Sandy shorelines and a lively buzz, Sicily

I spent September travelling around Sicily on your own, mostly on foot, and I desired to flop on a seashore in advance of likely dwelling. I settled on Cefalù on the north coastline, simply because of its scarce mixture of sandy beach and medieval town – and it was love at initially sight. I had read that the little city will get unpleasantly packed in summer season, but by late September there was just a energetic excitement. Cefalù appeared a distillation of just about everywhere else I experienced been: Sicily in miniature. I gazed up at the mosaic-shiny Christ Pantocrator in the twin-towered Arab-Norman cathedral. I came encounter to face with Antonello da Messina’s enigmatic Portrait of an Unidentified Guy, a masterpiece in the unassuming (and empty) Museo Mandralisca. I climbed La Rocca, a huge crag that looms around the city, to a fourth- or fifth-century temple and ruined castle.

I pottered all over the cobbled streets, popping into ceramic shops and a gelateria joined the passeggiata along the seafront at sunset and idled in piazzas consuming Campari spritz and ingesting pasta con le sarde. In actuality, it was not till the final afternoon that I ultimately observed time to laze on the seashore.
Rachel Dixon

Bay-hopping in Croatia

Searching like a massive misshapen claw, Telašćica mother nature park dangles from the southern end of the Croatian island of Dugi Otok, near the islands of Kornati national park. But although the Kornatis are scrubby barren dots of sheep-coated land, most of Telašćica is lusciously inexperienced – all the greater to demonstrate off its distinction with the vivid blue of the Adriatic. In this bizarre claw are 25 bays and 6 islets surrounded by olive groves, vineyards and forested hills hefty with the scent of pine. I adopted a road up to a viewpoint in an aged Habsburg fort, from which I could see glistening swimming pools of the Adriatic flowing between eco-friendly mounds, and moored sailing boats. Close by is Mir, a saltwater lake skirted by limestone cliffs. It is a well-liked swimming spot for day-trippers from Zadar, so I headed rather to Jaz bay for a swim off the pebbly shore. In this article I observed the peace that was lacking in Mir, which, ironically, interprets as peace….