For B I was tempted to go for the obvious choice of Barcelona and either the modern Sagrada Familia or the old town traditional Cathedral. I decided against that and also what is probably my most favourite of all, Burgos in Northern Spain and chose instead the Cathedral of Saint Sabinus in Bari in Southern Italy.
Saint Nicholas was a fourth century Greek Saint who had a reputation for giving secret gifts, such as putting coins in the shoes of those who left them out for him, and thus became the model for our Santa Claus, whose modern name comes from the Dutch Sinterklaas, which is itself a corruption of the transliteration of ‘Saint Nikolaos’.
In 1087, part of the relics (about half of his bones) were stolen from a site in Turkey and relocated in Bari and I am now able to tell my grandchildren that although they think Santa Claus lives at the North Pole I know where he really is. Bari may not be Florence, Rome,Venice or even Lecce but it does have Father Christmas.
If I was staying in the United Kingdom I would have chosen Bury St Edmunds …