Go Ahead, Vote! Send Nancy Back to Italy!

Welcome to my world.

I returned from Italy early in 2003, after a five-year adventure.
Now, it's four days until the election.
I'm assuaging my anxiety with the thought that I can return there to live.
Perhaps this time in Rome.

So feel free, Americans---a vote for Bush is a vote for Nancy to once again help support the Italian economy.
It's a dandy two-fer.

In this blog, I plan to write about my previous time in Italy, living in Sorrento and Florence.
How I got hooked on the country in the first place.
Why I moved back to the U.S. How it's been being back.
The process of deciding about leaving again.

Meanwhile, in this life, I write in the mornings in my little house on the prairie. My desk is in a room with big windows facing an open space of grasses rimmed by a skyline of mountains. Around noon, the sun swings over to this side of the house and begins to flow inside. It's all most pleasant. And quiet. Today it's sunny and windy.


My March Trip Obsession:

A good friend is going to have an important birthday next March. She has invited some of her Italy-lover friends to join her in Taormina for what promises to be a very sweet seven days. A villa with a sunny terrace overlooking the Ionian sea, good food and wine, plus Mt. Etna. I'm deeply thrilled to be included. Hoping for decent weather in Sicily.

With my usual grandiosity, I've already expanded my March trip to Italy to four weeks, extending into April. In addition to Taormina, which I love, I'm going to spend time in the two places I've missed most since my return---Sorrento and Rome. I lived in Sorrento for over two years. And I've wandered and stayed in Rome many times.

Thanks to the generosity of my old landlord, I'll have a week in the very apartment where it all began, 'Il Pino,' my home for the first year in Italy. I'm trying not to think about how cold it was in the winter, including March, with a frigid sea wind howling through the old doors and windows. But I can't imagine going to Sorrento without staying at La Terrazza. I love this impossibly ornate and crumbling villa perched on the cliff over the bay of Naples. I was Andrea's test case, his first tennant.

My enchantment during that year was tempered by the frequent clashes we had over plumbing, heat, privacy, construction, parties and even dead cats. But we had many good times, adventures and laughs and we have stayed friends. I learned what I know about the Napolitano character mostly from Andrea. I learned how to tell the police that Andrea was not 'in casa,' while he hid in my kitchen. (He was often busted by other condo-occupants for his illegal construction activities and non-approved parties on the grand terrace.) I learned that lying is part of life, a kindness, really, to others. Why make people unhappy? I learned that paying too much for something is the worst example of one's foolishness and a sure way to lose the respect of others. I learned a lot.

Anyone interested can read 'Tales from La Terrazza,' some pieces written while living in the villa, by clicking on the titles. Also, Andrea's apartments at La Terrazza can be viewed (and rented) by going to http://www.villaterrazza.it/

The March trip is shaping up well. I'm flying into Rome where I'll stay for three days before heading to Taormina. For old time's sake, I've reserved the La Torre suite at the Hotel Portoghesi. This is my favorite room in my favorite hotel. I like the hotel partly because of the location near Piazza Navona and the Pantheon. It's no longer cheap, the rooms aren't fabulous, guest services pretty nonexistant, but I love the roof terrace and have had actual parties up there with friends, food and wine. Once we even projected images onto a medieval tower across the street, stopping traffic. They blocked off half the terrace when they made the suite, so now you get your own private outdoor area, which is very cute. If you lean over the parapet and look up Via d'Orso, you can see the dome of San Pietro.

Anyway, I can relax at the Portoghesi for three nights and welcome myself back to Rome at my own pace. Maybe see a few friends. I can taste the fiori di zucca at La Carbonara already; the best I've ever had.

The following Saturday, I'm flying Air-One from FCO to Catania, picking up a car and whoever else shows up mid-afternoon, and driving to the villa in Taormina. Actually the villa is a couple of kilometers outside of town, on a hill above the beachy resort area. Looking forward to wandering the town more fully than last time, which was only a couple of days. But must revisit the amphitheater, the Wonder Bar and the restaurant Bella Blu---where, after dinner, they serve you glasses of mandorle (almond wine) suffused with crushed ice.

After the Birthday Girl Bash, I'll head up the Calabrian coast and the Amalfi Drive to Sorrento. Take two or three days. In Sorrento, I'm hoping to see some of my old friends, especially the little group I called LaCreme. They are Brits who married handsome Sorrento men a couple of decades ago, now have teenagers and a lot of savvy stories, especially about Italian in-laws. They are hilarious women. After they got over my living in Sorrento without a husband ('Why on earth, my dear, would you do it?"), I was included in many pizza-nights-out at their favorite joints. God, we had fun.

I also look forward once again to the annual Easter festivities, which includes a big town-to-town parade of Romans (some on horseback), Israelites carrying the torah, fruit-laden pagan maidens and god knows who else, all escorting a live, near-naked Jesus who is dragging his cross and who winds up getting installed on it in one of Sorrento's finest piazzas. The same piazza, in fact, where my Italian kitty, Cosima, was abandoned as a kitten and rescued by my friend Barbara Palumbo.

After the week in Sorrento, I'll drive up the coast toward Rome, stopping off at Sperlonga, perhaps, for a night. Some years back, I rented an adorable apartment there for ten days; it had a balcony overlooking a mile of golden beach with the grotto of Tiberius at the end. I painted and wandered the moorish alleys of the old town, ate the fresh-daily mozzarella di bufala.

Once I drop my rental car at FCO, I'll have a van pick-up to take me to trastevere, where I've rented an apartment. After spending days on the internet, looking for the perfect place, I wound up 'finding' the one known as Dean's Apartment; it's mentioned and reviewed numerous times on SlowTrav. Duh. Well, I have it for the last week of my Italy visit. Again, I look forward to hanging with friends, maybe meeting some Slow Travelers.

Staying in trastevere again---I've had rentals there before---will give me a chance to see how I feel about living there. Perhaps even look for a place with a six-month/one year lease. When I decided to leave Sorrento, I thought about living in trastevere, and did a house exchange with friends to see how it might be. I loved the neighborhood, but had a nagging idea that I would wind up just staying across the river and rarely going into the center again---sort of like Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Later on that year, I stopped off again in Florence and thought, 'right size, nice pace, art everywhere' and found an apartment around the corner from Santa Croce. Life was good there, until 9/11 and afterward. It was fun during the winter months to go to the supermarket and drop by the Accademia afterward, cradling grocery bags while communing with David. A friend and I had season opera tickets, my cats had, in my second Florence apartment, a walled garden with a willow tree in it. (See the SlowTrav Cat's Pages.) More of Florence later---remind me to write about the stroller and its many uses.