. Take a boat to the gorgeous 10th-century Church of the Holy Cross, seat of Armenian king Gagik Artzruni, Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

Day 9: Van, Çavuştepe. Capital of the kingdom of Urartu in the 9th century BC, Van (ancient Tushpa) was rival to Assyria.

Explore the massive steep-sided Van Castle, first investigated by Austen Henry Layard in the 1840s, and the trilingual inscription from the time of Xerxes which contributed to the decipherment of cuneiform. At Çavuştepe, from the same era, see the basalt foundations of the fortress-palace of Sarduri-Hinili, the sacrifice area, open-air temple, cemetery and cisterns. Continue to the magnificent Hosap Castle, the finest example of a Kurdish castle to be found anywhere in Turkey.

Day 10: Mount Ararat, Kars. Drive through the Artüs Mountain range toward the Iranian border, to the İshak Paşa Palace positioned at the base of Mount Ararat. A magnificent example of 18th-century Ottoman architecture, it is a fascinating mixture of architectural styles: Seljuk, Iranian, Georgian

Armenian architecture. Unlike Ani, Kars bears the marks of subsequent Ottoman and Russian occupation. Visit the Armenian Church of the Holy Apostles and the Seljuk castle and Ulu Camii.

Day 12: Kars to Erzurum. Follow the Aras river west through the Aladaglar mountains; magical scenery of fields of gorse and fern, pristine river beds and deep ravines. Cross the river over the beautiful six-arched Çobandede bridge. In Erzurum, the principal city of eastern Anatolia, visit the magnificent Seljuk Ulu Camii, with its wooden dome, and also the twin-minareted Çifte Minare Medrese, its entrance adorned with stalactite porches. First of two nights in Erzurum.

Day 13: Ösk Vank, Khakhuli, Erzurum.

All day excursion to visit the 10th century Georgian monasteries of Ösk Vank and Khakhuli north of Erzurum. Known as TaoKlarjeti, this area was an important part of medieval Georgia, ruled by the Bagratid kings.

Both monasteries were founded by David the Great: Khakhuli, an important literary centre, retains its cross-dome triple-apsed church, with fine relief carvings and frescoes still surviving. Ösk Vank is even more impressive, with scallop-shell arches, high relief mouldings and sculpted column capitals.

Day 14: From Erzurum to Trabzon. Drive north through the Pontic Alps, in the steps of Mount Ararat, mid-19th-century engraving.

Day 5: Tur Abdin, Mardin. All day excursion to visit the Syrian orthodox limestone monasteries in the remote Tur Abdin. Deyrul Zafaran, built in 495 and once the seat of the Syrian Orthodox patriarch has some beautiful stone work in the chapel which holds the patriarchal throne. Mor Gabriel, surrounded by pistachio trees, now largely restored dates from 397 and is still a working monastery.

The Church of the Mother of God at Anitli is little visited but with its octagonal church and intricate stone-carving is one of the most beautiful in the Tur Abdin.

who was crowned here in 908. Built in 921, the church is made of local sandstone with a pyramidal roof and 13th-century bell tower.

Faded frescoes adorn the interior, while the exterior has relief carvings of Biblical stories, mythological animals and Gagik himself.

A verdant enclave surrounded by pea-green waters and snow capped mountains, the setting is idyllic. Lunch on the lake, the rest of the afternoon is free.

and Armenian. Drive up through pasture land and fields of poppies following the Armenian border north to plateaus with spectacular mountain vistas. First of two nights in Kars.

Day 11: Ani, Kars. Once the capital of mediaeval Armenia, Ani is now a deserted city standing sentinel above the Arpaçay river, the border between Turkey and Armenia. Its walls, towers and minarets retain many of their foundation inscriptions, and its ruined churches and cathedral display the variety and quality of

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Xenophon’s Ten Thousand with spectacular views. Along the Karasu, the northernmost branch of the Euphrates, to Aşkale, with its ruined Byzantine fortress. Over the 2390m Kopdagi Pass, the Black Sea watershed, into the Çoruh valley, passing the huge fortress of Bayburt. Over the Zigana Pass, where the Ten Thousand caught their first glimpse of the sea.

Descend through temperate forests to Trabzon, the historic port town on the Black Sea. Visit the Pavilion where Atatürk stayed in 1924.

First of two nights in Trabzon.

Turkey

Eastern Turkey continued

The Ring in Seattle Wagner in the Emerald City

Day 15: Sümela Monastery, Trabzon. To Sümela Monastery, founded in the 4th century, it clings to sheer rock facing the Al tindere Valley. Though in a ruinous state, many of the monastic buildings survive, with 18th- and some 14th-century frescoes. In Trabzon, visit the beautiful late-Byzantine church of Aya Sophia, with 13th-century frescoes and frieze.

Day 16: Fly from Trabzon (via Istanbul) arriving Heathrow at c. 3.15pm.

Practicalities Price: £4,270 (deposit £350). This includes: all flights (economy class) with Turkish Airlines (aircraft: Boeing 737–800); private coach for all other journeys; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 13 lunches (including one picnic) and 14 dinners with wine, water and coffee; admissions to museums and sites; tips for restaurant staff, guides, drivers; airport and state taxes; the services of the lecturer and local guide. Single supplement £410. Price without flights £3,880.

Visa: British nationals need a visa, which is obtained upon arrival at the airport and currently costs £10 (not included in the tour price). Nationals of other countries should check their requirements.

Hotels. In Gaziantep (1 night): a large international, charmless but comfortable hotel. Şanliurfa (2 nights): a boutique hotel within walking distance of the Citadel. In Mardin (2 nights): 4-star hotel in the centre of town with well-equipped and comfortable rooms. In Diyarbakir (1 night): a converted Caravanserai with magnificent basalt-stone courtyard. In Van (3 nights): a new five star hotel set back from the shores of Lake Van; bedrooms are spacious with views of the lake.

In Kars (2 nights): a 3-star hotel, friendly but basic; the best available. In Erzurum (2 nights): 5-star hotel with all expected amenities in the mountains above Erzurum. In Trabzon (2 nights): 4-star hotel with roof-top restaurant and views of the Black Sea. How strenuous? A long and demanding tour with some early starts and days with a lot of coach travel (but roads are good and the coach carries refreshments). Participants should be able to manage everyday walking and stairclimbing without difficulty. Archaeological sites involve scrambling over rough terrain and surefootedness is essential. The average distance by coach per day is c. 71 miles.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

Possible linking tours. Combine the 27 April–12 May departure with Minoan Crete, 15–24 April (page 82).

T u r k e y, U . S . A .

Valkyries, after a painting by A.V. Heyden.

2–11 August 2013 (mz 648) 9 nights • £4,785 Lecturer: Barry Millington Another strong cast in Seattle’s renowned Ring.

The stunning sets by Thomas Lynch, rooted in the natural world, evoke the landscape of the Pacific Northwest.

The music is interspersed with visits to the city’s museums and galleries as well as trips out to Tacoma and by sea-plane to the San Juan islands.

Led by Wagner expert, Barry Millington, who gives talks on the operas.

Some visits are accompanied by Professor John Webster, a lecturer from the University of Washington.

Perhaps only Bayreuth enjoys greater international prestige than Seattle for its stagings of Wagner’s Ring Cycle. This remains a remarkable achievement, but in 1975, when Seattle Opera mounted its first Ring, it would have been inconceivable.

Since then Seattle itself has undergone a transformation from a visibly declining port to one of America’s most fashionable and desirable metropolises. For a while it was the fastest growing city in the US; the southward drift has reversed, and Frasier was not alone on his flight from the East Coast.

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Cultural depth has followed its well-known business successes. New world class buildings include the Central Library designed by Rem Koolhaas and the Seattle Art Museum where major expansion was completed in 2007 alongside the opening of their new sculpture park. Frank Gehry’s museum of music sits beside the most recent home of Seattle Opera, the Marion Oliver McCaw Hall, a stunning building of glass and steel by LMN Architects.

The Ring in 2013 will again be directed

by Stephen Wadsworth who received great acclaim for his cycle on its first appearance.

The cast list for 2013 is a mix of Wagnerian stalwarts and new blood. The British soprano Alwyn Mellor, acclaimed as one of the most thrilling Wagner singers of the new generation, takes the role of Brünnhilde. The German tenor Stefan Vinke, who also stars in the Covent Garden Ring this autumn, sings Siegfried, while Stuart Skelton, who unfailingly combines virility with a dark, lyrical beauty of tone, is Siegmund. The American baritone Greer Grimsley, who has established himself as a firm favourite both in Seattle and elsewhere, returns in the role of Wotan/Wanderer. Asher Fisch, the highly regarded principal guest conductor of Seattle Opera, once again brings his special talents to this most challenging of undertakings.

The natural setting of the ‘Emerald City’ is stupendous, with the snow-capped Olympic mountains, the massive peaks of the Cascade volcanoes and the island-dotted expanses of b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Puget Sound. The itinerary includes a day by sea-plane out into the Sound, as well as time for exploration of the city’s museums and galleries.

Of course the main focus is the music and we allow ample opportunity to relax, reflect and prepare for each performance. Talks are given by Wagner expert and editor of The Wagner Journal, Barry Millington and some visits are accompanied by Seattle resident, John Webster, Professor of English at the University of Washington. An additional bonus of this tour is that we have allowed two nights in Seattle, not one, to recover from jet lag before the first performance.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 3.00pm from London Heathrow direct to Seattle, arriving c. 4.30pm (time in the air: c. 9 hours). Drive to the hotel where all eight nights are spent.

Day 2. Walk through Seattle’s oldest district, Pioneer Square, now rejuvenated with galleries, bookstores and cafés. Tour of ‘underground’ Seattle and a harbour cruise with views of the city skyline and Olympic mountains.

Early evening lecture at the Central Library, designed by Rem Koolhaas, followed by dinner.

Day 3. After a morning lecture walk through Downtown to the Seattle Art Museum which houses good collections of north-western American and Asian art. A free afternoon.

Early dinner then drive to the Marion Oliver McCaw Hall. 7.00pm. Das Rheingold, Asher Fisch (conductor), Stephen Wadsworth (stage director), Thomas Lynch (set designer), Martin Pakledinaz (costume designer), Peter Kaczorowski (lighting designer), Greer Grimsley (Wotan), Stephanie Blythe (Fricka), Richard Paul Fink (Alberich), Mark Schowalter (Loge), Lucile Beer (Erda), Dennis Petersen (Mime/Fafner), Andrea Silvestrelli (Fasolt), Wendy Bryn Harmer (Freia), Jason Collins (Froh), Markus Brück (Donner), Renee Tatum (Flosshilde), Cecelia Hall (Wellgunde), Jennifer Zetlan (Woglinde).

Day 5. San Juan Islands. Spectacular journey by sea-plane across the Puget Sound to the San Juan Islands, northwest of Seattle. Visit the sculpture park, a small but good collection of contemporary works and English Camp. Lunch is on the waterfront at Friday Harbour. Fly back to Seattle, landing on Lake Union.

Day 6. Most of the day is free; we suggest a visit to the Olympic Sculpture Park, a new development on a former industrial site overlooking the ocean with works by prominent American artists and the Asian Art Museum.

An afternoon lecture is followed by dinner.

6.00pm. Siegfried, Alwyn Mellor (Brünnhilde), Stefan Vinke (Siegfried), Dennis Petersen (Mime/ Fafner), Greer Grimsley (The Wanderer), Richard Paul Fink (Alberich), Lucile Beer (Erda), Jennifer Zetlan (Forest Bird), JC Casiano (The Bear).

Day 7. Tacoma. Day trip south to Tacoma, a regenerated mill town, now home to a clutch of good museums and commercial galleries in a riverside setting. Visits include the very good art museum (mainly modern and contemporary), numerous glass works by local boy Dale Chihuly (among them his 500ft Bridge of Glass) and the Washington State History Museum.

Day 8. Free morning for further exploration.

We recommend the Museum of Flight, an excellent collection of aircraft and the opportunity to board Concorde and Air Force One. Afternoon lecture followed by dinner.

6.00pm. Götterdämmerung, Alwyn Mellor (Brünnhilde), Stefan Vinke (Siegfried), Markus Brück (Gunther), Wendy Bryn Harmer (Gutrune), Richard Paul Fink (Alberich), Luretta Bybee (First Norn), Stephanie Blythe (Second Norn/Waltraute), Margaret Jane Wray (Third Norn), Renee Tatum (Flosshilde), Cecelia Hall (Wellgunde), Jennifer Zetlan (Woglinde), Dennis Petersen (Hagen).

Day 10. Arrive at Heathrow c. 11.45am.

Practicalities Price: £4,785 (deposit £400). This includes: good tickets for all four operas costing c. £735; air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways flights (Boeing 747); travel by private coach; accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 2 lunches and 5 dinners with wine, water and coffee (plus meals on flights); all admissions to museums and galleries; all tips for restaurant staff, drivers, guides; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer and local guides. Single supplement £420 (double for single use). Price without flights £4,075.

