Valle d’Aosta

Italy’s smallest region, Valle d’Aosta is tucked into the north-west corner of the country, surrounded by the Alps, and bordered by France to its west, by Switzerland to the north, and by Piedmont (Piemonte) to the south and east. The region, which has an autonomous status within is also the least populous and the least densely populated. The history of Valle d’Aosta is inextricably linked with that of France (the region is bilingual) and in some of the valleys the old German-based dialect, which the early settlers brought with them from Switzerland, is still spoken.

Valle d’Aosta (the Aosta Valley) has tributary valleys which include the Italian sides of the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc (Monte Bianco) and unsurprisingly winter sports are big here, with the ski resort of Courmayeur. This is also beautiful country for walking and hiking, kayaking and rafting during the summer months: much of Valle d’Aosta is covered by the Gran Paradiso National Park (Italy’s earliest national park) with the mountain of Gran Paradiso the highest peak. Once part of the Dukedom of Savoy, Aosta is linked to France (and the Savoy region) by the Mont Blanc Tunnel, with other connections via the Great St Bernard Pass and the Little St Bernard Pass. The nearest international airports are Turin Caselle (to the south) and Milan Malpensa and Linate (east), or there is Geneva (north west on the Swiss side).

Unsurprisingly, this mountainous region doesn’t have any really big towns, with the nearest city being Turin (Torino) in Piedmont to the south. Most of the towns are ranged along the base of the valley, and the main road that winds up from Turin to Courmayeur and the Mont Blanc Tunnel: the main town here is Aosta itself.

Others lie in the tributary valleys. These include Val Gressoney (where a dialect of German is spoken) and the town of Pont St Martin and the twon resorts of Gressoney St Jean and Gressoney La Trinite. The valley is more reminiscent of Switzerland than Italy, with Alpine chalets and Monte Rosa and its glacier at the head of the valley. Val d’Ayas is a lovely valley, with Monte Rosa at one end, and its slopes thickly wooded. The main ski resort here is Champoluc. Brusson has good Alpine walking. Valtourneche has the Matterhorn (Cervino in Italian) and the big ski resort of Breuil-Cervinia.

The town of Aosta is circled by the Alps, has good access to the Gran Paradiso National Park and to the ski resorts on Mont Blanc. This is an old Roman town and there is a scattering of remains, including the Roman Bridge and the Foro Romano. The 13 valleys that carve through the region have a scattering of medieval castles, which only enhance the fairytale atmosphere, including the Castello di Sarre and castles at Verres, Fenis and Challant.

The southern part of Valle d’Aosta comprises the Gran Paradiso National Park and there are very few villages. This is stunningly beautiful countryside, with ibex, chamois and golden eagles. This is a botanists’ dream too, with numerous rare and protected flowers in the park’s three valleys (Cogne, Valsavarenche and Val de Rhemes). Any development in the park is very carefully controlled, but there are good campsites and mountain refuges (rifugi and bivacci) for climbers and hikers. Villages to look out for include Cogne, Valnontey, Pont, Breuil and Degioz. Head west to the remote and beautiful valley of Valgrisenche and the village of Arvier (remarkably it has a rail station). Other villages include Valgrisenche itself and Bonne.

Feste, fair and pageants abound as they do in all regions of Italy. Some of the most noteworthy include the following. In January, Pont Saint Martin Verres has its historical parade and Roman carnival, complete with chariot race. In February, Courmayeur has its carnival, welcoming Spring, Nus has an historical carnival and Saint Vincent the children’s carnival. March sees the snow carnival at Pila. In April, Brissogne has the Rebatta competition (a large spiked ball hurled through the air), while Pollein has its Tsan tourney (a nascent form of rounders). In May, Nus has its wine festival, complete with al fresco banquet. June sees the Festival of St John in Gressoney Saint Jean. July has the Ham Festival in Saint-Rhemy-en-Bosses. August in Gaby sees the Polenta Picnic, and the Shepherds’ Festival in La Thuile. September has the Grape Festival at Chambave, October the Apple Festival in Gressan. December has the spectacular hot air balloon exhibition in Aosta (including flights up Mont Blanc). There are numerous living nativity scenes around the region, and Cervinia is of special note, with the marvellous torchlit procession on skis.

