This site is all about how stories add spice to our ideas and feelings about the cities we love. And often we only know cities through the stories we've read. My favourites have long been London, Venice, and Florence and so I made this site, where I list and review all sorts of novels and films set in these three cities. Each city has its indulgent side pages too. These deal with subjects like
Venice's cats, London's cakes and Lost Florence.

I've also been casting my net wider of late 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.
Fictions feature here too.
You'll find the trips 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

25.4.2021
A bit of a revival in Venetian fiction fondness going on with yours truly, possibly because I'm missing the place, but the Spring rush helped. On the lockdown easing front libraries and non-essential shops reopened this week, with galleries and such to follow mid-May. Meanwhile I'm busy visiting and photographing the Magnificent Seven Cemeteries in London, a couple of which I've never been in! So many daffodils.

24.3.2021
Adding to the Spring reviews below comes a copy of David Hewson's Venice-set The Garden of Angels, which has suffered some odd UK/US, hardback/ebook staggered publication in recent months. And a novel by Jonathan Chalstrey of the life of Pietro Torrigiano, the sculptor who was responsible for Michelangelo's busted nose, called Punch!  Well what would you call it?!

4.3.2021
But in other ways the year is turning out typical. I've just had my review copy of Donna Leon's 2021 Brunetti (the 30th!) called Transient Desires, and Philip Gwynne Jones' new Nathan and Federica novel The Venetian Legacy is coming soon. I'm also currently reading Ross King's The Bookseller of Florence and have been made aware of the recent novel City of Vengeance by D. V. Bishop, another Florence fix. So it's looking like another Spring reviews glut, I'm happy to say.

1.3.2021
As Italy, and abroad generally, is not looking to match our vaccine and lockdown-easing measures I've booked a couple of guided UK trips -  Medieval Suffolk (including Sutton Hoo, Lavenham and Southwold) in August and Durham (with Jarrow) in September with an art historian who's also a good friend. But I've not given up hopes of Italy in the Autumn.

24.2.2021
So on Monday we Brits were shown our slow way back to normality. Very much from my personal perspective the stages we pass before then are as follows.
8th March Schools reopen
29th March Meeting friends and family outdoors is allowed. We’re going to see ours on the 30th, for the first time since last October. Travel outside one’s locality now allowed. The return of the Brick Lane bagel run?
12th April Non-essential shops, libraries and hairdressers can open. But why not art galleries and museums? A very good question so far not sensibly answered. Holidays in this country will be allowed in self-contained accommodation.
17th May Museums and galleries can now reopen, as well as restaurants and hotels. Also international travel can resume, but this will be reliant on other country’s vaccination states and rulings, of course.
21st June All restrictions lifted. Mass mask burnings?

For me I can see myself getting out in the fresh air more in March as the stay-at-home rule is relaxed. I’ll finally get to take my library books back in April, but it would’ve been nice to have been able to go see some art while I’m in town. But I won’t be able to do that until May. Let’s hope day trips out to cathedral towns will happen then too. City breaks in the UK are tempting me for the summer, but Italy is looking unlikely before the Autumn. It’s good to have a rough idea, though.

12.2.2021
We're still in covid lockdown, and as a new season of art-history trips approaches - Spring - so a new batch of cancellations is upon me. Lucca this March is now Lucca in March 2022 and Siena in May has just been cancelled and is now Toulouse and Albi, also in March 2022. Parma and Modena this June has yet to cancelled, but is looking dicey, I'd suggest. I'd like to vaguely and broadly conject that UK holidays might become possible in late Spring, maybe even around Easter, with foreign travel maybe in the Autumn. The roll-out of the vaccine and the fall in the rate of transmission and deaths across the UK suggests that some optimism may be in order. Our esteemed  leader is set to make some sort of announcement on the 22nd of this month.


17.1.2021
But back to business. David Hewson, an author we like, has a new novel set in Venice out sort-of soon called The Garden of Angels. I say sort-of soon because it is published in the UK in hardback and on audio on January 29, 2021, with the e-book out in the UK and US on the 1st of March, and the US hardback out on April 6th. This odd and confusing mishmash of publication dates is blamed by the author on his website on the current Covid situation. But how does that explain the ebook coming out a month after the hardback? The blurb tells us that the book concerns 15-year-old Jewish boy whose grandfather presents him with a musty manuscript which tells the tale of what really happened to said grandfather in Nazi-occupied Venice. Sounds hopeful.


15.1.2021
If I say that this week has been important and auspicious you might suspect me of exaggerating, but... On Monday we took delivery of two new cats from Cats Protection, left on our doorstep in their carriers as the need for social distancing has adjusted the whole homing process. They are called Minnie and Lily and I have created a new page detailing their settling in. It's maybe a bit too detailed, but it has sweet photos. Not so many of Lily yet, as she has been slow to emerge much from her preferred spot behind the sofa, although today did see much progress and more sightings. And this week has seen me and Jane both get the Covid  jab - her on Wednesday and me this morning. The process was swift and easy for both of us, and it's hard not to see the future looking brighter. Holidays ho!

old news here