Etna

...this landscape that ignores anything in between lascivious softness and damned harshness; that is never mean, flat, relaxed, human... this land that a few miles from one another has the inferno around Randazzo and the beauty of the bay of Taormina, both beyond all measure...

Though it is the subject-matter of a narrative strategy in which it becomes metaphor and symbol, the Sicilian landscape that Tomasi di Lampedusa describes in the pages of The Leopard - possibly over-emphasising its extreme traits but breaking away from much imitation of oil painting and from the mannered pages written by "geographers" of the past who were not disinterested - is the most authentic image of the island that a writer's pen has ever given us. There is more: Tomasi fully grasps the signs of one of the biggest resources of Sicily so far - the extreme variety of environments, lights, climates, forms and perspectives of the "primitive" Sicilian landscape, continually changing and in the short distance of a. few miles, so much so that it must not seem excessive to state that the landscape of Sicily can well be considered a "paradigm" of the Mediterranean landscape. Over a thousand kilometres of coastline, a continual succession of smaller islands, the highest volcano in Europe, the extreme portion of the Italian Apennine, complex mountain systems, powerful isolated peaks, clayey plateaus, hilly expanses, luxuriant woods, lakes and rivers: a set of highly diverse elements in which the absolute "protagonists" are, each time, those primordial elements -air, earth, water, fire - that Empedocles of Agrigento indicated as the origin of everything and that one can perceive only if one is able to see the island, over and above the commonplace, in its essential primitive beauty. In this realm of lights and winds, air and water, land and fire, we want to guide the visitor in the second millennium, no longer simply a hurried "tourist", but an attentive and cultivated "traveller", capable of moving with new sensitivity and in every season of the year amid the many Sicilies that are possible.

Nobody cannot travel in Sicily and miss one of the strongest emotions that it affords: a climb up Etna. Further, you would do well to start right here the exploration of the island, from the great heights of the highest volcano in Europe -both because from there you see almost all parts of Sicily, and because the island, as we know it today, was originated with the birth of Etna. Л lu tempu di li tempi, a lu tempu chi lu munnu unn'era munnu (At the time of times, at the time when the world was not the world), Sicily was only a big archipelago; then one day the stretch of sea that formed an immense gulf between Taormina and the Nebrodi started to bubble: ... there had begun, on the seabed, the eruptions that over the centuries were to form the gigantic Volcano... thus, hidden in the sleep of a wild solitude, the mountain grew without calculation of centuries and millennia... (N. Savarese). No human being could have been there, two hundred million years ago, but - and this is one of the many prodigies of the Etna - here today we can recall this grandiose birth of Nature. Here we can also perceive the deep signs from the magic cavern of the memory of the man that is guarded up there, intact, three thousand metres up.

Access to Triglav National Park Buses run from Ljubljana to Bled and on to Bohinjska Bistrica, Lake Bohinj, and the Hotel Zlatorog at the west end of Lake Bohinj and to Jesenice, Mojstrana, Gozd MartuLjek, Kranjska Gora, and Ratece.

Experiencing one of the most beautiful glacial valleys in the Alps. Starting point: Mojstrana (Ros); length of tour: 4-5 hours Soca Trail combines outstanding natural assets and characteristic cultural heritage from the source of the Soca River through the Trenta Valley along the river to the border of the park at Krsovec (Kal Koritnica). Starting point: Source of the Soca (length of tour to the Information Center in Trenta is 2-3 hours; length of entire trail is 20 km) Pokljuka Trail winds through forests and across alpine meadows to several historical points of interest linked in a park theme trail. Starting point: Mrzli Studenec; length of tour 3 hours. Goreljek Peat Bog Education Trail illustrates the special features and importance of a peat bog that ranks among the most valuable naturaljewels of Europe (trail forms part of the Pokljuka Trail). Starting point: Goreljek; Length of tour 1 hour. Radovna Bicycle Trail. Experience Radovna— valley, river, and village—by bicycle and explore its special natural and cultural features. Starting point: Krnica pri Zgornjih Gorjah; length of tour: 2.5-3.5 hours)

Lectures and children's workshops at the Triglav National Park Information Center, where adults can learn about the protection and conservation of nature and children can play creatively in educational workshops.

Presentation of Triglav National Parkin words and pictures, the legend of the Goldenhorn, and organization of crффeative workshops in schools, in nature, or at the Information Center Photography Workshop for amateur photographers devoted to photographing the special natural, cultural, and ethnological features of the park. Guided tours of the park led by natural scientists or professional park guides to discover the most beautiful and interesting corners of Triglav National Park.