(no subject)

[sophistry]

I made the mistake of browsing some country-themed LJ icons, and suddenly I want to revisit Italy so badly, I can literally feel it cramping up my chest. Sirmione, Verona, Venice, Rome, the bay of Naples (you've never seen anything like the view from Vesuvius); down to Sicily and Taormina, Ortigia in Syracuse, Agrigento. The smell of sea-salt, olive trees, cedars and cypress, brick and marble and travertine, fountain water; living history. I'm the same with Oxford; I only spent two days in the city proper, a few summers ago, but I spent most of them just dazed: walking, and looking, and breathing, like I could keep the sense-memory of sun on limestone and the greens in my lungs and nose forever.

What about you, flist? What places make you catch your breath, and go yes, this?