The wonderful art deco architecture of Capo D’Orlando is all ice cream and alabaster; it works so well under a bright sun and glare from the blue sea. There are buildings where the relentless summer heat has peeled the paint and cracked the façade, but the town is being repaired and smart new apartment blocks…
Category: Art and Architecture
Cefalù
This medieval town on the north coast of Sicily is famous for its Norman cathedral or Duomo; it is a tourist honeypot, filled with Airbnbs, cafes, restaurants and an array of smart, little shops. The small beach is picture perfect enhanced by a square of royal blue sunbeds and shades. The place was very different…
Palermo
Palermo has a long, chequered history of destruction and construction; most recently the allied bombing in 1943 did for the historic centre and the unimaginative and massive post-war reconstruction of the outer city and adjacent farmland earned it the unhappy sobriquet or soprannome ‘the Sack of Palermo’. Today, the historic centre of Palermo is a…
San Marco d’Alunzio
The small but perfectly formed town of San Marco d’Alunzio perches precariously on a high hill above the north coast of Sicily; at its peak is a remnant wall of the old Norman castle; below is a maze of medieval streets and steep alleyways that create a confusing lattice of routes up and down and…
St Pancras Station
The most exciting building to try and capture.
Vézère Valley, Dordogne
Plazac is a small but beautiful, medieval village in the Périgord noir in the south-west of the Dordogne; at its centre is an imposing church above a grid of narrow streets below. Plazac sits just to the north of the Vézère Valley with its pretty riverside towns such as Montignac, Saint-Léon-sur-Vézère and Les Eyzies. To…
Marc Chagall at Tudeley Church, Kent
This is a collage of some of the stained glass windows created by Marc Chagall and installed at All Saints’ Church in Tudeley near Tonbridge in West Kent; it’s a snapshot of the sad beauty of the extraordinary art that was inspired by the accidental drowning of the 21-year old daughter of the local landowner….
Jazan and Farasan Town
Jazan is a port town in the southwest of Saudi Arabia with an old castle on the hill, complete with flocks of circling black kites. There is a modern corniche complete with enormous hotels and vast play areas, designed to attract tourists; the main inhabitants are the cats that lie around without a care. The…
Folkestone Harbour
The ferries no longer cross to France and nor do the trains run down down from London so the Harbour is now a peaceful place of relaxation and bright sea views. On a sunny Sunday in October with a fresh breeze it is bright and cheerful; the old station with its curved platform is a…
Summer shades
Sometimes there is no story, no theme to wrap some pictures around, just the rich sights of late summer to enjoy. Bright sun against a dark thundercloud, flowers in morning light, the appearance of the last swifts in the sky and the effervescent and colourful insects; even the irritating paparazzi, the clegs and mosquitoes, and…
Wrabness
Wrabness is a small village with a long history and, on a bright day, wide views north across the Stour Estuary to Suffolk. Today, a cold shroud deadens the coast. In the churchyard, a small bell house squats square amongst the headstones; it was constructed as temporary measure after the bell tower toppled off the…
Abri d’art
The art of the gardens at Boisjarzeau in August are the dying borders of Allium, Rudbeckia, Gaura and Agapanthus and a host of others with forgotten names; tall sunflowers in orange and yellow, exuberant vegetable beds, laden fruit trees and raspberry canes, three blue beehives and four fat chickens in a run. The autumn golds…