Stanfords Blog

Visiting Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro has long exercised a magnetic lure for travellers. Escaping to Rio is a travel fantasy – unless you happen to be a Great Train Robber. The city is photogenic, passionate and exuberant. Its vibrancy is matched only by its inhabitants’ lust for life. The locals, known as “Cariocas”, are as romantic as Parisians, as animated as Italians and as nocturnal as the residents of Spain’s 24-hour cities. They personify the phrase “carpe diem”, embracing the present.

Life here is to be consumed, not observed and the bigger the appetite, the better. The city is possessed of a potency, which frightens many, but affects all. The solution is to abandon your preconceptions of efficiency, rationality and timekeeping and give yourself over to the vibrant rhythm of a city whose many attractions are shorthand for exotica.

In Rio it’s best to play the Carioca and simply hang out in one of the world’s most exciting cities. Maybe it’s strolling the length of Copacabana beach, surrounded by examples of all human life. Then dropping into a local boteco to try some pastel de palmito (pastry with palm hearts in) or pao de queijo (cheese filled balls of pastry), whilst an aged accordionist, attended by a wrinkly groupie who’s been a little slapdash with the Grecian 2000, practices on his rheumatic instrument. Perhaps it’s hanging out “Baixo” style at one of the concentrations of bars in the zona sul. Enjoying a Chopp beer at an outdoor table or while standing on a street corner, people watching and chatting idly.

It could be dining on coxina de galinha at one of the many Churrascarias, Brazil’s traditional barbecue houses. Or it can happen whilst sipping a cafezinho during the day or later a shot of Caipirinha – Brazil’s potent national drink, made of lime, rum and sugar – at one of the suco bars frequented by Rio’s bright young things. It could be whilst visiting a feira or outdoor market, where the bold pedestrian can amble between stalls selling food, drink, handicrafts and even magic potions, accompanied by groups of guitar and tambourine players.

It could be whilst gambling on bingo, a deadly serious distant cousin of the version played sedately by blue-rinsed grannies in the UK. Perhaps it’s sipping lethal aguardiente beneath signed photos of Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs. Or maybe it’s just being in a city which dozes in the sun all afternoon only to wake up refreshed for a sultry night’s bar-hopping followed by dinner at around 10pm and dancing into the small hours. Whatever it is, everything about Rio is exciting and on a grand scale.

It’s a place overlooked by the giant statue of Cristo Redenter, perched atop the Corcovado. Here the inquisitive can stare disbelieving across the spectacular panorama that is Rio’s backdrop. Elsewhere in the city is the Parque Nacional de Tijuca, the world’s largest urban forest, where you can walk between Jacaranda and Ironwood trees searching for Golden Lion Tamarin monkeys. The botanical gardens at Jardim Botanico offer an exceptional insight into the tropical world of the Amazon. Lose yourself on a walking tour of old and new Rio. Drop in on an evening Samba school rehearsal and allow yourself to get caught up in the compelling rhythms. Even hang-glide off Pedra de Gavea, some 500m above the seashore. Or simply sunbathe on Copacabana or Ipanema beach.

But Rio has a seedy side too. The good life and the city’s natural gifts collide with the harsh realities of a modern metropolis in an unevenly developing nation. As you fly into the city, you can see the famous granite outcrops of Sugar Loaf Mountain and Corcovado, presiding over the towering buildings on Rio’s beachfront. Yet once you have landed, the taxi to your hotel has to drive from Low Town, where the airport is located, to Upper Town. The journey takes about half an hour and involves travelling from one extreme of wealth to the other. Low Town is cloaked in poverty and the trip is deeply affecting. There is a chronic lack of housing, health services and jobs here, which has resulted in the creation and spread of favela (slum) districts. This in turn ensures that Rio has a history of crime and violence.

Everyone told me what to expect, I was travelling with more advice than luggage – “Watch out for the muggings. They’re so violent in Rio.” Which is terrific. Just the sort of advice to inspire confidence and open-mindedness, when visiting a place. The vast majority of people in Rio are warm, friendly and tolerant, but street crime is a problem here. So the attack, when it came, wasn’t really a surprise. It was, after all, exactly what I’d been told to expect. My assailants weren’t violent, just fast and opportunistic. The embarrassment was there none the less.

Despite the obvious rift between those who have and those who have not, Rio is one of the most exciting cities I have ever visited. As long as you take sensible precautions you should enjoy every minute of your stay. Do venture out and do mingle, just leave any obviously flashy jewellery and cameras behind.

