LA DOLCE VISTA The gardens and courtyards of Villa Cimbrone have been visited by notable guests including Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, Winston Churchill
and Greta Garbo.
“You can keep your lens cap on
when in the Amalfi Coast and still
take a beautiful picture, the place
is that gorgeous,” he says.
Born and bred in Greenwich
Village, Fisher retired from Fodor’s
and left New York City for Montclair
shortly afterward. “Only lawyers
and dentists can afford to live in
the Village now,” he says. “All the
creative people have left.”
In Montclair, he’s writing a new
life chapter in which he plans to
continue his role as “ambassador” for
the Amalfi Coast through his website,
The Passionate Traveler, and the
lecture circuit.
On October 25, from 7-9 p.m.,
he will give a talk at Van Vleck
House and Gardens titled “Bella
Italia,” featuring slides of his photos,
Italian wines and Neapolitan music.
Proceeds from ticket sales will go
to support Van Vleck.
Fisher is looking forward to
getting to know his new neighbors at
the event. Though he’s enjoying his
adopted hometown of
Upper Montclair, which he describes
as “an adorable little nook, one of
those toy villages you’d have on a
Lionel train set,” he says, “I still feel
a bit marooned here as a single” after
so many decades in New York City.
His talk will focus on the aes-
thetic charms of Positano, Ravello,
Sorrento, Amalfi, and Capri, along
with their history.
“Turns out it wasn’t me who first
discovered the region,” he jokes. “The
fan club for the Amalfi Coast goes
back to Emperors Tiberius and Nero,
who built their own villas on the
coast to escape overheated Rome,
and invented the very concept of
vacation.”
Then, in the 19th Century, English
royalty discovered Campania. Lords
and ladies “succumbed to the sun,”
he says, building many of the coastal
villas and beautiful gardens you can
stay in today. “People say the English
discovered the Amalfi Coast, but
actually the Italians ended up civiliz-
ing the English,” he says. “There’s a
wonderful alchemy there.”
A big part of what made the
area so attractive to the English,
he says, was the idea of “la dolce
far niente,” or “the sweetness of
doing nothing” — which also makes
the region an ideal destination for
Americans today. The slow pace,
coupled with scenery “so beauti-
ful it hurts,” he says, has made the
coast a favorite escape for poets,
artists, composers and authors. The
Van Vleck lecture will include a vir-
tual visit to the private Amalfi Coast
home of Graham Greene and the
island retreat of Rudolf Nureyev,
and tell tales of the literati, such as
D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf,
and Truman Capote, who gained
inspiration there.
“The Amalfi Coast is like a spa
for the spirit,” Fisher says.
“Friends sometimes ask why I keep
heading back to Italy when there is so
much of the world to see,” he says.
“To my mind, if there’s a place as
beautiful as Italy, why go anywhere
else?” ■
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