My special place is the Mediterranean – I’m mad about Delphi and the Acropolis of Lindos in Rhodes. I’d go back again tomorrow given the chance. So that’s my tip.
I am totally possessed by Hellenistic culture and Roman culture. Whether it’s in the Mediterranean, or the traces of the Romans in Africa, wherever you find Greek or Roman culture, that’s what I love.
In Lindos on the island of Rhodes in Greece, there is an extraordinary acropolis, a large temple on a huge precipice; it looks like the land just falls off. Then on the top of this cliff are monumental Greek columns, the remains of the pavilion of the temple, and the propylaeum – the structure of the entrance. You see it from down below, a huge, monumental gateway to the temple, which really is one of the most beautiful in the world.
I first went to Lindos in the 1970s and it still captivates. I imagine that this temple is something like the ones in Syria at Palmyra that were destroyed so tragically – I have this incredible desire to see those, but that is now an impossible dream. Then there is the Delphi temple on Mount Parnassus in Greece. There is a statue – the Charioteer of Delphi – that was found there and has the most beautiful feet. I took pictures of them when I first saw the figure, for inspiration. It’s on display in the Delphi Archaeological Museum. A marvellous thing.
What I love about Greek and Roman culture is the proportion. There is an elegance here that is all the more extraordinary as we are talking about centuries and centuries ago. I really adore it. But then maybe I am, too, Romantic like Byron. I recall his lines from his poem The Isles of Greece:
Place me on Sunium’s marbled steep,
Where nothing, save the waves and I,
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;
There, swan-like, let me sing and die.
[Sunium is Cape Sounion, not far from Athens, home of the Temple of Poseidon.]
I remember those words all the time – yes, let me sing and die! There is so much baggage behind this kind of beauty. Every single column, every single marble statue, is bathed in it. I was once in Athens and fortunate to have a special tour. The minister of culture took me to see the beautiful statues underground at the Acropolis Museum.
But the Mediterranean always provides this kind of beauty – in Nîmes, in France; even in Capri, in Italy, where people go to sit in cafés. Instead I go up to the Tiberian Villa of Jupiter – there’s so much excitement; it’s the elixir de Capri. Palermo in Sicily is another madness – it means so much. When I was young and growing up, I read Lampedusa’s Il Gattopardo (The Leopard), which is set in Sicily. That was perhaps the beginning of my story with the Mediterranean. Four years ago I ended up being invited by friends to stay in Sicily’s Taormina. I stayed at the old San Domenico Palace for one month, which was beautiful. I have so many friends in the area – one lives in Noto, and my old friend Michael Roberts [the photographer] lives in Taormina. The Mediterranean for me truly is the magic land.
