My grandfather was a truck driver and he loved it. My father was a car repairer and he loved it. I choose another career path but I guess what I inherited from them is the love for the road and the desire to explore new places. That's why I literally can't stop moving and as far I come back home I always feel the urge to leave again and see with my own eyes how my country is getting by, trying to keep up with the times and with the amount of tourists that is constantly flowing from north to south and from south to north.
"First time in life I managed to swim in the sea with my old man. I was taken directly from the airport and we drove to Varazze, where we were welcomed from an old friendly italian lady that after having checked us in, showed us the room and went to bed. During this trip and after years since I moved abroad I noticed that I started to feel like a foreigner in my own country and I have difficulties in familiarising with that feeling. During that time we spent sometime walking around the town and looking at boats of different size and shapes wondering about how the life of a boat owner could be. I guess we both never really cared about it but it could be interesting to live one day of the life of a boat owner and travel on water instead that on land."
"After the pandemic we managed to take another little drive down through the country, the last one together as far as I remember. We got lost in the countryside to reappear exactly where we were suppose. Montescudaio and the sunset, Cecina, the fritto misto, swimming back and forth, sharing a bed like we were comrades. I wish we had more of this and less of the rest but life runs so fast and there is nothing we can do about it. Along with us came the brilliant John Cheever, swim after swim I also felt I lost the track of time and once I came back where I was, everything was gone. Human condition changes drastically with the years, without you even being able to notice it, until the time when you feel naked and misunderstood comes. I guess the only thing left to do in this case is to keep swimming without looking back."
"Still on the road but this time heading to a different direction with a different travel mate. Elle and I went back to my beloved Emilia-Romagna and for the first time I had the chance to see how wild certain parts of Italy are. Driving through the colli Bolognesi, down to the Abetone and to the appennino tosco-emiliano. Swimming in mountain lakes, down to Perugia, Castelluccio and Norcia. Reaching the Gran Sasso for the last night in the tent and driving back the next day through wild horses and wonderful rocky mountains. Being woken up in the middle of the night by the barking dog of the campsite where we were staying, hearing a weird noise coming from a bush behind our tent that did not let us sleep, my heart was beating faster and faster, my fear for bears didn't let me move and we just waited for an endless amount of time before the day was born."
Christopher wanted to visit Bologna to experience the world of engines where big players such as Ferrari, Lamborghini and Pagani are located. The passion runs through generations and probably covers over 100 years of the history of the country. Bologna has the fame to be an open-minded, artistic, cultural and modern city in my favourite region of Italy, therefore I went along. The music of the local hero Lucio Dalla was playing in my mind for most of the time during the trip and his concept album Automobili (Cars, 1976) written together with Roberto Roversi, reflect this part of the world and its ideals perfectly. Dalla's music is sweating passion through the whole album, narrating the glorious life of Tazio Nuvolari, the skinny pilot that with grimace wasn't even afraid of dying "di morire non gli importa". Nuvolari was born in 1892 and his racing career lasted between 1920 and 1950. He got famous victory after victory with his Alfa Romeo until the point that even a celebrity like Gabriele D'Annunzio decided to give him a price, a small golden turtle considered "the slowest animal for the fastest man". Nuvolari also suffered terrible tragedies, losing both of his sons at a young age and who knows if maybe his human resiliation also helped him winnning while he was on the racing track.