Fammi una Domanda August 2024
Beach days are the best days
I love August in Italy. I love August’s slowed down rhythms and relaxed vibe. When the rest of the country escapes their cities and their routines we stay put. We stay in the city and relish the shuttered languor. I stay up late watching TV1 and sleep until the spazzino rings the doorbell in the not quite still morning. I declare that a few thin salty slices of prosciutto and some wedges of ripe peaches are a meal. We go the beach on a Tuesday and have sunset beers before dinner. We go out after dark for gelato. Another August activity I love is watching everyone else’s Instagram stories of beach vacations and days in the country. I love seeing other people’s annual traditions at lake and mountain cabins and watching their kids growing up. It is a little incongruous when the first day of school pictures pop up among the videos with soundtracks of Italian pop songs playing over images of beach umbrellas and boats in blue water and sweet village festivals. September and the schedules and rigor it demands might as well be deepest February for as far away as it feels from here. This year I will admit that staying home is slightly less fun with the railings for my stairs that are still sheets of plywood and all of the downstairs lightbulbs hanging from wires. That is just aesthetics. I am taking
’s advice and embracing the mess. In spite of its haphazard state, our little house has been full of family and friends all summer.We don’t travel in August but we do travel in September. We will spend a few days in Ponza swimming in that impossibly blue sea and eating boat pasta. We will stop in Rome to see friends and eat amatriciana and drink good coffee.
Paid subscribers can keep reading about my museum of the month, the progress of our Venice house renovations and to ask me anything in the comments. Are you coming to visit Rome or Venice this fall or winter? Ask me about that! If you would like something more personalized we can do that too.
