Blue Guides

22/01/2025

Biedermeier Lifestyles: what are they and why are they relevant today?

An exhibition at the Hungarian National Gallery looks at art and culture in the post-Napoleonic, Biedermeier age.

09/12/2024

𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐒𝐄𝐄 𝐈𝐍 𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐈𝐂𝐄: 𝐓𝐈𝐏𝐒 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐭
Venice offers a huge wealth of museums, churches, architecture and other sights to see and visit. Here, by district (“sestiere”) are the highlights selected in Blue Guide Venice, the definitive guide to the Most Serene City.

blue guide recommendations of what to see in venice

29/10/2024

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝
Islam Issa, the author of this expansive history of Alexandria, spent his childhood in his native city. His Alexandrian descent through the male line was unequalled. His father’s “ancestry test revealed a staggering 97.5 percent near to the word Alexandria”...
https://www.blueguides.com/the-city-that-changed-the-word/

18/10/2024

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐤𝐞𝐲 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐒𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐥𝐲’𝐬 𝐞𝐱𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲
The drama of Sicily’s history – frequently fabulously prosperous, sometimes desperately poor, devastated by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, overrun by Ancient Greeks, invaded by Romans, Byzantines, Moors and Normans, then shuffled between powerful powerful European dynastic interests: Swabian, Angevin, Aragonese, Savoyard, Bourbon...
https://www.blueguides.com/the-key-dates-in-sicilys-extraordinary-history/

04/10/2024

𝐑𝐨𝐚𝐝𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐞
Construction of the Via Appia began in 312 BC under the censor Appius Claudius Caecus. Its aim was to support military operations as Rome encroached on the Greek cities in southern Italy. The Via Appia, ‘the queen of the long roads’, according to the Roman writer Statius, lived on in the consciousness of later generations and virtually every traveller or pilgrim to Rome ventured along it to inspect its paving or the catacombs which lay beside it.
https://www.blueguides.com/roads-to-rome/

18/09/2024

𝐁𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐆𝐮𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐘𝐨𝐫𝐤 – 𝐮𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞
Carol von Pressentin Wright’s classic Blue Guide to New York City, relied on by tour guides, residents and visitors alike since its first edition in 1983, is available in a special reprint edition from Amazon in the UK and US.
https://www.blueguides.com/blue-guide-new-york-update/

26/08/2024

𝐍𝐨𝐰 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐒𝐞𝐞 𝐔𝐬
“Now you see us” is the title of an exhibition running at Tate Britain until October. It aims to place before us the output of British women artists over the course of half a millennium, from 1520 to 1920.
https://www.blueguides.com/now-you-see-us/

19/08/2024

𝐌𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐚𝐥 𝐇𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐳𝐨𝐧𝐬
When do the Middle Ages begin and end? I think AD 500 is a good starting point, following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476. Many studies do not get going until 1000 or 1100 and Ian Mortimer, a distinguished medievalist, adopts this approach in his Medieval Horizons...

Ian Mortimer, Medieval Horizons: Why the Middle Ages Matter, The Bodley Head, 2023. Reviewed by Charles Freeman When do the Middle Ages begin and end? I think AD 500 is a good starting point, following the collapse of the Western … Continue reading →

26/07/2024

𝐀𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐥
In the 15th century, the Pustertal gave birth to a thriving school of painters and sculptors. Most worked in a northern Gothic style and many of them still remain anyonymous…
https://www.blueguides.com/artists-of-the-pustertal/

27/05/2024

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐅𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜 𝐌𝐨𝐥𝐧á𝐫, 𝐛𝐲 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬𝐨𝐧
The latest title in the Blue Danube is Venetian Angel, a short novel by Ferenc Molnár, now translated into English for the first time. Here his grandson Mátyás Sárközi writes about the author.
https://www.blueguides.com/the-playwright-ferenc-molnar-by-his-grandson/

06/05/2024

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐉𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐟 𝐌𝐚𝐲𝐫-𝐍𝐮𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐫
The life of Josef Mayr-Nusser (1910-1945) is a chapter in the complicated story of South Tyrol…
https://www.blueguides.com/the-blessed-josef-mayr-nusser/

24/04/2024

𝐕𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐢𝐝𝐞
The long-discussed entrance restrictions to Venice are finally to become operational on 25th April. The system is designed to limit the numbers of day-trippers, who come to the city for just a few hours...
https://www.blueguides.com/venice-attempts-to-stem-the-tide/

17/04/2024

𝐁𝐨𝐥𝐳𝐚𝐧𝐨 𝐁𝐨𝐳𝐞𝐧 – 𝐈𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐨𝐫 𝐆𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧?
Historically Bolzano was a semi-independent merchant city state and sometimes part of the Trento prince-bishopric, with its allegiance more to the (Germanic, Habsburg) Holy Roman Empire – in the person of the (Austrian) counts of Tyrol – across the Alps to the north than to the papacy and principalities and dukedoms to the south...
https://www.blueguides.com/bolzano-bozen-italian-or-german/

12/03/2024

𝐓𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐋𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐧?
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the great lexicographer, journalist, conversationalist, inveterate London pub-goer and general good egg, famously remarked that if a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.
https://www.blueguides.com/tired-of-london/

05/03/2024

𝐌𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐬
The above title is a quote from Giorgio Vasari. They are the words he used, in his famous 𝘓𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘴, to describe Alessandro Vittoria, a man who became one of the greatest Italian sculptors of his age....
https://www.blueguides.com/most-rare-in-marble-portraits/

29/02/2024

The 19th edition of 𝐁𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐆𝐮𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐋𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐧 is available for pre-order. Now in full color!
https://www.blueguides.com/book/blue-guide-london/

27/02/2024

𝐓𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐂𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐓𝐮𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐲’𝐬 𝐀𝐞𝐠𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐚𝐬𝐭
The Book of Revelation, the last book in the New Testament, is traditionally held to have been written by St John while exiled to the island of Patmos from Ephesus on the mainland...
https://www.blueguides.com/tour-of-the-seven-churches-on-and-near-turkeys-aegean-coast/

15/02/2024

The third edition of 𝗕𝗹𝘂𝗲 𝗚𝘂𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗧𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗼 & 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗵 𝗧𝘆𝗿𝗼𝗹 is now available in print.
https://www.blueguides.com/book/blue-guide-trentino-the-south-tyrol/