Visas: British citizens can enter the USA without a visa providing they apply for the visa waiver online and have a machine-readable passport. The current charge is $14. We will advise on this.

Hotel: a comfortable hotel in Downtown and walking distance from the key sites (the opera house is reached by coach). Warm, traditional furnishings, good restaurant, gym, friendly staff, comparable to a 4-star.

How strenuous? There is a fair amount of walking involved and participants should be able to manage everyday walking and stairclimbing without difficulty. Average distance by coach each day: 14 miles.

Upgrades: we can request flight upgrades; price subject to availability.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

Mt Tacoma in Washington State, wood engraving c. 1890.

Day 4. Morning lecture. The University of Washington is an attractive campus of landscaped parkland. Tour here with Professor John Webster including the main library. Lunch at the hotel is followed by free time. 6.00pm. Die Walküre, Alwyn Mellor (Brünnhilde), Greer Grimsley (Wotan), Margaret Jane Wray (Sieglinde), Stuart Skelton (Siegmund), Stephanie Blythe (Fricka), Andrea Silvestrelli (Hunding), Wendy Bryn Harmer (Gerhilde), Renee Tatum (Grimgerde), Jessica Klein (Helmwige), Tamara Mancini (Ortlinde), Cecelia Hall (Rossweisse), Luretta Bybee (Schwertleite), Sarah Heltzel (Siegrune), Lindsay Ammann (Waltraute).

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Day 9. The day is free. Fly at c. 6.45pm from Seattle to London Heathrow.

Lecturers biographies are on page 194.

Looking for tours to the UK? See pages 26–49 for England, pages 154–158 for Scotland and pages 192–193 for Wales.

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Santa Fe Opera Summer music in the mountains of New Mexico The Marriage of Figaro, from a synopsis published c. 1930.

4–12 August 2013 (mz 652) 8 nights • £4,680 (including 4 opera tickets) Lecturer: Richard Wigmore One of the world’s great summer opera festivals in the spectacular setting of the New Mexico mountains.

The line-up for 2013: The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein (Offenbach) with Susan Graham; Verdi’s La Traviata and Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro; Joyce DiDonato in Rossini’s La Donna del Lago.

There is also the option of attending the world première of Oscar, by Theodore Morrison, with American countertenor David Daniels.

Santa Fe is small, charming, colourful; our hotel extremely comfortable; visits around the performances include some of the excellent museums, galleries and historic sites; we allow time to acclimatise before the first opera.

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

Established in 1957, Santa Fe Opera was the brainchild of New York conductor John Crosby, who felt a home-grown opera company would provide a fertile training ground for young American talent – as well as the ideal complement to Santa Fe’s celebrated arts scene.

From the start, the company attracted exceptional musicians – Stravinsky conducted and directed here in the 50s – and, over the years, has developed an international reputation for premiering new work and mounting innovative productions of the classic repertoire.

Its ‘Apprentice Programme’ has now trained over 1,500 opera singers, including stars such as Joyce DiDonato and James Morris.

We see all the major productions of the 2013 season: Rossini’s La Donna del Lago, Offenbach’s The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein, Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and Verdi’s La Traviata. Oscar, an exhilarating new work

by American composer, Theodore Morrison, is an optional extra. Our lecturer introduces the performances through a series of talks, and additional commentary is given by members of the opera company. The evenings are further enhanced by the opera house itself. Now in its third incarnation, it is open to the sides linking the audience with the landscape beyond.

Glimpsing the setting sun over the desert foothills of the Sangre de Cristo mountains is yet another highlight.

The small town of Santa Fe shares this backdrop of rolling hills and shadowed peaks, and its green and pleasant streets are celebrated for their sophisticated mix of galleries and

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boutiques, as well as for some of the oldest buildings in the United States. Colonised by the Spanish in the early seventeenth century, recaptured by the native Pueblo Indians in 1680, ruled by Mexico following their War of Independence and finally becoming part of the United States in 1846, the city’s museums tell a fascinating story.

We stay in a beautiful hotel in the centre of town, and a ten-minute drive to the opera house. From here there is a gentle programme of visits and excursions, including a journey deep into the surrounding countryside to see the cliff-dwellings at the Bandolier National Monument.

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Itinerary Day 1: London to Santa Fe. Fly at c. 11.45am from Heathrow to Dallas Fort Worth (time in air: c. 9 hours) and connect to a flight to Albuquerque, New Mexico (1 hour 30 minutes). Drive north from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, arriving c. 9.00pm. Supper is served in your room.

Day 2. A leisurely start to the tour with a 10.00am lecture to introduce the festival. Walk from the hotel to the main plaza, the historic and contemporary hub of Santa Fe. Visit the low-slung, adobe Palace of the Governors, from

b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

where Spain controlled the American southwest in the 17th century. Adjacent is the New Mexico Museum of History which gives an excellent overview from Spanish colonisation to the creation of the atom bomb. The afternoon is free for rest or further exploration.

Day 3. Morning lecture on tonight’s performance. Walk to the New Mexico Museum of Art, a wide-ranging collection but particularly good for landscapes of the region. There is the option of continuing to the museum of Santa Fe’s most celebrated artist, Georgia O’Keeffe. The afternoon is free until dinner at 5.00pm. Evening opera: La Donna del Lago (Rossini) with Stephen Lord (conductor), Paul Curran (director), Joyce DiDonato (Elena), Daniela Barcellona (Malcolm Groeme), Lawrence Brownlee (Uberto), René Barbera (Rodrigo di Dhu), Wayne Tigges (Douglas D’Angus).

Day 4. Morning lecture. Optional excursion to Museum Hill. Of the four museums here, we recommend visiting the collection dedicated to Indian arts and culture, and the Museum of International Folk Art (visits are not guided).

Return to the hotel for some free time. Late afternoon, drive to the opera house for a backstage tour (this is a public tour) followed by buffet dinner. Opera at 8.00pm: The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein (Offenbach) with Frédéric Chaslin (conductor), Lee Blakeley (director), Susan Graham (Grand Duchess), Anya Matanovič (Wanda), Paul Appleby (Fritz), Aaron Pegram (Baron Puck), Jonathan Michie (Prince Paul), Kevin Burdette (General Boum).

Day 5. Morning talks at the opera house with members of the production team (to be confirmed). Then drive to Canyon Road, an attractive avenue of commercial galleries, some of them renowned dealers in fine arts. Also here is the adobe San Miguel Mission church, built by Tlaxcalan Indians from Mexico in the early 1600s. Lunch is included before returning to the hotel for some free time. Lecture on tonight’s performance before driving to the opera house. 8.00pm: The Marriage of Figaro (Mozart) with John Nelson (conductor), Bruce Donnell (director), Figaro to be announced, Lisette Oropesa (Susanna) Susanna Phillips (Countess Almaviva), Emily Fons (Cherubino), Susanne Mentzer (Marcellina), Keith Jameson (Basilio), Daniel Okulitch (Count Almaviva), Dale Travis (Doctor Bartolo). Interval snacks are provided.

Day 6. Drive at 8.00am into the increasingly remote and beautiful landscape of the Sangre de Cristo mountains. In a wooded canyon at the Bandolier National Monument visit the cliff dwellings and village remains of the Ancestral Pueblo people – resident here until around 1550 (c. 1.25 mile trail on foot). The afternoon is free back in Santa Fe. Suggestions Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

include the various commercial galleries and installation spaces in the recently revamped ‘Railyard District’. Optional evening opera: Oscar (Theodore Morrison, world première) with Evan Rogister (conductor), Kevin Newbury (director), David Daniels (Oscar Wilde), Heidi Stober (Ada Leverson), William Burden (Frank Harris), Dwayne Croft (Walt Whitman).

Day 7. The day is free until the 3.30pm lecture.

Dinner before leaving for the opera house.

8.00pm: La Traviata (Verdi) with Frédéric Chaslin (conductor), Laurent Pelly (director & costume design), Brenda Rae (Violetta), Michael Fabiano (Alfredo), Roland Wood (Germont), Keith Jameson (Gastone), Jonathan Michie (Douphol), Dale Travis (Dr Grenvil).

Day 8. Morning departure for Albuquerque Airport for the flight to Dallas. Connect to the flight to London Heathrow (departing Dallas Fort Worth c. 6.00pm; time in air c. 8 hours).

Day 9. Arrive London Heathrow c. 8.45am.

Practicalities

patios and gardens, a bar, library-cum-sitting room, two restaurants, outdoor pool and spa.

How strenuous? The journey to Santa Fe (from the UK) is tiring and the high altitude (7,000ft) and summer heat can exacerbate this (although the heat is dry and it is much cooler at night). The daily programme of visits is not intended to be taxing but a good level of fitness is required to cope with the itinerary. Daytime temperatures average 28ºC (82 ºF); evening temperatures 12ºC (54ºF). Average distance by coach each day: 33 miles.

Opera tickets. These are confirmed in January 2013. The cost of a ticket for ‘Oscar’ is £125.

Upgrades: we can request flight upgrades; prices subject to availability.

Small group: between 12 and 22 participants.

Opera & ballet

Operetta in Austria.................................15

Price: £4,680 (deposit £400). This includes: good tickets for all four operas costing c. £530; air travel (economy class) on scheduled British Airways and American Airlines flights (Boeing 747; MCD Douglas MD80); travel by private coach; hotel accommodation as described below; breakfasts, 1 lunch, 2 light evening meals and 4 dinners with wine, water and coffee (1 is a buffet) (plus meals on flights); all admissions to museums and galleries as indicated in the itinerary; all tips for restaurant staff, drivers, guides; all state and airport taxes; the services of the lecturer with some use of local guides. Price without flights £3,780.

Hotel room supplements Superior room for 2 people sharing £150 per room (original 1930s artist bungalow; more charm, with patio). Single supplements: £280 (original 1930s artist studio, double bed but smallish room) or £490 (a more modern and spacious room) or £640 (as per the superior room above).

Visas: British citizens can enter the USA without a visa providing they apply for the visa waiver online and have a machine-readable passport. The current charge is $14. We will advise on this.

Hotel: a beautifully presented and comfortable hotel in the centre of downtown Santa Fe. Public rooms are in the 19th-century house with all bedrooms in the surrounding artists studios and bungalows. Furnishings are generally south-western in style with painted walls, colourful textiles, leather upholstery, but differ in size – see ‘price’ section. There are

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Music in Scandinavia..............................23 Savonlinna Opera....................................49 The Rite of Spring...................................60 Music in Berlin........................................68 The Ring in Berlin...................................69 Art & Music in Dresden.........................71 Verdi at La Scala......................................92 The Ring at La Scala...............................93 Opera in Venice.....................................100 Verona Opera.........................................101 Parma Verdi Festival..............................105 Naples: Art, Antiquities & Opera.........128 Edinburgh Festival................................158 The Ring in Seattle................................184 Santa Fe Opera......................................186 Opera in Cardiff....................................193

Lecturers biographies are on page 194.

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West Coast Architecture A century of building in Arizona & California

San Francisco, wood engraving 1891.

7–19 September 2013 (ma 675) This tour is currently full There will be another departure in 2014.

Contact us to register your interest.

The whole gamut of architecture, 1908 onwards, some of it usually closed to the public.

Begin at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona, and end at his Hanna House in Stanford, California.

Louis Kahn, Charles and Ray Eames, Rudolf Schindler, Richard Neutra, Bernard Maybeck, Greene & Greene are also well represented.

Contemporary architects include Rafael Moneo, Frank Gehry, Mario Botta, Herzog & de Meuron, Richard Meier, Paolo Soleri, Arata Isozaki, Michael Graves.

Great landscapes, from desert to coast and into the Napa Valley, plus a stunning journey by rail from L.A. to San Francisco through countryside not seen by road.

Time to visit the excellent art collections at the Getty Center, Norton Simon, de Young and Legion of Honor Museums.

Four bases: Phoenix (Arizona), La Jolla (California), Los Angeles, San Francisco.

Led by Dr Harry Charrington, architect and expert on modernism.

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Modernism was made for California. Just as it was on the West Coast that the twentieth century’s dominant art form, the movie, was to flourish, so Modernist architecture blossomed unencumbered by the concerns and limitations of the Old World.

Here was a climate that adored flat roofs and a hilly topography of brilliant views that called for structural daring, a place with a selfconscious lack of history in which displaced Europeans – and Americans freed from the waspish East Coast – could create whole new worlds and life-styles facing the seemingly boundless freedom of the desert and the Pacific.

Superlatives abound: the ‘cast stone’ of Louis Kahn’s Salk Institute is perhaps the most sublimely generous construction of post-war architecture; Charles and Ray Eames’s Studio House the most witty and charming; while right at the beginning of the century, Greene & Greene and Bernard Maybeck’s Arts & Crafts was as vivid a reimagining of William Morris as you can imagine. Equally remarkable are the cities, from the captivating milieu of San Francisco to its unfathomable cousin Los Angeles, the City of 4 Ecologies: hills, mesa, littoral, autopia.

