SFTF Italia Pt4 – Addendum – A lesson learned!

Since writing this post I have received some interesting feedback from Monia di Giulmi, one of the better presenters at the conference, which I feel adds an important dimension to what I said. With her permission I am reproducing her comments below . . .

“I agree about almost everything you have written…but there is one point you have completely misunderstood:

…”but we had also come to understand why housing there can be cheap, and why the locals were so eager to bring in foreign investment.”…

“Are you sure that local people are kind to “foreigners” because they have some economic interest? 

“You really have misunderstood this point!

“When you bought the vegetable at the local outdoor market in Torino di Sangro, you have spent 1,00 euro of cherry tomatoe and the vendor has given you more than 1.00 euro extra gift of other products to try. Celine, was impressed, she said that this in California would never occur.

“You should investigate this point a little more…

“The nature of the locals…

The pretty hilltop town of Colledimezzo

“The welcome party in Colledimezzo was spontaneous and not planned.

“There are more than 15 families of foreigners from all over the world that have bought in Colledimezzo.

“This makes the locals very pride of their little town in the middle of nowhere.

“The mayor has not any interest in selling houses or bring in foreign investments, on the contrary, sometime foreigners give him more trouble than anything else.

“In addition, I can say to you that Abruzzo might seem poor, but it is not really that poor, almost every family owns two or three houses…sometime four.

“In my opinion you hadn’t enough time to relax, stop for a while your journey across the world and start to enjoy what Abruzzo has to offer.

“Abruzzo can’t offer lot of culture and art like Umbria and Tuscany.

“Abruzzo can’t offer glamour and VIP events like Sardinia or the Lake region in the North.

“Abruzzo is a region where you have to stop and where you have to open your heart.

“If you have time you can read the blogs below:

“The first one is a client of mine, she writes her blog because she loves writing…(no other hidden interests):

https://navigatinglifeinabruzzo.com/2018/11/22/walk-to-the-village/?fbclid=IwAR2V–COKmiBQ-NYfqFtpmT-I8USc3ZnsEBUKOkoBafnhzlVMXnlhul0TL0 

“The second one is related to a family I never met, but I met many other families like them:

http://www.italymagazine.com/featured-story/share-your-italian-story-one-familys-new-life-rural-abruzzo?fbclid=IwAR39lN9SW9IxEbep4tfg3wutMiovy5g4Q59CCmQhFyUi8dK3ILovlB4soro

“Reynolds the man who was talking at the conference has a blog too:

http://theslowtourist.com

“I think it’s not easy to understand a region in just one week…especially one week spent at a conference and attending a guided property tour.

“I hope you will have time to comeback on your own, to enjoy the beautiful places the region has to offer (for sure not Pescara) and the very welcoming people that are just so happy to meet foreigners!

“My best regards from Abruzzo!!”

These are very valid comments and I am grateful to Monia for making them. We were indeed in Abruzzo for only a very short time and it was unfair of me to make any sort of realistic judgement. However, I can say for certain that the region has some very beautiful countryside which deserves a second, more lingering look.

Celine and I have been trying to see a lot of Italy in our ten weeks here trying to find that perfect place. In many ways we have probably tried to see too much and have been nothing more than whistle-stop tourists. Only now as we come to the end of this tour are we beginning to come to any firm conclusions, some of which may come as no surprise to my readers who are going through the same process. In my next post I will try and synthesise our experiences and draw my own conclusions . . . Will we decide to come back to Italy? And if so when, to where and with what objective? I wish the answers to those questions were already jumping out at me!!

SFTF – Portogallo o Italia 2018 Pt 4 – Tempted by Abruzzo – LIOS’ Italian Conference

Twelve months ago Celine and I knew very little about Abruzzo – mainly the fact that it produced a pretty good red wine – and we certainly had only a very vague idea where it was; and as for Pescara, it sounded like the name of some quaint little Italian fishing village.

This flimsy looking structure is called a trabuccho from which Abruzzo fishermen cast their nets

So it was a well-timed marketing coup for the publishers of Live and Invest Overseas (LIOS) to convince these two travel-hardened cynics that both the region and the town were places that were not only worth visiting but were also a suitable venue for us to attend a conference about starting a new life in Italy. Well not exactly, as Celine and I were very much in the right frame of mind to be tempted by anything that might reinforce our interest in all things Italian, and could perhaps help us further our search for the perfect place to set down new roots. Indeed, when we heard about the conference, we were already starting to plan the Italian phase of our exploration of Mediterranean Europe and without a moment’s hesitation requested that our names be added to the list of potential delegates.

