Farne Islands and Hitchcock fantasies...

Farne Islands are a group of uninhabited islands along the Northumberland shore, on the border between England and Scotland.
With "uninhabited" I mean that they are not inhabited by human beings; but yet they have quite a number of inhabitants.
They all are inhabitants with feathers, wings and a beak, and there are so many of them that the National Trust has made a protected oasis out of it, called the Birds Sanctuary.
You can reach it with a boat tour: there are many of them and they all depart from the harbour of Seahouses.
The approximated cost is about 30 £ (plus some other 4 £ for entering the island), and they consists of a circumnavigation of the archipelago with a landing of about one hour on the main island, the Inner Farne.
Both on Lonely Planet and at the ticket office is warmly recommended to wear a hat or a hood when you land on the island.
Sure, we think, no one enjoys a not-requested shampoo, expecially if it doesn't exactly smell of jojoba oil or silvestris pine.
"Oh no, it's not for that" - giggles misteriously a guy we've met on the bus.
"You are a couple of brave girls" - he adds, before getting off and leaving us.

Betws-y-Coed and Gwydyr Forest: the real soul of Wales

Wales is the land of the Red Dragon, it's the land of Merlin and King Arthur, it's a land of myths and legends, of wizard druids and heroes.
It's a land full of legendary stories, where you don't really know whether supernatural was used as a metaphor of what was actually happening, or if was what had actually happened to be then transformed in supernatural.
These stories have been handed down orally, from father to son, sliding through one generation after another, with no stopping even in front of the advent of Christianity, but simply changing face to the protagonists: no more druids but saints, with no more dragons to fight but with Satan as adversary.
Because they are not simply stories, they are connected with the identity of this Country.
They are connected with the green of its valleys, the mellowness of its hills, the shadow of its woods.
With the flowing of water and the blooming of the bluebells.
When you are surrounded by so much beauty it's not difficult to believe that magic actually exists...

Bonaventure Island - home of the gannets in Québec

When we got there it was surrounded by the mist.
It was looking like a pirate ship coming from the fog, and the gannets coveys curled up in the rock's cracks looked like its crew.
Bonaventure Island belongs to the National Park that has its same name, associated to the Rocher Percé, the rocky spur that to someone reminds a graceful girl, but that for me is like a bison drinking, of which I've told you about here and that is just a few meters away from the coast of the Gaspesie, in Québec (Canada).
Island is uninhabited since 1971, the year when it's officially been transformed into a Park.
Just uninhabited by human beings, of course; but it seems to be the favourite place for almost 300.000 gannets.
Why these animals have chosen this place so avidly and eagerly, instead of just any other else, we will never get to know (I'm a cat, after all, so it's just difficult to get to feel empathy towards birds) - but one thing is for sure.
Gannets really have made a very good choice.

[My Top 10] Bergen: fjords, salmon and wooden houses

For as much as I might be into making Top 10 lists like the "High fidelity" protagonist, if somebody might ask me to do a Top 10 of my very favourite cities I would be in serious trouble.
Same thing would happen with an absolute Top 10 of my favourite books or movies.
It's just a too big and wide field, I prefer focusing on a niche.
But Bergen would surely enter quite many Top 10's.
It would feature in my Top 10 cities where I'd like to live. In my Top 10 places that can make you feel in another time. In the Top 10 cities which have positively surprised me the most.
And perhaps also in the absolute one, pretty much for sure.
I've been here in 2009, together with Ginger Cat, and we've spent 5 very pleasant days in this fjords capital, steep, wooden, silent but not gloomy, colorful but introvert, that smells of smoked salmon and that in just a couple of steps makes you dive into a wild and awesome nature.
So here is what I would recommend you to see, if you'd happen to pass from there...
But, actually, I'd say that the very first thing I'd recommend you would be not to "happen" to pass from there: plan & decide to go there, it's totally worth it!

Bodnant Garden - how do you imagine Paradise?