The chutzpah of patron and architect hasn’t let up in the twenty-first century with Richard Meier’s hilltop Getty Center, Raphael Moneo’s Cathedral of Our Lady of Our Angels – both in L.A. – and Herzog & de Meuron’s de Young Museum in San Francisco.

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If one looks for a beginning to all this, beyond the fragments of the Pueblo and the Spanish Mission architecture, it is found in Frank Lloyd Wright. While Europeans spent the 1920s and 30s playing catch-up to Wright’s disciplined Prairie houses, he went wild in the West.

In Los Angeles, beginning with the extraordinary Hollyhock House, he demonstrated a virtuosity on California’s slopes equal to that he’d achieved on the flat expanse of the Mid-West. Wright’s approach was extended by his ex-pupils Rudolf Schindler and Richard Neutra who threw away the cloak of their native Vienna to create a series of exquisite, ecologically responsive dwellings that would lead to the ‘Case Study Houses’ and the ‘Bay Area School’ around San Francisco.

Wright also built his combined home and fellowship at Taliesin West in the desert outside Phoenix. Gradually shaped over thirty years, this complement to his earlier Taliesin East, is Wright at his most successful – and moving. A blurring of building and landscape formed from desert rocks and sand, its inspiration lies in the light touch of the native Sinagua Indians.

Paolo Soleri’s eco-city of Arcosanti, still being constructed today far out in the Arizona desert, pays homage to Taliesin and is either a suggestion of an ecologically viable future, or the American Dream at its most indulgent and eccentric.

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Art in Texas Outstanding collections in city & desert 16–27 October 2013 (ma 742) This tour is currently full There will be another departure in early 2014 – contact us to register your interest.

World class collections of art and sculpture, public and private, housed in exceptional buildings.

Big names include the Kimbell in Fort Worth, Menil in Houston, Blanton in Austin, McNay in San Antonio, Fine Arts in Dallas and Houston, and Donald Judd’s Chinati Foundation.

The range is considerable from Renaissance to contemporary, European and American, with emphasis on the modern.

The variety continues in city and landscape: big brother Houston, leafy and lush; to tiny Marfa, way out west in the desert; alongside the Rio Grande to prettified San Antonio; to end in Dallas, the home of hospitality and a terrific arts scene.

Led by art historian, Gijs van Hensbergen, an expert on American collections and collectors.

The cultural resonance of ‘Texas’ may not be overwhelming, yet the oil and livestock barons of this southern state were philanthropists to rival any on the eastern or western seaboards.

The result: art collections of staggering richness in buildings developed by the leading architects of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Among the highlights are some of the very personal collections these patrons of the arts acquired. The Meadows Museum in Dallas, for example, the gift of oilman Algur Meadows, houses the finest display of Spanish Art outside the Prado. While John and Dominique de Menil’s dazzling Menil Collection in Houston – built up with money from the Schlumberger oil-drilling fortune – contains over 15,000 works by the greatest names of twentiethcentury European and American art. Painter and heiress Marion Koogler McNay, too, used an oil fortune to establish The McNay – the first modern art museum in the Lone Star State – in her colonial revival mansion in San Antonio.

But private wealth in Texas has always been matched by public investment and the entire history of art is abundantly represented in the major city galleries. The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, one of the largest in the US, has an extraordinary 62,000 works spanning six thousand years, while the Dallas Museum of Art is as renowned for its Impressionists and Post Impressionists as Austin’s The Blanton is for its Renaissance masterpieces.

The searing Texan landscape, with its Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

Engraving 1891 after a painting by Frederick Remington (1861–1909)

expanses of sand and scrub and distant sierras, is a work of art in its own right, and a visit to Marfa provides the moment where art, architecture and nature meet. The Chinati Foundation was established by minimalist sculptor Donald Judd to display large installations of his own work and other leading contemporary sculptors and, in its wake, this tiny desert town has become one of the liveliest contemporary art scenes in the US. As rich as the art is the architecture. The Dallas Arts District includes buildings by four Pritzker Prize winners (Norman Foster, Rem Koolhaas, I.M. Pei and Renzo Piano); while in Houston, admirers of Mies van der Rohe can view one of his very rare museum buildings at the Fine Arts Museum followed by Piano’s simple and striking cypress-clad Menil.

However, it is without doubt Louis Kahn’s Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth that shows off these big hitters at their memorable best.

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Practicalities – in brief Price: £4,630 (deposit £400). This includes: all air travel; first class rail travel from Alpine to San Antonio; private coach; hotel accommodation; all breakfasts, 4 lunches and 7 dinners with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £440 (double room for single occupancy). Price without the international flights £3,970.

Hotels. In Houston (3 nights): a contemporary hotel next door to the Fine Arts Museum. In Marfa (2 nights): hotel built in 1930 in colonial style and the focal point of town. In San Antonio (2 nights): attractive hotel in colonial style well located on the River Walk. In Dallas (3 nights): comfortable hotel in Uptown Dallas with spacious bedrooms, restaurant and terrace.

Small group: between 14 and 22 participants.

U.S.A.

Transoxiana Silk Road cities: Khiva, Bukhara & Samarkand 7–17 May 2013 (mz 556) 11 days • £3,100 Lecturer: Professor James Allan 3–13 September 2013 (ma 685) 11 days • £3,100 Lecturer: Professor Hugh Kennedy Some of the most glorious sights in the Islamic world.

Led by experts in Middle Eastern archaeology and history.

Magnificent mosques and madrassas, acres of wonderful wall tiles, intact streetscape, memorable landscapes.

Remote, difficult of access and remarkably unspoilt. Traditional dress is still the norm.

Oxiana, Tartary, Turkestan, Khiva, Bukhara, Samarkand: names to produce a frisson. They evoke alluring images of shimmering turquoise domes and exquisite glazed wall tiles, of lost libraries and renowned scholars, of the delicious decadence of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, of gardens, poetry and wine, of the fabulous riches of the Silk Road between China and Christendom.

Less agreeable images are also induced: of

Ghengis Khan and Timur (Tamerlane), the most far-reaching conquerors in history; of the tyranny and cruelty of the khans, perpetuating the last redoubts of mediaeval misrule; of the Great Game, the nineteenth-century Cold War between Britain and Russia; of terrain as hostile as the tribesmen and petty tyrants who inhabited its desert and mountain fastnesses; and of a post-Soviet penumbra of Stans of suspect politics and allegiances.

The three cities of the subtitle lie now in Uzbekistan, independent since 1991 but an entity which has its origins in late nineteenth-century Russian imperialism, which agglomerated a number of independent khanates, and whose borders were settled in the 1920s. It lies at the very centre of Central Asia. One of only two double land-locked nations in the world, it has a capital which is a thousand miles north of the Indian Ocean (Afghanistan and Pakistan intervene), 1,400 miles east of the Black Sea and 400 miles from Xinjiang, China’s largely Islamic western province. This is as the crow flies; extremes of topography and climate as well as banditry slowed or terminated the progress of earthbound travellers.

A slave-trading oasis khanate, Khiva was, and remains, the smallest of the three cities.

It is perhaps the most intact and homogenous urban ensemble in the Islamic world, with

Khiva, wood engraving 1889 from Russian Pictures.

biscuit-coloured brick and blue and turquoise maiolica. In Bukhara, gorgeously adorned architecture spanning a thousand years still rises above a streetscape of indeterminate age. Samarkand has the largest and most resplendently caparisoned historic buildings of all. There are also visits to Shakhrisabz, which has breathtaking remains of Timur’s palace, and to Tashkent, the spacious modern capital with the good museums and galleries.

Space is not at a premium in this part of the world. Broad tree-lined boulevards encircle the historic town centres and no expanding girdle of high-rise apartments disfigures the approach. Modernity has made relatively unobtrusive inroads: in one of the few nations on earth which has escaped the countryside scourge of ferroconcrete and breeze block, the whitewashed villages and farmsteads with their awnings of vines would hold few surprises for Tolstoy. Nearly all the women are to some extent in traditional dress, brightly coloured ankle-length dresses, and so are some of the older men. In the wake of economic liberalisation since independence, streets and courtyards are draped with the dazzling hues of carpets and textiles; the glories of the Silk Road in its heyday are not hard to imagine.

Itinerary Day 1. Fly at c. 9.00pm from London Heathrow for the seven-hour flight to Tashkent (currently the only direct flight).

Days 2 & 3: Tashkent. Touch-down c. 8.00am.

Hotel rooms in the centre of Tashkent are at your disposal for the morning. The History Museum of the People of Uzbekistan is within walking distance if you want to venture out before lunch. Afternoon drive around the city centre, a modern city with wide avenues, spacious parks, glistening new government buildings. Among the places seen during the two days are the Hazret Imam complex, a group of mosques and madrassas (seminaries) from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries; the Timur Museum and park, a homage to the newly elevated national hero with 13th to 16th-century artefacts and models of some of the buildings seen on the tour; the Fine Arts Museum with collections from pre-Islamic sculpture to twentieth-century painting; free time for the Museum of Applied Arts or the Choroz Bazaar. Fly c. 6.00pm on day 3 to Urgench and drive the 20 miles to Khiva. First of two nights in Khiva.

Day 4: Khiva. No modern intrusions spoil the timeless fabric within a rectangle of crenellated and turreted ramparts. Most of the buildings are 19th-century, but such was Khiva’s isolation and conservatism that to the inexpert eye they

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could date to any time from the 16th century.

The Friday Mosque, a forest of carved wooden columns some dating to the 10th century, the Tash Hauli Palace, whose harem quarters constitute the loveliest secular spaces in Central Asia, and the Paklavan Mahmoud Mausoleum where tiled interiors reach a peak of opulence.

Day 5: from Khiva to Bukhara. The 280 mile journey starts and finishes in an unspoilt landscape of green fields, plentiful trees and adobe farmsteads while the central section is undulating desert, specked with tufty shrubs which are briefly green in the spring. There are periodic sightings of the meandering Oxus, the mighty river crossed by Alexander the Great in 329 bc. Reach Bukhara in time for a walk before dinner. First of three nights in Bukhara.

Day 6: Bukhara. Genghis Khan ensured in 1220 that with notable exceptions (including the Kalon Minaret, at 48 metres then the tallest in the world) little of Bukhara’s first golden age remains, but of the second, the 15th and 16th centuries, there survives much magnificent architecture, lavishly embellished.

Today’s walks take in the vast Kalon Mosque (finished 1514) with a capacity of 10,000, the small and serene Baland Mosque, several grand madrassas, the formidable citadel of the Khans and the Zidan, their infamous prison. Take tea in the shade of mulberry trees around a 15thcentury pool.

Day 7: Bukhara. Free morning; there is plenty more architecture to see, and museums, bazaars, carpet workshops. By coach in the afternoon to places outside the centre of the city. The perfectly preserved 10th-century Samani Mausoleum and the remains of the 12th-century Namaz Goh Mosque display fine terracotta decoration. The Emir’s summer palace, 1911, is a riotous mix of Russian and traditional Bukharan decoration with rose garden, aviary and swimming pool.

A street in Tashkent, wood engraving c. 1890.

The Museum of History, Culture and Art has collections from pre-Islamic as well as Islamic periods. Other places seen are the Gur Emir Mausoleum, burial place of Tamerlane, the adjacent Ak Serai Mausoleum and the Shahi-Zinda, an ensemble of mausolea gorgeously apparelled in many types of glazed tiles.

Day 10: Samarkand. Commissioned by Timur, the Bibi Khanum Mosque is an exercise in gigantism and impresses despite partial destruction and over-zealous restoration.

The adjacent Bazaar is a traditional produce market. Optional visits to the Afrasiab History Museum which documents preIslamic Samarkand and to the remains of the extraordinary observatory built by Ulug Bek in the 15th century. Some free time.

Day 11: Tashkent. Drive to Tashkent. The flight arrives at Heathrow at c. 8.00pm.

Day 8: Shakhrisabz. A 4-hour drive across a fertile plain where wheat and cotton flourish.

Shakhrisabz was transformed by Timur (1336– 1405) whose home town it was. An astounding survival is the most imposing palace portal in the history of architecture, an arch 22 metres wide with a wondrous range of tiled decoration.

Further Timurid remnants include a mosque complex with three turquoise domes. Cross a mountain range (broadleaf woods, fissured granite, pasturage) and drop down to the plain of the Zarifsan river, and to Samarkand. First of three nights in Samarkand.

Practicalities

Day 9: Samarkand. The Registan, ‘the noblest public square in the world’ (Lord Curzon, 1889), bounded on three sides by magnificent madrassas of the 15th and 17th centuries.

Visas: required for most foreign nationals.

Passports must be submitted individually to the visa agency CIBT for approximately two weeks.

The cost of the visa is included in the tour price.

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Price: £3,100 (deposit £300). This includes: air travel (economy class) with Uzbekistan Airways (Boeing 757); entry visa and handling fee; private coach throughout; accommodation as described below; all breakfasts, lunches and dinners with wine, water, coffee (plus meals on flights); all admissions; all tips for restaurant staff, drivers, guides, porters; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £160 (double room for sole use). Price without flights £2,580.