Rio’s most famous event is the annual Carnaval, which runs from the Friday before Ash Wednesday to the following Thursday. The mayor of Rio hands the keys of the city to Rei Momo, The Lord of Misrule, and five days of debauched, surreal, erotic festivities begin. Rightly renowned, the Carnaval is the world’s finest manifestation of unbridled hedonism. Fireworks, processions, floats and cross-dressing neighbourhood bands vie for your attention in a sensory orgy.

Rio is much more than just a legendary annual party though. The state of Rio de Janeiro is the size of Switzerland and contains a host of fascinating destinations. Day trips east and west along the coast take you past sleepy seaside towns and reveal truly paradisical stretches of beach. Lush vegetation and mountains meet perfect white sand beaches and transparent waters. The best of these are the easily accessible island of Ilha Grande and the town of Parati, which is a well preserved Colonial relic. Elsewhere, the resort city of Petropolis provides an idyllic mountain retreat.

Cariocas describe Rio as the Cidade Maravilhosa (Marvellous City) and, like New Yorkers, can’t understand why anyone would want to live anywhere else. Once you’ve been seduced by the city’s assault on your senses, I suspect that you too won’t want to leave the most inviting playground in the world.

I used the Lonely Planet guide to Rio de Janeiro. As maps go, try out the Rio de Janeiro map by Falk and if you are planning excursions in the Rio State, rely on the Quatro Rodas map of Rio de Janeiro State.

Browse our collection of travel guides and maps to Rio de Janeiro

Author: Alex Stewart

The European Discovery of the Pacific

The European Discovery of the Pacific It is a fascinating fact of cartographic history that the first world map to name the new continent of America was also the first to illustrate the existence of the Pacific Ocean. What’s more, there is a mystery surrounding the origins of this remarkable map produced by Martin Waldseemuller in 1507: how did he come to represent the Pacific on his map a full decade before any European had actually seen the ocean?

Here we are honoured to reproduce an exclusive abridged version of a lecture on this mystery given by cartographic historian Peter Whitfield at the British Library that coincided with their exhibition Lie of the Land – the secret life of maps (27 July 2001 – 7 April 2002).

The European Discovery of the Pacific – A Cartographic Mystery

Keats’ well-known poem Much have I travelled in the realms of gold ends with the lines:

“Like stout Cortes when, with eagle eyes,
He stared at the Pacific, and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise,
Silent upon a peak in Darien.”

These lines commemorate a milestone in the history of exploration – the first European sighting of the Pacific Ocean. Keats had got his facts wrong of course, for it was not Hernan Cortes but another Spanish conquistador Vasco Nunez de Balboa, who saw the ocean. That moment on September 25, 1513 has certainly still entered the history books, when Balbao, in the course of his journey across the isthmus of Panama, first sighted a great sea far away to the south. Two days after the sighting, he and his men reached the coast and waded into its waters, claiming possession of it for Spain. Balboa met a bloody end in 1519, but news of his discovery had already spread to Europe, and had revived hopes of finding a westward route to the Indies. With this aim Magellan set sail in September 1519, and of course he succeeded, spending 100 terrible days sailing across some 6,000 miles of empty ocean from the Magellan Strait to make his landfall in Guam. Magellan met a tragic and unnecessary death in a brawl on one of the Philippine islands, but the survivors of his crew arrived back in Spain in September 1522 with the Pacific now firmly placed upon the world map, so named by them for its calmness and absence of storms.

Martin Waldseemuller cartographer of the 1507 map

So what is going on here? No other map of this period shows such an ocean, and it was universally believed that the lands discovered in the western Atlantic by Columbus and the other navigators were actually the coasts of Asia. This of course was what the navigators in the age of discovery had set out to find – a western sea-route to the Indies and China. All other maps of this period depict the American discoveries as part of Asia, and they place the names Asia, or China, or Tibet and so on upon them. No European text of this period, no geographical description of the world, mentions an ocean west of America, so what is the background to this unique map? Who was Martin Waldseemuller? Where did he get his data from, and what was his intention?

We know little more than the bare outline of Waldseemuller’s life and work. He was born near Freiburg in the southern Black Forest around 1470. By 1515 Waldseemuller had become a leading member of an intellectual circle in St Die in Lorraine. This group was particularly interested in the sciences of geography and mapmaking, and they acquired books and maps concerning the new discoveries across the Atlantic from Spain and Italy. The results of Waldseemuller’s researches were published in 1507 in four parts:

The world map which we are discussing: a very large map (2.3 x 1.3m) printed from 12 separate woodblocks – in fact it was the largest map ever printed to that date.
The gores (i.e. oval printed sections) of a small world globe.
A book entitled Cosmographia Introductio, an elementary treatise on mapmaking and geography.
An account of the four Atlantic voyages undertaken by the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci .

Waldseemuller's Map of the World, 1507

Now the mention of Vespucci brings us back to the title of the 1507 map which is printed along the bottom in bold letters: Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptolemaei traditionem et Americi Vespucci aliorumque lustrationes – “A map of the whole world according to the teaching (tradition) of Ptolemy and of Amerigo Vespucci and of other surveyors” (lustro means to go round, to traverse, to scan or to survey). Ptolemy was of course the greatest geographer of the classical period, whose description of the world, composed in the second century AD, had been rediscovered by scholars and scientists in the European Renaissance. The inset picture at the top of the map clearly symbolises the role of Ptolemy as geographer of the old world, counterbalanced by Vespucci as geographer of the new world. This very exalted view of Vespucci’s status is confirmed by a most important passage from the text of the book Cosmographia Introductio, where Waldseemuller writes:
Now these parts of the earth [i.e. the three continents Europe, Asia and Africa which he has been discussing] have been extensively explored, but now a fourth part has been discovered by Amerigo Vespucci…I see no reason why any one should justly object to calling this part Amerige, that is the land of Amerigo, or America, after Amerigo, its discoverer, a man of great and proven ability. Its position and the customs of its inhabitants may be clearly understood from the four voyages of Amerigo which are published herewith.

And we can see that Waldseemuller followed up his own suggestion by writing the word America in the middle of South America both on his large map and on the map drawn for the small globe.

This feature on the map has, of course, received massive attention, and the map has been referred to as “the birth-certificate of America”, and this historic feature has to a large extent overshadowed other aspects of the map, especially the enigma of the Pacific. Now it is clear that Waldseemuller, a scholar working in eastern France, had no personal knowledge of exploration, of the new world or of the Pacific, and that he must have been dependent on source material from outside. It is also abundantly clear that the major source, the inspiration for all these works of 1507, were the voyages of Amerigo Vespucci, accounts of which Vespucci himself had published. So in the quest for Waldseemuller’s sources, we must now turn to Vespucci.

Vespucci has long been a controversial figure in the history of exploration. Navigational experts have cast doubt on the accuracy of the locations he claimed to have reached, to the extent that of his four claimed voyages, some historians have argued that only two really took place. Our interest centres on Vespucci’s third claimed voyage (which may, in reality, have been his second), and which took place from May 1501 to July 1502 – precisely 500 years ago for those who get excited by anniversaries. On his return, Vespucci published two separate accounts of this voyage in which he claimed that he had sailed along the South American coast down to a latitude of 51 degrees south, which would have brought him to within a few hundred miles of Cape Horn, and virtually to the mouth of the Magellan Strait, through which Magellan was to sail into the Pacific in 1520. On this voyage Vespucci had reconnoitred something approaching 2,000 miles of the Brazilian coastline. It was this experience which convinced Vespucci that these lands in the western Atlantic were not merely islands, but formed a continent in their own right, an entirely new landmass in the map of the world. This was the insight, the great discovery that he publicised on his return.

One of his two publications about this voyage was a pamphlet entitled Mundus Novus – “The New World”. It should be recalled that until this moment Columbus and all his contemporaries had clung stubbornly to the belief that the lands found by the navigators in the western Atlantic were mere islands off the coast of Asia, and that sooner or later a passage through them would be found, which would lead to China and India. In overthrowing this view, Vespucci may be said to have made an intellectual as well as a geographical discovery:
These new regions which I have searched for and discovered, can be called a New World, since our ancestors had no knowledge of them…I have discovered a country in those southern regions that is inhabited by more numerous peoples and animals than in our Europe or Asia or Africa, and in addition I found a more temperate and pleasant climate than in any other region.

Among the thousands of people who read the pamphlet was Martin Waldseemuller, and he was clearly so impressed by it that he embodied Vespucci’s discoveries into his new world map, and elevated Vespucci to the status of patron saint of the New World. Now it is noticeable that neither the Mundus Novus nor any other publications by Vespucci were accompanied by any kind of map. But in that pamphlet he did address these words to his employer, Lorenzo de Medici:
I have resolved, Magnificent Lorenzo, that just as I have given you an account by letter of what happened to me, I shall send you two depictions of the world, made and ordered by my own hand and knowledge: one will be a flat rendering and the other a map of the world in spherical form.

