sophistry | (no subject)

(no subject)

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?

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Oxford, primarily. Oh, God, Oxford. If you went through my LJ and replaced "Oxford" with a name it would look like I was the most obsessive relationship this side of Heathcliff. I can't wait to get back now.

Galway. The Sea of Galilee. Rare, occasional bits of Japan.

Rome did it for me, too. ♥ I love Italy, so much.

The Blue Ridge Mountains.

The train ride from Oakland, California to Chicago.

Plus I feel that way about Chicago on a fairly regular basis.

Tragically, I have still never been overseas without also being with my parents. I've also never been to Italy. These are two things I am too poor to fix, but desperate to amend.

The Front Range in January, on Park Avenue headed toward I-25. (And February, and March, and April. It never looks the same from day to day.) The Flatirons in May, at 104th and Federal. The first real sight of the Boulder Valley on US 36, no matter the time of year.

The view from the rock in front of the Tree in the Rock, on I-80 in Wyoming. The first sight of Laramie descending from the Sherman Mountains.

What used to be the Appalachian Swim Club in the early morning, in what used to be Elkmont, Tennessee. The Ohio River, any time, anywhere. The view from the library at the headquarters of the Unitarian Universalist Association, looking out on Boston Common. The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, up to and including the free-roaming peacocks. Deland and Lake Mary, Florida; St. George Island and Apalachicola Bay, Florida; the marsh country running up and down the Georgia coast. Druid Hills, Atlanta, Georgia. Lullwater Park on the campus of Emory University.

Et cetera.

This probably has more than a bit to do with the fact that I've been taking Classical Studies, in some form or other, since starting first year, and before that had been soaking up things like big, lavishly-illustrated children's versions of the Odyssey and Greek myths since I could read. But the first time I saw the Colosseum - age fourteen? fifteen? on a school trip - I cried like a little baby. I don't think I'll ever really be able to convey what it was like, that first time, standing as near the centre of the arena as the planking would allow, and just looking... up.

Oxford was just - transcendent. Being me, it says a lot that I only just floated through the Ashmolean, because I couldn't wait to get back out onto the streets, and just wander some more.

If ever you want to visit again, I can happily offer a place to stay. It is just such an amazing place - it sometimes makes me catch my breath and my heart ache.:D

I lived next to the Blue Ridge Mountains for six years as a child; I most definitely agree. I miss them very much.

Yeah, I grew up on the other side of the range, about 25 miles from the Ohio River. There is honest to god no place more beautiful to me than Appalachia.

I adore the majority of Europe. I can't pick just one single place. (It's a close first for Italy, though, followed by Ireland, Germany and parts of Spain and Portugal. I'm also fond of South Wales).

I love the wildness of Kenya.

Stateside, I love the Badlands and Yellowstone. Just so bloody awesome. I'm also pretty fond of Connecticut/East Coast in Fall, but that's about it. That and basically all of Montana. I just love me some Big Sky Country.

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