Travel tips-Restaurant reviews-Recipes
Arriving in a new city on a Sunday evening after a day of travelling and only snacking along the way, it can be difficult finding a restaurant open for a good meal for dinner. In mega organisation mode, I anticipated this in advance and emailed the B&B where I’m staying to ask them to recommend […]
Read MoreI’ve been wanting to come to Siena for such a long time that I was very excited to set off on this short break yesterday morning. I’ve ‘missed’ Siena so many times when I’ve been fairly close but not quite close enough. I thought about making a day trip from Florence last year – which […]
Read MoreWhy go? My main reason for the trip was to attend a 3-day art history course with Hotel Alphabet, but it wasn’t my only reason. Genoa had been a destination I’d in mind for a long time – and the reasons were almost totally food-related! For Genoa is the capital of Liguria, famed gastronomically for […]
Read MoreI went to Genoa primarily to do an art history course with Hotel Alphabet. I’d done some day courses in London with its owner, Dr Marie-Anne Mancio, and thought she was such a great lecturer it would be fantastic to combine one of the courses she runs with a short city break. She teaches all […]
Read MoreWhen in a new city you haven’t been to before, the most obvious place to get a feel for the cuisine is to go to the local market. Genoa has a truly fabulous covered market, Mercato Orientale, just off via XX Settembre. It has the most wonderful produce; everything looked perfect and of the highest […]
Read MoreI love spending time in cafes – from morning coffee to maybe a snack lunch, and then when in Italy to enjoy an aperitivo early evening. The name cafe is pretty interchangeable with bar and most will sell you coffee or alcohol at any time. I especially like the wonderful historic cafes you find in […]
Read MoreI’d been trying to get into this little osteria just round the corner from my hotel for a couple of days. The people leading my Hotel Alphabet course pointed it out as a good place for local food and so I tried to book, but never seemed to find a time to pop in when they […]
Read MoreIt was the second day of my 3-day tour of Genoa and its art with Hotel Alphabet. While a visit to the Cinque Terre and Portofino didn’t strictly fit into the ‘art history’ theme, it was nevertheless a great thing to do. And happily, despite an unpromising weather forecast over the last few days, we […]
Read MoreI had a great first day with Hotel Alphabet and our intimate little group of art history lovers. Amazingly out of a group of six of us, I immediately recognised a couple as they arrived this morning at our meeting place. They come from Twickenham too and our daughters were at school together. What a […]
Read MoreHome to Christopher Columbus, the port city of Genoa, the 6th largest city in Italy, has a long and impressive maritime history. And down in the old port – Porto Antico – you will find many restaurants serving up traditional Ligurian food. When I booked the trip and saw my hotel was close to Porto […]
Read More