You’d be hard pressed to find a circolo where there wasn’t a group of friends, smoking and dealing hand after hand. Septuagenarians huddle around shaky sidewalk tables in front of their local bar, playing round after round of Burraco, spurred on by afternoon espressos. Sunday lunches with family quickly turn into languid afternoons of Scopa, which gets more and more heated as more and more bottles of wine are emptied.
For the sweltering afternoons in the Caribbean, it’s dominoes for the salons peppered with playing tables in China, it’s mahjong for us Italians, it culminates with cards. Phones disregarded, circled shoulder-to-shoulder, a sort of excited yet expectant energy reverberates among players.
