With all generic child recommendations, age differences are the biggest challenge. What is good for a 2-year-old, is inherently not good for a 12-year-old. In fact, children under 3 are really a species all their own and require a separate list of suggestions. With that disclaimer, I will focus this list on families with children in the 3-12 age range and try to offer suggestions for both extremes in that range.

1. Prepare. Anything you can do in advance to give your child a sense of what they will be doing, seeing, learning — and especially — eating, will help them to be excited and about the trip. Once you’ve chosen your destination, make a trip to the library (or online bookseller of your choice) and stock up on tons of great books about the country, culture, food, museums, etc. Be extra careful to not limit yourself to non-fiction. Anything that looks too much like school might turn some kids off. Try things like The Roman Mysteries for trips to Italy for kids from 8-12. The This is ______ series by M. Sasek is a collection of city-themed picture books for 3-6 year olds. The Madeleine books and movies are great for Paris. Here is a nice list of Paris books. The Paddington books are good for London. Movies are another way to get them excited about a place. The Great Race is good for younger kids, Roman Holiday for older ones.

2. The flight. The scariest part of traveling with children for many parents is the actual travel. Eight to 14 hours in a confined space is daunting. A well-stocked bag of goodies can make it all go much more smoothly. Buy new toys, books, or games that your child has never seen before and break them out in the air. Single serving snacks of all types can be helpful. Allow the forbidden. Let the TV-free child watch the in-flight entertainment, the sugar-free child have a candy-binge, the digitally-deprived child play with a game app on your phone. The point being, start tossing out the rules on the flight over. And one last tip, a deck of cards is still a small miracle.

3. Palate Prep. I briefly alluded to eating in number one above. Here is a more detailed comment. Foreign food can delight some children and horrify others. Spending some time investigating the country you’ll be visiting and the type of food that it is famous for can go a long way to avoiding total restaurant meltdowns. Find a pre-trip restaurant that specializes in that cuisine. If possible talk to the owner/chef/waiter about your upcoming trip and ask them to talk about the food they think your child should try first. Cookbooks for kids often have simplified recipes you can try along with short histories of the food and culture. I have the Kids’ Multicultural Cookbook and it’s simple recipes are accessible. Don’t forget to also give them some time off from adventurous eating. Pack some old stand-byes. Feel free to eat at a hotel where there is a hamburger on the menu, etc. Sometimes, you’ll need to trade away a few comforting meals to ask children to stretch themselves in other ways.

4. Apartments. Renting apartments instead of staying in hotels can allow you to provide your children with the downtime they need in order to be at their best when out in the city. Having a simple kitchen, even if you know you want to eat all your meals out, means that you can offer a bowl of cereal, a PB&J, or a grilled cheese, if you must. It also means that a total failure at a restaurant dinner won’t end in going to bed hungry. Our family always does the arrival day dinner at home to give us a chance to explore local markets, pick up some staples, and most-importantly, avoid jet-lag-induced tantrums at a restaurant. The common room in an apartment allows time to relax, look at your guidebooks, and hang out together without being in one another’s bedroom. The added bonus with apartment rentals is that they are usually significantly less expensive than hotel stays. Spend it on souvenirs, instead!

5. Downtime. And finally, know when the pea-shooter is full. I had a teacher who would look at her bleary-eyed students towards the end of class, close her book and say, “The pea-shooters are full. Any more any it’ll all come out the other side.” In order to absorb all they will be seeing and learning, children (and parents) will need free time. We encourage our clients to never arrange more than one walk a day if possible, and to spend plenty of time soaking up the culture, the beauty in the streets, and the different pace. A four-hour walk through a museum should be followed by at least four hours of strolling, shopping, or reading in a cafe. Finding the balance between activity and repose is the difference between a very happy memory, and another sort of family legend. In addition, a few hours spent shopping for local items to bring home will help your child bring the trip back with them, share it with their classmates, and interact with locals.

Some supporting websites with helpful resources:

Travel for Kids

Momfilter

For Italy: Ciao Bambino

And here’s a parenting blog with a travel-writing contributor. Laughter can help leaven the pain: Dadwagon.

