Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
On Sicily’s northwestern corner, Erice sits atop a very steep hill, 750 metres above the Mediterranean.
Highly picturesque and spectacularly-located, it is essentially-medieval, but this village’s history extends very much further – Erice was conquered rather than created by ancient Greeks.
As the photo illustrates, some 21st century visitors to Erice find it difficult to recognise exactly what they are looking at…
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As will be more clear if you zoom in on/enlarge the featured image, it shows a very fine set of Indonesian “shadow” puppets, of the Wayang Kulit kind.
Italy abounds with museums and galleries.
Not a few of them are excellent.
Some are truly singular, albeit highly likely to be crowded.
Often, they are an “embarrassment of riches” – altogether too much to be comprehended/appreciated properly in the space of a single visit.
Our nicest museum surprise in 2023 was Palermo’s Antonio Pasqualino International Puppet Museum.
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You wish to visit one country only, in order to see the world’s best-preserved Doric temples?
They are located in what – 2,500 years ago – was one of the major Greek cities.
You won’t be going to Greece…and if you time your visit carefully, you are likely to be pleasantly amazed by how uncrowded is this very special site.
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#16 in this series celebrated a happy surprise; this episode documents a nasty one.
Italy has many attractive, spectacularly located, historically rich hilltop villages.
Sicily’s Motta Camastra is one such; it feels quite “remote”, but is in fact not far from Messina, and even closer to Taormina.
Taormina overlooks the Ionian Sea and is gorgeous…but hugely over-touristed/touristy, and chock with “luxe” boutiques et al. (all those aspects will be evident in future, multi-image posts)
Inland, and closer to Mt Etna, Motta Camastra is still resolutely real, rural.
It is noted for the excellence of its local produce, most especially nuts.
Our day trip coincided with its annual festa della noce, which proved good clean tasty fun.
The nut festival attracted many welcome/d visitors…plus one “toxic nut”/ conman.
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As a newcomer to another nation and/or to a different kind of society or ecosystem, the surprises that await, almost inevitably, will prove a very “mixed bag”.
This post celebrates a very happy, beautiful surprise, recently experienced in Germany’s only alpine national park.
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As the featured image “clearly shows”, when in Palermo, ape-men enjoy exclusive use of special, clearly-signposted, simian-friendly taxis.
The photo (copyright Doug Spencer, taken in Sicily’s capital city at 12.32 pm on 23 September 2023) has not been “doctored” – it contains no “fake news”.
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Presumably, many of you have at some point stood on a skyscraper’s observation deck and marvelled at how very long is the “drop” to the streets below.
From the Sydney Tower’s “Eye”, it is 250 metres.
From the Melbourne Edge’s “Skydeck”, it is nearly 300 metres.
The Empire State Building’s top floor sits 373 metres above Manhattan’s streets.
This post’s featured image was taken from the summit of the Jenner (1874 metres ASL), looking down to the Königssee; the vertical “drop” to that lake’s surface exceeds the aforementioned “drops”, respectively, by more than five times, more than four times, and more than three times.
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The featured image, taken in Germany’s only alpine national park, shows something which would be “impossible” in any Australian national park…well, illegal… and highly unlikely.
Four dog-owners – and three dogs – are clearly visible, descending from the summit of the Jenner, in Berchtesgaden National Park.
To German eyes, the dogs’ presence would be entirely unremarkable.
(to anybody’s eyes, the view from the Jenner’s summit is stupendous…as you will see in #14 of this series)
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If the pictured wall were Australian, ceramic ducks might “fly” on it.
In Altomonte – a very pleasant, historic, hilltop town in Calabria – this wall’s ceramic decorations celebrate a member of the cactus family.
Along with all but one other of the circa 127 members of the cactus family, prickly pears originally grew only in the Americas.
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I am almost entirely sure that – for everyone who looks at today’s featured image – your answer to the question posed in this post’s headline would be a resounding “no”.
I am equally sure that almost all of you have seen the face of this particular Sicilian villager, albeit as it was in 1971… a little more than 52 years before I photographed her, in the very same village, on the morning of 1 October, 2023.
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