[I wrote this for my Nat Geo Traveller article on Athens Neighbourhoods, but in the end only three of the four sections were published.] When the plans for the new capital were drawn in the 1830s, speculation about the position of the palace was rife and plots of land changed hands on hearsay and gossip. […]
Sherlock Holmes in Switzerland
It’s common knowledge that Holmes and Moriarty fell to their deaths by the Reichenbach falls; most people also know that the falls are in Switzerland. But few Sherlock fans could place them on a map and fewer still have been there. The Reichenbach Falls are a short, brisk walk from the centre of Meiringen in […]
The Nabokov Museum in St Petersburg
Vladimir Nabokov, the writer best known for the controversial novel Lolita, was born in a wealthy family in St Petersburg on 22 April 1899. He lived at 47 Bolshaya Morskaya Street until he was 18 when he and his family fled after the Communist Revolution. He considered it his only home and never bought another, […]