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Your friends have been harping on it for years: Italians are cheerful French; architectural masterpieces are everywhere; fashion is around the corner; and cooking… O Madonna! It’s too much. Stuck in your pride, you finally take the step – and the Alps – to check for yourself. How, the country of 1,000 cheeses and classified grands crus, the homeland of Cognac, Yves Saint-Laurent and Louis Le Vau would not be alone in the world!
In a makeshift car, you take the road. Once the tunnel has passed, you keep your feet to the ground, but a slight breeze of doubt assails your Gallocentrism. Everything seems familiar to you, yet a veil of exoticism takes on your certainties. Turin, its tailors and its covered market astound you; the wines of Tuscany leave you speechless; as for Florence, there is nothing to say that could not tarnish its brilliance.
It is by making a stop towards the South, not far from the Adriatic, in Ascoli Piceno, that your heart capsizes for good. Fleeing the heat of this early summer, you find refuge under the arcades of the famous Caffè Meletti. From the terrace of this neoclassical setting – the property of the family and artisanal distillery of the same name, founded in 1870 – you can admire the piazza del Popolo, a jewel of the Cinquecento style. Anisetta, sambuca, liquore al caffè, amaro, aperitivo and limoncello roll by, splashing you with their freshness and fragrance.
Men with impeccable striped suits sit at the table, seeming to ignore the heat wave; in the distance, an Italian woman with the false air of Anita Ekberg disappears in an alley; smells of cooking reach you… Your soul is peaceful, your mind still a little confused. Sarà perched ti amo.
Succumb to the dolce vita, and discover Meletti Italian liqueurs
