About me

A surprised and bemused traveller, sometimes confused, substantially poor compared to experienced travel-bloggers.  But still a traveller.
As a child I read Wells’ “The Time Machine,” a book of which I still recall the chills of fear. The main character had no name; he was simply referred to as “the traveller” .  A huge concept, that still sticks with me.
Adult and athletic, mature and empathetic, I think I eventually became the sort of traveller I aspired to, at least in part.  And that is why, dear reader, you have run across me in these web pages.
I have practiced for more than half my life, and still practice, a sport that has allowed me to give the you to the water and to the sea, both on the surface and below. I have made great use of this skill. Of technical background, of scientific expertise, you find me on these pages because I pursue small passions not linked to a workshop, a laboratory or a lagrangian.
Although I have made an entire round-the-world trip from east to west and visited various continents, I am essentially an Italian traveller in Italy.  I want to say more: a happy traveller in Italy. There one finds everything and more, every day new places and glimpses offer us emotions and suggestions.  A few millennia of history, unreachable art and immense geography come to us and do not pass without first leaving something behind. Not only that, shores of seas, lakes and rivers, as well as hilltops, mountain ranges, fortunate plains, villages, towns and cities incessantly propagate real wealth to us.
As a PPL pilot for some years now, seeing Italy from above has seeing Italy from above has definitively persuaded me that we are privileged.
I have nothing to teach, only something to tell.
Thank you for spending some attention and your time on these pages and on my thoughts aloud, ended up first
on paper and then on the cloud.

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Remember to ……

These modest web pages are not for tourists or visitors, they are for humble travellers destined for marvellous sensations and massive wealth.   Because we know well a couple of things: that the journey is much more important than the destination, that intangible goods are far more valuable than material ones.

Therefore, there are a few things to remember.

Even if the islands are our destination, start thinking about them when you are at home and plan to reach them, look around when you are at the boarding point, study the boat or the dinghy or the ferry that will take you there, look at your travelling companions, be they your daughter or son, a sailor, the captain, someone who just happens to be there, a worker of the sea or a traveller like you.   Smell the air, follow the flight of the seagulls, think about the boarding ladder, the gangway, from there you will arrive at a emerged land.    Talk to your fellow travellers, do not be reserved, exchange ideas and impressions, you will learn a lot, you will get to know new ways, excursions, landings, islands, other seas.

Put a diving mask in your backpack (and a camera, good hint).   Fins are not essential if you have to squeeze between sharp rocks and escape through the spines of sea urchins.   Without a mask it is even better, you will soon learn to recognise fish with your direct eyes. Diving from a cliff is a privilege, do it with care and conviction, in that athletic gesture there is freedom, defiance of gravity, embrace of the sea and also several millennia of emotions. The image in the background of this page is that of the Tomb of the Diver, from the Paestum Museum…. it has no time, no place, it is a sentimental projection, it was meant to signify a passage to another world. In the end it is simply a dive, but, believe me, it is difficult to come up with a more liberating and generous concept.

And write.
Bring a notebook or use your mobile phone, capture your emotions, take note of your feelings, don’t let them slip away, write them down, jot them down, because the moment is magic and it is like the final verses of  the Italian song  ‘Una canzone per te‘, don’t lose them.   They are worth passing on and being read by travellers like you.
The collective island memory is the real treasure island.

If you want, title them like this: ‘putting an island in your mind and then finding it on the horizon‘.

Happy islands, travellers!

Stefano

Leggi meglio

Blog 41

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