This summer I’m often in my car for my short summer tour. I listen to the radio. The channel 103.3 Isoradio travel news. The broadcast that tells you why you have been in a queue for two hours or that in 20 kilometres there’s an accident. It’s useful and I’m not joking. At least you know why you are waiting while 40 degrees of heat are battering the bodywork. In fact, usually, when the traffic starts to flow again, you find no traces that explain why the road was blocked. You’ve still got that doubt. “Who on earth was that imbecile that overturned” “At least it must have been something serious to interrupt he motorway for hours.” If you know you feel better. You haven’t suffered in vain. It’s 103.3 that tells you!
At the weekend, something extraordinary happened. Listeners called in, in a state of exultation and wonder, between surprise and dismay. Empty motorways like bowling alleys. One who travels frequently on the Salerno - Reggio Calabria couldn’t believe his eyes! There was not even a dog moving around during the long weekend of the “black mark”. It was the same situation on the Rome – Naples, and on the “Adriatica”. A radio scenario of the “day after” or the announcement of something? Something that is still indistinct, but inexorable. Perhaps the end of a detestable era.
If one day I find myself thinking of the day when everything changed, perhaps I will remember a summer evening, the radio, the empty motorway in front of me and a strange sense of peace. No one with their headlights on or overtaking on the right like one possessed by the devil. I even took my foot off the accelerator, it almost seemed as though I was disturbing people. What’s happening? The Italians have a particular sensitivity. They know when their life will suddenly turn in a new direction. They’re getting ready in good time. They’re going "to the mattresses". It’s an instinct developed over thousands of years of History. Tourism has suddenly collapsed. Even the “short break” type at the weekends. People are falling back on the one-day holiday. You see them coming back to the city in the evening with the car overflowing with bags, bicycles, skateboards, and baby buggies. You ask:”Is that the end of the holidays?” They reply: “No, just a day out in the open air for a picnic.” 103.3, end of July 2011, a magic moment.