139. Off the Beaten Path

We decided that this trip would be almost random, as the young people say.

Besides a few tent-post days in Venice and Bologna, we would set out each day for wherever fancy led us. That brought us first to L’Aquila in the Apennine Mountains of Abruzzo, then to Ancona on the Adriatic coast, and finally, now in Ferrara, in the heart of Emilia-Romagna, considered the breadbasket of Italy for its fields as flat as Kansas.

We seem to be confronting almost no tourists, let alone Americans; the few others in the hotels appear to me, from their elegant dress, to be Italian business travelers. While all of our destinations have their own museums, cathedrals and other cultural artifacts, we prefer to stroll, observe, eat, and try to get a glimpse of the daily life of their inhabitants.

As an early-morning runner, I have the privilege of seeing a town come to life, and I will sometimes bear the hassle of bringing a camera just so I can capture some of those moments. Shops put their offerings on display, bars emit the aroma of coffee and the ceramic clink of getting the cups and saucers ready to go, and the citizens hop on buses and bikes to head off to work.

It would be my dream to live here for a couple of months — have a routine, be a regular at a particular fruit stand or coffee bar, learn Italian once and for all, write, just live. Dare I?