Annette Joseph - Italy Is My Boyfriend

Advance Praise for Italy Is My Boyfriend

Annette Joseph has written a sparkling bookfull of humor and insightabout the cultural roadblocks to buying a house in Italy. Luckily, she prevailed, with her love for Italy intact, and has written a valentine of a book for all of us to savor. Brava !!

Tricia Brock, Director and Visionary Storyteller

This memoir of memorable moments is a guide to making our own memoriesa reminder to feel deeply, to love greatly, to dream big, and to notice the good, the bad, and everything in between along the way, whilst always holding onto the vision of finding the secret key to our own happiness. I so embrace Annettes generosity of spirit in sharing this guide to falling in love with and living in Italy. Fatene Tesoro!

Betty Soldi, Florentine and Creative Thinker

If youve ever fantasized about buying a European farmhouse in the middle of a vineyard (and who hasnt?) youll enjoy house hunting with Annette through the Tuscan countryside. Weve worked together producing magazines for more than a decade, so I have followed the search from afar and once even spent a magical week at her home in Alassio. The Josephs wildly entertaining tales of the crazy and often unwritten rules of real estate investing in Italy have made me laugh out loud, and now shes sharing them with readers. The book has the ups and downs of all good love stories. Theres even a magic castle.

Betsy Riley, Editor-in-Chief of Atlanta

A POST HILL PRESS BOOK

ISBN: 978-1-64293-509-7

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-64293-510-3

Italy Is My Boyfriend

2020 by Annette Joseph

All Rights Reserved

Cover art by Ma Ni

All people, locations, events, and situations are portrayed to the best of the authors memory. While all of the events described are true, many names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

Post Hill Press

New York Nashville

posthillpress.com

Published in the United States of America

To my husband Frank

and

To my boyfriend Italy

(not necessarily in that order)

Contents

R ome was a summer romance, a first love, intense but brief. Perfect for any student in search of art and beauty. I spent an entire summer before college traveling, touring, learning, eating, and basking in the Italian sunshine. It was the best summer of my life, but, true to its time frame, it was over in a heartbeat. I have never forgotten my love for Rome, I just tucked the memories away and moved on to acquaint myself with all the other beauties the country has to offer.

My years here have revealed this truth: Italy in all its multifaceted, glorious history and culture has to be experienced in full. Over almost three decades, Italy has fed me, entertained me, confused me, excited me, lured me, promised me, lied to me, satisfied me, occasionally let me down, and utterly enchanted me. I leave, but I cant stay away; I always return. Always. Just like a beloved partner

As you can plainly see, Italy is my boyfriend.

Years after that summer fling with Rome, I married my husband Frank and we had two children. Family summer vacations were spent on the Italian Riviera, always near the beach, renting a house by the sea for six weeks at a time. I cooked, we went to the beach, we painted, we read and napped, Frank biked all over the countrysidewe lived la dolce vita with kids in tow. Most Americans opt for Tuscany, but our family was different, we liked the sea and the seaside vibe.

On our first family vacation to Italy in 1997, I found the Italian Riviera, called Liguria, through our dear friends Larry and Ole. They told us about a town called Santa Margherita Ligure on the east coast of Italy. Ole had vacationed there as a child from Denmark and loved it. So we went with them our first time, and it was immediate love for me. I had a sense that I had lived there in a past life; it felt very comfortable. Thats where it began, my love affair with the Italian Riviera.

We rented a pretty pink house at the uppermost ridge of town. We had never rented a house; it was a first and with first times there are always a few nerves and the anticipation of things to come. But we felt pretty certain this would be an amazing summer. All the Ligurian seaside towns are built on cliffs with winding roads that lead down to the sea. We had a spectacular view and a yard with an exotic garden with kiwis growing on vines covering the pergola. We had most meals looking out at the sea beneath that pergola, heavily bowed with the furry, ripened fruit. It was a typical Italian house, two floors with a tiny well-appointed kitchen, big bedrooms, and a sitting room on the upper floor. The TV was big and we spent evenings watching soccer games (since that was the only thing we could understand in Italian). The best part of the vacation for me was the beach club. It was exactly what I pictured an Italian beach club would look likered-and-white striped cabanas, striped chairs, and a wonderful little restaurant where we had lunched every day. Lunch consisted of heaps of salty fried calamari, fresh pesto pasta, andalwaysthe chilled house white wine.

The beach club at Paraggi Beach, located between Portofino and Santa Margherita, was a daily ritual that made me love Italy even more. The kids played on the beach all day, and at days end we would shower them in the camp-like shower stall at the club, and dress them in tiny beach robes I had bought in town. The memory of their shiny, tan little faces eating an ice cream bar at the end of the day still makes me smile.

While we loved our little beach club and seaside garden in Santa Margherita, in 2000, we rented a house in Levanto to experience another seaside town. It was sort of like dating around; we wanted to see how it differed and if we liked it as much. It was a renovated farmers house situated just below a very large villa. At one time, the farmer had lived there and worked the land for the proprietors of the villa. The villa even had a tiny church right next to ita family chapelthat fascinated me.

A family from Turin lived in the villa, which had been in the family for generationsmany, many generations, as Italians would insist. Which again is quite common in Italy; in fact, its the rule and not the exception that large estates are passed down to all members of a family.

We met the family upon arrivalyoung parents like us, with five boys, ages four to eleven. For Levi, our son, this was a wonderful development; he was seven at the time and ready for anything, and was especially thrilled he would have a pack of boys to pal around with.

The rental farmhouse was quite comfortable and beautifully decorated in a rustic style, with five big bedrooms and a huge terrace that cantilevered out over the cliff affording insane sea views. I figured we would be living on that terrace, and I was right. Last but not least, the country kitchen was perfection. It had open shelving, a rudimentary gas stove from the 1960s, and thick Carrara marble tops (that I would later harken to when I was building our own country kitchen); it was simple and functional and to me it was beautiful. I cooked all our meals there with immense pleasure.