I am a serious fan of the JonGlez Publishing Secret guides, which are written by local experts for local inhabitants of cities and curious travelers alike. The places they feature in these beautifully crafted books filled with fabulous photography are unusual and unfamiliar so that anyone using them can step off the beaten track. I’m heading to Milan for the Salone Internazionale del Mobile expositions and London for The Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair in April, and I will be using mine since I have built in some excursion time. I feel these books subscribe to the Richard Branson theory that you don’t learn to walk by following the rules. These books certainly wouldn’t know the rules of normal tourism if they saw them!
I will certainly be visiting venues and restaurants on the beaten path—the Sir John Soane Museum and Foundation, and Victoria & Albert Museum among them—but it’s going to be fun to explore with these uncommon companions. I thought it would be fun to give you a few examples on the blog today. Décor and British-inspired furniture makes the cut in the London book with the Dennis Severs’ House: “When Dennis Severs, a Canadian artist, bought this ten-room house in the late 1970s, Spitalfields was a slum,” says Secret London: An Unusual Guide. “He filled with his dilapidated home with chipped antiques and anonymous portraits picked up from flea markets, determined to recreate an authentic 18th-century household….Although Severs died in 1999, visitors can still immerse themselves in his decaying fantasy world.”
Not even religion is above their notice with a number of locations under the auspices of the Church of England included, such as Christchurch Greyfriars Garden that is described as a “peculiar little rose garden” within “the bombed-out walls of a derelict church.” Comedy is in the mix—it is the home country of Eddie Izzard, after all. The Clowns’ Gallery and Museum is included as a “Fool’s Paradise”! The usual suspects like fine dining are not a part of the formula but a venue dedicated to the inventor of milk chocolate is presented! Murals abound, as do artifacts, the Petrie Museum holding a bas relief of the Egyptian god Min, who is portrayed with a huge, erect penis. Listed as Min’s Penis, it holds court on the University College of London campus—how I’d love to see this covered on PBS!
In Secret Milan, it’s secret frescoes, and portraits of legends like Verdi and Michelangelo. The skeleton of Napoleon’s horse is on the list of not-to-miss, and the statue of St Bartholomew skinned alive (sheesh!). Assorted hidden treasures are sprinkled within the pages of the book, and you can tour Leonardo da Vinci’s vineyard. What piqued my interest the most? Marie-Antoinette’s last piece of embroidery! She made it in 1793 while imprisoned in the Conciergerie awaiting execution and it’s displayed in the former home of Alessandro Manzoni.
In my copy of Secret New York: An Unusual Guide, New York City parks figure prominently in the cacophony of venues. The ghost of Gertrude Tredwell makes the list, as does the Museum of the American Gangster! The murals of Bemelmans Bar are included—and I can attest they are worth seeing—as is the Poe Cottage, where author Edgar Allen Poe lived. I’m planning a trek to The Bronx to tour it this coming spring. Cole Porter’s piano is on view, and the oddity of our Hollow Sidewalks is pondered—sightings of the signs during my jaunts through the village always bringing a smile. Oh, and I will be mindful of seeing the portraits of Lord Cornbury in drag the next time I make my way to the Upper West Side and the New York Historical Society. I didn’t know they were there the last time I visited. Now that I do, I call that an Olympic must-see! The litmus test for me to see if they really did only include the unusual? They didn’t list McSorley’s where e.e. cummings and the Beat Poets made a name for themselves. Every guide I’ve ever seen has this famous bar and its equally famous celebrities like Jack Kerouac in it. No Jean-Michel Basquiat sightings or John Lennon Strawberry Fields mentions, either. Mad Men aren’t mentioned, neither is MAD Museum, though the Museum of American Finance is–how fitting! I’m shocked the National Arts Club is not on the list given a purported Booth association with the Gramercy Park mansion.
Before the year is out, I will also be taking my Venice guide with me when I visit that amazing city in November, excited to get to see the Venice Art Biennale after missing the International Venice Architecture Biennale last year. And Paris is on my wish list for the year, the Secret guide to the French capital a feast where the lauded Paris salons are concerned and the secrets of museums like the Centre Pompidou. I’ll have my Moleskine notebooks with me so I can make plenty of notes to share in my post-expedition rambling. I have my eye on Secret Geneva to study what to see in Switzerland’s grand city—I’m certain it will turn up the volume on everything atypical. Wish me travel success as I take off with these bold guides, everyone!
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