Archives
Death in Venice: How has La Serenissima managed infectious diseases through the ages?
Jul 9th, 2020 | Robert Veel
With the unfolding of the COVID-19 pandemic, increased attention has been paid to plagues of the past. Journalists knowingly remind us that the term ‘quarantine’ derives from the Venetian word quarantena, a period of forty (quaranta) days of enforced isolation, and critics claim that not much has changed in terms...
Majolica, The Leopard, fallen women & Caravaggio: The private museums of Palermo and Naples
Oct 24th, 2019 | Robert Veel
One of the great benefits of making an extended stay in a city is that you don’t just visit the ‘must-see’ sites that every tourist knows about. Europe’s capitals are brimming with fascinating small museums, many of them privately owned and operated. Robert Veel, who leads our Palermo and Naples...
How we avoid the crowds…in Venice
Sep 14th, 2018 | Robert Veel
There has been a lot written recently about the alarming numbers of tourists crowding into some of Europe’s most alluring historic cities, including Barcelona, Florence and Prague. Venice in particular has been singled out because of the scourge of large cruise ships. On a bad day, five or six cruise...
Larger than life – a visit to Gibbs Farm
Sep 12th, 2018 | Robert Veel
Academy Travel tour leader Robert Veel takes you on a virtual tour of one of the world’s great art sites. New Zealand entrepreneur Alan Gibbs has always thought big. After an early career in diplomacy and banking he made his first fortune in the 1980s in the nascent telecommunications sector,...
Singapore gets its art groove
Jun 29th, 2018 | Robert Veel
Observing the restless, ever-changing nature of post-war Berlin, former French culture minister Jack Lang once famously remarked, “Paris is always Paris and Berlin is never Berlin”. The same could be said of Singapore. Even in the context of breakneck development in many Asian countries, the tiny island nation stands out...
