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Category: Italy
Su Nuraghe, Sardinia
Picture the scene: it’s late morning at Sardinia’s Cagliari Elmas airport. Monsieur and I have been awake since dawn but haven’t had time for breakfast. The low-cost airline has high-cost sandwiches which we avoid, mostly because they already look curled and cardboardy, and the coffee looks like something that might spurt out of a long-disused farmhouse tap. Monsieur…
An Evening in Trastevere
If UK citizens are honest, they’ll ‘fess up to the fact that although the recent Royal Wedding provided some necessary uplift of spirits in the land, the best part of it was not Pippa Middleton’s derrière (no matter how pert), but the national Royal Wedding holiday that was bestowed on we lowly subjects of HM…
Porto Rotondo, Sardinia
In early May, the Sardinian summer season is slowly kicking off. The atmosphere’s halcyon, the sky cerulean, the waters clear and flowers exploding with colour everywhere you look, yet the tourist hordes have yet to land. It’s paradise. One typically fine morning, Monsieur and I drove to Porto Rotondo, a village with impressive marina just south of the…
Eating the dream at Peter Pan Gelateria, Nuoro
Monsieur and I had been driving for most of the day, leaving Cagliari early so we could see some of Sardinia’s west coast and central areas before arriving in Porto Cervo. Our guidebooks recommended a break in Nuoro (also pronounced ‘Nugoro’ in Sardinian). One of the island’s literary greats, Grazia Deledda, was born and lived there…
The Good, the Bad and the Tasty
It was a gloriously sunny Sunday in Sardinia and we were leaving town. Arrivederci, Cagliari! Monsieur and I would be in the car for the day, driving up to the Costa Smeralda, or Emerald Coast, where we’d be spending the bulk of our week-long break. On the map, it looks as if you should be able to…
Tinnura, Sardinia – Where the walls don’t only have ears…
Sardinia is an island of secrets and quiet beauty, the most precious delights of which are likely to be tucked away from tour bus routes. Driving into the island’s hinterland on a warm May day, Monsieur and I rounded a bend on a country highway to discover one such unexpected treasure: the painted village of Tinnura. Tinnura’s church lies…
Sicily – Through Rose-Tinted Lenses
It’s official: I need a waterproof camera. When Monsieur and I were caught in a Sicilian deluge in the little town of Trapani, I couldn’t help myself; I kept on snapping. Even in the grey of the downpour, shooting Trapani’s buildings was worth getting a little wet. Or so I thought. Meanwhile, Monsieur’s camera stayed…
The Super Citrons of Sicily
It’s a bad day in the Epicurienne household if we run out of lemons. Monsieur and I use them for just about everything – squeezed over salads, in sauces for fish and seafood, in lemony vinaigrettes, on spaetzle, on roast potatoes… So imagine my delight on finding gigantic lemons in Italy! The first time I…
The Costa Nostra
Yesterday everything got a bit serious on Epicurienne, with an Irate Reader making an Irate Comment about my views on Sicily, Sicilians and the influence of the Mafia là-bas. To lighten the mood, here’s a Newsbiscuit story from the Wise Woman of Wandsworth. Made me snort all over my keyboard. Again. Now where are those…
Epic and the Irate Reader
This morning I received a comment from an American reader of Sicilian descent who finds what I write about Sicily to be racist. Crikey!To him, and to anyone else who might feel the same, I apologise as that was never my intention. (I’d also recommend not watching Bruno at the cinema.) However, I do reserve…
The Butchers of Corleone
The Mafia were constantly in my thoughts as we travelled around Sicily. This may have had something to do with the book I was reading at the time, John Follain’s The Last Godfathers, which was so cram-packed with gruesome murder and body disposal methodology that I was finding it hard to look at an oil barrel…
Epicurienne 