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Passports must be valid for at least six months after the visit to Uzbekistan. Non-UK nationals should check their entry requirements with the relevant authorities. Further instructions will be issued upon booking.

Hotels: Tashkent (first morning & 1 night): smart, modernised, centrally-located 5-star hotel. Khiva (2 nights): a converted madrassa, impressively restored, each room a former student’s cell opening onto the courtyard.

Bukhara (3 nights): a modern 4-star hotel in the centre of the old city, adequately comfortable and excellently located. Samarkand (3 nights): a very comfortable 5-star hotel.

Flight schedule changes are common. We recommend you keep diaries clear for 24 hours either side of the tour dates.

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

How strenuous? A demanding tour which begins with an overnight flight. A lot of walking, some over rough ground. Fitness and stamina are essential. 3 days involve a lot of coach travel; average distance per day: 80 miles.

Small group: between 14 and 22 participants.

Lecturers biographies are on page 194.

Uzbekistan

The Welsh Marches Castles, abbeys & parish churches 16–20 September 2013 (ma 678) 5 days • £1,140 Lecturer: Major Imogen Corrigan Well-balanced survey of the outstanding mediaeval monuments of the Welsh Marches.

Churches and castles from Norman to late Perpendicular.

Beautiful drives through rolling verdant landscapes.

Imogen Corrigan, a specialist in Anglo-Saxon and mediaeval history, leads the tour.

The Welsh Marches possess one of the richest collections of mediaeval monuments to survive in England. The entity is a creation of the Norman Conquest, and was a means of establishing a series of powerful earldoms from which the subjugation of Wales could be effected.

Unusually, it is an area where one can pick out examples from every important postConquest phase of castle and church building, from the exceptionally early great hall at Chepstow castle to Sir William Herbert’s stunning late fifteenth-century remodelling of Raglan.

Tintern Abbey, wood engraving c. 1870.

As conceived by William the Conqueror, the March consisted of three earldoms – Herefordshire, Shropshire and Cheshire – with William Fitz-Osbern, Earl of Hereford and Roger de Montgomerie in Shropshire being initially the most active of the earls.

The Normans settled this land by creating an interlocking series of castles, markets and churches, exemplified in the great new towns of Chepstow and Ludlow, along with a complementary network of monasteries at sites such as Chepstow, Abergavenny and Wenlock.

By the early twelfth century, smaller castellans – sub-tenants like Hugh the Forester at Kilpeck – were beginning to build stone parish churches, such as the sumptuously decorated Romanesque church in Kilpeck.

A significant element of the tour is aesthetic, and concerned with the type of architecture that developed in the thirteenth century. As with much of southern England, Worcestershire and the Welsh Marches experienced a large-scale rebuilding during the period c. 1220–c. 1300 – the greatest evidence for which is to be found in the monastic churches at Tintern, Abbey Dore, Wenlock Priory, and Haughmond. Along with Worcester Cathedral, these constitute some of the most inventive buildings of mediaeval England, immeasurably enhanced by the remarkable survival of their secular counterparts such as Stokesay.

Itinerary Day 1: Worcester, Kilpeck, Abbey Dore.

The coach leaves Worcester Shrub Hill railway station at 2.00pm. Kilpeck is perhaps the best known of all English Romanesque parish churches, and certainly the most beautifully sculpted. The Cistercian abbey at Abbey Dore has a stunning choir. First of two nights in Abergavenny.

Day 2: Raglan, Tintern, Chepstow. A day along the river Wye. Raglan is the most enthralling of late mediaeval Welsh castles.

Tintern is a dazzling amalgam of piers, tracery, dwarf walls and dispersed stonework overshadowed by a stupendous west front. The planning of Chepstow crystallises the classic pattern of Norman conquest and settlement, as adumbrated in what remains of the most magnificently fortified castle.

Day 3: Abergavenny, Stokesay, Ludlow. Drive across the Black Mountains to the delightful castle and manor house at Tretower Court.

Visit the amazingly well-preserved late 13thcent. residence at Stokesay Castle. St Mary’s Ludlow is the epitome of a great late mediaeval Marcher parish church. First of two nights near Shrewsbury.

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Opera in Cardiff Day 4: Wenlock, Buildwas, Haughmond. A trio of monastic sites: Cistercian Buildwas, Cluniac Wenlock Priory and Augustinian Haughmond, all sustaining substantial elements of their late 12th-cent. fabric and offering contrasting answers to the question of how to lay out a monastic precinct in a wellwatered landscape.

Day 5: Worcester. Worcester cathedral, proud possessor of the earliest centrally-planned chapter-house in England as well as a majestic early Anglo-Norman crypt, historiated cloister, and early 13th-cent. presbytery and choir. End at Worcester Shrub Hill station by 1.00pm.

Practicalities Price: £1,140 (deposit £150). This includes: accommodation as described below; private coach throughout; breakfasts and all dinners, with wine, water, coffee; all admissions; all tips for waiters and drivers; all taxes; the services of the lecturer. Single supplement £120 (double room for single occupancy). Members of English Heritage (with cards) will be refunded c. £20.

Hotels: in Abergavenny (2 nights): The Angel Inn, a former Georgian coaching-inn, now a 3-star hotel with comfortable rooms and excellent restaurant. North of Shrewsbury (2 nights): the Albright Hussey is a family-owned 4-star hotel in a Grade II listed country house; good service and well equipped rooms.

How strenuous? A lot of walking and standing around, sometimes on rough ground; fitness is essential. A lot of driving on narrow lanes; average distance per day: 61 miles.

Small group: between 10 and 22 participants.

Cardiff, National Museum of Wales, by Joseph Pike 1927.

October 2013 Details available February 2013 Contact us to register your interest Since moving into its new home in 2004 Welsh National Opera has gone from strength to strength, with a critically acclaimed chorus and orchestra.

After a painful decade of architectural controversy during which the first scheme was ditched, the WNO now have a fitting base in Cardiff. The new architects, Percy Thomas, were instructed to build something ‘unmistakeably Welsh and internationally outstanding.’ The result: The Wales Millennium Centre, a massive structure of slate, glass and steel, built to withstand the lashings of the elements on its coastal location and embodying the natural resources and industries of Wales.

It has the largest orchestra pit in the United Kingdom, and while the auditorium seats 1,850, it is acoustically excellent.

The Millennium Centre is one of many projects in Cardiff Bay, a development that has transformed the old docks of the city into a waterfront stretch of exciting design. Our five-star, ultramodern and light-filled hotel is a key element in the Bay and has variously been referred to by journalists as thrilling, sexy, soothing and solicitous. The centre of the city is an admirable Edwardian exercise in town planning, imperious and compact.

Opera & ballet

Operetta in Austria.................................15 Music in Scandinavia..............................23 Savonlinna Opera....................................49 The Rite of Spring...................................60 Music in Berlin........................................68 The Ring in Berlin...................................69 Art & Music in Dresden.........................71 Verdi at La Scala......................................92 The Ring at La Scala...............................93 Opera in Venice.....................................100 Verona Opera.........................................101 Parma Verdi Festival..............................105 Naples: Art, Antiquities & Opera.........128 Edinburgh Festival................................158 The Ring in Seattle................................184 Santa Fe Opera......................................186 Opera in Cardiff....................................193

Looking for the rest of the UK? See pages 26–43 for England and 154–158 for Scotland.

Lecturers biographies are on page 194.

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Lecturers

Lecturers

Monica Bohm-Duchen Lecturer, writer and curator specialising in 20thcentury art. She studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem before graduating in English Literature and History of Art from UCL, and with an MA in Art History from the Courtauld.

She has lectured for the National Gallery, Tate, Royal Academy, Courtauld, Sotheby’s and Birkbeck College.

Dr Xavier Bray Art historian specialising in Spanish art and sculpture and Chief Curator of Dulwich Picture Gallery. Former posts include Assistant Curator of 17th and 18th-century European paintings at the National Gallery, London, where he curated numerous exhibitions: El Greco, Caravaggio: the final years, Velázquez and The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting and Sculpture 1600–1700. He completed his PhD at Trinity College, Dublin.

Professor David Breeze Former Chief Inspector of Ancient Monuments in Scotland, President of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society and holder of three honorary Professorships. He is the author of the English Heritage guide-book to Hadrian’s Wall and coauthor with Brian Dobson of the basic text book on the Wall. He has also written on the Antonine Wall and has recently published a book on the Frontiers of the Imperial Empire.

James Brown Historian specialising in Morocco and with a wider interest in the history of the Muslim world and global history. He studied at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge and SOAS. He has worked as a journalist and teacher, and is currently planning post-doctoral research on the relations between Morocco and Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries.

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James Brown

Dr Steven Blake Historian and lecturer, specialising in the history of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire and mediaeval architecture. He worked for thirty years at

Professor Tim Blanning Emeritus Professor of Modern European History at the University of Cambridge, Fellow of Sidney Sussex College and Fellow of the British Academy. Among his many books are a study of Emperor Joseph II, the award-winning The Culture of Power and the Power of Culture, the bestselling The Pursuit of Glory: Europe 1648-1815, and the much-translated The Triumph of Music in the Modern World. His most recent book is The Romantic Revolution.

Xavier Bray

Gail Bent Expert on British architectural history and historic interiors and an interior designer and artist. She studied at Toronto and Leeds Universities and Edinburgh College of Art and has taught at the University of Leeds, Christ Church Oxford, York and Nottingham. She lectures for The Art Fund, The National Trust and NADFAS.

Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum and has served on many society councils in the West Country. He obtained his PhD from Reading University and is a Fellow of the Museums Association and the Society of Antiquaries.

Monica Bohm-Duchen

Dr Paul Atterbury Lecturer, writer, curator and broadcaster specialising in the art, architecture and design of the 19th and 20th centuries. Has published many books on pottery, porcelain, silver and antiques, also on canals and railways, and two books on the Thames. He has worked as external curator of the V&A on a number of exhibitions, including Pugin & the Victorian Vision and was Historical Advisor to Royal Doulton in Stoke-on-Trent. He is a long standing expert on BBC’s Antiques Roadshow.

Tim Blanning

Charles Allen British writer and historian, he was born in India, where several generations of his family served under the British Raj. His work focuses on India and South Asia in general. Among his many books are Plain Tales from the Raj: Images of British India in the Twentieth Century (1975), Lives of the Indian Princes (1984), The Buddha and the Sahibs: the Men who Discovered India’s Lost Religion (2002), Kipling Sahib: India and the Making of Rudyard Kipling (2007) and Ashoka: The Search for India’s Lost Emperor (2012). In 2012 he is filming a documentary in India on Ashoka.

Steven Blake

Professor James Allan Expert in Islamic art and architecture and Middle-Eastern archaeology. He read Arabic at Oxford, where he also completed his doctorate and has worked for the Ashmolean and as a field archaeologist in Jerusalem and at Siraf. President of the British Institute of Persian Studies, 2002–6 and now lectures for the faculty of Oriental Studies at Oxford.

Gail Bent

Paul Atterbury

James Allen

Charles Allen

Tom Abbott Specialist in architectural history from the Baroque to the 20th century with a wide knowledge of the performing arts. He graduated in Psychology and Art History from Carleton College, Minnesota and studied at the Louvre School of Art History in Paris. Since 1987 he has lived in Berlin and has organised and led many academic tours in Germany.

Polly Buston Art historian with an MA in French with English from Edinburgh University as well as an MA from the Courtauld Institute. She lectures at the Courtauld Summer School and works for art history publishers as editor and picture researcher.

She was co-author of Titian’s Venice, a multimedia project accompanying the 2003 National Gallery Titian exhibition.

Dr Katie Campbell Started her career as a journalist and fiction-writer before obtaining a PhD in landscape history. She now works as a writer, lecturer and tour guide, and helps to run Bristol University’s MA in Garden History. Recent publications include Icons of Twentieth Century Landscape Design, Policies & Pleasaunces: A guide to the Gardens of Scotland and Paradise of Exiles: The Anglo-American Gardens of Florence.

Jon Cannon Writer, lecturer and broadcaster whose research focuses on English cathedrals. He presented and co-wrote the BBC’s How to Build a Cathedral and has published Cathedral: the Great English Cathedrals & the World That Made Them. He teaches at Bristol University and was previously Communications Manager for English Heritage and for the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England.

Dr Harry Charrington Architect and lecturer in architecture at the University of Bath with a particular interest in the history of modernism. He read Architecture at Cambridge, where he was the founding editor of Scroope: Cambridge Architectural Journal, and subsequently combined academia and practice in both England and Finland. He obtained his PhD from the LSE on Alvar Aalto and has published widely on his work, including his recent book (with Vezio Nava) Alvar Aalto: the Mark of the Hand.

Professor Dawn Chatty Professor of Anthropology and Forced Migration at the University of Oxford. She has long been involved with the Middle East as a university teacher, development practitioner, and advocate for indigenous rights. Her doctoral research in Syria and Lebanon among Bedouin sheep herders as well as her later work among camel nomads in the Sultanate of Oman has given her a breadth of field-based experience from the Levant to the Gulf.

