I’ve been thinking about water lately. Not in some profound way or anything, just the way it catches light and how it makes everything around it feel softer somehow. The Italian lakes do that better than anywhere I’ve been, and I guess I’ve been to a few places by now.

Lake Como was the first one I saw, back when I still thought taking pictures of everything would help me remember it better. The ferry was this ancient thing that smelled like diesel and wet rope, and I remember standing at the railing watching these impossibly grand villas slide past like something out of a movie set. But it was the sound that got me - not the engine or the water against the hull, but this weird quiet that settled over everything when we were between stops. Just the mountains reflecting in the water and old Italian men in pressed shirts reading newspapers like they had all the time in the world.

Lake Garda was different. Bigger, more touristy, but there was this one morning when I woke up early in Sirmione and walked down to the water before anyone else was up. The fog was still hanging over everything and these swans were just floating there, not doing much of anything. I sat on this stone wall that was probably older than my country and ate a terrible gas station croissant that somehow tasted perfect in that moment. You know?

Then there was Lake Maggiore with its islands that look like they were placed there by someone with really good taste. Isola Bella and all those terraced gardens that make you wonder how many people had to carry how much dirt up all those stairs. The peacocks were strutting around like they owned the place, which I guess they kind of do.

But it’s the in-between moments I think about most now. The way the light hit the water at exactly 6:47 PM from that restaurant balcony overlooking Bellagio. How my shoes got soaked walking along the shore at Varenna because I was too busy looking up at the mountains to watch where I was stepping. The taste of that Aperol Spritz that was mostly ice by the time I finished it, sitting there watching boats come and go like they’d been doing the same thing for centuries.

I wonder if those places change much, or if they just keep being beautiful while everything else gets complicated…