Diario di Roma II: Rome Diary 2 – Settimana dué-Week #2!
Summer! 83°F/28°C in Roma
Buongiorno,
This morning we went for a walk
along il fiume Tevere – the Tiber
River as it runs through
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| Etruscan Valley |
Remember that Diane Lane movie Under the Tuscan Sun? Well, that’s the
story of my life this week, only I’m in Sabina. Selci to be exact. Michael,
Laura and I are “house-sitting” for her parents, Sergio and Annamaria Tomei,
while Laura’s folks are – as they say in these parts – on holiday. The house sits near the top of a mountain overlooking a
lush, green valley. The sunshine on the patio behind it is filtered through the
top branches of the olive trees that dot the property. Once a year, Sergio
gathers friends, family members and neighbors to help harvest the olives from
his 80-some olive trees and trundles them into Selci to have them pressed into
the most delectable olio olivo to
ever cross my discerning palate.
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| Fiume Tevere - The Tiber |
It
was my brother Packy, who introduced me to the Onion Theory of Stress Reduction many long years ago. Get far away from whatever is causing you stress and relax. The stress will fall away from you like layers from an onion that’s being peeled. Selci is the kind of place that does that for me. On our first night, Sergio invited us to the Caccia Festa. T’is the Festa season here
in Italy. It’s summer time or estate.
So there’s lots to celebrate. The Caccia
Festa celebrates the hunt. It’s a giant barbecue at the local
fairgrounds, complete with a band, dancing and long rows of tables to dine at.
The grills are fired up early in the afternoon for all the roasting that has to
be done. There’s wild boar, venison, grilled pork and goat, and of course, lamb. Pastas, salads and varieties of other vegetables, and plenty of
fine local wines to wash it down with. It’s a giant picnic under summertime
Sabina skies. The weather, which threatened at first to rain out the Festa
passed by and left the crowd to enjoy the evening under partly cloudy but
otherwise balmy skies. A perfect ending to a great first weekend for me in
Italy. My “onion” was definitely getting peeled.
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| Caccia Festa |
Sabina secured its place in history
back in Rome’s early days, when the future center of civilization more closely
resembled San Francisco during the Gold Rush of 1849. Remember your Gold Rush
history? That’s when ambitious males from all over the world swarmed into
California’s gold country to seek their fortune. Most of them found little
treasure and almost zilch in the way
of feminine companionship. So it was in Roma
Antica. Now, depending on which account of The Rape of the Sabine Women that you’re familiar with - the
accounts tend to vary. I prefer the Man
Who Came to Dinner version, where a throng of young Roman males were
invited to a Festa in Sabina, ate and drank their hosts out of house and home
and then added insult to injury by carting off all the women in the province to
become Roman brides. The Romans had indeed struck gold in this adventure, for
to this day, Sabina boasts the loveliest damsels in all of Italy.
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| Michael, Laura, MikeBo |
Now, I should mention the health
plan that Mike and Laura have laid out for me on this trip. Italy has never heard of the Americans with Disabilities Act,
although some of the big tourist hotels that cater to older Americans like me
do have lots of ramps and extra elevators and blue curbs out front. But Sabina
has medieval towns with lots of steep grades and hills and stairs and steps
everywhere else. So, a casual afternoon stroll for me, is the equivalent of
what my grandson Joshua faced every day at Marine boot camp when he ran the Grinder. For me in Italy, Josh’s
full battle pack is the extra 25 pounds I know I’m going to lose on this trip,
trying to keep up with Michael and Laura on their daily walks. Walk or die! must be a slogan in the
Italian lifestyle manual. There are no obvious alternatives for hypochondriacs
like me. Monday, Michael and Laura took me on a walking tour of Old Selci. Along steep, narrow streets
and up and down steeper and narrower stairways we made our way through the old
city. When I stopped to catch my breath from time to time, I could practically
hear the slap of sandals from the Roman legionnaires marching behind us. And, I
certainly felt grateful as I looked up from the narrow streets we were walking,
knowing that the residents no longer threw their garbage and the household night soil down on the street below to
be flushed away by the first rainfall. Finally, when I thought I could not take
one more step, we found ourselves in a piazza at the top of the hill where we
stopped at a beckoning bar for a
well-earned aperativo. More on my
Italian adventure- domani!
Ciao,
MikeBo
©Mike Botula 2015
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