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The road up to the rented villa was steep and winding, not at all straightforward for a touring caravan to negotiate, however our friend Guido kindly allowed us to park our caravan on his piece of land overlooking a delightful, hidden little cove. The grounds were overgrown with waist high weeds, so in exchange for his kindness we offered to help him begin to tame the wilderness with a temperamental decispugliatore (strimmer) which proved to be more trouble than it was worth. Guido showed us the way down the steep, rustic, wooden stairway that lead to the beautiful white, sandy beach.
* photo by paul ellson
At that time Guido had three dogs. The first, named “Fausta”, stood waist high, when on all fours, and was a Pastore Maremmano, a breed of large, powerful herding dog from the Maremma area of Tuscany. “Fausta” would come boisterously lolloping up, drooling profusely, her tail alone could give you a nasty lashing and if she jumped up she could easily knock me flying. The second was a sizeable swanky male, by the name “Geronimo”, who was a cross between a Husky and a German Shepherd. The third named “Mona” was smaller and more timid, with a sweet temperament.
Most of the time the dogs were kept in ramshackle kennel in a rickety enclosure, only being let loose to run off steam and play before their afternoon feeding time. They were generally fed on bones, scraps and pasta that had been boiled up in a large smelly pot.
One day we drove up to Guido’s terrain as usual, with our two dogs panting in the back of the car, feeling safe in the knowledge that the other three hounds would be safely contained in their pen. Paul released our dogs from the car, intending to tether them nearby, when in a flash Fausta and Geronimo came bounding across, bearing their teeth and growling ferociously. A terrible fight broke out, and they savagely attacked our two dogs who were screaming and yelping in terror. Paul scrambled about on the floor, wrestling with Guido’s hounds in an effort to curtail the attack. Fortunately reinforcements were soon at hand, in the form of Guido and his brother, who finally succeeded in separating the dogs, and we speedily locked our two safely back into the car. Paul was left looking pale and in a veritable state of shock, not to mention badly grazed and scratched. It took quite some time for him to catch his breath and stop trembling.
We checked our dogs over, and at first believed they had escaped without any injuries. It was only later that evening that we found that Barney had in fact received a nasty bite in a rather delicate region. The next morning we found a local vet, who pronounced that the bite was infected and needed stitches. Having paid the expensive vet’s bill we resolved never to take our hounds up to Guido’s again for it had proved to be a very costly mistake.
Barney soon made a full recovery, so much so that one day whilst I was playing ball with him he managed to leap up and head butt me under the chin, making me the proud owner of a fat split lip. That’s gratitude for you!
** photo by rogilde
Later, we heard that Guido’s dogs had twice broken out of their enclosure, and had gone “AWOL”. In their break for freedom they galloped off down the wooden stairway towards the sea, where no doubt they wreaked havoc among the poor, unsuspecting sun bathers. It was not long before it became evident that both the female dogs were pregnant.
Some weeks later Guido proudly announced that both the bitches had given birth to their cucciolini. The smaller Mona had produced a lovely litter of ten, and Fausta excelled herself in delivering another fifteen pups. Thus Guido’s patch was rapidly transformed into a “puppy farm” with the copious new arrivals !!!
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At our new abode there was ample space to erect the caravan’s awning to provide us with some valuable extra living space, and to make things feel a little more homely and orderly. Nonetheless 3 people and 2 dogs residing together in such a confined space could be described as an “interesting experience”, but generally we managed to rub along pretty well. Everything was something of a challenge, even the simplest of chores.
Feeling a little sorry for myself one day as I stood at the stone sink laboriously washing and rinsing out our laundry by hand, I recalled how my mother had described my Nonna’s hard life as teenage girl back in Atina. On washdays she and the other women folk would have to walk several kilometres carrying their dirty laundry down to the river bank in large baskets, which they skilfully balanced on top of their heads. Subsequently they would kneel down by the water’s edge and commence scrubbing the soiled articles with a large bar of soap, pounding and pummelling the clothes against the large flat stones to help displace the dirt. The washing then had to be rinsed by swirling it around in the icy flowing current before it could be arduously wrung out by hand, hung up to dry. Finally the women had to carry their heavy loads all the way back up the steep hill to the village. How we take so much for granted in these days of modern appliances !!!
Each morning Salvatore would arrive and immediately disappear to change into his “work clothes”. He would emerge sporting a sleeveless vest, tatty shorts and some plastic flip floppy shoes that seemed to be a few sizes too small for his bare feet. In addition he would don an old canvas hat, pulling it down tightly over his balding pate to protect it from the burning sun. From under the brim his kind eyes twinkled. The compassionate Salvatore seemed truly concerned for us, being “all alone in this strange new country” and was eager to take us under his wing. We were soon to become firm friends.
