Ode to the best — and worst —ofmy summer holiday
Ciao, summer. And grazie for the memories of sun-drenched Mediterranean shores — and the food. Oh yes, the food.
“Fa caldo!” Italians everywhere were saying. “It’s hot!” And it was. A recordbreaking heat wave combined with massive crowds of what I referred to as “the zombie tourists” — hot, sweaty, irritated hordes — conspired against our visiting the most popular destinations, like the Colosseum in Rome or the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
Dining out was our refuge, the meals our consolation.
Because really, why linger on the misery when we could sip on a spritz to keep cool in the shade and dive into a giant bowl of sublime pasta?
These are the Proustian memories I take with me. Remembrances of times — and repasts — past.
Like the thirst-quenching granita al limone (lemon slushy) at a family-run lemon farm in Sorrento, served in the nick of time upon our (clammy) arrival.
After our dinner at the farm of melenzane alla parmgiana (eggplant parmesan), cheese-filled ravioli, and polpette (meatballs, but it sounds more delicious in Italian), the mamma herself, her hair sweat-plastered to her forehead, emerged from a tiny kitchen and cast a satisfied glance across the tables.
But we did do more than eat. Everywhere we looked, there were people to see — and to remember. The gelato-sticky masses trying to stay — or look — cool around the Trevi Fountain. Revelers enjoying a late night performance of “Hey Jude” at the Piazza Trilussa in Rome’s Trastevere neighborhood. Locals having a laugh and an aperitivo on a too-hot Roman side street.
There’s something about the efficiency with which my memory edits out the less enjoyable parts of vacationing, leaving a compilation of greatest hits (or a form of denial?), so that, recalling it all, I think, OK, blistering hot, too expensive, overcrowded summer trip. Maybe you weren’t so bad after all.
My reentry blues have subsided. Now my nostalgia for the best of our European holiday has ripened to sweetness, like those giant, face-sized Amalfi Coast lemons.