Known as the ‘Ship of the Fens’, Ely Cathedral rises majestically from the surrounding landscape. Once it stood on an island, surrounded on all sides by water, but the draining of the Fens marshland several centuries ago reunited the land around the cathedral with the rest of the countryside. It still retains some of that other-worldly allure however and today rises magically from the early morning mists. The first church on this site was founded by a woman, Ethelreda, a 7th century Anglo-Saxon princess, although buiding on the present cathedral didn’t start until 1081.
Lincoln
On top of one of the steepest hills in Britain, Lincoln cathedral can be seen from most parts of the county and was described by the Victorian critic John Ruskin as ‘the most precious piece of architecture in the British Isles’. For a time in the Middle Ages, it was the tallest building in the world and is one of the few English cathedrals standing on the rock it is built from. Founded in 1072 by William the Conqueror’s travelling companion and supporter, the Benedictine monk Remigius, today its great west front is all that remains of the original Norman building.
Norwich
Built by the Normans soon after their victory at Hastings in 1066, Norwich Cathedral and nearby Norwich Castle were clear demonstrations of the invaders’ power and influence in what was then England’s second biggest city. As much a political statement as a religious one, the cathedral’s narrow nave with its soaring height and dramatic vaulting was deliberately sized to create the impression of power and grandeur. Its foundation stone was laid at the east end of the building in 1096.
Lichfield
Founded in the 8th century and filled with delicate angels, Lichfield Cathedral has come close to destruction several times over the centuries. The three spires of the cathedral are known locally as ‘the ladies of the vale’ and can be seen from all directions – but by the time they were completed there had already been a cathedral on the site for 600 years. The first church was built in 700, then demolished and rebuilt by the Normans in the 11 century, while today’s cathedral dates mainly from the 1400s.
Peterborough
While considerably less revered than its famous neighbours in Ely, Norwich and Lincoln, Peterborough cathedral has great historical significance and holds many treasures. It is one of the finest Norman buildings in the country and one of the few medieval cathedrals whose core structure remains essentially the same as it was on completion. Its 13th century wooden ceiling is the only one of its type in the UK and one of only four from this period surviving in all of Europe. It’s the final resting place for one of the nation’s most famous queens and maybe just have inspired part of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
St Edmundsbury
A modestly sized and recently conferred cathedral, St Edmundsbury received its status in 1914 when the former parish church of St James became the cathedral for the newly created diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. But it has a huge and unique heritage, sharing its site with a spectacular ruined abbey laid out over several acres that marks it as a place of religious worship for over 1,000 years. And its other unique aspect is a more contemporary one. It boasts the country’s newest cathedral tower, a mere infant in the grand scheme of cathedral histories, completed in 2005.
Oxford
England’s smallest cathedral, Christ Church Oxford survives today due to a series of fortunate coincidences. One of the oldest buildings in Oxford, it dates from the 12th century and as well as a cathedral, it’s the chapel for Christ Church College, one of the largest and wealthiest colleges in the university. It has strong links with several monarchs and famous literary figures and, unusually, its patron saint, Frideswide, is a woman. But it hasn’t been without controversy, particularly in more recent times.
Cathedrals of Britain: East and Central by Bernadette Fallon is published by Pen and Sword books, £12.99, buy online here
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Around the UK in 30 cathedrals
Cathedrals of Britain: London and the South East – Canterbury, St Paul’s, Westminster Abbey, Southwark, Westminster Cathedral, Rochester, Chichester
Cathedrals of Britain: West, South West and Wales – Winchester, Salisbury, Wells, Gloucester, Exeter, St Davids, St Asaph’s
Cathedrals of Britain: North of England and Scotland – York, Durham, Ripon, Wakefield, Sheffield, Bradfield, Edinburgh, Aberdeen
Image credit: Lichfield Cathedral, Bernadette Fallon
]]>Walking across the mountains of Abuna Yosef in north Ethiopia is one of the most spectacular journeys ever. Not to mention pretty hair-raising, slightly hazardous and very challenging. There was a mule involved at the start. We eyed each other, I got on, he did a 360-degree turn on a rocky ridge, I slid off and that was it. For the rest of the journey I was walking. For five hours.
Mekonnen, the boy I sponsor through children’s charity Plan International, lives in one of the most remote parts of Ethiopia. I flew for an hour and a half from the capital Addis Ababa to Lalibela airport where I was met by Kibremidir from Plan, then it was a four-hour drive up rocky mountain tracks to meet our guides and the mules. The climb started from here, three mountain peaks ahead of us to cross.
The scenery around us was breathtaking – I mean literally breathtaking: we were over 3,000 metres above sea level and I was gasping in the thin air as we reached the top of each peak. So it was fairly embarrassing to be overtaken along the ridge by men and women effortlessly walking barefoot, carrying bundles of grain on their backs.
I was there in November, harvest time in north Ethiopia, following the rainy season from June to September. October to January is the best time to visit; from February to the start of the rainy season the temperature rises sharply and the countryside loses its green blanket, becoming scorched in the searing African sun.
The sun was dipping behind the mountain as we started the final descent into a green valley with a few small tukuls (traditional Ethiopian single-room hut dwellings) surrounded by crops. I could hear a child excitedly shouting ‘faranji, faranji’ (that was me, the ‘foreigner’).
And then there were people running forward, bringing animal skins and setting them down on the ground in front of the huts, our guides were shouting greetings in Amharic, and the mules looked like they’d clocked it – we’d arrived. I asked where Mekonnen was and this beautiful smiling boy, who was busy laying our furry carpet on the ground, approached me.
I hadn’t been able to imagine what our meeting would be like and when it happened I just felt sheer and total joy to finally see him. I thought he might be a bit shy – I certainly was – but he was smiling and confident and shook my hand and then, a great honour, leaned in to touch each of my cheeks with his own. I told him I was so pleased to see him and thanked him for all of his letters over the past ten years. I was standing beside him and my legs were shaking as we talked – I didn’t know if it was from the long climb or sheer emotion, maybe a bit of both.
He speaks some English and his English is good, so it was great to be able to talk directly to him and he introduced me to his mother, his father, two sisters, brother and a friend. I met his grandmother who was sitting outside a neighbouring hut, we bowed and exchanged ‘Selam’, the Amharic greeting.
Then I sat with the family outside their house and gave them a photo album with copies of all the photos of Mekonnen and his family I have received through Plan in the last 10 years. His parents don’t speak English but we managed very well by pointing and smiling at the photos and Kibremidir translated when needed. I also took a football and football annual for Mekonnen – I know he’s a soccer fan from his letters – tea-towels for his mother and ping-pong balls for the rest of the family.
As the sun went down we went inside their tukul, a single circular room with benches around the edge and a small fire pit in the centre, the only light came from the open door and fire embers that Mekonnen’s mother was stoking into life. I was given the seat of honour, a low wooden chair covered in fur skins, under the hut’s only ornamentation – the clay wall that displayed a few photos of Mekonnen’s family alongside one of me, my brother and nephew taken in our kitchen in Ireland on my birthday last year!
After the journey we’d just taken I could fully appreciate the huge task of getting my photos and letters to Mekonnen several times a year. And we had it easy – driving for four of the nine hours of the journey. The community volunteers who carry the letters do it on foot from Lalibela – though mind you they don’t have me panting and wheezing up the side of a mountain to slow them down.
Letters are my link with Mekonnen but it’s the £15 I donate every month that allows Plan to provide facilities for the whole community. For this village of Gormalie and surrounding areas Plan has provided a school for 620 children – so many they take it in shifts to attend, the first group coming to classes from 8am to 12, the second from 12 to 4pm. There’s also a water project which provides clean water for the community, located beside the school.
In the tukul we were served branches of peas and beans – Mekonnen sitting beside me helped me find the sweetest pods. There was a coffee ceremony, with beans roasted on the open fire in front of me, then painstakingly ground in hollowed-out bark by his mother as the kettle boiled on the flames. Ethopia is the original home of the coffee plant and this was the best coffee I have ever tasted.
A huge serving platter of injera – traditional bread made from the local grain teff which grows all over the highlands – dressed with bean paste was passed around and we all helped ourselves from the plate, using the bread in place of cutlery to scoop up the thick bean filling. Freshly brewed beer, foaming furiously, was our next treat, only served on very special occasions as the grain used to brew it is expensive. As dusk fell the cows and goats returned and clustered around the tukul’s open door, more people and children came in and I played ping-pong catch with Mekonnen’s little sister. ‘Would you like some milk? Mekonnen asked, and when I said yes a cup was taken outside to the cow and filled with sweet-smelling warm – and extremely fresh! – milk.