Waldseemuller's 'spherical' map

Vespucci never kept this promise, and he never produced any map of his voyages. But these words suggest that the connection between Waldseemuller and Vespucci may have been closer than that of a writer and his distant admirer. I suggest that the two men must have had some personal contact – they may have corresponded and may even have met during the years 1503 to 1506, and that Vespucci handed over to Waldseemuller the task of making these two depictions of the world which he refers to. I suggest that the explorer gave to the mapmaker all of his memoirs, notes and sketches connected with his voyages, and that the Waldseemuller map of 1507 embodies Vespucci’s view of the world.

Does all this help us with the problem of the Pacific? It might if there was any evidence that Vespucci had communicated to Waldseemuller some exclusive and otherwise unknown information that an ocean existed west of the new world. This would be an obvious inference that we might draw if there had in fact been personal contact between the two men. Unfortunately no shred of evidence in that direction has ever been found. Every surviving document relating to Vespucci and Waldseemuller has been published and carefully studied, but they offer no clue as why the Pacific is given such a decisive form on the 1507 map.

So we have to fall back on speculation, but reasoned speculation. Since Vespucci did not personally see or at least write about a western ocean, where did Waldseemuller get the idea from? I think the clue to the whole problem must lie in the text of Mundus Novus, not in any particular detail, but in the entire character of the New World and its people as they are described. Vespucci presents to us a territory of lush jungle forest, full of parrots and leopards, inhabited by tribes so savage that their very humanity seems in doubt. To understand why this is so important for solving the Pacific mystery, we have to remember that the central impetus behind the European voyages of discovery was to find a new sea-route to India and China. The navigators and the monarchs who sent them were not looking for new lands; they were looking for new routes to lands that were already known to exist. And the great source of that knowledge, the origin and the spur to the entire age of exploration, was the description by Marco Polo of his journey to China.

Marco’ Polo’s narrative first appeared in manuscript around the year 1300, and printed editions appeared from 1477 onwards. It became one of the most popular secular texts of the middle ages, part of Europe’s collective consciousness. It was Marco Polo’s text above all which created the European idea of the east, the idea of the fabled source of spices and silks, the idea of a civilisation more magnificent than any in Europe, with huge cities boasting ornate palaces, large public works such as canals and bridges, ports crammed with shipping, the fields fully cultivated, and the whole country ruled by an all-powerful king whose word was law from the China Sea to the Caspian. This fabulous civilisation was reachable by traversing the Islamic lands of the Middle East, and the deserts of central Asia. Waldseemuller knew this, as did every literate person in Europe. In other words there was nothing here remotely resembling what Vespucci or Columbus or any of the navigators had actually found in central or southern America: there, there were no cities, no palaces, no spices, no silk trade, no Great Khan enthroned in his capital. The Caribbean islands or the Brazilian coast could not possibly be reconciled with the vision of China presented by Marco Polo.

This I think is what lies behind the depiction of the Pacific on the Waldseemuller part: it was a symbolic statement of the separate identity of America. The Brazil described by Vespucci could not possibly be a part of Asia, however remote from China, for it was so different that it had to be a separate and distinct region, and that separation is symbolised geographically by the intervening ocean. One detail on the Waldseemuller map seems to confirm this view quite strongly. Japan – named as Zipangri – was described by Marco Polo as an island whose civilisation was as remarkable as China’s, and it was said to lie about 1,000 miles east of China. Waldseemuller places Japan almost exactly where it should be, but remember that in 1507 no European had ever seen Japan or even approached anywhere near it. So this was theoretical mapmaking – constructing an image of the world from literary sources, which could not be verified, but which in this case happened to be correct. So this surely was behind Waldseemuller’s thinking: he gave in this map the cartographic equivalent to the phrase Mundus Novus. The idea of the western ocean never appeared in print, but it is exactly the kind of idea that might have been suggested in conversations or in letters between Waldseemuller and Vespucci.

The 1507 map was a very influential one, many of its features were copied by other mapmakers, and in particular the name America caught on, partly no doubt because of the similarity of the word itself to the words Asia and Africa.

