Four compiled places from Europe: South of Italy / Tórnshavn - Faroe / Russia / South of France
SOUTH OF ITALY
It is perhaps one of the most beautiful places in the world to visit. We traveled there about four times over different years. In Sicily, we circled Mount Etna by railway, visited Taormina with its amphitheater, explored the Baroque city of Noto and the Greek city of Syracuse, and the two great cities of Palermo and Catania. In the “heel of the boot” of Italy, we visited Alberobello, the fantastic 13th-century Castel del Monte, and the cave dwellings carved into the limestone rocks of Matera. The journeys along the secondary roads, with their ancient conical constructions known as “Trulli,” which appear scattered across the countryside, are truly wonderful.
THORNSHAVN – FAROE
The capital of the Faroe Islands was (back in 2010) a very exotic destination. In recent years, however, the Faroe Islands have become a highly publicized place, with countless YouTubers constantly posting reviews about it. But fifteen years ago, the runway at Vágar Airport was still short, and the only aircraft that could operate there safely were the relatively small British BAE/ARJ quad-jets. Today, that situation has changed considerably.
The city still has several wooden buildings, most of them with roofs covered in turf and grass to improve thermal and moisture insulation. At its harbor, there is an interesting cluster of these old buildings, which have been renovated inside to house the offices of the autonomous government of the Faroe.
RUSSIA
We spent a few days in Moscow in 2008. Those were dangerous times, as the conflict with Chechnya still flared up intermittently and there were real threats of terrorist attacks in Moscow. Since it was spring and the weather was excellent, we were able to visit the main sights worth seeing. We found Red Square particularly impressive, as well as the experience of exploring (on our own, without a guide) the subway system with nothing but a Cyrillic map to find our way around.
In St. Petersburg, we stayed in 2014, at the end of a trip through Eastern Europe. By then, Russia had already “risen from the ashes,” and it was striking to see the level of luxury and opulence enjoyed by the bourgeois class that had been privileged under the new economic and political system. Here too, we repeated the exploration of the subway network, though with the added convenience that the map was now installed on our cellphone.
SOUTH OF FRANCE
We began this road trip from Toulouse, with the goal of connecting several places we wanted to see, taking the smaller countryside roads along the way. It was the first time we traveled without a detailed paper map, relying 100% on the GPS, which turned out to be a mistake, since it kept redirecting us at all time to the main highways instead of the regional routes we had pre-programmed in Google Maps.
Even so, we visited beautiful towns and cities, most notably Rocamadour, with its dramatic setting on a steep hillside. We stayed two nights in each place: Cahors, Sarlat-la-Canéda, Bergerac, Saint-Félicien and finally Bordeaux, where we returned the car before taking the train back to Toulouse.
