Monteleone, Le Marche, Italy

Le Marche

We are surrounded by green velvet rolling hills that rise up to mountains.

Arrival

There’s a word the Italian’s use that perfectly describes our trip: puerca-miserie: pig misery. Jammed into the torture devices the airlines pass off as seats for almost twenty hours, then on a bus for more hours, and a half day on a train, total time in transit: 42 hours. Pure pig misery.  The airline lost one of our bags. Oh well, we’re here.

Rolling green hills, umber fields and rows of olive trees, an ancient stone church on a hill across the valley. The house is pale stone with centuries old timbers supporting the ceiling and worn smooth cut stone floors and scattered rugs. Windows open onto trees with birds chirping and fresh mountain breezes.

It’s cool here above the coast, which is about thirty minutes down the hill. The costal town where we left the train, Puerto San Georgio, is pleasant with a wide center Rambla lined with trees. Across from the station cafes with large patios, in this season bordered by canvas walls with large plexiglass windows and heaters. Clean cobbled streets blend on the outskirts of town with new roads.

The local folks seem quite nice and so far no one has shown tendencies towards vampirism or anything that would cause us to flee in terror, or go looking for sharpened stakes. We’ve only been here about 18 hours and have slept 12 of those, so time will tell, but no fangs in sight.