“Later!”
If I were to narrow down the moment when my obsession with Italy really started, the point from which everything else stemmed—learning Italian, cooking Italian, watching Italian, listening to Italian—I would point to the moment I first read this:
“‘Later!’ The word, the voice, the attitude.
I’d never heard anyone use “later” to say goodbye before. It sounded harsh, curt, and dismissive, spoken with the veiled indifference of people who may not care to see or hear from you again.
It is the first thing I remember about him, and I can hear it still today. Later!”
I saw the movie Call Me by Your Name when it came out in theaters in 2017. As I’ve mentioned before on the blog, I Am Love (by the same director, Luca Guadagnino), is one of my all-time favorite films. And I immediately fell in love with Call Me by Your Name as well.
There aren’t a ton of really well-done gay love stories that don’t center around AIDS, infidelity, untimely death, or some other great tragedy. So to see a film that simply told the story of two men falling in love was very moving to me. And yet, I did not read the book after watching the movie. I don’t even remember if I was aware that the movie was based on a book. But for whatever reason, towards the very beginning of the pandemic, I bought the book (along with three other books) from a local book store in Santa Barbara. I had planned to start reading one of the other books first, but when I got home, I was curious how the author, André Aciman, would start the story. I wanted to just read the first sentence to get a feel for what kind of book it was going to be. Again: “Later!” I was so immediately taken by the first line that I quickly read the paragraph. And then I sat down and read the entire chapter. Over the next few days, I read the whole book.
And this book, let me tell you, is beyond spectacular. I remember moments reading it when I thought, ‘how did this man manage to put into words these feelings I have had that I didn’t even think were possible to put into words?’ Because, to be kind of vulnerable and raw with you all for a moment, two men falling in love can be complicated; for many people in the LGBTQ+ community, our initial feelings of love and attraction emerge while under a shroud of secrecy, shame, or worse. With that as background, there is a lot of complexity to navigate at the beginning—and this book transforms that complexity into a really beautiful love story.
So, when it came time to plan my trip to Italy, I decided that I wanted to visit a few of the places where the movie was filmed. And so that’s what I did!
Crema
After renting a car from Milan, I drove my literal yacht-sized SUV to Crema. This is where many of the iconic scenes from the movie were filmed because Crema served as “the town” in the movie. I wasn’t sure what to expect here because the city is pretty small and, to my knowledge, not super touristy. Which is to say that I hadn’t been able to read a ton about what it’s like to visit (versus a place like, say, Rome).
I parked near the center of town and walked through a lovely little shopping area and into the main square, which is anchored by a beautiful church. Across from the church was a small tourist office that clearly knows its audience. In the window, they had all sorts of Call Me by Your Name pictures and information. I went in and found a room with the original table and chairs used in the movie, as well as life-sized cutouts of Timothée Chalamet (Elio) and Armie Hammer (Oliver). They also had some other cool, random stuff, like the music that was composed for Timothée Chalamet’s scene at the piano.
But the absolute best part of the tourist office was Francesca. She greeted me with the most enthusiastic, generous welcome I have ever received. And when she found out that I had traveled from the United States to visit Crema, she made it her mission to ensure that I had the ultimate experience. She piled me up with schwag: a post card, a button, a map, and lots of information sheets. And then I bought more post cards, buttons, and maps that were for sale. (She proudly told me that she personally created the keepsake map that was for sale, which melted my heart, because it’s a really, really cool map.) And then she sent me off to her favorite restaurant which was tucked away in a little alley near the main square.
Pandino
After lunch, gelato, and lots of photos, I hopped in my car and set sail for Pandino, where another iconic scene from the film takes place (in which Elio admits he’s, uh, “into” Oliver as they circle a WWI monument). More photos, more “I can’t believe I’m here, all by myself, in the middle of the Italian countryside, just to visit a random monument because it appeared in a film I really love”-moments.
Farinate
Next, I drove even further into the countryside to visit a small meadow that appears in the film. This was also the point where I thought, “Man, I really have no idea what I’m doing.” Because, while I knew the general vicinity of these places, some of the maps were a bit ambiguous about the precise location. For example, I knew this meadow was in a nature preserve, but like, a nature preserve can be pretty big, you know?
