A stray dog naps in the sun in Pompeii.
I write this post on the first of May, a public holiday in Italy. Primo Maggio is also known as Festa del Lavoro, a day to celebrate workers. May Day.
While the day is often used as a day for parades or demonstrations in honor of workers, it is also a day of recreation and relaxation, of outdoor concerts and long lunches.
There is no May Day this year. Those who have been working hard during the coronavirus crisis — the essential workers, the doctors and nurses, the grocery clerks, trash collectors, and delivery drivers — will continue to work hard. Meanwhile those who are marooned at home will wonder what day it is.
Italy is set to awake slowly from its slumber on 4 May. Two weeks later, on the 18th, museums and cultural sites, including Pompeii, are set to reopen.
What sites are you dreaming about?
I’d love to return to Palermo and see an opera at their famous opera house. This may have to wait, though. And the archaeological museum I somehow managed to miss during my trip last September to Ragusa, Sicily.