Travel releases spontaneity. You become a godlike creature full or choice, free to visit the stately pleasure domes, make love in the morning, sketch a bell tower, read a history of Byzantium, stare for one hour at the face of Leonardo da Vinci's 'Madonna dei fusi.' You open, as in childhood, and--for a time--receive this world. There's visceral aspect, too--the huntress who is free. Free to go, free to return home bringing memories to lay on the hearth.

Never lose your childish enthusiasm and things will come your way.

The world cracks open for those willing to take a risk.

As travel pushes me forward, memory keeps dragging me backward.

Memory is, of course, a trickster.

Indecision is a virus that can run through an army and destroy its will to win or even to survive.

I find that other countries have this or this, but Italy is the only one that has it all for me. The culture, the cuisine, the people, the landscape, the history. Just everything to me comes together there.