Todi, one of those dreamy places one thinks about when contemplating life in Italy

Personally I have never been a great fan of conferences. Sitting hour after hour listening to people waffle on about their pet subjects, and then networking my way through the throng of fellow delegates, hoping to find a sympathetic ear for my own ideas about life, isn’t something that I have ever taken to with great relish. So I do admit to having considerable misgivings about our decision to attend as we checked into Hotel Esplanade, a grand looking edifice overlooking Pescara’s waterfront, that displayed the faded genteelness of a down-at-heel dowager who remembers better days. However, that day we had passed through some very beautiful countryside as we drove from Umbria into Abruzzo along quiet country roads, bordered by lush green fields beyond which the wooded hills were a mass of autumnal red, orange and yellow leaves.

Thus we arrived believing that this region of Italy could indeed be the amazing place we had been reading about in recent weeks, even if the outskirts of Pescara itself seemed unremarkable.

This fancy building in Pescara is a remnant of when Italy was run by a fascist regime.

As circumstances had panned out, this was to be the second group event of our this year’s Mediterranean odyssey, as we had taken a little detour to a Portugal and Spain event a couple of weeks earlier. That had not turned out to be a great success [see “SFTF Italia o Portogallo Pt.3 – Ten days with International Living”] which only served to magnify my misgivings. However, with registration formalities over, the proceedings soon began to draw us in and we started to feel that this experience was going to be much more positive. The selection of presentations included many of the same topics we had heard and read about previously such as healthcare, taxes, real estate, assimilation difficulties etc etc, but they were greatly enhanced by the evident enthusiasm of various local mayors and entrepreneurs who so convincingly conveyed their love of Abruzzo, and their desire to welcome us foreigners into their communities. There were some subjects that seemed to us to be irrelevant to our ideas of settling in Italy; investing in truffle farming in France or in an outrageously expensive condominium development were certainly of no interest to us whatsoever. Whilst I appreciate that such subjects might be part of a “How to get rich quickly without lifting a finger” type of conference, there was no reason for them to be presented to a group of people who had travelled half-way round the world to learn about the pros and cons of starting a new life in Italy, and Abruzzo in particular. 

Dinner with the mayor of Citta’Sant’Angelo

The opening presentation introducing us to local dignitaries was a great start for the conference. The mayor of Citta’Sant’Angelo, Gabrielle Florindi, was a real gem not speaking a word of English and yet managing to convey his welcome with the help of an interpreter, plenty of typically Italian gesticulations and a serious look on his face that seemed to want to smile but rarely did. His invite to host everyone on a tour of his elegant little town, a tour which included a visit to the Sciarrm winery complete with generous wine tasting and concluded with a sumptuous dinner in Osteria Cavour, was truly beyond the call of duty! And for me, a visit to a winery that produced my long-time favourite tipple, Montepulciano D’Abruzzo, was an added bonus! Whether or not anyone will be taking up his offer to personally ensure that the purchase of a house in his town by any of us will be completely stress-free is another matter, especially considering he is resigning his mayoral duties in six months time. All the same, he and I, after a wine-soaked conversation over dinner promised to learn each other’s language better before our next meeting!

A beautiful sight! Barrels full of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo

The aforementioned tour took place on the Friday afternoon, the conference itself having finished at noon that day. Two days earlier, after the local mayors had welcomed us to “la piu bella regione di abruzzo”, our MC and Editor-in-Chief of LIOS, Kat Kalashian, had got proceedings going with an enthusiastic introduction ensuring we were all most definitely ready to be enlightened. Ten very informative sessions, one lunch break and two networking coffee breaks later, we were all feeling very positive, our brains were overflowing with informative facts about our prospective new lives in Italy, and we were more than ready for the evening’s “cocktail party” which turned out to be a delicious buffet in the ristorante pizzeria, La Sirenetta, on the waterfront across from the hotel. Suitably sated, Celine and concluded the evening with a long walk along the beach enjoying the mild, early-autumn, sea air and considered what we had heard so far, coming to no immediate conclusions except that Pescara itself had failed to impress. One presentation of that first day deserves particular mention however, namely that of Raymond Seitzer, a local expat, from which we gleaned a real idea of everyday living. 

Life in Abruzzo could be in a hilltop village in Gran Sasso National Park

Day two was much the same, Guido Lo Iacono, a state notary kicking off the proceedings with a very well presented treatise on the practicalities of buying a property and avoiding the many possible pitfalls. Unfortunately our interest wained somewhat during the day as subject matter more relevant to financial high flyers, but totally irrelevant to our interest in living in Abruzzo, drifted into the mix. Thus our eyes began to glaze over and eventually we played hooky during one or two of the late-afternoon presentations.