I talked to Mekonnen about school and his favourite subjects – English and maths – and enjoyed the smiles of his younger brother who touchingly never seemed to stop beaming at me the whole time I was there. But by then it was very dark and we still had an hour’s walk across the mountain to the school where we would spend the night. The family were horrified to find we meant to leave and wanted us to spend the night there. I was humbled by the hospitality that insisted on finding space for a group of strangers among a family of seven in a small one-room tukul. Then Mekonnen, his brother and friend insisted on coming with us to carry bags and guide us safely across the mountain.
And there was still more hospitality when we reached the school; the teachers who lived in small stone huts close to the main building were worried the school floor wouldn’t be clean enough for our sleeping bags and insisted on giving up a room so we could sleep in their home, cooking us a dinner of macaroni and egg before we went to sleep.
I’m so moved by the generosity of people who have so little, sharing it with random passers-by who turn up unannounced in the middle of the night. But it doesn’t matter how much or how little, it’s the fact they share it with a happy heart and generous spirit. They may be poor in material possessions but in kindness and generosity the people I met on the mountain of Abuna Yosef are the richest of the rich.
And I learned something very important while I was there – and that’s to take what I’ve been given in life and make the most of it, not to wish my life was different or hanker after a life I don’t have, but use what I’ve been given to achieve what I want. I’ve been blessed with many more advantages in life than Mekonnen. He walks for two hours every day across a mountain to get an education, taking what he has been given to make his life better. I can learn a lot from him.
How to sponsor a child
Plan works with communities in 48 developing countries to help alleviate child poverty. In some of these countries one in five children will die before they reach their fifth birthday. For just £15 a month you could change this, helping Plan to build new schools and water treatment plants in local communities. Find out how to sponsor a child on the Plan website at www.plan-uk.org.
1. Start your trip to Dublin by getting your hands on a Dublin Bus pass. Not only will it let you access hop-on/hop-off tour buses so you can travel easily around the city and see the sights, it will also give you free or reduced entry into over 30 top Dublin attractions, as well as special offers and discounts at restaurants, bars and gift shops. If you buy it online and get it before you go (by post or on your mobile phone) you can also use it to travel for free on the bus from the airport to the city centre. The pass comes with a mini guidebook packed full of information and there’s also an app where you can access more. It’s available for 1, 2, 3 or 5 consecutive days and prices start from €59 for an adult ticket, €29 for a child.
(And of course, this being Dublin, not only do you get a full tour of the city on the big red buses that run every 15 minutes all day, from 9am to 6pm and then on the half hour until 7pm, you also get the bus driver banter. The stories, the insider info – such as the best place to find a pint of Guinness – and the passenger chats. If you want to be really ‘looked after’ in Dublin, take the tour!)
2. Ireland’s National Museum is a great place to start your Irish visit, exploring the history of this ancient land from prehistoric times through early Celtic, Viking and medieval periods. Current exhibitions include preserved bog bodies from the Iron Age, as well as insights into some of the world’s oldest passage grave monuments at the ancient Irish seat of kings, the Hill of Tara. The museum is located in Kildare street and close to the National Library, National Gallery, Government Buildings and St Stephen’s Green, right in the heart of the city. Free
3. Directly opposite is the National Library, where – among other things – you can explore your Irish ancestry. WB Yeats lovers will be delighted to find an ongoing exhibition devoted to the great writer’s life and works. (Being one, I certainly was). Free
4. Completing the triad of historical art and culture, and located nearby, is Ireland’s National Gallery, showcasing a collection of European paintings with a strong emphasis on Irish artists including Jack B Yeats, Paul Henry, Sir John Lavery and Walter Osbourne. You’ll also find one of the most recent Caravaggio’s to be discovered, The Taking of Christ, found lurking in the dining room of the Dublin Jesuits’ order home in 1990, and on loan to the gallery since. Coming up in July and running until the end of the year is an exhibition devoted to the, often previously hidden, works of Irish women artists. Free
5. Even more so than its artists, Ireland is particularly well known for its writers and, as the Dublin Writers’ Museum on the north-side of the city explains, “though geographically outside the spread of Western culture, Ireland has an undue proportion of the world’s greatest writers”. And this small but perfectly formed museum showcases all of the greats, including Ireland’s four Nobel Literature Prize winners, WB Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett and Seamus Heaney. Here you’ll also find James Joyce, Bram Stoker – the author of Dracula – Brendan Behan and Oscar Wilde. It’s also a great chance to see inside a Dublin Georgian mansion, with its grand sweeping staircase, ornate ceilings and painted wall decorations. Admission €7
6. Close to the Writers’ Museum is the James Joyce Centre, a museum dedicated to one of Ireland’s great writers, the infamous, formerly-banned, terribly complex James Joyce, author of what is widely believed to be the 20th century’s greatest – and most impenetrable – works of fiction, Ulysses. Housed in yet another grand though faded Georgian mansion at 35 North Great George’s St, this former townhouse of the Earl of Kenmare was turned into a dancing academy by Prof Denis Maginni, who features several times in Ulysses, a very colourful character by all accounts.
The house owes its continued existence to Joycean scholar Senator David Norris, a neighbour on the street who saved it from demolition in the 1980s. And one of the key dates on its calendar of events is Bloomsday – that famous date in literary history, June 16 1904 – the day depicted in Ulysess when the hero Leopold Bloom takes his stroll around the city of Dublin, from 8am through to the early hours of the next day. Celebrations include dressing up in the fashion of the period and visiting all of Bloom’s stops on his journey, as well as readings, performances and the legendary Bloomsday Breakfast, including liver and kidneys alongside the traditional fry. Admission €5
7. Staying with legendary writers, in an exhibition – and cultural space – new to the city of Dubin, the Seamus Heaney Listen Now Again showcase draws on the National Library’s extensive archive of Heaney documents and features the poet’s original manuscripts, letters, unpublished works, diary entries, photographs, note books and multi-media recordings. This will be the first exhibition to be housed in the new Bank of Ireland Cultural and Heritage Centre in central Dublin.
8. Another writer who features heavily in Dublin’s history, though he wasn’t always delighted to be a part of it, is Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels and Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral, the national cathedral of the Church of Ireland. It is believed to be built on the site of a former church established by St Patrick himself, the much-loved patron saint of Ireland. Today’s beautiful building was re-established by a grandson of Arthur Guinness, Benjamin Lee Guinness. Admission €7
9. Which brings us neatly to one of Dublin’s most famous attractions, the Guinness Storehouse, where, it is said, you will be served the finest glass of the black stuff in the world. Arthur established his brewing premises in 1759 at the St James’s Gate Brewery, signing a 9,000-year lease at £45 per year, making it one of the best-value investment in Dublin’s history. The brewery produces 3 million pints of Guinness every day and also offers 360° views of the city. Our tour bus driver treated us to a rendition of ‘You’re drunk, you’re drunk you silly old fool’ as we drove past. Advance admission from €19.50
10. Also in this area, which was heavily colonised by the Vikings and Normans in medieval times, is Christchurch Cathedral, once a major pilgrimage site which housed relics including a miraculous speaking cross and a piece of the Baby Jesus’ crib. Founded almost 1000 years ago, the building was in ruins by the 17th century when it was rescued and revived by another purveyor of alcoholic beverages – Henry Roe, whiskey distiller. A mummified cat and rat in the crypt are referenced in James Joyce’s other famous – and even more complex – work, Finnegans Wake. Admission €7
11. Henry Roe’s distillery closed down in the 1926, despite producing 2 million gallons of whiskey a year in its heyday, probably the highest output of any distillery in the world at the time, and twice as much as the Jameson Distillery was producing. Jameson’s is still going however and you can visit its Bow St premises in Dublin’s Smithfield where you will be given three shots of whiskey to try – American, Scotch and Irish. No prizes for guessing which you are supposed to favour. Admission from €17
12. Catch traditional Irish music seven days a week at a local Smithfield pub. The Cobblestone in North King St is legendary but there are plenty to choose from, all located easy wandering distance from each other so take it handy and have the craic. (The craic for the uninitiated is a particular blend of fun, enjoyment, conversation and entertainment much loved by the Irish on a night out). Free
13. History buffs will find much to engage them at Kilmainham Jail, scene of imprisonments and executions during the famous Irish rebellions of 1798, 1803, 1848,1867 and 1916, as well as the holding pen for convicts on route to Australia. Closed as a prison in 1924, it’s now a museum offering guided tours through the evocative building and several generations of Irish history. Nearby, the War Memorial Gardens commemorate the 50,000 Irish men who died in the First World War. 120,000 fought for the British Army, while back in Dublin, their countrymen were fighting against the British for control of their own country. The modern monument opposite the gardens, 15 blindfolded statues, represents the 15 leaders of the Easter Rising shot by British in May 1916. All were shot standing except one, James Connolly, who was too injured to stand and was strapped to a chair for his execution. Advance admission from €8
14. For a very contemporary take on Irish history, The Vaults is a new 60-minute actor-led journey through 800 years of Ireland’s past, blending live performance with special effects and lots of audience participation. It is opening soon in the newly-renovated old Augustinian St John’s National School, just off Thomas Street.
