“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.”

Little Gidding, T.S. Eliot

Travel dreams, desires and projects for the New Year

Another year has flown by. A year that has left indelible traces, opened doors, messed papers, moved my horizon pointing north and opened the drawer of the dreams that now float around me like on a huge three dimensions touch screen.

Travel Dreams 2016

Considering available time, work commitments and priorities, here are my #TravelDreams2016:

Paris

Paris is my second home, I love and know it, but one never know the City of Lights well enough and walking slowly from one neighborhood to another always offers a bit of new magic and then I miss Paris … I miss it so much that I placed it as the top priority for this new year.
In particular I want to visit Paris vineyards scattered on its hills and discover its rural soul.

Argentina

I’ll spend a month there between mid-January and mid-February. This vast country too is in my genes, but because of its immensity I dream of visiting the north, discover its volcanoes, ride with its gauchos, paragliding among its green valleys and hold my breath rattling in the Tren de las Nubes.

I also need to had another detail to my Argentinian bucket list to cap another dream, that of my grandfather who wanted to see me take tango lessons in his Buenos Aires. I thought I had time and didn’t get to do this for him as wished, but I’m sure that in some way he will be with me as I will choose the right shoes and to move my first dancing steps in his neighborhood.

New York

Another dream that is perhaps more something I need … I have to go back to New York to properly visit Ellis Island and find there and in me the story of my family. I need to immerse myself in the past I know, but that I want to feel in a deeper way. I need to retrace the steps of the people that with their lives, choices and suffering have made of me what I am.

Italy

I traveled so much and always pushing me further away than I ended up losing the pearls near home … Since last year, I’m discovering the historic towns such as Brescia and I’m falling in love with them. Each one has been able to surprise me and I decided it’s time to catch up visiting them all year after year!

The goal in 2016 is to spend my free weekends visiting Mantua, Crema, Cremona, Padua, Ferrara, Aosta and the small historic villages that surround them.

Apulia

This travel dream too consists in catching up with a shameful gap in my knowledge of Italy’s treasures.

I dream of spending at least two weeks in Apulia during winter time, to discover it in its essence and in the everyday life of those who live there. I dream of getting lost while visiting Castel del Monte, of strolling among the majestic olive trees and the amazingly charming trulli, of visiting Lucera, Salento, its natural parks and the archeological ones. I dream of some lazy days in Monopoli and I hope to spend some time chatting and exchanging travel dreams with my blogger friend Manuela …

Cuba

It’s strange, I never dreamed of going to Cuba, but since it started to open up to the Western world as we know it and to trade in a certain way this visit has become a true need. Now I can not wait to go there and immerse myself in the atmosphere that I know will quickly fade away, leaving only pages of mid-censored history, the travel tales of those who have preceded me and old movies.

I dream of experiencing Havana as it has been during the last fifty years, with its legendary cars and its murals and then rediscovering it changed in a few years.

The Arctic Circle

I have always been there during summer, when the midnight sun dazzles, bugs and flies and mosquitos dominate forests and when the colors are breathtaking. Now I dream of feeling the dry cold whipping my face, the night that never ends and wraps everything, the bright white of the snowy landscapes filtered only by the vapor of my breath.

I dream of returning to Finnish Lapland to silently horse ride on the snow.

Will I accomplish my travel dreams? I’m almost sure that yes, I will because they are already goals to me …

In recent years, without realizing it, I started assimilating dreams to chimeras, but it’s not the same thing! Citing a myth: dreams are wishes, but to realize and not to be kept in a dream-drawer.

Dreams, when they are true and not pour parler, have to be perceived as goals and the biggest the dream the stronger you should believe in it. I’ve always dreamed big and I always got where I wanted, It’s just that lately I had forgotten it … it won’t happen again!

Meanwhile, I wish you to fight with determination for your dreams, to make them grow, to model them along the way and make them your reality.

And then I recommend you: in 2016 do travel!

No matter how, where and what is the right trip for you. You can travel with your mind, with fantasies, with your projects, between the pages of books you love or on musical scores … the important is to travel.

In case you don’t have plans, here’s some tips to inspire you:

• Sri Lanka and the extraordinary Sigiriya
• Siem Reap to be enchanted by the perfection of Angkor Wat and its other amazing archeological sites and temples
• Peru as it’s never trivial
• Uruguay and Punta del Este, to discover a not so usual breach destinations
• Laos to feel the spirituality and relativize our struggles…

I also recommend a trip to Disneyland, as feeling a kid and dreaming of those dreams is always good, especially for those who think it’s not true …

Happy 2016… & lots of travel dreams…