Project Description
Southern African Tales – Inspirations for a lifetime journey, allows to discover Southern Africa from your home, to live an adventure in a time when to travel the world is more distant. It presents tips and ideas for the preparation of a trip that is not limited to the beaten tracks, and the curious traveler will appreciate this. 10 ideas at the center of the project, 10 unmissable experiences that can only be realized here. Starting from a question of a friend on an African evening, it was a great effort to reduce to 10 the list of unmissable African experiences to recommend to the most discerning travelers. A guideline to build one or more itineraries, to discover the most unique corners and be in the right place at the best time to attend events that will forever be in the memory of the reader.
It is a photographic book whose visual strength aims to pay the right tribute to a magnificent land and its inhabitants. It is not a tourist guide, there will be no contact details and opening hours for recommended restaurants. It is a source of inspiration by images and words. The reader will observe and be able to choose. Whether to continue the journey by leafing through the pages of the book or whether to use it as a cornerstone to build your journey of a lifetime.
The reader, the observer, will develop the desire to travel to the South African Wild Coast in July to observe the world’s largest animal migration, or to plan a visit to ESwatini kingdom only after checking the dates set by the king for the Umhlanga of the current year. You will decide whether to try to photograph the big cats in the high green grass of the rainy months or if you want to prefer the dry brushwood of the southern winter.
The southernmost part of the African continent is a land of majestic beauty and striking contrasts. Ocean beaches, nervous mountains, wine regions, deserts, few other parts of the world present this variety and allure. Europeans and local populations have together shaped a multiethnic society, a melting pot of cultures, languages and religions, which has not yet found its balance. Where man allows it, Nature takes its spaces back. Nature that still dominates in the protected areas fully embodying the magnificence of Africa.
The author discovered this part of the during many trips. Trips that stimulated the deepest interest and that led to the decision to live permanently, for five years, and definitively to return.
This book presents photos taken during years spent in the region: South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini (former Swaziland), Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Madagascar, Mauritius and Réunion (French overseas department). Other African countries, different in culture and environment, have not been included in this work. Southern Africa is a homogeneous region, given its enormous spaces, both from a naturalistic and cultural point of view. Obviously the islands of the Indian Ocean are an exception to this statement, but they are an ideal complement to a trip to this part of the world.
Animals, author’s true passion and absolute manifestation of the beauty of this area, are the protagonists. People, cities and landscapes complete the picture, for the best understanding of a reality that through hard human conflicts can truly become an earthly paradise.
Lion, leopard, cheetah, wild dog, elephant, rhino, buffalo, hippo and giraffe. These are animals with entire chapters dedicated to them. Symbols that best represent African fauna. There is also room for other mammals, reptiles, birds and marine animals as well as for the landscapes that are the natural context of the magnificent spectacle of Nature.
And then cities, people, events to be discovered in images.
Have a good trip, Africa is waiting for you!
