Accidental Agrotourists
Marco Pallanti notes
They can be recognised a long way off, but once you see and hear them up close there is no longer any doubt: you are clearly faced with “Accidental Tourists,” or, at the most, pretend or pseudo nature-lovers, who flock to idyllic spots at sea or countryside driven by the dream of living close to nature.
I am taking a few days of vacation at Portovecchio, on Corsica, where these reflections of mine are inspired by witnessing the landing of a yacht-load of “charter tourists,” their sunburnt faces exhibiting the exact same look I see on the hoards of “agritourists” clambering out of their SUVs in Chianti Classico.
Observing their behaviour, I notice in so many of them that same superficiality that marks the species.
I hasten to add that fortunately not all are like this, but the majority, alas, certainly rules. The predominant characteristic is an overwhelming lack of curiosity that brings with it pre-cooked and packaged ideas of the new world they are visiting. Or, putting it another way, the magnificent cultural vacation they have undertaken gives them not the least understanding of the distinctiveness of the spot nor of those who live and work there. Before this type of vacation became such a fad, there was a touch of the revolutionary in their choice. We mustn’t forget that in its beginnings, agritourism began as a kind of human, but not strictly economic, means of assistance to the rural areas, which were losing their populations. Today we realise that very little immersion in a new culture actually took place, unfortunately; rather, such tourists’ decisions and desires are reductionist and conformist, as they look out on a world that they see as simply some decades-old movie. To be truly appreciated, these two worlds, the sea and the countryside, require that the visitor listen attentively not only to the speech of the inhabitants but to all that which must remain unspoken as well. The most crucial part of the cultural message is bound up in the cypresses and in the hills, and in the waves and in the sand. This is a novel language, one that can only be absorbed by our sense of smell taking in the fragrances around us, by our vision being blinded by beatific visions of stupendous landscapes. In precisely the same way that a Noble Wine can either be rendered mute by scepticism bred by indifference, or intimately understood by a dialogue with the essences which each human product, once opened, holds within. A phrase from the Paradiso of the sublime Florentine provides a fitting seal to my observations: “Open your mind to what I shall disclose: one learns nothing who holds not fast what one has heard.” A wonderful vacation to you all!
01.07.2006