Today we traveled to Monteferrante to have lunch with some of Chad’s relatives.  Monteferrante is located in Abruzzo which is the region just north of Molise.  Monteferrante is the home village of Chad’s great-grandparents. 

We’ve been there twice before, but always in August during the national holiday month called Ferragosto when there are other visitors.  It was interesting to visit the village on a quiet spring day. 

View of Monteferrante

Monteferrante is a typical example of an Italian hilltop village that is dying.  The village is very cute, but it has dwindled to about 50 inhabitants.  (When we first visited in 2016, there were 87 full-time residents.)  It has no restaurants and just one little multi-purpose store where you can buy cigarettes, underwear, some groceries…the necessities.   The lone bar has cut back on its hours.  There is a pharmacy that keeps a few hours a week and a post office and a church, but nothing else to entice new residents. 

the cute bar in Monteferrante – the patio is wonderful

We had a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon with the family.  We had lunch with cousins Gabriella and Antonino, their daughter Alice, and Alice’s son Achille, and we ate at the house of Gabriella’s father, Adolfo.  We met Adolfo in 2016 and enjoyed our time with him, but he passed away in 2018 a few months before our next visit to Monteferrante.  Now his house belongs to his daughters who visit it from time to time.

Adolfo’s house

lunch in 2016 with Adolfo at the head of the table

At lunch, the food was wonderful, of course, and the conversation was lively.  We last saw Gabriella, Antonino, Alice and Achille in 2018, so it was fun to catch up with everyone.

Antonino went foraging for wild asparagus this morning

pasta with wild asparagus and pancetta (bacon) and and glass of organic rose wine

delicious lunch

After lunch, we visited with cousin Silvana who lives across the street.  Her mother Maria passed away last year which made us sad.  Maria was always so friendly to us and made the best food.  She was a good lady.  Anyway, it was good to see Silvana and spend some time with her.  I meant to take a photo, but I forgot.  We’ll be going back to Monteferrante in 3 weeks, so I’ll get a photo at that time.

Chad and Maria – that pasta was amazing

To wrap up, let me tell you about our drive to Monteferrante.  For some reason, when we left Guardialfiera, Google Maps took us through and up and over the mountains instead of on the highway.  We traveled on narrow country roads, winding around hairpin curves.  The total drive to Monteferrante was two hours, and 1-1/2 hours were on these mountain roads.  At one point, we had to pull over to the side of the road and get out of the car to walk around for a few minutes to recuperate. 

At another point, Chad stopped the car and said, “Get your phone and take a photo, because no one is going to believe that Google Maps guided us on this route.”

this is where Chad and I had a “What in the world?” moment – a little bridge on a gravel road, and if you squint, you can a tiny bit of the stream on the left

We did enjoy the countryside and the views.  We were in the middle of nowhere, frequently with no houses or signs of human life, just looking at fields and forest and mountains.  We also saw A LOT of solar panel installations.  I’m guessing that the state or national government or public utility companies have built these, since they are out in the middle of nowhere and not associated with houses or other buildings.

a view of solar panels on our drive, and note the very narrow mountain road

In any case, we enjoyed the countryside, and we never want to do that again.  Thanks but no thanks, Google Maps!  NB: the drive home to Guardialfiera was on the highway.  It was flatter and straighter, and it only took one hour and 45 minutes.

me, Alice, Achille, Antonino, Gabriella

There are a lot of things that happen during the week that don’t fall into any particular theme in a blog post, so I’ve decided to gather these thoughts into a brain dump at the end of the week.  This week’s dump, in no particular order:

When we went to Casacalenda yesterday, we took advantage of free parking in a 60-minute zone, knowing that we were just running a few errands.  30 minutes later, we passed a guy on the street who had watched us park, and he reminded us that it was 60-minute parking.  I appreciated him looking out for us, and we thanked him kindly for reminding us.  (Remember that our car has French license plates, so it is clear that we are not locals and we might need some advice.)

People usually figure out pretty quickly that we are not Italian.  However, as soon as we attempt to speak a few words in Italian, they are all so friendly and helpful, sometimes to the point where I want to say, “Slow down!  Slow down!  I only know beginner Italian!”  We’ve experienced this in all countries where we’ve traveled – make an attempt at the local language, and people will be very helpful.

Guardialfiera is a small, tight-knit village.  You always say “ciao” or “buon giorno” when you pass someone on the street, even if you don’t recognize them.  When you go into a little shop for the first or second time, the proprietor is polite but not generally so welcoming.  Since you are a stranger, they are not sure if they will see you again. 