Dr Felicity Cobbing Executive and Curator of the Palestine Exploration Fund in London. She has excavated

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John Fritz

David Gowan British Ambassador in Belgrade from 2003–6 and Minister and Deputy Head of Mission in Moscow from 2000–3. He was Kosovo War Crimes Coordinator in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1999. His earlier career included postings in Moscow, Brasilia and Helsinki. In the UK he had two attachments to the Cabinet Office. He has been Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham and Guest Member of St Antony’s College, Oxford.

He has published papers on Serbia and Kosovo and is now involved with the Russian Booker Prize.

Dr Alexandra Gajewski Specialist in mediaeval architecture. She read Art History at Münster University followed by a PhD in Gothic architecture in northern Burgundy from the Courtauld. She has lectured at the Courtauld, Birkbeck and the V&A and was recently visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan.

Dr Ffiona Gilmore Eaves Read Archaeology at Cambridge followed by a PhD on the early church at Porec. She has lectured for the WEA, for whom she founded and managed a study tours section, and for various extra-mural departments. She is the co-author of Retrieving the record: a century of archaeology at Porec published by the University of Zagreb.

Dr Angus Graham Tutor in Egyptian Archaeology at the University of Sunderland. He studied Egyptian Archaeology at UCL from where he also obtained his PhD. He is the Field Director of the Egypt Exploration Society’s Theban Harbours and Waterscapes Survey and has worked on archaeological projects at Giza, Memphis, Karnak and Edfu.

Angus Haldane Studied Classics at Oxford University with a particular emphasis on Roman history, literature and art. He subsequently studied for a postgraduate degree in Byzantine and Renaissance art at the Courtauld Institute, has taught Greek and Angus Haldane

Angus Graham

Garth Gilmour

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Frances Fowle

Dr Garth Gilmour Biblical archaeologist based at Oxford University, where he also obtained his doctorate. He has lived in Israel and excavated at the Philistine sites of Ekron and Ashkelon. His interests include eastern Mediterranean trade in the Late Bronze Age and the archaeology of religion in ancient Israel and he is currently researching the Palestine Exploration Fund’s excavation in Jerusalem in the 1920s.

John M. Fritz Studied Anthropology at Chicago and is currently Associate Professor of Archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania. Since 1981, with George Michell, he has co-directed a team of researchers at Hampi, carrying out intensive documentation of surface remains, and has written on the city’s layout and cultural meaning.

Publications include Where Gods and Kings Meet: the Royal Centre at Vijayanagara, City of Victory, New Light on Hampi and Hampi, a Story in Stone.

David Gilmour

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David Gilmour Historian and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and former Research Fellow of Oxford University. Formerly a journalist and more recently a reviewer for the Financial Times, Spectator, Independent on Sunday and the New York Review of Books. Publications include Curzon: Imperial Statesman; The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling and The Ruling Caste, a study of the administration the Subcontinent during the reign of Queen Victoria.

Dr Frances Fowle Senior Curator of French Art at the National Gallery of Scotland and Senior Lecturer in History of Art at the University of Edinburgh.

She is also a Trustee of the Burrell Collection and has curated several major exhibitions at the National Gallery of Scotland, including Impressionism and Scotland and Van Gogh and Britain. Her publications include Monet and French Landscape: Vetheuil and Normandy and Impressionism, Urbanism Environment.

Alexandra Gajewski

Dr Michael Douglas-Scott Associate Lecturer in History of Art at Birkbeck College, specialising in 16th-century Italian art and architecture. He studied at the Courtauld and Birkbeck College, University of London and lived in Rome for several years. He has written articles for Arte Veneta, Burlington Magazine and the Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes.

Professor Richard Evans Regius Professor of History and President of Wolfson College at the University of Cambridge and Gresham Professor of Rhetoric at Gresham College, London. He is author of numerous books on Central European history including The Coming of the Third Reich, The Third Reich in Power and The Third Reich at War, and is currently working on the 1815 to 1914 volume in the Penguin History of Europe.

Richard Evans

Steven Desmond Landscape consultant, specialist in the conservation of historic parks and gardens and architectural historian. Obtained an MA in Conservation from York and lectures for Buckingham and Oxford Universities as well as NADFAS. He is an advisor on historic gardens for the National Trust and broadcasts for the BBC and writes for Country Life. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Horticulture and Professional Associate of the Royal Horticultural Society.

Steven Desmond

Major Gordon Corrigan mbe Military historian and former officer of the Royal Gurkha Rifles. He served mainly in the Far East, but also in Berlin, Cyprus, Belize and Northern Ireland. Author of Wellington, A Military Life; Mud, Blood and Poppycock: Britain and the First World War and Loos 1915, The Unwanted Battle.

Television appearances include Napoleon’s Waterloo and Battlefield Detectives. He is an Honorary Research Fellow of the Universities of Birmingham and Kent, a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society and a Member of the British Commission for Military History.

Imogen Corrigan

Major Imogen Corrigan Specialist in Anglo-Saxon and mediaeval history.

She spent twenty years in the army, retiring in the rank of Major, then obtained a first-class degree in Medieval History and has been studying and lecturing ever since. Currently researching a PhD at the University of Birmingham and has just published her first book, The Race for the Sky: the Building of our Medieval Cathedrals.

Gordon Corrigan

Dr R. T. Cobianchi Art historian and lecturer. He completed his PhD at Warwick University and was a Rome Scholar at The British School in Rome and fellow of the Biblioteca Hertziana, Rome, and Villa I Tatti, Florence­. His research includes iconography and patronage of the late Middle Ages to the Baroque.

Felicity Cobbing

Harry Charrington

Katie Campbell

in Jordan with the British Museum, and worked throughout the Middle East, particularly Syria and Lebanon. Widely published on the archaeology and the history of archaeology in the Levant, she is co-author with Dr Raouf Sa’d Abujabber of Beyond the River – Ottoman Transjordan in Original Photographs.

Lecturers

Lecturers continued

Lecturers

Dr Tristram Hunt mp Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent since 2010. His award-winning books include Building Jerusalem: The Rise and Fall of the Victorian City (2004), he is a frequent broadcaster on TV and radio and he writes regularly for The Guardian, The Times and elsewhere. He has special interests in urban regeneration, manufacturing and heritage.

Henry Hurst Former Reader in Classical Archaeology at Cambridge University. His special interest is the archaeology of ancient cities and he has been an excavating archaeologist, working at Carthage for many years and more recently in Rome. He has travelled widely in Greece and Turkey.

Michael Ivory Landscape architect, writer, translator and lecturer. He studied Modern Languages at Oxford followed by a Postgraduate Diploma in Landscape Design. He is a former lecturer at the University of Central England and committee member of the British Czech & Slovak Association. His publications include the Insight pocket guide: Czech Republic, Key Guide Prague and Berlitz Czech Republic.

James Johnstone Organist specialising in the Baroque. Professor of early keyboards at Guildhall School of Music & Drama and Trinity College of Music. He has performed and recorded as a soloist and with the Gabrieli Consort & Players and Florilegium. He re-formed the chamber group Trio Sonnerie and recorded the Bach Motets on the historic organ in Naumburg with Trinity Baroque.

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Henry Hurst

Dr Frank Høifødt Art historian, lecturer and writer. He is an expert on the life and works of Edvard Munch and was for years a curator at the Munch Museum in Oslo.

He has published extensively on the artist, most recently Munch (Tate Publishing 2012). He is a former director of the Vigeland Museum and is Associate Professor at the University of Oslo.

Adam Hopkins Journalist and author, now living in a mountain village in Spain. He studied at King’s College, Cambridge and has contributed extensively to national newspapers in Britain on Spanish culture and travel. His books include Spanish Journeys: a Portrait of Spain, Holland: its History, Paintings and People and Crete: its Past, Present and People.

Together with his wife, Gaby Macphedran, he has devised many tours in Spain and Portugal.

Tristram Hunt

Professor Judith Herrin Mediaeval historian with degrees from Cambridge and Birmingham. She holds a Research Fellowship and is Professor Emerita at King’s College, London, was formerly Professor of Byzantine History at Princeton University. Her books include The Formation of Christendom, A Medieval Miscellany, and Women in Purple.

Caroline Holmes Garden historian, writer and design consultant.

Lectures for Cambridge University Institute of Continuing Education and NADFAS. She has presented series on both TV and BBC Radio Four.

Books include: Monet at Giverny, Follies of Europe – architectural extravaganzas and Impressionists in their Gardens – living light and colour. Garden consultancies include the Royal Opera House’s New Production Campus for the Performing Arts and Notre-Dame-de-Calais.

Adam Hopkins

Amanda Herries Art historian, author and lecturer, now living in south-west Scotland. She read Archaeology at Cambridge and then worked as a decorative arts specialist at the Museum of London. This was followed by seven years living in Japan and she has written extensively on the influence of Japanese gardens and plants in the west. She is a contributing cataloguer for the Public Catalogue Foundation project and is a Trustee of the National Trust for Scotland.

Caroline Holmes

Gijs van Hensbergen Art historian and author whose books include Gaudí, In the Kitchens of Castile and Guernica and he has published in the Burlington Magazine and Wall Street Journal. He read languages at Utrecht University and Art History at the Courtauld, and undertook postgraduate studies in American art of the 1960s. He has worked in England, the USA and Spain as exhibitions organiser, TV researcher and critic and is currently working for prolonged periods of time in New York.

Frank Høifødt

Professor Adam Hardy Architect and architectural historian specialising in the architecture of Indian temples. His publications include Indian Temple Architecture: Form and Transformation and The Temple Architecture of India. He has been involved in the design of several Hindu temples in the UK, and is currently the architect for a new temple near Bangalore to be built in the style of the Hoysala dynasty. Professor of Asian Architecture at Cardiff University, where he runs the research centre PRASADA.

Judith Herrin

Amanda Herries

Gijs van Hensbergen

Adam Hardy

Latin and has lectured on the ancient world in Italy and in Greece.

Professor Hugh Kennedy Professor of Arabic at SOAS and formerly Professor of Middle Eastern History at the University of St Andrews. He studied at the Middle East Centre for Arab Studies in Beirut, and read Arabic and Persian at Cambridge. He is author of The Early Abbasid Caliphate; The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates; Crusader Castles and Muslim Spain and Portugal.

Sir Nicholas Kenyon Read History at Balliol College, Oxford. In 2007 he became Managing Director of the Barbican Centre in London. Previous roles include: Music critic for The Times and the Music Editor of The Listener; Editor of Early Music, Chief Music Critic of The Observer; Artistic Adviser to the South Bank Centre’s festival Mozart Now; Controller, BBC Radio 3 (1993); Director and Controller of the BBC Proms, Live Events and Television Classical Music.

Professor Helen King Professor of the History of Classical Medicine at Reading University. Her publications include Hippocrates’ Woman: Reading the female body in ancient Greece and Greek and Roman Medicine.

Holds research fellowships at Cambridge, Newcastle and in the Netherlands and visiting professorships in the US and Canada and at the Peninsula Medical School (Exeter and Plymouth).

Caroline Knight Architectural historian specialising in 16th- to 18th-century British architectural and social history. She studied History and History of Art at London University, followed by an MA at the Courtauld Institute. She is Course Director of the V&A’s High Renaissance-Baroque Year Course, author of many articles and of London’s Country Houses.

Dr Jarl Kremeier Art historian specialising in 17th- to 19thcentury architecture and decorative arts; teaches Art History at the Berlin College of Acting and the Senior Student’s Department of Berlin’s Freie Universität. He studied at the Universities of Würzburg, Berlin and the Courtauld, is a contributor to Macmillan’s Dictionary of Art, author of a book on the Würzburg Residenz, and of articles on Continental Baroque architecture and architectural theory.

Anthony Lambert Historian, journalist and travel writer. He has worked with and for the National Trust in various capacities for almost thirty years. His books include Victorian & Edwardian Country House Life and he writes regular profiles of country houses b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

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Dr Alexey Makhrov Russian art historian and a graduate of the St Petersburg Academy of Arts. Obtained his PhD from the University of St Andrews followed by post-doctoral work as a Research Fellow at Exeter University. He is now studying International History and Politics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies Geneva.

Dennis Marks An acclaimed television producer and broadcast executive for thirty years, Dennis’ career ranged from directing cultural and historical documentaries as Head of Music for BBC television, followed by four years as General Director of English National Opera. He writes and presents major events and historical travelogues for BBC Radio and is currently preparing a television series on operatic history.

John McNeill Specialist in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, with degrees in art history from the University of East Anglia and the Courtauld. He lectures at Birkbeck College’s Faculty of Continuing Education, Birkbeck College and Oxford’s Department of Continuing Education. He is Honorary Secretary of the British Archaeological Association and author of the Blue Guide: Normandy and Blue Guide: Loire Valley. Has edited collections of essays on mediaeval Anjou, King’s Lynn and the Fens and the mediaeval cloister.