He was keen to share with us some of his valuable pearls of knowledge, offering his personal tips on gardening, cooking and keeping chickens and life in general. It was obvious, that over the years he had learned to be thrifty and was very reluctant to throw anything away, in case it might turn out to prove useful some day. He busied himself preparing for the arrival of the demanding summer visitors, as were many similar establishments right along the coast. We were informed that the Italian summer season started off gently in June, and accelerated into July, reaching a dramatic peak in August, when virtually all Italians habitually take their annual holiday.
We tried to help him out here and there by doing some odd jobs around the site: tidying up the grounds, whitewashing walls with lime, splashing a lick of paint here and there, putting up shading and numerous international flags, erecting tables and benches, airing the little chalets and taking the parasols and deckchairs out of mothballs. “Lavoro, sempre lavoro, ma……. piano, piano” he used to say.
* photo by gaetan lee
At the weekend a couple of families turned up at the campsite, to prepare their plots for the summer season. A family from Rome were very sociable and sometimes, occasionally of an evening, invited us to eat with them. We soon learned that Vittore, a gentle, bronzed giant of man, was a muratore, a builder who had done some work for Salvatore over the years. His wife Maria Angela gave us more tips on Italian cooking, especially on how to prepare artichokes, aubergines, and peppers and an array of other vegetables that we are not so familiar with back home.
They took us to a local small holding or orto where they often purchased their fruit and vegetables. Here nothing was weighed out, there was nothing precise about it, quantity was just roughly gauged by the handful. For just a few euros we would leave the market garden with bulging bags of fresh produce. Somehow in Italy everything seemed to taste so much more flavoursome, we were sure this was because everything is grown or produced locally and is still very fresh when it comes to the table.
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Next day we eagerly pressed on southwards on the “Autostrada del Sole”, by-passing Rome, to Frosinone. Then we headed off the motorway towards Priverno and Terracina and on to our final destination, the beautiful seaside resorts of Sperlonga / Gaeta.
Sperlonga, South Lazio
We had nowhere pre-booked to stay, so we drove up and down the coast road until we eventually succeeded in locating a campsite, positioned next to the sea, which was willing to accommodate campers with dogs. As it was still April, the large site was virtually uninhabited – a ghost town of parked touring caravans, yet the price for a plot was rather expensive none-the-less. Here we made camp for two nights to give us time to consider our future options. During this time the weather was proving to be very changeable and one night we weathered a terrifyingly turbulent thunderstorm. “Thank heavens we were not just sheltering under canvas” we declared as we huddled together for comfort, still feeling a tad vulnerable as the deluge of rain battered down on the caravan’s tin can roof.
Mercifully, by morning all the leaden rain clouds had been whisked away by the blustery wind. We had decided to “up sticks” and drive along the coast road to a smaller campsite near to Gaeta, which had been recommended to us by Guido. The owner, Salvatore, warmly greeted us and generously invited us to remain there, at least in the short term, since his site didn’t officially open until the month of June. The scenic backdrop to the site was the steep rocky cliff face of Monte Moneta that dominates the bay and just a short stroll across the coast road was the vast expanse of golden sand, Sant’ Agostino beach. That evening, after a day’s work, Salvatore returned home to his family apartment in Sperlonga, leaving us to have the place just to ourselves.
Sant' Agostino Beach
Early each morning Paul and our “olde sea dogs” enjoyed going for a romp on the deserted sands and would return dripping wet from retrieving sticks and doggy paddling in the sea. By day our son enjoyed lazily basking like a lizard on the golden shore.
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So, we decided to sell our house in Wales and set about sprucing it up before putting it on the market. Next we planned a much needed break in Italy and rented a villa by the sea in the Sperlonga area, just along the coast from Gaeta. We were soon winging our way to Naples Capodichino airport. With our feet firmly back on Italian soil we set about carrying out some more research of the area. During our two week stay we managed to view twenty or so properties, in order to get a feel of what was available on the market and get some idea of property prices in the area. We were reassured that many of these houses seemed to be within our means, and many seemed to come with a sizeable plot of land attached.
When we returned to the UK, we were bursting with enthusiasm for our new venture. We talked with my parents who said they would like to join forces and come with us, which was a very brave decision, considering their age. However soon we were to discover that there had been something of a down turn in the UK housing market and our house was slow to sell, despite there having been several viewings. Our spirits dropped, as weeks turned into months and Christmas came and went. Finally in the New Year some good news arrived at last, a couple were very interested and had made an offer on our house. We were elated.
At the end of January we flew out to Rome for another week, to start house hunting in earnest. Our younger son had chosen to tag along with us to see the area for himself. On this occasion we found that the mountains around Itri were delicately dusted with sparkling snow, yet the daytime temperatures remained mild, skies sunny and blue.
