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Irene is freelance lifestyle writer focusing travel, arts & culture, food & wine and a regular features contributor to Luxury Lifestyle Magazine, where Irene has an author page and Travel Begins At 40. Irene writes a regular monthly culture column Art in the City at London Begins At 40. www.hashtagtravelling.com.
In the second of her regular arts columns, Irene Caswell takes a look at the new July art exhibitions in London, as well as one coming to a close. Summer exhibitions are well underway with a diverse offering of displays designed to amaze, delight and entertain.
Continuing our London Voices series where we ask Londoners what makes them love London, Irene Caswell speaks to florist designer Simon Lycett. Simon Lycett moved to the capital city at the age of 20 with the aim of working at a florist's for six months to develop some "sophisticated London ways", before returning to his home town of Warwick to set up a flower business.
A new exhibition at the Palace of Holyroodhouse featuring watercolours collected by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert is set to open this March in Edinburgh. Throughout their marriage Victoria and her consort were passionate patrons of watercolour painting.
The garden at Buckingham Palace is an oasis in the centre of London. Following the pathways past the lake and through the woodlands beneath the mature sentinel trees is tantamount to time travel, an escape into another dimension. A new book, Buckingham Palace A Royal Garden, documents a year in the historic garden.
Irene Caswell looks forward to a world where we can travel internationally once more and explores the delights of traditional food in Slovenia. Slovenia is less than a tenth of the size of Great Britain yet there are 24 different gastronomic regions as well as three wine regions.
As the world tentatively reopens from lockdown, luxury hotels are gearing up to welcome guests once again. With the need to modify and innovate to build confidence, safety and wellbeing of visitors and staff, hotels are seeking out the best possible ways to achieve this. Naturally, strategies are evolving as society is changing almost daily.
It is well known that the French take their wine and their food very seriously indeed. I travelled in a small group, courtesy of the Conseil Interprofessionel des Vins du Languedoc (CIVL), to the South of France to discover how the locals live the Mediterranean life.
Italian adventurer Casanova was a fan of oysters and it's said that he ate 50 for breakfast. Sounds a little over the top and yet oysters are a natural food source, responsibly and sustainably grown and harvested. Both wild and farmed oysters are rich in rare amino acids and zinc.
Travel writer Irene Caswell visits Lens in Northern France and discovers art, fine food and history combine to make the perfect weekend break. Northern France's mining history The Arras region of Pas-De-Calais is a former mining area and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The region of Piedmont or Piemonte is surrounded on three sides by mountains. The capital city of Turin is well known for its Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Neo-classical, and Art Nouveau architecture. The whole area is rich in cultural treasures and it seems as though every town and village offers a significant heritage site worth visiting.