After that summer in Eastbourne, I spent five years living in Britain, at three London addresses (not including a squat in suburban Leytonstone in 1979). For 10 years, I wrote for The Economist, and for 34 years I have been a member of the Reform Club in London. There were many journeys (from Cornwall to the Outer Hebrides), a few books and radio programs, a dozen great English friends — all of whom voted Remain, of course — and an O.B.E. (Order of the British Empire), which Queen Elizabeth graciously bestowed upon me in 2001, for explaining the British to the Italians and vice versa (not difficult, Your Majesty: We used to like each other).

In a little more than a year, when the transition period is over and Britain has left the E.U. for good, I’ll probably be required, as an Italian national, to obtain a visa to return to the country that played such an important part in my life. If I flew from Milan to Hong Kong, I wouldn’t need one; to fly to London Heathrow, I expect to need one.

Am I angry? No. Surprised, yes. And disappointed, somehow. Like millions of fellow Europeans, I still can’t swallow it. Why had it happened this way? Three and a half million Continental Europeans live in Britain (the Italians number a solid half million). Many more lived there and since then visit often — for business, for pleasure, to see their friends. Because we like the place, the beer or the people — maybe all of these things. Because we feel the difference in atmosphere, physical and moral. “The curious, damp, blunt, good-humored, happy-go-lucky, old-established, slow-seeming formlessness of everything,” was the way the author John Galsworthy put it in 1917.

No one will prevent us from going back to Britain, of course. But things will be different. We are afraid we won’t feel quite as welcome.

Italy, Germany, Sweden, Poland, Spain — even France — considered London to be Europe’s unofficial capital. Rome is older, Paris may be grander, Berlin possibly more powerful. And Brussels, of course, is where the common rules are drawn up and the shared money is allocated. But the home of the ideas was always London: The best writing, the best films, the best music, the best soccer, the best design, arguably the best art and some of the smartest young people were there. Even the best food, lately, as people from Europe — and beyond — brought their skills and traditions.