Listening to Italy
With the world on pause, now is a unique opportunity to listen to those close to you, or to those you wish were closer to you.
This is a unique time to listen to Italy.
Listening to Italy creates, however, a deep longing. That longing feeds dreams. When you can return, those dreams may be the substance of a trip. And we are here to plan it for you.
Everyone who has not been to Italy, but longs to visit, can without much effort hear Italy. They can, from films and books and stories, in the deep ear of their imagination hear church bells, and words of lyrical Italian. Perhaps the sound of swifts shrieking in the summer sky.
Italian opera. In Italy even blackbirds sing Puccini, and the nightingales Verdi.
Italians have a surplus of soul, said my mother, who lived in Italy nearly all her life, and the excess expresses itself in their music.
Those who have been to Italy can add the sounds that left traces in their own memories. Shrieks of children playing (different in Italian).
The thump of the vaporetto water boat in Venice hitting against the dock; the whisper of a gondola sleekly cutting through a canal.
The clinking of the fork and the knife at outdoor restaurant tables in summer.
The calls (often in dialect) of the merchants at an outdoor market.
Il Canto della Verbena, for anyone who has been to Siena during the Palio, a hymn that enters your soul and never leaves it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KeXsIMouv0
My daughter’s favorite sound in Italy is of pasta being turned over in a full bowl, a luxurious sucking melody that sparks joyful anticipation.
The sound of water in the fountains by night.
Milk being steamed in the bar for cappuccino.
The careful placement of saucer and spoon on the bar counter. These are sounds of everyday Italy.
They are the sounds that sooth my soul.
As of now, no one in Italy can leave their region. No matter. In my mind’s eye I travel throughout the country. I hear sounds. I also smell familiar fragrances and taste beloved tastes.
I am listening to the water lapping against the rocks in Amalfi, lying on a chaise at our favorite family-run hotel.
My son tries to catch a sea bass using the traditional method of lenza, the cork and twine.
The Mediterranean is saltier than the Atlantic, which facilitates floating; I have just come in from a long float on my back. As I swam I looked up at neatly terraced hills planted with thousands of healthy lemon trees.
From time to time, as the breeze changed direction, a heady rush of lemon blossom fragrance would come down to me.
On the walls above the water are caper plants, lush and heavy with pendulous fruit.
For dinner I will have a pasta alla puttanesca, the sauce of the whore, with black olives, datterino tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, parsley and quantities of capers.
The dreams are as real as being there. I have a lifetime of them to dip into.
Open up your dreams of Italy. Take out your pictures, and watch our favorite movies on Italy : “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow”; “Roman Holiday”; “Room with a View”; “Marriage Italian Style”; “Spettacolo”; “Christ Stopped at Eboli”. Look at webcams from every region of the Bel Paese : https://www.skylinewebcams.com/en/webcam/italia.html
When you are back, all that you love will have ample room to shine. Crowds will be thin, we predict, which means that the intimacy of small things—the peeling of the bells from a medieval tower, the warm buona sera of a restaurant owner who is so happy to welcome you—will sound all the louder, and all the sweeter.
Here’s to your return soon. Salute !
