Our New Town in Italy

We had our first guests at our new house this week, they arrived Sunday on the first really hot afternoon of the summer. Previously we had been happily sitting in the sun soaking up whatever sunshine was available. Then summer happened all in one day and our first guests arrived in the mid day heat. I could barely stand to open my front door, the heat was so intense as it beat down on us. We scrambled to find where to put the outside table so we could be in the shade, we found a nice spot behind the house in a little courtyard.

The courtyard was right outside the kitchen window with a tall wall covered in ivy that contributed to the feeling of cooIness. The patio is paved in lava stones covered in ancient moss.  So we placed a little wooden table that has already partially yielded to decay there in the shady courtyard. I tossed a tablecloth over the rustic wood to make it acceptable and adorned it with a bowl of tortilla chips and salsa.

Soon a pitcher of frosty mojitos appeared on the table and we started to cool off in the shade. Our glasses of mojitos perspired and coated the outside of our glasses with refreshing condensation. Since these guests have been living in Italy for seven months I knew they would appreciate food from another country, something not Italian. So I made Chili Rellenos, those delicious roasted green chili’s that have been stuffed with cheese and dipped in beaten egg whites and fried up into a fluffy soufflé . It was Mexican food night with beans, chip and salsa and mojitos to drink as we sat in the shade and caught up on each other’s lives.

These guests are friends that we met while here in Italy but they come from South Africa so it is always fun to talk about life as we knew it before our move to Italy. These are my firsts South African friends and I love to hear all about their home and lives in South Africa as well as their adapting to life in Italy. We have much to talk about. Soon nightfalls and we are climbing the stairs to our bedroom, tired from the heat of the day and a night of delightful conversation.

Monday morning arrives and I make a pot of American coffee and enjoy it on the balcony. Our guests have some computer work to do so Jeff and I went into town and met up with Mimo, an Italian friend of ours that is always so helpful to us. He is a local Itri resident and when you are talking about a town of 10,000 people that is important. Often people ask us about our move to this small Italian town nestled in the hills, they wonder how we are being accepted. Often small towns can reject foreigners and treat them like outsiders. Well, it’s too soon to tell, but when your friends with someone like Mimo you feel like the whole town greets you with open arms just as they greet Mimo with kisses on both cheeks and a warm smile. 

One of my older Italian friends from our old location was excited when I told him we decided to move to our tiny hill town in Lazio rather than the touristic beach town of Terracina. He told me: “Terracina has lost its Italian soul, but This one still has it”. Well, that was enough for me, who wants to live in a town with no Italian soul? So, to our tiny hill town we moved, to the green villa on the hill, surrounded by olive groves. 

Now it was time to meet Mimo, first for a coffee because that’s how they roll in Italy, then to the bank. Today was the day after almost two years of living in Italy that we would open our own bank account. Oh, we have tried before but that was before we had residency and ID cards and before we knew Mimo. Now we will try again with our secret weapon. After three hours in the bank we were finally successful in opening a bank account. I don’t think I signed my name as many times as I did when I bought a house in California. But everything in Italy is “piano, piano” (slowly, slowly) The important thing is now we have now succeeded, so we emerged from the bank into the hot noon sun with a bank card. It’s the small successes in life!

So with this little victory under our belt we picked up some groceries for lunch and dinner. First to the little fruit stand for some fennel, bell peppers, lettuce, cucumbers and surprise! There was some fresh beautiful Napolatan Mozzerella sitting there on the counter. It was the last bag and for six euros it was the star of our lunch. We moved on to the butcher shop called “Macelleria”, we picked up a gorgeous T-bone steak called a “Florentine”, a chicken butterflied and some sausage for the grill tonight. Just as you would expect, the butcher kindly threw in some beef bones for free. 

Of course because we are new in town we needed to have proper introductions. First he wanted to know if we were tourists. “No” we say, “We moved here”. Oh! He raised his eye brows, what is your Conome (last name)? I tell him my Italian maiden name, “Oh, it’s Italian, that’s good”, is what his face says. “Where is your family from?” I smile and say “Asti”, it feels good to have a family home. “Oh, Asti, in Piedmonte”, he says as the recognition crosses his face and he accepts me. That feels good….He wraps up my purchases and hands it to me with a smile “Buon Giorno e Arriverdecci”. Now I have a butcher, this same introductory conversation repeats everywhere I go in our small town.

So with our little food treasures in tow we head home for lunch with our guests. For lunch we had Eggplant Parmesan, a big salad, the tiny balls of fresh mozzarella and tomatoes drizzled with olive oil and balsamic, cantaloupe with prosciutto and olives with salami. It was so good! We sat in the shade in the front of the house and gazed out over the valley and mountains.

