Travelers often fill their suitcases with souvenirs like refrigerator magnets, Christmas ornaments, keychains and postcards—little trinkets to remind them of their vacation. Now, those visiting the Italian lakeside town of Como have another, slightly less conventional item to bring home: a sealed can of Lake Como air. ItalyComunica, a communications company, is selling 13.
5-ounce cans of “pure air from the most beautiful lake in the world” for roughly $11 (€9.90) each. The cans—which are marketed as “luxurious” souvenirs on the product website —have a dark blue label with an illustration of a boat cruising through the water.
“Open it whenever you need a moment of escape, tranquility or simply beauty,” instructs the website. “Only those who visit Lake Como can want to buy our souvenir; memories are not bought but lived. The man behind Lake Como Air is Davide Abagnale, a marketing specialist who initially started selling Lake Como posters.
The canned air is “not a product; it’s a tangible memory that you carry in your heart,” Abagnale tells CNN ’s Issy Ronald and Barbie Latza Nadeau. He adds that, once travelers open the cans, they can repurpose them to hold pens and pencils. Alessandro Rapinese, the mayor of Como, tells CNN that he would rather vacationers buy silk scarves, which the region is known for, or other souvenirs.
However, he adds: “If someone wants to take some of their air home, that’s fine as long as they also take beautiful memor.
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