La giovinezza è felice perché ha la capacità di vedere la bellezza. Chiunque sia in grado di mantenere la capacità di vedere la bellezza non diventerà mai vecchio.
(Franz Kafka)
All in Travel
In my many trips around Asia, I never prioritised travelling to Vietnam. I was always searching for more ‘remote’ locations, and I admit that my very first impressions of Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi had not been that remarkable. Therefore, this time, I gave it a second chance. My 8-day trip to Vietnam, with my travel companions Nunzia and Kathia, was quite ambitious, as we travelled from North to Centre to South.
Some of my friends found it amusing that I had decided to spend the Easter holidays (vacanze di Pasqua, in Italian) on an island called Malapascua. The association of ‘mala’ with ‘male’ (meaning ‘bad’) was immediate. If only I were a bit superstitious, I should have come out with another destination.
There are many stories surrounding the origins of these very particular structures that can be found in various places on the Adriatic coast. Some think they might date back to the Phoenician times, others that they have more recent origins, and that they were a clever invention to assure a safe shelter to the fishermen who did not have, in this way, to adventure out to rough seas.
There are places that are part of us and, even if life leads us far away, we know that returning there we will find a piece of our soul. There are corners of the earth that smile at us more than others and that we only need to breathe for a minute to still feel ours. There are places where every morning is summer and we stay young forever. Fumone, the Olympus of Ciociaria, is my Ithaca.