That evening, being just simple “VIP” delegates, we had our noses slightly put out of joint as the evening’s activity was a “Premium Members Only” cocktail party. This only served to alienate us and make us realise that LIOS is perhaps more interested in the richer echelon of potential overseas investors, rather than ordinary folk such as ourselves who simply want to move abroad. And it also started me wondering why anyone would want to become a Premium Member, investing a comparatively large sum of money to allow them to attend several more similar events, especially when there seem to be a small coterie of presenters who are obviously regurgitating the same old material at each and every conference. Another way of looking at it is this: if you have to keep on attending conference after conference, then perhaps the conferences aren’t doing a very good job of helping you decide where to move to!

Life in Italy has changed somewhat over the years

Anyway, Friday morning soon arrived, our last half day, and thankfully things ended on a high as most of the talks were of considerable interest – my success index being the number of notes I made during each session. Kat Kalashian closed the proceedings by succinctly reminding us about some of the most important things we had heard during the last couple of days, though she also could not resist adding in a few LIOS commercials. Which brings me to another issue that continues to bug me; was it really necessary for nearly one third of the conference proceedings booklet – 8 of 26 pages – to be advertisements for other activities and programmes one could purchase from LIOS? After all, everyone at the conference is already bombarded daily with lengthy e-mails all trying to inveigle them to purchase this or that programme. Or am I the only subscriber who gets heartily sick of the non-stop demonstration of excessively wordy copy-writing that if I am honest, tends to turn me off rather than making me want to participate in more of their activities?

Monia, our charming hostess from Abruzzo Rural Property

Friday afternoon of course brought with it the very enjoyable tour of Citta’ Sant’Angelo, but the real property hunting began on Saturday morning for those of us who had chosen to join Monia Di Guilmi on a two day bus tour of mainly rural properties available in and around the more southerly city of Vasto. Unfortunately four of us who had driven our own cars to the conference, now found ourselves having to follow the bus for much of the day, so we did perhaps miss a bit of the commentary; but we most certainly did not miss out on seeing any of the very interesting houses she had chosen to show us. 

Not having a clear idea of the average budget of her prospective customers, Monia hit the high end of the market to start with, showing us a rather splendid old three storey mansion with a delightful garden climbing the hill behind it and with close-up views of the Adriatic at the front. It had been lovingly restored and packed full of antiques by its owners who very graciously allowed us to swarm all through their home; but sadly, with an asking price of €800,000, it didn’t quite fit the description of “low-cost housing to be found in Abruzzo” that had been foisted on us over the previous 72hours.    Our next stop was high up in the hilltop town of Colledimezzo where we were delighted to find ourselves feted by another mayoral welcoming party including the local police chief and various other worthies from among the enormous population of 500 or so.

The main square of Colledimezzo

Then after a couple of glasses of local plonk and some home-made pasticcini and twenty minutes chatting with the locals in the usual mixture of our two languages, Monia took us in tow again and led us through four properties that were very much more in line with our budgets, all in very old buildings but in various degrees of restoration. The wonderful views towards Lago di Bamba in the valley far below us from a couple of the fully restored properties made more than a few of us start to seriously consider hilltop living!

The day’s real estate tour ended with a very bare apartment in need of a complete work-over on a busy main street in Vasto, where we were due to stay the night in the very chic boutique hotel San Marco which was a lovely change after the not-so-splendid Esplanade. Like many of the towns we visited in Italy, the old centre of Vasto was pedestrianised and a very pleasant place for that Mediterranean tradition, the evening promenade; and for Celine and I, a couple of the stalls in the market were just what we needed to purchase some tasty victuals for our supper.

The next day we were bus-borne and our first stop was a very spacious property across the valley from Torino di Sangro, a village whose name translates to something like “blood of young bulls”. A delightful country property of half a hectare and with plenty of rooms to rent it was also way out of our price range. A town-house in the village, owned by an ex-USAF pilot with a penchant for painting naked ladies, in superb condition and with yet more wonderful views across the valley, was much more desirable and as the owner plied us with a very good prosecco one or two of us were starting to look for our cheque books.

Town-houses in old villages have their disadvantages however, especially as one starts to think about living in them into old age; and one we saw later in the day in Casalbordino, exhibited the commonest fault, namely when hemmed in by other buildings they can be very dark.

Lunch at Borgo Antica

However, we were at last looking at properties within the budget of most of us, and after Monia had treated us all to a very nice lunch at Borgo Antica, local cuisine and plenty of my favourite Montepulciano di Abruzzo, she took us to see a property that was right up my alley, so to speak. A single family home on two levels, on about an acre of land sloping down towards the valley with 40 healthy looking olive trees, a flat area for an ordinary garden and my veggies, only minor work needed to make it very liveable and a price tag to suit.

