Le Cose Belle
By Ann Leary on October 19th, 2011
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We’re back from our trip to Italy. I only had the iPhone for photos, and I wished, once we arrived, that I had brought a real camera, but honestly, the scenery and light in Italy are so extraordinary that it’s impossible to take a bad photo, no matter what camera you are using.
We have been to other parts of Italy, but this was our first trip to Florence.  Our plan was to spend 5 days in Tuscany, and then to take the train to Naples and then a car along the Amalfi coast to Positano, to visit our friends Carla and Antonio Sersale, the owners of the fabulous Le Sirenuse hotel, and two of our very favorite people on earth.
The night before we left, all four dogs were in a state of absolute despair.  Whenever they see us pack our bags, they stage a series of highly dramatic and seemingly over-rehearsed portrayals of grief.  They skulk around with sad, sad eyes, their tails between their legs, whining, pawing at us, refusing to eat.  It’s very uncalled for, as we don’t travel often and when we do, they’re not kenneled, but rather, they stay in their own home with a caretaker who dotes on them. Still, they like us to think that they might die of sadness before we return.
Once I had everything packed into my little case, Holly decided that there was one last thing I was forgetting. Her.
I love the Italian language, though I don’t speak or understand more than a few words.  I guess it’s the loveliness of the words which, when strung together in sentences and spoken, creates a very lyrical and pleasing sound.  Like Spanish words, Italian adjectives end in vowels, which adds a loveliness;  plus they have a gender, which brings them to life. Take the word “beautiful,” for example.  If you try to describe Florence, you are inclined to overuse the word because, first, the countryside leading to the city is beautiful, and when you arrive in Florence, though you have been told how beautiful and historic it is, and though you may have visited many other beautiful and historic cities, you find yourself almost blindsided by the unmitigated beauty all around – the filtered quality of the light in the alleyways,  the purple hues of the surrounding hills,  the winding cobbled streets, the clanging of the bells of the cathedrals, and the cathedrals themselves (El Duomo!), the aromas wafting from cafes, the river Arno, the Ponte Vecchio, but most of all the Italian people, who are, almost to a person,  extraordinarily beautiful.  Or rather, they are bellissimo, if they are men, or bellissima, if they are women. The word bellissimo is like a caress, it’s open-ended and alive, and, in comparison, the word beautiful seems clunky. It just comes slamming to a halt the way all consonant-ending words do.  Beautiful is dull.  It actually rhymes with dull.  Bellissimo, though!  Bellissima! Sigh.
I have a sort of emotional disorder that causes me to