Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Recapping ...

As you now know from my quick last post, I'm in London and all's well.
My last week-ish in Italy was wonderful, and very hot! After leaving Rome I spent a few days in Latina with some family friends. Latina is just a regular town, and it was nice to escape the insane tourism of Rome, and as I was to discover, most of Italy. While Latina itself is a relatively young town (started by Mussolini after the second world war) it is surrounded by many old villages, either fishing villages along the coast, or farming villages along the mountains. So we took many walks around, admiring the teeny-tiny old cobbled streets, with their tall old buildings, monuments etc. These were little places like Anzio, Nettuno, Monticchio and Sermoneata (sorry bout the spelling!) I spent an evening with some family of mine in Monticchio, my Nonna's brother, Zio Toni (Zio just means 'uncle') and his wife, kids and their kids etc. We had warned them that my Italian wasn't very good (ie, very bad) but they either ignored this advice or forgot, as none of them spoke any English! We managed to get by, but it was kinda frustrating. I also felt a bit like an animal in a zoo! They were wonderful tho and showed me the house that my Nonna lived in, where my Nonna and Nonno lived and where my Dad was born, and also a lemon tree that my Dad planted when he was five years old! They were the ones who took me to Sermonaeta as well, it is a beautiful old (700 years!) village, which is literally clinging to the edge of a mountain! It also comes with its very own castle! It is becoming a bit more tourist-y now, but mainly among the Italians. The castle was about to close, but Zio Toni told the guy I was from Australia only for the one day and they kept it open for another 45 minutes while we looked around. My cousin managed to find a book which had both English and Italian explanations so I could follow better what was going on. (I have more photos and stories about the day, but will leave for my fam and anyone else whose interested another time).

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