If only we had been hooked on living in Abruzzo it would have been ideal, but, sorry to say, we weren’t and much as I would have liked to reward Monia’s gracious hospitality, we finished the tour as undecided as we were when we arrived in Pescara five days previously.

It was raining steadily the next morning as we said our goodbyes and headed north to do a bit of simple sight-seeing in some of the better known tourist traps. We were in many ways disappointed with the little we had seen of Abruzzo, but we had also come to understand why housing there can be cheap, and why the locals were so eager to bring in foreign investment. Personally I am glad that we had attended our first LIOS conference but I am not sure we will be repeating the exercise in the near future. I may well continue to subscribe to their newletters for the foreseeable future as they do help to keep me inspired to look for that ideal place for Celine and I to plant those new roots. But I am not convinced that attending a conference does anything more than increase my cynicism about the motives behind the organisation of such events. 

The very ancient town of Matera, the home of several thousand cave dwellers until as recently as 1952 when Italy’s “shame” was brought to light.

Right now, as I finish writing this post, Celine and I are staying in the extraordinary town of Matera, a few miles inland from the instep of Italy. Since leaving Vasto and Pescara we have seen lots more very beautiful countryside, visited some of Italy’s busiest and at the same time most beautiful cities and met with many lovely people, both Italians and ex-pats, who call Italy their home. We are doing that vital thing, putting our boots on the ground, and in my next blog I will let you know if and how our views of this beautiful country have evolved . . .watch this space!

SFTF Italia o Portogalla Pt 3 – Ten days with International Living

Taranstales

October 17, 2018

Tuk-tuks everywhere in Lisbon. Great way to save the masses from climbing too many hills. We took a group tour of Lisbon this way, but didn’t learn much about the city as our driver wasn’t very communicative!!

Nine days of sunshine gone by, five hotels experienced, rides taken in at least four different coaches, the knowledge of three local guides thoroughly tested, at least two house purchases initiated and one very tired but totally dedicated tour leader looking forward to a few days of well-earned R & R, all combined to mean that thirty-six willing participants could face the ominous black clouds showing up over the mountains above Mijas with complete indifference. For the next day we would all be rising from our sixth different bed, grabbing our tenth tour breakfast, making fond farewells to our several new-found friends and going our separate ways; the heavens could open and threatened lightning could crash, but our tour was ended and nothing could take from us the memories of new places explored and potential new home-sites discovered. 

But what had the past ten days of “life according to International Living (IL)” really achieved? Were Celine and I actually a whole lot wiser about the benefits that might be gained by re-defining ourselves with new lives in either Portugal or Spain? Did the tour leave us with a useful impression about life in either of those two countries, or did it merely whet our appetites to learn more for ourselves? 

Our fellow travellers had a wide variety of reasons for their presence in our midst. Some, like us, were seriously interested in the idea of starting a new life in a new country and had a definite penchant for the Old World so well represented by these particular two countries. Finding a surefire investment property inspired some to tag along, though without a clear interest in actually setting down new roots for themselves. And a few had very little experience of foreign travel and saw this tour as an opportunity to safely expand their horizons. With such a diverse audience it was always going to be difficult to satisfy all tastes!

A group with many different interests, tastes, and abilities. Quite a challenge for our tireless guide!

The meeting point for us all was Lisbon, the capital of Portugal and the type of city that does attract tourists but is primarily very much a place where people work and lead quite ordinary lives. For that latter reason it is a delightful place for one to walk around and to imagine oneself becoming part of the life of the city, and not an eternal tourist. Unfortunately for Celine and I, that was not the feeling we would get from much of the rest of the tour. It is of course the intent of our hosts to seduce their charges with the delights that are on offer in the regions they are promoting; for many who are visiting a country for the first time, it is the places where foreign tourists congregate that are the biggest draw. I suspect that is the reason International Living chose venues in Portugal’s Algarve region and Spain’s Costa del Sol as the main hubs for our delectation.

Our stay at a resort in Carvoeiro was lovely, but going into town for dinner quickly reminded us that this was “Little England”.

However, for me as an Englishman it was not very exciting to be visiting areas that are both rather uncharmingly known as “Little England” to the locals, and where English is spoken more commonly than either Portuguese or Spanish. Indeed Francesca, our Spanish guide in Costa del Sol, recounted a recent visit there to a dry-cleaners where they spoke no Spanish at all, and Celine and I were served in a cafe in Marbella by a lass from the East End of London who also spoke not a word of the local lingo! I find this to be a very sad reflection on the many, mainly English, ex-pats who are so obviously uninterested in the customs, culture and food of the country wherein they choose to live, and are unperturbed by the process of deculturisation that they are a party to. And why the obsession with golf courses, those large tracts of land set aside for the exclusive use of the minority that are a source of environmental pollution and water wastage?

