Mammoths at the beach

Copyright@Catherine Rodgers Giussani

To understand Italians better you need to know that they like complexities even if it means weighing themselves down with more than fifty pounds of bells like the shepherds that walked through Santa Teresa di Gallura, Sardinia last night for a full moon celebration. According to local folklore the "mamut" shepherds, named after the wooly mammoths they resemble, want to "call the sea" with their many sheep herding bells.

Is this an endurance test? I often ask myself this when on vacation with Italians.  The scenery is beautiful but the 'excess baggage' is really not for me! 

I recently shared  a two bedroom, one bath second floor apartment with three keyed doors for entry with four children, of mixed nationality and ages, and two Italian mothers. When I booked my air tickets I thought it would be two mothers and two daughters, key access optional. That would have been "taking it comfortablly" as the Italian expression goes, a concept, at least in hospitality, that is completelly lost on me! 

The two Italian mothers insisted on waking up at a 11 while their kids flailed around all morning with tv, ipads, drawing kits and other mindless matter. After a good three hours of this they went down to the piazza for coffee, then to the beach at noon only to walk off the beach within an hour to have lunch. Crazy!

I understand not wanting a schedule while you are on vacation and having an occasional lost morning but why parade through town weighed down like a wooly mammoth with no intention to appreciate the sea?