We find in maps of this period – from 1500 to around 1580 – that two distinct types of world map were circulating. The first kind is the map of the whole world, the “Cosmographia Universalis” where the mapmaker is offering an image of the entire globe. There are no empty spaces, there is a grid of latitude and longitude, and some of the features of the map were inevitably purely theoretical, and not based on firm geographical knowledge. The second type was the world map based on the sea charts of the mariners. This type of map showed the coastlines of the world that had actually been discovered by the European navigators. It did not pretend to be complete, but had instead many empty spaces. It usually showed latitude, but never longitude, and it had no projection, no attempt was made to depict the shape of the globe, and it always stopped well short of both poles. Many atlases of sea-charts from this period, drawn by the same mapmaker, show these two types of world map side by side, in spite of the fairly massive differences between them. These two different images of the world were both valid and meaningful to the people who studied them. One was a conceptual image of the globe, in which ideas could be tried out, so to speak, within an agreed framework. The other was a record of what was actually known, so that on this kind of map, the continents frequently fade away into empty sea.

The mystery of the Waldseemuller world map illustrates the fragility of so much historical knowledge. We think we are sure of certain landmarks in history, such as Balboa and Magellan discovering the Pacific between them, when the Waldseemuller map appears to throw a huge question mark over the whole matter. I still have a feeling that there must be a story behind the Waldseemuller map, a human story about Waldseemuller and his contacts with Vespucci. Nothing is known about Waldseemuller after 1516 – he simply vanishes from history. We do not know where or when he died, but I like to think that before he died, he left his fellow-scholars in St Die and sailed away to find out the truth about the Pacific for himself. Perhaps he did: perhaps he joined Magellan’s fleet which left Spain in 1519, and perhaps he was among the many who perished in the course of that epic voyage across the Pacific. If so, then he would at least have realised that his map of the new world had been correct, and that the ocean that he surmised or invented by a stroke of genius in 1507 was very much a reality after all.

Peter Whitfield is the author of A Universe of Books, The Mapping of the Heavens, The Charting of the Oceans, New Found Lands – Maps in the History of Exploration, Cities of the World: A History in Maps and London: A Life in Maps.

His real claim to fame, however, is that during the 1980s he was a colleague of ours as director of Stanfords and wrote about our history in The Mapmakers – A History of Stanfords. For further information on Peter Whitfield, visit his website: www.wychwoodeditions.co.uk.

Author: Peter Whitfield

The History of ITMB

ITMB ITMB Publishing Ltd (International Travel Maps and Books, if you’re not in a hurry) was conceived in the early 1980s from the partnership of an Australian cartographer named Kevin Healey and Jack Joyce, a Canadian map retailer, who were both frustrated at the unimpressive range of maps of Central and South America on the market. At that time, European cartographic publishers apparently expressed little curiosity for that part of the world, as it wasn’t perceived to be of sufficient interest to their market.

Fuelled by ambition, but with little in the way of resources, the dynamic duo planned to remedy the situation step-by-step, and began by self-publishing a two-sheet map of South America in 1985 with some support from the British publisher Bradt. As the struggle progressed they gradually produced more titles covering South American regions over the next few years. By 1991 the three maps of North-East, North-West and Southern South America had been accomplished, and their first country map, Costa Rica, was ready in 1990 to coincide with the upsurge in tourism there. As recognition of their efforts grew, more locations were covered, and now ITMB is one of the largest and most successful map publishing houses in the world. They have over 180 titles in print through the work of several enthusiastic, independent cartographers and joint-venture associates.

If you browse through Stanfords’ web pages for Central and South America you will come across many examples of their work. Their bestselling map at Stanfords is Ecuador, with Costa Rica, Belize, Galapagos and Venezuela also falling in the top 20 bestsellers list. Other titles include Amazon Basin, Argentina, Brazil, Easter Island, Guyana and Uruguay. These attractive maps are usually characterised by the use of elevation tinting to denote topography, extensive detail and the inclusion, to a varying extent, of notes on historical and geographical aspects of the subject area. Not only Latin American countries and cities have been tackled, but also much of Canada, and in particular ITMB’s backyard, the British Columbia region. In more recent years Africa, Central Asia, the Middle East and South East Asia have increasingly come under ITMB’s scrutiny as they extend their gaze further afield for regions inadequately covered for travellers. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it.

Colombia

Why do you want to go to Colombia?”, asked everybody incredulously. Apart from the fact that I want to go everywhere which is reason enough for me (“because it’s there”, as they say), there are more than enough reasons to single out Colombia. Great coffee is a rather convincing one. Vast jungle, beautiful palm-lined beaches with beautiful snow-capped peaks visible in the distance, some of South America’s most beautiful Spanish colonial towns and very lively, interesting and very beautiful people are a few other reasons that come to mind. And no, not every Colombian is a drug baron. In fact, I did not meet a single one.