We all had at least one thing in common, a desire to taste the local vintages! And a sample of the local cheeses also went down pretty well.

Yet in spite of these negative feelings, we both enjoyed many aspects of the tour. It was a novelty for us to be driven everywhere and have so few decisions to make; and our fellow travellers provided us with plenty of entertainment, both intentionally and unwittingly. Indeed the camaraderie was very appealing and we thoroughly enjoyed chatting with everyone, and learning why, or indeed if, they were contemplating a new life in the Old World. For us, life in Europe holds few surprises and returning there from America seems a fairly logical progression in our lives. It must be very different when you have grown up being told that your country is the centre of the universe, and discovering so much that is strange and rather threatening. Of course it is to help people overcome those misgivings that Il arranges tours such as these and I am sure that many of our group felt comforted by what they saw and were introduced to, however much I might like to disavow them of such feelings.

Ronda in Spain’s Malaga region was particularly beautiful, perched atop two rocky outcrops separated by a deep ravine.

On the positive side, by no means every place we visited was tainted with the smell of fish and chips, lager louts and menus in English only. Some of the small towns, particularly Ronda and, to a certain extent, Evora and Tavira, appeared positively “liveable” and made more than a few of us open our eyes to the possibilities they might offer to us prospective ex-pats. The visit to the wine cellar of Jose Maria da Fosca, one of the oldest wineries in Portugal, introduced us to the fascinating ancient art of oenology, whilst confirming my belief that muscatel was rather too sweet even for my sugar-loving taste buds. We saw some beautiful countryside with rocky mountain backdrops, we stood on a clifftop at the most westerly point of mainland Europe and we visited the first bullring to be built in Spain.

The first bullring to be built in Spain is in the beautiful hilltop city of Ronda. Some three hundred feet in diameter it is also one of the largest, and has covered seating for nearly three thousand spectators.

We enjoyed a brief stay in Sevilla and on our last couple of days were pleasantly surprised by the elegance of Malaga, enough for me to mentally disenfranchise it from ‘orrible anglicised Costa del Sol. 

The handsome port city of Malaga that seems to have survived the tourist onslaught without losing its soul.

Luckily Celine and I had spent a few days on our own in Portugal before we joined the IL tour and this provided us with a much better idea of what that country might have to offer. [See previous post “Italia e Portogallo 2018 Pt 2 – Lisboa no rio Tejo”] Continue reading SFTF Italia o Portogalla Pt 3 – Ten days with International Living

Italia e Portogallo 2018 Pt 2 – Lisboa no rio Tejo

Taranstales
October 7, 2018

Sitting on a luxury bus with thirty five or more potential American expats is a novel experience for this Brit, an inveterate loner, a traveller who takes masochistic enjoyment in spending hours organising his own trips abroad, scathingly pooh-poohing the concept of organised group travel. Yet there we were, our immediate future in the capable hands of the experts from International Living, heading south towards the Portuguese varsity town of Evora.
About two weeks ago we rose early and followed the sun west from Rome to land in Lisbon – Lisboa to the locals – the capital city of that great seafaring nation, Portugal, and the only European capital to directly face the New World far away across the Atlantic Ocean. Rather belittlingly sometimes referred to as “The Pond” that great expanse of sea presented a daunting vision to seafarers in the Middle Ages and taming it took tremendous courage on the part of seafarers such as Vasco de Gama and Christopher Columbus, encouraged by such visionaries as Henry the Navigator; and to celebrate their exploits,the city of Lisbon commissioned the massive monument, Padrao dos Descobrimentos, on the north bank of the Tagus.

Having organised ourselves for a couple of months exploring Italy, Celine and I learned about this group tour which slotted nicely into our dates, and we promptly decided, somewhat illogically, to back-track to Lisbon and take the opportunity to get a taste of Portugal, the other country that we believed should also be on our list of prospective root re-planting locales.

Rome had proven itself a great place to unwind and recover from our jet-lag; thus Lisbon became the starting point for this trip’s exploring, as we had six days there before joining the tour. We used AirBnB once again, this time to find a sixth floor “apartment with ocean views” in Costa da Caparica, a seaside suburb of Lisbon on the south side of the river Tagus, the aforementioned rio Tejo. The absentee owner is a much travelled town-planning architect, so we were met by his father who showed us around, explained how the roller shutters worked, showed us how to switch power between washing machine and dishwasher, indicated the hatch for the garbage chute beside the lift shaft and then left us to our own devices.

