Archive for March, 2009
Siena pictures
Duomo, Siena
In lieu of a proper post here, I have added some new shots to my flickr set: on Siena. (If you click “Show Info” in the top-right of the slideshow, I’ve written brief guidebook-style information on each slide.)
Last time I was there was in the immediate aftermath of the Palio, in the steamy heat of August last year, won by Bruco (the Worm). By chance, my room for those few nights was in the Bruco contrada. I didn’t get much sleep. On the plus side, my room was bang opposite a gelateria that I might never have found otherwise: Kopa Kabana, on Via de’ Rossi. I suggest you stop by next time you’re in town; the panpepato flavour, based on the traditional Sienese sticky honey, nutty, peppery cake, is spectacular.
Wine Travel Guides comes to Tuscany: a review
If you’re an enthusiastic wine-tourist, or would like to be, you need to meet Wine Travel Guides. The venture was launched in 2007 to offer wine lovers the essential information for planning a private wine tour. There are now 50 regularly updated micro-region guides to download or view online, including 2 new ones on Tuscany. It’s a well-timed expansion: the region was recognised this month for excellence in wine tourism.
An annual subscription offering unlimited access to all 50 guides is £49, or download a single guide for £7.50.
The two Tuscany mini-guides are packed with just the sort of detailed wine tourism information likely to be missing from a mainstream guidebook. Author Michèle Shah has an impressive pedigree in Italian wine, and shows it off with plenty of winemaking and DOC(G) knowledge. There’s just the right portion of technical nuggets for a proper enthusiast. Read the rest of this entry »
Dante’s Inferno: new trailers
Lorenzo Maitani, Last Judgement, Orvieto cathedral
A quick update on “Dante’s Inferno“, the XBOX360 game I trailed here last year. There are two new teasers for your viewing pleasure, plus an interview about the development process.
The game is based on book 1 of Dante’s epic and, incredibly, “most of the dialogue and narration you hear in the game does come from the poem”. That’s some serious research. To my eye, the game’s art direction also shares much with the Tuscan tradition of the Last Judgement, a perennial favourite from pre-Renaissance art right through to Michelangelo and beyond. No idea what Dante would have made of all this, but I can well see painters like Taddeo di Bartolo and Luca Signorelli enjoying the gorefest.
The expected release date is unconfirmed, but the game is “at least a year away”.