On my first day in Colombia I did meet thousands of pilgrims, however, at Las Lajas where the Virgin Mary had been sighted in the past and a spectacular church was built across the deep canyon to mark the spot. I seem to be quite good at running into public holidays without knowing about them as I arrived fresh from an Ecuadorian election into Colombian Independence Day celebrations with flags flying, men marching and pilgrims flocking. This means all the hotels are full, yet magically I always find the last vacant room in town eventually. Continue reading Colombia

France – Le Touquet Paris-Plage

Shells Last summer six cousins and I squeezed into a large estate car with all our camping gear and spent a few days pottering down the coast of northern France. We stayed at the many well-appointed campsites along the way (eg les Dunes at Plage St Gabriel – you can get a listing from the French Travel Centre).

We spent the mornings devouring large numbers of patisserie, the days on the beach and the evenings cooking moules marinière over the campfire. Quite by accident, we stumbled across the resort town of Le Touquet. Within an easy drive of either Boulogne or Calais, Le Touquet is definitely worth aiming for as a destination in itself, as we found out.

In the early part of last century, it became so popular among the Parisian elite that it acquired its extended name Le Touquet-Paris-Plage, or Paris-on-Sea! Nowadays, it remains a favourite resort for locals and visitors alike. The centre of the town retains many of the original buildings, although apartment blocks have spoiled the beachfront somewhat. There is a large swimming pool complex with water slides and fountains which is a great place for kids (of all ages).

The town boasts a wonderful covered market in the middle where you can pick up local seafood, plus some very chic shops – strictly for window-shopping given the prices! Restaurants in the town tend to cater for all budgets ranging from ‘not cheap’ to ‘extremely expensive’. Of course, as with anywhere it is possible to eat out cheaply if you look around. The nightlife is buzzing with a real party atmosphere.

Le Touquet has many hotels, mostly on the dearer side. For the more adventurous, there is a great campsite right at the mouth of the river with access to the extensive dunes. We camped there and it turned out to be really convenient for the town centre – being well within ‘staggering home’ distance after a night on the tiles. However, if you do choose to camp there, don’t be surprised by the light aircraft passing overhead every few minutes – the town is so popular that there are scheduled flights from Biggin Hill in Sussex! If you can’t afford to fly and don’t have a car, you can still get there by train from Calais – just alight at Étaples and get a taxi across the bridge into town.

Inland from the town, the extensively irrigated and wooded valley of the Canche is fascinating to explore by car or bike. Going south, meanwhile, the coast offers extensive dunes, great camping and lots of little resorts.

For touring in northern France I used the yellow-covered Michelin road map Pas-de-Calais – Somme (Sheet 301). I would also recommend taking the relevant IGN Blue map – in this case IGN Blue map Le Touquet – Berck 2105ET – as this will allow you to explore the smaller roads without getting lost. The pick of the guides is by Michelin – Picardie, Flandres & Artois. One of the Green Guide series, this book gives information on where to stay, what to see and what to do. Malheureusement, it is only available in French at the moment. The AA pocket guide to Channel Hopping [now out of print] is worth a look, especially if your time is limited. It contains a useful overview of the highlights of the area.

Browse our collection of maps & guides:: > France travel guides; > France road maps and atlases; > Travel literature inspired by France

Toulouse to the Pyrénées

I gathered my seven words of French, my French dictionary, my maps and guidebooks – like every good journey this one started at the shelves of Stanfords – and set off for the forgotten southern corner of France.

The TGV train – what a brilliantly fast way to cross a country – rolls into Toulouse station and discards me into a throng of very lively French youths. Welcome to the student capital of France – only Paris has a higher number of students, which is rather unfair competition since its population is many times larger than that of Toulouse.

The books call Toulouse the pink city, supposedly referring mostly to the pink colour of the buildings, rather than to any political or other connotations the word might carry. We did indeed find many of these pink facades, but being a lover of variety I am happy to announce that brown and grey are just as common. It is easy to lose your way in Toulouse among the great little alleyways of superb townhouses, churches and squares with student pubs everywhere. Eventually you will make it to the banks of the Garonne river. Don’t miss the main square – Place de Capitole – dominated by the town hall and ringed by the more elegant cafés.

Time to move further south into the Ariége valley, an area visited more by French holidaymakers than by their international counterparts. This does make for a more authentic France, if you will excuse the cliché. Thermal baths, forgotten villages, castles on hilltops, caves with ancient cave paintings and lush forest – we even excused one day of rain as an essential element for lush vegetation – all of this provides plenty of attractions for the visitor. I still can’t understand why this is such a forgotten corner of France, but I am not complaining.

