Siena, Tuscany

This is one of the loveliest places to visit in this most lovely part of Italy. The city was founded by the Etruscans who changed the face of central Italy through their use of irrigation, reclaiming previously un-farmable land, and their custom of building their settlements in heavily armoured hill-forts. Later it became a Roman settlement, although it was not until the Lombards invaded Siena and the surrounding territory in the 700’s that it became a prosperous trading post, later savaged by the Black Death in the fourteenth century. It took years before the town was re-populated and recovered its commercial and social life, as was true of much of Europe after that terrible scourge.

Siena became a major centre of money lending and an important player in the wool trade. It has an interesting history of governance by the Church, by the nobility, and by the community, having its own written constitution in 1179. As a Republic it managed mostly to get the balance right between the nobility and the common people; the city’s rivalry with Florence being one of the uniting factors that kept the Consuls together. Its fascinating collection of buildings gathered around the stunning Piazza del Campo, date from this period.

This enormous city space – regarded as one of the most beautiful in the world - became and remains the centre of secular life and much of the city, built on a collection of small hills, was planned to lead in and out of the square, so that as you move around the city your eyes keep on being drawn to it. This is where the market is held and sporting festivals such as the famous – and for accidents, notorious – annual horse racing event.

Siena's university, founded in 1203 and famed for its faculties of law and medicine, is still among the most important Italian universities, respected for its humanist disciplines. Siena rivalled Florence in the arts through the 13th and 14th centuries and the striking mural of "Good Government" (and its antithesis) by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in the wonderful Palazzo Pubblic, or town hall, is a magnificent example of late-Medieval and early Renaissance art as well as a representation of the utopian vision of urban society as conceived during that period.

This is a beautiful and lively city and we were greatly impressed with it on our visit a few years ago.

Bryan

Inverness, Gateway to the Highlands

Scotland’s most recently designated city with a rapidly growing population of 60,000, Inverness regards itself as the gateway to the Highlands and is the shopping and business centre to which people come from as far as a hundred miles away. I was there this week; a first visit, and was very impressed with the quiet welcome of the people and the sombre dignity of the buildings. Three women came to my aid when I was looking for places I couldn’t find, and each of them insisted on taking me to where I wanted to be, one of them disabled and in a wheel chair. Visiting an enterprising ‘green’ project devoted to developing and preserving six major ‘green wedges’ in the city(www.greeninverness. com), I came across the proud statement that Inverness is ‘the natural place to be’. It felt like that.

I was staying at an excellent Guest House opposite the rushing River Ness which flows through the centre of the city and gives it so much of its distinctive character. Only seven miles long but unusually wide it gave me a continental feel, with hints of the Seine, the Danube and the Thames. There are a series of promontories but called ‘islands’ upstream, with lovely country walks and fine trees ( I admired a massive red cedar) which turn the one river into two or three.

I followed the Historic Trail through the city, noting the various buildings and their past and present use. A lot of churches were inlcuded, some of them closed to the public (but not St. Andrews Cathedral which for me had a strangely anonymous feel about it but with a stunning east window) and several altered for different purposes. One of these is now a second hand bookshop with a café on a mezzanine floor and a huge open wood stove surrounded by a comprehensive collection of books. Another onetime church is now the excellent Mustard Seed Restaurant. Good food and good value I found, with another wood stove at its centre.

I took the Loch Ness tour, the bus driven by a droll Scot who was full of information and local gossip. Part of the tour was a half-hour cruise on the Loch, the day now very overcast and windy but the journey, for which I stood holding on for safety, exhilarating. We then disembarked and visited the derelict but impressive Urquhart Castle, its massive remains brooding over the Loch below. Doubly impressive on this wet and windswept day.Daunting to have actually lived there, and defending your rights of possession to remain.

Inverness’s local city plan is devoted to ‘strengthening its position as the regional capital and promoting its success as a European city’. I needed no persuading.

Bryan

Paris

It seems almost an impertinence to write about what is effectively THE European city after only one fleeting but absorbing visit. But then for many people that’s how Paris is : met in an unforgettable moment, its impact remaining over the years. We were there twelve years ago. We didn’t climb the Eiffel Tower but stood by it (there were long queues for the lifts), observed it with appropriate approval, and then saw it again and many of the monumental buildings that contribute to the cohesive character of the city, when we went on a delightful trip up the River Seine.

We walked down the Champs Elysees, pretending to be fashionable shoppers, but reserving the right to buy gifts for the family from less ostentatious sources. We marvelled at the Arch de Triumphe and were moved by the small group of people who were standing in silent commemoration as they marked some anniversary that was important to them. Another more rowdy but very organised crowd were demonstrating against some worker’s injustice near to our hotel; a typical example of the city’s indigenous life. We roamed through the small book shops, all the time feeling as if were making contact with a city we already knew.

We were hugely impressed by the two churches we visited –Notre Dame of course, which grabbed us more by its size than its mystique, whereas the Basilica of the Sacred Heart where a Mass was taking place, embraced us with its visual beauty and the splendour of its liturgy, turning us into pilgrims rather than tourists.

The Louvre deserved more than the two and a half hours we gave it, but we were selective in what we saw, otherwise it would just have been a meaningless parade. It is an astonishing place, brilliantly integrated by the then new centre at its heart. To spend time there for some days, concentrating on this or that gallery is what it really deserves. We enjoyed our visit to the Georges Pompidou Centre, with all its maintenance tubes and shafts sticking out a like a display of the very worst sort of Victorian plumbing. Inside there were some wonderful galleries, especially a fascinating exhibition of the modern European city, though we felt that Spain had been left out, particularly Barcelona.

…and the Holiday Inn La Republique provides the most extraordinarily lavish breakfast that anyone could imagine and certainly more than they could ever need!

Bryan