I'm working my way through H.V. Morton's "A Traveller in Italy" (copyright 1964) and came across this passage that perfectly describes a dilemma I'm having:
I was met by a friend who had been asked to lecture at the University
and was staying in Pavia. He rushed me around from church to church,
casting scraps of information at me, as to a hungry dog, until I
refused to digest any more.This is a familiar moment to most strangers in Italy. The riches of
the country, architecturally, historically, artistically, become at
times intolerable, and one envies the specialist who is interested in
only one period or history or in the work of one painter. Also there
is so much to see and understand that a guide almost drives one mad:
one must find one's own way in one's own time and make one's own
selection.
Thus my problem: I could cheerfully spend the rest of my travels in Italy at the expense of anywhere else. There is much too much there already for my past-best-used-by-date brain to begin to manage. Should I become as smitten with another country (or a dozen, heaven help me), and attempt to acquire, sort and file as much information, I'm afraid the old, overloaded thing will simply explode. Ka-boom. Mad as a box of frogs.
Are any of you so punch-drunk with a place as to have made it a singular focus? Is there something warped about choosing to know a lot about one place versus a little about a lot of places? Or maybe your heads can wrap around more than mine???