The Sun-kissed City

by Ella Taylor (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

Making a local connection Italy

Our perspectives change when we take a step away from the familiar and feel our way into the unknown. Our eyes adjust to the new possibilities. If you remove everything that makes you feel comfortable and safe, everything that gives your life structure, what is left behind? A hole. An empty room. A blank space at the end of the page, where your next chapter is waiting to be written. Endless fields lay below, sprinkled with tractor trails and farmhouses. Bronze squares of land divided by olive green canals and winding cycle paths. Each colour blurs into the next, watercolours leaking on a page. Burnt orange, golden brown, and flecks of forest green. Heat waves flow inside the aircraft through the open doors and I step outside to feel the sun touch my skin. This is Italy. In the summer of 2019, I spent two months living in Cento, a town just 40 minutes from Bologna, and it was the perfect opportunity to live like a local rather than a tourist. Travel, for me, is far richer when you travel not only physically but, in every way possible. By learning about each place, and engaging with the locals, I feel more respect and a sense of humility. During my stay in Italy, I chose to adopt a new attitude: No one knows me here. This led to singing in fields of sunflowers; terrapin watching on the banks of a canal; meeting strangers in cities; and dancing with Italian cowboys on a farm. I suppose the last one is a story worth telling. On my first evening in Cento, I was invited to join my host family at a party to celebrate Festa della Repubblica, Italy’s National Republican Day. Across Italy parties were being hosted to honour the independence of their country, and I had a golden ticket; a front row seat to an intimate community gathering with dancing, drinking and laughter. Welcomed with beer on a rural farm with conversation that I could not understand, I embraced the language barrier. It is a rare and beautiful thing to be surrounded by people and to feel fully included with no pressure to speak. There is a sense of invisibility that comes when you have no words. You must rely on facial expressions, hand gestures and even music to bring you closer together. I was pleasantly surprised to feel this silent peace. I breathed in the warm breeze and wandered to the edge of a field, where the sun was beginning to hide behind the trees. The farm grew more intriguing the more I explored. Each corner I turned revealed another enclosure with another species inside: horses, goats, alpacas, rabbits, chickens and sheep. Lizards scuttle across the paths and over your sandaled feet. The smell of hay and fresh manure took me back to my uncle’s farm in Kilkenny, Southern Ireland, where we would feed the lambs with bottled milk and comb the donkey’s dusty coat. I felt childlike, giddy at the prospect of adventure. Each country lives in a different way and I had the privilege of being invited into this home for the next sixty days. I always dreamed of visiting Italy; the media and the movies did a great job at creating an image of romance and beauty in my mind. It wasn’t until I joined a community there that I realised where the true beauty is found. These people, a family of strangers who share life together, give Italy its reputation. Wandering back through the dim paths lined with poppies and creeping vines, I found our table again and resumed laughter at the correct social cues. When the music started to play again, men and women gathered on the dancefloor, dressed in pointed boots and cowboy hats. I finished the rest of my beer and gestured that my host family should follow me. The instructor shouted steps and the music played too fast, but I had chosen my new attitude for the summer… No one knows me here. So, I danced to Italian country tunes all evening, feeling my way with my feet. The clear night sky was lit with a canopy of fairy lights.