Return to paradise

View from the house

We’re living in a lesser-known part of Italy, about halfway down the east coast, up on a ridge-line with a 180 degree view that takes in the Adriatic (allegedly you can see Croatia on a clear winter’s day), modern and old villages, and some serious mountains. We’re lucky to be staying in a big house where we have our own apartment downstairs. And out the door is a 25m infinity pool! Luckily the temperature has been on the high 20s ever since we arrived.

Vicki is helping out for a week at an English-language camp for children run by our hosts. It is held at a local “agritourismo”, a working farm set up with accommodation. She isn’t getting much sleep due to the rowdy boys! I have the easy job of spending my days strimming, hedge-cutting, and driving around dropping off our hosts' kids. And testing out the pool.

The Adriatic, as seen from the house

This is the Italy of several decades ago – not known by tourists as there are no particularly famous sights and it is a little isolated – Italians will flock to the beaches further north (Rimini) but the rest is blocked off by mountains. The locals are keen on promoting it further but won’t as that would require an effort – and the 3-hour lunches get in the way! Everyone stops work and comes home for lunch – even the school kids finish their day in time for an, albeit very late, lunch (mind you, they go to school on Saturdays too). We’ve had some good lunches, usually with wine, but one of the most memorable was sitting outside in a small medieval town square under a café’s gazebo looking out over a wonderful view of valleys and hills and other old towns. Warm sunshine, the only people around, two huge slices of pizza and a bottle of water, all for 3.40 euro (about NZD $5).

As usual we're not getting much practice with the language as we’re again staying with native English speakers. And most of their friends we have met are ex-pats – Mike the English physio whose hobby is growing some of the world’s hottest chillies, Dwight the American ex-surgeon who now makes very expensive wine full time, Jean who teaches English and is married to a local, and Peter who has retired here. They all speak great Italian.

Moresco, as seen from our house

At the festival

Many of the old towns around here have an annual festival. We went to the one in the nearest town, Moresco, last Saturday evening. The main square was filled with trestle tables and food tents. For 5 euro you got a good meal of local delicacies and a glass of wine. A live band started up with a few Italian songs and mostly 1980’s English-language pop songs. It kept up till midnight and all the young kids (pre-teens) were still dancing – children stay up very late here.

As we have the use of a car we hope to do some exploring next week. We’ve had one full day out so far when we explored several of the local old villages. Quite different from those of northern Italy though still built on hill tops for defence. The buildings seem to be mostly of brick and in very good condition, so it is hard to tell the 12^th Century ones from the 18^th Century ones. The towns are very clean, no rubbish nor graffiti, only a few abandoned houses, flowers everywhere. It all looks very prosperous, few old cars, but the locals seem to spend a lot of time (during their 3-hour lunches) discussing how bad things are, the dreadful state of the economy, and how there is no hope for Italy. Apparently the tax rate can be 59%, which would be crippling if anyone paid it. There is a big grey market and some shops have two tills. But it makes it very difficult for small companies to employ someone.

There are plenty of good swimming beaches on this coast. Mostly pebbles and a mixture of private beaches (deck chairs, toilets, bars) and public ones. There is a very short season for tourists (August) then the place is pretty quiet. Our local beaches at Pedaso stretch for kms and have breakwaters, which makes the swimming very good (and still nice and warm now). There are showers on the beaches to. The only slightly disconcerting thing is the frequent trains whizzing by as the train line runs down the coast next to the beach. But it is made up for by the presence of La Tentazione – perhaps the best gelato in the home of gelato? And open till midnight …

Filing up the wine ...

Other local food is very good too, and cheap. We fill up flagons of organic wine from a local shop for 1.20 euro a litre and get fresh milk from a farm (butchery, cheese-maker, and restaurant) for 1 euro a litre. a tiny village across the valley, Campofilone) has 10 pasta makers!

Montefiore

This is one of those few places in the world like NZ where you can go skiing and swimming in the sea within a day, not that you would. The mountains near here are seriously large and easy to see as the air is so clear – there are no cities or large industries in this area so little pollution.



The countryside is so interesting as it is a patchwork of very diverse fields, typically turned over earth, grass for hay, olives, grapes, vegetables, little woods, solar arrays, fruit trees, corn and many other crops. There are even sheep! The local flock is looked after by an old shepherd and his vicious wolves sheep dogs. He seems to spend his time sitting watching his flock or moving them down the road to other fields. But he isn’t popular here as he probably poisoned our hosts’ 2 dogs and some other local ones. The trials of rural life.

I was just reflecting on how we arrived in rain but every day since it has been hot and very sunny. But I am told they get a lot of heavy snow here in winter and there are about four miserable months of snow and rain. Snow tyres have to go on in November.

Vicki has just arrived back from her week at the language school looking very, very tired. No doubt more about this on the next post …

Ciao for now!