Angelino the cat of the lovely B&B 'Le Porcine' in Bolsena, Italy. 

There is a place I visit when I am in Italy where "smiles are free".

It is a place where they remember you after a month's absence; they see you walk in, clear off your favorite table, and serve up your cocktail of choice - all the while bantering together with smiles that are free.

And what if love were free. And what if peace of mind were free.

If hugs, and acceptance, and tolerance, and hope ... were all free.

 If you are a dreamer, come in

If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,

A hope-er. a pray-er, a magic bean buyer…

If you’re a pretender, come sit by the fire

For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.

Come in!

Come in!

In Venice I found the street on which I have always lived.

Every time I travel somewhere, I walk for hours and hours a day; through ancient cities, down avenues, over cobbly streets, I walk. And eventually my feet take me home again. But there is always that nagging, somewhat surreal but familiar, feeling that I am on a journey and always have been; that I have not yet found the place where I am meant to go.

 

Perhaps I live on Passion Street. Not three weeks ago someone said to me, "Please stop living so passionately!" My eldest curled her toes. After all, we are now two to walk the streets to somewhere, feeling not unlike ants that touch noses and then walk on, only to touch again later. It is our fate, perhaps, our destiny.

My street is Passion Street. No, it is Calle de la Passion.

I shall leave my shoes by the front door.

Sights and sounds and feelings permeate southern Italy. Four days in Rome and near Bolsena to come...