Allora, Aspetta!

To See the Sun the Other Way Around

With friends and family visiting in March, I have recently started scouring the internet and various Italy guidebooks to come up with some good travel ideas. This "research" started last week, when Corrie gave me an idea of what places she and other friends had listed on their travel itinerary (I wanted to see where Domodossola was), and it continued into this week, as I began to think also about where my parents and I will go when they come. So, from Domodossola in Piedmonte down to Emilia Romagna and then, just because I can't resist, Rough Guide's description of Puglia and the cities within--I have been dreaming of travel. I have been dreaming of hopping a train and even going just for a day by myself into the deep unknown parts of Italy--to explore. Abruzzo, tiny towns in Umbria, the coast of Emilia Romagna. Even Calabria, which I have never even thought of visiting, looks appealing as I read about it, nestled between mountains and sea.

And then, at nighttime when the sky is switching from blue to black, I exit the computer lab and head back to my apartment. Looking up the street, Piazza della Liberta' beckons with its clock tower, its Loggia, its people standing around and chatting. I am here, in Italy--the real heart of it--dreaming of going away. I bundle up in my jacket and scarf and turn down the hill toward my apartment.

And I almost smile. It's nice to think you can leave a place and come back to it--to see it, familiar in the distance, and to hasten your step. Because it's almost like you're going home, even if you are thousands of miles away.

-Jackie

posted by Corrie @ 4:38:00 PM