Teatro del Silenzio, Solo
How did I forget to write about this?
It’s my final days in California. In the US, really. It’s bittersweet. I’ve loved spending time with my mom, but I am so damn ready to be back in Italy. I have a month of travel throughout Italy before I move into my Florence apartment and start school again. I’m so excited to finally go to places I’ve never visited before, even if I will be spending a whole lot of time on a ferry. I’m equally excited to spend an extended amount of time in Capri. The Aeolian islands will undoubtedly be great, as will the other special places I have up my sleeve, but nothing will ever compare to the feeling of belonging and continual awe I have on Capri. More than anything, I feel so lucky. I usually use the word grateful, but really, I feel lucky. I can’t wait to see Stefanie and my people and meet new ones. Connect with new hotel owners and waiters and bartenders and lifeguards and porters. I love hotels, but I delight in meeting their people.
I’m unsure exactly which week it will be, but some week in the next six weeks I will take as my annual paid time off. It’s always a tricky thing for writers, especially those who do so on Substack. But, I am a human and even though traveling and staying at hotels is somehow my job (!!!), everyone needs a break, myself included.
Of course, everything big and small will be shared here. This next chapter is for me, but also for you. I may be single, but I have so many of you to share this with. Again, I am so lucky.
For Consideration
Match with me and my yellow Havaianas that last forever
Look well-traveled even if you stay put
My fish bag got the ultimate summer treatment
A Pucci one-piece that could be vintage but is not
A very good unisex Babar cashmere sweater
And backgammon socks!
A great striped robe
Tomato summer forever
Up Next
In Residence with a fellow Substack travel writer with great taste
Book reviews for everything I’ve read in the past few months
20 unexpected hotels for that big trip – a honeymoon, anniversary trip, big birthday
My Italian Summer bucket list
Thank you so much for being here!
Just Book the Damn Bucket List Experience
A year ago, I was about to embark on my month-long trip to Italy, and I had to cancel everything. I was gutted. I had to be home (or what was at the time my home) for numerous reasons, all a bit too personal to write about.
I was determined to reschedule for as soon as possible, partly so I could retain my gracious collaboration with Palazzo Talìa and still be one of the first guests, but also because I realized that a golden low-mileage business class flight happened to align perfectly with an event that had been on my bucket list for a very long time.
Teatro del Silenzio.
Every July, Andrea Boccelli constructs an open-air amphitheater in the rolling golden hills of his tiny Tuscan hometown, Lajatico. Every year, he performs. Usually, just for one night, and an opera.
Last year, it was the 30th anniversary of his career and he was going all out. Three nights. Special guest after special guest was announced.
I love the symphony and I love the ballet but I only really love the sets and the settings of operas. They’re just too long for me, I’m embarrassed to admit. I had a gut instinct that last year, when he would not be performing an opera, and would be celebrating big time, was my time to go.
I was down in the dumps emotionally and this is how I was going to pull myself out.
With guests like Brian May of Queen and Shania Twain and fellow Italian treasures like Eros Ramazzotti, I was determined to go. I was late on the ticket game. It was already late-May, and people typically buy their tickets way in advance. Typically, I would be one of those people.
I pulled up Viva Ticket, the singular source, crossed my fingers as I waited for the ticket availability to load. For two of the three nights, no dice. Well, dice if I wanted the VVVIP experience, which was more than quadruple the budget I had given myself of $500.
But for the last night, there was one singular perfect seat left. Whenever I go to a concert or anything of the sort, I like to sit on the aisle. I don’t particularly like to feel like a sardine, and I knew I would be hotter than hell.
One seat, on the aisle, in the center section, for $499. I bought the ticket before I realized I would have to find a hotel for the night, in the middle of nowhere Tuscany, during this spectacle that makes hotel availability notoriously slim-to-none. I had faith I would figured it out. Hotels are my strange superpower.
I clicked purchase and the veil of sadness that had taken over since I had to cancel the first iteration of the trip started to lift.
I pulled up Happy Hoteling in Italy map, and realized that one hotel was my best bet. Villa Lena, which I had visited two summers prior.
In some sick twisted fate, there was one singular room available for the night of the show and the night after, which is exactly what I was looking for. I knew I would want to lay in a hotel bed and do nothing the next day, and I like to plan for this sort of doing nothing in advance.
