A miracle
Aside from a mystery foot ailment, my joi de vivre was also marred by the feeling that this Roman experience was lacking something as yet unidentified.
Miraculously – to the point of my near religious conversion – I was mulling this un-named anxiety when a young Italian lad stood in front of me, unpacked a violin, and started playing an acceptable rendition of the theme-tune from The Godfather.
My day complete I looked to the sky, thanked a possible new-found deity and rewarded the lad handsomely.
The theme from The Godfather still intoxicating my spirits, I was close declaring life-long devotion to my new Lord after I stumbled across these guys in the Piazza Navona – check out the bass player.
They were playing Verdi’s Brindisi, otherwise known as The Drinking Song, which as well as celebrating a hobby of mine is also (alongside the Godfather piece) the most quintessentially Italian piece of music I can think of. See if you agree.
I challenge any of you, when hearing that piece, to resist swinging a goblet of wine side-to-side drunkenly – especially in the choral bits – regardless of whether or not you are in fact, drunk.
Damn, is red wine bad for laptops?
Piazza Navona appears to be a roman equivalent of Covent Garden, where entertainers cavort for your pleasure and shrapnel and artists art, or whatever it is they do.
Further up the Piazza, this chap was playing Stairway to Heaven. He obviously hadn’t seen the sign.
