The Long Road Home
That which does not kill you makes you ... homicidal?
In Italy, it works like this: you have your regions (i.e., Umbria, Emilia-Romana, Lombardia, etc.) and then you have your provinces, which are composed of smaller municipalities called comune. Is it super confusing? Of course. This is Italy.
Just to recap. From big to small: regions, provinces, comune. The region with the largest numbers of provinces (twelve) is Lombardia. Umbria only has two.
My boyfriend John and I love Umbria. It’s the only region that has neither a coastline nor a shared border with another country. Umbria is considered the green heart of Italy, and the people here are funny, solid, straightforward, and somewhat godless. Bestemia (religious blasphemy like porco dio, which has no English translation other than “pig god”) is not uncommon here, even among women, and most Italian women do not use bestemia.
Quality of life is radically different from region to region. Your Southern regions (Naples, Sicily, etc.) are notoriously shambolic when it comes to services like healthcare or public transportation, yet for my money, the strongest flavor of Italy is to be found there. Southern Italy is hot, messy, noisy, breathtaking, and delicious. My heart comes to life in Southern Italy. The food is unrivaled.
Our former region of Lazio, which includes Rome, is beautiful, but there are problems. For one, it’s dirty. Trash is strewn alongside country roads and alongside highways. Rome itself is knee-deep in trash. No political administration seems able to solve this problem. You hear things—Mafia families deploying eco-terrorism in order to extract more lucrative trash disposal contracts. Who knows what’s true. But Italians who wouldn’t dream of throwing trash on the floor of their own homes think nothing of tossing it out a car window.
Yet the minute you pass from Lazio to Umbria, everything changes. Suddenly, there is no trash. The vibe is less frenetic. The roads curve around terraced vineyards, crumbling casales, hills the color of pale wheat. Umbria is ringed by mountains, cradled by them. You’re in Italy, but the best version of Italy.
When we were scouting around for a new apartment (our poor landlord died of Covid last Christmas; his kids wanted to sell), we had originally looked in Orte, which is part of Lazio. There were practical reasons for this. Orte was getting high-speed rail. Thirty minutes to Rome, sixty to Florence. That sounded very appealing to two people who often felt marooned out in the hinterlands of Lazio.
We made a bid on an apartment. This involved giving 2000 euros in earnest money to the real estate office. We waited. And waited. The owner clearly didn’t think much of our offer, but instead of saying that, she kept us on the back burner, just in case a better one didn’t come along. A month went by. We still had nowhere to call home and time was running desperately short. Calls were not returned. Courtesy was not shown.
“I know how to solve this problem,” John said. “I’m going to ask a friend to call the real estate office and ask to look at the apartment. Let’s see if we can’t get the owner to release us from the contract because she believes somebody else is interested.”
Meanwhile, we looked at villages other than Orte. Amelia was right over the border in Umbria, only fifteen minutes from Orte. I’d seen a reasonably priced apartment online there with frescoed ceilings. We toured it and fell in love. We also met our next-door neighbor, a movie actor, who just happened to be looking for property to buy. Did he mind doing us a huge favor?
The stratagem worked perfectly. Our new neighbor toured the apartment in Orte and made it seem as though he were interested. Within a few short days, we were released from the contract. Poof!
These are the subterfuges one is sometimes forced to resort to in order to do business in Italy. It’s about the most Italian thing I’ve ever done. The end result was our money was returned to us and we landed a better apartment. Amelia is clean, lovely, and lively. We’re finally in Umbria, which is where we belong. And there’s a community of educated, accomplished expats here that’s a welcome oddity to a girl who was used to being the only American.
Moral of the story? Don’t be a jerk to people who are trying to do business with you. Also, when looking for a new place to live, it pays to be a little fatalistic. When something doesn’t go the way you wanted it to go, that is often a blessing in disguise.
You gotta let go and let Italy.
What are your moving/buying a house/renting an apartment horror stories? Let’s hear ‘em! Comment below.