Heading west …

We have now relocated from the east to the west coast, to a house set on a few acres at the edge of a small town called San Giorgio in the province of Lazio, about an hour by train north of Rome. Firstly we’ll rewind to how we got here …

After three great weeks on the east coast in the La Marche region it was time to move on, and time to give our livers a rest! Our hosts Tim and his three teenagers were always fun and always interesting and we learned a lot about life in Italy by meeting their friends from the ex-pat community and hearing about their day-to-day issues with work, schooling, transport and Italian bureaucracy.

Like our first HelpX stay in northern Italy, and like our current one in Lazio, the area is full of small medieval hill towns, and having access to a car made visiting them on our off-days so much easier. Though, as anyone who has driven in Italy will tell you, driving is always “interesting”! Speed limits, not using cellphones, overtaking and parking restrictions are apparently more of a guide than actual laws. And the risk of being caught anywhere near lunchtime would be remote indeed.

We took the bus across country to Rome as there is no direct train route. A very modern clean coach, even if it still runs to Italian time, i.e. it was 20 minutes late and we were only the second stop. It contained a driver and a barista (though he might have had other duties - baggage handler and second driver). Travelling cross-country was an opportunity to see the hinterland. As we crossed the Apennines it was very mountainous, lots of tunnels and national parks. Beautiful views of Gran Sasso (2,912m), the highest peak in Italy south of the Alps.  We arrived at the Rome bus station, a short walk then to the train station – Tiburtina – which we found very confusing as it is undergoing redevelopment: huge new empty floors with no one around. Luckily we found one stall selling cappuccini and brioches. A regional train then took us north for an hour to where we were picked up by Pauline (another Inglese), our new host.

Our new home in San Giorgio, Lazio

We are now in the province of Lazio and it is quite rural. Plenty of attractive medieval villages and pretty countryside, but I suspect that it is lesser known due to its location – between Rome and Umbria and Tuscany. Tourists pass it by, hurrying between the better known regions. 

Plenty of these to visit!

So far we have had one trip around the local medieval villages and they are just as attractive and neat as elsewhere, though we’re back to stone rather than the brick of the eastern parts.  

And this is the best way to see them!

Tomorrow we are off to Rome for the day so there will be more to report soon.

And to finish this post here is a typical day here:

Start work around 9:30 am. It is definitely a little cooler in the mornings now as we head into Autumn, though it is still warming up to mid to high 20s C later in the day. Work for the last week has involved solid strimming and mowing. This lasts until 11am when coffee is ready. After a half-hour break it is back into it until lunch is served around 2pm. Lunch is a leisurely meal of several courses, cold meats, salads, bread, fruit, left-overs, and all with the property’s own olive oil on everything. Wine is mandatory, especially as we're operating machinery after lunch …

Work then continues for another hour or so until heat/exhaustion takes over, and then it is a dip in the swimming pool to cool off followed by a shower.  Then it is time to relax until dinner where the vicious eating/drinking cycle continues …

And in case you weren't already jealous enough ...

The view out of our bedroom window

A short dissertation on Italian food

I’ll happily confess to knowing next to nothing about Italian food but here are a few observations that I have made recently. I might add to this as we get more experience …

Italians eat Italian food. Though we have seen McDonalds in the cities, there don’t appear to be many foreign chain or ethnic restaurants anywhere else. Getting a slice of pizza from one of the many small pizzerias take care of the quick fill-up, elsewhere local food is to be savoured. Slowly.

I can’t comment on breakfast as we have been staying with non-Italians so far and keep to our fruit-and-muesli staple, though recently the fruit has been fresh figs off the tree. Lunch appears to be the main meal as everyone stops work and goes home for lunch. Most shops shut from between 12 till 1pm and don’t reopen till 4pm. That’s an 'Italian' 4pm, i.e. when they get round to it. And those lunches can really take three hours as we have found out!

The evening meal may not be such a big meal, maybe just some pasta, unless you go out, in which case it might be huge! But both lunch and dinner include wine which is probably another reason a siesta before returning to work is a good idea.

A couple of things that normally happen in Italian restaurants outside of Italy but not here (except some tourist ones) is the serving of bread sticks and the coming around with the big pepper pot. Also, garlic bread is slices of bread, slightly toasted, served with a clove of garlic for you to rub into it.

A typical meal would be a course where you help yourself to cold meats (salamis, prosciutto), followed by a pasta dish, followed by the cooked meats. If there is a salad then it is eaten separately, not everything loaded on your plate at once. Fresh bread too, just in case the pasta wasn’t providing enough carbohydrates.

As I write this we are lucky enough to be in a wine-growing area so wine is plentiful and cheap and you can fill your own five litre bottles. A local delicacy is vino cotto. This is wine that has been reduced by boiling, often to one third of the original volume, which makes it stronger in alcohol and flavour. You only need a very small amount and I can’t say I liked it, usually.

