Walking at the World Heritage Site of the Canal du Midi at Le Somail in the Languedoc.

The William Kentridge production of the Shostakovich opera ‘The Nose’ at the Aix-en-Provence Festival was absolutely fantastic – the highlight of the year so far.

A very hot trip (35° is too hot for me!) to Provence, starting in Arles, with its wonderful Amphitheatre and the Van Gogh bridge, followed by the extremely impressive Palais des Papes in Avignon.

Arles Arena

Van Gogh Bridge, Arles

Palais des Papes, Avignon

In Toulouse for a night at the opera. An excellent production of Mozart’s ‘Cosi Fan Tutte’ at the extremely impressive Theatre du Capitole.

Capitole de Toulouse

Saimir Pirgu, Marie-Adeline Henry, Alex Esposito and Roxana Constantinescu.

In northern Spain exploring Oviedo and the Asturias region.

Woody Allen set much of ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’ in Ovideo and got a statue in return.

Guggenheim Museum

‘Maman’ Louise Bourgeois

‘Puppy’ Jeff Koons

Fantastic flamenco concert at the Visages d’Espagne Festival in Cahors. Superb dancers and musicians, especially the wonderful Úrsula López, seen dancing here.

Back in the beautiful Dordogne region of south-west France, with hopes for a glorious summer.

Beynac and the Dordogne river

In the medieval port of Koper (Capodistria) on the Adriatic coast. Koper was once the capital of Venetian Istria, but repeated plague epidemics in the sixteenth century saw its population and importance decline significantly. However, as only one per cent of Slovenia has a coastline, Koper is now vital to the economy of the country.

Below is the Praetorian Palace, a fifteenth-century Venetian Gothic palace, the main cultural monument of Koper.I also visited the fortified Church of the Holy Trinity in the village of Hrastovlje with its wonderful fifteenth-century ‘Dance Macabre’ frescoes, which illustrate the inevitability of death for rich and poor alike.

At the UNESCO World Heritage site in Aquileia, Italy. Once one of the largest and wealthiest cities of the Early Roman Empire, Aquileia was destroyed by Attila in the mid-fifth century. Much of it is still unexcavated beneath the fields, but the patriarchal basilica is an outstanding building with an exceptional mosaic floor.