Professor John Milner Art historian, painter, writer and exhibition organiser, specialising in 19th- and 20th-century art in France and Russia. He studied at the Courtauld, where he currently tutors MA and PhD students, and has lectured at the National

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Rowena Loverance

Dr Rosie Llewellyn-Jones An authority on colonial India from the 18th to the 20th century. She has published books on Lucknow including Engaging Scoundrels: True Tales of Old Lucknow and Lucknow, City of Illusion.

Her book Mutiny, The Great Uprising in India: Untold stories, Indian and British won critical praise. She lectures for the Asian Arts course at the V&A. She is currently Secretary of BACSA (British Association for Cemeteries in South Asia) and works as part-time archivist at the Royal Society for Asian Affairs.

Gerald Luckhurst Landscape architect and garden historian who has an extensive knowledge of sub-tropical and Mediterranean garden flora. His work involves both historic restoration and contemporary garden design. Books include The Gardens of Madeira; Luigi Manini: Imaginário & Metodo; Sintra: a landscape with villas; and The Gardens of the National Palace of Queluz. He is currently writing a doctoral thesis on the gardens of Monserrate in Sintra, near Lisbon.

Rosie Llewellyn-Jones

Dr Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Edinburgh and a specialist in the history and culture of ancient Iran, Egypt and Greece. He studied Classics and Drama at Hull University and obtained his MA in Ancient History and PhD from Cardiff University. He has contributed to history documentaries for Channel 4, the History Channel and the BBC.

Rowena Loverance Byzantine art historian specialising in sculpture, mosaics and icons. She studied History and Archaeology at Oxford and is Head of e-learning at the British Museum and a Visiting Research Fellow at King’s College, London.

Her publications include the illustrated history Byzantium and Christian Art.

Richard Langham Smith

Dr Luca Leoncini Art historian specialising in 15th-century Italian painting. His first degree and PhD were from Rome University followed by research at the Warburg Institute in London. He has published articles on the classical tradition in Italian art of the 15th century and contributed to the Macmillan Dictionary of Art. He has also written on Mantegna and Renaissance drawings.

Helen Langdon

Professor Richard Langham Smith Music historian and broadcaster with a particular interest in early music and 19th- and 20th-century French music. He has published widely on Debussy and Berlioz and has taught at Lancaster and Exeter universities and the Royal College of Music. In 1994 he was admitted to the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres at the rank of Chevalier. He read Music at York University where he specialised in Baroque performance.

Caroline Knight

Dr Helen Langdon Studied at Cambridge, and received a doctorate from the Courtauld. She has contributed to many academic journals, and is the author of several books, including The Gallery Goers Guide, Claude Lorrain, Holbein, and Caravaggio: a Life. From 2002–3 she was Assistant Director of the British School at Rome, and later Research Fellow at the Getty Institue, LA, and Visiting Fellow at Yale.

In 2010 she curated the exhibition, Salvator Rosa; Bandits, Wilderness and Magic, at Dulwich Picture Gallery in London.

Helen King

Hugh Kennedy

James Johnstone

Michael Ivory

for the Historic Houses Association magazine. He has written numerous travel and guide books, and contributes to newspapers and magazines.

Gallery, Tate, Royal Academy of Arts and the Henry Moore Institute. His books include The Studios of Paris: the Capital of Art in the late Nineteenth Century.

Barry Millington Chief music critic for London’s Evening Standard and editor of The Wagner Journal, Barry Millington is also author/ editor of numerous books, including the Master Musicians Wagner and The Wagner Compendium. He has contributed Wagner articles to The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. He acted as dramaturgical adviser on Lohengrin at the Bayreuth Festival and the Ring in Tokyo and is well-known as a broadcaster.

Marc Millon Wine, food and travel writer. Born in Mexico, he was raised in the USA before studying English Literature at the University of Exeter. Together with his wife, he has pioneered a series of illustrated wine-food-travel books including The Wine and Food of Europe, The Wine Roads of Italy and The Food Lover’s Companion Italy. He also has his own wine company, importing Italian wines from small family estates.

Dr Oswyn Murray Classics Fellow at Balliol College, Oxford for almost forty years, widely travelled in Greece and a specialist on Greek drinking customs and the history of pleasure in general. Author of Early Greece, The Greek City and In vino veritas and over a hundred articles, mainly on Greek history. He was history editor of the Oxford History of the Classical World, and is a regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement.

Dr Fabrizio Nevola Senior lecturer in Architectural History at the University of Bath, specialising in urban and architectural history of Early Modern Italy. He obtained his PhD at the Courtauld Institute and has held fellowships at the University of Warwick, the Medici Archive Project, and Harvard University’s Villa I Tatti (Florence). He has published widely including the award-winning Siena: Constructing the Renaissance City.

Christopher Newall Art historian, lecturer and writer. As well as being a specialist in 19th-century British art, he has a deep interest in Sicily, its architecture and political and social history. A graduate of the Courtauld Institute, he has organised various exhibitions including Pre-Raphaelite Vision: Truth to Nature (Tate Britain 2004). His interest in John Ruskin led to the MRT tour ‘Ruskin’s Venice’,

Lecturers

Lecturers continued

Lecturers

Simon Rees Dramaturg of Welsh National Opera since 1989. After studying English at Cambridge, he taught for two years in Italy and for three at Kyoto University. He has published novels, poetry, translations of works of art history and reviews of books on music, and has written libretti for children’s opera and oratorio with Welsh composer Mervyn Burtch.

Bronwen Riley Editor of the English Heritage Red Guides.

After reading Classics at Oxford, she worked for Country Life and Tatler and wrote obituaries for the Daily Telegraph. Bewitched by Romania during the Nineties, she took an MA at the Courtauld, specialising in post-byzantine art in Romania and in 2008 published her book Transylvania. Other publications include the English Heritage Red Guide to Great Yarmouth Row Houses and Greyfriars’ Cloister.

Juliet Rix Writer and broadcaster with a particular interest in the history and pre-history of Malta. She studied History of Art at Cambridge and is the author of the Bradt Guide: Malta and Gozo. Her 25-year career in journalism has involved working for the BBC and writing for magazines, online media and British national newspapers.

Sue Rollin Archaeologist, interpreter and lecturer. She studied at London University (Institute of Archaeology and SOAS) and at Heidelberg

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Alan Ogden

Professor David Phillipson Professor of African Archaeology at Cambridge until his retirement in 2006, and also Director of the Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology there. Actively engaged in the study of Ethiopia, and was awarded the Society of Antiquaries of London ‘Frend Medal’ for his research on the archaeology of Ethiopian Christianity. Emeritus Fellow of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, Honorary Professor at UCL, a Fellow of the British Academy and a former President of the British Institute in Eastern Africa.

Dr Owen Rees Fellow and tutor in music at The Queen’s College, Oxford University, director of the college chapel choir and the professional ensemble Contrapunctus. He specialises in the music of Spain and Portugal from the fifteenth to the midseventeenth centuries. He has broadcast on BBC Radios 3 and 4 and released CD recordings on the Hyperion, Herald, Guild and Unicorn Kanchana labels to high critical acclaim. His published studies include work on the Spanish composers Cristóbal de Morales and Francisco Guerrero.

Cathy Oakes

Dr Alan Peatfield Archaeologist specialising in the Minoan Bronze Age Civilisation of Crete. He was awarded his PhD in Greek Archaeology from University College London. From 1984–1990 was Knossos Curator for the British School at Athens and has been a lecturer at University College Dublin since 1991. He has excavated on Crete, notably at Knossos and he writes on Minoan religion and ancient Greek combat.

Jane Pritchard Curator of Dance for the Victoria & Albert Museum and co-curater of the exhibition Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes 1909–1929. She was Archivist for Rambert Dance Company and English National Ballet. She has contributed to journals, books, dictionaries and catalogues and curated seasons of dance films for the BFI Southbank and the British Council. Her latest book is entitled Anna Pavlova: TwentiethCentury Ballerina (2012).

Geoffrey Norris

Alan Ogden Following a career in international PR, Alan is now a travel writer and historian. His books include Fortresses of Faith: the Kirchenburgen of Transylvania; Winds of Sorrow: Travels in Transylvania and Through Hitler’s Back Door: SOE in Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. He has travelled extensively in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Christopher Newall

Dr Cathy Oakes Graduated from Oxford University and worked in the Education Department at the V&A. She ran the art history programme for the Department for Continuing Education at Bristol where she completed her PhD on late mediaeval Marian iconography and now holds a similar post at Oxford. She has published on French and English Romanesque and on Marian iconography.

Fabrizio Nevola

Professor Geoffrey Norris Writer and regular broadcaster on BBC Radio 3.

He was for many years the Chief Music Critic of The Daily Telegraph (1995–2009). He still writes for the Telegraph today, along with Gramophone and other journals. His publications include Rachmaninoff and contributions to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. He also lectured at Royal Northern College of Music from 1977–83 and is Emeritus Professor at the Rachmaninoff Music Academy in Russia. He is chairman of the music section of The Critics’ Circle.

Oswyn Murray

Marc Millon

John McNeill

Alexey Makhrov

and he is currently working on an exhibition of Ruskin’s drawings for venues in Canada and Scotland.

University and her linguistic repertoire includes three ancient Near-Eastern languages and several modern European ones. She has taught at UCL, SOAS and Cambridge University and interpreted for the EU and UN. With Jane Streetly she has written Blue Guide: Jordan and Istanbul: A Travellers’ Guide.

Dr Diane Silverthorne Art historian specialising in late-19th and 20thcentury art, design and architecture. Studied at Birkbeck University of London, and took an MA in Cultural Memory and Museum Studies at the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, before completing her PhD at the Royal College of Art. Diane lectures at Birkbeck. She recently contributed chapters to two anthologies, Music and Modernism c.1849–1950, and The Oxford Critical & Cultural History of Modernist Magazines V3, Europe 1880-1940.

Professor Jan Smaczny Hamilton Harty Chair of Music at Queen’s University, Belfast, and an authority on Czech music. An author, broadcaster and journalist, he has published books on the Prague Provisional Theatre, Dvořák’s Cello Concerto and music in 19th-century Ireland. He is a graduate of the University of Oxford, has studied at the Charles University in Prague and has worked extensively in university education.

Dr Nigel Spivey Senior Lecturer in Classical Art and Archaeology at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Emmanuel College. Among his publications are Understanding Greek Sculpture, Greek Art, Enduring Creation, The Ancient Olympics and Songs on Bronze. He presented the BBC2/PBS series How Art Made the World.

Andrew Spooner Military historian specialising in the Great War and has operated his own battlefield tours since 1988. He organises specialist study days for colleges and museums throughout the country and is a regular visiting lecturer at the Imperial War Museum Duxford. He has appeared in documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4.

Gavin Stamp Honorary Fellow of both the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland and the Royal Institute of British Architects and honorary Professor of the University of Glasgow. He taught History of Architecture at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow, and is a former chairman of the 20th-Century Society and Director of the Victorian Society Summer School. His research interests are 19th- and 20th-cent. British b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Gavin Stamp

Dr Richard Williams Art historian with a PhD on 16th century religious art from the Courtauld Institute. He specialises in the Northern Renaissance and lectures on 16th and 17th century English, German and Flemish art, with a particular interest in religious imagery in 16th century Protestant collections. He teaches at Birkbeck, University of London and the Courtauld Institute Summer School, (both University of London) and at the National Gallery. He co-edited and contributed to Art Re-Formed: Reassessing the Contribution of the Reformation (Cambridge, 2007).

Dr Antonia Whitley Art historian and lecturer specialising in the Italian Renaissance. She obtained her PhD from the Warburg Institute, University of London, on Sienese society in the 15th century and has published articles on related topics and lectured for the National Gallery. She currently teaches at King’s College, London, and has led many tours in Italy.

Richard Wigmore

Antonia Whitley

Gail Turner

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Richard Wigmore Music writer, lecturer and broadcaster for BBC Radio 3. He writes for The Daily Telegraph, BBC Music Magazine and Gramophone and gives classes in Lied history and interpretation at Birkbeck College, London. He read French and German at Cambridge and later studied Music at the Guildhall. His publications include Schubert: the complete song texts and Pocket Guide to Haydn.

Dr Matthew Woodworth Studied History of Art and Architecture at Brown University, Rhode Island, and obtained his MA from the Courtauld. He has just completed his PhD on the architectural history of Beverley Minster at Duke University, North Carolina.

He is currently teaching in Elgin, Scotland, and writing one of the volumes for Pevsner’s Buildings of Scotland Series. He has published articles on English Gothic architecture, French Gothic sculpture, and the re-use of Gothic in the postmediaeval period.

Giles Waterfield An independent curator and writer, Director of Royal Collection Studies and Associate Lecturer at the Courtauld Institute of Art. He is a trustee of the Charleston Trust and a member of the National Trust Arts Panel and of the Advisory Panel of the National Heritage Memorial Fund.