Tiled walls are everywhere in Lisbon

Lisbon is a city built on a series of steep hills, seven in number like Rome supposedly, but there seemed to be many more; you couldn’t go anywhere, except along the river’s edge, without climbing at least one hill. The public transport system in the city comprises a mix of a metro, buses, trams, both ancient and modern, and ferries across the Tagus. So our best route into the city was a ten minute drive from our apartment to catch the ferry from Trafaria to Belem, a suburb a couple of miles west of the city centre, and thence by bus or tram to our destination. A ticket costing a mere €1.75 enabled one to travel on any combination of the modes of transport for, I believe, an hour and a half. However, tickets usually had to be obtained before boarding at the start of the journey and it wasn’t always easy to find the appropriate place to do so. Most people used rechargeable VIVA cards to register as they boarded the bus, tram or ferry at the start of their journey. As well as simply charging the card with a cash value, it was also possible to charge it with a 24hr, go-anywhere pass but the places to do this were even scarcer and we spent quite a lot of time looking, oftentimes unsuccessfully, for the appropriate newsstand or better still a Metro station.

The beautiful chapel dedicated to St John the Baptist In Igreja de Sao Roque

In spite of the occasional transport related frustration we managed to visit lots of churches, including Lisbon Cathedral, halfway up the hill behind Alfama, the oldest district of the city, and Igreja de Sao Roque wherein one finds the beautiful chapel dedicated to St John the Baptist, its walls and pillars covered in lapis lazuli, alabaster and malachite. As recommended by many travel sites, we decided to take a trip on the ancient #28 tram which rattles its way through many of the smaller streets of the Bairro Alta and Alfama districts. This line terminates near another large religious edifice, the Basilica da Estrela, so one morning we walked up the hill in that general direction. Near the summit we were accosted by a typically helpful Portuguese gentleman who asked if we needed any assistance. We chatted for a few minutes and learnt about one or two towns further north that he reckoned were the sort of places we would well appreciate, and were also told that the Algarve was probably not what we were looking for – a prophecy that would turn out to be very accurate!

The #28 tram squeezing it’s way through the narrow streets of old Lisbon

As well as the couple of days we enjoyed tramping the streets of old Lisbon, admiring the many wonderful tiled buildings, experiencing an evening of Fado music (www.clube-de-fado.com), and being somewhat dismayed by the local cuisine, we made good use of our rental car to drive out into the countryside. Our first foray took us 150 km north-east of Lisbon to the Knights Templar stronghold in the small city of Tomar, and the Convento de Christo which it subsequently became after the Jesuits took power in the region. As well as giving us a good insight into early Jesuit teaching, and the life of the two hundred or more Jesuit monks who lived there, the town itself, situated between the castle/monastery and a pretty river, was also a very likeable place from what we gleaned after our short walk around; but as we have learnt so often in the past, it is easy to be seduced by initial impressions, especially when those revolve round the touristic old town centres.

Qunita da Regaleira, otherwise known as “The Palace of Monteiro the Millionaire”

Another day, after crossing the Ponte de 25 Abril, the splendid 1.5km long suspension bridge across the Tagus, we headed west towards Parque Natural de Sintra-Cascais, where several palaces and pseudo-palaces that contribute to the area’s World Heritage status are to be found. I plugged Castelo dos Mouros into Google maps optimistically thinking that we might start the day by climbing the couple of hundred stairs to reach this 10th century Moorish stronghold. What we didn’t plan for was the long slow line of one-way traffic through the surrounding forest, the distinct lack of available parking and, indeed, any signpost indicating when we were in the right place to commence our hike. Eventually we found ourselves on the outskirts of the town of Sintra, and realising we were very close to Quinta da Regaleira, found a handy place to park, and walked back a couple of hundred yards to the entrance. This pseudo-palace has a long and varied history of ownership, but is now sometimes referred to as “The Palace of Monteiro the Millionaire” after the best known former owner, Antonio Augusto Carvalho Monteiro. Monteiro was a man of many interests and ideologies and he decided to build a bewildering palace and estate that would reflect and showcase much of this eclectic collection of beliefs. The four hectare estate is a lovely place to wander through and forget all the troubles of the world among caves, grottoes, waterfalls and a multitude of footpaths going hither and thither. The house also comprises some delightful architecture and together with the garden, the whole place is truly the work of an extraordinary visionary mind, that of Luigi Manini, the architect who so ably interpreted Monteiro’s ideas.
With plenty of energy still in our travel-hardened limbs we then walked the three kilometres, mostly uphill, to Monserrate Palace, another dreamlike building, this time in the Moorish style, that sits above a more conventional garden full of waterfalls, fishponds and beautiful plants and trees from all over the world. It was a horticultural delight that satisfied all one’s senses, smell, visual and tactile, and even aural as there was also plenty of birdlife in the trees. A very interesting video was being screened in one of the rooms, of an interview with an elderly gentleman who, as a child, lived in the palace during the late 30’s and early 40’s, his father having managed the property for Francis Cooke, who owned the palace between the wars. We finished that very worthwhile day by walking back into Sintra where we rewarded ourselves with Tapas and low-alcohol beers, before driving back to the rather more mundane architecture of Costa da Caparica, south of the river Tagus.
Then the day arrived for us to return our rental car and join the tour that prompted this little detour to the Iberian Peninsular. In some ways it felt like we were losing our freedom but we would very soon realise the advantages of handing over to someone else all responsibilities for our wellbeing!