So I arrive, park my car at a small cemetery, and notice that two women are already headed in the direction of a big stand of trees (within which, I think, may be the meadow). They got there a few minutes before me, so by the time I arrived, one of them was already wading in the water, saying “Oh yeah, it really is cold!” At which point, I thought: “cineturismo!”
I joined them along the banks of the pond and we soon became fast friends. (Hi Laurie and Marlow!) We talked for over an hour about the movie, our travels, and much more (they are both from Switzerland with dual citizenship for the United States). After doing most of the tour by myself, it was so fun to be able to share a bit of the experience with other fans. We took photos of each other, compared notes on where we had been already, and laughed about how random it was that we were in the middle of nowhere just to hang out at a pond.
Bergamo
After dropping Laurie and Marlow off at the train station, I made for my final stop of the tour: Bergamo. This is the city in which Elio and Oliver finally get to be alone and run wild in the beautiful, tiny streets of a hillside town.
As I drove towards the bus station (where I was to return my car), things got really, really chaotic. The roads were tight. And busy. And frenetic. I had to circle the block where the Hertz location was supposed to be three times before finally calling them and asking for someone to stand outside and flag me down when I got close to it. When I finally found it, I discovered that it was the tiniest, most unassuming little gate you could ever imagine. And then, once I passed the gate into the postage-stamp-sized parking lot, the Hertz person pointed at a spot for me to park in. I tried several times to maneuver into the spot and finally gave up because, according to my highly-tuned sense of spatial awareness, there was no way that I was going to be able to park my yacht in a boat slip made for a row boat. (You know, I started with this boat metaphor, and I’m just gonna keep going with it until the bitter end.)
So as I get out of the car (which is now parked diagonally, half-way in the parking spot, half-way out), she circles the car…and then points out a giant scratch towards the back right of the vehicle. Full honesty here: I have no recollection of scraping anything during the day. But like, more full honesty: it’s entirely possible that I did. So I agreed to the charges and was on my way to a little hotel in “la città alta,” or the upper part of the city.
Like with Crema, I really didn’t know what to expect with Bergamo because, again, this is not a city that tons of tourists have on their list. But as we climbed the mountain, my heart caught in my throat. Beragmo is, perhaps, my favorite city I’ve visited in Italy so far. It’s got a renaissance feel to it, but, hmmm…how else to describe it? I’ll try some of these words: quaint, charming, rustic. Ugh, none of these are doing it justice. Well, I’m just going to keep going with my story and hopefully between that and the photos, you’ll get a better idea for what it’s like.
So I arrived at my hotel, threw my bags in my room (which had a gorgeous view of the hillside), and headed out for the night. I started out by having aperitivo in Piazza Vecchia before dinner. I chose a table right in the center of the piazza and as a rich, velvet navy took over the sky and I sipped on a Campri soda with some snacks, the bells of several towers (including the one just across the piazza from me), began to majestically chime. And because Italy is on the 24-hour clock and it was 7pm, they all chimed 19 times. It was overwhelmingly beautiful.
After a while, I made my way to dinner at a fanciful little restaurant called Veneria Cozzi. My server, a fabulous woman with a big mass of gray ringlets on her head, luxuriously rolled her “r”’s whenever she said “prrrrego” in response to my “grazie.” “Unconstructed” vegetable lasagna. Polenta with mushrooms and cheese fondue. And tiramisu. All delightful. All delicious.
After dinner, I did what I came to Beragmo to do: wander the streets. I visited a few places where scenes were filmed, and then just kind of meandered amongst the small lanes in hopes of getting lost, which I did, several times. The night was cool and crisp and occasionally a lane I was on would abruptly end at a small wall and before me would be the most sweeping view of the “low land,” stretching out into an expanse of twinkling lights.
I’ve been grateful for every moment I’ve spent in Italy, but for some reason, on this particular night, I felt my gratitude in a deeper, more profound way. Because this part of the trip was so random (and honestly, kind of challenging to pull off), I felt so acutely aware of how lucky I was to be able to immerse myself in world that had brought me so much joy over the years. A world which, previously, I had only been able to experience through a screen. Now, here, I got to actually live in it.