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…
Festa della Liberazione
Today, the band played and marched around the town, then there was a church service followed by a religious procession. The fireworks erupted with explosive bangers and zinging rockets as the mother church emptied and then the band struck up again and escorted the statue of one of the patron saints carried aloft by 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…
Ancient Woodlands above Luddesdown
The organic vineyards on the slopes above the hamlet of Luddesdown are maturing and the arable weeds are hopefully still thriving. The ancient woodlands within Rochester Forest are alive with the sounds of spring birdsong and we find bluebells in flower amongst the celandine as well the much more local Moschatel or ‘town hall clock’….
Hunting raptors
A female marsh harrier patiently works a patch of long grass within the grazing marshes at Cooling; it floats lazily low over the ground and seeks its small mammal or bird prey on which it will suddenly twist and pounce. A nearby flock of starlings seems unconcerned and moves restlessly across the short-grazed grassland ever…