Yarr! All the photos have been posted on Facebook. Here’s a link:
Album 1 Album 2
Day 1:
Took a flight from Stansted and headed straight for Italy. On our way we flew over the Alps (took pictures!), which made me squeeze my face against the plane window in order to see more. We arrived at Genova Airport which is a very interesting airport. If you have Google Earth, check it out. It is basically a little man made extension of the coastline. Quite scary if you run out of runway! You end up in the water! :D
Harriet and Adriano met us at the airport. Harriet is Tom’s sister and Adriano is her Italian husband. He is a baker. She is a farmer. They took us to one of their cars, a little vintage car which looked too old to even start, but it did and was a blast to ride around in! Instead of taking us straight home, they took us to a fantastic beach where the water was so clean you could see your feet and the high cliffs were towering up behind you. Mmm. After that we went to a nearby small village where I got to see the cosy Italian architecture (taken photos) and try proper Italian Icecream for the first time. It was beyond words.
Later on we went home to Adrianos parents home where Adri and Harriet is living temporarily while getting their new house sorted (more on that later). The house is big enough to house two families, so the entire bottom floor was just for Adri and Harriet. It was basically like living on our own, but we still had the main meals upstairs with the family. When we arrived they had freshly caught mussels and hand made pasta to offer. It was just awesome. The food was beyond my initial expectations.
We retired to bed, being exhausted after just one day of seeing the northern part of Italy.
Day 2:
We had our first breakfast with the family, something which I adopted the moment I came home to Brittland again. Basically, everyone gathers together and has macchiatos, freshly baked bread, biscuits, fruit, cheese, salami, juice etc. I felt very energized after having such a proper breakfast, and I’m sure it wasn’t just because of the macchiato (espresso coffee with a dot of frothed milk)!
This day we went in to Genova itself (the family lives outside). We saw the new posh part of the city and the old narrow streets and alleyways of the old city, where you had to hold on to your belongings due to extremely skilled pick pockets. Harriet had been robbed just a few weeks earlier without knowing it at first. Her entire backpack had been searched through and everything valuable removed… While it was on her back! What scared her the most was that she couldn’t sense anyone that had might have been intruding on her personal space. Normally you feel if someone is getting to close. This was incredibly stealthy. So she is far more alert nowadays.
I bought some socks and a stripy top for very very cheap moneys (everything is cheaper in Italy). We then went to taste some local delicacies, like the chickpea pancake which was just.. Awesome. Argh. I just can’t describe the food any other way. We later came across beggars who kept on begging after being given money (not by us, by others I observed).
Went home. Napped. Then… THE PIZZA MAKING EVENING. Took lots of photos of that! Adri and Harriet made us pizza from their own pizza oven.
Went to sleep with a very happy tummy.
Day 3:
This day was spent at the beach with chess, books, food, sketchbooks etc. We also went to a small arabic style village nearby and later on to Savenione (spelling!?) for aperitifs! In the evening Adri took us to a seafood restaurant which was owned by a pirate dude! I have pictures of this too! The atmosphere was really cool and the owner instantly demanded respect with his booming voice! After the big big dinner, we went for some midnight icecream (which you actually can get at midnight… :D)
Fell asleep with a happy tummy again!
Day 4:
This day was very special… In the special way… We went mushrooming in a forest up in the mountains… At 5am in the morning. Without breakfast. And we did this non-stop for 6 hours. By the end of it I was ready to tip over, but survived and was proud of it! And there was a big lunch waiting for us at a Trattoria up in the mountains. I ate WILD BOAR for the first time :D When we later drove down the mountain in Adrianos Land Rover, Tom started getting sick. He felt ill all the way home and in the end had to take a nap. I went for a shower and realised that I had bits of Land Rover ceiling in my hair. :P
Later that night we had a dinner with the friend we went mushrooming with, called Robbi.
My tummy was ever so happy.
