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 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. 1.1.2025  Happy New Year!  Regular readers will know that I'm sometimes tempted to discuss goings-on in the wider world, but to keep matters upbeat I'm sticking here to the personal stuff. I'm looking forward to trips to Salzburg, Milan, the South Tyrol, Norfolk and Florence. Milan is a planned new page to start work on in the next couple of cold months. The books-to-look-forward-to articles in last weekend's papers were pretty thin, keen-anticipation wise, except that September sees the publication of Venetian Vespers by John Banville, an old favourite novelist. Season's Greetings 2024 and more end-of-year stuff, including the year's fridge magnets, are on my NEWS page 15.11.2024 With the completion of my hat-trick of non-Italian trips, all full of very special art and tasty cakes, I face a winter indoors. My first trip in 2025 looks like being to Salzburg, but a return to Italy is scheduled for April, and a big exhibition devoted to Fra Angelico at the Strozzi in Florence later in 2025 is making a visit there then look essential. On the fame and glory front an article about Michelangelo's Bruges Madonna in this month's Burlington contains photos by me (see the NEWS page) - my first credit in that august publication. There was also the possibility that some of my photos might have found a supporting role in the 2026 Venice Biennale, but this is now not to be. Oh well. 6.9.2024 ‘So, Jeff,’ I hear you ask, ‘what’s occurring?’ Well, after my excellent trip to galleries in Berlin and Dresden I’ve been able to add some altarpiece info and photos to some churches in Venice and Florence. Also, I’ve been able to belatedly add fascinating facts about Stollen to my London Cakes page, which, as you may know, also deals with tasty imports. I was going to spend some days in Arezzo next week, with a view to the creating of a new page, but for various reasons, not the least the forecast of thunderstorms all week, I’ve postponed that jaunt. Trips remaining this year are Burgundy and Delft, both in October. As I type it’s dingy, cool and rainy in London, but the future’s bright! old news here  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 April 2024 The South Tyrol Trips January 2024 Carlo Fruttero & Franco Lucentini The Lover of no Fixed Abode Venice

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