Splendour in side chapels While spending last weekend in Rome, enroute to Sicily, I viewed once more some Caravaggio splendour found in the side chapels of three Roman churches only minutes from my hotel just off Piazza del Popolo.

The vibrant colours, the everyday realism of the subjects, the folds of soft fabrics, the glorious ‘light and shadow’ (Chiaroscuro) and the stories told are all spellbinding. 

  "The soul-affirming joy of returning" (Peter Jon Lindberg)  The thought of arriving at Palermo’s Falcone Borsellino Airport, framed by high mountain faces and the blue Tyrrhenian Sea, late one afternoon next week has me thinking about ‘the soul-affirming joy of returning” to Sicily and the village of Polizzi Generosa; to enjoy 'ritual', returning and things new.

A glorious past Sicilian spring in May: wild spring flowers; the planting of a terrace above village rooftops; fields, mountains and valleys so green; gardens in bloom by the sea; the last of the winter snow; bright lidos ready; and a gentle, spring light before the coming of the dazzling Sicilian summer.