Blue Guides

17/06/2026

🕯️Discover Caravaggio's hidden gem in Sicily: wanted for murder, Caravaggio fled to Malta and then Sicily. In Syracuse, he found shelter with a fellow painter and created this masterpiece "Burial of St Lucy".

As in his other works humbler characters dominate the scene, in this case the hefty grave-digger in foreground. The whole is bathed in golden light, maybe a nod to St Lucy, whose name means 'light' in Latin.

You can find this arresting work in the tranquil Santa Lucia al Sepolcro in Syracuse. More detail on this and other off-the-beaten-track gems in Blue Guide Sicily. I found it .

09/06/2026

⛲️The Fountains of Rome

The Trevi Fountain is in the news because – as of a few months ago – you have to get a ticket in order to get close. But the Trevi is only one of an incredible number of fountains in Rome. It is in fact a “Mostra”, literally a showpiece, a fountain placed at the terminus of an aqueduct to demonstrate the water pressure and the abundance of the public supply. In the Trevi’s case, the aqueduct is the Acqua Vergine, the only one of the ancient Roman aqueducts still uninterruptedly in use since antiquity.

Other mostra fountains in Rome can be found on Piazza del Popolo, on the Janiculum (Acqua Paola) and near the Baths of Diocletian (Fountain of Moses).

And water is delivered in less spectacular ways, too. Everywhere you go in Rome you will find the classic cast-iron standpipes known as nasoni, ‘big noses’, where you can quench your thirst for no charge.

NB: Aficionados also say that the reason Rome’s coffee is so good is because it is made with the city’s exceptionally pure and delicious water.

For more on and its many layers of art and history, it’s

02/06/2026

Tintoretto painted many versions of the Last Supper. In the one in Venice’s San Trovaso, one of the disciples is shown reaching behind himself to grab a wine flask, even though his glass is still half full.

Is this Judas, betraying his nerves?

We don’t know. But we can take a guess at what he is drinking. It’s a very pale rosé, of the kind known in Italy as chiaretto. Excellent chiarettos come from Bardolino, on the shores of Lake Garda and the pale pink colour is very similar to the rosés of Provence.

Why? Because the vinification technique came from the Romans, who made wine in both Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul.

27/05/2026

Great to see a full page in the New York Times given over to Robin’s Saikia’s Blue Guide Travel Monograph “Drink & Think Venice”. For readers who missed it before, a link to this Venice-resident’s top cafés and bars in Venice, as featured in the book:
Read now https://www.blueguides.com/best-bars-in-venice/

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For readers who missed it before, here are Venice-resident Robin Saikia’s top bars in Venice, from his elegiac handbook Drink & Think Venice: Each chapter of Drink & Think Venice begins with an introduction to one of my favourite bars and a recommendation as to what one might drink there: the "Dri...

21/05/2026

Strange, dreamlike landscape in this painting by the Master of the Assumption of the Magdalene, in Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara. A beautiful Renaissance palace with a fantastic art collection.

17/05/2026

The new Blue Guide Rome is now out. The City may be Eternal, but things do change. For planning, for studying, for enjoying the city, for getting off the beaten track, for in-depth research and information you need the new Blue Guide.
Now all colour throughout with Blue Guides’ encyclopaedic depth of research, award-winning maps, site plans and selective food, drink and accommodation recommendations.
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The new edition of the classic Blue Guide Rome is now out. Now all colour throughout with Blue Guides’ encyclopaedic depth of research, award-winning maps, site plans and selective but practical food, drink and accommodation recommendations:

17/05/2026

🎨 Raphael’s tomb in the Pantheon

Getting in to the Pantheon now involves buying a ticket, a bit of hassle and standing in a line, but the result is better than it was. The breathtaking interior of the Pantheon is still full of people but it feels a bit less hectic and once you’re in, you can relax and get your bearings.

This is an architectural marvel. Incredibly, this is still the largest unreinforced concrete dome ever built. The coffers in the ceiling, which look like decoration, are there for a reason: to lighten the load.

And inside the Pantheon is the tomb of one of the greatest of all painters: Raphael (our picture is a self-portrait from one of his frescoes in the Vatican). After a spectacular career, he died at the age of just 37, of a fever which his enemies said was brought on by too much lo******ng. What is certain is that his doctors made things worse by too much blood-letting.

For more on the Pantheon (it’s ), see the new edition of Blue Guide Rome, out now.

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14/05/2026

Today, May 14 and this year the 40th day after Easter, is the Feast of the Ascension. Here, painted by the Master of Niederolang in 1515, a range of emotions are graphically portrayed on the faces of the crowd as Christ’s feet can be seen disappearing into heaven. From the collection of Neustift Abbey, Bressanone Brixen.

The abbey and its collection are described in Blue Guide Trentino and the South Tyrol.

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30/04/2026

Blue Guide Rome covers everything in depth, off the beaten track as well as the famous sites. Here we have been recommending some of the less visited landmarks. The Palazzo Colonna, only open for a few hours a week, is by no means off the beaten track, but well worth a visit: do look out for this splendid fellow, Cardinal Girolamo I Colonna (1604-1666), brother-in-law to the Barberinis whose Rome palazzo now houses the national gallery art collection. Note Titian’s portrait of a Venetian doge in the background.

NOW OUT the new edition Blue Guide Rome.

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22/04/2026

🐶 Even the master builders of Ancient Rome got it wrong sometimes.
A dog and a goat (?) walked over this floor tile while it was drying (first picture). Note the maker’s stamp. One of the many things on display at the recently reopened, less visited, beautifully displayed museum in Rome's Markets of Trajan (second picture). There are crowds on the other side of the road in the main Roman Forum, the Imperial Fora, including the Markets of Trajan, you can have pretty much to yourself.

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