.

Turquoise Sea by Leah Marie Brown Imagine if you will, a footpath carved into the side of a granite cliff overlooking a turquoise sea.  Now, situate this idyllic thoroughfare on the Italian Coast.  Picture yourself standing on the path.  Do you feel the sea breezes blowing seductively on your skin?  Can you hear the surf gently lapping the rocky shore far below?  If you knew such a trail existed, wouldn't you want to traverse it? When I read about a trail in Italy that stretches between the clifftop villages of  Riomaggiore and Manarola, I felt my pulse quicken, my imagination take flight.  The guidebook said the Italians have been calling the trail Via dell'Amore (Lovers Lane) since the 1940s.  Sigh. I imagined it to be a place for romance and daydreams.  I saw myself strolling down that magical path, pausing to admire the Mediterranean sea, a patchwork of cerulean and turquoise spread out...

I found myself in the heart of Florence, walking down an ancient, dimly lit pedestrian street just moments before the magical gloaming, when the sinking sun would bathe the city in liquidy shades of gold, bronze and copper.  (Apropos colors, when one remembers that Florence was once the financial center of Europe.) Florence is a magical city in any light, but during the gloaming it appears more beautiful and more mysterious.  Shadows deepen, elongate, shading the city in slightly sinister tones.  The air appears as gauzy as a shroud.  Streetlights flicker to life, creating otherworldly halos around the heads of the statues standing sentry in the piazzas. It takes little effort to imagine a Medici woman, ensconced in a voluminous cloak, her face partially concealed by her hood, slipping down an alley to meet an old crone hawking deadly nightshade.  What secrets do the shadows hold?  What demons does the light keep at bay? ...