I booked the non-refundable rate, I was going and I was going.
Then I got the flight. The single only day that a business class flight was available for less than 70k points for the whole summer.
I would fly into Florence and immediately rent a car and drive to Umbria, to stay the night at Tenuta di Murlo, which also magically only had one night’s availability, for that night. The night before Teatro del Silenzio.
I think that’s when I started to believe that maybe things do happen for a reason.
Last summer, I did write about my stay at Tenuta di Murlo and also at Villa Lena, but for whatever reason, I didn’t really write about my Teatro del Silenzio experience. I posted an Instagram Reel and then just kept the memories to myself.
But I want to share, here, now. I’m still damn proud of myself for doing it and it was truly and thoroughly a night I will never forget.
I spent two nights in the UK so I could adjust to the time a bit before getting to Italy. I knew I would both need to and want to hit the ground running. I arrived in Florence and got the rental car, and in retrospect, should have flown into Rome as it’s a shorter drive to Tenuta di Murlo.
I was only there for one night so I did as I do and put my damn bikini on and went to lay in the sun and swim in it, even though I’m allergic to it. This was high-stakes gambling, but that’s what cortisone cream is for. I got ready for dinner which I, in some sort of skilled way I have, could not find the entrance to. It is literally right there, the only place it would be. There is no door.
I was early and solo and they are Italian and therefore I got the best table and a free glass of wine as I sat. I had a genuinely great meal of food grown on the vast estate, and enjoyed watching all of the Italian families gather and converse and live in a way that Americans try so hard to do but rarely achieve. The moon was almost full, the night hot, the skies clear.
I had the extra glass of wine because, well, I wanted to, and then told myself I can’t f this up I have to go to bed so I’m not exhausted tomorrow. Now, I know for most nothing about this would be exhausting. I am not most! Bopping around, doing activity after activity is not my way and tires me quickly.
Listening to Italian classics and then an audiobook on the Autostrada, as is my way, I was so excited but also, for one of the first times in my life, could barely keep my eyes open. In fact, I pulled over at a truck stop to rest my eyes for a moment. It did the trick, and I kept driving into Tuscany, to Villa Lena.
I had about an hour to shower and change and mindlessly scroll before I had to be on my way, as the hotel had told me to get there very, very early to secure parking.
I bought a dress for the occasion. From Farm Rio, and it had tulips on my bust and their stems down my body. I loved the dress and couldn’t have cared less that the hundred-degree humid heat meant that when I sat down and then inevitably stood up there would be marks under my tush. I put the dress on and then sat down on the bed to do nothing of importance for a few minutes and boom, the strap broke.
My elementary school had a sewing class but I never excelled and that was a very long time ago. Luckily, Villa Lena has true toiletry kits in the rooms and I finally figured out if I would know what to do if I needed to use a pin in a pinch – I did. I’m not a complete idiot, phew.
The hotel was preparing to-go meals for all the guests going to the show but I was allergic to whatever the main was on offer and thus got a panino with just mozzarella and olive oil. In most places in the world, this would be about as good as swallowing air, but in Tuscany I knew I could count on classifying it as a legitimate meal.
I had been playing Andrea Bocelli for weeks in preparation, but once I got in the car and put the AC on full American blast to dry the drench, it was my favorite four songs, over and over.
I was excited before, but something came over me as I descended the hill and gazed over the rolling golden terrain that marks the region.
I’m one of those people with a constant internal monologue, but usually it’s quite varied. Even though it was nearly a year ago, I remember mine perfectly well. “I’m so proud of myself. Con teeeeee partirooooo. I’m so proud of myself.”
The fact that I remember all of these details so well is dually because I have quite a good memory and that the emotion of pride is so strong. Self-pride.
I’m used to being proud of my professional pursuits, but not very often of my personal ones. I show up for strangers much more than I show up for myself. I won’t miss a deadline for you but I will miss a big deal for me.
But I didn’t that day. I drove like a seasoned pro, which I admittedly am, throughout the Tuscan countryside, singing my heart out, and for the first time in a long time, crying tears of joy.
When you’ve been in the mental dumps, crying tears of joy is an Olympic qualifying event. I was going for gold.