During our first visit to Venice, in 2017, we stumbled upon a large building covered in canvases next to the central station of the city. The building was open to the public, but we paid no attention to it, for the simple reason that it did not look very appealing.…
It is simply impossible to visit Venice and skip the Palazzo Ducale. The British popular historian John Julius Norwich, an authority on the history of the Serenissima, rightly called the Doge’s Palace “the greatest secular Gothic building in the world”.[1] The Gothic pointed arches of Istrian stone, the elegant colonnades…
Question: why do we find a statue of Saint Christopher with the young Christ on his shoulders above the entrance of the Madonna dell’Orto? Answer: because the church was initially dedicated to Saint Christopher. Not far from here travellers left for the islands in the lagoon, such as Murano, Burano…
There is hardly any travel guide that does not describe the charming little church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli as a jewel box. The building indeed has a splendid exterior made of polychrome marble, and in that respect somewhat resembles the basilica of San Marco. So the term “jewel box”…
The church of Sant’Alvise can be found in the north of the Cannaregio quarter, which is a fairly quiet part of Venice. “Alvise” is the Venetian version of “Luigi” or “Ludovico”, and in this case Sant’Alvise is the Franciscan saint Louis of Toulouse (1274-1297). He was said to have appeared…
The church of San Giobbe can be found in a fairly remote part of Venice and can be reached from the railway station by foot in about fifteen minutes. Our visit to the church started with a minor incident. The church has only one entrance, which has two wooden doors.…
On a plateau to the southeast of Rethymnon we find the Arkádi monastery, a complex that plays an important role in the history of Crete. According to tradition the monastery was founded in the fifth century by the Eastern Roman emperor Arcadius (383-408). It was supposedly named after him, but…
Heraklion is the capital of Crete. With over 170,000 inhabitants, it is also by far the largest city on the island. Although there is a lot of traffic and congestion, it is still pleasant to walk through the streets of the historical city centre, where in most places only pedestrians…