JFK - MXP Part 2
Como
Como comes to you like a whisper. The air mild, warm, and fragrant. Grand Hotel Tremezzo, onomatopoetically correct, an abiding sense of peace in a valley. The point where the lake tapers and the mountains climb at sharp angles. There are so many ice cubes in spritz chalices that it becomes part of the scenery. Prosecco sizzling across a cold glass of Aperol. Tennis in the late afternoon. The burnt Sienna of the court, the iridescent play of green and gold in the distance. Graceful trees swaying. Arched walks through the hedges. A smell so summer-lush it surrounds the body, swirling like a meteorologic condition.
Red Prawns with pizzoccheri, a buckwheat pasta. The quiet light of lamps broken on trellises across the lawn. Dinner at tables of wrought brass. Night stillness and deep quiet. A dependable solitude, punctuated by the way laughter carries across a lake at night. The feeling of being favored. Quietly happy, standing at the rail of a balcony, drinking wine.
Pillowy domes of brioche at breakfast. Even in northern Italy, they cannot stray too far from the canons of good coffee. A boat picnic of cheese and fruit and prosciutto and wine, a lion-blooded Barolo, those golden bosc pears, and that pistachio crema baked into a hundred layers of pastry. Watching sunbathers in the distance on striped towels, Italian women with their whole bodies sacrificially under the sun, going leather tan in the deeps of a summer day. Everything and everyone in view, more or less, on fire with light. Leap off the side of a boat, arms flung.
Dinner on the square in some anonymous perched village known for pheasant and served over heaping mounds of polenta uncia: butter, sage, garlic, semuda cheese. A party at the Villa d'Este. Firework light dances on the lake. There are too many weddings here. Too many roses climbing up the sides of villas. Too many Americans. But with an inexhaustible wealth of vistas, it's hard not to feel like celebrating.
MXP - JFK