We watched with interest while customers, at close range, tried on items for size. So many sizes! The character with the hand cart was fast to make friends with us and share our water biscuits. From Maroc (Morocco) he said, keeping an eye on the cart during a lull. He lives in London with his wife and family. No he did not mind ‘fare la passegiate’ (promenading) like all the others on the beach — they pay him to do it. He diverts the shopping-deprived from beach boredom for a few minutes each day.
After a while, stock seriously depleted, he wandered off down the beach in the direction of Fiumicino (Rome’s airport town) in search of a new school of customers. I wonder if he thinks of us as reef fish. I did buy a pair of bright red trunks with yellow ties and, on close inspection back home, wonky stitching. An absolute survivor and happy in his work.
OperaOpera is everywhere in Italy. Even outdoors on plastic stacker chairs in the cooler coastal town evenings following the summer heat on the beach. We found il maestro da Napoli, Massimiliano Drapello, in the Piazza Lavinio near Anzio, famous as the landing place of American marines in 1944.
Il maestro was accompanied by a vintage 1960 Italian pop group called I Mescaleros. They gave us an unforgettable evening of Italian music from 9.30pm until past midnight. Il maestro commenced by calling on us to stand for a minute’s silence for the Amatrice earthquake victims and, at the end, made us stand and sing the National Anthem ‘Fratelli di Italia’ — instead of providing the encore everyone was calling for.
It was an Italian sera which ended with a caffe (short black) and a heavy cream bun at the end. They combined to keep me wide awake after we finally retired to bed. As we left the concert I could not resist pinching the display poster as an easy-to-get- back-home souvenir. No one in the 1000-plus crowd seemed to mind an Antipodean ripping it off.
Monte CassinoThe tour-bus driver was a bloke from Auckland called Malcolm who runs a business based in Puglia which he and his Italian wife Antonella call ‘Italy with Pleasure.’ Of course he stopped at the WW2 graveyard at Monte Cassino.
I spoke to a group of students studying for exams in the shade and tranquility. Stretching the truth, I told them my uncle was there. He had been . . . just not in the cemetery. They all looked up, obviously shocked, but I said I did not mind. It was a great place to study.
Park of PamphiliMemorable tourist attractions in Italia are not always those pimped in guide books and brochures. The Trevi Fountain, the Colosseum, Vatican City and the ruins of Pompeii are all highly organised with shops and guides blatantly set to collect the tourist dollar. Ironically the signs warn ‘Watch for pick pockets.’
Those sites from antiquity are a must for all travellers but, if there is time, the carefully primped parks of Rome are worth a look . . . and they cost nothing. Nor are there queues of tourists.
For me the Park of Pamphili in Rome under those ubiquitous pines (the source of pine-nuts) was a wonderful place for a picnic lunch. Shade is important when the sun is pumping at 40 degrees.
Gizzy pizzaAnd to make the point, I saw no tourists at this event (pictured) where the food costs less than four euros and it does not take two days in a plane to get there. There is an Italian and his wife there selling pizza and savoury taste bites.
It is all happening right here at the wananga in Childers Road every few months.
