In this playful diary of that trip, delightfully illustrated with photographs of the period, Athill recorded her observations and adventures — eating with (and paid for by) the hopeful men they meet on their travels, admiring architectural sights, sampling delicious pastries, eking out their budget, and getting into scrapes.Written with an arresting immediacy and infused with an exhilarating joie de vivre, A Florence Diary is a bright, colourful evocation of a time long lost and a vibrant portrait of a city that will be deliciously familiar to any contemporary traveller.

    Instead of pausing to look up every word, you’ll absorb new vocabulary from the context of the story, and have the satisfaction of that moment when you say: “I totally understood that sentence!” Carefully written Italian, using straightforward grammar that is comprehensible for beginner and intermediate level learners, so that you can enjoy reading and learn new grammatical structures without the feeling of overwhelm and frustration that you get from other books. Plenty of natural dialogues in each story, so that you can learn conversational Italian whilst you read, and improve your speaking ability at the same time! Regular plot summaries, comprehension questions and word reference lists, so that help is always on hand when you need it. You’ll be able to focus on enjoying reading and having fun, rather than fumbling around with dictionaries and struggling through dense text with no support. A five-step plan for reading the stories in this book the smart way. This detailed introductory chapter gives you specific, step-by-step instructions for effective reading in Italian, so that you know exactly how to make the most out of the book and maximise your learning! Italian Short Stories for Beginners Volume 2 is written especially for students from beginner to intermediate level (A1-B1 on the Common European Framework of Reference). The eight captivating stories are designed to give you a sense of achievement and a feeling of progress when reading. You’ll finally be able to enjoy reading in Italian, grow your vocabulary in a natural way, and improve your comprehension at the same time. Based on extensive research into how people most enjoy and benefit from reading in a new language, this book eliminates all the frustrations you have experienced when trying to read in Italian: Dull topics that are no fun to read Books so long you never reach the end Endless chapters that make you want to give up Impenetrable grammar that frustrates you at every turn Complex vocabulary that leaves you with your head buried in the dictionary Instead, you can just concentrate on what you came for in the first place - enjoying reading and having fun! If you’re learning Italian and enjoy reading, this is the book you need to rekindle your passion for the language and take your Italian to the next level!

    200 color photos.

    Nikki McArthur aka ‘A mother in France’ opens up a window to her world and invites you to journey with her through the positive and negative experiences of the process of moving, settling, making a living and raising a family in a new country. Woven within the pages of the family’s experiences are a treasury of facts and information making it not only a fascinating read but a useful guide to living in France.Uncovering the thought processes behind why the family decided to move to France and how they went about it, the book reveals how to prepare for a move abroad, house hunting tips and the buying process. Discover what it was like when they arrived, the main difficulties and challenges they faced with settling in as a family, renovation challenges and experiences of developing a business and making a living. Follow the ups and downs of family life in France from pregnancy and childbirth through to adulthood with fascinating details on education, health, cultural differences and raising bilingual children. An intriguing mixture of facts backed by true life experiences and comparisons and a compelling read for anyone interested in or considering moving abroad.

    Through the often grim and bloody events of fifty years which changed the world, his life is a triumph of the human spirit.

    With a stunning, brand-new look, Eyewitness Travel Guides are essential reading for vacation, business, or armchair travel. Consistently chosen over the competition in national consumer market research, Eyewitness Travel Guides include up-to-date information on local customs, currency, medical services, transportation, and much more.

    Travelers bring him tales of faraway, fantastic people and places; the map takes on many dimensions and grows. Slowly, Fra Mauro's vision begins to embrace not only continents and kingdoms but something just as wondrous and real: a vast interior landscape of beliefs, aspirations, and dreams.

    They soon found work; Paul as a mural painter and Nicola in an office in Milan, Paul was recruited by the local football team and they both took part in the fabulous summer and Christmas festivals and the mangialonge - the 'long eats' where groups of locals drive off into the country to feast on the best local food and wines, all day. They gain a new neighbour, George Clooney, who gained great popularity amongst the locals, and they lose an older, very near neighbour, fashion designer Gianni Versace who brought back to rest in his native Moltrasio after he was gunned down in the USA Paul's dry sense of humour and artistic observation brings the village of Moltrasio and its inhabitants to life, and he is guaranteed to make your mouth water with his wonderful descriptions of the local food

    Evie farewelled a nasty break-up, long hours in a demanding job, a hefty mortgage and snatched hours with her daughter for a new life lived outside the lines, spending every day with Emmie exploring the world beyond the suburbs.   They camped on the Great Wall of China, hung in train doorways in Sri Lanka, swam with mantas in Indonesia, donated much-needed blood in Cambodia, spotted wild orangutans and pygmy elephants in Malaysian Borneo, prayed in Buddhist temples in Taiwan and were chased by monkeys everywhere. In their journey toward happiness and self-acceptance, they learnt more about each other and the beautiful world around them than Evie ever expected.  Backyard to Backpack is the inspirational true story that will have you asking yourself, what might be if you took a chance, stepped off the path of expectation and created your own adventure?

