My coffee shop in San Feliciano
FINDING MY SAN FELICIANO HOME Perugia, 18 August, 2009.
In 2009, I decided to put my love of Italy – and the language – into action.
I booked into a class at a university in Perugia, Umbria. The plan was to do the course, then find a little Italian village and live the life, speak the language for a few months. Sounded simple. A couple of weeks into the course, reality hit. Finding that little apartment was not simple. Then one of my more travelled friends spoke up: “Just ask somebody, ask an Italian. Everyone knows someone…”.
Daniele Baldassarri was my conversation teacher. In class, we would speak about our lives, plans, our home. I mentioned that I wanted to stay in Italy, and was looking for a ‘home’ for a few months. After class, he caught me. ‘We have an apartment’, he said.
Today is the day! I had no idea what to expect – we were going to see a ‘piccolino’ [very small] apartment. But how fantastic if this apartment could happen! No searching, no real estate agents. I was a little nervous about the drive. Daniele is a conversation, communication professor. In his classes, we must speak Italian at all times. So today I would have to spend an hour, in a car with Daniele, speaking only Italian. Fortunately, he is an excellent teacher and he made it easy. .We left the school in his little red Cinquecento – the perennial Fiat 500 that many Italians drive. On the autostrada, we stayed in the right lane, and everyone passed us in a hurry. Through beautiful Umbrian hills, then glimpses of Lake Trasimeno.
San Feliciano is a small village, right on the lake. We slow down, turn into a little narrow – and so pretty – typically Italian street. I see a church up there on the hill, and old stone houses with those big old wooden doors. Stop the car at a big terracotta coloured building of three storeys, with green shutters. We are here!
We enter through one of those big old doors, which I find out later are almost 300 years old. Upstairs to the top floor, and we are greeted by Daniele’s Mum Rosanna – who will come to be my beautiful friend! After a magical Italian lunch, it’s time to look at my apartment!
Down to the ground floor, and yes, it is piccolo, but with everything I need – a tiny kitchen, with a fridge, stove and an oven. The little bathroom has a shower and toilet, and of course, a bidet. A small Juliet balcony window gives me a view over slate roofs to the lake. There is a little table beside the window where I can eat, or work on my writing, and a sofa that converts into a bed. Rosanna and I try to have a chat, but it’s a bit hard, she has no English. However, over the next three months, we will learn to communicate very well.
Rosanna is another story for another time – but such an amazing old lady. And San Feliciano is such a beautiful little town – everything I hoped for – the village, the lake, the life! One minute walk to the lake, the passeggiata every evening – just how I imagined it! I didn’t want to AirBnB – live in somebody’s home, but this is a separate space.
I’ll have my privacy, with the security of knowing someone local. The perfect setting to relax, to write, and live my dream!