Dear Rome,

You're so green.

This was the first thing I noticed. Trees line your streets and ivy hangs from your balconies. A weaving of lush green life between your ancient cobblestone streets, sun washed buildings, and faded ruins.

This new meets old is very YOU.

To know you is to wander down tiny alleyways and discover beauty around every corner. To stumble upon fountains, piazzas, cafes, and little altars. To pass a 2000 year old monument (I see you Colosseum) while everyone is just going about their modern lives around it. Your history is old and rich but you are ALIVE. 

There is a simple beauty in just walking your streets, watching your people, and hearing the song of your language.  Eating at outdoor cafes in the middle of the day and strolling home on a warm night, gelato in hand.

To me, this was what it meant to discover you, Rome. To hear the way nature mingled with your city sounds...taxis, birds, church bells, and running water. 
The coexistence of the past and the future in an incredibly lively presence. 

Dear Sorrento,

You smell like citrus and jasmine.
And the sea…

Life seemed to slow down the moment I arrived.  My days ebbed and flowed at your pace not mine. Each day your ancient beauty slowly unfolded in a quiet grounding calm.

Your orchards filled the air with the smell of ripe fruit, humid greens, and fresh soil. I have never seen a lemon so massive.  I gazed across the gulf of Naples at your sunsets and felt small in the shadow of your famous volcano across the sea. I marveled at your cliffs, wondering what secrets they held from ships sailed so long ago.  I layed down in your ocean sand, black with the ash of Vesuvius, and heard my ancestors in the wind. 

It felt like home to swim in your sea. So different than any other sea I’ve been in, cold and warm at the same time. Different than the Pacific I grew up in. I will never forget the feeling of floating face up to the sun, listening to the stories of the sea, and falling in love with you. 

Dear Naples,

I have heard about you for so long. You are the birthplace of my name.

When I told my dad I was finally going to visit, he said, “When you find a phone book look up Bassolino…there will be at least a page of names. Then rip it out and bring it home!” I told him that I didn’t think phonebooks existed anymore, but he was too excited to even hear that. Too excited for me to be in the city my great grandfather immigrated from and the place of my family name on my paternal side.

On our one day together I could already see how alive you are and how fiercely your people love you. Your narrow streets, your laundry drying, your fish stands, your honking horns, and duct taped vespas. Your grit and your mystery.

Your pizza. 

Meeting you was one more stepping stone in my exploration of my paternal family line. I am curious and inspired. Thank you for holding me so kindly in your tangled mosaic for one day. And thank you for kicking me down the path of discovering further, what it means for me to be Italian.

The Bassolino's in Naples