Special guest post from longtime UnTourist and travel writer, Fyllis Hockman. Walking home to our apartment in Venice, we share a wave through the window with the owner of Baba, our local osteria. Leaving for a day of sightseeing, a cup of my favorite pistachio gelato awaits me despite the early hour. At…
Peggy Guggenheim was an American heiress and eccentric who made a name for herself by amassing one of the broadest and most important private collections of modern art in the world. Born and raised in New York, she moved to Europe and spent time with her first husband running in the bohemian circles of the…
Considering a visit to one or more of the great cities in Europe? Getting the most out of your city travel experience takes a special kind of planning, especially as we navigate COVID and how it has altered the way we dine and sightsee. You can still enjoy the best of Europe’s cities. Many have…
All of us on the UnTours team have been here for 20 or more years, which is a good thing, given how knowledge intensive our work in Europe is. So when Andi Cancelliere Sheehan, our Italian UnTour Director for 25 years, left our staff during COVID, it was hard to imagine how to fill those…
The Scuole Grandi (Great Schools) of Venice were fraternal organizations, established between the 13th and 16th centuries. They operated as charitable and social organizations for non-noble Venetian citizens of standing and wealth. They played an important role in their communities and in the arts. The schools were normally associated with a church and built nearby….
As I promised in the Eurozine newsletter last week, I am sharing my photos from Carnevale in Venice this year. These images were captured before local cases of COVID-19 triggered regional quarantines and Carnevale events were suspended. Venice is a magical place in the weeks leading up to Shrove Tuesday. Its Carnevale tradition dates back…
So much to see and do in Europe already, but why not plan your trip around some of the season’s special events? Festivals and fairs are a window into a culture, a signifier of what is important to a community, and an excellent way to rub elbows with the locals. Here is your 2020 trip…
In our first in a series on overtourism, we talked about finding alternatives to very popular cities, like seeing Holland from a base in Leiden rather than Amsterdam. You can read more about that here. We still find ourselves in popular tourist cities though, and you will too. After all, we all want to see…
What is overtourism? Overtourism has become a catchall term for the oversaturation of a neighborhood, region, or city with tourists. Just when a place hits this critical tipping point is up for debate, but we can all agree it is a growing concern, a blight that undermines the quality of life for locals and erodes…
There’s nothing like travel to stoke romance. The sights and sounds and smells and tastes of new places can stir your passion for living, and sharing those thrills with another is a perfect way to build your relationship. UnTours are made for love, giving you space to spread out in an apartment, autonomy to do…