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tyrants…who cut the peasants off from any hope of freedom and a decent existence.” Levi’s solution was dramatic in its visionary simplicity: “All of Italy…must be renewed from top to bottom. We must rebuild the foundations…with the concept of the individual. The name of this way out is autonomy…self-governing rural communities.” This, Levi stated vehemently “is what I learned from a year of life underground.”
    Good heavens, I thought, as I signed the papers for my rental car and watched the northern lady stride off to claim her Mercedes, just what kind of place am I going to?
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    T HE DRIVE SOUTH became increasingly dramatic. As I left the great bowl of Rome behind, the mountains began to surge in on both sides of the freeway. To the east the snowcapped peaks of the Monti Simbruini, part of the Abruzzese Appennine chain, rose like cloaked wraiths above rugged foothills sprinkled with white hilltop towns. There they were, perched like clustered fairy-tale villages on the edge of impossible precipices, some so high above the Sacco River Valley that they seemed disconnected, inaccessible, and dreamily surreal. Rugged remnants of eleventh-century Norman castles, peering down from high-vantage-point aeries, added to the aura of romantic fantasy.
    The mountains to the west rose abruptly, aggressively, from the valley floor and huddled, huge and ogre-like, striated with eroded, skeletal-white strata, their summits bare and wild. Freeway signs toNaples, “Capital of the South,” beckoned, but I decided to save that intense and intrigue-laced city for a future visit and instead soared on southwards around cloud-cocooned Vesuvius and down into the mammoth ranges of the Alburni, Maddalena and Cilento Mountains. Here, I sensed, was the true topographic barrier between North and South, the place where the strangeness begins, a gateway to the great bastion of Basilicata itself.
    At Lagonegro, perched high in a mountain cleft, I paused at one of those remarkable freeway service centers, gaudy with restaurants, motels, and mini-supermarkets crammed with elegant and tantalizing displays of regional delights—huge, golden wheels of bread; aged, mold-encrusted cheeses; wrinkled salamis; prosciutto; odd-shaped pastas; oils; olives; wine; and endless bizarre liqueurs. This was my first real encounter with Italian gastronomic overabundance, and my basket seemed to fill itself, abundantly. I obviously bought far too much but convinced myself that, if I got into the impromptu Italian picnic mode, nothing would be wasted. My enthusiasm was doused somewhat as I handed over a king’s ransom in brand-new euro bills to the cashier, but her empathetic nods and her obviously impressed smile at my gourmand’s selection and capacity made me feel I was already adopting the appropriate dolce vita attitude toward gustatory excess.
    On the way out, manhandling two enormous shopping bags, I noticed a photograph on a promotional display showing the nearby and very appealing little coastal town of Sapri, sprinkled around an idyllic bay against a backdrop of soaring ranges. My impulsive explorer–self immediately resurfaced, informing me that this was obviously an ideal place for a brief sortie. “Time is all yours,” he reminded me, “for as long as you need or wish.” And that little encouraging mantra kept repeating itself as I hairpinned down two thousand feet of riotous mountainscape to the Caribbean blue Tyrrhenian Sea.
    Viva’s Views on Almost Everything
    â€œYou can call me Viva,” she said. “It’s Louisa Vita, really, but I like Viva better, don’t you?”
    I do, particularly after half an hour with this dynamic young lady of light and life, who spoke excellent English and happened to be the breakfast hostess at a little hotel I’d discovered right on the beachfront in Sapri. This funky-spirited, smart-dowdy, rich-poor,