tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-285414192008-07-04T02:13:21.087-07:00Euroresidenteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09720730325379243865noreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28541419.post-20980922672429050672008-07-04T02:09:00.000-07:002008-07-04T02:13:21.119-07:00

Liverpool is one of Britain’s great cities. Still a major port, much of its 18th.century wealth and expansion was due to traffic with mainland Europe and close links with the Atlantic slave trade. By the early 19th century as much as 40% of world trade passed through Liverpool docks. Technically part of the county of Lancashire, the city has a powerful sense of itself, its inhabitants often

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At least I have been there, however briefly, and so Barcelona can be included in ‘my’ European cities. But our visit to this distinct Catalan city was only a matter of hours, and yet it was long enough to confirm Barcelona’s great reputation as a beautiful, lively and vibrant city. It was a wonderful sunny day and as we strolled through the streets, observed the famous art deco buildings and

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Like our previous city, Cordoba was founded by the Romans and had a strategic importance as a port on the Guadalquivir River, which was used for shipping Spanish olive oil, wine and wheat back to Rome. The Romans built the mighty bridge crossing the river, "El Puente Romano" which despite many changes is still standing and in use, and we have walked by it. Cordoba's hour of greatest glory was

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Newcastle has a rich history. It was founded by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century and the great wall named after him – spanning the breadth of England – can still be traced in some parts of the city. After the Roman withdrawal from Britain, Newcastle became part of the powerful Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, and after a series of conflicts with the Vikings and the devastation

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Cambridge (granted city status only in 1951) is of course famous for its university, the second oldest in the English speaking world. About one fifth of the city’s population of over 100,000 are students, the townspeople breathing a sigh of relief no doubt when the university is ‘down’. Established by scholars from Oxford who were being badly treated by the local citizens, the University was

Euroresidenteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09720730325379243865noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28541419.post-35589509220715746702007-11-04T10:04:00.000-08:002007-11-04T10:05:12.131-08:00

This lively and very beautiful city is built on fourteen islands, part of one of the biggest archipelagos in the Baltic Sea consisting of about 24,000 islands and islets. Approaching it from the North Sea as I did many years ago is to see one of the loveliest scenes imaginable. This of course is the capital of Sweden, and a fifth of the country’s population live here. The city has attracted

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Founded in A.D. 71, the city has a rich history, being the site of settlements of the Brigantes and Pasisii tribes before the Roman invasion, when a military fortress was built which at onetime was occupied by as many as 6,000 soldiers. Various Roman Emperors held court in York during their English campaigns and Constantine the Great was proclaimed Emperor there in 306 AD. In the seventh century

Euroresidenteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09720730325379243865noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28541419.post-47416739025154716432007-09-30T03:18:00.000-07:002007-10-13T04:18:22.017-07:00

Here is medieval Europe and the Renaissance period at its worst and its best, and it is impossible to do justice to its riches in a few hours as a tourist (as we have been), or in a few fragments of memory as I share now. But you have to go there, if only to savour the extravagant splendour of the buildings and the glorious and inglorious history which so many of them represent. The centre of

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Some cities are so much themselves that they are incomparable with anywhere else. This is one of them. On a visit to Iceland some years ago, we approached the city from the sea, traveling on a huge cargo ship, valuing the sudden calm after a very rough crossing, having left the port of Immingham on the bank of the Humber River four days previously. It made an impressive arrival, for Reykjavik is

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Naples as we saw it on a brief visit a few years ago is big, aggressive, beautiful, smart and formidable. It shouts at you, seems to enjoy the impact it makes on you, but is impervious to how you may judge it. We have rarely been to a city where we have felt so out of place and yet at the same time at home. Traffic has its own rules in Naples, which seems to dictate that you drive as hard and

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The Tate Modern Gallery in London has a vivid and informative exhibition called ‘Global Cities ‘ filling much of the huge space of the main hall, and we were there yesterday. Using London as a template, it presents and explores the social, cultural, environmental and architectural life of nine rapidly expanding cities. With a range of existing films, videos and photographs by artists who have

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This city like so many others, has a character all of its own. Historically it grew around its medieval cathedral and the establishment of its University in the 15th. century, but it was as a major industrial city that its fame and population grew in more recent times. Situated on the Clyde, the river was deepened and broadened to facilitate world trade and during the nineteenth century it became

