Julius Honnor » Photography

European City Breaks

Julius — Wed, 25 May 2011 16:30:35 +0000

Footprint’s new European City Breaks guide uses lots of my photos, of Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Budapest, Copenhagen, Florence, Lisbon, London, Milan, Naples, Paris, Rome, Seville, Valencia, Venice and Verona.

I also wrote some of it!

It’s a good book to have on the shelf to inspire long weekends. I’m already thinking of where I can go to take photos before the next edition comes out (Reykjavik, perhaps?)

Now available from all good bookshops…

Frozen Lakes

Julius — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 00:54:41 +0000

The Lake District was a frozen wonderland last week. I was there to update the Cumbria chapter of Fodor’s England guide, which is getting a colour makeover this year. There wasn’t much colour to be had, though it sparkled and dazzled when it wasn’t actually snowing.

We stayed in a great cottage overlooking the length of Ullswater and though the weather curtailed some plans, we still managed to find an excellent pub I hadn’t been to before (the Tower Bank Arms) and had good trips to Kendal and Cockermouth. And many spectacular drives through icy wastelands, punctuated with regular photo-stops.

The temperature went down to minus 17C and some of the Lakes (Bassenthwaite, Grasmere, Rydal) were frozen over. I stood on the edge of the ice on Grasmere so that I could say that I had, without actually venturing out too far.

Verona

Julius — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 15:17:08 +0000

It was a bit of a shock when someone pointed out that I hadn’t been back since I wrote my Verona guide seven years ago. It’s certainly overdue an update, though the timing of that project has become uncertain again. But I went anyway last week, partly for research for the forthcoming edition of Footprint’s European Short Breaks guide, partly to clean out those dusty Veronese corners of my mind and my portfolio.

And I found some good new places, and some old ones I’d missed last time – an amazing organic gelateria on Piazza San Zeno, Enoteca Segreta, Osteria a la Carrega, Osteria ai Portegheti – and met friends I hadn’t seen in years.

Babington House wedding

Julius — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 18:04:56 +0000

I sometimes tell people that I don’t want to be a wedding photographer, but I can’t remember having quite so much fun and being paid for it as at David and Sarah’s wedding last week at Babington House in Somerset.

The setting was stunning, the people beautiful and everyone made me feel completely welcome. I took my first photo at 08:30 in the morning, and my last at 03:15 the following morning, before guiding a guest, who’d lost his shoes, through the rain back to the gatehouse.

Below are some of my favourite photos of the day. There’s also a fuller web album.

Port, Celts, dark clouds and bacalhau

Julius — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 19:00:38 +0000

A wonderful week in north Portugal: from Porto to Guimaraes; via Braga to Ponte de Lima; up to Lindoso; down to Viana do Castelo; back to Porto. We walked and ate and swam and took inordinate numbers of photos of balconies and shadows and peeling paint.

We got trains and buses everywhere, which meant we were met with a mix of pity and bemusement, but it also slowed the pace and reduced the stress.

A few recommendations and highlights:

Galeria de Paris, Porto. A no-frills canteen restaurant full of locals with good food that you choose by pointing and wall cabinets from floor to high ceiling full of antique toys and radios.

Duas Nações, Porto. Friendly and cheap, on a gorgeous square with balconies and a good cafe and restaurant, up the hill in the old town.

Guimarães. A beautiful town with an amazing ruined Celtic settlement (Citania de Briteiros) on a nearby hilltop. We stayed in Residencial Mestre d’Aviz and had a fantastic room with two huge windows opening onto a balcony. Cheers, in the main square, has an awful name but serves great Portuguese food – try the selection of Portuguese tapas.

Lindoso. In the Parque Nacional da Peneda-Gerês, we had a beautiful little house (Casa do Moinho) with a restored waterwheel in this old, cobbled, red-roofed town. Great walks between little fields and vineyards, up onto the hills and down into valleys, where I swam in pools in the streams.

Viana do Castelo. A surprisingly hip little seaside town, with a beautiful old centre and a little putt-putt boat that takes passengers across the river to the huge Atlantic beach. We stayed at the excellent, stylish Albergaria Margarida da Praca, who, after losing our reservation, looked after us very well.

Café Clock in Shoreditch

Julius — Wed, 12 May 2010 11:46:26 +0000

The Café Clock project moved from Fes to East London, at the weekend, where we set up a photo shoot for the remaining recipes. And then ate them, with free-flowing wine to keep us productive.

Highlights included a Moroccan tricolore salad (roasted tomatoes, fresh mint, goats curd cheese, roasted pine nuts), chocolate brownies with cardamom and crystallised rose petals, quails’ eggs dipped in spices, flavoured salts and mackerel baked with lime and preserved lemons.

Watch this space for news of the book, which will be out sometime soon.

Barcelona and Girona

Julius — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 19:05:39 +0000

Ostensibly a trip to take some missing photos for the Cafe Clock cook book, last weekend became an extended wander around Barcelona, with a side trip to Girona thrown in at the end for good measure. We stayed in an apartment in El Born and ate and drank heartily and often.

Highlights included churros con chocolate at Sukuldari in the Boqueria, the understated elegance of the Pavilion Mies van de Rohe, Isabel Muñoz photos at the CaixaForum, wine and tapas at Andú and at Quimet & Quimet and a great lunch in Anima, just down the road from MACBA.

The sunshine and longer evenings and low light on Mediterranean walls helped too.

High Cumbrian Valleys

Julius — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:15:02 +0000

I’ve been in the Lake District, updating Fodor’s England guidebook. Highlights were great meals in the Queen’s Head in Troutbeck and The Jumble Room in Grasmere. There was also time for a few fantastic walks, especially a birthday climb up a snowy Thornthwaite Crag, a trek up Langstrath Beck towards Scafell and a final day circuit in Postman Pat’s old stomping ground around Kentmere and Longsleddale. Photos of the last two days, when the sun (and moon) came out, below.

London snow

Julius — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:43:53 +0000

We only missed a complete dumping by about 25 miles, but with the last couple of days looking as Christmas-beautiful as this it’s hard to complain too much about our meagre inch or two of snow.

Fine Fes Food

Julius — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:05:20 +0000

Cafe Clock, in Fes, Morocco, is the city’s (and perhaps the country’s) best cafe: a social nexus as well as a great place for a coffee or a camel burger. Last week I spent three days there taking photographs for the new Cafe Clock cookbook, to be published in spring 2010.

My photos include dishes, staff, customers and some food stalls around the medina. There’s also a severed camel’s head (hung outside the butcher to advertise fresh camel meat) and various sheep being dragged home for Eid al Adha. It was suggested that I might go watch the slaughter of a camel, but I chickened out of that.