BARI – No more than six to eight people at the table? Meetings only between relatives & relatives, with at most a couple of strangers (excluding the under 14 of course)? Limitations by Prime Minister’s decrees or mayors’ ordinances? No problem: the dinner to greet and perhaps cancel this nefarious 2020, uncorking Veuve Cliquot, Dom Perignon or Peroncini, firing barrels of the exaggerated and very forbidden ones, is done in Rosamarina. In any case, once you have passed the fateful barrier of access to the renowned village, you know, everything is worth a little, in spite of rules, regulations and presidential decrees. Or at least that’s what the popular vulgate wants, including motorcycles in the hands of twelve-year-olds, motorists already at sixteen and the legendary belief “that the police can’t do fines here anyway” (nothing more false, as many have experienced at their own expense ).
Welcome to the free Republic in Bari-Brindisi sauce, built more than half a century ago at the foot of the White City, that Ostuni destination of international tourism but this year, like unfortunately many other Apulian places, desertified by the Coronavirus emergency. The metropolitan tam tam, however, tells of expeditions of camel troops – with food of all kinds and luxuries and various servants – already started in recent days, in order to prepare the preparations for the various festoons welcoming the new year that will be hosted between bungalows, two-villas, three-villas and megavillas, between via Max Schachter, the Capanno area, the Pontile or all’Uli – veto. It would be a riot of violations: but don’t tell anyone about it. We know it in a few … The basic idea is to have a free hand to archive, at least for one day, a year lived dangerously in the balance between prohibitions and restrictions, masks and sanitizers, forbidden hugs and furtive kisses. A nightmare climate badly tolerated by many and hardly digested by all, with the usual compromises of Italian origin to mitigate a scenario necessarily painted in dark colors.
There are those who exchange invitations via whatsapp (so it is not interceptible), those in Bari meet between via Argiro and Corso Vittorio Emanuele: “So it’s confirmed … Yes, I’m going there around 19 … Coso too … and those others, those … Ok, then I’ll see you in the place … what we said … ». We whisper, we speak in code. We are preparing to land with lobsters, raw seafood and various tielle well hidden in the manner of the pusher if they catch the Guardia di Finanza. Easter – eight months ago there was the first Ostuni act of this sort of “free-for-all” rite to circumvent the pandemic curfew – August 15th or Christmas makes no difference. Every opportunity is good for a return to the old days, when pandemic was an unknown term, when it was possible what today is no longer legitimate due to viruses. The “millenials” chats tell of throngs of teenagers already intent on refurbishing the batteries of the electric caddies so fashionable in the village to be able to run around again between the consortium bar and the “Valentino” and “Sandrino”, sacred places of nightlife Rosamarinian youth, ready to be revitalized for the occasion, so far unusual. The busiest will reach the holiday home only today, perhaps hiding grandmother or mother-in-law in the trunk, to bypass the anti-coronavirus rule that requires a maximum of four people in the car (with two under 14) and avoid really high fines.
There are even those who foresee the formation of a queue at the entrance of the village manned by the inflexible security guards, between owners and guests beneficiaries of the precious badge – for many a real status symbol – that opens the gates of paradise, a few kilometers from everyday life today saddened by the contagion. So all ready for the summer-style assault, when SUVs, sedans and station wagons parked one-on-the-other or stuck in the bushes of Pitosfori, Buganville or Vilburni near the sea (cycling is obviously healthy but not cool) , saturate the limited spaces available, making the beach a hell where everyone jealously defends their square meter of hard-won space. Jacket and hat, all to celebrate the new year, perhaps on the beach (Jupiter pluvius permitting) for an aperitif or a toast that can help chase away the terrible virus. Is there Covid-19? Is there a danger of contagion? But here we are in Rosamarina anyway. There is no “Coviddi” here.
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