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This is a bit of a cheat because of course Herculaneum was destroyed, as was the great city of Pompeii on the afternoon of August 24th AD 79. But visiting its excavated remains a few years ago, it felt to us like a real place with much of its original life as a small and wealthy seaside resort preserved. Most of the people fled when Vesuvius, extinct for 800 years, suddenly erupted and first

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This handsome city based on an old trading port and situated on one of many coastal islands has a special attraction for my wife and I. We visited it in the first years of our marriage and before our first child was born and it was the first time we had travelled abroad together. We stayed at the Bristol Hotel – which I see is still in business -for just a couple of nights. We did the usual

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So much of European history has a connection with Rome and the Romans. The remnants of ancient Rome and its imperial ambitions are strewn across the countries of the Mediterranean and into Western and Northern Europe. It feels as if we have some sort of investment in Rome, and when we visited the ‘Eternal City’ it was a little like coming home. Its language, it’s sophisticated architecture, its

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Britain’s sixth largest city and gateway to England’s South West, Bristol made its wealth by ship-building and sea traffic much of which consisted of the slave trade. This year’s by-centenary of the abolition of the slave trade in 1807 has highlighted a part of history easily forgotten. Although few slaves were brought to Britain, more than 2,000 slaving ships were fitted out in Bristol. The

Euroresidenteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09720730325379243865noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28541419.post-58275150108401747842007-03-28T01:29:00.000-07:002007-04-16T03:57:22.126-07:00

I spent an interesting weekend in Madrid a few years ago, a city of broad streets and expensive shops and beautiful museums. Physically as well as economically, it is the heart of Spain, most of its rail and air connections to the rest of the country coming via the city. Situated on a high plain, the city is surrounded by rural areas which many would say are the ‘real’ Spain. It has the feel of a

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As I write, this is a city very much in the news, and in a different way than one might suppose. In this normally solid and respectable metropolis, there have been riots and unrest during recent days over a red brick building with a history. ‘Youth House’ is a hundred years old, was originally a community theatre for the labour movement, visited once by Lenin, and more recently a popular meeting

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Grey and forbidding on a dull and windy day, magnificent in its setting, its Royal Mile one of the very finest streets in Europe and the Castle looking down on a city famed for its culture and learning, Edinburgh has a distinction and nobility all of its own. It has been the capital of Scotland since 1437 and is the seat of the Scottish Parliament. The Old Town and the New Town districts of the

Euroresidenteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09720730325379243865noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28541419.post-81651110992106800022007-01-30T04:23:00.000-08:002007-02-04T01:22:38.111-08:00

This is one of the places where everyone feels they ought to go. There’s an airport near at hand, package holidays from all over Europe, and although the famous tower isn’t leaning as it once did, loads of tourists still flood into the city. Ten years ago we were amongst them. To the north of the city the Campo dei Miracoli (Field of Miracles) was made a World Heritage Site in 1987, and

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Once known as the 'Republic of South Yorkshire' because of its strong socialist traditions, and set in the valleys of five rivers, Sheffield is world famous for its cutlery, heavy steel and coal industry. Today it produces more steel than ever in the past, but without polluting the air, and with a tiny work force of highly skilled workers. Remarkably Britain’s third city with a population of more

Euroresidenteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09720730325379243865noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28541419.post-1165772274164577582006-12-10T09:37:00.000-08:002006-12-10T09:42:00.543-08:00

This is one of the cities which is on everyone’s tourist trail, and perfect for a weekend break. We were there for a few days some years ago, and delighted in the consistent elegance of the buildings, and the spacious main squares reminiscent of Vienna, and enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere of the city. Mozart’s city some call it, for here his opera Don Giovanni was first performed, and his music is

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There’s an Amsterdam industry on the internet and I’ve neither wish nor ability to compete with it. There’s all the information you need there.The Internet Guide sums up the city rather neatly ‘Amsterdam is an unusual city in that it has all the advantages of a big city – culture, history, food, entertainment, good transport – with relatively few of the disadvantages : it is physically small,

Euroresidenteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09720730325379243865noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28541419.post-1164197248888213832006-11-22T04:06:00.000-08:002006-11-25T10:43:59.690-08:00

I have visited this city several times, and for me it is a cultural mecca from which I have never tired. I know of no place to rival its music and art, and its opera and ballet; and then there are the canals, the tall solid buildings and some wonderful places to eat! I was last there twelve years ago and for this first of two postings for Amsterdam I am quoting from my diary of that time…. “

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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

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