When did I first discover Italy? The question is a bit like ‘who first discovered America’ for Italy was always there for me. There were family members who lived there; my mother was born in Milan of Italian parents and I must have first visited the ‘bel paese’ when I was barely one. The train journey from that once shuttered-off platform for the continent at Victoria station, the steamer across the English channel (or ‘la manica – the sleeve – as that treacherous stretch of sea is called in Italian) the rails’ click-clack through the eerily deserted north French countryside, the entrance into Switzerland at Basle’s international marshalling yards and the last expectant stretch through the interminably long Simplon tunnel to enter the broad flatlands of Lombardy and the journey’s terminus at the grand Milan Central station flanked by its stone Pegasus horses is one, alas, never to be repeated in its continuity. For this was truly the end of our travel across post-war Europe: my grandparents’ flat was in the same expansive square as that which accommodated the station.

But when did Italy become not just a place for family visits but a land of scenic travels and cultural explorations? I was aware of fabulous things in Italy. My father had entered Venice towards the end of his war service and showed me his collection of postcards describing the city built on water. I was eager to float on a gondola or feed the pigeons in Saint Mark’s square. However, most of the time spent during our family visits was, unsurprisingly, spent with the family. It was only in 1957 that I saw the lagoons of ‘la Serenissima’, the Christians’ death trap of the Colosseum and the ancient Roman streets of Pompeii for the first time. I did later suggest to my grandparents’ who organized these trips that I might have been too young (at age eight) to fully appreciate these visits to Italy’s supreme icons. My grandparents told me otherwise: I had thoroughly enjoyed every moment; I do indeed retain scraps of vivid memories.

Regrettably I have no snapshots of these journeys. Carrying a camera about with oneself was still not essential in those pre-digital days. What would I give to hold a handful of pictures from those times!

Some family events, of course, have been immortalised on celluloid but photographs of sights I saw in Italy don’t appear until my visit to Lake Garda in 1961. By this time I’d been given a Bencini Comet II as a present and managed to take these shots of Catullus’ villa at Sirmione by the shores of Lake Garda, the Italian lake that comes closest to resembling an inland sea.

Sorting through the somewhat primitive originals, I’ve scanned and enhanced them using a variety of apps. I’m not too sure, however, whether the originals have a je ne sais quoi lost in the enhancements: I’ve put some of the before-and-after for one to compare.

I’ve been back to Catullus’ Villa (which, of course, was not Catullus’ – he could never have afforded something so grand) at least twice since those pioneering photographs. You can read about these subsequent forays in my posts at:

Italy’s Largest (and most Beautiful) Lake

The path not taken….The photographs not taken? Not quite….