Postcards From Italy

In the northern region of Liguria, short dresses and breezy blouses signal a summer of sun-kissed days and nights mad with mischief

- CHIARA BARZINI

My mother has Sicilian origins. In our family, “the beach” always meant the South, and the South always meant rural islands with impervious access to water. When I look back on childhood pictures, I see rocks (not sand) and very naked people of all ages and body types. My parents claimed that vacationing anywhere that wasn’t a sun-blasted lava rock in the middle of the sea—with no electricity or running water or roads—was a sin.

“You don’t want to be like those people that go on holiday in the North,” they said to my brother and me. But of course: We did. We wanted nothing more than to be those people. In the summertime, my friends went dancing in nightclubs by the beach and returned home with stories about wild nights and flings with exotic-sounding men. All we could report back on were anecdotes about donkeys, water-well politics, and unreliable boat schedules.