By Christopher Whinney & Sarah Wellburn
Sometimes it’s an almost unimaginable profusion of flowers – red poppies, yellow tulips, blue and yellow irises, brilliant blue gentians or woods carpeted with pink cyclamen. Sometimes it is a species so rare that we can hardly believe what we have found, and at other times it is the sheer exuberance of colours.
During the course of looking for new walking trips across the hills of Europe we frequently come across breathtaking areas of wild flowers. ATG routes include many of these areas, but it is not always possible to include all the best ‘patches’ of flowers on a continuous route, and on trips with a wide spectrum of interest, we spend most of the day enjoying flowers as some people might like. Taking time to really explore the richest areas for flowers in Europe is the raison d’etre of these trips.
Perhaps the strangest and most exotic of all European species are orchids. Apart from curious shapes reminiscent perhaps of a man, a woman, fly or butterfly, a bee, lizard or grinning monkey, they present a constant challenge. The large variance of colour and shape within the same species and tendency to natural hybridisation suggests that European orchids are still in a very active stage of evolution. Detective work distinguishing a strongly deviant variant from a hybrid or even determining a particular species provides a constant source of entertainment and delight.
The style of these trips is friendly and relaxed. Accommodation and food is of the usual high ATG standard. We drive close to most of the areas, so you can walk as much or as little as you like. The more energetic may find the most interesting flowers, or the least active and most observant …!
In the south-east corner of Umbria, you’ll find orchids and rich floral displays in the Sibillini National Park, an area of outstanding natural beauty. In Tuscany, the areas around and to the south of Pieve a Castello are home to a wonderful diversity of wildflowers including orchids, cyclamen and rare Etruscan violets. In the Gargano, Puglia, Southern Italy you’ll find abundant flowers with interesting varieties; a natural limestone rockery fringed by warm blue seas, the remote Gargano peninsula, besides its historic churches, harbours a wealth of spring flowers including fields of blue and yellow iris, and many rare orchids, some unique to the area.
All images taken on the recent Flowers of Gargano trip by Sarah Wellburn, ATG Tour Leader.
