Joe and Pat Gartman share the festive photos they took when they spent Christmas in the south of Italy… Jump to the photos After a stay in Rome, we headed south by train in the middle of November 2022 – our first trip back to Italy since the pandemic. Somehow, despite all our wanderings, we’d […]
Joe and Patricia Gartman have spent the Christmas seasons from 2017 to 2019 in Italy. Here are photos from their time in Verona in 2019 A prosperous modern city of medieval squares, Verona has several historical claims to fame. It’s the town where Romeo and Juliet lived, loved, and, alas (spoiler alert) died. It’s where […]
Joe and Patricia Gartman have spent the Christmas seasons from 2017 to 2019 in Italy. Here are photos from their time in Sorrento in 2018. Perched on top of sheer cliffs, high above the Bay of Naples, Sorrento provides an abundance of picturesque charm, history, views, cafés, summer sunshine and lemon-scented air. It’s also the […]
Joe and Patricia Gartman have spent the Christmas seasons from 2017 to 2019 in Italy. Here are photos from their time in Venice in 2019. Those who are tasked with decorating Venice for Christmas have a challenging job: it’s difficult to park a boom lift in the middle of a street to hang lights if […]
Joe and Patricia Gartman have spent the Christmas seasons from 2017 to 2019 in Italy. Here are photos from their time in Turin in 2017. We arrived in Turin early in December. There was a huge advent calendar set up in Piazza Castello. Every night the fire brigade arrived with a truck-mounted cherry picker to […]
Joe and Patricia Gartman have spent the Christmas seasons from 2017 to 2019 in Italy. Here are photos from their time in Rome in 2017. When the City of Rome’s official Christmas tree – a72-foot Norway spruce from Trentino – was erected in Piazza Venezia on the 8th of November, it was shockingly bare of […]
Discover how the finest treasures of Pompeii found their way to Naples with Joe Gartman Images by Patricia Gartman Let’s say you’re a well-connected citizen of Pompeii back in about 80 BC (don’t worry, it’s another century-and-a-half before Vesuvius is set to blow) and you’re invited to dinner at the most luxurious house in town. […]
Learn how Jacopo Robusti made a name (or two) for himself in Venice in Joe Gartman’s feature. Images by Patricia Gartman A narrow alley, the Salizada San Rocco, squeezes between a gelateria and the apse of the Church of the Frari, and widens into a small campo, at the end of which the Church of […]
The final resting place of an English eccentric who made Venice his home, writes Joe Gartman Images by Patricia Gartman The pale red brick walls and tall cypresses of San Michele Island rise from the lagoon waters less than a quarter mile from Cannaregio’s Fondamente Nove. They form a perpetual memento mori, a reminder of […]
Discover more about the Roman inspirations for Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 19th-century Gothic novel with Joe Gartman. Long ago in Rome, wealthy families often embellished their palazzi with tall, fortified towers. This allowed them to impress rival clans or perhaps dump noxious liquids on their heads when the situation required it. The owners of one such tower […]