Honeymoon in New York and New England

Honeymoon in New York and New England: after months of extremely stressful renovation work, nothing better to recharge your batteries!

October is a beautiful period, the biting cold of winter has not yet arrived, the air is fresh and it is wonderful to walk through streets not too crowded with tourists. New York is always on the move and even standing still you travel with it.

Coming back to New York in 2003, however, means finding a city that is already different. The same in its rhythms but different in essence... I'm sorry to open this travel account on a sad note, but certainly the fact of returning after 11 September happened very much marked this trip, beautiful as it was. I remember, in fact, the first day of my first trip: I got off the metro at Battery Park and walked up Broadway. It was January, and the grey snow was still piled up at the edge of the streets although not a flake had fallen since the previous week... The buildings were too tall and shadowy for the sun to reach it...

continuing a little above the junction with Wall Street, on the right a red cube and on the left the Twin Towers: a shimmer of steel in a sky of pure crystal, the crystal-clear air of the cold winter, the biting wind in the concrete canyons, with our noses in the air we tried to photograph something that no matter how hard you try could simply not fit in the camera's lens. In 2003, at the height of the red cube on the right, an immense space mad with light opened up. But all that sun had no sense in that place, it clashed violently with the stone channels of the avenues... It highlighted too much the dust that still covered the buildings around... some still gutted. Despite my 28 years, despite being prepared for the shock, despite being used to the astonished pain linked to such an unreal event, despite everything... I cried like a little girl, with full and uncontrollable sobs.

As if that absurd light had slapped me full in the face.

But in a city like New York sad thoughts are no more than a breath of wind, especially if you have a husband who hugs you. And then it is the city itself that gives you energy: irresistible is its vital flow. Everything is within reach... art, beauty, fashion, oversize curiosities and it is impossible not to be lifted into the air by this cheerful whirlwind of joggers, elegant ladies, tramps with bottles in bags, mad taxi drivers... The first day, just arrived, we bumped into a gentleman walking quickly in the street... it was Sting! And then the incredible museums, with whole rooms recreated with indescribable care and attention to detail. The Moma at that time was under renovation, so we went to Queens to see part of its temporary exhibition. We also went to the R.E.M.

concert at Madison Square Garden and it was truly exciting, and then incredible to see that impeccable organisation: at Madison that evening there were at least 3 or 4 different events!

After the first 4 days we then rented a car and went up the New England coast... the places of Melville and the hunting of the whale. In New Bedford we looked for the Whalemen's Chapel, the little church described in Moby Dick... according to Melville's account, Father Mapple preached to the sailors from a pulpit shaped like the bow of a ship... we thus discovered that although the Chapel exists, the pulpit was invented by Melville... but never fear! The Americans, so as not to disappoint us, had anyway placed there a fake pulpit/bow that would not have looked out of place in the pirate galleon of Gardaland! Anyway along the walls of the little church there are the original gravestones of some of the men who died at sea.

Very characteristic too are the weathervanes shaped like a whale instead of the usual rooster! We then crossed beautiful little towns with evocative little harbours, cliffs very difficult to photograph but beautiful, small lighthouses and lots and lots of good fish to eat! Little cinematic references in Mystic and Gloucester, where you can see the locations of "The Perfect Storm" and the commemorative plaques of those lost at sea, including the crew of the Andrea Gail.

Then up to the splendid Cape Cod peninsula, then turning inland. In October it is absolutely spectacular to drive through the agricultural and wooded areas. There are many maples, so in October you can witness the "Indian summer" period, during which the abrupt drop in temperature leads to a sudden reddening of the leaves. Mindful of those who tried to suck the marrow out of life, we went as far as Walden Pond, on the trail of those who tried to live wisely so as not to discover, at the point of death, that they had not lived.

Sated with pure air and the scent of whispering broomcorn, after 4 days wandering we return to the tentacular metropolis to spend there, among its neon lights, the last days of this splendid holiday.