I was awake before five because of a dog, and then I stayed awake because of the smell. It comes in off the hill behind the town and it is not a flower smell. It is resinous and herbal and…
Victoria’s Complete Guide to Corsica
Corsica is French, and almost nothing about it is. You land expecting the south of France and you get somewhere that eats smoked liver sausage and chestnut flour, speaks a language closer to Tuscan than to anything spoken in Nice,…
Matera at Six, When the Town Comes Back
Nothing happens here between two and six. I want to be accurate about that rather than atmospheric. At two in the afternoon in the middle of August I walked from one side of the Sassi to the other and passed…
The Morning Boats at Alghero
I got up at six because I could not sleep, which is becoming a habit, and I went down to the harbour because it was the only thing open. That turned out to be wrong. Half the town was open….
Alghero, and the Sea on the Wrong Side
I have been on the east side of Italy for most of the summer, and I did not notice what that had done to me until the first evening here. The sun goes down in the wrong place. That is…
Victoria’s Complete Guide to Alghero
There is a moment, walking into the old town of Alghero for the first time, when you look up at a street sign and find it written twice. Italian on top. Underneath, in smaller letters, something that is not Italian…
