Italy 1969 - 2019

You may have the universe if I may have Italy - Verdi.

Do places change over time? Well of course they do, and people often think not for the better as they view their past with rosy retrospection. Hence the idea for Changed Places came about: a series of books that record a place over an extended period of time.

The fact that there are several places I have visited for decades, and have some record of those early visits, is sheer happenstance. In those early days I had no idea that at some time point in the future a book would result.

Did I even know that I would return to these countries and cities?

Well, we all like to believe we might return to places we enjoyed but without knowing when or how. Returning to places we love is the habit of all habitual travellers, hoping that we will experience the same. Rarely is this the case. Places change, sometimes for the better and sometimes not. We change too: we age, our outlook on life evolves, experiences that were once magical become commonplace meaning that our perceptions are no longer the same.

Italy is the first in the series, a format that uses both words and many photographs and images to bring alive whatever transformation has taken place. Not that this is hard to achieve when Italy is the subject: history, food, and colour. What is there not to like here, when the country is full of tantalising flavours experienced across all senses.

So this is grand tour to both place and across time, and yet at the same time an honest and simple portrait of the country.