At play, with the crowd, on Sardinia

The young English boy playing in the sea off the beach at Villasimius on the south-eastern tip of Sardinia could have been a younger version of myself playing in the Adriatic 54 years ago. 

Instead, I was walking towards him and could not help hearing his enthusiasm as we progressed down a steep road that led to the beach, whose smells were just as evocative. The stone pines that overhang the path we took were so heady, so reminiscent of Italy and its beaches, that it took only a brief moment among them to bring back memories of all my...