There are places that give you the impression of having already seen them even before you have actually visited them.But this doesn't happen because you have seen them in some movies or in some déja vu - it simply happens because they are very similar to something your fantasy has created while you were daydreaming.
They are places that, as soon as you step there, make you open your mouth with marvel and make you say "Oh, so you exist for real, then!".
This has happened to me with Connemara, whose green and blue lands were looking incredibly like to the kind of landscapes that my mind used to create as a background when I was reading fantasy novels; and this has happened with Bodnant Garden as well, which is the garden of a villa around Conwy, in Northern Wales, that now is entirely open to the public.

Llandudno - 2 "L"s & 10 good reasons to visit it

It took me a while to decide which town to choose as a base for our exploration of Northern Wales.
Llandudno grabbed my attention because it is situated in a strategical position and because it was well connected with bus routes to the main places I wanted to visited.
Bill Bryson, in his "News from a small island" (an ironical and very pleasant chronicle of a journey through Great Britain, from Dover to the most extreme point of Scotland), defines it "soporific"; but, when on Lonely Planet insted I've read "Victorian seaside resort" and "tiny pastel colour houses", I've decided to give it a chance - after all I've already stumbled upon the fact that dear old Bill and me not always share the same point of view.
For example I team for Oxford and he for Cambridge - but we will talk about this another time.
Moreover, of Llandudno I fancied the name: with its initial double "L" was evoking Welsh-ness to the maximum degree - wild beaches, a lot of green and some legends about wizards and heroes.
I just had quite some doubts about how it should have been correctly pronounced - then I've asked to Ginger Cat, who has studied Gaelic, and who revealed me that it was simply to be pronounced the way we would have read it in Italian.
Well, simpler than I've thought.

Wales & stereotypes

When coming back from a trip it always takes a while to get readjusted to reality.
And when the trip happens to be in my most beloved country, it takes a double effort ;)

I've landed back in Turin on Monday evening, with a mix of emotions consisting of longing already the awesome places I've just left behind and of treasruing the beautiful memories collected there, willing to finally sit here and write about them, sharing with you my stories about the places we visited and the beauty we gathered.
Yesterday I've returned straight to work, and it has been a long and hectic day, catching up with all the tasks left behind and the new issues emerged during my absence. So when I finally got back home, I didn't really feel like turning on the pc - my headache was begging for mercy...
But tonight here I am.
I've just booked the flights for two more upcoming trips in July and August - this year there is definitely a lot going on; so now it's high time to start catching up with my Welsh adventures :)

Percé rocks!!

Percé is a small village overlooking the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in the region of Gaspesie, Quebec.
St. Lawrence feels like the sea, but it is not : I was about to describe Percé as a "seaside resort", because this is actually the kind of impression one gets at first, with the mirror of water looking infinite in front of you, the seagulls fishing for crabs, and lobsters as the main local specialty; but the St. Lawrence is actually a river.
Percé is a pretty little place, a holiday place that has a bit of old England taste (despite being in the French-speaking part of Canada), with colorful wooden houses, a creaky bridge that takes you along the shore, a few souvenir shop with a sort of modern kitsch taste, and some friendly small restaurants specialized in poutine .

Hello St. Paddy, I'm the Lucky Black Bog Cat!

Happy St Patrick's Day everyone!!
No, we don't celebrate it in Italy: I guess they do something in some random pub, but that's nothing like "real" celebrations. I usually wear green on this day, but, since it's something I like doing on a regular basis, I guess nobody really notices that it's made on purpose.
Then, here, March 17th (besides being my best friend's birthday) should be the birthday of our country as a nation, since Italy got unified on this day in 1861 - but nobody cares about this either.
But - well, since I usually like boasting around telling that I have Celtic blood in my veins (I have no evidence of that, besides my pale skin, my green eyes and the way my heart skips a beat whenever I reach what I call my homeland - but who needs scientific proofs after all?), and since Irishs have a legend about a big black cat wandering around their bogland who is supposed to bring a very big amount of luck to whomever meets him (and living in a country where black cats are ignorantly considered as a symbol of bad luck, I can't help but being grateful about it); here I go, following the flow and doing what every single travel blogger on the planet is doing today - an Ireland related post!!
I guess this should have been part of the "Down the Memory Lane" section, since it's been since 2005 already that my paws don't step over the Emerald Island's soil (OMG); but to me it still feels like yesterday, so here we go with some random impressions and memories about some of the places that I've liked the most.

