In ruins

After a spectacularly cold night in the van at Kamp Romantik, we visited the Nesactium ruins close to Valtura. These ruins were not in the best of shapes, but revealed the blueprints of what must have been a pretty impressive Christian church, and several additional structures. The information was only limited as the visitor center wasn’t open to visitors during our visit, and we were even locked out by a gardener, so we were questioning whether the place was open at all…

The location itself was nice, and the fields were full of flowers, mostly Crepis capillaris (I think) and Bellis perennis, and – again – this purple flower that I believe is Anemone hortensis? I loved the sight of such a colorful palette, so I was slightly annoyed that the gardener was mowing off most of the flower patches. I get tht things should be somewhat tidy, but come on. Your ruins look better with those flowers intact!

Of course I had to look around for snakes for a bit. I’m not completely sure, but I think the family enjoys these random walks into nature too. I think Heike is even trying to spot snakes with me. Rafa is more involved with driving his imaginary tractor and cars around lately, so he isn’t very helpful there. I spotted only one large-bodied snake, potentially Elaphe quatorlineata, but it blended in too well with the senescent grass (and was gone too fast) for me to see. Could have been a whip or an aesculapian snake as well. I saw two Lacerta bilineata, but I don’t know what it is with these bigger lacertids. They pussy out the moment they see someone, quite opposite to some of the almost curious smaller members, like Podarcis sp. I will get a picture this week – I promise! Highlights of the day, after turning some rocks I found some cute little scorpions – Euscorpius italicus.