• Carvings of lions and cherubs above a doorway
    Monochrome Madness,  Photographic techniques,  Travel galleries,  Ukraine

    Gallery: seeing Lviv in black and white

    When I visited Lviv in 2010 I described it on my Virtual Tourist page as a beautiful city ‘waiting in the wings’. By this I meant that it was ripe for tourism but hadn’t yet been discovered by the masses, nor did it yet have the infrastructure to deal with them. What it did have was beautiful churches with elaborate interiors; a lovely main square surrounded by historic townhouses; broad avenues and narrow winding streets; quirky cafés, a striking opera house and monuments of all kinds and styles.

  • River with small white boat moored
    Lens-Artists,  London

    Found in the neighbourhood: some lockdown discoveries

    I have lived in Ealing for 39 years, and in our present home in South Ealing for 34 years, but I never knew until very recently that Margot Fonteyn lived near here, or that Agatha Christie’s parents are buried in our local cemetery. I didn’t know that Spencer Walpole, who was Home Secretary under three different Tory governments in the mid-19th century, is also buried there.