Chestnuts, an open fire, and the importance of finding joy in simple things. The fire didn’t heat better out of the fireplace. All it really did was create more smoke! Although no one would ever convince the dear, stubborn, old man of that! Yet we fondly remember those simple evenings of reading by the fire […]
No taller than a 10-year-old, with a sly and suspicious gleam in her eye, she played the role of the proverbial evil landlady with me, but was as sweet as honey to my Hubby. The other residents, also hostile, seemed amiable by comparison. And the dark, damp apartment revealed a miserly streak as well. It rained […]
Our Towns is really our Tale of Two Houses. Ah, the complex fascination of life overseas (challenging, frustrating, but so blessed)! In fact, new acquaintances often ask, “So where are you from?” Our response? “Um, do you have an easier question?” So, to cut a long story short… Having lived all over the USA and Italy, with a […]
One by one they filed in, sitting around the smoky fire in the dark, dingy room. The entire village, it seemed, wanted a look at us — the Americans. While I in turn, through teary, smoke-filled eyes, examined them. Our new town folk, for this was our new home. A village from another era Life in that isolated […]
Visiting Italian villages is a unique and sometimes confusing experience. Expect people to stare at you as you walk down the street. But don’t let it give you an inferiority complex. It’s not that you’re strange or funny-looking. They just don’t see many outsiders, and people everywhere seem to have curiosity in spades! Life in […]
There is only one road leading to the isolated town, our summer village. A place little touched by time, technology, or by the frenetic pace of getting ahead. Thirteen years had passed since our last visit. And though fewer and older, the inhabitants somehow seem to have remained much the same. Many of the old and wrinkled […]