IMAGES: ALAMY; GETTY; YANN DERET
FÅRÖ, SWEDEN Silver screen history Ingmar Bergman is widely credited by cinephiles as being among the world’s most important screenwriters and fi lm directors. And this titan of the silver screen — whose acclaimed works include Summer with Monika (1953), Wild Strawberries (1957) and The Seventh Seal (1957) — spent much of his life on Fårö, a Baltic Sea island, until his death in 2007. His legacy is writ large there — the Bergman Center holds his eponymous week of festivities annually at the end of June. For fi ve days, fi lms, music, creative workshops and lectures are held for the public, often with special celebrity guests. There are permanent exhibitions, guided tours and a cinema at the centre, too. Many of Bergman’s fi lms were shot on the island — the popular Bergman safaris take you on a whistle- stop tour of some of the most iconic fi lm locations.
bergmancenter.se HOW TO DO IT: Fårö is reachable by ferry from its larger island neighbour, Gotland. Stora Gåsemora off ers stylish digs inside a 19th-century former windmill.
gasemora.se
SARDINIA, ITALY Art history The Giants of Mont’e Prama — 15 giant sandstone heads said to be 3,000 years old — were discovered by farmers in the 1970s. Their age links them to the island’s mysterious Nuragic civilisation, who inhabited Sardinia around 20,000 years ago, right up until Roman invasion in the third century BCE. Few to no written accounts of the civilisation have been found, which is why their discovery was all the more signifi cant. The heads, with bizarre concentric circle eyes, depict warrior-like fi gures, with some holding bows and arrows. Being found close to a necropolis points to their possible use in funerary or ritualistic practice. See the fi gures at Cagliari’s National Archaeological Museum. Within the same museum lie other important fi nds: Nuragic bronze statuettes, whose metal-wrought fi gures depict everyday scenes and thus help to paint a picture of the civilisation’s livelihoods, as well as the Nora Stone — so far the oldest Phoenician inscription discovered outside of the Levant, dating from the ninth century BCE. HOW TO DO IT: Many UK airlines fl y direct to the island’s capital, Cagliari. The Antico Borgo di Lu Puleo hotel is a rustic former farming estate.
borgolupuleu.it
28
NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.COM/TRAVEL
MENORCA, SPAIN Ancient history Just for a little while, Europe’s stalwart sites of classical antiquity can step aside to allow Menorca a moment in the sun. The Balearic Islands’ Talayotic sites, dating from 1600 BCE, fi nally made the UNESCO World Heritage List in late 2023. The inscription draws well-deserved attention to the little-known prehistoric population that fl ourished on the island for many centuries (until the Romans marched in at the turn of the fi rst millennium). The Talayotics were prolifi c builders — the remains of their villages, possibly fortifi ed with curious chamber-like talayots, are scattered across the island as totems of their presence. Guided tours of the sights are advertised on the website of the island’s tourism board, while specialised talks and exhibitions are posted on the Talayotic Menorca website.
visitmenorca.co.uk menorcatalayotica.info HOW TO DO IT: Several UK airlines fl y nonstop to Menorca. The Santa Ponsa is a 17th-century country palace turned luxury boutique hotel.
lesdomainesdefontenille.com
THE AZORES, PORTUGAL Natural history Upwellings of volcanic magma saw this Portuguese archipelago begin to bubble to the surface of the North Atlantic around eight million years ago — and thanks to these nine islands’ unique biogeography, many endemic fl ora and fauna species have emerged, too. Islands and endemism go hand in hand — think of the Galápagos tortoise or Madagascar’s ring-tailed lemur. On the smaller (but no less fascinating) European island equivalent, you’ll fi nd the Azores noctule bat — the island’s only endemic mammal, not only capable of speedy 30mph fl ights, but unusually often diurnal, meaning it can be observed hunting during daylight hours. Other attractions for wildlife fans include the Azores bullfi nch, found only on the island of São Miguel, and the Santa Maria goldcrest, found only on the island of Santa Maria. You’ll need hawk eyes to spot these and other elusive Azores species, but a guided wildlife tour with the biologist founders of Endemic Azores will help to lift the veil on this mysterious archipelago and the evolutionary history of its species.
endemicazores.com HOW TO DO IT: Fly direct from the UK to São Miguel. Solar de Lalém boutique hotel is situated in a 17th-century manor house.
solardelalem.com
Clockwise from top left: A windmill on Fårö, Sweden; hikers in the central highlands of Sao Jorge island in the Azores; the ancient Roman town of Nora on Sardinia; historic hotel in Menorca
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108
