30 May 2006

A place to stay

Our home for the summer...

We are staying at the summer home of our friends here in Anzio for 2-3 months while we adjust to life in Italy and look for long term housing. Our friends were very generous in offering this home to us and have been a great help in the whole process of moving to Italy.

This house is about 15 minutes by bus north of the center of Anzio along the west coast of Italy in an area called “Lido Tor Materno” 1.5 blocks from the Mediterranean Sea. It is part of a 2 story duplex with a detached single auto garage with a small detached guest house and utility building. The house is about 850 sf total with 2 bedrooms upstairs. The walls and floors are concrete and the floors are covered with ceramic tiles as is common in Italy. The windows have metal shutters that close with wood windows that have panels on the inside that also close which make for a very dark room at night.

The yard is more like a large garden full of herbs, roses, cactus, geraniums, lemons and various other flowers and fruit trees. The smells from the garden fill the house with their aroma. Over the tops of house to the west we can see parts of the sea and in the quiet of the night we can hear the waves crashing on the shore. There is public access to the beach less than a 10 minute walk for us.

Within walking distance there are 2 small markets with most daily items, a hardware store, 2 bars (coffee), a pizzeria and several other stores. The bus stop for Anzio and Roma is a 10 minute walk. We do lack a fresh meat market, internet and pharmacy in walking distance but can access these by a short bus ride to Anzio.

The house is situated in an area popular for Italians in the summer and there are several hotels and seasonal related businesses in our area. According to our friend the summer crowds will start in July and intensify in August when all of Italy will seem to be on vacation.

3 comments:

Moby Dick said...

what a wonderful plan. Italy is a beautiful place, and the people are sweet.

Jane said...

Bryan and Valerie
It looks and sounds wonderful--the perfect place for the summer. We leave two months from today--by then you will be totally Italian and speak fluently! A Presto Jane

Anonymous said...

thanks for showing us the pictures.