15. Shop for Irish gifts and souvenirs in the city centre; fashionable Grafton St on the south side, with the nearby Kilkenny Shop, Powerscourt Centre and Avoca perfect spots to browse the best of Irish design, crafts and gourmet food. Over on the north side, Henry St has lots of traditional high street boutiques and shopping centres, as well as the famous Moore St market.
16. Take coffee and cake in Bewley’s Café on Grafton Street, one of Dublin’s most iconic and celebrated landmarks, which has recently undergone a multi-million- euro refurbishment. Check out Bewley’s Café Gourmand, the Coffee Opera Cake and, an original favourite, the Bewley’s Mary Cake.
17. Stay at the Fitzwilliam Hotel, overlooking St Stephen’s Green in the heart of the city, which is a peaceful place for a relaxing early morning stroll. With top floor balconies overlooking the beautiful gardens, contemporary interiors that still have space for a cosy fire in the foyer and a very stylish afternoon tea option in the fashionable Inn on the Green bar, it’s a great city centre location to base yourself for your trip. Rooms from €289, afternoon tea from €39
18. If you want to splash out on some old-world glamour, head across the Green to the Shelbourne Hotel, where the guest register includes names like Greta Garbo, Laurel and Hardy, Rock Hudson, Princess Grace of Monaco and the Kennedy’s. The hotel’s 265 rooms have undergone a complete refurbishment in the last 18 months and its spa’s ‘drawing room’ relaxation area is one of the most sumptuous you will ever see. Or you could just pop in for a drink to the famous horse-shoe bar, where media stars and local characters rub shoulders. Traditional afternoon tea in the Lord Mayor’s room overlooking the Green €49; rooms from €300, suites from €1800
19. Dublin has another connection with legendary film stars – did you know that the famous MGM lion who roars at the start of each film is from Dublin Zoo? The Zoo is located in the Phoenix Park, the biggest enclosed public park in any capital city in Europe, just a mile and a half from the city centre. It’s a pleasant stroll out there along the River Liffey, which flows through the centre of the city and divides Dublin into north and south sides. Or, if you take the Dublin tour bus, the Zoo is one of the scheduled stops. Admission €17.50
20. And, staying with film stars and cinema, check out the beautifully restored Stella Theatre, an iconic cinema in buzzy Rathmines, a throwback to the glamour and glitz of the 1920’s and just short distance from the centre.
21. For more traditional theatrics, there’s the world-famous Abbey, Gate and Gaiety Theatres with programmes of Irish and international new works and classics. And this year’s Dublin Theatre Festival runs from the end of September to mid-October.
22. Private art donations provide some of the most inspiring collections in the city, including the Hugh Lane Gallery, an impressive array of modern works in the beautiful north-side gallery with its imposing architecture. Here you can also visit the studio of Francis Bacon, painstakingly re-created exactly as the artist left it on his death, namely, in complete chaos. Bacon claimed the mess was like his mind: ‘My life is like that, I needed to create in chaos – chaos suggests images to me’. Free
23. The other private collection bequeathed to the State is the Chester Beatty Library, located in Dublin Castle and a short distance walk from Trinity College and Grafton St. (If you’re in Trinity College, don’t forget to see the Book of Kells, the illuminated gospels dating from around 800). Described by the Lonely Planet as not just the best museum in Dublin, but one of the best in Europe, with exotic artefacts from across Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. At any one time only one percent of the collection is on display so even with regular changes, it is would not be possible to see all of the collection in a lifetime; quite amazing to think of breath and scope of it. Free
24. Dublin Castle, for many years the base of British rule in Ireland, is itself open to visitors and its current exhibitions include Coming Home: Art and the Great Hunger. This shows 50 acclaimed artworks from the world’s largest collection of famine-related art at Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum in the US, the first time they have been seen in Ireland. Admission from €6.50
25. For the latest finds on the food scene, try Berlin-d2, newly re-opened in Dame Lane, Boeuf in South William Street and Opium in Wexford St.
26. Those of a sporty nature will love the newly re-opened 132-year-old Clontarf Seawater Baths, with an open seawater swimming pool, bar and restaurants, all with panoramic views of Dublin Bay. Clontarf is a coastal suburb, not far from the city centre, most famous for the 1014 Battle of Clontarf where Brian Boru, the High King of Ireland, defeated the Vikings and ended the long-running Viking wars.
27. More for adrenaline junkies: there’s wakeboarding at Dublin docklands, from €25; white water rafting on the River Liffey, from €59; zip-lining at Tibradden, close to the city, from €15 and mountain bike trails at Ticknock, from €35. Meanwhile armchair enthusiasts can catch the GAA football and hurling season throughout the summer, with matches played most weekends.
28. Enjoy green living within the city. The National Botanic Gardens of Ireland are located just 3km from the city centre in Glasnevin. The garden is free to visit or you can take a guided tour for a small fee, enjoying the wonderful plants in gardens and glasshouses, including 300 endangered species and six that are already extinct. Afterwards pay a trip to the nearby Glasnevin Cemetery, which dates from the 19th century and is the final resting places of Irish notables including Daniel O’Connell, Charles Stewart Parnell, Eamon de Valera, Maude Gonne, Constance Markievicz, Kevin Barry and Brendan Behan. One of the most visited graves in the cemetery is that of Michael Collins, the nationalist leader who signed the Anglo-Irish treaty with the British government to create the Irish Free State and was later assassinated for his ‘betrayal’ in the Irish Civil War.
29. Get some sea air. Dublin’s coastal location makes it a great city break with a seaside option, and buses and the local DART train service run regularly to a wide range of beaches and clifftop walks. Check out Howth Head, Skerries, Dun Laoghaire Harbour, Sandymouth Strand or Killiney Beach for starters.
For more information on visiting Dublin and Ireland, go to www.VisitDublin.com and www.Ireland.com. Aer Lingus operates daily flights from London Gatwick and Heathrow to Dublin with fares from £32.99 one-way including taxes and charges. For more information or to book visit aerlingus.com
So nobody’s going anywhere for the foreseeable future – except now, perhaps into somebody’s back garden – but luckily, lots of kind people have taken it on themselves to make sure that we can still get a (24-hour-a-day-if-required) fix of art, culture, music and books. Here’s a round-up of some of the best.
THEATRE, OPERA, BALLET
The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden is beaming opera and ballet around the world, with a schedule of free broadcasts and live content. Check out the Royal Ballet’s Peter and the Wolf and The Metamorphosis, as well as the Royal Opera’s Così fan tutte and much more on the ROH Facebook and YouTube channels.
Ditto for the New York’s Met Opera – catch their productions here – string of pearls optional.
The Bolshoi Ballet is streaming previous productions including The Nutcracker and Spartacus on its YouTube channel with more to come – pull the curtains and pretend it’s Christmas. Staying with Christmas, you can watch the English National Ballet’s Swan Lake here.
The Irish National Opera has also put several of its productions online, including Puccini’s Madame Butterfly and Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice – full listing here. And catch Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro from Glyndebourne here.
Slava’s Snowshow is one of the most beautiful pieces of theatre I’ve ever seen (twice). You can’t recreate the magic of turning a theatre into a giant snowstorm/playground for giant floating balloons in an online screening, but you can enjoy the gentle humour and magic of the show. Try this as a taster and when we’re all released from house arrest again, check out a live performance somewhere in the world.
