You go on holiday in search of authenticity and the unspoilt—and are obliged to order your “seppie al nero” through an app
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskSummer holidays are a miracle. Trips abroad require time off work, the privilege of disposable income, sophisticated travel infrastructure and international peace. The pandemic suspended them; climate-change levies may make them unaffordable. Even when you pull it off, the miracle is fragile—for, as you may recently have observed, holidays are fraught with risks and packed with contradictions.
Your inconvenience, though, is as nothing beside the suffering you read about in the guidebook. A quirk of European sightseeing is that jaunts taken for relaxation are also safaris of pain: reminders of the centuries of bloodshed and anguish that went into all the loggias and basilicas. The upshot is an awkward mix of sybaritic indulgence and fleeting compassion for the unfortunate dead. A tour of the ghetto and the torture chamber is washed down by an Aperol Spritz .
And, as in the rest of life, only more so, the clock is always ticking. Discount the several days it takes to swear off email at the start, and the shadow of return that falls over the final few, and you are left, like a pampered Sisyphus on top of a mountain, with only a fleeting interlude of serenity.