Itri
We embarked on doing the rounds of the local estate agents. Generally Italian estate agencies differ greatly from those we are familiar with in the UK. There are no eye catching photos of properties in the shop windows, and no pamphlets detailing the descriptions and specifications of each property for sale, rarely are agents signs displayed outside property for sale. The typical Italian estate agent just thumbs through his list of available houses, and selects some houses he deems suitable to show you. Often these are not at all what you are looking for, and often we found ourselves going to see houses that we had already seen with other rival agents. However, we viewed as many prospective properties as was possible in the limited time available.
We were seeking something that could easily be divided into at least two separate apartments, Paul wanted a property with some land, and our son wanted an extra room or two for himself and his musical equipment. We whittled the list down to a couple of properties which really impressed us all. The best option was a relatively new house, situated in open countryside with spectacular, scenic mountain views. It was just a 5 minute drive from the centre of Itri and just 15 minutes drive to the beautiful sandy beaches that line this region. It came with a large driveway and sizeable plot of land, planted with numerous fruiting olive trees. We met with the owner and estate agent several times, and we finally decided to put in a Proposito or offer, which the vendor seemed very eager to accept. We learned that in Italy it is normal for the prospective buyer to put down an Acconto (deposit) with the Proposito, which can range from two to five percent of the total purchase price. We explained that we were not in a position to supply such a deposit until the money was released from the sale of our house in the UK. The vendor said not to worry, and forcefully shook Paul’s hand said that we had his word that he would stick to this offer.
We returned home once again to the UK and we realised that we had now fully committed to uprooting ourselves from our safe, familiar surroundings. We now had to commence organising ourselves for the big move. Firstly we needed to organise European Pet Passports for our two dogs, who were to come and live in Italy with us.
We consulted the DEFRA web site http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/quarantine/pets/index.htm regarding the Pet Travel Scheme and discussed matters with our local vet. We discovered that firstly the dogs’ general vaccinations needed to be up-to-date and that they were required to be fitted with Microchip identification. Then they had to have Anti Rabies injections, followed a couple of weeks later by blood tests to confirm that the Rabies vaccine had in fact been effective. Then the vet could issue them with Pet Passports, recording all of the above information. This service did not come cheap, amounting to over £200 per dog.
A huge milestone was when Paul actually handed in his notice at work. With just five weeks of work left to serve, he started to feel a little jittery. “What am I doing, giving up a steady job and a steady income, and heading off into the unknown!”
We started the laborious task of sorting through the house prior to packing. What a lot of stuff we seemed to have accumulated since our last move 12 years beforehand. We categorised as follows :
1. Things we wanted to take with us to Italy.
2. Things suitable for a car boot or garage sale.
3. Things to donate to charity shops.
4. Things designated for the dump.
As we began to pack we carefully numbered and recorded the contents of each and every box for future reference. They soon started to pile up and we began transporting them to a friend’s house, who had kindly offered us some valuable storage space in their sizeable garage.
Then, just two days before Paul was due to leave work, our hearts sank as the rug was well and truly pulled from under our feet. Our solicitor rang saying there was a problem (in the UK) with our buyer’s buyer failing to exchange contracts on the house sale, which meant that we were unable to exchange contracts on our house either. Things then went from bad to worse, when shortly afterwards an email arrived from the estate agent in Italy, with the news that the Italian vendor, who apparently was suffering from health problems, had decided that the stress of selling his property was all too much, so had decided to withdraw his property from the market. The following week we were still waiting to exchange contracts on the houses in the UK, we no longer had a property in Italy ear-marked to buy and move into, and we didn’t have an income! Someone had suddenly moved all the goal posts !!!
Still, we had a wonderful couple of days over Good Friday and Easter Saturday, with lots of friends and work colleagues visiting our “Garage Sale” and “House Cooling Party”. Long busy days, but it was so enjoyable to meet up and have a farewell drink with so many people we had the pleasure of knowing over the years. The “Garage Sale” was far more successful than we could ever have imagined. It was quite astonishing just what people will buy!!! Then on the Easter Sunday it was the turn of family to party, relatives travelled from far and wide to gather around us to wish us well, and quite a few tears were shed that weekend I can tell you. These celebrations were followed by another couple of good days packing, with the emptying house packed into boxes we were almost ready for the off.
We nervously waited on tenter hooks for the all important telephone call from our solicitor to confirm that the contracts had finally been exchanged. We were so relieved to discover that this time all had gone smoothly and at last a firm date was set for Completion. In fact we found the extra week gained was a great bonus as we packed up the towing caravan, which was to be our home for the next few months. We checked and double checked that our passports and other important documentation were all in order and to hand.
