Places to visit

A rhino walk in Zimbabwe’s Matobo National Park

12
Places to visit
“This is their territory. This is where they live. We try to keep them as wild as we can. Even though we visit them on a regular basis they are not tame animals. They’re still wild and we respect them. It’s two-and-a-half tonnes of sudden action; zero to 60 kmph in just a few seconds. It can be quite surprising how quickly they get up,” says Norman Bourne of BlackRhino Safaris.

Bruegel’s Eye art exhibition in Belgium

Places to visit
This project, for me, was a discovery of all the other things that Breugel is — the intelligence of his compositions and the landscapes in his paintings. People like Breugel’s work a lot and identify with it as typically Flemish or Belgian culture and its joie de vivre. At the same time he really is a very interesting painter who invented the snow landscape as a genre and played an important role in developing the landscape as a genre of painting,” added the curator of Breugel’s Eye.

Celebrating Leonardo da Vinci

2
Places to visit
Some of the anatomical details that he sketched were so accurate that they were not verified scientifically until as recently as the 1980s. He was the author of notable studies such as Proportions of the Human Figure, a work often known simply as Vitruvian Man, which includes text on the squaring of the circle and the observation that the length of a human’s outstretched arms is typically equal to a person’s height.

Picasso on Paper at Rotterdam’s Kunsthal

2
Places to visit
“The interesting thing is that Picasso started working in this technique only at the age of, I think, 77. In 1958 he made his first linocut...even in his 70s he tried to do new things and experiment in new techniques,” pointed out Peter van der Coelen, the Curator Prints and Drawings at Rotterdam's Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.

Celebrating Dutch Golden Age art

Places to visit
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, was born in Leiden during 1606, and recorded some of the most vibrant decades of what is now termed the Dutch Golden Age. He created his first works in the city of his birth — the location of the oldest university in the Netherlands — then moved to Amsterdam. He lived and worked in the capital of a flourishing maritime empire. The Rijksmuseum, which conveys the history of the Netherlands and displays artworks from the Dutch Golden Age and beyond, is also located in Amsterdam. The grand building was designed by Pierre Cuypers, who was also the architect of the Dutch capital’s central railway station. Bas relief figures adorn the façade of the Rijksmuseum, whose Gallery of Honour was built to give pride of place to Rembrandt’s The Night Watch.

Western Approaches Museum in Liverpool

2
Places to visit
“The Battle of the Atlantic was controlled from here. The Western Approaches was originally based in Plymouth but with the fall of France and fact that the channel was so dangerous that’s why it moved here to Liverpool in ’41,” says Carmel, who is wearing a navy blue costume and tie, similar to wartime uniforms worn by members of the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS).

Arras Christmas market

Places to visit
“For me, Arras is one of the most beautiful cities in France, maybe in Europe. It’s very nice to work here, with good people and good conditions. For the business it’s a very good place for us. Belgian chocolate is very appreciated here in France they don’t have the same one — we have Belgian chocolate!” said Thomas Laforge at the Doctor Steam Bar, as, instead of trying his hot chocolate, I sipped a cup of his mulled wine fortified with a shot of rum.

Pages of the Sea in Sunderland

3
Places to visit
Carol Ann Duffy, the United Kingdom’s Poet Laureate, created a poem that visitors could read or listen to. If you did not get an opportunity to do that on Armistice Day, you can find the 14-line work, The Wound in Time, on the Pages of the Sea website.