 Distant peaks
In a series of articles Simon describes, the roller coaster ride they have undertaken to move to this naturally stunning region of Italy.
We were due to pick up the keys to our Italian dream from Giuseppe (Giuse - pronounced jewsay) in a mafia style meet at Pescara train station. It was the 28th of December 2007. Our emotions were mixed, on one hand we were excited, and relieved to be the owners of the farm at long last, as the buying process had been painful, but we were also frustrated, as the sale of my business had fallen through for the second time just before Christmas and in reality, we couldn’t move to Italy to begin the project until it had.
 Ruins
We had done a fair bit of research, visiting various parts of mainland Italy, Sardinia and Sicily, thanks in the main to the budget airlines, however Abruzzo has it all, and we love it, and that was it.
We had our eyes peeled as we expected Giuse to slowly flash the lights of his car as we entered the car park, however, in true Italian style he was nowhere to be found. Monica exited the car and went in search of him and eventually found him buying cigarettes and clutching some creased up documents and envelopes. I got out of the car to shake hands. I liked Giuse, he was warm, friendly and responded to any question with, of course, 'no problema!'.
Keys in hand, we headed for the farm, it would be the first time we had been there on our own. Gone would be the vendor, translators, agents and others, whose role we never discovered.
The front wooden gates were locked tight, and trousers were torn scaling a fence at the rear. Heading back to the front I could already see that there were breeze blocks stacked against the gate. Monica by this time had found a second set of keys in an envelope Guise had given us which enabled us to open the rear gate, 'phew'.
 Gorge at Roccamorice
I made a mental note to find out how he could get in (when we couldn’t) and we set off to explore the house. We soon realised that it was warmer outside than in and so so quiet. We took photographs of each room as we went, so we could remember them properly when back in the UK. In these moments nothing mattered much, we bathed in what we had accomplished and ignored what we knew was surely to come.
The sun shone and we could feel its warmth on our faces as we explored the barn, the olive grove and vineyard. We soon discovered the soil consistency of our land was mainly of a clay type, as our shoes began to treble in size and walking became impossible. We looked up at the snow on the surrounding mountains and smiled, turning back to look at the house the smiles slipped a little though, as we gazed at just what we had taken on.
Keeping an ever watchful eye out, in case our canine friend returned, we locked up the house scraped our shoes and headed north in a thirty minute drive to Penne where we were renting a house for a week. By pure chance, a group of expats and members of an Abruzzo forum were also having a Christmas meal there one night, to which we had been invited, and were looking forward to attending. The last thing we wanted however was to join, a community of expats, that wasn’t what we had come to Abruzzo for and still isn’t.
A couple of nights before we were due to meet the brits, we were relaxing in a bar in Penne and it dawned on us what we had done and even more so what we had to do. Monica shed a few tears, I ordered another beer.
 A Wayside Shrine
We had a good night, ate great food and met some lovely people. Things were looking up. New Year's Eve was a quiet affair. We enjoyed a bottle of wine or two and went outside at midnight to enjoy the fireworks. New Year’s Day was spent enjoying a walk on the near deserted beach at Pescara.
The remainder of our time flew by. We visited the farm every day, formulating plans and ideas, and before we knew it we were saying goodbye to Abruzzo and heading back to Rome for our flight to Bristol. Spirits were high as we were joined on the autostrada by hundreds of skiers heading back to Rome after a break in our local ski area.
As we tried to relax a little on the plane journey home, I decided to ring Julie on our return (the original buyer for my business) and see if she would reconsider her decision to abort the purchase.Simon Cunningham
N.B. If readers wish to know more about abruzzo they could contact Simon at
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Walking in the Mediterranean
Helmut Hudler wrote an excellent article outlining some aspects of writing on the continent, especially the Mediterranean islands, during the summer months. Even at altitude it can remain dry and very hot and needs a whole new outlook than our homeland hills and fells. <Click here for the article> |
