There is a particular quiet that comes off a lake. It is not the quiet of the sea, which is really only distance. It is closer than that, held in by the mountains, the way a room holds a conversation…
travel diary
Portofino – the Third Day
When I woke this morning, I decided not to chase anything. The sea would still be there tomorrow, the harbour would still be beautiful, and the paths would wait as they always have. Some places ask you to see more….
Portofino – the Second Day
Some days you give to the town, and some you give to the sea. This one belonged to the water from the moment I woke, when the light on the ceiling was already moving the way it only does when…
Portofino – the First Day
You arrive in Portofino, and it is smaller than you imagined, and then, almost immediately, it feels exactly the right size. The road ends because there is nowhere left for it to go. The hills fold themselves gently into the…
The Morning the Sea Said Goodbye
There is a particular kind of morning you only get on your last one somewhere. You wake before the alarm, the light already warm against the shutters, and instead of a list of things to see you have only one…
The Long Way Between the Villages
There is a kind of tiredness that feels like a reward, and this morning I went looking for it on the cliff path above Vernazza. I had promised myself the night before, over the last of the wine, that I…
Let the Sea Keep the Time
There is only one of these five villages where you can properly lie down beside the sea, so this morning I did the sensible thing and went there. Vernazza has its little harbour and its boats, but it does not…
Somewhere Smaller
Florence let me go the way the great cities always do, without ceremony, as though it had never really been holding on. One morning I was beneath all that marble and the next I was on a train heading toward…
The Long Way Round – Tuscany Day 3
I woke before the alarm, although I suspect I would have even if I had forgotten to set one. There are some mornings when the light seems to wake you before the world has the chance. I dressed quietly in…
Fields of Gold
I woke early, which almost never happens to me, and I think it was the hills that did it. They had spent all of yesterday resting on their ridges in the distance, patient as cats, and sometime during the night…
Where the Hills Begin
I left the city in the morning, and for the first hour the road still seemed to have somewhere important to be. Then, without my quite noticing when, it forgot its hurry. The lanes narrowed and began to climb, the…
The House Above Florence
I came to Florence the slow way, as I always seem to, and I came to a house rather than a hotel. My aunt takes a villa in the hills above the city most summers, an old place with faded…
