Italy Diaries - holiday in Italy, take a lover & never leave
My Italian love story
As I write this rain drops speckle my kitchen window, the candles I lit are flicking, the smell of incense lazily drifts and soft music plays in the background.
A romantic backdrop to write a romantic story.
I dropped in my story last week about the reason an “Aussie” girl like me came to in a little village in the Tuscan countryside of Italy. A total cliche, albeit a good one (I think) - LOVE.
Such a typical cliche, like something out of a romance novel or good rom com, that it gives me a cheeky little grin. For anyone that knows me well - or not at all because as you can see, I created a Substack called “The Hungry Romantic” - knows that I’m a romantic. Yes, hello, that’s me!
Let’s set the scene of this particular love story. It begins in a gorgeous villa in Tuscany. Think sprawling vines covering the front of the villa that has pink shutters, a garden filled with fig and olive trees, an Italian family, pasta cooked for lunch almost every day, a large swimming pool that’s perfect for the hot Italian summer. My room -a little cottage separate to the house.
Ridiculous.
I was staying there as a workaway - a very cool program/organisation where in exchange for working 4-5 hours per day you get to stay at someones house for free and normally also receive free food. A great way to experience a culture or save money while travelling.
I’d always dreamt of having a saucy Italian summer and being adopted by an Italian family. In my application I told them I was pretty certain that I was Italian in a past life. They told me this was part of the reason they accepted my application. That and my persistent messaging.
The four hours of work I did each day included things like organising their kitchen, which I loved, I’m no virgo but a few hours of good hard organisation gives me a buzz. Make fig jam, waitress at an event because the mother of the family was a sommelier, scrub their pool in my bikinis, clean their Airbnb. What felt like the kind of activities you do for pocket money during the summer holidays when you’re a kid. I have to say - I loved it. During my afternoons and weekends off I would explore nearby villages and cities… or go on dates with Italian men.
Honestly, I tell all my friends - if ever you’re in need of a confidence boost. Go to Italy.
One afternoon I was laying by the pool when I heard a car arrive. Throwing some clothes on I walked over to find two Italian men with a wine delivery. The cute one started speaking with me. I felt excited, surely he would ask for my number. He asked if I was staying at the villa and I told him I was staying for one month (that turned into two). He later told me that he thought I was some rich girl - who could afford to rent this entire villa for a month - having no idea I was organising their kitchen cupboards in exchange to live like a Tuscan princess.
He left and didn’t ask for my number. A little confused I returned to the pool.
An extremely hot afternoon one week later, adorned in a yellow sundress with sweat dripping down my back, I walked to the nearby village to get a coconut and pistachio gelato. The road to the village was not a road. It was a self made trail through peoples backyards, olive groves, vineyards. Naturally being the tourist trespasser, I yelled ‘ciao!!’ and waved to all the owners of the backyards, olive groves and vineyards I trudged through.
As I walked past one particular casa (house) a cute man pulled into his driveway. I gave him an unapologetic ciao as I confidently walked through his garden.
Cute Italian man said to me, “you’re the girl from the villa!”
I took off my hat and pushed up my sunglasses so I could see him better, realising he was the cute Italian that didn’t ask for my number.
He asked what I was doing and I told him that I was walking to the village to get a gelato. He told me that he was also planning on going to the village and that if I wanted, he would meet me there in one hour.
I later found out that he didn’t have plans to go to the village, he was actually supposed to be catching a train to Rome… that in that moment he cancelled.
We tried exchanging numbers but my British phone number confused him. I felt like the British girl in the movie that giggles and gets all hot and bothered during her first interaction with a man when asking her out.
He meets me in the village an hour later where he helps me find a post office so I can send my post cards back to Australia.
He asks if he can take me to his favourite bar for an aperitivo. We drive the winding Tuscan roads as the sun sets, turning the surrounding vineyards golden, warm summer air blowing through the windows.
We eat some of the most delicious food! Ordered by him. I gotta say, I love a man that confidently navigates a menu, assertively ordering an assortment of delicious things.
My foodie turn on.
We got drunk on wine. I thought his English was really good! I later realised it wasn’t that good, I was just drunk. We ate vitello tonnato, aged and new pecorino, oily crunchy heavenly focaccia and prosciutto.
He then took me to what is now the local bar in the village we live in together. We continued to get drunk drinking dirty martinis which is now my drink of choice. Dangerous, I know.
Our drunk-in-love drunkenness made us run through the village walls kissing in nonnas flower filled courtyards beneath their drying sheets, dancing and laughing into the night. Such juicy details to gushingly drunk text my friends while he was in the bathroom.
Then we went back to his house.. where I abruptly left in the middle of the night, leaving him feeling very confused. Poor man. He yelled as I disappeared into the dark olive groves and vineyards, “What about the wild boars?”
I yelled back with drunken confidence (stupidity), “I’m Australian!”
Then I ghosted him for two weeks.
All my love,
The Hungry Romantic
Dreaming of travelling to Italy? Pasta, people watching, gelato, the mediterranean sea, passion, vineyards, bikinis, vespas? …of course you are!
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