AWAKENING THE PAST

Childhood holidays live long in the soul. But returning to the scene is a risk. Sarah Tucker explores the pros and cons of going back

Every year, over a million of us return to the resort we visited the summer

before. Travel writers may wax lyrical about the lure of unfamiliar destinations,

but when it comes to holidays, the majority of Brits seem determined to play

it safe. And there's nothing wrong with that. Annual leave is a precious commodity –squander it, and the chances are that you’ll be waiting 12 more months for a shot at heaven on earth.

 

But for some British holidaymakers –around 100,000 each year – the retro pull extends further than the previous summer. These are the ones who, drawn by a potent mix of curiosity and nostalgia, elect to return to their childhood holiday haunts, travelling hopefully back to the land of

lost content. The idea has a powerful appeal. Yet in reality, paradise can be maddeningly hard to regain. The coasts of Europe, for example, have fallen prey to the snare of overdevelopment, and many resorts once full of charm are merging slowly into the concrete jungle. At disturbingly frequent

intervals along the Med, memory lane has turned into the highway to hell.

Recently, after gaps of 30 years, two colleagues of mine each made a pilgrimage to their respective pasts. One travelled to the central Algarve, in Portugal, the other to the east coast of Spain. Both returned

horribly depressed.

 

The first was horrified at the maze of kiss-me-quick English breakfast banners, the proliferation of flat vowels and bad architecture, and the mass of blubbery burnt skin packed onto beaches that were a shadow of their former selves. Gone were the quaint and mildly eccentric hotels, with their quaint and mildly eccentric owners, replaced by skyscrapers that seared the soul. And the little restaurants that once offered menus using only local produce, simply prepared with no concessions to foreign tastes, had evolved into ghetto-blasting bars with everything from pole dancers to 24-hour Sky TV. A travel writer herself, my colleague wondered ruefully if her words of praise had helped to kill the place she had so admired all those years ago. 

 

My second acquaintance returned to a resort which, on the face of it, had actually gone up-market. In her eyes, however, it had deteriorated into an equally soulless sham. Here the City boys and their families – the only ones who could afford the inflated prices – thronged the array of charmless hotels and restaurants, showering their brand of emptiness upon a place where money screamed.

 

For my colleague, who returned depressed from what she witnessed, it was a painfully metaphorical jolt. Once, in that vanished childhood when she was last here, she had dreamed of being a dancer, an actress, an artist. Now she herself worked in the City. Like the haven of her youth, she had sold out to the silver dollar.

 

Of course, it doesn’t have to be like that. Retracing childhood steps can help to foster the realisation of how far one has come in life – not just materially, but spiritually and emotionally too. Such feelings were what I experienced

upon my return to Emilia Romagna, the prosperous region of Italy where I spent many happy holidays as a child. Here, in the breadbasket of the old Roman Empire, lived some of the greatest cultural talents of the 20th Century – Pavarotti, Toscanini and Verdi, to name but three. Here too you will find the best Italian food: Pecorino and ricotta cheeses, prosciuotto and parma hams, balsamic vinegar prugnolo wild mushrooms, Romagnola beef, Civitella cherries and white truffles.  It is a veritable feast of the best produce in Europe if not the world although as a child I was totally oblivious of the cultured delights of the place, only recognizing it as a magnificent maze in which to play hide and seek with my parents. 

 

For seven years, from the ages of 9-16, I visited this place. My father would drive our car mercilessly south, pounding the autoroutes and autostrasse and pausing only for the odd double espresso, until finally we reached the seaside town of Cesenatico, perched neatly behind its brasher neighbour, Rimini. Here we would pitch tent in a campsite five minutes’ walk from the beach. I would each day go to the beach and make friends with the local Italian families who had none of the English reticence of being best buddies on the first meeting.   In my teenage years I discovered my first romance, not with an Italian but an English student with large blue eyes. The only English girl and the only English girl, but alas many Italian stunners who broke my heart with him, one by one by one.

 

A quarter of a century later, Cesenatico had lost none of its charm. I even met some of the Italian girls who have turned to pasta and to fat.  They have lost their charm.  As for the blue eyed boy, I know not what became of him but Cesenatico echoes with the romance it had for me as a young woman.    Nor had Forli, the architecturally refined town where they sold the best ice cream, and where the ornate square was ideal for chase and tag. This time round, I took my nine-year-old son to play the same games with his forty- something mother.

 

Revisiting the past reinforced my positive feelings about the present. I

reflected that, although life’s journey had sometimes been rocky – not unlike those long drives down to the campsite – I was where I wished to be.

At nine, somewhat implausibly, I had wanted to be an angel. I figured that I’d be able to travel the world for free, landing whenever and wherever I wanted, pouring happiness or disdain upon those I loved or loathed. Today I am certainly no angel, but looking back at my childlike criteria, I suppose that being a travel writer comes close. IFor more on Emilia Romagna visit:

www.emiliaromagnaturismo.it