The Reality of Montreal: The Hill Above the Skyline
A skyscraper in Montreal has to know when to stop. The city measures its towers against the summit of Mount Royal, the…
Author
Oliver Hartley
Oliver Hartley writes for PenguFly. This page collects every article by this author: trip reports, routes, practical travel tips and cheap flight ideas.
The Reality of Brussels: Where Comics Climb the Walls
Turn into a side street in Brussels and a gable that should be blank has grown figures, outlines and a scene that…
The Reality of Milan: The Cathedral That Came by Water
The marble under your hand on the roof of Milan Cathedral was cut in the mountains north of Lake Maggiore, and it…
The Reality of Split: The Town Inside an Emperor’s Palace
A café chair on Split's Peristyle can sit beside a Roman column without either object seeming misplaced. That is the clue. Diocletian,…
The Reality of Amsterdam: The Houses Built for Hoisting
Amsterdam's canal houses make convincing scenery. Stand on a bridge and the brick fronts line up along the water, gable after gable,…
The Reality of Bordeaux: The City Facing the River
Stand on the Garonne quay and Bordeaux stops looking like a city that happens to have a river. The water bends in…
The Reality of Kyoto: The City That Put Water to Work
Kyoto often asks you to look up: temple roofs, painted gates, mountains holding the basin. The more revealing habit is to look…
The Reality of Florence: The Art Is the Receipt
Florence is very good at making art look inevitable. Turn a corner and there is marble, bronze, or a dome occupying the…
The Reality of Catania: Basalt, Water and the Volcano
Catania is built out of the thing that keeps threatening it. The pavements are lava, cut into slabs. The Baroque churches are…
The Reality of Málaga: Stone, Salt and the Unfinished Tower
Málaga never cleared the ground before it built. The Moorish fortress on the hill stands on Roman marble because its masons carried…
The Reality of Tirana: Reclaimed Concrete and Painted Stone
Most capitals deal with an awkward inheritance by pulling it down. Tirana climbed on top of its own. The pyramid raised as…
The Reality of Guanajuato: The City Poured Into a Ravine
Guanajuato fills a narrow cleft in the hills of central Mexico, on a floor barely wide enough for the stream that cut…