The Guardian has put together a great list of ‘Quarantine soirées’ – classical music and opera to stream at home from around the world, updated regularly.
Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre has over 130 filmed productions on its Globe Player video-on-demand service, including Twelfth Night with Mark Rylance (love Mark Rylance), Jonathan Pryce in the Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Michelle Terry.
The Globe is showing past productions for free on its YouTube channel, releasing a new show every week at 7pm. Each will be available from the date of release for 14 days. The productions are:
Hamlet (2018), Romeo and Juliet (2009), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2013), The Two Noble Kinsmen (2018), The Winter’s Tale (2018) and The Merry Wives of Windsor (2019) – plus, in a late addition, Macbeth (2020) has just gone live now.
You can also watch all of the Complete Walk series on its video-on-demand service. These are 37 short 10-minute films recorded with an all-star cast and shot on location, commissioned for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.
Latest shows just announced for the National Theatre’s YouTube channel in May and June include A Streetcar Named Desire, Coriolanus and This House. Get full details here.
Here’s a list of free musicals and plays from FilmedOnStage that you can currently stream – updated daily.
And What’s On Stage has also done a very useful round-up of stage shows, musicals and opera you can watch online for free.
Ireland’s Rough Magic Theatre has just put How to Keep an Alien, by Sonya Kelly, online, filmed at the Dublin Fringe Festival. And you can watch Druid Theatre’s award-winning production of The Playboy of the Western World here.
The Abbey Theatre and Royal Court Theatre’s co-production of Cyprus Avenue by David Ireland, starring Stephen Rea, is now available to watch online here.
Staying in the country, Dear Ireland is a series of 50 monologues created in self-isolation by 50 writers and 50 actors, exploring life during the Covid-19 crisis, commissioned by the Abbey Theatre. Streamed on YouTube over four nights and online for the next six months, it features actors and writers including Brendan Gleeson, Edna O’Brien, Cathy Belton and Joseph O’Connor and asks the question, what should Ireland write on a postcard to itself?
MUSEUMS
Why not pop over into an Irish museum while you’re at it. A whole load of them have just put themselves online for virtual tours here – top tip, the Chester Beatty Museum is a beaut.
Have a browse around behind closed doors in the BBC series Museums in Quarantine, featuring Tate Britain, the British Museum, Warhol at Tate Modern and Young Rembrant at The Ashmolean in Oxford.
Somerset House has released a brand-new virtual tour of its exhibition Mushrooms: The Art, Design and Future of Fungi. It’s the first time that the public will be able to see inside this original show from home, exploring the colourful cultural legacy of mushrooms and their powerful potential in the planet’s survival, featuring works from the likes of Beatrix Potter, Carsten Höller and Tom Dixon.
FILM
This could be a good time to consider a subscription to the British Film Institute – free 14-day trial and then £4.99 a month for lots of free films, plus others to rent for just £2.50. New films are being added all the time, plus there’s a substantial archive list. They have the Buena Vista Social Club – what more do you want?
The Regent Stree Cinema is also offering free membership for three months and the chance to enjoy FILM ESSENTIALS, a selection of specially curated titles powered by online streaming service MUBI. Join to receive details on how to start watching films for free over the next three months.
MUSIC
NEW: Watch the London Mozart Players in action with regular recitals broadcast every week on the LMP website, YouTube and Facebook, as well as interviews with leading musical lights including pianist Howard Shelley and jazz singer Claire Martin.
NEW: There’s more classical music on demand here, courtesy of Bachtrack – and catch the Royal College of Music concerts here.
NEW: The Sligo County Fleadh has been cancelled of course but they’re streaming some live music sessions instead this coming weekend, from May 29.
Billy Bragg live streamed a concert from New York at the start of May, featuring Rosanne Cash, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Steve Earle, The Indigo Girls, KT Tunstall, Loudon Wainwrigh and many more. It was a paid-for event – but here he is playing New York’s Bowery Ballroom last September.
A treat for trad lovers. Irish language TV station TG4 is running a 6-week musical tour of the west coast of Ireland every Sunday at 9.30pm, with legendary traditional musicians, father and son, Breanndán and Cormac Ó Beaglaoich – Slí na mBeaglaoich (Journey of the Begleys). Travelling up the west coast from Kerry to Donegal in their 40-year-old camper van, they’ll team up with friends for tunes and explore the landscape, musical and physical. I’m so enjoying this every week and – of course – Sligo was the highlight.
NEW: For more great Irish music, catch Mary Coughlan gigging in her garden – wrapped in a blanket! – with her band, raising money for Bray Women’s Refuge. And Glen Hansard was recorded live in the National Library of Ireland – not sure if I enjoyed looking at Glen or the books more.
In April, Jack Lukeman launched what would have been the start of his tour with a live show from his sitting room – love this and great to see the comments pouring in from all over the world. (The start of this is particularly hilarious – you have to watch it!) The good news is that it went so well he’s now doing live shows (from his sitting room) every Saturday night at 8pm. He’s already done Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash tributes, an ’80s night, folk night and songs from the 27 club. He’s on a break now for a few weeks, back on June 20 with a Bowie night.
Back in the real world – if it still exists, anyone looked recently? – Jack and Mary Coughlan are doing a show in London on Saturday 26 September in Shoreditch Town Hall. I’ll be first in as soon as the door opens.
Jack did it, so Andrew Lloyd Webber thought he would too. He’s releasing a new musical every Friday on this YouTube channel, each one will be available for 48 hours and first up is Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.
Catch Andrea Bocelli singing from Duomo di Milano, Milan Cathedral, here. This solo performance was been created as a message of hope and healing to Italy and the world.
Over 200 musicians have come together to share their music, with concerts broadcast at 8pm on YouTube (brainchild of the artists’ agency Weltenklang, donate to the project here). With performers from Ireland, Scotland, Austria, Portugal, Canada, Louisiana, Makedonia, Iceland, Mali, Sweden, California, Romania and other exotic places taking part, you’ll join them in their homes for the session – because, these days, there’s nowhere like home.
Catch some singing – here’s a virtual performance of Cyndi Lauper’s True Colours, recorded by the Camden Voices choir from their individual homes. More videos on the way they say.
ART
NEW: Take a virtual art tour, courtesy of Art Fund; options include tours of the British Museum, the Courtauld, Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum and the National Galleries of Scotland.
NEW: Delve into the minds of the Impressionists at the Royal Academy of Arts, with its Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse exhibition, guided by expert curators, artists and garden enthusiasts.
NEW: You can also explore two of the Royal Academy’s recent Hockney exhibitons – A Bigger Picture in 2012 and 82 Portraits and One Still-Life in 2016. I ended up seeing A Bigger Picture shortly before midnight one Saturday as the gallery opened up all hours to meet the demand for tickets. One of the best late-night Saturdays I’ve had in London.
NEW: Speaking of late nights, Uniqlo Tate Lates have gone online now, starting from this weekend – a chance to listen to talks, poetry and music, create your own artworks and even do a bit of meditation.
NEW: Or just go to the Barbican.
You can browse beautiful paintings at the National Gallery – stare at Caravaggio to your heart’s content, I know I do. The gallery has also put together several curated collections to watch on video – take a look at paintings of people working from home, enjoy a tour of art history’s female protagonists or spend a day in the countryside.
Take a tour of the new Andy Warhol exhibition at Tate Modern with curators Gregor Muir and Fiontán Moran – the launch of this show was one of my last trips out to the real world. You can also tour the Aubrey Beardsley exhibition at Tate Britain – also excellent.
The Tate’s collection is here – both contemporary and historic. There are loads of great art projects for kids here – and everything from quizzes to crafts here.
While the BMW Tate Live Exhibition has been cancelled in real time, one of the artists programmed for this year’s event has created an online work instead, performed and filmed in the empty Tanks at Tate Modern after the gallery closed. Watch My Body, My Archive, a performance re-invented for this unquie situation, by Congolese choreographer and dance artist Faustin Linyekula.
And you don’t need to stay in the UK obvs; the Uffizi gallery in Florence holds nearly a third of the world’s art treasures and the biggest collection of Renaissance art on the planet – and you can look at it here.
Browse the works of Frida Kahlo here.
Or re-create your own art at home – this one is my favourite!