Brittany: my Top 10 dreamland places

I've always felt a strong, compelling attraction for the Celtic world.
Always, like since forever, because I had found out later that my favourite fairytales as a kid, the ones I wanted to read or hear over and over, because I loved so much what they were making me daydream of, were actually derived from Celtic folklore and legends.
Like every strong and genuine passion, I am not able to explain rationally what exactly is that I like so much about it. I mean, of course I could recount a pretty long list of charachteristics of the Celtic culture and civilization that I find appealing - like their love and respect for nature, their communion with it, or the fact that they use to give a same and equal importance to the masculine and feminine principles - but, all in all, the biggest and sheerer reason for my attraction is quite obvious and simple.
I feel dragged to it. I feel I belong to this culture, to this world: I mirror myself, my inner soul there, and, during the years, I've found some important answers.
When I was younger I was even totally and genuinely convinced that I must have been a Celt in one of my previous lives. Nowadays I no longer ask myself this kind of questions; but still I reckon the strong feeling of homecoming whenever I visit any of the areas where the Celtic tribes used to settle.

Among the Celtic homelands that I've seen, Brittany is the one where I've felt the strongest sense of arcane, of something primordial - a sort of magic that is wild and very powerful.

Tadoussac: where whales enjoy to be watched

Tadoussac is a small village in Québec at the confluence of the St. Lawrence and Saguenay rivers.
It looks just like a bunch of colorful wooden houses thrown along the Saguenay fjord, but it actually holds the record of the oldest European settlement in Canada.
And, besides this, it holds at least a couple of surprises.

Down from the Rabbit's hole in Valentino Park

I wasn't planning to visit this place yesterday.
And actually I wasn't even planning to write a post about it.
But sometimes unplanned things turn out to be beautiful surprises: just like Alice, you get curious and follow the Rabbit down in the hole, finding out a new realm of wonderland... even when the "wonderland" is actually a place you know already pretty well.
But sometimes there are days, special days, when you simply get able to see things with new eyes, under a new light, with their beauty suddenly exploding, like a firework that turns the everyday sky into a feast.

Arran - a.k.a. Scotland in miniature

When Ginger Cat & me were planning our trip to Scotland in summer 2011, my main wish was to include in the itinerary at least one island, because I stil haven't visited any, not even the Island of Skye.
I was actually thinking of the Hebrides, but when Ginger came up with the unusual idea of going to this almost unknown Isle of Arran I've immediately got enthralled by the idea.
Mostly because, in fact, it is unknown - I have to admit it: I've always had a soft spot for the underdogs, more or less in any fields, and I'm all for discovering small hidden treasures far away from the main path. Moreover, we were doing our trip in August, and in August choosing less touristic places can actually make a difference with being able to enjoy your destination to the fullest, instead of just fighting in the crowd to do and see things.
And indeed, it's really been a little jem this one we've discovered.
I'd say the 3 days spent on Arran have probably been the past part of the trip - altough it's been a very interesting trip with so many other memorable destinations.
This place includes all the sort of natural environment which I find most beautiful and which fulfills my heart with peace and serenity: wild rough beaches, enchanting woods, moorlands, cliffs - my soul just fits this kind of landscape, it makes it vibrate, both with emotions and peace, like a sort of homecoming.
I'm glad we chose this place.
When telling about it, most of people was mistaking it for the more popular Aran Islands in Ireland - but no, this ARRAN, with double "R" and it's in Scotland, more precisely in the Firth of Clyde. Not too far away from my original plan concerning Hebrides, actually, and it's even quite similar, both physycally and culturally, to them - but they are separated from a peninsula, so it doesn't count as one of them.
It also has a different ethimology from its Irish almost homonymous: Aran means "kidney", as that's the shape they have; while Arran is probably a Brythonic derivation which means "high place" (the Goat Fell hill overcomes the 800 mt - which is a pretty considerable high for the Scottish standards).
As for its shape, the isle is actually nicknamed Sleeping Warrior - as its coast seen from the mainland actually looks like a sleeping human figure, and I find this so charming. I wonder if there are any legends concerning this sleeping warrior transformed into an island - and if there are not any, maybe I should try to invent one :D