Welcome to Santiago de Compostela, my amazing and incomparable city. To visit it, just that you have a tour guide, but to learn something really special (around the city), you need the help of a friend, that is mine. I am happy to meet you, my name is Alonzo and what I want to give you is 35 km from …
Read More »MY LOVE IS DEAD: Poetry, by Thomas Chatterton
MY LOVE IS DEAD My love is dead. Go to his deathbed, all under the weeping willow. (Thomas Chatterton) http://www.amazon.it/Complete-Chatterton-Illustrated-English-Edition-ebook/dp/B00PE1J0B0
Read More »Bernard van Orley (1491/1542), FLEMISH PAINTER: Shades of color, between Gothic and Renaissance
WHEN THE MUSIC BECOMES POETRY: The sky in a room, by Gino Paoli
THE SKY IN A ROOM When you’re here with me, this room has no walls but trees, infinite trees. When you’re here with me, this purple ceiling no, no longer exists. I see the sky above us, that we stay here abandoned, as if there was nothing left, nothing left in the world. Harmonious sounds, like an organ that vibrates …
Read More »BALLAD OF GOOD DOCTRINE: Poetry, by François Villon
BALLAD OF GOOD DOCTRINE Whether the bubbles around you bring, you are or who cheat cheat at dice, coiner of money, and you’ll burn like those that are blanched, cowardly perjury, faithless. You steal, take, perform robberies: where does the fruit, do not see it? All the taverns and the whores. Make rhymes’s wit, strumming, playing harpsichord and lute, abject …
Read More »ROBERT CAMPIN (1378/1444), FLEMISH PAINTER: The intensity of the realism of the master of the Flemish school
LOCHINVER, A VILLAGE WITHOUT TIME: At North of Scotland, to get carried by the wild colors of its rocks and its waters
Hello, welcome to Thurso, a small town on the northern coast of Scotland. In this wide bay you can watch ferries for two island groups that are certainly worth a visit you. Today, however, I would like to talk to you some opportunities to hike, starting from Tongue – a lovely village – dominated by the ruins of the castle …
Read More »WHEN THE MUSIC BECOMES POETRY: The song of lost love, by Fabrizio de André
THE SONG OF LOVE LOST You remember blooming violets, with our words “we will not let us never, never and never.” I would tell you the same thing now, but as soon as they do, love, roses to wither. So for us, the love that pulls the hair is lost now, it just has a few listless caress and …
Read More »THE POETS DAMNED: If I were fire, poetry of Cecco Angiolieri
IF I WERE FIRE If I were fire, I would burn the world; if I were fire, I would storm. If I were water I would drown. If I were God, I would send it to the core. If I were pope, then I would be joyful, so that all Christians would like intrigue. If I were emperor, I would …
Read More »HUGO VAN DER GOES (1430/1482), FLEMISH PAINTER: Landscapes and observational acuity, with the swirl of feelings, in a tormented soul
THE TIMELESS BOOKS: Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
So begins Pride and Prejudice: it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. That it is what you can read inside a novel by Jane Austen’s, witty comedy of manners – one of the most popular novels of all time – that splendidly civilized sparring …
Read More »TRIP TO SCANDINAVIA: The tenth section, by Mo i Rana to Narvik
Ready for our tenth day in Scandinavia? Well, today a path undemanding – just 350 km – that will lead up to Narvik, the port (or rather, “the door”) to the islands of Lofoten and Vesteralen. Released from Mo i Rana, Rana travel along the great valley of meadows and forests of birch, but we will have to make a …
Read More »LUIS DE MORALES (1509/1586), SPANISH PAINTER: Shades of Leonardo in religious themes
BETWEEN THE GARDENS OF WILLOWS: Poetry, by William Butler Yeats
BETWEEN THE GARDENS OF WILLOWS Among the gardens of willows I and my love we met. Strolling through the gardens of willows with his white legs snow. He invited me to take love so easy, as the leaves grow on the trees. But I did not agree, I was young and crazy. In a field on the banks of …
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