Summer Letter: Maratea, Andamento Lento
Ernest Bisgrove writes from Maratea, where doing very little takes up the entire day
Maratea, August.
Music in the background: Tullio De Piscopo, Show me, show me the way... eh oh.
Whispering: Scivola, come un’onda libera ti porta via...
Home
Entering a house in a forest, thirty people implausibly dressed around an old wooden table, facing the sun as it disappears behind the sea. Chatting, smiling, playing the guitar, spraying bug spray like maniacs, eating pasta and mozzarella like there’s no tomorrow. Show Me.
Uncle Antonio: Show, show me the way
... fighting over the last chips, cicadas in the distance, loud voices talking over each other, remembering stories from the past, or from that very morning, while fighting the waves...
Everyone: Ehhh ohhh!
… a dormouse falls onto the table
Cousins: Alelai Alelai Vien’ Appriess a Me, bum bum.
Everybody laughs.
Uncle Antonio: Tutti in piedi!!
That above is home, or a core memory of it. It happens to be in Maratea, a place of immutable decay, home to my Italian summer.
What Maratea is
Maratea, from the Greek “Marathus” means wild fennel, was an ancient Greek settlement, and it carries the flavor of something ancient that has never changed but could fall apart any minute, a kind of immutable decay that stands as a counterweight to the nostalgia and joy of the Italian summer.
My love story with Maratea was born from the love between my grandfather Dante and my grandmother Marilù. Here, in 1959, as newlywed, he told her he’d build a house. Ten years later, he built it.
That house has seen far more than thirty people around a table. If it could tell its own story we’d be here for hours, parties, unconventional guests, sleepovers, dinners, etc. So I’ll just say that it held a family together for three generations, maybe four around that table; and from that table our summer expeditions to the village, the sea, or the mountain began.
Cousins: Alelai, alelai, alelai, alelai, bum bum, bum bum
Let’s go back to it. Maratea is a valley hidden between two mountains, open only towards the golf of Policastro, a sea that is really a lake, ever so calm, with a gentle wind.
Maratea is twenty kilometers of Basilicata coastline, that separates Calabria to Campania, and at the same time separates the mountain to the sea. You can reach it here comfortably by train, by car, or by sea if you have the fortune of having a boat, or better, a friend with a boat generous like Antonio that will always bring you with him to chase dolphins or sunsets.
It is quite an isolated place, and that isolation has kept it far from the gentrification or overturistification of many italian summer destinations, locals are reserved, (they don’t really want to see any stranger), whether that’s a form of resistance or a form of laziness, I don’t know, but they stay unmoved as time passes. Though lately that’s starting to change, maybe helped along by direct speed train Frecciarossa, or myself writing about it.
Cousins: please don’t come here. It’ horrible here.
It’s a bit like an island, disconnected from the mainland, going at its own speed, and you with it. You don’t just wake up and decide to do something, it’s more complicated than that. The village itself it’s widespread, you’ll have to move between the different “frazioni”, Acquafredda, Fiumicello, Cersuta, Massa, Castrocucco, depending on where you want to go and what you want to do. To reach the sea you need a scooter, a car, a boat or a hang glider, and then you need to find a parking spot, walk to the sea and more, in essence you need to organize yourself. At the same time, you can’t let that organization take over.
I’d suggest letting yourself be carried by this slow rhythm where things happen on their own, without you deciding much, and at some point you’ll find yourself somewhere, watching one of these sunsets.
The village routine
I've never been a methodical person and always have improvised in life, but there is something, maybe the only thing in my life that has never changed, breakfast at bar Avigliano, Umberto’s.
Before my time, my parents used to go to Umberto for breakfast, and before that, my grandparents did too. Umberto’s dad was there at that time, not him, even though he is at the centre of the summer life he is not immortal, not that I know.
Uncle Andrea: E vieni, vieni con me (oh, oh).
After that head back home and then down to the sea. Wait, stop.
Cousins:Andamento lento!
Before that, you have to vote and choose which of the many little beaches you want to go to: Macarro, Marina, Nera, Fiumicello, Cersuta, Acquafredda, La Secca, La Darsena, Santojanni, etc., etc., etc. If you happen to have friends like Antonio or Checco, they will take you out on a boat and you can skip this part, because you will only have to choose whether to go left or right out of the marina.
A day by the sea: fresella in hand, schiacciasette, a book under the umbrella, gelato (go to Emilio), scuba diving, jumping off rocks, floating next to the buoy (my favourite activity) until the sun goes down.
After that, head back home, cook a huge dinner and be together, or go out for dinner (with thirty people, it’s complicated, but you can try) at one of the many restaurants. I cannot name one over another here or I will be banned forever. After dinner, chat, play board games, go clubbing at Santojanni or end up at a house party. Those are always the best.
If you have friends here, crash with them. You’ll live in an Italy that stopped rushing years ago, folded into the green, into the music, the food and, most importantly, the deep, meaningless talks.
Come and tally up the year, recharge, slow down, rest. The year starts again when you leave. Here, you do the maths and make plans for what’s next, somewhere between a nap and a swim, all of it at total ease, while you watch the sunset and remember yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
What I’d do, honestly: find a friend and come here. Or write to me. I’ll put you up at my friend Antonio’s or Checco’s place; mine’s under renovation.
Cousins:Andamento lento !