It is these often under appreciated, but nonetheless important, sites and topics which have inspired us to create our newest program, Tours in the Public Interest. Completely underwritten by the Context Foundation for Sustainable Travel, Tours in the Public Interest allow Context to offer walking seminars focused on areas of cultural heritage which may otherwise not be popular or commercially viable, to the general public for a nominal fee (usually $5). The series not only draws attention to unique themes, timely scholarship, and out of the way places, but makes the in depth, participatory learning experiences that Context is known for available to a wider audience.

You can read more about Tours in the Public Interest offered in 2011 on our website here. Check back in the coming month for our full 2012 schedule!

With this contrarian, “let’s shake things up,” attitude underpinning all that we do, I was excited to learn about B Corporations a year ago from our good friends at Untours. B Corp stands for “benefit corporation” and is a movement of businesses that are mission driven and pursue social or environmental benefit beyond simply earning profits. Some people call these businesses social ventures or “triple bottomline businesses.” Whatever the name, B Corps redefine the idea of success in business around the idea of impact and making the world a better place.

Context has been making investments in sustainable travel for many years, greening our programs, educating our clientele on how to be better travelers, and supporting the work of the Context Foundation for Sustainable Travel as it runs cultural preservation programs in many of our cities. Heck, we even made the top ten list of National Geographic’s Geotourism award in 2009. But, I’ve always been uneasy with the traditional silo approach to social responsibility that most businesses take: earn profits in the business and set up side ventures like foundations, corporate social giving departments, etc., to do good in the world. Doing good is in our DNA. At Context, transforming travel trumps profits and isn’t just something we do on the side.

So, I was delighted when Untours told us about B Corps, and last spring we sat down with an auditor at B Labs, the organizing force behind B Corps, and went through a certification process. In June we officially became a certified B Lab.

In my opinion there are three main benefits for Context becoming a certified B Corp:

Sets the bar. There are a lot of different kinds of certifications out there, including for the travel industry. In fact, in 2011 Context also became STEP certified by Sustainable Travel International as a sustainable travel business. However, the B Corporation certification is by far the most streamlined of these processes and by being so engaging, quickly focuses a company on what it needs to improve. It’s very easy as a social venture to get lulled into thinking you’re doing everything right. Although we attained a healthy 113.7 impact score, as our B Impact Report clearly shows we need to make improvements in community and environment.

Learning. B Corp was founded by business leaders who put a premium on efficiency, continuous improvement, and community learning. One of the great benefits of being a B Corp is that Context has joined a tightly knit, focused movement. We learn a ton from other B Corps. When we wanted to improve our benefits and make Context a better place to work we turned to B Labs. When we wanted to discuss the challenges of raising debt to fund expansion, we tapped into the community of socially-minded financiers within B Corporations. The network has been amazingly beneficial.

Transparency. One of the core tenets of a B Corp is transparency with its stakeholders, including employees. As a certified B Corporation we’ve had to learn how to be more transparent with our staff on a whole host of issues, from major decisions down to minor adjustments, and to bring them more fully into those processes from the start. As a result, we’ve become a much stronger, people-driven organization.

This week I’ll join the rest of our staff from Philadelphia, London, Paris, Rome, and Istanbul for our yearly retreat in the Pocono Mountains. As we discuss this company’s direction over the next 12 months we’ll be thinking about how our decisions will make an impact on travel and travelers as much as we think about them driving profits. There will be plenty of eating and drinking and fun too. I’ll make sure that we raise a glass as well to all the other B Corps out there striving to change the world.

Spending my share of time in Florida and the east coast of the United States, I’ve lived through tropical storms and hurricanes before.  This left me absolutely unprepared for what I experienced early in the morning on December 30th just outside of Pondicherry on the southeast coast of India. Cyclone Thane, a storm categorizes as “very severe” or a category 1 hurricane, made landfall just after midnight.

The door to my room flew open and immediately slammed shut. I reached for my flashlight, turned it on just in time to see the door fly open again, along with the windows, which came unlatched due to the high winds.  There was no glass to cover the screens so rainwater poured in and we sat in the corner, as protected as we could be, to wait for the fury to subside.

What we found in the morning, as the storm moved on, was devastation: trees down everywhere damaging houses, shops and roads, no power or water because the wells depend on electricity. I, along with the 20 other people from the American University of Paris’s Sustainable Development Practicum, and residents of Auroville, the town where we stayed, knew it was time to get to work. We came for a month to learn about sustainability, get to know Auroville and Pondicherry, and work as communications consultants for local NGOs. We ended up having a short-course in disaster relief.

Cyclone Thane is being named the worst storm in decades, with more damage than the Tsunami that hit the area in 2002. More than 70% of the forest was uprooted, including cashew, mango and flower crops that provide livelihood for a huge portion of the residents in the area. Almost 25,000 people were evacuated and more than 200,000 homes damaged or destroyed. Still, more than two weeks after the storm, more than 40% of Pondicherry remains without power, causing huge losses for industries that provide employment for the almost 1 million residents.

My experience in India certainly wasn’t the trip I had imagined and will make me reflect on travel, volunteering and how they connect. Because of the storm our group was immediately thrust into helping with clean-up efforts along with the locals. In part this had do with the fact that we were staying for a month and already working with local NGOs. Even so, this intense experience allowed me to see much deeper into the community and make real ties there. This reinforced what I already believed about connecting with the places that I travel. Hopefully, I can recreate this in the future without a cyclone.

The American University of Paris Sustainable Development Practicum has started a relief fund through Auroville International and all of the proceeds will go directly to the small non-profit organizations that we worked with on the ground in India. For more information about how you can help please visit our website.

Scott’s failure was, in a way, a triumph which overshadowed the achievement of Amundsen.The romantic myth of the doomed expedition has inspired films, TV series and books, and the arguments over who or what bears the responsibility continue to this day, indeed it has entered in some way the national psyche, as Scott himself predicted. In his last letter to his wife, written on 29 March 1912, he wrote:

Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale, but surely, surely, a great rich country like ours will see that those who are dependent on us are properly provided for.

The expedition is up there with other spectacular failures: the Charge of the Light Brigade and the Retreat from Dunkirk come to mind. The sheer courage, pluck or stiff upper lip involved has, with the benefit of hindsight, rendered these otherwise unmitigated disasters examples of true British grit and has inspired others to succeed where their forebears did not. If you want to gain a little understanding of this peculiarity of the national character, The Polar Museum in Cambridge, one of Context’s cities, is hosting an exhibition until 5th May dedicated to the 1910-12 Terra Nova exploration of Antarctica, These Rough Notes: Capt. Scott’s last expedition. For the first time rare and fragile letters, diaries and photographs have been put on show in order to chart, in intimate detail, the fortunes of all those involved, including the horrendous conditions endured by the ‘Northern Party’, a group of six men who had to shelter in a cave dug out of the snow for over a year and a half, cut off from their supply ship.

As well as letters and diaries the exhibition includes objects associated with the expedition: watercolours made by Scott’s chief scientist, Edward Wilson; the makeshift newspaper which the trapped Northern Party put together on a typewriter, including humorous sketches, poems and snatches of news; Lawrence Oats’ reindeer-skin sleeping bag abandoned when he walked out into a brutal night; the Christmas decorations made by the shore party and a penguin-shaped menu for a Midwinter’s Day dinner. They bring a touch of humanity to the written accounts as well as illustrating how the men attempted to bring some comfort and familiarity to ‘the worst journey in the world’.

But it is the diaries and letters which make up the most poignant and illuminating part of the show. Disputes between the expedition’s members – Oats’ opinion of Scott, ‘He is not straight, it is himself first, the rest nowhere’ – and Scott’s lament at not reaching the Pole first – ‘Great God! This is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority’ – as well as touching letters to loved one’s and accounts written by survivors bring a completeness to our understanding of exactly what happened a century ago and why it all went so terribly wrong. As the Museum’s archivist has written, ‘We know the story – we know how it ends – but they didn’t, so from the storms that beset the ship through to the party in the hut and on to the march to the South Pole we can go with them on their journey’.

For details of the exhibition, see http://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/museum/exhibitions/theseroughnotes/

As an architect in Rome I work on remaking places so that they better serve peopleʼs needs–and stir their souls–while contributing as much as possible to the long-term, planetary ecological balance. Some Studio Rome projects are extremely local, such as our proposal to transform underused structures along the Tiber into a center for urban re-use. Others involve prototypes that might be inserted into various contexts: bike-racks, urban gardens, etc. or broader planning projects that traverse the city such as rail lines or bike paths.

But often, instead of physical architectural transformation, the best solution is a change in how we live the city. Whether initiating from top-down policy changes, or bottom-up life- style choices, such transitions can have longer-lasting effects at a fraction of the cost. Instead of making new places or even remaking old ones, sometimes it is the actions that take place that count most.

Residents of Rome have a long way to go in terms of sensible, sustainable daily practice, especially abandoning their obsession with automobiles to make the city once again pleasant for pedestrians. But what about the almost 10 million tourists who visit Rome each year? How can they (you) contribute to making Rome more sustainable? Below are seven ideas to start you thinking.

Stay longer. Whether youʼre coming from London or New London chances are you will arrive by plane, the most carbon-intensive form of travel. Why travel all that distance to stay only two nights? (Rhetorical question, save your complaints about short vacations for your boss). Seriously, the coming and the going, the checking in and checking out are the most wasteful moments in travel, and the more time you can just be in a place, the less your overall impact. Rome certainly warrants a longer stay. Iʼve been here twenty years and havenʼt run out of things to see and do.

Walk. Rome is structured for pedestrians, since it was, in fact, mostly built before the arrival of motor vehicles. A majority of your destinations in the city are within walking distance if you are willing to budget the time (which you should anyway because in Roman traffic you can often walk faster than a taxi). Not only do you reduce air, noise and visual pollution (and danger), but you experience so much more of the city. And by occupying Rome on foot you help increase the critical mass of pedestrians, helping us assert our rights against the onslaught of autos. If youʼve come to Rome by car, park it in one of the cheap (and often half-empty) parking garages for the duration of your stay. Above all, stay off the tour buses. These have had a devastating impact on Rome in recent years, worsening traffic and pollution, menacing people on the streets, blocking views and contributing no tax revenue to the city. If you really want to cover more distance in your limited time, rent a bike.

Eat (and shop) local. A few years ago a lot of local businesses starting giving way to outside investment, to businesses often concerned more with money laundering than money making. Rome is resilient, though, and local culture has fought back. You can help. Try eating at places that are rooted in the community and your experience will be more authentic, the food better, and the material, energy and social impact healthier. When you want to buy something to take home from your trip, look for things produced locally which reflect the materials, culture and craft of the place. Local doesnʼt mean that the owners or employees must be from Rome, only that they participate in the community today—many of the most vibrant, locally-sustaining enterprises are run by recent immigrants. Boycott any place that pushes “hot dogs, ice cream” from trucks on sidewalks outside archaeological sites, and any company that advertises on the huge billboards which have invaded the city, most of which are illegal.

Volunteer. This is easier said than done, but nothing makes a travel experience as memorable as actually doing something for the community you are visiting. Whether it be spending a day cleaning up an archaeological park, planting trees with a guerilla gardening group, or teaching English to under-privileged school kids, you will learn more about Rome and make a needed contribution. Thanks to the internet, service-oriented travel is becoming easier to organize in advance, but sometimes it is a question of being ready to help out where needs arise. Last year I was traveling with students in the Veneto when floods hit and we volunteered to clear mud out of Palladioʼs Teatro Olimpico. As climate change starts to show its effects we can expect more and more ecological catastrophes to strike, and more and more travelers to be ready to chip in and lend a hand.

Use transit. European cities have excellent transit infrastructure and although Rome is famous for its extremely limited underground (which it conveniently blames on archaeology) there are buses, trams or trains just about anywhere. 3-day passes are cheap, included in some museum-card offers, and unlike the tour buses which remove you and other tourists from the city, public transit puts you right in the heart of things. And for day trips use the local trains, once among the best in Europe (although currently facing budgets cuts at the same time other nations are improving their rail networks.) Many Romans, still caught up in a post-war inferiority complex focused on the American car culture, have a strange idea that public transit is a sign of poverty. Educated travelers can demonstrate otherwise, setting an example by using and demanding an efficient service which, in turn, makes it hard for transit administrators to let service lapse without risking embarrassment.

Document the good and the bad. Just about everyone photographs, video-tapes, sketches or otherwise records their travels, and much of this documentation ends up online. Roman administrators could learn a lot from perusing websites in an effort to understand how the city is seen by visitors. If you find pedestrian-scale streets, local artisans, urban gardens, well-respected and efficiently-managed monuments appealing, say so by sharing images. But donʼt hesitate to photo, caption and comment the bad with the good. Are you offended by the Italian police barricading streets and arresting peaceful demonstrators? Do you think the crass commercialism of tour buses, billboards, souvenir stands and snack kiosks mars the monuments you want to see? Annoyed by cars (including official government cars) blocking sidewalks and crosswalks? Document and disseminate; local activists will be happy to pick up the ball and express to local officials the damage that certain unsustainable practices do to the cityʼs image as well as its residents daily lives.

Follow-up. Rome belongs to the world and itʼs in everyoneʼs interest to help save it, even from itself. During or after your trip follow up with a blog post or comments on other peopleʼs blogs (contexttravel.com, sustainablerome.net, etc.) with your observations. Could the city be cleaner? Could it be easier to discard waste in appropriate containers for recycling? Could the buses be scheduled more efficiently? For a city that depends on tourism, Rome is remarkably uninformed about what tourists really appreciate and what, by contrast, annoys them. Do you really need “tourist angels” on segways and automated snack venders or would a traditional neighborhood snack bar provide both refreshments and information. If you have had a hard time manoeuvring a stroller around cars and scooters, how willing are you to smile knowingly and say “oh you know the Romans and their attitude towards rules”? Would you stay longer next time if the city were greener and less polluted?

If any city has a head start in sustainable urban development it is Rome; it has the density, the material resources, the water, the temperate climate to be a people-friendly, transit- oriented, net-zero energy metropolis simply by using better the fabric it has inherited. A lot of Romans are standing up to protect the city from energy-intensive, land-consuming, polluting practices. Next time you visit Rome, even if only virtually on the web, join us in the movement to stave off the new plague of unsustainable practices.

This year, we have launched a few walks that we are particularly proud of. Here is a shortlist of our favorites:

Philadelphia: Public Art in Philadelphia: From William Penn to Rocky Balboa

Philadelphia has more public art than any other city in the world outside of Paris. From the tallest statue atop any building in the nation, to thousands of murals. On this walk, we explore the political and social changes in the city over the past 250 years which propelled the city to become an international cultural leader and a steadfast supporter of public art.

Paris: D-Day and Normandy Beaches

Many travelers asked us about the best way “to do Normandy”. We responded by creating a full day excursion, that can be broken into two days when time allows. During the excursion we travel along the D-Day beaches in the company of a WWII historian. We visit sites at Omaha Beach and Arromanches which provide a powerful visual backdrop to understand this complex historical event.

New York: Walking the Old Croton Aqueduct

Off the beaten path for most visitors to Manhattan, the Old Croton Aqueduct stretches 41 miles and once served to distribute water from the Croton River in Westchester County to the city of New York. We do this walk in the company of a preservation expert specializing in historic aqueducts. We hike several miles of this mammoth structure, tracing physical evidence- sometimes humble, sometimes monumental- of the Aqueduct through Manhattan. We keep fit and explore hidden parts of our beloved NYC.

Edinburgh: Edinburgh, City of Medicine

Between 1751 and 1800 the Scottish Universities were responsible for educating 85% of British doctors. Less renown than its literary heritage, Edinburgh’s history of medicine is of great importance not just for Scotland, but for the whole world. Our walk, developed by an historian and nurse traces the history of medicine in Edinburgh from its origins, at the Royal College of Surgeons to today’s world weaving into the narrative figures such as Conan Doyle, Burke and Hare.

Venice: Casanova’s Venice

It’s difficult to separate the name of Casanova from the city of Venice, and yet many people ignore the extent to which this famous member of Venetian society represented the society and lifestyle of Venice in the 18th century. Our walk is a look into the life, vices and popular social activities of the age, we’ll discuss the popularity of casinos, elaborate parties, lavish fashions, and elegant cafes that made Venice a destination for the wealthy and decadent of Europe.

These were some of our favorite walks on 2011, but we have a whole new set ready for 2012. What were your favorite walks this year? Are you looking forward to a special walk for 2012? Let us know your thoughts and preferences.

The second part of our conversation with art historian Frank Dabell fast forwards to our modern age, the conditions that are now present inside the Sistine Chapel, and how one can get the most out of their visit in what can often be a chaotic environment.

If we fast forward to today, in 2012 it will have been 500 years since [Michelangelo] finished the Sistine Chapel. We asked readers if they had any questions and one of our readers on Facebook asked about the restoration. What is your opinion of this last restoration was done? What do you think Michelangelo would have thought of the restorations that have been done to his work?

I think he would be horrified, like any practitioner of buon fresco in the 16th century, to know that varnishes had been applied through the centuries, touch ups as it were. I think he actually would have been delighted by we now call the most current restoration, which is now nearly 30 years old. I remember going there in the mid-80s. I was on the scaffolding three times. I’ve touched that ceiling – of course I was invited to. There was a huge PR barrage at that time, as sort of an offensive because there were so many people who had not really seen the difference. One of the problems is that in books to this day, you can look at an old book on Michelangelo and the ceiling and the color photographs look quite bright in parts because the photographic light goes through the dirt and shows colors that seemed brighter. In fact, they were very dull. There was no question that it had to be cleaned. The subtle question is not just between before and after. Tourists reduce this to a sort of black and white opposition now, also because very few people remember the pre-1980s condition, except you can see those patches. [ed. in keeping with modern practice, conservators left small patches of the pre-restoration condition visible] When you see that it brings it home for them. But it’s not just about the light, it’s the subtleties between the last part of the restoration, of the ceiling which was the question of whether the restorers had gone too far. I don’t think on a ceiling of that scale you can go without making some kind of errors, but I think that it was a very positive result. They didn’t start from scratch, there were experts in conserving frescoes brought in that did all sorts of preliminary work. I’m still convinced that those are the colors. I’m not a conservator, I’m not a chemist. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, also very close up. I’ll never forget as long as I live, touching it. It was like a baby’s bottom, smooth as a piece of glass. That wasn’t from conservation, that was how it was painted – brilliantly paint. If you compare the colors in the Doni Tondo in the Uffizi and other works, you will see, and they are already in Florentine painting in these years, these very very bright and glowing colors. It’s a glow that seems to come from within and this is very important for the generation that follows, like Pontormo and others. So, the short answer is yes, I would approve, but I’m only an historian.

Obviously now the Sistine Chapel is a major world tourist destination. We were talking about expectations of what is there and how people can sometimes be disappointed when they go in and see the conditions. Given that it is such a crowded space, what do you try to do with your clients and what can people do on their own time to get the most enjoyment out of the space?

As we said before, the expectations are key here and if you reinforce what will happen, which is that it is a very big space, but for that reason people sometimes don’t know how big it is and so there are a lot more people in there than you’d expect…so if people know that, though in the minutes literally leading to it they’re still doubting it because it is such a great space. It’s like going into Grand Central Station, which by the way is related to it in architectural forms very deliberately. I equate it sometimes to going to the airport. You can either be stressed out at the airport and upset at everything going on around you or you can sit down and read a book. This is our book – the ceiling and the other walls, and we can learn to study things while we’re being distracted. There are, of course, those moments out of season – January or February – that if it’s a sunny day and there is light coming from the south that it’s just glorious and bathes the whole room. Now, they do light it artificially from the outside, they have also put in a recent climate control monitoring system just in the last month of so. We’ll see what happens because they are worried about the rising levels of CO2. I think for our daily expectations for somebody who has never seen it before or who has seen it by book, it’s still exciting and our task is to make that introduction or acquaintance seem exciting even before you reach the space – on a crowded day, on an uncomfortable day when people are already tired because they’ve already had a long walk.  But that is the job of somebody introducing someone socially, before they meet, if it’s a complex acquaintence to be then you prepare that person.

So you feel like the clients who prepare expectation wise and who are best able to focus on blocking out what going on around them and concentrate on the art in front of them get the most out of it?

Yes, and they’ll get the most out of it even if they have the least preparation for one key reason, which is how we function as a group of docents, and that is connecting it with things we have seen before. Not that only that day, but the hour that procedes, not to mention if they’ve done a Roma Antica tour or another with Context as well, as just before we generally visit the antiquities. This makes a thrilling discovery because a lot of people do not know of the Vatican’s antiquities collection of the Laocoon, for example, and people never fail to be astounded by them. And to realize that he was one of the eye witnesses to its discovery and that basically his DNA is those figures. It fits right into his creative process. He takes those figures of the father and sons [in the Laocoon] and recasts them on the ceiling, so in a sense we have been introduced to it already.

Right, I think sometimes people forget that. They think “oh we just want to see the Ceiling,” and don’t realize that part of what you get through the whole collection is everything that leads up and it’s all interconnected because he was here and working at this very exciting time when all of this was happening.

And all of that plays into what ends up on the ceiling. I think it’s the same with very simple comparisons with food. If you are about to have an extraordinary banquet and it’s some food you’ve never had before, perhaps some specific food from some part of Asia. You would be enriched, or at least helped, by having some sort of prior knowledge about what you are about to eat. It’s not just sweet and sour or sweet and savory, it’s a lot more complex than that and there’s a background to it and you’ve had a little bit of tasting before that. In short, what we’re doing is trying to introduce people who are informed, even if it’s just in the hour preceding this, to the great vision itself. You are right, it is the focus for a lot of people and we say to them “What you are going to see today, because we can see anything, is we’ll show you the highlights,” and they often say they want just the Sistine Chapel because they aren’t really aware of just how expansive the collections are.

Any favorite parts of the ceiling? Details, particulars that you are really struck by?

I think one has to consider the neck muscles of people because if you stay looking for any amount of time….that’s another thing you need to prepare people for. There are some difficult angles but this is all to do with where you place yourself within the chapel. One of the things that I always look at is the Libyan Sibyl (pictured above) because she’s such an extraordinary figure and she’s one of the great masterpieces of his art. It’s one of the last things he painted in the ceiling as he was concluding the project. It’s also usually well lit and very easy to see from a certain angle and easy to focus on once you get your eyes used to the relative lack of light when you first walk in. And that’s for two reasons, first is that it’s the drawing, the design on this figure. There’s an extraordinary new language that she expresses because he conveys his language of humanity via something that is superhuman. If she stood up, she would be much much taller in proportions than she should be, like the Statue of Liberty. It’s something that is actually inhuman, it’s actually not realistic at all. You realize by looking at that right away that he’s creating something that is not only about muscles, but about proportions that is different and a new language. The other is, of course, the coloring. We go back to him being an amazing painter. That sunset or orange that he used that seems to emit itself from within her robes, so that’s a piece that everybody knows.

I think it’s very important to focus on great sections of the ceiling or individual figures rather than getting lost in the details, otherwise there’s any number of details...the prophet Isaiah, and for some older American visitors I sometimes mention Rosie the Riveter, the Norman Rockwell figure with her sandwich and her tattered copy of Mein Kampf under her feet and her rolled up sleeves, and how Rockwell, one of the great illustrators of the 20th century based himself entirely on that figure in 1943. Notice there that I’ve picked the prophet Isaiah and the Libyan Sibyl, they are big figures. There’s the prophet Jonah as well who relates us back to the Belvedere Torso. It’s the inspiration for him. But then, things also depend on people’s eyesite. I find that people often have problems when you say “Can you see that thing there?” and they say, “Oh, I need to put on my glasses,” and I think “How did you even see up to now?” I’m amazed by this, of course even in the 16th century there were lots of details people wouldn’t have seen, but the colors, and this takes us to the restoration question, are amazing. The headgear of Judith in the corner section of Judith and Holofernes, which is something people don’t look at, and the David and Goliath from those four corner stories from the Old Testament. If we have time and people have good eye site, there is a great sense of warmth of color and washes of color.

Do you think people would benefit from bringing small binoculars with them?

Some people do and I think that if you have a small pair it helps. Some very informed and prepared tourists do this in general when they travel through the world. I saw someone in the Borghese Gallery the other day that with very high powered binoculars was getting a better view of focused details.

Do you know if the Vatican is preparing anything for this anniversary?

There must probably be something, like a Mass being held on the actual day. I’m sure they will be doing something, but I haven’t heard of anything. It’s hard to do an exhibition because it’s hard to exhibit the work itself. What would be wonderful would be, of course, to have a small, focused exhibition of drawings. Plans and drawings for the initial layout, which was something much more like what Pinturicchio would have planned. There are drawings in Detroit and the British Museum. There are two sheets with the only evidence we have of how the layout was going to be before he then made the architecture smaller and the figures bigger. And a number of beautiful figure studies in red chalk and other media of individual figures, going from the Adam to the Libyan Sibyl, which are in the Ashmolean, the British Museum, and there’s a fantastic red chalk sheet in the Metropolitan Museum in New York with detail studies for the back of the Libyan Sibyl. That seems almost easy to ship and display but I think if they haven’t prepared it now, it would be too late. Even, how they sometimes do in Rome, a didactic exhibition with very high quality and detailed photographs where you could see close up and high definition figures life size, as if you were on the Ceiling would be interesting. Anything to bring people’s, not just visual experience, but intellectual perception of these works closer should be commended because we must get closer to them as time goes further away. We’re celebrating 500 years and they are as fresh as they were, in some parts, the day they were unveiled, I’m quite positive. More as time passes we need to remain in contact with these works.

