03 August 2016

Italy overdue part uno

A month ago I went to Italy with the ladies. It was a great week (as always) with lots of sun, long talks, laughs, good food and adventure. I love Italy and I love returning all the time, making it a little more familiar each time. That pleases a recovering nomad like me.
The view from my father's house always gets me. I like the feeling when you discover that it actually feels like coming home. Even though you've just been there a handful of times.
We didn't do much the days we spent at the house. Mostly, we walked around more or less naked because it was so hot, lay scattered around the garden soaking up sun, ate watermelon, listened to podcasts, read books, drank coffee. One morning we drove to Pianella for the morning market.
Pianella isn't big but it's charming with its houses built around hills.
Those small alleys with coloured houses and plants and cats taking naps in the shades...
It was Anna's first time at the house so naturally, we had to show her Gran Sasso. Neither of the ladies had been to Rocca Calascio either, my absolute favourite.
You can't do Gran Sasso without visiting the arrosticini hut. Because we were there in the summer, it was full of Italians who were out on their bikes and it definitely gave it a different spin than the last few times when we were the only ones there.
When we were at Rocca Calascio, thunderclouds rolled in over at the next door mountains. It was scary and great at the same time. Nature is powerful when it rumbles deep in the distance, flexing its muscles.
There's something intoxicating about feeling like the smallest dot in the universe. This place makes me feel like that. (I suppose the same feeling lived in those two strangers taking in the rolling mountains).
It was my fourth time at Rocca Calascio. Every time I marvel at the thought of someone having the guts to have that castle built on the very top of a mountain hundreds of years ago. How on earth did they do it?!
Klaudia and Kat and the mountains.
I didn't take many photos around the house; mostly because everything evolved around getting tanned and talking. However, on our first night we made this spread for dinner and it made my heart skip a beat.
Seriously, this place!

No comments: