Herald on Sunday

WHERE I’D RATHER BE ...

- Maggie Wicks maggie.wicks@nzme.co.nz

Ilove a history tour. Whether a scramble through a city’s undergroun­d, a corny ghost walk or an open-top bus, seeing a city with a local is a great travel experience and the best way to learn the history of a place.

And thanks to a few enterprisi­ng souls out there, there are still tours to be had.

LONDON

Sarah from @look_uplondon is a Blue Badge guide (this UKspecific certificat­ion takes two years of intense study and exams, so these guides really know their stuff) and runs a history blog, lookup.london. She’s continuing her guiding business online by offering tours of the East End, Soho and other historic areas via her Instagram account. Three times a week she creates a Powerpoint presentati­on which she then screenshar­es to Instagram, taking viewers on a virtual walk with the use of Google maps, her own photograph­s and historic images. In recent weeks she’s featured Waterloo, Trafalgar Square, Mayfair, Borough and Aldgate. Each tour is fascinatin­g -— from hidden gardens and alleyways to the medieval sex industry — so do consider sending a few bob her way on Paypal if you tune in.

Steve Hunnisett — an accredited battlefiel­d guide — is conducting Blitz tours of London via his Twitter account @blitzwalke­r. Using Google Street View and an archive of historic photograph­s, he talks readers through the history of the Luftwaffe’s nine-month bombing of London.

JODPHUR, INDIA

The Fort of Jodhpur — Mehrangarh — sits 120m above the city, and is one of the largest forts in Rajasthan. You can take an online VR tour of the site (indiavrtou­rs.com/

jodhpur), then visit the Mehrangarh Museum Trust’s online archives (mehrangarh.org).

AMSTERDAM

If it’s art history you’re interested in, the Rijksmuseu­m

(rijksmuseu­m.nl) in Amsterdam has 80 galleries to explore on its interactiv­e tour, at Google Arts & Culture (artsandcul­ture.google.com/partner/rijksmuseu­m).

Explore 800 years of Dutch art and history, and see masterwork­s from the Dutch Golden Age including Rembrandt’s The Night Watch. One of the world’s most famous paintings, the tour takes you right up close and guides you through different elements of the image, such as the use of light to illustrate the picture’s most important players, and where in the painting you may find Rembrandt himself.

 ??  ?? The Night Watch by Rembrandt, in the Rijksmuseu­m, Amsterdam. Photo / Getty Images
The Night Watch by Rembrandt, in the Rijksmuseu­m, Amsterdam. Photo / Getty Images
 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from New Zealand