A few pics of Italy at our villa we rented. The villa slept 10 quite comfortably (each of us girls had our own room; I shared happily with Becks, but our room was large and had its own balcony) and had plenty of room to spread out. We primarily focused in the kitchen and out on the back terrace, where we sat in the sunshine for breakfast and sunbathed. The side terrace was where we ate dinner under the trellis.
We were south of Rome about 5 hours, so we were definitely in a different sort of Italy–the south has different customs, different dishes, different understandings about the West. We could not communicate with the lady who rented us the villa (she did not speak any English and our Italian is shaky enough), and instead of speaking the Italian I had been practicing, I kept coming up with Spanish! Two is not dos in Italy; it is tua. I kept asking for dos of everything! By the time I finally switched to my bits of Italian that passed for being fluent (ha!), we were off to other countries. In Slovenia, I had a hard time not speaking my bits of Italian. It was a fun trip for Trish, that’s for sure.
The villa had a washing machine and we figured out to use it (luckily) so we had fresh towels throughout the trip, which was nice. The ants got our Italian pastries one night and our refrigerator was pretty small, but we did really well.
Their grocery stores are mostly small, called autogrills and right off the freeway. Once off the main freeway, the sizes of stores varied, but the one we used the most was smaller than a 7-Eleven! The food was pretty cheap for Europe, but the proprietor had no debit/credit machine, and was thrilled when I spent 8 Euro!
Most of the businesses we saw while in the larger towns looked similar to the States, mannequins fully clothed with the latest Italian fashions. United Colors of Bennetton is back with a vengeance over there and everyone mixes and matches lots of bright colors with neutrals. Lots of mixing of neutrals, and lots of really great hand bags.
If you’re thinking of a trip to Italy, I say YES! It’s a wonderful country and so beautiful. It’s very low-key to visit. You actually can relax there. Plus, Italian is easier to pick up than Greek! Trust me on that!
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