When you go back to the shop for a third or fourth time, hoo-boy!  Now you are part of the community and there are so many questions about why you’re here, how long you will be here, and why you should move here.  It is really charming.

It also helps when you ask the advice of people.  Chad asked the butcher about different products, and then we are magically having samples of the butcher’s homemade sausage.  We go into the little grocery shop to ask about the cheese that he has for sale, and the owner says, “the best cheese comes directly from the cheese-maker, you should seek that out instead.”

One thing that has been fun is that fact that people just walk up to us and ask a bunch of questions.  People will cross the street to come quiz us.  “You’re new here.”  “Where are you from?”  “Why do you have a French car?”  “I’ve never seen you before.”  “Let me tell you about my life.”  Once again, it’s quite charming and is making us feel very much at home.  And I’m practicing Italian on the fly, trying to understand the dialect and vocabulary.

We’ve met several people during our week and a half here.  Most of these people are retired men or local shopkeepers.  Younger people go away from the village to work during the week, and the older women and stay-at-home moms don’t hang out in the town square or at the bars during the day.  In any case, everyone we have met has been friendly and welcoming and, well, curious.  I’m guessing that we will setting into a social routine sooner rather than later.

A cold front came through earlier this week.  We left our house for a stroll one morning, and when we saw the police lady, she yelled at Chad to go back inside and get a jacket.  (She doesn’t like the cold.)  There was this whole exchange about the weather and the need for a coat.  Of course, I was bundled up in my ski jacket.

On Tuesday night, Chad and I went to bed and were jiggled awake at 11:55 pm by a terremoto.  Earthquakes are not uncommon in Italy.  When we were here in 2018, we experienced one while in Monteferrante.  What was unique about that one was that we actually heard it echoing around the mountains.  In all of the earthquakes that I experienced in California, I had never heard one before.  The quake this week was just a bit of a jiggle and was enough to get the village dogs barking like crazy.  We learned the next morning that it was a 4.6 quake near Campobasso.  And, of course, it was a topic of conversation in the village the next day.

In addition to settling into a daily routine here, we are also figuring out a weekly routine.

On weekdays, we generally stay in the village unless there is a need to run an errand elsewhere.  Chad has his work during the week, and I have my pastimes.  We take several walks a day, and I do additional exploring by myself to take photos and plan curated walks to show Chad the little details that I find around town such as these:

this bench is built onto the side of a house

the stand for these plants says “the garden costs less than a therapist (and there are also tomatoes)”

I noticed these little flowers growing out of a structural support under a balcony

a close-up of the flowers

One of the fun weekly events is the open-air market which takes place on Wednesday mornings.  There are vendors which have household goods such as kitchen gear (pots, pans, cheese graters, knives, etc), shoes, and linens, but there are also two food vendors – a pescivendolo (seafood vendor) and a fruttivendolo (fruits and vegetables vendor).  The local butcher doesn’t sell seafood, so we make it a point of going to the pescivendolo on Wednesday morning to get seafood.  The sea coast is only 30 minutes away by car, so the seafood from the pescivendolo is so very fresh.  In fact, some of the little creatures are still moving around as we are trying to figure out what to buy for lunch.  Yum!

a view of the kitchenwares vendor at the weekly market

the fruit and vegetable vendor at the local market

the pescivendolo at the weekly market

We also recently learned that there is a fruttivendolo truck which comes on Thursdays and a cheese guy who comes on Saturday mornings.  This reminds me of the bakery vendor who came to Chad’s ancestral village, Monteferrante, on a weekly basis when we were visiting there.  These vendors come to the small villages for a couple of hours and then go to the next village.  This means that small and tiny villages can get fresh goods on a regular basis, even if they don’t have a proper grocery store or bakery.

Chad waiting in line to get bread from the mobile bread vendor in 2018

Another exciting thing in our week is remembering which day is which trash day.  Trash day is six days a week, but every day has a different purpose so you can’t just put your trash out willy-nilly.  Each type of trash has its own assigned day.  We got this trash schedule from the town hall:

The trash calendar starts with Monday (lunedi) and sorts the trash as follows: umido (wet “humid”/organic waste), carta (paper, cardboard), plastica (plastic), secco (dry trash and non-recyclables), vetro (glass) alluminio (aluminum)

In addition to all of this, Friday is typically the day for laundry and house-cleaning for us.

our laundry day – European houses don’t typically have clothes dryers, so your balcony has a clothes line

We keep the weekend open for running errands in the bigger cities of Termoli or Campobasso, sighting-seeing in the region, or visiting family.  For example, today we went to Campobasso to purchase some things, and tomorrow we will go to Monteferrante to have lunch with some of Chad’s family.

And on that note, stay tuned for some highlights from this week.

Yesterday we took a quick trip to the neighboring town of Casacalenda, a 20-minute drive away. 

view on the drive to Casacalenda

view towards the old town of Casacalenda

We were on a quest to find an ATM machine to get cash.  We were also in search of a gas station to get GPL gas (liquid propane gas) for the car.  When we picked up our car in Rome, we were told that the car could run on either unleaded gas or GPL gas (and it has separate gas tanks for each).  We should always have some unleaded in the tank because the car won’t start without it, but GPL is cheaper for filling the tank and driving.  Not all gas stations have GPL, so you have to hunt around for them.  Alas, the two gas stations that we visited did not have GPL.

Casacalenda is a town of 2,100 people.  As we were walking around the town, I told Chad, “After being in Guardialfiera for 10 days, Casacalenda feels too big.”  This coming from someone who grew up in a town of 3,000 which seemed entirely too small at the time, and who has lived in large cities/metropolises ever since leaving Branson.  I did enjoy walking around Casacalenda, though.

we found a little home goods shop which was using the alley as retail space to exhibit plants for sale – the entrance to the shop is under the striped awning

across the street from the home goods shop was a dedicated parking spot which was reserved for pregnant women and new mothers

I like this carved face on the side of a house

I like the weeds and flowers growing out of this retaining wall

While in Casacalenda, we ran a couple of errands in addition to getting cash.  We happened upon a “caseificio” which is a little cheese-making factory that also has a public-facing sales shop.  We went into the shop and, after consulting with the clerk, came out with three cheeses.

Caseificio La Fonte Nuova – the person-sized door is the entry to the shop and the garage doors lead into the cheese-making area

the cheese on the top left has hot peppers in it, the cheese on the top right is an aged/hard/flavorful cows cheese, and the bottom left is soft ricotta which I’m sure was made just hours before we bought it

We also saw a little grocery that had all organic products.  Imagine that in a little town of 2,100 people.  However, for us, it seemed to be mostly things in jars like jam and sauces, and we didn’t need anything like that so we kept on walking. 

the organic grocery store

We then went into a grocery store to get a few things, but it was small and cramped and in the first aisle we were overwhelmed with household cleaning products and customers so we left.  We decided that our grocery options in Guardialfiera were sufficient for day-to-day needs, and we can always go to a bigger grocery in Termoli or Campobasso.

One thing that is unique and interesting about Casacalenda is its outdoor public art program.  There is a map posted in front of the town hall that pinpoints the locations of the art installations.  We walked by a few of the art pieces, but I wasn’t savvy enough in the beginning to take photos, so I was just able to capture a couple.

town map of Casacalenda with locations of the outdoor public art installations

this art was painted in a niche on the side of a building

this art was a shiny silver tree with gourds hanging from it

We returned home being happy for our adventure, and doubly happy with our adopted village of Guardialfiera.

view of Guardialfiera as we returned home

This morning, we headed to Campobasso to run our weekend errands.   We made a pit stop at an olive tree farm to see if we could buy some local olive oil, but unfortunately it wasn’t open.  We’ll have to go back on a weekday morning and check it out.

Upon leaving the olive farm, instead of directly us to the quickest route to the highway, the GPS on the phone directed us on a little country road up the side of a mountain, through the mountaintop village of Lupara (population 500), and then back down the other side of the mountain.  The road was narrow with lots of hairpin turns, but it was a nice detour through the countryside.

view from the road – note the snow-capped mountains in the distance

view on the way down the mountain – you can see the winding road at the bottom of the photo

We found GPL gas on the side of the highway.  I did the math conversion, and it was $2.80 per gallon.  

In Campobasso, we went into a huge clothing store where I bought some house slippers for five bucks.  Our apartment floors are all tile, so my feet get cold walking around.  Plus, another cold front will blow through this week, bringing temperatures in the 30s and 40s, so cozy slippers seem like a good idea.

cozy slippers

We also went to a huge grocery store to stock up on some things that we can’t find in our village. Most importantly, we stopped at a garden store to buy some terra cotta pots and dirt so we could repot the plants we got last weekend.

the plant on our front balcony

herbs on our back balcony which gets more sun

All in all, it was a successful trip, and our little apartment is feeling more like home with plants and cozy slippers.