Day 5:
Another morning of amazing breakfast, making me hungry just writing about it. The entire day was mostly spent at the house, recovering from the 6 hour mountain hiking a day before, but later on we took the car out to a small bar/pub in a fishing village. The pub owner was a personal friend of Adriano and Adriano had in fact been commissioned to do the ceramic tankards in which the beer was served. I still deeply regret not taking the camera with me to this tiny bar… The decorations were breathtakingly elaborate and must’ve taken years and years to collect. The walls were covered with old maps, weapons, bottles and other trinkets. Man I wish I had a picture. :(
Day 6:
A day of Tiramisu in the morning! I saw Adriano make it. We went out to another beach and spent most of the day there, being relaxed and otherwise lazy. We later drove to a little seaside village where we had cocktails and appertivos while the sun set. We also saw a newly wed couple having their pictures taken in the town square. Very pretty!
We came home very late for this, but had an incredibly pleasant surprise waiting for us…
Homemade lasagna by Maria, Adrianos mother. It was just awesome! Had some Tiramisu too! Before we went to bed, we somehow got on the subject of the game “Go” and began teaching Adriano who did not like it in the beginning.
We headed off to bed later than usual after having long chats about random things.
Day 7:
Day started off with breakfast as usual. By now I was getting used to their way of waking up this way. I had a shower in their very interesting bathtub (which I forgot to take a picture of). It is basically a sitting bath. Think like.. A chair-tub where you shower yourself sitting. o_O It’s just weird okay! But funny the first time.
Adriano had caught interest in the game called “Go” and decided to make a big board. We then had a game which went on for 3 hours with cut out paper bits in black and white, serving as the Go Stones. We were very careful not to sneeze!
This was the day we went up the mountain, first by Land Rover, and when the road ended, by foot, to finally get to the house that Harriet and Adriano are buying to do up. Right now it is in a bit of a state. It is about 150 years old and has been abandoned for a long time. The previous residents seemed to have simply grabbed whatever they could carry and left the rest. All the rooms are filled with furniture and random old things scattered across the weak and unstable floorings. It was like exploring something in a game. Except it was real! :P The place even had two chests which we could not get to due to the floor being too dangerous to walk on. So exciting!
This mountain where they plan to live is not inhabited by anyone all year around except one man called Andrea. More about him in a minute. From where we stood, by Harriet and Adrianos house, we could basically see across the valleys and had a good view of all the other mountains surrounding us. There are so called “ghost towns” scattered across the mountains, abandoned long ago due to migration into the cities for work. Entire towns were simply left to decay over time. Unfortunately most of them were too far away or not otherwise easily accessible, so we could just look at them from afar and wonder what they were hiding in those dark houses.
A few scattered houses around Harriet an Adriano are still being used today, but only during the summer time. There is a special place further down the mountain though. We went there. It belongs to the man called Andrea. A man who had spent 10 years isolated up in the mountains, cutting away all the overgrowth from the villages to gain access to the houses and do them up. It was said he spent the beginning only surviving on stingy nettles and a pint of milk a week. I wonder who would be mad enough to do something like this. Out of love of old lost villages.
He has his own house a little further away from the ghost village we visited (I even got access to the chapel there. Andrea had the key. There is a picture posted on the link above). He lives with about 10 goats, 3 cows, one pig (that I could see), one donkey and two dogs. He makes cheese and still works around the village. I expected him to be some loonie, but instead I met a funny (if very dirty, not in the perverted sense) man who happens to now have a wife and two kids (who live down in Genova). It was just a very strange place to be. We also got to see the goats newest additions. Two new goat… kids.. (what the heck do you call them in English?). I got to pet one.
What felt really strange was the fact that all the animals were completely free. No fences or anything anywhere. Andrea said that the only way he could tempt them back was with a bit of food, but they were basically self sustained by the mountain. So I had these HUGE cows right in front of me and no electric fence between… Needless to say, I was very careful. But also excited!
We later went to a trattoria and had some cheap, but delicious food in huge portions. It would be the last big meal for me in Italy.
Day 8:
Up early. Breakfast. Pack. Get ready to head home… Reluctantly. Bought a coffee maker and a milk frother. Also a funky Italian “half moon” knife which cuts stuff easier. hrm. After having a coffee with Harriet in town, it was time to board the flight and head home.
The plane once again flew over the Alps and I wished that it would go the opposite way.
One thing is certain. I am going back there to help Harriet and Adriano with their new house. To live up in the mountains without a computer. Can I do it? :D