Getting the flavour of…
UFO spotting in Sedona, Arizona Visitors to Sedona may fee like extras “in a 1950s B-movie”, says Edmund Vallance in The Independent. This high desert town in Arizona is a hotspot for alien sightings; and its altitude, clear night skies and backdrop of towering red mountains – “worthy of 2001: A Space Odyssey” – contribute to its other-worldliness. Locals routinely claim to have experienced alien abduction; one of them guides a Ufo-spotting tour, run by the nearby Centre for the New Age. Participants are given military-grade infrared goggles, “which absorb 20,000 times more light than the naked eye”. Peering through them highlights all kinds of curious, fast-moving lights in the night sky: satellites, military aircraft, or extraterrestrials? Whatever truth is out there, Sedona’s vast, twinkling night sky is “a heavenly sight to behold”. Centre for the New Age (www.sedonanewagestore.com) runs Ufo-spotting tours for $75pp.
A taste of the real Italy in Ravello Ravello is the “overlooked relative of its flashier cousins, Amalfi and Positano”, says Hilary Rose in The Times. And that’s a good thing. Smaller, sleepier and prettier, it has all the cascading cliffs, torturous roads and sparkling scenery of the other two, but “the feel of a real town” where people live, work, shop and hang out their washing. There’s “glorious” food, and also steps – “lots of them”. The 11th century clifftop duomo has a famously sloping aisle, ostensibly to “focus attention on the altar”, though you wonder if the builder just found it easier that way. A more contemporary attraction is the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer’s astonishing, “sinuous”, glistening white concert hall and exhibition centre, overlooking the sparkling blue sea. Ravello is served by Naples airport.
Walking the Fen Rivers Way Tracing the Cam and the Great Ouse from Cambridge to King’s Lynn, at the edge of the Wash, the Fen Rivers Way leads you into a “strange, arresting landscape of black soil, huge skies and endless fields”, says Patrick Barkham in The Guardian. As you might expect, it’s a flat, gentle walk, with abundant opportunities to spot wildlife – including dragonflies, bitterns and “more herons than people”. The 50-mile-long route takes in a wealth of human history, too: fenland, of course, but also “two cities, a medieval port, Dutch architecture”, boatyards and the “magnificent hulk of Ely Cathedral”. The Ouse is now “encased” in huge flood banks, and it is from these that you get the best views of the surrounding landscape. “A little elevation goes a long way in a flat land.” Ordnance Explorer Maps: 209, 226, 228 and 236. Visit www.britishwalks.org for more information.