After lunch we took them to our favorite beach called ail “Il Pirati Spiaggia” (The Pirates beach), where we laid on beach towels and swam in the calm waters. After lulling away most of the afternoon we decided to show them the cute town of Sperlonga that looks like it belongs in the Greek Isles. Its walls are white washed with blue accents painted throughout the old town. It is unlike any other Italian town they have seen and they are romanced by its quaintness.

We walked the inner streets to see the cafes spilling out onto the streets and little tables for drinks set up right on the church steps. I guess when you live with limited space you use what you have. The bright red bougainvillea clings to the white walls providing a striking contrast. We walk out to see the newer, lower city of Sperlonga below us. There is beachfront spread with bright orange lounge chairs and sun umbrellas. Here on the steps between the old town and new are brightly colored tiles adding to the charm. We scramble down the steps toward the strangely shaped lighthouse and look out at the vista of a blue, blue Mediterranean Sea framed by cactus. 

All of this exploring stirred up an appetite so we headed home dreaming of the grilled steak we would eat. We got home about 7:30 and Jeff started our outside grill for the first time while us girls prepared the side dishes. Our house is equipped with a little “pass through” hatch in the kitchen, when you open it, you can pass dishes from the kitchen to the grill area without having to walk all the way around.

Soon the steaks, chicken and sausage were ready and the warm summer air was scented with the aroma of a summer barbecue. We sat at the big table in the front with a Spritz and chatted the evening away while watching the sun set over the mountains. 

Tuesday morning we showed our guests our town and walked up to the castle and meandered in the tiny streets. Then we drove to aneighboring town and met up with some other friends and had a picnic lunch at a pretty park. We were invited to join them at the beach and we accepted, glad that we had the foresight to back our beach stuff in the car. We basked in the sun and played in the water for several hours until we were too exhausted from battling the waves.

Then we hauled ourselves out of the water and sat in the sun eating cherries. After the beach we showed them another cute town near that beach called San Felice, we used to go there all of the time when we lived in our old house in Nettuno. We picked up some mussels and headed home for dinner. We didn’t get home under after 8 and so we were eating steamed mussels around 9:00 pm, whew! We are becoming true Italians!

The morning came for our guests to leave, we hugged and made plans for the next time we would see each other. Maybe a trip to South Africa is in our future? After they left we to Formia, another beach town about 20 minutes away. We went to the open air market and I bought two aprons and a couple of large pieces of fabric (maybe they were table cloths but I used them to make pillows for my outside seating area). I got everything for .50 or €1 each so I loved it. I also found a few ugly pillows for .50 that I recovered with the fabric. I found a large red porcelain cooking pot, some cooking utensils and other fun house stuff, all for €1. At the end of the market morning we also bought fruits and veggies. After we put all of our new treasures in the car we searched for something to eat for lunch but had difficulty finding something. We keep forgetting that everything closes down for lunch.

We finally found some lunch in the grocery store! Jeff got hot wings and I got a potato pizza, sounds strange but it was good. Basically just a pizza crust with thin sliced potatoes and rosemary. We took the lunch and ate in a park overlooking the ocean. Not bad.

We rushed home because I was teaching an English class online with a student from Japan. I spent the rest of the afternoon sewing pillow cushions. Jeff busied himself with hanging shower curtains and fixing the spare room for more guests we will have this weekend. It was so hot in our house, the power had gone out in the morning and still had not come back on by the time we got home at 4:00. Jeff was grumpy  because he just wanted a cool shower and to sit in front of the fan but he could not do either! We have well water and it takes electricity to pull it up. But after a couple of hours of Jeff lounging on the couch watching tv programs on his iPad the power came back on and I heard him shout “yahaaaay,” from the upstairs bedroom.

That night we ate fajitas at the cool table in a courtyard in the back of the house. The front of the house has the views, the sunset and the large table but until the sun sets at 8:30 it’s too hot! So dinner parties will have to be after 8:00 pm. After dinner the sun finally set and it was cool in the front yard. There was still plenty of light so we watered the yards and even the property owners veggie garden on the top terrace. It was so pretty to sit on the old stone wall at the top of the stone stairs and watch the sky turn from golden to cool blue as it was framed by the blue mountain range.

Jeff turned the music on to  “our song” Truly, Madly, Deeply, from our wedding 16 years ago. It sings “I want to stand with you on a mountain, I want to bath with you in the sea, I want to stay like this forever, until the sky falls down on me….” so we slow danced and sang along while we looked down at the valley below us dotted with olive trees and farm houses on rolling hills. We gazed across at the blue mountain range on the horizon and ended another day in this crazy adventure together. Around 11:30 pm I woke up and looked out from the upper balcony of our bedroom and watched the fireflys twinkle in the olive grove below. Through all of the frustration and heat, it’s still a good life and there is no one I would rather spend it with…

If you enjoyed this article you may enjoy other articles I have written about Traveling & Living in Italy:

House Hunters International in Italy (Published April 24, 2019)

A Californian Surfing in Italy (Published May 1, 2019)