Italy: The Land of Zero Fucks

I finally got the photos off my phone after figuring out that my cable was broken and NOT my phone (thank god), so now I can do my summary of Italy.

My husband and I went on a very much-needed vacation to Moneglia, Italy for a whole week. Through a friend of his parents we were also able to use a holiday home for free, and borrow their car instead of renting one, we were thinking about holding off on taking the trip until it could be on our anniversary (which is in july) week, but fuck it, this trip was almost free, and it gave us more money to spend on Focaccia. The town is small, and gorgeous. The main attraction is obviously the beach, but even more beauty was found driving around in the foothills around the city.

Our house for the week

Also, the tiniest gas station I have ever seen in my life.

Moneglia is a little town just outside of La Spezia, that rests between a ‘hidden gem’ that the tourist offices like to call it, which isn’t true because it was over-run with tourists, called Cinque Terra. It is also about an hour away from Pisa, all areas we visited in the trip.

First off, our route. We drove from Offenburg, straight through the length of Switzerland, and then headed for the Mediterranean and stopping when he hit the Riviera. I’d only been as far as Konstanz so far in Switzerland, but upon simply crossing the swiss border I could tell an immediate change in scenery.

These mountains make my Canadian rockies look like blackheads.

Either the entire country of Switzerland is photoshopped or every single fantasy/folk/fairy tale has actually occurred here. Green, lush, giant snowy alps, and cows. Cows. Fucking. Everywhere. It might be a lawful requirement that if you live in Switzerland, you need to own cows. Cows on the road, cows in the pasture, cows on the mountains, cows on the godamn ceiling. Switzerland = cows.

Moving on to Italy. My first impression of Italy was slightly disappointing actually, because movies have told me Italy is gorgeous and the buildings are intricate and Jesus’ tears fall from the sky instead of raindrops.That is because I’ve only really seen Vatican City or Venice in movies, and not the rest of the country which looks more like this: 

So I was a little let down, but that quickly went away after we got out of Genoa and moved on to Moneglia. Sure, the buildings are run down (because who needs new buildings when we have perfectly good old buildings that only look a little run down) and through looking out the windows it has a third-world feel to it, with laundry drying out the windows, cracked paint, broken signs and pavement etc, but in order to get into Moneglia you have to drive over the mountains, and when you do that, you see this:

Oh my god. Are we on Pandora?

When we got to our holiday home, I obviously began snooping around the house, mid-snoop, I became fixated on the view from my bedroom.

Definitely Pandora.

Some more shots of the house:

While I was fixated, husband promptly reads guest manual and discovers that he must turn on the gas and electricity from outside, which is typical for most Italian homes. I continue snooping as he turns on the power, to find a few things that made me decide to dub Italy the Land of Zero Fucks.

1.      The house is built on a cliff. It appears that it could collapse at any moment, because looking down from the terrace is a straight drop onto another row of houses on a lower cliff How is this house standing. Lots of houses are built on this cliff, some have began eroding into the cliff and our neighbor's garage is a little lopsided, but that’s okay, clever Italian builders have added long pieces of wood under the frame to reinforce it. They also put a chicken-wire fence along the cliff’s edge just in case something really goes wrong, but why would it with those pieces of wood there.

2.       There is an electrical outlet in the shower. This is the best one. It makes me get this picture of Italian architects in my head being the master of after-thought improvisation but not thinking ahead. There is an actual, fully functional electrical outlet IN. THE. SHOWER. That CAN get wet. I figure they must have thought “well what if Signorina has an electric razor? She needs an outlet close by to use! Why don’t we put one in the back of the shower?” PERFECT. The proceed with installation of shower, drill a hole for the faucet and shower head, all done. Then someone realization, either by electrocution or hopefully before a death occurred, that the outlet will always get wet and most definitely cause electrocution because the showerhead is pointing directly at it. The solution? The take out the shower head, move the mount to the adjacent wall instead of the opposite, and install (no I am not joking) a little bell next to the outlet. Presumably, so if you do in fact electrocute yourself, you just ring the bell, which can be heard all through the house, and someone will come to your rescue.

Oh my god, Italy.

3.       Construction workers. Various characteristics of construction workers. Including but not limited to, working barefoot while fixing our terrace, without gloves or other safety gear. Okay I guess if you are extra careful you can get away with building things without wearing a shirt or safety gear, and I mean it’s hot, so shirtless is okay. How about laying down fresh Ashphalt though? No gloves, goggles, shirts, while laying down steaming hot tar by hand with a shovel on the road.

4.       The. Roads. Be aware that everyone in Italy either drives a tiny fiat, a 3 wheeled pick-up truck type thing like this: 

Pfft, why spend money on 4 wheels, it's obvious you can get the job done with 3.

     Or a moped. We were driving an SUV suitable for offroading and thank god. The road leading up to our place was such a tight corner that we had to back up twice before completing the turn, and in my mind I thought, "well it is possible to make the turn, just not on the first try, so why change it!"

 There were railings on most roads, speed limits of 100 everywhere despite so much back and forth winding you might as well be riding space mountain, half-finished or completely dirt roads, parking lots that pretty much have you parking your car vertically on the side of a mountain, and of course, insanely confident Italian drivers. What completed the ‘not giving a fuck’ air about Italy is despite the dangerous roads there are still little signs everywhere warning you about how dangerous they are. They do care, but only enough to warn people, I feel like most Italians live a live of figuring things out as they go.  

      Food

I can’t go much further without talking about Food, obviously. IT WAS ALL INCREDIBLE. Fresh fish, delicious, strong coffee, cheap but amazing wine, just incredible. Our favorite part? The fresh Foccacia baked in the morning, we walked down in the morning to this bakery just to get some Foccacia, and a LOT of it, then sit by the sea and enjoy. I would go back to Moneglia just for that bread.

Swordfish

Tiramisu

Jug of wine

Turns out that Moneglia is most famous for Pesto, I picked up a couple local jars for a friend and indulged in a pesto pasta dish at our favorite restaurant. We kept coming back because of a very enthusiastic and friendly server that clearly enjoyed making all the tourists happy.

What I liked most about Moneglia was the fact that it really felt like being on vacation. It was quiet, calm, and though there were lots of tourists, it wasn’t overrun. We did end up going to Pisa, but poor husband’s allergies were going crazy being so far away from the water in the intense heat, and we basically stopped in to see the tower, and then return to Moneglia so we could nom the shit out of some excellent swordfish.

Pisa did not feel authentic, it was a typical tourist hub and it was hard to see the Italianness of Pisa through the fog of tourists, being back in Moneglia was much nicer. Also, the ‘leaning on the tower’ thing really made me cringe. Look at them all.:

                                          

Main river that flows through Pisa

Cinque Terra was really lovely, also built into a cliff, and therefore the whole town is built on an incline. People with bad knees beware, you have to part 1km outside the village then walk straight down into it, because cars will not fit down by the harbor. There are many walking paths around the village all accompanies by hand rails since they are nearly on the oceans edge, the place is also a hot spot, very popular from tourists. We didn't stay very long, because we wanted to return to out cozy Moneglia.

Favorite Points

1.       Italians and Italy in General is a light-hearted and laid back place, very friendly and welcoming

2.       All the food is made out of ground angels

3.       Could live forever as a bum on that sandy, warm beach.

I will be back again!

Here are some extra pictures of the trip: