The place where they know the secret to living an unforgettable summer

BarcelonaAugust ends, and mentally, summer ends. And these articles end, thanks to everyone who has kept the author company. Finally, a personal obsession. I'm ready to engage in a dramatic duel to defend this theory: no one knows how to enjoy summer like Italians do. Nowhere will you find as many cultural references to summer as in Italy. All the great singers and artists have devoted their attention to it, making summer the protagonist of songs or films. Although in reality, Italians also have a tourism sector in something of a crisis, with a heated debate about the mania for privatizing beaches and rising prices, summer occupies a central place in the collective imagination across the country. That's why I still hear the song that used to play around the house because my grandmother liked it: Sapore di sale, by Gino Paoli.

I love Gino Paoli. He was not a pretentious artist, who didn't attract attention with outlandish clothes. Paoli, who is still alive at 90, looked like an ordinary student or bank employee when he was young. But he sang some of the most beautiful love hymns. Despite being born in Monfalcone, he grew up in Genoa. A key fact to understanding his career. In the 1950s and 1960s, Genoa was the scene of a musical revolution, when a handful of brilliant singers emerged. Fabrizio de André, Luigi Tenco, and Paoli wrote the soundtrack for different generations. Tenco explored the dark side of our souls and committed suicide theatrically. De André was interested in everything that was happening in the world. And Paoli was happy with little: living by the sea in Genoa.

An imperfect city, like all the others, but open to the sea, full of older people who swim every day, where the important things are never lacking: good food, good wine, some time spent sunbathing, quiet coves and beaches. This isn't about recommending specific places in Genoa. The supposed birthplace of Christopher Columbus, the aquarium, or museums. Genoa is a place to let yourself go on a sweet niente lighthouse, Walking aimlessly and stopping at cafes. Visiting places like Boccadasse, Gino Paoli's refuge, where they've created a landscape that looks so beautiful it seems created by artificial intelligence. Colorful fishermen's houses, cheap restaurants with good fish, young people playing water polo in the water, and tanned skin. Singing Sapore di salePaoli spoke to us about that. When we get older, we remember the taste of salt on the skin of the person we love in many hotels where we've spent the night. Let's remember the image of the person we desire emerging from the sea more than the queue at a museum. A beautiful summer is one where, as Paoli sings, "time belongs to the days that pass lazily." Paoli was asked why he wrote the song, and he was sincere: "It came to me like a flash. And I saw that I wanted to sing about what a summer should be like, a temporary departure from established habits." He was as right as a saint.

Being different, everyone can seek to break established habits however they want. I like to go to an Italian seaside town and softly sing Gino Paoli. And also to have a glass of wine with my beloved while watching young lovers emerging from the sea. Gino Paoli is a wise man. I already knew everything, like so many brown-skinned Italians.

Recommendation for traveling to Genoa

Song: Sapore di sale

Director: Gino Paoli

Year: 1963