Portogallo o Italia Pt 1 – Lost and found in Trastevere

As I write the sun is shining fiercely, driving me off the balcony where I broke my fast an hour ago. In the distance the Atlantic Ocean fades away into the horizon, separated from the woods around this sixties era, ten-storey apartment building by a thin ribbon of beach. The sound of commuting traffic in the distance is the only reminder of the wonderful city Celine and I left behind just twenty-four hours ago that is the place I want to tell you about today.

Our apartment in Trastevere looked out over these quiet gardens.

Trastevere is one of the oldest continuously inhabited parts of the city of Rome, ever since the Etruscans dwelt there five hundred years or more BC. It is now a delightful jumble of narrow cobbled lanes, filled with ristoranti, trattorie and old churches, and bubbling with life, both local and touristic. We have come to Italy to continue our quest for a place to plant our roots and build a new nest – how’s that for mixing my metaphors?! – and as the vagaries of airline travel obliged us to land at Rome’s Fiumicino airport,  it seemed a suitably expedient plan to spend a few days of rest and recreation in that ancient city, before travelling to lesser conurbations to the east.
Through our connections on HomeExchange.com we had acquired the use of a small apartment across the road from the impressive offices of the Ministero di Pubblico Istruzione on Viale di Trastevere, just inside the city walls on the west side of the river Tiber (the Italian name is Tevere, hence Trastevere means ‘across the river’). We were within walking distance of many of the most famous sites, which we would take full advantage of the next morning; but tired and jet-lagged, we restricted our first evening’s meanderings to our immediate locale. A loud clap of thunder had greeted us as we walked up the street from Trastevere Stazione, and as we settled gratefully into our new digs, a gentle shower of rain soon washed the leaves of the avenue of plane trees and left the streets shiny and fresh. 

These pizzas might look pretty ordinary, but they were truly delicious!

The clouds had thinned and blue sky appeared among them as we made our first stop of the evening’s stroll at Suppli, a hole-in-the-wall pizza parlour where we bought two slices of the tastiest take-away pizza imaginable [www.suppliroma.it]. Maybe our fatigue helped to magnify its excellence but it did it well enough for us to stop and be equally satisfied there again a couple of days later. Anyway, our hunger suitably sated, we walked through this pleasant neighbourhood to the west bank of the Tiber, admired the lights of the Ponte Sisto reflecting off the blackness of the river below, and then about-faced into the warren of streets to find ourselves inside and enjoying the calm of the evening “celebration” as we admired the lustrously gold-plated apse and ceiling of Santa Maria in Trastevere, the main church of this district.

Ponte Sisto in daylight, reflected in the calm waters of the river Tiber.

Trusting my map reading skills and famed innate sense of direction to find the way back to our apartment, I then led us confidently into the front gate of the local police barracks, “Citerna Militaria”, which is where we first realised how hopelessly lost we were. The local polizia were very helpful however, and soon had us going in the right direction; and with just one more stop at an outrageously expensive “Bio” store where we obtained our basic needs for the next morning’s breakfast, and a pause to refill our water bottles at one of the many roadside springs, we were soon safely “home” and ready for our bed.

San’Angelo atop the eponymous Castel

The next morning, a Friday, we woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and after our usual healthy breakfast of meusli, coffee, toast and marmalade, we were ready to “hit the city”. Initially heading for the Pantheon, we actually found ourselves close to Ponte San’Angelo and decided to poke our noses into Castel San’Angelo, a place neither of us had visited in our earlier lives. Built originally as a Mausoleum for Emperor Hadrian, and in threatening times used as a refuge for the resident Pope, it is now an interesting museum and from the roof provides a superb 360 degree panoramic view of Rome; so in spite of it’s somewhat uninspiring initial appearance, we were glad we decided to make the visit. After tramping up and down steps for two hours we felt we deserved lunch and having changed our original itinerary again we stopped at Tucci Ristorante on Piazza Novana and had an ‘okay’ lunch as we admired the obelisk and fountains and people-watched.