The nice thing is everyone lives it their own way, at their own pace. Where the dolce far niente is the common and unique law
This is how I apply it:
7.00 - 10.00 - stay horizontal
12.00 - 14.00: move only if hunger leaves you no other choice
14.00 - 20.00: return to your natural habitat: horizontal at the beach
20.00 - 22.00: SUNSET APERITIVO
22.00 - 01.00: indulge in conversations about beautifully pointless things
01.00 - 07.00: drift between dancing, laughing, chatting, resting and whatever feels right and find your way home
Like that, on repeat, for at least a week.
Always remember:
Cousins:Andamento lento !
Things to do
Here is a list ofendless options, if you find the strengths of moving out from the dolce far niente.
As said go to the sea or to the mountain, even into Calabria (10 minutes away) or to Campania (15 minutes), or stay put on the couch watching the sun through the leaves, or the horizon on a beach chair, you can live the dolce far niente however you want, the only thing that matters is that you live it slowly.
Cousins:Andamento lento !
I encourage you to get bored. Count the branches on a tree. Make up a film in your head. throw stones at bottles on the shore. Read and fall asleep, listen to cicadas, fill a Settimana Enigmistica.
You can do something, the so-called outdoors activities, experiences such as kayak tours, horse riding, climbing the mountain on a ferrata, go to the skywalk, try some of the new bars.
I indulge you though to live it as a proper holiday, meant as “villeggiatura”. Go to the sea or better in pineta, in the evening, spend time with your people, play cards. Approach it in the morning or late evening to avoid the crowds in the small coves, where the water goes from blue to green, and explore the sea caves, or sleep on the shore. Beaches are small pebbles, not sand, not boulders, just right, easy to get up from a nap and remove them from your feet. There are cliffs, grottoes to discover with a mask and a mouthpiece. If you can get on a boat, go out further, and at sunset if you’re lucky you’ll see dolphins, or other animals, manta rays, whales, swordfish, tuna. Not like it used to be, the tale of the 30 swordfish is one of many around the table, but in this sea that’s really more like a lake, you always see something.
Aunty Sandra: E vieni, vieni con me (oh, oh)
If you don’t like the sea, go up to the mountains, in Trecchina (10 minutes away). Its people I think have never seen the sea. Go up there for the cool air, the cows and woods, go for mushrooms, go for dining, or for the go-karts.
Go catch a local festival like the one in Massa di Maratea, of the vitello podolico, legend says it’s bigger than a cow, though I always arrive once the veal is already gone, let’s google this veal together sometime I want to know what it actually is.
Go up to Cristo, said to be the third tallest Christ statue in the world, after Rio and Portugal. From up there you can see the whole coast, stay silent, or with beer and friends, and take in the mountain meeting the sea.
Go and see the forty-four churches, I think I’ve only seen about five. Let me know if you can find them all.
Go to Cesarino, to Zu Cicco, to Locanda di Nettuno, to the White Horse, to Aia dei Cappellani, to Santojanni, to La Bussola, all historic places, some more modernized than others, all with that same tone of authenticity.
But really, go to the beach, into the caves, into the little bars, play ball, get yelled at, play cards, read a book, rest, swim, read, swim again. Find your peace, find yourself, recharge, find new friends, nurture old friendships, tell stories, jokes, remember, recharge
Cousins:Andamento lento !
Remember, recharge
Andamento lento !
Remember, recharge
Andamento lento !
Make something new for the moment that’s coming right after.
I’ll be here. If you want, we can meet at the house, at the sea, or in the mountains, no, not the mountains, I can’t lie you’ll never find me there.
I’m always at the beach with a beer, Andamento lento…
Happy holidays!
Everybody: Ehh ohh, adelai adelai adelai, bum bum.
Ernest’s Maratea Tips
Breakfast
Bar Avigliano di Umberto Avigliano
Piazza Buraglia, 3, 85046 Maratea (PZ)
Gelato
Emilio
Via Porto Racia, 12, 85046 Maratea (PZ)
Lunch/dinner
Da Cesare — Cesarino
Via Nazionale Cersuta, 52, 85046 Maratea (PZ)
La Locanda di Nettuno
SS18, km 239, Località Marina, 85046 Maratea (PZ)
White Horse
Via Vallone Arenara, 3, Marina di Maratea, 85046 Maratea (PZ)
Ristorante Santojanni
Contrada Grotte, 3, Marina di Maratea, 85046 Maratea (PZ)
Dinner in the village
La Taverna di Zu Cicco
Via Dietro il Trappeto, 32, 85046 Maratea (PZ)
Pizza
La Bussola
Via Conte Stefano Rivetti, Fiumicello, 85046 Maratea (PZ)
Agriturismo/dinner
L’Aia dei Cappellani
Contrada Maurino, 85049 Trecchina (PZ)
Beaches
Macarro
Marina di Maratea
Spiaggia Nera — Cala Jannita
Marina di Maratea
Fiumicello
Fiumicello, Maratea
Cersuta
Cersuta, Maratea
Acquafredda
Acquafredda, Maratea
La Secca
Castrocucco, Maratea
Santojanni
Off Marina di Maratea
Worth leaving the beach for
Cristo Redentore
Monte San Biagio, Maratea
The forty-four churches
Maratea’s historic centre and surrounding frazioni
Trecchina
For the woods, cool air, food and go-karts
Festa del Vitello Podolico
Massa di Maratea