    After five hundred years, the most notorious mystery of the Renaissance is finally solved. The Italian Renaissance is remembered as much for intrigue as it is for art, with papal politics and infighting among Italy's many city-states providing the grist for Machiavelli's classic work on take-no-prisoners politics, The Prince. The attempted assassination of the Medici brothers in the Duomo in Florence in 1478 is one of the best-known examples of the machinations endemic to the age. While the assailants were the Medici's rivals, the Pazzi family, questions have always lingered about who really orchestrated the attack, which has come to be known as the Pazzi Conspiracy.More than five hundred years later, Marcello Simonetta, working in a private archive in Italy, stumbled upon a coded letter written by Federico da Montefeltro, the Duke of Urbino, to Pope Sixtus IV. Using a codebook written by his own ancestor to crack its secrets, Simonetta unearthed proof of an all-out power grab by the Pope for control of Florence. Montefeltro, long believed to be a close friend of Lorenzo de Medici, was in fact conspiring with the Pope to unseat the Medici and put the more malleable Pazzi in their place.In The Montefeltro Conspiracy, Simonetta unravels this plot, showing not only how the plot came together but how its failure (only one of the Medici brothers, Giuliano, was killed; Lorenzo survived) changed the course of Italian and papal history for generations. In the course of his gripping narrative, we encounter the period's most colorful characters, relive its tumultuous politics, and discover that two famous paintings, including one in the Sistine Chapel, contain the Medici's astounding revenge.

    Birthplace of the Greek god Zeus, the Greek alphabet, and the first Greek laws, as well as the home of 15 mountain ranges and the longest gorge in Europe, this land is indisputably unique. And since ancient times, its inhabitants have maintained an astonishing tenacity and sense of national identity, even as they suffered conquest and occupation by Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Venetians, Ottoman Turks, and Germans. Throughout this evocative book, now in trade paper, Unsworth describes the incredible physical and cultural proportions of the island—in history, myth, and reality. Moving and artful, Crete gives readers a comprehensive picture and rich understanding of this complex—and indeed, almost magical—world of Mediterranean wonders. With the same keen eye and clear, eloquent prose that distinguishes his acclaimed historical novels, Barry Unsworth delivers his readers a two-fold traveler's reward, at once a wonderfully detailed panorama of Crete's many layers of history and an evocative portrait of an island almost literally larger than life.From the Trade Paperback edition.

    Recollections of Farrar's father are prominent throughout the stories. Ultimately, it is music and musicians that are given the most space and the final word since music has been the creative impetus and driving force for the past 35 years of his life.In writing these stories, he found a natural inclination to focus on very specific experiences; a method analogous to the songwriting process. The highlights and pivotal experiences from that musical journey are all represented as the binding thread in these stories, illustrated throughout with photography from his life. If life is a movie, then these stories are the still frames.

    After doing a TEFL course in London, he flies to South America alone. He has no job to go to but hopes that teaching English will fund his travels – ultimately, it opens up opportunities all over the world.During Barry's two-year TEFL adventure he has several nervy encounters with local louts in Ecuador and Brazil, collapses after a trip to Machu Picchu, gets stuck next to ecstasy raving loonies and a transvestite on a Greyhound Bus across America, struggles to settle Down Under, finds himself working for strict Catholic nuns in Bangkok, and meets some sex mad Babushkas on the Trans-Mongolian railway.This book is essential for anyone who wants to see how rewarding it can be to teach English in a foreign land.

    Until then, she had only ridden scooters around London. With more gear than sense, her 17,000 miles journey took her through the mayhem of Delhi traffic, the mountains of Kashmir, the deserts of Rajasthan, the beaches of Goa, the southern tip of India, the remote tracks of Nepal and the eerie Himalayan barrenness of Ladakh. She wanted an adventure to spice up a boring life and fulfil her wanderlust. She got that, and more.

    This unexpected encounter leads to the older man posing for his portrait. Possibly in the nude. Such personal exposure at close range entails a strange and troubling pact between artist and sitter that prompts both to reevaluate their lives. Blondel, author of the hugely popular novel The 6:41 to Paris, evokes an intimacy of dangerous intensity in a tale marked by profound nostalgia and a reckoning with the past that allows its two characters to move ahead in to the future.