For us, though, this was not far enough. We were heading higher up the Pyrenées. We were well stocked with maps, but for once I spent more time choosing maps than studying them in detail in advance. My 1:25,000 IGN map shows 10m contours but I assumed them to be 5m intervals. The result: The foothills were exactly twice as steep as expected, making the target for the day downright absurd.

Peaks of around 3,000m steeply towering above us on the following days confirmed the 10m contour interval as a rather sensible move by the French cartographers who also impressed me immensely with the accuracy they use to mark even the tiniest streams and ponds. My advice: do not enter here on foot without one.

These same towering peaks on the borders with Spain and Andorra also confirmed that we came to the right place for some solitude in magnificent nature. The Pyrénées offer a wilderness that is not easily rivalled in Europe. That there are still supposed to be a few remaining brown bears certainly adds a touch of excitement while wandering in the evening mist! They are supposed to be good-natured and non-aggressive, a theory we were unfortunately not given an opportunity to test.

Spirit and mind revitalised – and feet a bit worse for wear – saw us on the train back to Toulouse. Here they had decided to hold a festival with live music on the main square and fireworks above the river to mark our return to town… or some other momentous occasion – does 14 July or Bastille ring any bells?

Toulouse is a bit under-represented in the abundance of regional France guidebooks, being lesser known and not quite part of the Mediterranean coast around Provence or south-western France around Bordeaux. But countrywide guides like the Insight Guide to France or the Cadogan Guide to France have extensive informative sections that can be recommended.

The Pyrenées are covered by excellent practical books: the Rough Guide t The Pyrenees covers the French and Spanish side in one book and for the serious walker I recommend the Cicerone Guide Walks and Climbs in the Pyrenees.

And do not forget your IGN 1:25,000 Toulouse map for mountain walking or the IGN Top 100 map of Toulouse – Albi (1:100,000) to cover slightly larger areas of those forgotten villages. Stanfords staff can help you choose the ones you need using map grids.

Author: Gerhard Buttner

Browse our collection of maps & guides:: > France travel guides; > France road maps and atlases; > Travel literature inspired by France

Amalfi Coast

The further south you go in Italy, the more scooters dominate the motor population. The variety sharing the roads and streets is immense: the new generation of motorcycles next to the older models, the classy Vespas and the 50ccs that the young ones modify to go faster, at the same time succeeding in creating a powerful eardrum-breaking device. Scooters are the ideal means of transport in the narrow streets of old medieval town centres or on winding coastal roads and in the long southern summers, they are better than air-conditioning. Continue reading Amalfi Coast

Life in Venice

The only cigarette shop that stayed open till late in the whole of Venice was inside the café next to La Fenice theatre. In June, during the summer exams session Silvia, my inseparable friend and study pal, and I would go on studying and revising till late. We would stop at midnight and go out for a walk.

This was the best time of the day. Venice was empty. The only sounds were those of our steps and of the water lapping against the sides of the canals. Every now and then the sound of a night Vaporetto broke this balance, only to increase the silence when its shape faded in the darkness.

It usually took us half an hour to walk to the Fenice. We lived in the Jewish Ghetto area and usually stayed on the same side of the Canal Grande. It was a longer route but the view of Strada Nuova without the daylight bustle was worth the extra time. Strada Nuova is one of the largest streets in Venice. During the day it is just a large street, lined with shops and crowded with tourists walking towards San Marco Square and Venetians food shopping or busily passing by. At night it becomes a long empty corridor dimly lit by the street lamps and it has always reminded me of an empty stage. The play is over but the place still retains some of the magic of the performance.

Another highlight of the walk to the Fenice was to look up at the large windows of public buildings or the gothic-shaped biphoras of elegant private houses. When the lights were turned on some revealed the most beautiful interiors – frescoed ceilings and twinkling chandeliers or alternatively, contemporary canvasses covering the whole of a wall.

What a relief it was not to find the crowds in Campo San Bartolomeo and Campo San Luca. The former a meeting place for any age group, the latter strong amongst local teenagers. After work or school, what is better than meeting and catching up with some gossip? At one o’clock in the morning the buzzing noise of a few hundred voices talking at the same time was missing, leaving just our steps.

A game we used to play sometimes, even while talking and apparently not paying attention to it, was to choose a row of tiles and try to follow it till the Campiello della Fenice, the small square in front of the theatre.

Finally we’d get to the shop, buy the cigarettes from the grumpy man at the counter (would you blame him?) and head home again, this time going over the wooden Accademia bridge.

The Fenice theatre burnt down on a tragic night in 1996 and when I was in Venice in May this year, I didn’t go past its ruins but could see cranes above the roofs of the buildings that surrounded it. It is some sign of the long awaited reconstruction – the Phoenix is going to rise again from its ashes.