Trevi Fountain

The Trevi Fountain is on everybody’s bucket list and, indeed, it seemed that ‘everybody’ had decided the 21st of September was the day to cross it off the list! It is of course a very beautiful sculpture, and a real money spinner for the city who dredge two or three thousand Euros out of it daily, but I would love to see it as uncrowded as it was when Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg romanced each other in Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita”. 

A wonderfully satisfying ice-cream cone apiece from “Gelato Sicily” [www.gelatosicily.it], we finally reached that most marvellous example of Roman architectural engineering, the Pantheon, and stood in awe of it’s incredible domed roof. A hundred metres away we found our next must-see treasure, the set of three paintings by Caravaggio in the Contarelli chapel in a corner of Chiesa San Luigi di Francesi.

Babington’s Tea Shop in the brown building to the left of the Spanish Steps

As we were by then most definitely on the tourist trail, we turned north to the Spanish Steps – Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti in the local lingo – where we were inveigled to partake of afternoon tea at Babington’s Tea Shop, an anachronism from 125 years ago when Rome was a stop on the Grand Tour taken by so many North European “worthies” of their day. The threatening clouds opened as we walked up the famed stairs, to head back to the terminus of the #8 tram, somewhere in the vicinity of the huge memorial to Emanuelle ll. After only spitting on us initially, the rain drops soon became heavier and we dived for shelter first of all into a shop selling nothing but carved Pinnochios of all different sizes, shapes, colours and length of proboscis, until we noticed an enoteca across the other side of the lane where we swapped the army of long-nosed puppets for a chance to taste and learn about the local wines and grappa. I had always enjoyed grappa as, well, just grappa, but by the time the rain had stopped the very knowledgable young man therein had taught us that grappa is every bit as variable as the culture of whiskey production in bonny Scotland. 

The vast nave of the Basilica San Paolo

The next morning we both slept in very late, neither of us stirring until well after the time for elevenses; obviously our bodies needed to recover from the combined effects of delayed jet-lag and the previous day of pounding the pavements. So for this second and last day of our whistle-stop tour of Rome we elected to restrict our tourism to a couple of basilicas, the first being the not so-famous but still the second largest one in Italy. The Basilica San Paolo is out in the sticks, well away from the razzamataz of old Rome, and necessitated us catching a #23 bus, which very conveniently passed right by our door in Trastevere. We then had a good view of everyday life in the suburbs as the bus went past shopping streets, high-rise apartments and industry along the length of Via Ostienze. Rome’s buses are aimed at accommodating as many people as possible and seats are limited to allow the masses to strap-hang as the bus rattles along the poorly maintained suburban streets. Originally consecrated in 324AD, the basilica was originally out in the countryside, and of course well away from the Vatican City although owned by the Holy See. Rome has, of course, somewhat expanded since then, which accounts for the rather drab surroundings of this magnificent edifice. From it’s pillared forecourt with its imposing statue of St Paul wielding his sword at the supplicants, one enters a vast nave 132m long by 65m wide, with a flat wooden ceiling of the same egg-box construction as we had seen in the Pantheon, 30m above one’s head. Natural light pours in through fine alabaster paned windows set high along each sidewall and at the far end, an impressive ciborio sits above the altar in front of a beautiful semi-circular apse. A very old carved wooden Easter candle, Candelabra del Cero Pasquale, to one side of the altar deserves a second look.

The beautiful spiral pillars around the cloister of the Basilica San Paolo

A small museum of religious artifacts, accessed through the pretty cloister with it’s unusual twisted, decorated pillars, is of interest to those of religious inclination, and to us unbelievers adds to our continuing incredulity at the churches riches!

Returning to tourist nirvana, we found that the #23 bus also went pretty well right past the front door of that other fairly well-known basilica, Basilica Papale di San Pietro in Vaticano, but upon arriving there and seeing the lengthy queue to get in, opted to only walk around the famous square before heading back across the river and into Trastevere where we sought out a small cafe where our hostess had suggested we take dinner. In Rome, dining doesn’t begin until at least 7.30, so we had a pre-dinner aperitif in the rather brash, wine-barish, strangely named, “404:No. not found”, before taking our seats promptly at 7.30 at a streetside table outside Trattoria di Paolo, which very quickly filled up making us glad we hadn’t dallied on the way. A dinner of rabbit stew followed by tiramasu, served by an old waistcoated waiter, seemed a very appropriate way to end a busy, but very enjoyable Roman weekend. 

The next morning we awoke feeling fit and able for our next journey, walked out to the street to catch the tram down to Trastevere Stazione, then hopped onto the local train to FCO from where we waved our goodbyes to this fine city – for a couple of weeks anyway – as we flew westwards for a short introduction to whatever delights Portugal might offer this couple of prospective emigrees.