We are leaving Italy tomorrow and I have very mixed feelings.
I was relieved to leave the Middle East even though we had a remarkable time. We were in Egypt and Petra for a total of a month. There was SOOOoooo much to love!
Including camels!
And I was ready to move on to the next adventure! On April 21st we touched down in Rome. The AirBnB I had booked was a fantastic little flat just 2 blocks away from the Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti (The Spanish Steps), just between the Piazza di Spagna and Piazza Trinità dei Monti, dominated by the Trinità dei Monti church.
From here it’s a simple walk between all the great spots of Rome! And walk we did! Turns out April can be a great time to visit. We had a week of nice weather, and though busy, it wasn’t as hot and crowded as it soon would be. There was some rain, but it wasn’t a problem. While Rome is a wonderful outdoors city, there’s a lot to see inside too.
I really love Rome. Glenn and I had both been there several times, but never together. There’s something about sharing favorite places with someone who really enjoys and appreciates it. We created a shared experience of this incredible, ancient city.
Taking turns, we shared stories, and chose where to revisit. I LOVE the Roman Forum but Glenn knew even more about it than I did. We had both seen the Coliseum, and it was jam packed, so we walked around the outside, then tried to get lost in the neighboring areas. We found ourselves back in the Forum.
There were places we hadn’t seen but the other had. It had been decades since I had walked through the Villa Borghese Gardens but Glenn never had been there! We created our own memory together of the vast estate of the Familia Borghese, one of the most important families in Italy at the time.
The week went really fast, just enjoying being in Europe, drinking nice wine and loving hearing Italian. Glenn has been brushing up on the Duolingo App, and his Italian literacy is pretty good!
I had rented a farmhouse for a month outside the little medieval town of Monte San Savino. We chose it because it was quiet and not at all on the tourist routes.
Glenn was a champ and drove the rental car out of Rome (no small feat!) and a few hours north to the Arezzo region of Tuscany. The drive was beautiful! Mountains and fields verdant for spring, poppies starting to show off red in all that green. Everywhere looked like a postcard.
It was a relief compared to a month of miles and miles of sand and stark forbidding desert. Beautiful in its own way, no doubt.
Our host had to meet us at the grocery store to lead us up the mountain to the farmhouse. We never would have found the dirt track, branching off a small road, then a gravel driveway shared by the neighboring olive farm, finally twisting away almost imperceptibly into the forest. We drove over grass and flowers waist high, to get to a small flattened area of dirt and some rocks and grass that was the parking area.
Hauling our bags down a grass path, we beheld the house, stone and wood, easily 500 years old. Only the upper floor was finished enough to inhabit. We loved it immediately.
The space had a lovely vibe. It was old and there were weird levels and steps that made me have to pay attention anytime I walked around, but somehow the house made it welcoming.
The woods were full of flowers, bees, birdsong, and, we found out later, the barks of Roe deer in rut. The monastery nearby rang its bells on a schedule having nothing to do with a clock, and we reset our rhythms to it.
Our daily walks rambled like the tiny roads and hardly did we have to shift for a car needing to pass us. There wasn’t anyone else around, just quiet and the sounds of nature. I was constantly pointing out how there were more poppies everyday, adding vibrancy to the spring palette.
Sometimes at night, I became aware of footsteps below us, in the hallways of the lower floor. Purposeful striding about, not the shifty shuffle of some hobo. I mentioned it finally to Glenn and he nodded. He too had heard it, but didn’t want to alarm me maybe? I was entertained and cheered by the idea of a ghost. It was fitting.
As our month crept to a close, I found myself grieving. I had asked to extend our stay but it was booked. So we found another farmhouse outside Lucca, closer to the sea.