We finally vacated our house on the same day that the keen new owners took possession. It was all rather frenetic, despite the fact that we thought we had been so well organised. Everything seemed to take an age, far longer than anticipated, and as the new owners were moving in – we were still trying to move out – it literally was “in one door and out the other”. Eventually we were left “out on the street“, with several of our belongings spread out on the pavement outside, awaiting transportation. We were so utterly exhausted after such a long, stressful day, that we decided to delay our departure for Italy by a couple of days, in order to refresh ourselves before embarking on our long arduous journey. This also enabled us to spend some extra special time with our nearest and dearest before our departure. For the time being my elderly parents were staying put in Wales, until we had found “the perfect little home in Bella Itri” to call our very own.
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For years, we had been avid viewers of those programmes about relocating abroad and starting a new life, and we had told ourselves that perhaps, one day, we would up sticks from our home in the UK, and move to a more temperate climate.
We had holidayed several times in Italy, however our initial trip was to visit and meet, for the very first time, some of my mother’s family who lived in the small mountain town of Atina, in Frosinone. A century had passed since my Nonno and Nonna had left behind their beloved homeland in search of a new life in London.
During our wonderful sojourn there, cousin Mario kindly volunteered to escort us on several enjoyable outings, a day trip to Rome, a visit to Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast.
Gaeta Old Town
Another day he drove us westwards to a stretch of coast which is known as the “Riviera di Ulisse”. Here Mario treated us to a tour of the resorts of Gaeta and Sperlonga and we soon found ourselves being charmed by the atmosphere of the ancient medieval quarters, the colourful ports and numerous sandy beaches. We took a gentle stroll along a stretch of Sperlonga’s golden shore which was gently lapped by the crystal clear waters. It seemed that this beautiful area had not yet been discovered by many foreign holiday makers. So enchanted we were with this beautiful stretch of coast, that we vowed to return again to explore this area in greater detail.
That Autumn we decided to sign up for evening classes in Italian in an effort to improve our language skills. A year or so later we set about planning a cheap break to further investigate this area. I scoured the internet for a small villa or apartment to rent during our stay. We ticked off a few advertisements and sent off emails, in pigeon Italian, requesting more details. One fine chap, by the name of Guido, replied saying that he had a small apartment to rent in Gaeta, near to Serapo beach. Thus we began to correspond via email and he was intrigued that we had previously visited Gaeta, and that I had family still living in Atina. He wrote, saying that he and his family had always hoped to visit the UK, and they were very interested in meeting up with a British family. Then out of the blue, he came up with a proposition – “What if we were to invite them to come and stay with us in Wales for a week over the Easter holiday, and in return he would invite us to stay with them in Gaeta?”
After some initial hesitation we threw caution to the wind and decided to go along with this mad cap idea.
Thus this Italian family, namely Guido, his wife Giovanna and their two teenage sons planned their Easter trip. We had rather assumed that they would be flying to the UK, however they had their own ideas – to drive all the way from their hometown of Gaeta, situated two hours south of Rome, to South Wales. When they arrived late in the evening, as you can imagine, they were utterly exhausted. We were astonished to discover that somehow they had successfully achieved the 2135 km journey in a mere 24 hours, only stopping very briefly for petrol and the odd comfort stop! With them they had brought copious gifts of olive oil, wine, buffala mozzarella, other local cheeses and delicious Gaeta olives.
Over that week we took them out and about to visit local places of interest and gave them the opportunity to experience a little slice of the British lifestyle. Over the week our two families had really forged a special bond, and by the time their holiday was drawing to a successful conclusion, we had come to regard each other almost as family.
In the Autumn our hospitality was generously reciprocated when they invited us to stay with them. We flew to Rome where we hired a car and drove south towards Gaeta. Guido and Giovanna were remarkably generous hosts, who wined and dined us, and showed us many of the fascinating local sites and attractions. Once again we were completely mesmerised by the sheer beauty and enchanting atmosphere of this region of South Lazio which seemed to have so much in its favour. Even in September / October the weather was so gloriously warm yet we were astounded to find that the numerous sandy beaches were virtually deserted, as by early September the Italian summer season was already over.
Itri
Paul and I decided to take an exploratory drive and we intrepidly ventured inland, winding our way along a particularly tortuous road that rose steadily from the coast into some magnificent mountainous countryside. We finally pulled into the historic town of Itri, sited on the ancient Roman Appian Way. Whilst relaxing outside a jolly little bar, sipping our ice cold beers, I declared that if ever we are able to realise our dream of living in Italy, Itri would be the place to make our home.
Yet, far too soon, our holiday was over and depression began to set in as it was time to return to our humdrum life with its all too familiar routine. We just had to face the stark reality – we would have to wait, until some time in the distant future before we could consider moving abroad. Otherwise all we could hope for was that our £1 stake in the weekly national lottery would one day come up trumps.
However nothing could prevent me from dreaming !!!
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