A new friend, Jean, invited us to her Italian husband’s family home for lunch.  He makes his own vino cotto (and normal wine). He has a large barrel and, once it is drunk down to halfway, they top it up with a new brew. In that way there are traces of every previous year’s vintage. His one has traces from 250 years ago, though in homoeopathic quantities! The barrel gets handed down through the generations. It certainly tasted better than the restaurant brews, and it was a real privilege to be offered it. Candido also makes world-class salamis and prosciutto; he came second in all of Italy for his prosciutto and it has been served at Buckingham Palace. The family lives in a converted convent with numerous floors, containing a shop, his business, cool stores (with lots of security as the product is so valuable), living apartments, and floors in various states of decay. The foundations are Roman, the rest slightly newer. Next door is the Count’s “palace” – we saw him looking very scruffy getting into his beaten up Fiat to go and see his farm workers … but I digress. 

Top quality prosciutto hang, covered in fat to stop the weevils getting in, for up to 3 years before they are ready to sell. So a typical lunch with this family (three generations) was a selection of his top quality meats, his own wine, fresh bread, followed by a simple pasta dish, then pieces of veal and mutton chops. Then a homemade tart for dessert, plus one we’d picked up from a patisserie. And the special vino cotto.

We haven’t seen a lot of livestock in the fields apart from the local sheep with shepherd and dogs in tow. I suspect a lot of them are kept inside. It may explain why meat isn’t that cheap in Italy when other food items tend to be.

Vicki would like to add a bit about sausages.  Up until the time we left home I avoided eating sausages.  In England I found they could be pretty good - certainly very edible.  But in Italy the sausages are fabulous!  They're tasty and meaty.  A gourmet treat compared to the rubbish we usually find at home.

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!

Interlude in Bologna

Sensory overload – what a place! But, backing up a bit, we arrived in Bologna on Monday evening.. We left Switzerland looking forward to returning to Italy. Switzerland was certainly very beautiful but there is something indefinable about Italy – you either love it (like us) or hate it (like our Swiss friend Walter). We left Spiez on a fast train south to Brig and then through the Simplon tunnel into Italy. Unfortunately they were working on the line so we were transferred to a bus to Domodossola and then back onto a train to Milan. With all the delay we still managed to arrive on time in Milan. Speed limits must have been broken!

Our trip from Milan to Bologna later that day was very impressive on a very new Italian train. Over 200kms in 1 hour. The tracks were dead straight most of the way, double glazing made it very silent, and when you flashed past cars on the motorway you realized that you were going fast. At one point the speedo in the carriage clocked up 300 km/hr. Also on the motorway were several huge traffic jams as people headed back from holidays on the coast.

As it is the quiet season in Italian cities (they’re all on holiday at the coast) there are many hotel bargains. We picked one up via booking.com for 120 Euros for two nights in a nice 3 star hotel including big breakfasts. And only a 20 minute stroll to the centre of town. Of course, we never get anywhere walking in 20 minutes – too many stops for picture-taking!

Typical covered shopping street

All we know about Bologna, apart from being the major rail gateway in northern Italy, is that it is red (so many of the old buildings were made from brick), it is home to the oldest university in the world, and graffiti appears to be a compulsory local pastime. The pavements along the shopping streets are covered walkways and there are numerous old buildings. Around the centre it is hard to know where to look as there are huge churches and civic buildings everywhere. And the outlying streets take you down covered walkways past museums and university buildings to the old city walls.

Sadly so many of the monuments and buildings are covered in graffiti with no respect given for their age. Possibly the downside of having so many students around.

It was our first opportunity to act like complete tourists for a (short) period, rather than staying with locals. We enjoyed the location and our first evening meals out since leaving England. Superb and cheap pizzas and pastas. One more day would have been better to give us time to explore some of the museums and galleries form the inside, but it is time to move on to our next HelpX hosts.

Switzerland videos

Here's something to test your bandwidth!

Gastental

This valley is less well known and is the only gravel road I've seen yet in Switzerland. It is narrow so only one-way at a time: there is a 20 minute slot on the hour for going in and a similar one on the half-hour for returning.

The road is embedded in the rock

And here is a short video of the road out ...

Grimsel Pass

This pass over into southern Switzerland (towards Brig) is 2165m high and a classic hairpin bend alpine climb. Lots of cyclists and motorcyclists out for a sunny day. A usual there is a restaurant or two at the top. There are lots of hydro dams up here. We took a side trip form the top (another one-way road) into a hydro dam which gets its water from a glacier at the end of the lake. We managed a picnic in the sun at the lakeside and saw some Marmots wandering around. Here is a longer video of the journey in (you may want to skip through it a bit) ...

Grindelwald

A classic Swiss alpine town due to the wonderful location - snuggled beneath the north face of the Eiger with the Monch and the Jungfrau close at hand. There are numerous cable cars, gondolas and trains heading up to various vantage points including a couple of villages higher up that have no road access. It is also famous as the starting point for the railway that heads up through the middle of the Eiger to nearly the summit of the Jungfrau. Here is a very short video of some of the mountains.

