Italian landscapes differ from American ones. We have beautiful hills too but our roads are often cluttered with signs and cars, and Italian landscapes seem to have a more pleasing layout than ours.
I'm dying to know how they do it. The landscape looks like it has an overall plan, as if an artist figured it out, yet I'm guessing that the land is owned by different families, with no artistic co-ordination.
The car in the film enters a town and we discover that people build very close to the roads here. You walk outside the door and you're practically out in the street...but it works.
The town is situated on a bay.
Houses look great when they appear to cascade down a hill. Even so, you have to pity the pedestrians who have to walk uphill every day. Is this practical? Maybe. After all, people pay whatever it takes to live on San Francisco hills that are steeper than this.
I wish my house was built below road level like this restaurant.
Skipping ahead, our guys are now ensconced in a hotel with a marvelous view and a pretty and poised guide.
The visitors are stunned into silence by the immensity of the scene.
After a bit they bit begin to talk. Only the biggest and smallest subjects seem appropriate.
Byron stayed in this town, maybe even in this hotel. He loved hearing the Italian language spoken. The film quotes him:
I love the language, that bastard Latin / That melts like kisses from a female mouth / 'Sounds as if it should be writ on satin / And syllables that read like sweet sounds.