This site is all about how stories add spice to our ideas and feelings about our favourite cities. Sometimes we only know cities through stories. My favourites have long been London, Venice, and Florence and so I made this website, where I list and review all sorts of novels and films set in these three cities. Each city has some indulgent side pages too. These deal with things like The Cats of Venice, London Cakes and Lost Florence. I've also been casting my net wider recently, and posting reports on my trips to other European cities, as a service to travellers who share my enthusiasm for art, churches, cakes, cats, and ice cream. Novels and stories feature here too. You'll find these cities visited listed on the handy Trips Menu To search within this site using Google, enter your search terms into the box as usual and then type in site:fictionalcities.co.uk In case you're curious, this is Me     My other sites are... TheChurchesofVenice.com & TheChurchesofFlorence.com These sites also have their own Facebook page... The Friends of Fictional Cities and the Churches of Venice and Florence Click on the link and Like the page for regular updates. Click here to send me an encouraging e-mail

click on the word NEWS above for more news (with photos!) click on the titles and trips to read all about them 30.5.2025 Three trips in three months - phew! A bit of a rest now, until three-in-a-row during August, September and October. I've just posted the report on my Alsatian trip and yes - it does feature dogs! But also - WARNING - reports of the torture of ducks and geese. 30.3.2025 I think that we can all be forgiven for assuming that this year will see new novels starring Donna Leon's Inspector Brunetti and Philip Gwynne Jones's Nathan Sutherland. It's been that way for years. Not this year, though. PGJ is to alternate years between Venice and a new series set in Sicily, so the next Nathan is due in 2026. And it looks like we aren't getting a new Brunetti this year, the first time this has happened since the first one in 1992, although there is another volume of DL's biographical jottings, called Backstage, out in August. The only bright spot, then, is the publication in September of Venetian Vespers by John Banville, an old favourite novelist. 18.3.2025 The daffodils are up, the trees are budding, the sap is rising, and so a (not so) young man’s thoughts turn to travel. First up is Salzburg, next week. In May I have a week in Milan booked, which might result in a new page on Churches of Venice, but will definitely involve longer visits to galleries visited on previous trips and at least one visit to the famous monumental cemetery. September sees me on an architectural guided trip to Venice, and in October I’ll be in Florence for the big Fra Angelico shows. 16.2.2025 Well here's a thing, and not a thing that was mentioned in the books-to-look-forward-to articles in the New Year newspapers. Next week there's a new book out by Laurent Binet, a 'proper' author who we like, called Perspective. It's premise is that the artist Bronzino was murdered while painting his last fresco in San Lorenzo in Florence and that Vasari was employed to investigate. It's in the form of letters and seems to be not exactly accurate, history-wise, as Bronzino's fresco, according to the book's blurb, is said to have featured a racy portrait of Maria de Medici as a naked Venus. As his famous fresco is of The Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence a certain amount of poetic license is suspected. We'll see. 18.1.2025 HOT NEWS, that I confess has been slow coming my way. A new TV series based on Donna Leon's Brunetti novels has been announced. It's to be adapted by Julian Fellowes of Downton Abbey fame and all to be filmed in Venice. Not sure why it's taken so long NOT being reported in the UK papers. Maybe because of the lack of detail so far.   old news here June 2025 James Alistair Henry Pagans London May 2025 Alsace Trips Nell Zink Sister Europe Berlin April 2025 Milan Trips Jessie Burton Hidden Treasure London Richard Trench London Before the Blitz   March 2025 Salzburg Trips  February 2025 Laurent Binet Perspective Florence Liza Picard Victorian London Elizabeth Macneal The Burial Plot London December 2024 Alan Moore The Great When London Andrew Saint London 1870-1914: A City at its Zenith Fiona Rule The Worst Street in London September and October 2024 Delft Trips Burgundy Trips Tracy Chevalier The Glassmaker Venice August 2024 Casper David Friedrich Country Trips A.J. Martin The Night in Venice July 2024 Donna Leon A Refiner's Fire Venice June 2024 Piero Country Trips Philip Gwynne Jones The Venetian Sanctuary Venice May 2024 Ferrara & Bologna Trips Ripley Venice TV

Venice // Florence // London // Berlin Copyright © Jeff Cotton 1998-2025 27 years of reading and travelling