Blue Guides

10/09/2026

😎 See more, understand more, and enjoy more of Rome with the new Blue Guide. The latest edition came out this summer, still the best, most comprehensive and clearest guide to the complexities, depth and layers of this extraordinary city.

“Parts of Rome are blighted by over-tourism, others offer equally spectacular sights without the crowds… The answer, to plan what to see and enjoy and understand it when you are there, is the new Blue Guide Rome”

Details on our website, blueguides.com/new-blue-guide-rome/

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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:

24/08/2026

Was the most famous nose in art the result of a jousting wound or surgical enhancement?

Piero della Francesco’s portrait of the great renaissance mercenary and patron of the arts Federico, Duke of Urbino, count of Montefeltro, hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. As the Blue Guide says “He lost his right eye jousting, hence his always being depicted seen from the left side, the damage to the bridge of his nose may have resulted from the original wound, or maybe created by his surgeon’s skill so that the surviving eye had a wider field of vision”.

New Blue Guide Florence due out early 2027, current edition still available. It’s See less

14/08/2026

“Terrace by the Sea” c. 1934, one of several previously unknown works by János Vaszary discovered by accident in Budapest. On show at the Vaszary Villa in Balatonfüred.

12/07/2026

📘New Blue Guide Emilia Romagna
The northern Italian region of Emilia Romagna includes all the history and art, not to mention food and drink, the Italy lover could wish for. Less known and less visited than some of the major cities, places like byzantine Ravenna, renaissance Ferrara, grand ducal Parma and the ancient university town of Bologna are places of beauty and interest. Read about them, understand them better and enjoy them more with a proper book.

I found it

This easy-to-carry guide includes Bologna, Parma, Modena, Piacenza, Ravenna, Rimini and the Po delta, focusing on the history, art, architecture and heritage of this beautiful region of fine cities, splendid cuisine and wide landscapes.

01/07/2026

In 1571, after the Holy League’s victory over the Ottomans at Lepanto, people credited the win—at least in part—to daily rosary prayers from the Pope. And in Palermo, the Oratorio del Rosario di Santa Cita preserves the story with a stucco depiction of the Battle of Lepanto, created by the sculptor Giacomo Serpotta.

One detail that makes his pieces stand out: Serpotta is said to have mixed marble dust into his paste, giving his stuccoes that distinctive glossy sheen.

But what most visitors notice isn’t the battle itself—it’s the cherubs and little children woven through the action. Serpotta’s models are said to have been street urchins from 17th-century Palermo, sculpted into immortality with faces so fresh and lifelike they could have been created yesterday.

Fun fact: the name “Serpotta” means “serpent” or “lizard,” and Giacomo is said to have carved that emblem into his work—creating a challenge to try to spot it them.

29/06/2026

The third edition of 𝐁𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐆𝐮𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐄𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐚 𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐧𝐚 is now available in print.

This easy-to-carry guide includes Bologna, Parma, Modena, Piacenza, Ravenna, Rimini and the Po delta, focusing on the history, art, architecture and heritage of this beautiful region of fine cities, splendid cuisine and wide landscapes.

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 w**e 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 w**e 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...