L’ARIA DEL
STRIGEL, ITALY
MARE BY PAIGE STRIGEL
Away from the tourist-heavy shores of Cinque Terre, far from the well-known Amalfi coast, down the coastline from Nice, France sits Liguria, Italy. A retreat for Italian families on their weeks-long summer holidays, the water’s edge is dotted endless by colored umbrellas and lounge chairs. Near the end of my summer as an au pair for nine-year-old Elisa in Trento, my host family set off for the five-hour road trip from the Alps to the sea. The importance of calling it the sea and not the ocean was made clear early; Elisa scolded me for using the terms interchangeably. The sea, she explained in all her ferocious enthusiasm, is much smaller and much warmer. She was right, of course: the Ligurian Sea stretches just between the Italian Riviera and the French island of Corsica.
On the tail end of the European heat wave which knocked me flat, it was almost too warm to be refreshing. Almost, but not quite. And of course, the most important part for my host mom, Francesca, was to breathe the sea air, l’aria del mare, which she considers essential to health. Though we will spend each day at the sea in the village called Loano, our destination is perched away from the coastline in tiny Balestrino. Our little Fiat winds its way high through blue-green hills until, after a hairpin turn sharp enough to warrant a threepoint approach, we drive through a gate, across a flagstone drive, and up to a warmly lit butteryellow house with evergreen shutters. Nerves triggered by my imperfect Italian struck me shy as Nonna Gina and Nonno Ezio — my host dad Edoardo’s parents
— emerged from the wide-open front door trailed by Fiore, their limping, elderly labrador. Almost immediately, Nonna Gina guides me through the vast garden. We move in linguistic circles, her broad gestures and slow Italian gradually giving name to the wild rosemary, laurel and myrtle bushes crowding the front yard, their soft scents rising through the heated air. Fat, slow-moving bumblebees buzzed through the lavender surrounding the back patio, unbothered by our proximity. “My mother practices wild gardening,” Edoardo says, emerging from the house to join us. “Where it grows, let it be.” Days in Liguria are simple. We wake early each morning at the house at Balestrino. In the SPRING 2020
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