La vacanza italiana è stata cancellata

Habitual readers of this continuing literary masterpiece are aware that I've had some plans for a two-week gathering of friends and family in Levanto, Italy -- a beach town on the northern (or western, depending on how you hold the map) edge of the Cinque Terre.  To celebrate one of those scary decennial birthdays.

It was not a spur of the moment idea.  In fact, it was back in April 2018 that I first emailed likely co-celebrants a suggestion of what I had in mind for the spring of 2020.  I was then still pondering a number of locales.  By January 2019, I had decided on Levanto.  A couple of months later, I asked for a show of hands by those interested.  I was amazed when virtually everyone I had emailed was interested, most of them for a one week stay.

In April 2019, I paid a deposit on a two-week rental of a waterfront villa, with room for fourteen guests.  We needed more room, and in the summer of 2019, I paid a deposit for a one-week rental of a second villa, with room for another twelve guests.  In mid-August of that year, as part of a short visit to Italy, I visited Levanto.  To check it out.

I was delighted with what I saw.

Activity and preparations continued with increased intensity throughout the fall of 2019, with a confirmed total of thirty guests, most of them for a one week stay.  By February 2020, I sent a list of all our guests to the Italian rental agency, with information about each guest that the agency was required to submit to the police.    

Man proposes, but God disposes.

Within days, the Covid-19 epidemic -- then thought to be limited to China -- began sweeping through northern Italy.  For a week or so, I thought we could laugh it off / brave it out.  Finally, in mid-March, I sent my cancellation notice to the agency.  With a little negotiation and discussion of the deposit, however, we agreed to move the date of the rentals from May 2020 to May 2021, and to carry the deposits forward.  

We were all pleased.  The pandemic was obviously going to get worse after March before it got better, but May 2021 looked pretty safe.

Ha!

Today, I bit the bullet and sent out a group email notifying everyone that the party was canceled.  Even with the prospect of a successful vaccine, I don't see how Italy will be welcoming tourists from America by this coming May.  Certainly, not without requiring the two-week  quarantine they are already requiring of more favored nations whose tourists are still allowed in.  Such as Thailand and South Korea.

With our own lack of national leadership, and with the politicization of even so basic a preventive measure as the consistent wearing of masks, I suppose our tourists don't really deserve any particular consideration.  Although, since about September, the pandemic has been raging even in countries with better leadership and more compliant citizens.

Sooner or later, however, we'll be back to "normal."  When that happens, my lust for Italy will burst once more into flame.  As will my hopes of gathering friends and relatives about me.  In Italy.