Sunset at Pedaso

Jetlagged and homesick for Italy in a grey Beijing, first day back, we are thinking of how only two days ago we broke out of the afternoon heat, hurtled down the mountain from our Le Marche home and drove half an hour to the Adriatic coast, making for the railway line that runs through the baking little port of Pedaso. Parking by the Municipal Garden, we passed along the lush hibiscus lined embankment, looking for the tunnel – pushing through it, as if it were a Narnian wardrobe, into another world, one of blue sky, blue sea and under big blue ombrelloni by the little fish restaurant of Il Faro, all shapes and sizes of brown flesh squeezed into the tightest bikinis grilled and broiling in the still strong sun, relieved only by the odd gelato and campari soda: the world of bourgeois Italy enjoying the summer vacanze.

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It was already 6.30 pm so there weren’t many swimmers left in the great natural pool bounded by the rocks of the disused fishing harbour, but we slipped into the dark blue water and let it wrap us like silk, lazily swimming out to the rocks and the gulls, and paddling water in the Adriatic itself, just outside the gap of the harbour – gazing north 50 miles up the coast to the shadowy peninsula of Conero with its wine and monasteries, and southwards to where the coast faded into infinity, with its parallel line of beach and railway that stretch unbroken all the way to Apulia on the spur of Italy’s boot. A gentle swell washed us back inside the pool. We let the tide take us, enjoying the postcard scenery of the old village with its square box houses and church nestling under a green cliff, with at one end a lighthouse (il faro, that gave the restaurant its name). If it had not been for the harsh bray of a train and a row of white Fiats on flatcars hurrying on their way to Bologna, we could have been back in provincial Italy of the Nineteenth century. This is bathing for me now. An empty beach on a tropical island? What possible interest could that have? How could it compare with the fat lady on the deckchair in the red spotted bathing suit feeding figs to her grandchild, or the lounging young Adonises exercising all their charms on sunburned goddesses on whom pasta has not quite yet formed rolls on the stomach, and the old couples in straw hats on the seawall looking out to the pink that was beginning to touch the horizon? Life in all its idiosyncrasy, in other words, among ordinary people enjoying themselves in a place made even more special by the lack of any pretension.

The sun over the horizon, Angelo and his waitresses began to lay the tables for dinner at Il Faro, while his lads moved up and down the beach folding the ombrelloni. The sky was taking on the colour of a sort of pastel Zuppa Inglese, as Italians call trifle, full of pinks and oranges. The sun bathers, all bar the most doughty, had packed up and gone. It was time for newly married couples to come to the beach in their wedding finery for their formal portraits against a ‘natural setting’. Burly photographers and unsure bridesmaids followed behind from rock to rock.

Then, in the half hour before dinner, all was empty. The deserted umbrellas took on a surreal alien life form in the gentle breeze that was blowing off the heat of the day, while the splendour in the great sky above gently faded. Candles began to twinkle at Il Faro. The wash of blue changed imperceptibly to vermilion, and dusk was over almost before it started.

We plodded sadly through the tunnel with our bathing gear, heading back to our car by the municipal gardens, and China.

Photos © Hong Ying