ASA Cultural Tours

Highlights

• Join John Patrick, horticulturalist, garden designer and presenter on ABC TV’s Gardening Australia, to tour the gardens of five distinct regions of Italy.
• Enjoy the magic of northern lakeside and island gardens including Villa Carlotta, Villa del Balbianello, Isola Bella and Isola Madre.
• Meet Paolo Pejrone, currently Italy’s leading garden designer, and view his own garden ‘Bramafam’, the estate of the Peyrani family and, by special appointment, the private Agnelli Gardens at Villar Perosa – one of Italy’s most splendid examples of garden design.
• Tour through the Piedmont exploring the great estates of the House of Savoy including the Castello di Masino.
• View the work of Russell Page with visits to the private gardens of San Liberato and Villa Silvio Pellico.

Highlights

• Lectures and site visits by art and architectural historian Dr Iva Rosario.
• Visit the Reichstag Conversion and walk inside Norman Foster’s Reichstag glass cupola for a spectacular view over the city.
• Led by a local architect explore the Potsdamer Platz, Berlin’s spectacular ‘gallery’ of modern architecture.
• View the remarkable collections of art & antiquities gathered from both halves of Berlin at the Pergamon Museum, the Gemäldegalerie & the Alte Nationalgalerie.
• Excursions to the beautiful palaces of the Prussian monarchy at Sanssouci and Charlottenburg.

Highlights

• Join John Weretka to explore the art, architecture and music of Belgium and The Netherlands from the economic powerhouse of medieval Flanders through Holland’s golden age to masterly Art Nouveau and contemporary architecture in Brussels and Antwerp.
• Explore the great Gothic Town Halls, churches and merchant palaces of Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp.
• View masterpieces by Northern Renaissance painters such as Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Hans Memling, Hieronymus Bosch, Lucas Cranach, and Pieter Bruegel the Elder in some of Europe’s greatest museums.
• Feast your eyes on hundreds of masterpieces like van Eyck’s Adoration of the Lamb, a host of Brueghels, Rembrandt’s The Nightwatch, and Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, View of Delft and The Milkmaid.
• Visit the ‘Golden Cabinet. The Royal Museum at The Rockox House’ combined collection of Nicolaas Rockox, burgomaster of Antwerp and patron, and Antwerp Museum of Fine Arts including works by Jan Brueghel I, Peter Brueghel II, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony Van Dyck, Jacques Jordaens, Jan Van Eyck and Hans Memling.

Highlights

• Christopher Wood, with the assistance of Dr Christopher Gribbin shows how Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Croat, Venetian, Austro-Hungarian and Turkish culture and trade travelled the sparkling Adriatic as you journey along Croatia’s magnificent panoramic coastline.
• Chart the Roman Empire’s Balkan history through grand monuments like Pula’s huge amphitheatre and Diocletian’s monumental palace at Split, later transformed into a medieval fortified town.
• Visit a masterpiece of the Byzantine world in the Euphrasian Basilica in Porec, with mosaics to rival Ravenna.
• Journey through the Plitvice Lakes National Park, one of Europe’s scenic wonders.
• View some of Europe’s greatest Romanesque monuments in Zadar and the tiny island city of Trogir, with its superb cathedral portal sculptures.

Highlights

• A cultural tour of Paris with lectures and site visits by art and architectural historian Christopher Wood
• Live in ‘studio’ rooms in the heart of Quartier Latin, near the Pont-Neuf, so you can experience Paris’ street-life, boulevards, markets, gardens and cafés: Citadines Apart’Hotel Paris Saint-Germain-des-Prés
• Learn to read the urban structure of this great city, and explore the ways in which its urbanism, its great monuments and its vibrant political, social and cultural life made it the quintessential world city
• Enjoy a series of walks designed to illustrate the story of Paris and take a private interior tour of the Opéra Garnier
• Visit magnificent religious architecture including Paris’ Notre-Dame, Sacré-Coeur and Sainte-Chapelle