Thank you to Frank Dabell for taking the time to share his enlightening thoughts with the Context readership on the history and interest of the Sistine Chapel.  Frank is just one of the many scholars in the Context network who lead travelers through the Vatican Museums throughout the year.

On a quieter front the National Portrait Gallery has just been re-opened, restored to its former glory displaying an exuberantly refurbished Victorian interior but with new luminous galleries displaying a dazzling collection of portraits which trawl through Scottish history telling the story of this independent nation with its eminent philosophers, writers, politicians, painters and economists. Thematic besides chronological here are the Stuarts, taking the story way back before the Union with England and highlighting the Jacobite attempts to regain the throne after the Hanoverian ‘takeover’. Tragic Mary Queen of Scots, her sleazy courtiers or unwise marriages bringing about her destruction is given pride of place ; notable painters such as Raeburn and Ramsay are well represented as well as modern heroes,  photography galleries and a fine new restaurant.

If one can brave the icy winds there are Ranger led walks round Arthurs’ Seat , Edinburgh’s volcano in the Royal Park in the middle of the city, to admire the geology or hear the history of the area round the Palace of Holyrood House or a short bus ride to Leith will introduce you to the somewhat decayed splendours of this 12^th century port with its fish restaurants and historic buildings. Small private galleries sparkle with special Christmas exhibitions; the Zoo can now boast a pair of admirable pandas- the result of panda diplomacy with China and there is a luminous show of Cadell’s glorious paintings of Iona and the South of France whence his inspiration as a Colourist painter in the Impressionist mode sprang. There is a buzz to this Unesco City of Literature even out of Festival time with avant-garde theatre productions; poetry readings in pubs and piles of books by local authors dominating the bookshops.

We hope to see you in Edinburgh!

It would not be a holiday in Naples without seeing the delicious dessert known as struffoli in homes around the city. I first got my taste of this sugary treat several years ago thanks to a Neapolitan friend whose family now lives in Rome. Culinary docent Alberto Serino, who designed our new cooking lesson in Naples, was kind enough to send along an authentic recipe just in time for the holiday season. 

Makes 8 servings

Ingredients
600gr (about 4.8 cups) of flour for kneading the dough
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs, beaten
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon or orange zest
Vegetable oil for frying
1 cup honey (about 6 ounces)
Garnishes are: multicoloured sprinkles, chopped candied orange peel, citron or cherries.

1. In a large bowl, pour 1 cup of flour and the salt. Add the eggs and lemon zest and stir until well blended.
2. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board and knead until smooth for about 5-10 minutes. Add a little more flour if the dough seems sticky. Shape the dough into a ball. Cover the dough with an overturned bowl or a kitchen towel in a dry place. Let the dough rest 30- 40 minutes.
3. Cut the dough into 1/2-inch-thick slices. Roll one slice between your palms into a 1/2-inch-thick rope. Cut the rope into 1/2-inch nuggets. If the dough feels sticky, use a tiny bit of flour to dust the board or your hands. (Excess flour will cause the oil to foam up when you fry the struffoli.)
4. Line a tray with paper towels. Pour about 2 inches of oil into a wide heavy saucepan. Heat the oil to 370°F on a frying thermometer, or until a small bit of the dough dropped into the oil sizzles and turns brown in 1 minute.
5. Being careful not to splash the oil, slip just enough struffoli into the pan to fit without crowding. Cook, stirring once or twice with a slotted spoon, until the struffoli are crisp and evenly golden brown(not overcooked), 1 to 2 minutes. Remove the struffoli with a slotted spoon or skimmer and drain on paper towels. Repeat with the remaining dough.
6. When all of the struffoli are fried, gently heat the honey just to a simmer in a large shallow saucepan. Remove from the heat. Add the drained struffoli and toss well. Pile the struffoli onto a serving plate. Decorate with the multicolored sprinkles, candied fruits, or nuts.
7. To serve, break off a portion of the struffoli with two large spoons or a salad server. Store covered with an overturned bowl at room temperature up to 3 days.

Buon appetito e buon natale da Napoli!