The coastal plain at Macari on the north-west coast of Sicily has a rich flora that competes with the tourists for space. The most eye-catching is Sea Daffodil Pancratium maritimum with its clean white flowers, but perhaps this is because it is September after a long dry summer and much of the vegetation is now…
Category: Italian Wildlife
Western Sicily
We return to Palermo; it is one of the best cities for urban photography with its extraordinary mishmash of architectural styles and long perspectives down narrow streets. The extensive use of brown and dull red marble above dark grey flagstones give it a sombre tone. But the past is etched with the exuberant present, including…
Vinca
Vinca is a small village high on the eastern flank of the Alpi Apuane reached by a tortuous road from Monzone; it sits in a forested bowl, ringed by bare limestone peaks such as Pizzo d’Uccello; it is both peaceful and stunning. Vinca is famous for its dark bread, the Pane de Vinca, baked in…
Casola in Lunigiana, Tuscany
The precipitous mountains of the Alpi Apuane hold the rarest and most sought after seams of white marble that are mainly worked on the western facing slopes high above Carrara where the quarries leave blazing, white scars on the bare peaks. On the eastern flanks, in the villages around Casola in Lunigiana, the lower hills…
Firenze, Pisa and Lucca
Firenze or Florence is a mass of tourists that fill the streets, bridges, churches and museums. There is too much to see in one day so we head for the Uffizi and start to understand the enduring power of Renaissance art. The biggest pull are the many, huge works of Sandro Botticelli; my favourite is…
Paestum
A week on the coast in the old town of Castellabate in the Parco Nazionale del Cilento meant we were a short drive from Paestum or, as the original Greek settlers called it, Poseidonia. Paestum is a place of quiet, green fields filled with the remains of a city dating back around 2,500 years with…
Capo d’Orlando and Torrenova Coast
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…
Nebrodi National Park
Parco Naturale dei Nebrodi is a great forest of oak and beech that rides a long ridge of rolling hills inland from the north coast of Sicily. We reach it on the tiny back road from San Marco d’Alunzio, missing Frazzano and running past the Monastero San Filippo Fragalá that is occasionally open to visitors….
On the edge of Nebrodi National Park
The Nebrodi National Park is at its heart a huge and little modified beech and oak forest that rolls over a long ridge of high hills; it sits only a few miles behind San Marco d’Alunzio. A track from the town winds its way towards the Park boundary and we walk up it through scrubby…
San Marco d’Alunzio’s Wildlife
The Griffon vultures soar over the town circling up from their nests on the cliffs on the far side of the valley; through a telescope from our balcony we can see one downy young at the front of a small cave with an adult in constant attendance. The local pair of ravens have a nest…
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…