#10 Al Lido
The bar has moved to the beach and the menu didn't survive the trip. Italy lost its captain and its cantautore in the same week, and closed a border it doesn't have.
Saturday, 6 PM — but not at the bar. For the next three issues this column moves where Italy has moved: to the sea. Welcome to Al Lido. A lido, for foreign friends, is the Italian beach club — umbrellas in straight rows, sunbeds you rent by the day. Families keep the same umbrella, third row, for 30 years. Ours is on the Ionian coast of Calabria, the Costa dei Gelsomini — the jasmine coast, in the far south, where the Aspromonte mountains walk straight down into the water.
The drinks changed too. Beer is everywhere, as always at the beach, and the gin stayed in the city — but our table drinks white this summer, iced until the bottle fogs, and someone dares the bubbles. Chi un pecorino, chi una falanghina, chi un franciacorta.
Getting here was the hard part — today is officially the worst traffic day of the summer, bollino nero, black sticker, morning and afternoon, at two euros a litre — and it was a heavy two weeks. Franco Baresi died, and then Francesco Guccini. The Federation went through Maldini in 16 days. Italy suspended Schengen with Spain, a country it doesn’t share a border with. And Parliament locked a CD in a safe and voted not to open it.
Pull up a sdraio. Next round’s on us.
Un Cirò bianco
We order the first round: a Cirò bianco, the white they grow an hour up the coast from here, cold enough that the glass sweats before it reaches the table.
Twenty-five million cars. That’s the number of journeys expected on Italian roads this weekend, according to Anas, the national road agency. The traffic calendar was published weeks ago, everyone knew today would be the worst day of the year to travel, and twenty-five million chose today anyway. It’s not madness; it’s ritual. If you’re reading this from the A14, courage — the sea is worth it, we checked.
