In other news, I’ve just got back from my first visit to Japan: a week in Tokyo, on business, which turned out to be one of the most enjoyable and brilliant trips I’ve ever been on. I had the good fortune to travel with some really lovely colleagues from other companies, and our hosts could not have been kinder or more eager to help: Japanese hospitality truly is remarkable and I’ve certainly now been spoiled for life as far as business trips are concerned.
Last week, in a spirit of spontaneity that’s entirely uncharacteristic, I went on a last-minute trip to Florence. Work has been very intense this year, and that looks set to continue, so I was in desperate need of sunshine, gelati and the scent of pine, the chatter of cicadas and the quiet grace of frescoed churches. Fortunately I had a marvellous excuse. This summer everyone has been talking about the exhibition on Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino, subtitled Diverging Paths of Mannerism, at the Palazzo Strozzi. Not that I needed much of an excuse to return. Florence has been a very important place for me ever since I first went there with my parents at the age of fifteen, my head full of A Room with a View and the Medici, Leonardo and Michelangelo. I managed to get there three more times in my student days, but it’s been eight years since I was last there at the age of twenty-one. It was time to go back.
Even on an ordinary day Venice feels unreal, suspended between sea and sky, a jumble of bridges and alleyways and damp brick walls, porphyry and gold mosaic, ogee arches and pinnacles of blindingly white marble. I’ve been there twice before, but had always dreamed of going to the carnival and so couldn’t have been more excited when my parents decided to make their first trip to Venice and asked me to come along as translator and guide.
Yes, it’s a terrible pun, but my imaginative faculties are exhausted and you must forgive me. I spent last weekend and the beginning of this week in Amsterdam, a trip which was spontaneous and entirely unlooked for. It was for the purposes of business, but my boss, who knows my penchant for museums, granted me an extra night in the hotel and so I had most of Sunday in which to explore this unknown city.
This is going to be a long one, because I’m bubbling over with enthusiasm. I’ve just returned from a marvellous week in Sicily with my parents, who had very kindly taken pity on me and invited me to join them on Voyages Jules Verne’s ‘Treasures of Sicily’ tour. This post therefore has two parts: the first focuses on Sicily itself and the places we visited, while the second part focuses on my experience of travelling with an organised group.
I’ve just returned from a week in Qatar, which is certainly the most exotic place I have ever visited and also one of the most fascinating. This is a place of contrasts: the vast, stark, dusty grey emptiness of the desert butts up against glossy new buildings from cutting-edge architects. Qatari men wearing traditional white robes and headdresses drive around in oil-guzzling white Toyota Land Cruisers. The desert is all around and yet Doha nestles at the edge of the Persian Gulf, mirrored in its waters.
The Idle Woman 