Exhibitions he has curated include The Artist’s Studio, and publications include Soane and After; Palaces of Art; Art for the People and Art Treasures of England. Novels include the prize-winning The Long Afternoon and the acclaimed The Hound in the Left Hand Corner.

Joachim Strupp

Neil Taylor A leading expert on the Baltic States, he travels there as visiting university lecturer, tourism consultant and tour leader. He read Chinese at Cambridge and has worked in tourism in China,

Gail Turner Art historian, lecturer and artist with a special interest in Spanish history and art. She read Modern History at Oxford, and completed her MA at the Courtauld. She has worked at Tate Britain, the Arts Council, as a consultant for Christie’s and at the Courtauld and lectures for various institutions including the National Trust, the Art Fund, and also for the University of Cambridge International Summer School and the Courtauld Institute Summer Course.

Richard Stokes

Jane Taylor Has worked as teacher, publisher, writer, photographer and television producer. She studied Mediaeval History and Moral Philosophy at the University of St Andrews and since 1989 has lived in Amman. Her books include Testament to the Bushmen (with Laurens van der Post), Imperial Istanbul, Petra and the Lost Kingdom of the Nabataeans, Yemen: Land and People (with Sarah Searight) and Jordan: Images from the Air.

Dr Giles Tillotson Fellow (and former Director) of the Royal Asiatic Society, he has been Reader in History of Art and Chair of Art & Archaeology at SOAS. His specialisms include the history and architecture of the Rajput courts of Rajasthan and of the Mughal cities of Delhi and Agra; Indian architecture in the period of British rule and after Independence and landscape painting in India. Books include Taj Mahal, Jaipur City Palace, Mughal India and The Tradition of Indian Architecture.

Nigel Spivey

Tim Tatton–Brown Archaeologist and architectural historian. He has been Consultant Archaeologist for Canterbury, Rochester, Chichester and Salisbury Cathedrals, and for Westminster Abbey, Lambeth Palace and currently for Westminster School. He is VicePresident of the Royal Archaeological Institute.

Books include The English Cathedral and The Abbeys & Priories of England.

the USSR and many Third World countries. His publications include The Bradt Guide: Estonia, The Bradt Guide: Tallinn, The Bradt Guide: Baltic Cities, A Footprints Guide to Berlin.

Jan Smaczny

Dr Joachim Strupp Fellow at the University of Buckingham, he organises adult art education events and tours.

He studied Art History at the universities of Nuremberg and St Andrews, where he also taught and has lived in Venice and Florence for several years. He specialises in the sculpture of the Italian Renaissance, though his interests include German and Italian art of most ages.

Diane Silverthorne

Jane Streetly Co-author of Blue Guide: Jordan and Istanbul: A Traveller’s Guide. She was born and brought up in Trinidad, studied French and Spanish at university and now works as a conference interpreter and travel writer. She is a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society and has travelled widely throughout Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.

Sue Rollin

Richard Stokes Visiting Professor of Lieder at the Royal Academy of Music and recently retired as teacher of German at Westminster School. Books include Complete Cantatas of J. S. Bach; The Book of Lieder and translations of Kafka’s Metamorphosis and The Trial. He has lectured at the Edinburgh Festival, given masterclasses at Aldeburgh and collaborated on two books of poems by Alfred Brendel.

Juliet Rix

Bronwen Riley

Simon Rees

David Phillipson

architecture and he has published on Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson, the Gilbert Scott dynasty and Sir Edwin Lutyens.

Lecturers

Booking details Making a booking 1. Provisional booking

We recommend that you contact us first to make a provisional booking which we will hold for one week. To confirm it please send the booking form and deposit within this period.

Booking Conditions 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, often going beyond the minimum obligations.

We aim to provide full and accurate information about our holidays. If there are changes, we will tell you promptly.

If something does go wrong, we will try to put it right. Our overriding aim is to ensure that every client is satisfied with our services.

All we ask of you

We ask 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. We reserve the right to refuse to accept a booking without necessarily giving a reason. You need to have a level of fitness which would not spoil other participants’ enjoyment of the holiday by slowing them down – see the ‘How strenuous?’ guidance at the end of every tour description and the entry on page 6 of this brochure. With this in mind, we do not accept bookings from anyone who would be aged 81 or over at the time of the tour (we make an exception for certain MRT music festivals).

Insurance. It is a requirement of booking that you have adequate holiday insurance. Cover for medical treatment, repatriation, loss of property and cancellation charges must be included.

Insurance can be obtained from most insurance companies, banks, travel agencies and (in the UK) many retail outlets including post offices.

Booking details

2. Definite booking

3. Our confirmation

Passports and visas. British citizens must have valid passports for all tours outside the United Kingdom. For most countries the passport needs to be valid for six months beyond the date of the tour. If visas are required we will advise UK citizens about obtaining them.

Nationals of other countries should ascertain whether visas are required in their case, and obtain them if they are.

ensure that everything you booked is listed on it. For more information about financial protection and the ATOL Certificate go to: www.atol.org.uk/ATOLcertificate

Fill in the booking form and send it to us with the deposit (specified in the price paragraph of the tour description). It is important that you read the Booking Conditions at this stage, and that you sign the booking form. Full payment is required if you are booking within ten weeks of departure.

If you cancel. If you have to cancel your participation on a tour, there would be a charge which varies according to the period of notice you give. Up to 57 days before the tour the deposit only is forfeited. Thereafter a percentage of the total cost of the tour will be due: between 56 and 29 days: between 28 and 15 days: between 14 days and 3 days: within 48 hours:

40% 60% 80% 100%

We take as the day of cancellation that on which we receive written confirmation of cancellation.

If we cancel the tour. We might decide to cancel a tour if at any time up to eight weeks before there were insufficient bookings for it to be viable. We would refund everything you had paid to us. We may also cancel a tour if hostilities, civil unrest, natural disaster or other circumstances amounting to force majeure affect the region to which the tour was due to go.

Safety and security. If the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office advises against travel to places visited on a tour, we would cancel the tour or adjust the itinerary to avoid the risky area. In the event of cancellation before the tour commenced we would give you a full refund. We would also treat sympathetically a wish to withdraw from a tour to a troubled region even if the FCO does not advise against travel there.

Consumer protection.

ATOL. All the flights and flight-inclusive holidays in this brochure are financially protected by the ATOL scheme. When you make your first payment you will be supplied with an ATOL Certificate. Please check to

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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 of the tour will also be sent at this stage.

ABTOT. As a member of the Association of Bonded Travel Organisers Trust Limited (ABTOT), Martin Randall Travel has provided a bond to meet the requirements of the Package Travel, Package Holidays and Package Tours Regulations 1992.

In the event of our insolvency, protection is provided for non-flight packages commencing in and returning to the UK and other nonflight packages excluding pre-arranged travel to and from your destination.

In the above circumstances, if you have not yet travelled you may claim a refund, or if you have already travelled, you may claim repatriation to the starting point of your non-flight package.

The limits of our liabilities. As principal, we accept responsibility for all ingredients of a tour, except those in which the principle of force majeure prevails. Our obligations and responsibilities are also limited where international conventions apply in respect of air, sea or rail carriers, including the Warsaw Convention and its various updates.

If we make changes. Circumstances might arise which prevent us from operating a tour exactly as advertised. We would try to devise a satisfactory alternative, but if the change represents a significant loss to the tour we would offer compensation. If you decide to cancel because the alternative we offer is not acceptable we would give a full refund.

English Law. These conditions form part of your contract with Martin Randall Travel Ltd and are governed by English law. All proceedings shall be within the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

Booking form

TOUR NAME(S)

DATES

TRAVELLERS’ NAMES

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Give your name as you would like it to appear on documents issued to other tour participants – in block capitals please.

Twin 2 beds

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TRAVEL – please tick Group Travel (air or rail)

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YOUR NEXT OF KIN or contact in case of emergency.

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Please tick if you do NOT want to receive any more of our brochures.

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MEMBERSHIP NUMBERS – only needed for some UK tours.

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2

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English Heritage 1

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Booking form continued

PASSPORT DETAILS. Essential for airlines and in case of emergency on tour (not applicable for tours in the UK).

Title

Surname

First Names

Nationality

1 2

Date of Birth (DD/MM/YY)

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FELLOW TRAVELLER

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If you would also like the invoice to be sent to the fellow traveller's address, please tick:

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PAYMENT EITHER Deposit(s) deposits are per person

£

OR Full Payment

£

Full payment is required if you are booking within ten weeks of departure.

We prefer payment by cheque, debit card or bank transfer, although we can also accept payment by credit card.

CHEQUE. Please make cheques payable to Martin Randall Travel Ltd, and write the tour code on the back (e.g. ma 123).

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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 O N O M Y • A R C H A E O L O G Y • H I S T O R Y • M U S I C

Voysey House, Barley Mow Passage, London, United Kingdom W4 4GF

Telephone 020 8742 3355 Fax 020 8742 7766 info@martinrandall.co.uk www.martinrandall.com

5085

Dates For a list of holidays by country, see pages 7-9.

January 2013 4–14 Oman (mz 453) Prof. Dawn Chatty............................143

5–17 The British Raj (mz 451) Sir David Gilmour & Prof. Gavin Stamp...........................87

14–26 Temples of Tamil Nadu (mz 450)

Prof. Adam Hardy................................87 18–20 Music weekend at The Castle Hotel:

The Endellion String Quartet

(mz 458) Prof. Geoffrey Norris..............43 24-30 Mozart in Salzburg (mz 460)

Richard Wigmore.................................13 31– 3 Verdi at La Scala (mz 466)

Newly-launched

Dr Luca Leoncini.................................92

February 2013 1–14 Kingdoms of the Deccan (mz 470) John M. Fritz.......................................87

8–10 Symposium at The Castle Hotel: Politics & Politicians..........................43

10–23 Bengal by River (mz 474)

Dr Rosie Llewellyn-Jones......................87 12–21 Israel & Palestine (mz 476)

Dr Garth Gilmour................................88 18–24 Florence (mz 475)

Dr R. T. Cobianchi.............................112 20–25 Music in Berlin (mz 472)

Prof. Jan Smaczny & Tom Abbott.........68

22–24 Music weekend at The Castle Hotel:

The Wihan Quartet (mz 479)

Richard Wigmore.................................43 22– 8 Essential India (mz 480)

Dr Giles Tillotson.................................83 26– 3 Connoisseur’s Rome (mz 477)

Dr Michael Douglas-Scott..................123 27– 4 Connoisseur’s Rome (mz 478)

Dr Joachim Strupp..............................123

19–27 Normans in the South (mz 498)

John McNeill......................................129 20–28 The Cathedrals of England (mz 501)

Tim Tatton Brown...............................30 26– 3 Essential Jordan (mz 505)

Jane Taylor.........................................137

April 2013 3–11 The Ring in Berlin (mz 507) Barry Millington & Tom Abbott...........69

27–14 Ethiopia (mz 473)

Prof. David Phillipson..........................46

March 2013

1–14 Ashoka & Buddhist India (mz 485)

Charles Allen........................................85

4–10 Walking in Madeira (mz 487)

Gerald Luckhurst................................148 5– 9 Venetian Palaces (mz 486)

Dr Michael Douglas-Scott..................102 5–12 Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur (mz 499) Prof. John Milner..................66 11–17 Art History of Venice (mz 488)

Polly Buston.........................................99 14–22 Extremadura (mz 495)

Adam Hopkins....................................170 15–17 Music weekend at Jesmond Dene:

A Schubertiade in Newcastle

(mz 494) Richard Wigmore..................43 18–26 Palestine (mz 502)

Dr Felicity Cobbing............................144 18–29 Sicily (mz 497)

Dr Luca Leoncini...............................133 From The School of Athens

by Raphael (1508–11), a print of 1853.

