Di fronte al mare la felicità è un’idea semplice.
I found this quote by French novelist Jean-Claude Izzo on a blue board next to the sea while strolling around Santa Cesarea Terme, during what became our third Departure.
Every morning, we would pick a town on the Apulian coast and drive there, before arriving back at our temporary home, Palazzo Nianu, in the heart of Neviano.
As I walk around the palazzo, I cannot help but ask myself whether I am dwelling in the past or the present. The details of the building are preserved at their utmost; the scratched wall textures, the marbled surfaces, the old wooden doors, the carefully placed ceramic vases, the palatial ceilings, the glass damigianas, the mosaic floor, they all create an interfluent cosmos of beauty and offer historicity and authenticity to the place.
You can feel celestial even when you’re inside. As I step into the blue, arched ceiling room, I get a sense of everywhereness, yet I feel particularly there at the same time. I climb the stony stairs and I feel like I’m going above and beyond. I am on the rooftop of the palazzo, perched on the horn, with St. Michael the Archangel Church behind me. For fractions of time, my mind wanders around my own faith-related questions and I gasp. Clouds come and go, and, within my nomadic pursuit, so do I.
Location: Palazzo Nianu
Outfits: Babaluna, Lali Wear, Atelier Isabelle Vijiac, Santicler, Musa Kimonos, Robertina.