It will be a particular summer, perhaps the strangest in recent years. We do not know if the beaches will be crowded, if the cities of art will be stormed. However, we know that the usual multitude of tourists from around the world will come to visit us hardly. And we know that those of us who have the time and money to take a vacation are unlikely to do so by going beyond our borders.
Restrictions, health passports, preventive quarantines
It is not clear if and how it will be possible for us to move between one country and another. It is not even among our regions, let alone. And if in these days the first community reassurances seem to arrive, prudence remains in everyone, the thought that new scattered outbreaks could lead to new lockdowns and mess up reservations and deposits. In short, it is difficult to think that many will book flights for August to distant destinations. Italians care about health, but also about their wallet.
However, Italians also know how to make the most of difficult situations, as amply demonstrated during the emergency. What better occasion therefore for look inside: In the true sense of the word. Let's visit. Let's find out. We discover sides of us that we never thought we had. And if we are gripped by melancholy and a hint of envy towards that exoticism that we see in the other and not in us, let's take a better look. At the mirror. We will discover that there is really no reason for envy.
Mallorca or Cala Moresca
The famous white beaches of Mallorca for example, a feast for the eyes, a Spanish destination much desired by Italians. Are we sure that they really have much more charm than our (perhaps less known) Cala Moresca? Yet it is here, a glimpse of paradise. In Sardinia. If we pay each other, unhurriedly, it is more than likely that our self-esteem will recover. And our limp economy too, maybe.
Maiorca 
Cala Moresca, photo by Luigi Farina
Santorini or the Cinque Terre
Another destination besieged by the Italians is Santorini. Splendid, overlooking a crystal sea. Eclectic architectures, night clubs, restaurants. But perhaps for this year we could make use of the Cinque Terre, villages set in the Ligurian promontory, jewels of our history. Where time stops. And we could stop too.
Santorini 
The Cinque Terre
Tropical sunsets or local sunsets
The sunset is magical, you know, especially in summer. One of the most famous in the world can be admired in Zanzibar, a tropical island in Tanzania, the destination of many tourists every year. But in our small way we cannot complain (if small we can say the sun blurs the contours of the domes of Michelangelo and Brunelleschi in Rome and Florence). And if we miss the red scales on the sea, let's try to attend the sunset on Stromboli, the volcano of the Aeolian Islands. A show so precious that it has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Not a bad consolation, for the missed trip to Tanzania.
Zanzibar sunset 
Sunset on Stromboli, photo by Massimiliano Natale
Amsterdam or Venice
And here our self-esteem should reach its zenith. With all due respect to Van Gogh and the ladies in the shop window, Venice it is a pearl without comparison.
Amsterdam 
Venice
Pearl who needs oxygen these days. She lives and breathes only thanks to those who go to admire her, so she has never needed Italians like this year. She needs to be looked at, pampered and admired - by that beautiful old lady with a bite that she is. Mirror of a battered country but which, really, has nothing, nothing to envy to its close friends. So let's visit this country. Let's visit, let's find out. If not now, when?
