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Liam Gibson's avatar

Thanks Daniele,

This year I spent three months going up and down Italy for the first time with my wife and kids. It was so magical. I can't explain it. Just looking back, I just remember feeling so happy almost everyday.

In some ways I feel I hit the 'Goldilocks zone' for the length of stay, and I think your post reminded me of that. In three months, we saw much of the country but didn't stay quite long enough to stop feeling like visitors and start to grind up against the headaches you have when you become a resident in a place. The inevitable disenchantment once you get past those breathtaking vistas.

I've been living in Taiwan for ten years (originally from Sydney), and so I know the phases one goes through with the attempted integrating/assimilating process, the 'honeymoon period', the inevitable (partial or total) estrangement, and all the adjusting in between. I've heard of other people who live in Italy longer and get embittered with the other sides of life there, which I guess happens everywhere. Yet for me, all that negative press remains somehow second-hand info to me - in my lived experience, it still felt like a kind of paradiso, although I know of course it is not.

Really great to read nuanced perspectives like yours here. Grazie!

I've got this to offer on descriptions of the food...

If Stalin said "Quantity has a quality all of its own" then food in Italy shows "freshness has a flavor all of its own."

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Mark Wolff's avatar

Danielli. Presently, I’m touring Italy for three weeks with my family. Your recent posts have been especially poignant. Last week I could imagine Putin v Zelenskyy in the Colosseum.

Thanks for this perspective on the country of your birth and its people. This is so well written! I’m looking forward to taking you along for the remainder of the trip.

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