Cigarettes and breaks from Dostoevskij and Achmatova are excuses I can’t use anymore, but I still enjoy wandering around Venice’s empty stage nearly as much as its daily performance.

I would be tempted to suggest not to take a map at all and just lose your way in the labyrinth of Calli and Campielli. There is always something new around every corner. But… it is always wise to carry a map in case time or finding a particular location become an issue! The ideal map is the street plan of Venice by TCI and the guide I find most reliable is the Time Out Guide to Venice. I also like the format of the Companion Guide to Venice which has less practical information, but is a thoroughly researched title organised around specific themes.

Browse our collection of travel guides and maps to Venice

Author: Marina De Santis

Sicily

Sicily offers a wonderfully rich and varied holiday, from the wealth of architecture to the striking landscape and Mediterranean food and wine. Several historical epochs have left an imprint on the island’s architecture. There are substantial Greek ruins to rival those in Greece itself – don’t miss Siracusa (the ruins and the museum) or Agrigento (the stunning Valley of the Temples strung along the coast), or even Morgantina if you have time (where there is less left to see, but it is an evocative site).

Continue reading Sicily

Brindisi, Italy

Sitting on the boot’s heel of long-legged Italy is Brindisi, one of the three main towns of the Salento peninsula. Moving south, Italy changes, everything is different – the light is different, the language is different and the sea is different – deeper, open, Italian, Greek, Mediterranean.

Brindisi has always been known because of its port, the gateway to the East, built by the Romans that exploited its natural shape, which looks like of a deer’s head. It is one of the safest ports in the whole of the Mediterranean.

From here the Crusaders sailed to liberate the Holy Land. The Silk Route passed through Brindisi and it is still possible to spot the wagon rails used to move the goods from the trains onto the British P&O ships that connected London to Bombay.

More recently, the port’s most significant role has been to connect Italy to Greece and long before charter flights became such a big thing, travellers had to pass through here to make their way to Greece and further afield.

I must say the town has never done much to invite travellers to stop. What regularly happened was that thousands of people arrived every day in the summertime from all over the world and were left hanging around the harbour ’til late at night with nothing more to do than visit the beer and wine aisle in the cheap supermarket nearby.

Anyone who passed through Brindisi to catch a ferry to Greece up until the ’90s will tell you how boring their stay was, and how difficult it was to get local transport to beaches nearby or to small towns in the countryside.

Things have slightly changed however and are still improving. It really took a while, though! It took generations of politicians and now, as the local administrators are younger people, less motivated by the corruptive side of power, the results can be seen. The number of backpackers has fallen dramatically because interrailing is no longer the cheapest or the most comfortable way to reach holiday destinations.

More people speak other languages, more information centres can be found, and connections to pretty towns in the countryside are a lot easier.

Ostuni is only 35km north-west of Brindisi and its Arabic and Greek architecture attracts more and more visitors every year. A famous festival with street artists from all over Europe is held in the month of August and a number of other cultural initiatives take place all year long, increasing during the summer months.

Further north lies Alberobello, another little gem, with its famous trulli, pre-historical houses with cone-shaped roofs made of slates of dry stone.

Egnatia, near Fasano, with its Roman settlements and the white-washed houses in lively Cisternino are worth a visit as well.

South of Brindisi, near the beautiful Baroque Lecce, the picturesque Otranto and Gallipoli are among a number of resorts known for their nightlife and their clean and beautiful beaches.

Festivals, cultural events and sagras – occasions usually linked to the commemoration of the local saint – combined with delicious seafood and wine, make the Salento peninsula the ideal place for a really exciting holiday rather than just a stop over.

Remaining in Brindisi, the visitor can easily visit the local Archaeological Museum or the permanent exhibition of the bronze Greek statues rescued from the sea.

The unstable situation in the Balkans has forced the thousands of Turkish people living in Northern European countries to choose Brindisi as the only possible route on their way to Turkey for the summer holidays, which normally fall between the end of June and July. During these months the town struggles to cope with the number of cars waiting hours and sometimes even days for the ferries to Cesme or Igoumenitsa.

The travellers coming at this time of the year may have the impression of a chaotic hot and polluted place…and it’s not just an impression!

I would recommend, for maps to Brindisi, try the TCI regional map of Puglia and the LAC provincial map of Brindisi and LAC map of Lecce.

Browse our collection of travel guides and maps to Brindisi, Italy

Author: Archangelo Amodio