Word travels fast in this town!

Let me give you an example. Yesterday evening I went into the grocery store in the center of town to buy some cheeses-pecorino and gorgonzola- and some wine. The store owner, a jolly lady of about my age (at least her husband Sergio is) asked me if I had enjoyed Vittoria’s minestrone. I was somewhat flummoxed-how did she know this? Vittoria, you may recall, is the lady who lives in one of the houses in my building, the one at the street level. She is the mother of Antonella, my landlady, who with her husband Daniele, live in another part of the town. Vittoria is also probably around my age as our daughters, Antonella and Jane, were born a few months apart. Every morning as I go out for my exercise walk I descend the 35 steps that take me from my level to the street and at step 30 or so, I pass close to the window of Vittoria’s kitchen. Most mornings, except the very cold ones, her window is open and the aromas issuing from it are out of this world. Always some pan is on the stove in which her latest creation is simmering, be it meat sauce, fish sauce, minestrone, soup, or whatever, and the resulting whiffs are incredibly deliciously. If she is in the kitchen or outside tending her flowers in their various pots we exchange greetings and more. Today she was gardening and was distressed about her roses, pointing out the aphids that were chewing up the buds. She had a spray bottle in her hand and a determined look in her eye and I didn’t give much of a chance that those little devils were going to be around when I returned.

I have discovered that the magic words are “Che buon profumo!” (figure it out for yourselves) and when I utter these with the appropriate gusto in my voice, she takes me into her house and proceeds to ladle a couple of servings into a bowl for me to take up to my place, which I do with great enthusiasm; the tastes always live up to the smells, I can tell you. I am careful not to use the magic words too often as I feel that it could lead to my welcome becoming worn out, who knows, maybe her generosity knows no bounds?

Anyway to get back to yesterday morning, the magic words resulted in my being rewarded with a bowl of minestrone a la Vittoria, loaded with legumes and other vegetables. Needless to say, it was delightful. The point of the tale, however, is not to extol Vittoria’s cooking and her generosity, magnificent though they are, but to relate that word of this big-hearted act at about 10 AM had reached the grocery store by the time I went in there at about 5 PM. The way by which the word was transmitted, perhaps from one person to another, will surely remain in the realm of the arcane.

Vittoria and I live on a street called via Remota, at number 20, as indicated by a pair of decorated ceramic tiles, one with the numeral 2 and a matching one with the numeral 0, attached side-by-side on the gatepost. As the name implies, the street is remote, not so much in the sense of physical distance but, at least to my mind, in the sense of character. To try to explain this I want you (that is anybody who is still reading) to get a mental picture of the geography here. Castiglione della Pescaia sits on the provincial road 158 (also called SS 322) that connects the relatively large towns of Grosseto to the east (more-or-less) with Follonica to the north west (more-or-less). Imagine yourself in a car driving west from Grosseto, as you enter CDP from the east, you first have to make a crossing of the river Bruna, and then circumvent the rocky outcrop on which the mediaeval village was built. Thus you follow a serpentine route through the town always at, or near, sea level. On passing the obelisk dedicated to Christopher Columbus, the road, now called Corso della Liberta, makes a right hand sweep of a quarter turn and on your left side you will pass the Financial Police building, the Italian Red Cross building and the old town hall. On your right side, on the inside of the curve is a continuous line of shops of all kinds, luring the tourists. If you had X-ray vision and could see through the shops, then you would be looking into via Remota, which runs behind the line of shops on the same curve. If you wish you can open up this link and see a map, and even street view, if you want.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=42.762138,10.881143&spn=0.002107,0.005284&t=m&z=18&vpsrc=6>

If you do look at the map you will see that the street behind SP 158 is called Via Mazzini for most of its length, only becoming via Remota near to the town itself. However, it seems that in this town you can decide for yourself what your address is. Vittoria’s place is in reality at the center of the right hand sweep of Mazzini, but she labels her house as via Remota. A little further to the west is a house with a mailbox that is doubly-labeled as 12 via Mazzini and 12 via Remota-all very quaint.

As I said, the remoteness is in the character or personality of the street. On the main street, only the thickness of a shop away, there is the rush of much traffic and the hustle and bustle of people, shopping and window-gazing, or gathered in clusters, meeting and greeting. And yet, jump over the shops and you find yourself in a completely different world; no traffic, few people, quietness-in a word, remote. Best of all the 35 steps bring me to my abode, sitting atop another one that, in turn, sits atop Vittoria’s. The climb, now a “breeze”, is completely worth it because it brings me to the reason I live at this place, viz., the magnificent terrace overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea.

I close with the following piece of nonsense that was inspired one evening on the same terrace looking at the night sky.

Sitting on my porch last night

My eye perceived a flash of light

It was so fleeting bright

I thought it was a meteorite

But wait!

I must to think again

It might have been an aeroplane

Aflying off to Rome or Spain

Or Timbuktu or the Ukraine

But hold!

No ‘plane could cross the sky

In such a passing blink of eye

Methinks that I must say goodbye

To thoughts so very far awry

So now I feel a great delight,

That my first thought last eve was right

And that which then I saw in flight

It surely was a meteorite