Ivan Dražić

According to the Australian architect Harry Seidler, the Baroque was one of the high points of Western architecture. Ragusa takes us back to that age like a time capsule, to exuberant façades where architecture and sculpture become one.Architecturally speaking, Sicily could almost be divided into regions. Palermo and its surroundings are shaped by

Rabat was supposed to be nothing more than a place to spend the night on my way to Marrakech. A few hours later, I was standing in the blue-and-white lanes of the kasbah, looking out towards the Atlantic, and realising I’d found my own little pearl of Morocco.Had anyone asked me before that trip which three Moroccan cities I most wanted to see, Rab

Twenty-four hours on the island of Capri where the Faraglioni finally got their turn — but the hotel, the lemonade and a whirlpool had plans of their own.The first time I saw Capri, it was under a grey sky and Christmas lights. The sea was grey, the streets were decorated for Christmas, and Capri felt more like a winter excursion than the Mediterra

Caserta had to fit between an evening flight and a fast ferry to Capri. I hadn't expected the most useful man that morning to be a driver with a digital translator and a very personal interpretation of royal history.I came to Caserta for the Reggia di Caserta, but gave myself about as much time as if I had come only for pizza. I flew from Trieste t

How losing my blood-pressure medication in Cornwall turned my trip into a three-day Doc Martin story across England and Wales — except there was no Doc Martin when I needed one.Everything that follows is true. It is also why I now travel with two sets of my regular medication, packed in two different places.At the time, however, I was still innocen

Tampere in winter gave me a flipped classroom, one very long walk, 95°C — and a hole in the ice.I had prepared for Finland more seriously than I do for most destinations, and not only intellectually. Our hosts had stressed the importance of proper winter clothing often enough for me to treat it as an assignment: thermal underwear, thick socks, an e

Seven Sisters at 5:51 — grey skies, indifferent cows and the Coastguard Cottages I had travelled to see.I almost always go somewhere for my birthday, and more often than not I end up in London. In 2022, though, things were a little different. London was still part of the trip, but one of the main reasons for the trip lay south of the city, on the E

How I plan a trip to London around theatre, flights, hotels and transport — without treating the plan as sacred.Last time, Ncuti Gatwa and Edward Bluemel were to blame. I knew Gatwa as Eric from Sex Education and the Doctor from Doctor Who, and Bluemel from Killing Eve and My Lady Jane. In Born With Teeth, they were going to play Christopher Marlow

What Stockholm in two days taught me about Swedish precision, open-fire dining and the danger of overplanning a city.Stortorget, the colourful heart of Stockholm’s Gamla Stan.The bus from Stockholm Skavsta Airport refused to leave. The engine was running, everyone was on board, and a fairly long drive to Stockholm lay ahead. Yet the driver wouldn’t

Nine years, seven hotels in Lisbon, and everything that happened between them.Some cities I remember through their streets, others through people, and still others through a single evening or one particular view. Lisbon, apparently, I remember through hotels.I first arrived in 2015 and stayed in a hotel recommended by the conference I was attending