BOOKS & KID’S ACTIVITIES
A fantastic piece of news – The Hay Literary Festival has gone digital this year, with a programme that is running from now until May 31. There will be talks, readings, author Q&As and special events, including a reading of the works of Wordsworth by a celebrity line-up including Hilary Mantel, Stephen Fry, Benedict Cumberbatch, Margaret Atwoood and more. All of the events are free but you do have to register – and while there are thousands of places available, some of the more popular events – such as Hilary Mantel talking about her latest novel The Mirror and The Light – are filling up fast. All are available to view afterwards for a limited amount of time. See the full programme and catch up with previous events here.
Galway’s Cuirt International Festival of Literature also went online for the first time in its history this year, with some excellent readings and talks from, among others, Anne Enright, Sara Baume, Sinead Gleeson and Lisa McInerney – catch them all here.
You won’t be able to go to your local library any more for books, but you can borrow ebooks and audiobooks from thousands of libraries online using your library card with the Libby app or at Borrowbox. If you don’t have a library card you can still join online while they are closed – just sign up here.
More places for free books – try Project Gutenberg, a library of over 60,000 ebooks which you can download or read online. And for another 16 free book options, Lifewire has put together a list of the best websites here, with pros and cons for each.
Internet Archive has just put 1.4m new books online for free browsing, from study support and educational texts to the latest novels.
If you’re looking for kids’ books, David Walliams is releasing 30 free audio books for children. And here’s a list of children’s authors doing read-alouds and activities.
Also for kids, some very enterprising person on FB has just published a timed list of daily activities – quite fancy a few of them myself:
9am PE with Joe Wicks
10am Maths with Carol Vorderman
11am English with David Walliams
12pm Cooking with Jamie Oliver
1pm Music with Myleene Klass
1.30pm Dance with Darcey Bussell
2.00pm History with Dan Snow (free for 30-days)
4.00pm Home Economics with Theo Michaels (Mon/Wed/Fri)
Non-daily events include: Science with Professor Brian Cox and Geography with Steve Backshall
Of course, if you want to support independent booksellers during this incredibly difficult time, lots of them are now doing deliveries – some by skateboard – and they need your money more than Amazon.
GET CREATIVE OR ‘GO’ PLACES
NEW: Pop along to Ireland’s Bloom festival this weekend, Sunday May 31, with workshops on cooking and gardening as well as a craft beer and farmhouse cheese tasting, not quite sure how that’s going to work out…
NEW: If you’re living in Croydon, you might want to contribute to the Museum of Croydon’s Lockdown Stories, reflecting the lives of Croydon residents during the COVID-19 pandemic and providing a record for future generations. If you’re not living in Croydon, you might want to seriously re-consider your life choices.
Get creative yourself – there are literally thousands of courses being released for free at the moment, everything from cookery to cricket (well, I’m not sure really about cricket – but there’s bound to be one eventually). My favourite last week was a masterclass of guitar lessons with Carlos Santana, this week I like the look of these free online art courses, thoughtfully rounded up by this kind man on YouTube.
Once you’ve progressed from learning guitar with Carlos, you can find out how to compose a film score with Hans Zimmer (did music for Inception, The Lion King, The Dark Knight) – this one is a paid-for course.
Gresham College in London has put a whole archive of lectures online – everything from mysteries of the dark cosmos to equations that have changed the world. They’ve also put a fantastic collection of lectures specifically about London up – am most looking forward to ‘The City of London in Literature’. Went to a few of their lectures in the days I could roam freely – they are really excellent (I’d like to take this chance to recommend their Christmas series).
If you really have to ‘get out’ – you can virtually wander across 825 miles of Florida’s beaches, go to Austria or – just for fun – tour the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, once the world’s most famous and expensive prison, which housed Al Capone.
NEW: Visit the pandas at Edinburgh Zoo, wander around Buckingham Palace and Kew Gardens or make the most of this quiet time in the world’s busiest tourist spots and check out everywhere from the Spanish Steps and Colosseum to St Mark’s Square and Prague’s Old Town. Here’s what New York looks like empty. And here are some eerie photos of London before and after lockdown.
Visit Highclere Castle for a tour with the lady of the house every Friday evening at 7pm, courtesy of Viking TV. The home of Lord and Lady Carnarvon, it’s better known today as the ‘real Downton Abbey’.
If you want to go even further back in history, look at prehistoric cave paintings in the Dordogne, view medieval buildings and travel through beautiful countryside here.
Why would we ever want to leave the house again?
800 years ago, this place was a monastery. Monks climbed the stairs of this abbey, passed under the vaulted ceilings, enjoyed the sunlight through these huge stained-glass windows.
But they didn’t walk on carpet on their way to eat in a Michelin-starred dining room. They didn’t rock in the huge wooden swing by the lake. Nor would they have crossed the hump-backed bridge to the tiny island with its trees and treehouse.
Back then there were no swings or treehouses and the lake was a sewage facility for the 12th century monastery. Now the lake is a home to ducks and a family of herons, and the abbey-turned-hotel has been sympathetically preserved by an English family to display its wonderful architecture to a whole new generation of worshipers.
Only now we come to admire the beauty of the building, the gourmet food and the tranquil setting instead of God. But if you have any spiritual awareness at all, you’ll quickly find this beautiful place resonating with your soul.
There are 20 rooms in total at the Abbaye de la Bussière explains owner Clive Cummings when he picks us up at Dijon train station, a half hour drive from the abbey, including rooms in the main house as well as the various other buildings around the grounds, some of which have been converted into family suites.
There are two restaurants, again with soaring arches and magnificent architecture. The fine dining Michelin-starred restaurant is a grand affair with stone arches and chandeliers and offers both a tasting menu – matched with wines – and an a la carte, with choices including frogs’ legs, local freshwater zander and pigeon. But in fairness, the quality of the food is just as good in the hotel bistro, pictured below.
Our cosy double is nestled under the eaves with views of the gardens and lake. As befits its luxurious setting, it’s kitted out with a Nespresso machine and a welcome bottle of home-made peach liqueur – there’s a jacuzzi bath in the bathroom, fluffy robes and slippers in the wardrobe.
I’m watching the photos emerging from several days of protest in Beirut with some dismay. Just last week I walked around the streets of the city and stood in the square close to the mosque and Christian church where fires now blaze.
This weekend also, the President of Ireland was evacuated from the hotel I stayed in, the glamorous Phoenicia overlooking the waterfront. Hardly surprising. In a city as small as Beirut, a fire anywhere is not going to be too far away from the hotel – not close enough to put him in any danger but close enough to make minders uneasy.
Last Sunday I stood looking into the parliament square where a protest was underway, a peaceful protest where hundreds of people stood with placards, calling for fairness in their government. It was made up of all ages, the young and the old, people, it seemed to me, from all walks of life.
It was just like the protest I took part in on Saturday in London, where hundreds of thousands of us, young and old, from all walks of life, marched with placards and called for fairness in our own government.
But the Beirut protests erupted in flames after the government introduced even more crippling taxes for its already financially stretched population – and flames make headlines. Beirut is only putting itself back together after the nightmare of its 15-year civil war, from 1975 to 1990, when the very name of the city became a catch word for destruction and mayhem and violence. It began as a religious war as East fought against West and Israeli and Syrian forces entered the country, but alliances shifted rapidly and unpredictably. 120,000 people were killed during the fighting, one million left, 76,000 still remain displaced within the country.
Going there last weekend, I hadn’t expected to find a city that was so beautiful, so calm and so welcoming. There are still streets of war-torn houses and bullet-marked walls but there are many more streets of preserved 18th and 19th century buildings and attractive Art Deco and 1930s architecture.
Entire areas of the city have been completely rebuilt, using a modern take on classical design, here you’ll find the designer shops, the posh restaurants, the stylish cafes and bars. In more run-down streets are the businesses that survived the war, the oldest Armenian bakery in the city, the traditional spice shops and coffee houses.
Around another corner there are contemporary glass buildings with their penthouse apartments – some built over the city’s ancient Roman ruins, preserved in the glass enclosed foundations. These sit alongside streets of 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s architecture, Brutalist blocks of concrete, the ancient sitting beside the new.
The old sits beside the new in the culture and lifestyle as well, here you will see Muslim women in traditional dress as well as in Western clothes. On a day trip from Beirut to the coastal city of Tyre, I watched a group of Lebanese teenagers party on the beach, a few swimming in the sea, where a girl in full hijab floated alongside her friend in a swimsuit.
