Hampstead is a former village (once a fashionable spa) which is now an affluent district of London. It used to be known for its intellectuals, artists and writers such as George Orwell, who lived there in the 1930s and wrote about it in his early novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying Read More …
The Romantic poet John Keats (1795-1821) lived in this house at 10 Keats Grove, Hampstead, for seventeen months from 1818 to 1820. From here he travelled to Rome, where he died of tuberculosis at age 25. The sign by the plum tree explains: “Keats wrote his famous ‘Ode to a Read More …
On our VirtualTourist walking tour of Hampstead, we went through a street called Back Lane, where we came across this house (at 1 Back Lane) with an 18th century “Assurance” plaque on its brick façade. Sarah explained that in those days each insurance company had its own fire brigade. Before Read More …
This protrusion at the north end of Hampstead Heath used to be the highest point in London, at a dizzying height of 137 metres (449 feet) above sea level. It was, in fact, the highest point in the former County of London, which existed from 1889 to 1965. But the Read More …
Avignon was the hub of the universe for most of the fourteenth century. Or at least the hub of Western European Christianity. What happened was that in 1309 Pope Clement V settled in Avignon with his Cardinals and the entire Papal Court, because Rome was in constant turmoil. Seven (or Read More …
One morning in September 2011, a group of VirtualTourist members met at the Square René Viviani in the Latin Quarter of Paris (with the church of Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre in the background) for a walking tour led by VT member Paul Smith, who took us through some side streets of the Latin Quarter, Read More …
In August 2013 I went on another guided walking tour (in French) that I found listed in the back pages of the now-defunct weekly magazine Pariscope. This was mainly a tour of the Île Saint-Louis, but since that island has no Métro stations, we met at the kiosk by the Read More …
In July 2014 I took a guided walking tour (in French) of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés quarter of Paris. We met at the exit of the Métro station Mabillon, because this is a small station with only one exit, so there was no danger of anyone picking the wrong one. Our guide Read More …
In Toulouse I went on two guided walking tours on two consecutive days. Both were organized by the city tourist office. The normal cost was listed as € 9.50 per tour, but I only paid € 7.50 because of my advanced age. (Nice that they have senior discounts.) Each tour Read More …
My second guided walking tour was called “Grand Monuments of Toulouse” and was again organized by the city tourist office. I was pleased to find that we again had the same guide, Sarah, only this time she had a microphone and a small loudspeaker. This made no difference to me, Read More …