Month: April 2012

  • Springtime in Friuli

    Springtime in Friuli

    In April, around the perimeter walls of the star-shaped fortress-city of Palmanova in northern Italy, you can expect to see people out in force, armed with plastic bags, some even with scissors, searching the grassy banks for a certain plant. What is it? The answer is โ€œsclupitโ€, as it is…

  • Roman Aquileia

    Roman Aquileia

    The ruins of the Roman colony of Aquileia, once the fourth largest Roman city in Italy, lie under and around the peaceful modern town and its splendid Early Christian basilica church. Where the amphitheatre once stood, citizens now hoe their vegetable patches and tend their sweet peas. It is all…

  • Edward Lear and Crete

    Edward Lear and Crete

    The well-known nonsense poet and artist Edward Lear paid a short visit to Crete in 1864. He was coming from Corfu, where he had lived for nine years; when the British government returned the Ionian islands to the Greek state, the British community dispersed. At that point in his life…

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