There are businesses with a conscience here in Beirut, proving that progress is not all about blind capitalism. Sarah’s Bag and Bajoka both work with underprivileged communities to produce their products – Sarah’s Bag employing female prisoners to make designer handbags for which they are paid a wage, Bajoka keeping the skills of the refugee community alive in their high-end homewares.
With all that was destroyed in the Lebanese war, it’s amazing so much remains. There are growing numbers of tourists and facilities for them – as well as the luxury hotels like the Phoenicia, lower cost guesthouses are opening up as well as hostels.
Today, the UK government confirm that protests have been generally peaceful, but there has been sporadic violence, including clashes between protestors and security forces, vandalism and looting. Banks remain closed, and there are reports of some ATMs being low on cash.
Beirut was described as the ‘Paris of the Middle East’ in its 1960s heyday and the Phoenicia was the jewel in its crown with its majestic entrance staircase, marble lounges and chandeliers.
It’s clear those days can come back if the unrest settles, if the problems of high prices and the country’s political elite, perceived as out of touch and insensitive to the problem of its citizens, are resolved. National debt is high – more than 150% of the country’s GDP. The militia leaders of the war, who came to political power afterwards in a system based on power sharing between religious groups, have been criticised for plundering the state to hand out privileges, jobs and lucrative contacts to supporters. The country’s premier, Saad al-Hariri, gave his partners in government an ultimatum to agree a package of reform to ward off economic collapse.
There’s something of an irony in all of this. Divided in war time into religious factions, last week’s protests united the people of Lebanon as Christians, Sunni and Shia Muslims gathered together to call for the corrupt political elite to stand down.
Unity and inclusive leadership are what the country needs. I hope it achieves its aims and continues to welcome travellers to experience its wonderful charms.
Bologna is the capital of the region and the main airport if you’re flying from the UK. And so, if you’re thinking food, you may be thinking ‘spaghetti bolognaise’. Don’t. It’s an aberration of Italian cooking and Italians have never heard of it.
What we know as ‘bolognaise’ is ragu in Italy; a simple tomato sauce, cooked with a mixture of pork and beef. It forms part of my first Italian lunch in a small village called Dozza, about three quarters of an hour’s drive from the airport, taken to break the journey to Ravenna, another half hour away.
At an atmospheric trattoria called La Locanda del Castello, in the shadow of a medieval castle, we eat home-made pasta with the ragu sauce, served alongside one of the regional specialities, capellitti pasta stuffed with three cheeses, served in a creamy Parmesan sauce.
In Emilia Romagna, tomato sauce contains nothing more than tomatoes and basil. It follows Pellegrino’s Artusi’s classic recipe from his La scienza in cucina e l’arte di mangiare bene – The science of cooking and the art of eating well – first published in 1891 and revised by him into 15 subsequent edition to include regional delicacies and reader recipes from around the country. It was Italy’s first national cookbook, collecting together classic dishes from the diverse city-states of which Italy was previously formed. And still today, you will find a much-thumbed copy in every Italian kitchen.
How to make Artusi’s tomato sauce
Saute a few thick slices of onion in 2 tablespoons of butter and 2 tablespoons of olive oil. When the onion has browned, remove it from the saucepan. Stir peeled, seeded and chopped tomatoes into the pan, add fresh basil, salt and pepper. Allow to simmer for half an hour, by which point the sauce will have thickened.
We get a chance to experience Artusi’s culinary wisdom and put it into practice at the Casa Artusi institute in the town of Forlimpopoli. Northern Italy is famous for its pasta, the south for its pizza, so it’s fitting that we learn how to make several different types of pasta – from simple shapes and twists to the more elaborate filled capellata, similar to tortellini.
It’s surprisingly easy to do and definitely easy to recreate in a UK kitchen, without the need for complicated pasta-making machines. All that’s required is strong white flour, eggs, a rolling pin and strong arm muscles (don’t worry if you don’t have them before you start – they’ll have developed by the end!)
As well as the cookery school, the institute houses a library, museum, wine cellar, shop, event space and restaurant, founded in the name of this famous gastronomist, a living celebration of home cookery. For lunch we eat the pasta dishes we’ve just made and are delighted with our newfound skills – there’s talk of setting up a Facebook competition to compare our future efforts.
How to make pasta
Using the ratio 100g of strong flour to one egg; pour the required amount of flour onto a large wooden board, make a hole in the centre and break in the eggs. Using a spoon, mix the eggs into the flour and once blended, use your hands to knead the mixture vigorously for about 10 minutes. Then cover and allow the dough to rest for up to 15 minutes.
Once rested, roll the pasta into a large thin disk using a rolling pin – the trick is to keep turning the dough to get an even spread that won’t break; Italians also like to hang part of the dough over the edge of the table, to stretch it out, ready to roll. Finally cut your pasta into the required shapes and cook, or stuff with cheese/meat/vegetables to make tortellini.
Casa Artusi arranges bespoke cookery lessons for groups of up to 20 people. Email info@casartusi.it for information and prices or visit the website at www.casartusi.it.
Taking a wine tour
‘Regional’, ‘local’ and ‘food from just down the road’ has always been at the heart of Italian cooking and not just the buzzwords they’ve become for us in recent years. It’s all part of the ‘kilometre zero’ approach to cooking; and ensures menus change with the season. Here even the wine is likely to have been produced just a few minutes away from where you’re sitting.
So you should definitely make time for a tour of some of the region’s wineries, and sample the grape varieties of Aballa – for white wine – and Sa – for red. There are lots of local wineries in the area, where production takes place on a small-scale level and bottles are sold and drunk locally. If you’re looking for some unique ‘money-can’t-buy’ (at home) gift ideas, here’s where you’ll find them.
Fattoria Paradiso is a family-run vineyard close to the beautiful medieval city of Bertinoro. Today, three generations of the Pezzi family work to make wines from a variety of grapes, including the famous Sangiovese, which fast becomes our favourite tipple for the rest of the trip. I would suggest it’s almost worth a trip to this part of Italy to try it out the Sangiovese of Romagna.
If wine is your thing, it’s worth hiring a guide to take you around the local wineries – more information at www.vinotour.it
Sampling the local cuisine in Ravenna and Rimini
When you’re not hand-rolling your own pasta to eat, try the lovely Osteria del tempo Perso, a traditional trattoria with net curtains, dark wooden furniture and plenty of locals, in the historical centre of Ravenna.
Or opt for a traditional lunch of piadina in Rimini – Italian flatbread with meat or vegetarian fillings – at Nude Crude, close to the historic quarter.
And once on the coast in Rimini, make use of the great sea views at an upmarket restaurant like Club Nautico, with its views of yachts tied up on the marina outside. Rimini is a bit of a party town and a popular seaside holiday destination for Italians; the beach strip has plenty of buzzing restaurants and bars.
What else is there to do in the region?
In-between meals you mean? Well, there’s plenty to do, from marveling at the beautiful mosaics for which Ravenna is world famous, to touring the medieval castles of the Malatesta and Montefeltro lands nearby.
Visit Castello di Montebello to hear its chilling ghost story. On the summer solstice 1375, a little girl disappeared in the castle storeroom and was never seen again. But every five years on summer solstice, she can be heard crying within the castle. On a guided tour you will be played recordings of what sounds like the plaintive cries of a child, made on recent solstices – it’s extremely eerie and a bit unsettling.
Less spooky is the Fortress of San Leo where, on the day we visit, a medieval re-enactment of life in the castle is taking place, complete with a medieval baby playing in the kitchen as women prepare a banquet and men demonstrate weaponry.
It’s a steep hike up to the fortress, so you’ll be wanting dinner after that. La Sangiovesa, is located in the picturesque town of Santarcangelo, wonderfully inventive Italian cooking produced with local ingredients.
Ravenna has eight UNESCO world heritage sites, which are the churches showcasing the wonderful mosaics that date back to the early part of the first millennium. Talk to a local about the Renaissance and they’ll dismiss it as recent history; the early Christian churches here date back to the 5th century. Back then, Ravenna had over 200 churches, and many of those remaining are clustered close together amid winding streets and large gardens.
You’ll need a ticket to visit the churches, but they’re well worth a look – it’s hard to believe that the shimmering colours and arresting images on the soaring ceilings, walls and domes, were worked in mosaic over 1600 years ago.
