TRIP TO ITALY

I just saw "Trip to Italy" on Netflix and enjoyed it immensely. There's not much plot. It's just a travelogue about two British actors who are paid to take a motor trip through Italy and write about it. Here's a few framegrabs.

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 buildings are shaped like kids blocks. The greenery is a nice counterpoint. How did that come about? Did the townspeople have an artist who had to approve the type and location of every building and tree?

 

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.