In this issue of hidden europe we take the pulse of rural life in the Faroe Islands, join a cattle drove along the canadas in Spain, visit a small community in the Basque country and explore Trieste, that most curiously un-Italian of Italian cities. We also recall the legacy of Georgian-born architect Berthold Lubetkin, take the boat to an island in the Gulf of Bothnia and cross from France into Italy on the trail of Alan Sillitoe.
hidden europe 31
In this issue of hidden europe we take the pulse of rural life in the Faroe Islands, join a cattle drove along the canadas in Spain, visit a small community in the Basque country and explore Trieste.
We also recall the legacy of Georgian-born architect Berthold Lubetkin, take the boat to an island in the Gulf of Bothnia and cross from France into Italy on the trail of Alan Sillitoe.
Picture above:
Miramare Castle, Italy (photo © hidden europe)
Summary
In this issue of hidden europe we take the pulse of rural life in the Faroe Islands, join a cattle drove along the canadas in Spain, visit a small community in the Basque country and explore Trieste.
We also recall the legacy of Georgian-born architect Berthold Lubetkin, take the boat to an island in the Gulf of Bothnia and cross from France into Italy on the trail of Alan Sillitoe.
Southern Europe is criss-crossed by old drove routes that served the pastoral economies of yesteryear. In Spain, these routes are called canadas. They are still used by herders who practice transhumance, spending summer in the hills with their cattle and returning each autumn to the coastal lowlands. Guest contributor Diego Vivanco joined Lionel Martorell and a herd of Avilena cattle on a five day trek down to the Ebro delta.
Trieste is wonderful, every bit as intriguing as the most fanciful places ever created by the Austrian novelist Joseph Roth. The Adriatic city is Austria's orphan, a one time entrepôt for the Habsburg Empire, that had to find a new role after the collapse of the K&K world. Today Trieste is the place where Italy rubs shoulders with Slavic world, but still a place that has a hint of Mitteleuropa.
Many visitors to the Faroe Islands arrive on cruise ships and see little beyond the capital Tórshavn and its immediate vicinity. But to really understand the Faroes, the visitor must head for smaller communities on islands that rely on occasional ferries and helicopter services for links to the wider world. The very idea of 'remoteness' is a key factor shaping Faroese identity. We climb aboard a boat and hear a tale of men and women who had faith in the Faroes.
Many people visit zoos to see apes, wild cats and okapi. But some visitors to Dudley Zoo in the English Midlands are drawn by quite another reason. Dudley Zoo boasts a fine collection of Constructivist buildings designed by Berthold Lubetkin and his Tecton group of architects. The Lubetkin legacy in Dudley and elsewhere in England deserves to be far better known and much more valued.
The memory of Julián Gayarre, the accomplished nineteenth-century tenor, is perpetuated in his home village in the Pyrenees by a larynx preserved in formaldehyde. Karlos Zurutuza, who is a regular contributor to hidden europe, took the bus to Erronkari to unpick the tale of a local lad whose voice was revered in Europe's great opera houses.
Valsörarna is a sea of mauve heather, a landscape laced with juniper and full of ripe and juicy blueberries. This tiny Finnish outpost in the Gulf of Bothnia is one of the Kvarken islands. Erik Schaffer and Silvia Stock report on a summer visit to Valsörarna.
Border regions in Europe are always fascinating. Travel east from the French town of Menton and in no time you reach the Italian frontier. The first place of any size on the Italian side of the border is Latte di Ventimglia. We follow the road to Latte, looking at how the Italian village has been framed in the Menton imagination. In a time of cholera, Latte housed a large border internment camp. Now it is a favoured spot for discount shopping.
It takes a lot of courage to re-engineer our relationship with time, to realise that we have been seduced by speed. But a new series of books from Bradt Travel Guides encourage us to do just that by focusing in on the local. Slow travel comes of age as a major travel publisher celebrates the details of England that make every village distinctive.
In the early days of train travel, landed gentry and the well-to-do made arrangements with local rail companies to convey their horses and carriages on board the trains. Europe's car trains are the modern day incarnation of the same arrangement, a chance to take the car along when heading off on a long train journey. We take a look at some of Europe's car trains, including Europe's premier car train network operated by DB Autozug.
The compensation culture encourages delayed passengers to seek redress for the inconvenience they have suffered. Air carriers and rail companies have a neat little way of reacting to the new generation of passengers well aware of their rights. They pad out their schedules, adding in a few extra minutes here and there, so enhancing the chance of an on-time arrival and massaging their punctuality statistics.
Ferries in European waters are usually ultra-reliable, but from time to time there is the odd mishap. Cruise ships and cargo ships are more prone to misadventure than regular ferries but no ship is immune. We take a look at a few journeys by ship that did not quite go to plan.
Alan Sillitoe's first publications, written during the brief spell that he lived in Menton in France, were travel essays. Sillitoe died in April, having achieved a formidable reputation as a novelist. We take a look at the lesser known side of Sillitoe's writing, namely his travel prose.
Full marks to the Ragower Mühle, a mill in the beautiful Schlaube valley near Berlin, for having created what we think is the first maze in Europe explicitly designed with wheelchair users in mind. Would only that the access route through the Brandenburg forests to reach the maze near Mixdorf were not so formidably rutted and bumpy.
The brass band is alive and well in the Faroe Islands and is just one aspect of the varied musical life of the remote North Atlantic archipelago. hidden europe presents a pot pourri of musical notes from the Faroes.
Two towns, neither of them well known beyond their local regions. Herten in Germany and Dudley in England. Both are so very similar, that they seem to be places made for each other. Indulge us, while we engage in a little matchmaking.
A look ahead at hidden europe 32 which will be published on 19 November 2010.