Back on the modern city streets, visit a mosaic workshop and see contemporary craftsmen at work, creating mosaic panels to hang on walls. You can buy them to take home with you or sign up for a mosaic workshop to create your own mini works of art. Visit www.kokomosaico.com for more information.
The region is also a great base if you want to go further afield for a day trip; Florence is just 99km away, Rome an hour and a half on a fast train. It’s well worth hiring a guide to show you the sights – and the best places to eat! We used the services of three during our four-day trip; for more information contact them individually: Paola.Golinelli@ad-arte.com, Nadia Smanio: nadiasm@tin.it, barbarastolecka@msn.com
Where to stay
We stayed at the Bisanzio Hotel in Ravenna – B&B from €80; and at Hotel Lungomare in Rimini, from €120 in peak season, €70 low season
Getting there
There are regular flights to Bologna with easyJet and British Airways from London Gatwick, and Ryanair from Stansted, Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh and Dublin.
More information
For further information on Emilia Romagna, visit www.emiliaromagnaturismo.it/en – follow on Twitter @ERTourism
]]>The heart-breaking job of burying the dead was still underway in Sri Lanka this week when three cornered suicide bombers blew themselves up on Friday night during a security forces operation, killing 15 others, including six children.
Another devastating blow for the people of Sri Lanka who last week, on Easter Sunday, witnessed their country racked apart when suicide bombers took up position in three churches and three luxury hotels and detonated their terrible packages. A statement from Isis said that churches and hotels with foreign guests from “crusader” countries had been struck.
I was one of those “crusading guests” who visited Sri Lanka last September, staying at the Shangri-La hotel in Colombo, having breakfast in that same dining room that was last week ripped apart by two bomb blasts that killed entire families.
I chatted to the friendly staff, met many kind people who welcomed us to the hotel and Sri Lanka, delighted that after many years of civil war in their country, tourists were now returning and boosting the economy, providing jobs and income. (Twenty-six years of fighting between the government and the Tamils ended just ten years ago).
The driver who picked us up at the airport at 4.30am stopped his car as he drove through the dark city so he could buy us two fresh coconuts from the early morning stall-holders who were just setting up by the river. We drank coconut milk as the sun came up and the driver told us how happy he was we had come to his country. (He also told us how delighted he was to see my friend Rob’s dreadlocks – “the first time I have ever seen hair like this,” he said)
Later that day we zipped through the city streets in a tuk-tuk – presented with more fresh coconuts by our driver Rex as we climbed abroad.
We wound our way through the traffic as people waved from neighbouring scooters, children laughing as we overtook them, waving furiously with wide smiles as they overtook us.
We met groups of men in the Spice Market who wanted to come and shake our hands and have their photo taken by Rob. With wide smiles and thumbs up they posed madly. And later, one man who had stayed outside of the group shyly approached Rob to ask if he could have his picture taken too.
We learned the history of Sri Lanka’s proud past in the tea shops, ate lunch with locals in the market – the men sitting with us at the communal tables gesturing at the staff to bring me some cutlery, so that I wouldn’t have to look like a foreign idiot eating with my hand as they did.
We went down streets that have only been opened recently to the public following the years of fighting, the bullet holes still clearly visible in the walls. And everywhere we went we found friendliness and kindness – Rob is still in touch with many of the people we met on our visit.
Yesterday the British government issued a statement advising against travel to Sri Lanka, except in essential cases. The country will suffer loss of income from foreign travellers and no doubt many of the people we met will lose their jobs. Another heart-break.
But while the bombers have wrecked great destruction and tremendous horror on the country, they can’t take away its spirit – the spirit of kindness, friendliness and welcome. The welcome that the suicide bomber who entered the Protestant Zion church in Batticaloa received from the pastor’s teenage son – killed moments later – is unutterably poignant and heart-rending.
But kindness and love will win out over hatred and hostility. I believe this. I believe that the spirit of the Sri Lankan people will win. And people will return to the country again, to show solidarity and to show those that attempt to spread fear and hate, that you will not succeed.
Christian churches and western style hotels were targeted in the hate attacks. Only just over 7% of the country is Christian. 9% is Muslim, 12% is Hindu and the overwhelming majority, 70% of the 20m Sri Lankan population, are Theravada Buddhists. There are 6,000 Buddhist monasteries in Sri Lanka, over 15,000 Buddhist monks and thousands and thousands of temples.
Theravada is the most ancient form of Buddhism, a practice that teaches its followers to develop the qualities of awareness, kindness and wisdom to reach a state of complete freedom from any spiritual, emotional or mental restrictions or limitations. It teaches that nothing is fixed or permanent, actions have consequences and change is possible. And so I believe that hate doesn’t have to be permanent, that change is possible.
On our last day in Sri Lanka, having travelled to the south of the country, we visited one of the temples – Mulkirigala Rock Temple, where we climbed over 500 steps to visit seven caves on five terraces, with their ornate wall paintings and huge reclining Buddhas. We met a monk called Siriniwasa, who was wary at first when Rob, having asked our guide if it would be appropriate to ask for a photo, approached him.
And after posing for a few photos with his young Buddhist apprentices, he eventually whipped out a mobile phone from under his robes and asked if Rob could take a photo of them all with it. I was eventually persuaded into the group to take photos of Rob with the monks, all of them beaming furiously. By now fast friends, Siriniwasa asked Rob to help them plant a tree and he did, there at the top of Mulkirigala, everybody delighted with their new found friendship.
I’ll go back to Sri Lanka again. I’ll go back to see the people we met, to see how they’re coping and to see if Rob’s tree has grown. I very much look forward to it.
******
I first wrote about my trip to Sri Lanka for The Scotsman newspaper and it was published in December 2018 using Rob’s photos
There’s an elephant standing a few metres away from our jeep in Sri Lanka’s Udawalawe National Park, engaged in a very elaborate breakfast routine. Kicking the grass to loosen it, he tugs it free, then rolls it painstakingly with his trunk, constantly repeating the process over and over – kicking, tugging, rolling – an awful lot of hard work to make each small mouthful.
So far this morning we’ve seen elephants, spotted deer and water buffalo as well as a myriad of birds. But the most magical moment of all was on our way to the elephant transit centre, where abandoned baby elephants are cared for before being introduced back into the wild, when a – clearly selfie-conscious – large male elephant came to the edge of the road for a photo.
Standing the other side of a thin wire fence where a few other jeeps had also pulled up, he moved over to each new arrival, waiting patiently until they’d had their photo taken with him before moving on to the next group. “This is such kindness,” said our guide Palinder in wonder as we snapped away furiously.
Read the rest of the article published in The Scotsman…
All photos by Rob Wilson Jnr, Fluid4Sight
From ice skating, light trails and spending the night in the home of the Christmas card, see our round-up for festive inspiration in 2018
Go ice skating
Some of the London ice rinks are open already – you can get your skates on at the National History Museum, on its wonderful rink in front of the historical building, surround by light-bedecked trees. There’s a café bar overlooking the rink if you’re not a skater – treat yourself to a hot chocolate and mulled wine.
Until 6 January, tickets from £12 adults, £8.80 children, £39.60 families; Nhm.ac.uk
Once the outdoor fun is over, pop inside to check out the stunning images in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition (tickets £15/£9)
One of the most beautiful rinks in London, Skate at Somerset House (pictured above) takes place in the iconic building’s courtyard, under a 40ft Christmas tree. Hosted in association with Fortnum & Mason, after the skating visit alpine inspired restaurant Fortnum’s Lodge or shop at Fortnum’s Christmas Arcade.
There’s a skate school where you can learn to skate or brush up your skills; alternatively book a Skate Mate to provide assistance for novice skaters – available for 3 to 15 people, (cost £35 in addition to the price of your skating ticket). Special Skate Lates will feature leading DJs and artists on rink-side decks.
The rink is also open to wheelchair users and there are special dedicated wheelchair sessions.
From November 14 to January 13; £11 adults, £8.50 children; Somersethouse.org.uk
The ice rink at the Tower of London gives visitors a chance to skate in the moat surrounding one of London’s most famous landmarks, with stunning views of the Tower and the river Thames.
From November 23 to January 6; £14.50; Toweroflondonicerink.co.uk
Visit Hyde Park’s Winter Wonderland for a chance to skate on the biggest outdoor rink in the UK, surrounding the park’s Victorian bandstand, and illuminated with over 100,000 lights. Afterwards, check out the park’s Christmas markets, Magical Ice Kingdom, Enchanted Forest, Santa Land and fairground rides.Read more about the Winter Wonderland Christmas market here.