5–12 Gastronomic Andalucía (mz 510) Gijs van Hensbergen...........................175 8–13 Pompeii & Herculaneum (mz 512) Angus Haldane...................................127 8–13 Lisbon Neighbourhoods (mz 530) Adam Hopkins....................................145

8–15 Parma & Bologna (mz 514) Dr R. T. Cobianchi.............................103

8–17 Classical Turkey (mz 513) Dr Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones...................180

9–17 Normans in the South (mz 516) Christopher Newall.............................129

13–18 Piero della Francesca (mz 524)

Dr Antonia Whitley............................110 15–21 Genoa & Turin (mz 527)

Dr Luca Leoncini.................................93 15–22 Walking in Sicily (mz 533)

Dr Ffiona Gilmore-Eaves...................135 15–24 Minoan Crete (mz 540)

Dr Alan Peatfield.................................82 17–21 Ravenna & Urbino (mz 518)

Dr Michael Douglas-Scott..................107 18–24 Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes (mz 520) Steven Desmond.........91 20–28 Le Corbusier (mz 532)

Dr Harry Charrington.........................58 20–29 Classical Greece (mz 531)

Henry Hurst.........................................80 22–28 Lucca (mz 522)

Dr Antonia Whitley............................108 22–29 Granada & Córdoba (mz 534)

Adam Hopkins....................................172 23–28 Palladian Villas (mz 535)

Dr Joachim Strupp................................98 26–28 Music weekend at The Castle

Hotel: The Aronowitz Ensemble

(mz 539).............................................43 27–12 Eastern Turkey (mz 541)

New departure

Dr Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones...................182

Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

203

Gastronomic Sicily...........................136 Music in Prague..................................22

Dates

Dates continued

June 2013 4– 9 Palladian Villas (mz 591) Dr Michael Douglas-Scott....................98

4–10 Connoisseur’s Vienna (mz 588) Dr Jarl Kremeier..................................12

4–15 Walking to Santiago (mz 590) Adam Hopkins & Gaby Macphedran...164

6–12 Brittany (mz 589) Caroline Holmes...................................51

7–15 Saxon Transylvania (mz 597) Bronwen Riley...................................151

8–15 Mediaeval Burgundy (mz 598) John McNeill........................................62

10–18 Art in Le Marche (mz 600)

Polly Buston.......................................120 11–16 Bauhaus & Expressionism (mz 616)

Dr Diane Silverthorne..........................73 14–21 The Schubertiade (mz 606)

Richard Wigmore.................................14 16–21 History of Impressionsim (mz 596)

Dr Frances Fowle.................................57 16–23 The Ring at La Scala (mz 608)

Barry Millington..................................93

Paris, by F. Lunel, from Pen Drawings & Pen Draughtsmen, 1889.

May 2013 3– 8 Basilicata (mz 547) Rowena Loverance.............................131

6–10 Art in Madrid (mz 552) Gijs van Hensbergen...........................169

6–13 Walking in Tuscany (mz 550) Dr Antonia Whitley............................116

6–13 The Duchy of Milan (mz 551)

Dr Luca Leoncini.................................90 6–18 The Baltic States (mz 560)

Neil Taylor...........................................44 7–15 Sardinia (mz 549) Dr R. T. Cobianchi.............................132

7–16 The Pyrenees (mz 553) John McNeill......................................159

7–17 Transoxiana (mz 556)

Prof. James Allan................................190 10–15 SEVILLE: a Festival of

Spanish Music (mz 554)..........176 10–16 St Petersburg (mz 555)

Dr Alexey Makhrov............................153 12–19 Ottoman Turkey (mz 557)

Jane Taylor.........................................179 12–19 Courts of Northern Italy (mz 558)

Dr Michael Douglas-Scott..................104

13–22 Great Houses of the North (mz 566)

Gail Bent.............................................38

19–27 Northumbria (mz 613)

Newly-launched Prof. Gavin Stamp....28

18–24 Art & Music in Dresden (mz 565)

Newly-launched

Dr Jarl Kremeier..................................71

20–25 Ardgowan (mz 612)

Caroline Knight.................................156

18– 2 Eastern Turkey (mz 571)

Rowena Loverance.............................182

19–25 Walking Hadrian’s Wall (mz 574)

Prof. David Breeze...............................26 20–25 Naples: Art, Antiquities, Opera

(mz 573) Newly-launched

Angus Haldane...................................128 22–26 Medici Villas & Gardens (mz 577)

Dr Katie Campbell.............................114 22–29 The Douro (mz 576)

Adam Hopkins....................................146 24–31 Mediaeval Normandy (mz 579)

Dr Cathy Oakes....................................54 26–29 Châteaux of the Loire (mz 581)

Caroline Holmes...................................64 27–31 Ballet: The Rite of Spring (mz 583)

Newly-launched

Jane Pritchard......................................60 27– 3 Music in Scandinavia (mz 585)

Newly-launched

Richard Stokes......................................23

13–19 Southern Tuscany (mz 575)

Dr Fabrizio Nevola............................118

Dates

20–27 Armenia (mz 614)

Alan Ogden..........................................10

22–30 Anjou & Poitou (mz 611)

Dr Alexandra Gajewski........................53 24–28 Mediaeval East Anglia (mz 617)

John McNeill........................................32

24–30 Art & Industry (mz 618)

Dr Paul Atterbury

& Dr Tristram Hunt mp.......................35 26–29 Munch in Oslo (mz 622)

Dr Frank Høifødt...............................142 26– 7 The Narrow Sea (mz 620)

Majors Gordon & Imogen Corrigan......49 29– 6 Finland: Aalto & Others (mz 624)

Dr Harry Charrington.........................48

July 2013 3– 7 Organs of Bach’s Time (mz 629) James Johnstone & Tom Abbott..............76

3– 7 Flemish Painting (mz 631) Richard Williams.................................16

4– 8 Verona Opera (mz 632) Dr Joachim Strupp..............................101

204

7–13 THE JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH JOURNEY (mz 630).............75

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7–13 Scotland: the Borders (mz 640) Amanda Herries.................................157

10–15 King Ludwig II (mz 633)

Tom Abbott..........................................78 15–23 Mediaeval Saxony (mz 636)

Dr Joachim Strupp................................74 16–20 Savonlinna Opera (mz 637)

Newly-launched

Simon Rees...........................................49 18–22 The Age of Bede (mz 635)

New departure

Major Imogen Corrigan........................27 25–29 The Age of Bede (mz 638)

Major Imogen Corrigan........................27 31– 4 Operetta in Austria (mz 644)

Dennis Marks......................................15

Incontri in Terra di Siena.................117 Martina Franca................................131 Trasimeno Music Festival................121

August 2013 2–11 The Ring in Seattle (mz 648)

Barry Millington................................184 4–12 Santa Fe Opera (mz 652)

Newly-launched Richard Wigmore....186 6–10 Royal Residences (mz 647) Newly-launched

Giles Waterfield....................................40 8–12 Verona Opera (mz 653)

Newly-launched

Dr R. T. Cobianchi.............................101 12–16 Art in Munich (mz 649)

Tom Abbott..........................................77 16–22 Walking the Danube (mz 651)...........13 16–23 THE DANUBE

MUSIC FESTIVAL (mz 650)..........13 18–24 Grampian Gardens (mz 663)

Caroline Holmes.................................154 27– 3 The Victorian Achievement (mz 664)

Dr Paul Atterbury................................33 28– 2 King Ludwig II (mz 666)

New departure

Tom Abbott..........................................78 29– 2 Verona Opera (mz 668)

Dr Luca Leoncini...............................101 30–11 The Road to Santiago (mz 669)

John McNeill......................................162

Salzburg Summer...............................13 Stresa Festival.....................................95 Edinburgh Festival...........................158

Te l e p h o n e 0 2 0 8 7 4 2 3 3 5 5

September 2013 2– 9 Bohemia (ma 673) Michael Ivory.......................................19

3–10 Alsace (ma 672) Dr Cathy Oakes....................................61

3–10 Great Houses of the South West (ma 671) Anthony Lambert..................37

3–13 Transoxiana (ma 685) Prof. Hugh Kennedy...........................190

6–11 The Lucerne Festival (ma 677) Newly-launched

Prof. Jan Smaczny..............................177 7–19 West Coast Architecture (ma 675) Dr Harry Charrington.......................188

9–15 French Gothic (ma 676) Dr Matthew Woodworth......................56

9–16 Berlin, Potsdam, Dresden (ma 707) Dr Jarl Kremeier..................................69

9–16 The Cotswolds (ma 694) Dr Steven Blake...................................41

10–16 Connoisseur’s Prague (ma 674)

Michael Ivory.......................................21 10–21 Walking to Santiago (ma 682)

Adam Hopkins

& Gaby Macphedran..........................164 14–25 Morocco (ma 690)

James Brown......................................140 15–22 The Heart of Italy (ma 692)

Dr Fabrizio Nevola............................119

16–20 The Welsh Marches (ma 678)

Major Imogen Corrigan......................192 16–22 History of Medicine (ma 695)

Prof. Helen King

& Dr Luca Leoncini...........................111 16–22 Gastronomic Catalonia (ma 721)

Gijs van Hensbergen...........................160

19–25 Gardens & Villas of the Italian Lakes (ma 700) Steven Desmond.........91 20–26 St Petersburg (ma 705)

Dr Alexey Makhrov............................153 22–27 ENGLISH MUSIC IN YORKSHIRE....................................42 22–29 Courts of Northern Italy (ma 708)

Dr Fabrizio Nevola............................104 23–29 Istanbul (ma 713)

Prof. Judith Herrin.............................178 23–29 The Etruscans (ma 710)

Dr Nigel Spivey.................................122 23–30 Walking in Tuscany (ma 712)

Dr Antonia Whitley............................116 23– 4 Sicily (ma 717)

Christopher Newall.............................133

205

Dates

Dates continued

23– 6 The Western Balkans (ma 699) Newly-launched

David Gowan......................................17 28– 7 Classical Greece (ma 689)

Dr Oswyn Murray...............................80 29– 6 Dark Age Brilliance (ma 724)

Dr Ffiona Gilmore-Eaves...................106 30– 8 Castile & León (ma 696)

Gijs van Hensbergen...........................166

October 2013 1– 9 Aragón (ma 727)

Adam Hopkins....................................167 1–10 Israel & Palestine (ma 726)

Dr Garth Gilmour................................88 2– 6 Art in Madrid (ma 741)

Gail Turner........................................169 2– 6 Ravenna & Urbino (ma 728)

Dr Luca Leoncini...............................107 2–10 The Cathedrals of England

(ma 732) Jon Cannon..........................30 3– 7 The Venetian Hills (ma 729)

Dr Joachim Strupp................................96 4–10 Monasteries of Moldavia (ma 730) Alan Ogden........................................150

5–11 Gastronomic Piedmont (ma 731)

Marc Millon........................................94 7–13 Friuli-Venezia Giulia (ma 733)

Dr Joachim Strupp................................97 7–13 Caravaggio (ma 734)

Dr Helen Langdon.............................124

Dates

7–18 Ancient Egypt (ma 743) Dr Angus Graham................................24

8–13 Palladian Villas (ma 737)

Dr Michael Douglas-Scott....................98 9–24 Ethiopia (ma 746)

Prof. David Phillipson..........................46 10–17 Modern Art on the Côte d’Azur (ma 736) Monica Bohm Duchen...........66 11–17 Roman & Mediaeval Provence (ma 738) Dr Alexandra Gajewski........65 13–19 Ancient Rome (ma 739)

Angus Haldane...................................126 14–20 Malta (ma 735)

Juliet Rix...........................................139 14–24 Andalucía (ma 740)

Adam Hopkins....................................173 14–25 Sicily (ma 747)

Dr R. T. Cobianchi.............................133

16–27 Art in Texas (ma 742)

Gijs van Hensbergen...........................189 17–24 THE RHÔNE MUSIC FESTIVAL........................................67 21–26 Pompeii & Herculaneum (ma 745)

Angus Haldane...................................127 26– 3 Essential Jordan (ma 761)

Sue Rollin & Jane Streetly..................137 28– 3 Walking in Madeira (ma 760)

New departure

Gerald Luckhurst................................148

Parma Verdi Festival.........................105

206

Opera in Cardiff...............................193

Connoisseur’s Istanbul.....................180

November 2013 1–3 the thomas tallis trail................................39 4–11 Granada & Córdoba (ma 768) Gijs van Hensbergen...........................172

4–15 Painted Palaces of Rajasthan (ma 765).............................................87 6–10 Florentine Palazzi (ma 769) Dr Joachim Strupp..............................113

12–16 Venetian Palaces (ma 770)

Dr Michael Douglas-Scott..................102 15–29 Essential India (ma 771)

Dr Giles Tillotson.................................83 19– 2 The Indian Mutiny (ma 772)

Major Gordon Corrigan........................87

Opera in Venice................................100

December 2013 8–21 Bengal by River (ma 785) Dr Rosie Llewellyn-Jones......................87

We will run about eight Christmas and New Year tours. Details will be available in the spring of 2013. Contact us to register your interest.

Below: academy of art, after a drawing by Charles Nicolas Cochin, c. 1770. Right: Durham, steel engraving c. 1850.

b o o k o n l i n e a t w w w. m a r t i n r a n d a l l . c o m

M A RT I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L 2 0 1 3 : S E C O N D E D I T I O N

M A RT I N R A N D A L L T R AV E L A R T • A R C H I T E C T U R E • G A S T R O N O M Y • A R C H A E O L O G Y • H I S T O R Y • M U S I C • l i t e r at u r e

Voysey House, Barley Mow Passage, London, United Kingdom W4 4GF Telephone 020 8742 3355 Fax 020 8742 7766 info@martinrandall.co.uk Australia: Martin Randall Marketing, PO Box 537, Toowong, Queensland 4066 Telephone 1300 55 95 95 Fax 07 3377 0142 anz@martinrandall.com.au New Zealand: Telephone 0800 877 622 Canada: Telephone 647 382 1644 Fax 416 925 2670 canada@martinrandall.ca USA: Telephone 1 800 988 6168

5085

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2013

Second edition

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 O N O M Y • A R C H A E O L O G Y • H I S T O R Y • M U S I C • L I T E R AT U R E