I love this word. Thank you!!!
I have always had this dis-ease. Less now than in earlier years, but still. It’s funny how small we think the world is when we’re young and overcome with “fernweh.” We learn when we’re older what an immense thing it is, how complex and intricate, how lovely, intoxicating and scary.
Here’s the thing about fernweh. We might have ideas about where we long to go, but when we GET there the places are always three dimensional. I think there are as many wandering styles as there are people. I’ve been lucky to have had a Swiss/Italian family of my own for a while. It’s a long probably fascinating story how that happened, but what a wonder and gift it was, has been to me. It was during that time of my life that I learned that I like BEING in a place long enough or often enough that it becomes more than a dot on a map to me. I think, in a way, I haven’t traveled around; I’ve traveled into.
The other evening I was talking to a friend about the opera. I was rhapsodizing about attending the opera in the Arena in Verona back in 2004. The Arena is a Roman amphitheater and as I talked to my friend I heard myself yearning to BE there.

We talked about the difference between opera in Italy and in the United States. I’d told him that I’d thought of going to the Santa Fe Opera (2 hours away!) which is a world class opera, but when I priced out everything it was almost the same as traveling to Verona to go to the opera.
“You know why? Because here the opera is only for fancy, snotty rich people. In Italy it’s part of life.”
I agreed. I cherish the image of sitting on the sun-warmed marble seats of the Arena waiting for Madame Butterfly to begin. Everyone around us was talking laughing, some had brought a picnic supper. It was the most wonderful atmosphere. And those magical seats were only something like $6.
It was the second opera I’d attended in the Arena. The first was Aida which Verdi first performed in the Arena. I bought fancy close-in seats with backs and arms. It was OK, but NOTHING compared to those marble seats that had held Roman asses. At the end of the Madame Butterfly, a storm came up and we had to leave. Part of the experience was hurrying down the stone steps in the dark, tunnel-like stairwells down which Romans had poured in their time.
Since then, they’ve built a cover for the Arena so people aren’t chased out by rain. Personally, I think that’s a pity.
Once outside, having said “Ciao!” to my schoolmates (it was my last night in Verona and this had been kind of a party), I turned toward home, an apartment on the other side of the Adige. I walked up the hill to the bridge. the river was lined with Linden trees all in bloom. I stood on the bridge watching the river, immersed in the fragrance of the trees, knowing that I would always remember being chased out of the Arena by rain and ending up alone watching rain hit the Adige.
No tourist guide anywhere mentions anything like that.
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2020/08/12/rdp-wednesday-fernweh/