From November 22 to January 6; £9.50 adults, £7.50 children, £30 family: Hydeparkwinterwonderland.com
Skate around Henry VIII’s sixteenth-century pad at the Hampton Court Palace ice rink, a very picturesque backdrop, especially when lit up after dark.
From November 23 to Jan 6, £14.50; Hamptoncourtpalaceicerink.co.uk
Christmas days and nights out
London Zoo is celebrating Christmas with a fabulous magical light trail and is also giving visitors a chance to upgrade to a VIP sleepover experience and spend the night in the zoo as well! From 4.45pm, the zoo will be transformed into a magical wonderland of twinkling decorations, illuminated animal sculptures, singing trees, light tunnels, festive food treats and surprises. Meanwhile, overnight guests will be staying in one of the zoo’s cosy lodges – nestled in the heart of the Land of the Lions! Are you brave enough…
Select dates from 22 November to 1 January; £16.50 adults, £10.50 children, £52 family, under-3’s and carers free
Overnight stay includes lodge accommodation, tour of Land of the Lions guided by ZSL’s experienced hosts, access to Christmas light trail, 2-course buffet dinner, behind-the-scenes tour, early morning zoo tours, full English breakfast, 2-day access to the zoo and exclusive discounts; from £378
Zsl.org
Winter at Southbank Centre is a packed programme of festive fun and entertainment. It includes two new family shows: Circus 1903 (from the award-winning War Horse puppeteers), running from 19 December to 5 January at the Royal Festival Hall, and Rumpelstiltskin at the Queen Elizabeth Hall from 13 December to 6 January.
The roofs of the Hayward Gallery, Royal Festival Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall will be illuminated by David Batchelor’s Sixty Minute Spectrum project, featuring a variety of coloured flashing lights in every colour of the rainbow.
Handel’s Messiah will be performed by Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall on 16 December, with an afternoon of timeless classics earlier that day in the Hall, with Christmas at the Movies.
Free events include a traditional festive Caribbean music concert, Argentinian tango performances and lessons, Strictly Winter Ballroom and swing classes, and 30-minute performances by a variety of choirs in the foyer of the Queen Elizabeth Hall from December 11 to 23.
And if all of that wasn’t enough, the traditional Southbank winter market will be taking place outside, with a range of alpine lodge stalls, pop-up bars and festive food and drink. Read more about London’s Christmas markets here.
From 9 November to 6 January (Christmas market until 27 December); Southbankcentre.co.uk
In Greenwich, the Royal Observatory’s festive programme includes Christmas Stars, an investigation of what the night sky has to offer in December as we head toward Christmas in this festive-themed show. Presented live by a Royal Observatory astronomer, the show will look at the moon, constellations and planets.
Runs throughout December; £8 adults, £5.35 children; Rmg.co.uk
A Christmas concert under the hull of Greenwich’s Cutty Sark features Merry Opera performing Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, Gilbert and Sullivan, as well as sea shanties and a reading of Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem, Christmas at Sea, which is 150 years old this year.
16 December; £25, includes a mulled cider and mince pie slice; Rmg.co.uk
Take a tour of the Queen’s House in Greenwich to discover the fascinating royal history and iconic architecture of this ‘house of delight.
Throughout December 2018 and January 2019; £10 adults
On 6 December Christmas in the Queen’s House offers candlelit tours of the house, carol singers, a lecture on pageantry, wreath workshop, mulled wine and mince pies (£8). Rmg.co.uk
Festive Family Fun at London Transport Museum features a magical forest, with twinkling lights and trees, Santa’s Secret Christmas Cabin, storytelling sessions, craft workshops and a musical Christmas vintage bus tour around the lights and sights of London.
From 1 December to 6 January; £16 adults, free for children; Ltmuseum.co.uk
Escape the capital
Spend the night in the home of the creator of the first Christmas card, Sir John Calcott Horsley, who established Orestone Manor in south Devon. The 19th century Georgian Manor is now a family-run, luxurious country house hotel, set in landscaped gardens overlooking Lyme bay. It’s run by husband and wife chefs, Neil and Catherine D’Allen, who have scooped double AA Rosettes for their restaurant and double gold-wins in the Taste of the West hotel and restaurant awards.
Pictured above, the very first Christmas card was commissioned by Sir Henry Cole and drawn by John Horsley at Orestone in 1843. 1,000 cards were printed and sold, but today just under 20 are in existence – you can see one at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. But you can send your own ‘original’ card (in reproduction) from Orestone in the run up to Christmas this year, with special packages available for stays at the Manor until 23 December.
Orestone Manor was also the scene of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s National Portrait Gallery painting, created by Sir Horsley (his brother-in-law) on the Manor’s lawn.
Overnight stays from £110; Orestonemanor.com
More festive frolics
Our favourite Christmas markets in the UK and Europe for 2018
Visit a cathedral: see our top picks in London and South East England
York
York Minster is one of the biggest Medieval Gothic cathedrals in northern Europe and holds half of all the Medieval stained-glass in England. As the Mother Church of the Northern Province, it’s one of Britain’s most important spiritual centres and the seat not only of a bishop but an archbishop. It costs £20,000 a day to run and employs a full-time staff of 200, including thirty permanent glaziers and stonemasons, as well as 500 volunteers. Read more
Durham
Durham Cathedral was founded in 1093 when the Byzantine empire was in its heyday, the Nubian kingdom was at the peak of its power and Vikings were still roaming Europe. Today the Byzantines are gone and Vikings confined to fancy dress parties, but Durham Cathedral still stands and its soaring architecture remains, in the words of Sir Walter Scott, ‘Half church of God, half castle ‘gainst the Scot’. Read more
Ripon
Ripon cathedral may hold the body of one of the greatest early saints of England and might just have provided the inspiration for one of the best-known books in the English language. But we do know this for sure. While this is not the oldest church building in the UK, the 7th-century crypt at Ripon dates from 672 and predates every existing cathedral in the country. Read more
Wakefield
The spire of Wakefield Cathedral is the tallest in Yorkshire. At 75 metres, it dominates the skyline for miles around. But the honour of marking the area as a place of Christian worship for 1,000 years goes to a much smaller and humbler monument. So humble, in fact, it was discovered being used as a lowly doorstep in a barber’s shop in Westgate back in the 1800s. Read more
Sheffield
Political intrigue and power struggles. Royal prisoners. England’s most famous cardinal on the run. A queen in bondage. Sheffield has seen it all and the cathedral has been central to much of the action. But if you view cathedrals as remote lofty spaces, standing apart from modern times and outside contemporary culture, a visit to Sheffield may cure you. Read more
Bradford
The entry for Bradford in the Domesday Book, 1086 merely records ‘Ilbert hath it. It is waste’. But from those inauspicious beginnings, Bradford has grown from a crossing place that became a market to an important industrial town and multi-cultural city. And the city’s cathedral, which received its status in 1919, reflects this history throughout the building with its memorials, shrines and stories. Read on
St Giles, Edinburgh
A place of worship for nearly 900 years, St Giles Cathedral has played a tumultuous part in Scottish history and has been a legendary scene of revolts and reconciliations. Today, as well as being Edinburgh’s chief seat of worship and a spiritual centre for the community, it holds a special place within its walls for royalty. And dogs. Read on
St Machar’s, Aberdeen
It had an auspicious beginning but has also been the site of much destruction and dispute, attacked by wars, the Reformation and the weather. It’s thought to be the final resting place for Scotland’s famous hero William Wallace. Well, part of him at least. It’s said that in 1305 the left quarter of his body was brought to Aberdeen after his grisly execution in London by Edward I and interred within the wall of the new cathedral. Read on
Cathedrals of Britain: North of England and Scotland by Bernadette Fallon is published by Pen and Sword books, £12.99, buy online here
Read more
Around the UK in 30 cathedrals
Cathedrals of Britain: London and the South East – Canterbury, St Paul’s, Westminster Abbey, Southwark, Westminster Cathedral, Rochester, Chichester
Cathedrals of Britain: West, South West and Wales – Winchester, Salisbury, Wells, Gloucester, Exeter, St Davids, St Asaph’s
Cathedrals of Britain: East and Central – Ely, Lichfield, Norwich, Lincoln, Peterborough, St Edmundsbury, Oxford
Image credit: York Cathedral