I woke up early, happy that I could finally get out of this place. Somehow, Bologna and I hadn’t been off to a good start the day before, when I walked from the station into the city centre. The sun was too bright, the people were too loud and the hotel was too je ne sais quoi. I became inclined to hate the place that I had been looking forward to visiting before.
Maybe it was because I had just come from Ancona, and Ancona had welcomed me with all the lovely people, good food and quiet old streets that I was longing for. Everything had been perfect in Ancona. I had been reborn in Ancona. It had been one of those days on which everything miraculously came together, and it had completely restored me to humanity. I had felt every muscle in my body relax, every excitement I had lost for travelling had returned to me, and I had found new faith for the future.
My day in Ancona had started still on the boat from Greece to Italy, on the upper mattress of my bunk bed. With my roommate for the night still asleep, I put on my clothes as quietly as possible and left the hut to have some breakfast upstairs. At the bar, I got myself a tea and took a seat by the window. While I had my last Greek carob rusks, I watched the sea and looked around the lounge space of the boat, that was quite empty on this January morning. Some people were still asleep on the couches, some were slowly waking up. I met a Greek truck driver who told me about his job driving through Europe, about his children and his wife. He offered to make a photograph of me with the sea behind. I happily accepted.
A bit later, I got up for a little walk round and started a conversation with an Italian-American couple that had made such a warm and happy impression on me before, when I had seen them from a distance. They invited me to have a coffee with them. We shared a love for Greece, I didn’t share their disappointment with Italy. But what did I know. Once they found out, I didn’t have a place to stay yet, the man started calling his contacts to find out about tourist information opening hours and hotel options. “I know how things work in this country,” he kept saying, as if nothing ever worked. He only reinforced my feeling that Italy, like Greece, must be a wonderful country, if you can just call your friend at the police to help out a lost stranger.
And so I ended up in a hotel way over my budget. My Italian friend had arranged me a little discount, but still. I had made the mistake of thinking it would be easy to find something low season, as I hadn’t taken into account that hotels would actually close in winter. However, my guilt about the money I had spent, started to melt away, as soon as I became aware of the comfort of the place. They had been kind enough to offer me an upgrade to a larger room and let me choose between a gorgeous sea view or the houses uphill in the back. I chose the latter. As beautiful as the sea was, he houses had such warm terra and ochre colours. As if they gave me a big hug after a night on the wide and open sea and I had safely returned to known territory.
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