Welcome to my journal! Digging deep into Venice, Istanbul, Scotland, dropping into Barcelona, Ravenna, Vienna. 

Here you can explore the world of pictures, stories, food, photographs, planting, architecture and travel tips. 

Possibly my favourite library in Venice, although the bar is high. The day starts off by hopping on the Vaporetto, to cross from Zattere to the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore past one of the world's most beautiful landscapes. A 10 minute commute to the secluded monastic environment of the Cini. Lunch means dangling my toes in the lagoon, beside the marina - looking at boats.

The Cini Library covers history, theatre, music and art and contains manuscripts, archives, photogallery, periodicals, maps, The wood panelled Longhena gallery is almost open access. Books sit behind an opened metal grill over the shelves, elsewhere are cabinets full of photographs of Venice and the Veneto, and every copy of Dumbarton Oaks - Byzantine research library based in Harvard. I'm researching sixteenth century costume from Cesare Vecellio wood cut books.

The carvings on the capitals at San Marco celebrate skilled craftemen of the east and west,

Mosaic decoration of two of the three kings from the thirteenth century narrative program decorating the Baptistery in the church of San Marco. These are the originals - reproductions have replaced parts of the old mosaics.

Way before I was competent at Renaissance palaeography I painstakingly worked through the will of Andrea Dandolo and writings of his Procuratore fro my paper on the mosaic narrative in the Baptistery. Working in the Marciana is a delight but working in the Marciana on the hottest days during covid when everything was covered in plastic and masks were obligatory, was tricky.

The Palladian architecture of the loggia at Fondazione Giorgio Cini; simple, spacious, calm. Istrian stone pillars and neatly clipped box hedges demand laugh out loud Joy.