Switzerland - part 2

Fribourg

We’re now into our last few days before heading back to Italy and, while we look forward to that, Switzerland has been very good to us too. Since the last post we have finished our time in Belp with our host there, Astrid. As we managed to complete a few good jobs for her – laying big paving stones, cleaning a garage roof, clearing vacant land next door, and felling a tree – we had more time with her. She had been due to fly out to Hong Kong for a few days (free, courtesy of her daughter the flight attendant) but the flight was over-booked and she couldn’t go so she spent her days off taking us around the western part of Switzerland. This area is very distinctive as they speak French, the signs are only in French, and the towns are not quite as neat. We actually enjoyed the more rustic edge to the towns.

Neuchatel

Fribourg and Neuchatel and the villages around them were particularly attractive. Like so much here it is very hard to get a feeling of the age of the places as they often still build in the same styles and look after the old places so well, so a house could be 50 years or 400 years old.

400 year old houses in Brienz

We finally managed a “swim” in the local Aare river – more of a jump-in-and-get-swept-downstream experience. People of all ages were doing it so it must be safe! Just had to avoid the numerous inflatable boats heading downstream at the same time.

Walter and Helen's house with NZ flag

All change since then – we have spent the last week at Vicki’s friends Walter and Helen’s place in the little village of Krattigen, overlooking one of the lakes adjoining Interlaken. This is much more alpine and the Switzerland of the calendars. Walter and Helen are both great climbers and walkers so they both knew the names of all the peaks in the region and have trekked over many.

Their daughter has a flat in Grindenwald, at the base of the Eiger. We had a picnic there (every day so far up here has been perfect – hot and sunny) and it was amazing looking up at the north face of the Eiger and then across to the Monch and Jungfrau. Not only are you nestled in under famous mountains the height of Mt Cook, you can look up at alpine huts and villages further up. Everywhere you look in the alps there seem to be the chalet-style houses dotted incredibly high up the slopes, and huts and even restaurants perched over sheer cliffs, often with a cable car, gondola or mountain railway for access. For some villages that is their only form of access. No roads. Walter said that often you can spend hours and hours climbing a peak, only to find a restaurant and car park there!

We noticed numerous Muslim tourists in the well-known spots, the women often dressed in the full burka. Typically near expensive hotels and watch shops, of which there are many in Interlaken.

A couple of the valleys we went to only have one-way roads into them, so you can only enter and exit at set times, e.g. every hour for 15 minutes you can head up the road, every half-hour for 15 minutes you can head down. Many of the alpine villages are constantly under threat from wash-outs and avalanches.

Oh, we can now add Marmots to our list of creatures seen in the wild (well I can, Vicki missed out).

Our most recent trip has taken us to Emmental, the cheese region. Once again it is quite different: rolling hills, much more gentle. And the biggest houses I have seen. Huge farmhouses that incorporate hay lofts and a barn.

Emmental

Switzerland - part 1

Beware Swiss beer!

It is time to reflect on the first half of our short stay here as we near the end of our stay with our host Astrid and move on in a few days to our friends Walter and Helen for the last week. Switzerland is everything we imagined it to be and remember it to be from previous trips here many years ago, namely neat, great scenery, neat, pretty towns, neat, efficient public transport, neat, expensive, neat, cycle-ways everywhere. Did I mention neat?

On the work front we have been putting in a good 25 hours per week, which is in the range Helpx people normally do. For us this has consisted of gardening, laying some paving stones and general work around the house and section.

Thun

In return for the work Astrid has been feeding us, though there is a large quantity of meat and potatoes involved – we suspect that this is a Swiss thing. Certainly a little more than we are used to. Astrid has also taken us for a few outings: to Berne, the Swiss capital and a university town just a few kilometres away; to Thun, a very pretty town next to a lake; and most recently to Gruyere (of the cheese), a medieval village and castle in the French-speaking part of the country. Like everywhere, Gruyere is so neat it looks more like a film set than an ancient village!

Gruyere

One of the highlights so far was a visit to the H R Giger museum in the village of Gruyere. He is the artist who helped design the special effects for the movies Alien, Dune and Species. Wonderful and imaginative paintings and sculptures including those of various Aliens and items from the movies. Not for the kids or the easily offended! Unfortunately no photography allowed inside the galleries, but there were a few sculptures outside and, across the way, an amazing bar decked out like a scene from Alien. Unfortunately the bar girls weren’t decked out like the models in his paintings …

Inside the H R Giger bar

We’ve noticed that a lot of Swiss seem to cycle. There are good cycle ways everywhere, both next to roads and completely away from them. There seems to be a major cross-Switzerland route alongside the river near here with spurs heading off in all directions.  People of all ages are out, presumably while they can before the snows arrive. We have used the bikes here a few times as a means of getting around, even though we have been offered the use of the car. Much more fun on the bikes on these quiet lanes.

 

We will probably do a few more local cycle rides as the weather generally is good here in summer. We did have a few days of rain the first week but on the sunny days it does get into the high 20s. If we can organise the transport we might do what the locals here do on hot days – jump into the river upstream and float down – it is a big river and the current is really strong, but this doesn’t stop numerous kids and adults jumping off the town bridges and trying to get out downstream. Whenever you look at the river there is a stream of inflatable boats coming down!