 

Gallura, Sardinia

Gallura is the northernmost tip of Sardinia and in the middle ages was one of the four ‘giudicati’ which formed the governance and administration of the island. A largely historic term now, with the area forming part of the modern province of Olbia-Tempio (Tempio and Olbia being the two main administrative centres) but it’s an historically interesting (as well as remarkably beautiful) part of the island. It has its own dialect too, tricky for visitors already struggling to reconcile their text book Italian with the rather harsher sound of Sards speaking their own language (Sardinian has ‘praza’ rather than the Italian ‘piazza’, ‘abbas’ rathern than ‘ague’ for waters for starters). The northern diasystem of Gallurese muddies the phonetic waters further, though you’ll get by in either Italian or indeed English.

The coast here is lovely, incredibly windy, with countless little bays and inlets, beautiful islands offshore (including the Parco Nazionale dell’Archipelago di La Maddalena) and the stunning Costa Smeralda unwinding down the north-east flank of the island, with good beaches at Cappricccioli, Rena Bianca and Liscia Ruia, and the main coast town at Porto Cervo.

Check out too the Golfo di Arzachena and the lovely wooded parkland of Caprera (with the house once inhabited by Giuseppe Garibaldi. There’s a museum here dedicated to the hero of Italian independence and the Risorgimento. You have the airport and port at Olbia, and main towns are Olbia , Tempio Pausania , La Maddalena , Arzachena and Calangianus. The area’s economy is largely agricultural and fishing, with granite and cork traditional mainstays.

 

Travels in Sicily - part 2

So, Taormina, and we arrive with the thermometer topping 38 degrees. This doesn’t sound too bad … isn’t 50 a cool spring day? Ah, that’s fahrenheit, this is Celsius. Flying in from Gatwick this is scorchingly hot on our pasty English skins but once the non-existent 12.45 bus has been dismissed from our memory and we’re comfortably ensconced on the 1.45 (with air conditioning) things start to look up a lot. We’d arrived with romantic notions of ‘doing’ Sicily in four days - Etna, the Aeolian Islands, Siracusa, Noto, Palermo and Marsala. This, we soon realise, is ridiculous. Sicily is big - at some 150km across (East to West, Catania to Marsala) and totalling some 25,000 square kms - there is simply too much to see.

The first thing you do notice coming out of Catania (and its very slick new Fontanarossa airport) is like so many Italian cities - the sheer squalor and mess. You may have untold historic beauties in the ‘centro storico’ but get out of town and the sides of the motorway are little with discarded concrete piping, bales of wire and and forgotten bits of machinery. Tatty billboards, no landscaping (apart from the ubiquitous azaleas that we are told are planted by the roadside as they are enthusiastic consumers of diesel fumes), and what tumbledown farmers’ sheds amidst scrubby patches of smallholding. Drive Spaghetti Junction through the local allotments with a side order of local tip and you get the idea.

 

DH Lawrence on Italy

Most of us now know DH Lawrence for his novels, rather fewer for his poetry. But his journalism and travel writing too are worth rediscovering - the Nottinghamshire boy wrote some superb travelogues on his journeys through Italy in the first half of the 20th century. Great on Lake Garda and around.

You can buy a very good collected Italian works from Amazon or, as the stuff is out of copyright now, the cheapskates among you can read Lawrence on Italy online!

 

Guide to Calabria

Calabria

This is the deep south of Italy - the ‘toe’ of the country, as it pushes out into the Mediterranean to kick Sicily. Second only to Basilicata next door, Calabria is also the quintessence of the ‘Mezzogiorno’, the poorest part of the country, the most bypassed by development and modernity, the most in thrall to neglect and financial corruption. Organised crime is as much a cancer here as on neighbouring Sicily, and many a half-finished building project, a magnet for money from central government or the EU bears testament to the graft that goes on. Writer Carlo Levi’s memoir ‘Christ Stopped at Eboli’, written about his internal exile to the south during the Fascist era was an eye-opener to many Italians, ignorant of how the southern half lived. For over a century, the south has been steadily depopulating (not unlike Irish in New York, there are more Calabrese in the US than in Calabria). The exodus was for jobs, and an existence beyone scratching an agrarian living from the dry soil.

