My father, Christopher, had the most profound affection for his aunt, Queen Alexandra of England, wife of King Eduard VII, and frequently stayed at the various English palaces. In the early years of the twentieth century, he found himself at Sandringham for the weekend, where he had a strange experience that I was reminded of…
Countess Caroline Goëss was a mean and absolute unpleasant character. She owned Gradisch Castle at the beginning of the 19th century. It likely originated as a fortress in the line of fire from which steeples to towers signalled danger in the Middle Ages. It later became a charming and elegant abode on a human scale….
Unlike the facetious Countess Caroline Goess, the White Lady of Telč thought only of doing good. She had the unusual name Perchta. She had married a count of Liechtenstein, a namesake but entirely unrelated to the principality. He was a wicked, brutal man whose odious methods often forced her to seek refuge at her brother’s…
One winter morning, it was freezing in the Grazzano library where the infamous séance took place. The seance that had, in a sense, resurrected Aloysa. The ghost took some time to show itself. Amazingly, there was nothing dwarf-like about it. On the contrary, the precisely contoured silhouette in the door was that of a tall…
“Spirit, are you there?” asked Count Giuseppe. They were six or seven seated at the round table in the library at Grazzano, the enormous castle next to Piacenza. The room where time seemed to have stopped had been left in darkness, and nothing disturbed the thick silence They were anxious, tense, and fixated on the…
At the beginning of 1917, Emperor Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, and their five children found themselves left with a handful of loyal servants who refused to abandon them when they were imprisoned in their home at Alexander Palace. Then, in July of that year, the interim government decided to send the Russian Imperial Family…
While he was heir apparent, holding the title of Prince of Naples, the future King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy was sent off to attend military studies in Naples. It was there, upon going out into the world, that he met a beautiful young woman, the princess M. It is he who tells this story….
Rose Hall is the most famous manor (in Europe, you would call it a castle) in Jamaica. It was built in 1770, cost thirty thousand pounds – an incredible amount at the time! – and was considered the most beautiful residence on the island. Rose Hall was damaged during the slave revolt in 1831, to…
In July 1857, King Frederick William IV of Prussia and his queen were on their way to the springs of Marienbad when they stopped in Saxony to visit the king and queen who were not only cousins but friends. At that time, the Saxony Court was at the summer residence of Pillnitz Castle where the…
It was 1992. Spain had organised, at great expense, a splendid international exhibition in Seville to celebrate the 500th anniversary of its discovery of the Americas. All over the city, a multitude of demonstrations, exhibitions, and performances took place. We requested, in particular, to visit an exhibition that brought together works of art, paintings, furniture,…