Travel Diary

wednesday 15th april - sunday 10th may

Guide

April 2026

In the weeks ahead, follow See All This editor-in-chief Nicole Ex and photographer Anke Riesenkamp as they travel from Città della Pieve in Italy to Cape Town and the Karoo in South Africa, before returning to Italy for the opening of La Biennale di Venezia.

2 mei 2026

We are leaving Sanbona Wildlife Reserve in the Karoo. I am writing in the car as we head back to Cape Town. Estimated time of arrival: 5.30 pm — just before nightfall. ‘Back to the real world,’ Anke says as the gate closes behind us, ‘or is the world we are leaving perhaps the real one?’

Read Nicole Ex’s new column here.

28 april 2026

In the Karoo we visit the weaving studio of Frances van Hasselt, whose handmade mohair cloths and blankets are inspired by the landscape and people of this semi-desert. Watch the interview with Frances van Hasselt in the video below.

Read Nicole’s column about her visit to the studio of Frances van Hasselt here.

‘That live-and-let-live spirit runs through the work she makes with a team of local makers: pieces into which the colour and layers of the land are woven, but which above all radiate the pleasure of making, as well as humour and self-deprecation. They express themselves in mohair, soft and lustrous as silk when it comes from the hair of kid goats.’

Fig 4. The atelier of Frances Van Hasselt

Fig 6. Weaving looms in the studio of Frances van Hasselt

24 april 2026

From Cape Town to the Karoo: in her travel journal, Nicole writes about the route that leads away from the city and through the vast emptiness, with views of mountain ridges draped in wisps of mist and dramatic skies.

On 22 April, their first day in the Karoo, Nicole and Anke explored the area around the Swartberge with Dr Sue Milton-Dean, ecologist, conservationist, and an unrivalled expert on this remarkable landscape.

Fig 8. Dr. Sue Milton-Dean and Nicole Ex, Swartberge, South Africa | photo: Anke Riesenkamp

23 april 2026

On 21 April, Nicole and Anke drove from Cape Town to the remote town of Prince Albert in the Karoo, a journey of around 500 kilometres. ‘Mists hanging between the mountain ridges as in the Highlands. Dramatic skies that make those of Turner look pale by comparison,’ Nicole writes about the views during that drive.

Fig 10. The landscape on the route to Prince Albert, 21 April

‘By late afternoon the light begins to change. It gets dark early here, around 6.15–6.30pm. By then you can barely conceive of the vastness of the landscape.

It is one great emptiness and expanse. The light and the autumn season together conjure clouds and shades of grey. The clouds hang low, sometimes deep into the valley, giving you a strange sense of being simultaneously above and below. You sometimes lose all sense of where you are. The light shifts pink one moment, then grey, then gold.’

Fig 11. The landscape in the evening light, 21 April

21 april 2026

Read Nicole’s column about Quintosapore, a regenerative farm in Umbria, and her encounter with Satish Kumar. And listen to the sound of the morning in Città della Pieve.

Fig 12. Workshop with Cameron Russell using cyanotype technique at the Humus gathering at Quintosapore, Saturday 18 April

Fig 13. Quintosapore vineyard in Umbria, Saturday 20 April

Nicole spoke with Quintosapore founders Alessandro and Nicola Giuggioli. Listen to the conversation in the video below.

‘After two years of study with the University of Perugia and the Centre for National Research, we found that the variety (of grapes) is probably one of the oldest varieties known in Italy. It is Etruscan.’ – Alessandro Giuggioli

Fig 14. At the Humus gathering at Quintosapore on Saturday 18 April. From left to right: Alessandro Giuggioli with dog Mocca, Satish Kumar and Nicola Giuggioli

At the annual Humus gathering at Quintosapore, Nicole Ex spoke with activist and thinker Satish Kumar about the climate crisis: ‘The climate crisis is a lack of aesthetics, a crisis in beauty.’ Kumar believes that everyone is an artist.

Also read the interview with Satish Kumar in See All This #36.

16 april 2026

Fig 15. Città della Pieve

Fig 16. About to depart. Destination: Florence.

15th april 2026

‘Every journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,’ as the Chinese proverb has it. Nicole Ex’s begins with a pair of hiking boots still waiting to be broken in. Read her column.