Bella Familia

Wow. Italy. What made Italy especially striking to us was the contrast. Coming from France, beautiful, tidy, quiet, where you eat dinner slowly and people dress elegantly but conservatively (we would play spot the colour on any given France street- most people wore black, grey, brown and cream. All cashmere, of course). Then to get off a train where people are calling out to each other from their balconies, patting our kids heads and remarking “Bella familia!” boisterously, clothes hanging from every window, sixty year old women in leopard print (and some in head to toe black with kerchief, so I guess it’s all accepted here), people sitting outside cafes laughing so loud you feel like you’re at a carnival. From France’s grey stone houses to Italy’s pink, yellow, tangerine sorbet paradise. And even more eye opening is to go from England’s reserve, to France’s decorum to being hit on the head with Italy’s open armed joy. It’s quite the experience.

We walk down the street (there’s only one, and many, many twisty narrow alley’s) and see old ladies arm in arm who always stop to say something in Italian, patting me on the arm, patting the kids heads or just smiling. The old men are always sitting on benches smoking- and I think they’re the most happy go lucky old men in the world. They chat and laugh and call you over so you can chat and laugh too. They all love kids here- the older people, the young couples, the guys on motorcycles. They always stop to smile at them and then at us, like they’re congratulating us for… what? Having a family? Which I’m assuming is tied into the whole emphasis on family here. People that live here can trace their family history back hundreds of years to this same town and often same houses. Families live together, cook together and run businesses together. And in a sense, this little town of 500 is like a big family itself.

When we arrived without a key yesterday someone yelled down from their window, “You want in Martina’s place? I’ll give her a call for you!” When we needed a kettle for our can’t do without coffee, Martina’s parents and brother called us into their place, come come, buzzing around us like bees trying to round up what we were looking for. We ended up with some fifty year old bunson burner type deal and a bunch of plastic spoons, but mostly we just ended up feeling like the people here are the most laid back happy people we’ve met. The next day we asked if they had a cork screw and they gave us a bottle of their home made wine to go with it. So nice!

Of course, this is not to reflect poorly on England and France, which we loved, only differently. And not that these little Italian towns would remain pure bliss if you were here for longer than five days. I could imagine a few potential problems. Namely privacy, a thing we value a lot in our big spacious country. Our bedroom and bathroom windows open about a foot away from the windows across from us and we can hear the people preparing breakfast in the morning, talking, arguing, walking. There are other windows, jutting out beside ours and across from ours at all imaginable angles, all five stories down. And that’s just how it is for everybody. People lean out their windows, staring down at the street, sometimes calling down or waving, sometimes just watching you completely without embarrassment. I just don’t think that would fly in Canada. I mean, we all want to stare at our neighbors and see what’s going on, but we’re much more discreet about it. Little peeks here and there. The odd how are you. None of this openly gaping stuff.

It’s also less groomed here than France (although to me this is an upside all the way). Gardens and lemon trees and flowers grow wildly, and in any nook or cranny they can find. Cats are everywhere, happy and fat, living off the leftovers that restaurants leave out for them, sleeping on the mats outside shop windows. On our hike yesterday we passed a picnic table with a cat sleeping on it and a make shift cat tent. Beside him was a bucket with a sign asking for food for these “homeless and unloved cats”. People leave pieces of pizza or baguette and the cats pick through what looks good to them. The kids have decided that Italian cats are happy cats, just like the people.

I want to talk about our crazy cliff hanging hikes and the impossible views and the scrumptious food and the twin Sicilian pastry makers that we go “visit” every morning and, how did we miss this- St. Emillion, the most beautiful (and the oldest) wine town in France that we spent the day in before our train to Vernazza. Whew! Don’t worry, I won’t get into it. Not now, but I can’t promise it won’t come up later.

On a deeply disturbing note… we’ve somehow lost our camera cord. Yes, it’s true. So, no pictures until we track down another one, unless… unless… someone sends one via Becky this week! Hm. Just a thought. We have a Canon G8 so. . .its the cord that goes from the camera to the computer)

Angie