Okay, now to take a break from our part-time gig with the Calabria tourist board … why would anyone want to come to this sun-scorched hellhole!? A good few reasons, not least of which is the topography of the place. Check the map - you have coastline on three sides, Tyrrhenian to the west, Ionian Sea to the east. The narrow litoral within is largely national park and spectacular mountain scenery. There are three mountain ranges in fact - the Sila, Aspromonte and Pollino. This is a haven for rare flora and fauna. You have dense woods, enormous plateaus that never see a soul from one year to the next (the Sila plateau stretches for around 2000 square kilometres, pitted with lakes and dotted with forest).

You have extraordinary history here - this was a capital of Magna Graecia, from where the Ancient Greeks masterminded their conquest of the western Mediterranean thousands of years before. The narrow channel between Calabria and Sicily is the Straits of Messina, with Scylla and Charybdis, the clashing rocks of Greek mythology. Check the coastline and there is the town of Scilla to this day. There are villages in Calabria that seem untouched by the 20th century let alone the 21st, and you’ll find a bewildering diversity of dialects (indeed languages quite distinct from Standard Italian): Albanian, Franco-Provencal, Griko, French and Sicilian.

More than anything there is lots of coastline, sandy beaches, soaring cliffs, rocky shorelines. Poet Gabriele D’Annunzio called the coast facing Sicily at Reggio Calabria il più bel chilometro d’Italia’. What we really like about this region is that you have lots of pretty, historic and happening seaside towns, but you can quickly be in wilderness, and quite stunning wilderness … just a few miles away. The word unspoiled has been, well, spoilt, by the tourist industry. We think it’s apt here though.

Things to see in Calabria

• National parks and mountains: Sila, Aspromonte
• Sibari: a village on the Ionian coast, near ancient Greek colony of Sybaris
• Reggio Calabria: oldest and largest town in the region. Art Nouveau buildings, lovely beaches, botanical gardens, superb views. Reggio dates back 3000 years, has the National Museum of Magna Grecia, itself containing one of the minor wonders of the world, the Bronzi di Riace or Riace Warriors. Also see the Aragonese Castle.
• Stilo has a lovely Norman castle and a personal favourite, the extraordinary Cattolica, a Byzantine church with the distinctive rounded turrets.
• Squillace: important archaeological remains, and a fun seaside town.
• Gerace: very nice medieval city.
• Capo Vaticano: on Tyrrhenian coast, with great swimming.
• Siderno is a nice resort on the Ionian coast.
• Scilla (as in Scylla and Charybdis) is on the Tyrrhenian, and the so-called ‘pearl’ of the so-called Violet Coast. Lovely views, the setting for some of Homer’s yarns.
• Cosenza: see the Swabian Castle and Romanesque duomo, plus lovely old quarter.
• Pizzo Calabro on the Tyrrhenian: famed for its ‘tartufo’ ice cream. See the Piazza Repubblica and the Aragonese Castle.
• Nicotera: another lovely little medieval town.
• Soverato: beaches, boardwalk, clubs and bars. Great fun. On the Ionian Coast.

 

30-second guide to Piemonte

Piemonte, or Piedmont to Anglicise literally means ‘foot of the mountain’ and that describes the region’s position, in the north-west corner of Italy, with neighbours France and Switzerland lying on the other side of the Alps. No coastline, though that is just a few miles south, through the seaboard of Liguria. Other regional neighbours include Valle d’Aosta and Lombardy.
Main city is Turin (Torino), very industrial though a fantastic city to visit with some superb Baroque streets. Other towns include Asti, home to some surprisingly good spumante, and nearby Alba, spiritual home of the truffle and other funghi. You get great red wines in this area as well as whites. Other towns include Novara, Cuneo and Acqui Terme. Lots of good skiing, some beautiful mountain scenery (so good hiking and walking too) and the Parco Nazionale del Gran Paradiso, shared with little Valle d’Aosta.

Where to stay in Piemonte

• A useful list of hotels in Piedmont
• An equally useful list of villas and apartments in Piedmont.