Where Next? Travel with Kristen and Carol
Where Next? Travel with Kristen and Carol
Piemonte Italy with Barbara Boyle
In this episode, we explore Piemonte in Northern Italy with our guest, Barbara Boyle, author of Pinch Me. Situated at the foot of the Alps, this region blends Italian and French influences, creating a unique cultural experience. Barbara shares her insights on Piemonte’s rich history, stunning landscapes, and lesser-known travel gems. From rolling vineyards to the peaceful Italian lake district, this destination offers a perfect balance of tradition, natural beauty, and a relaxed way of life.
Piemonte is an ideal escape for those seeking simplicity, authenticity, and breathtaking scenery. Here, you can savor life’s small pleasures—enjoying local wines, tending a garden, or embracing the region’s warm hospitality. Whether you’re considering an extended stay or just want a glimpse into Italy’s understated elegance, this episode is your guide to experiencing the true essence of Piemonte.
You can find Barbara Boyle on Instagram at @barbaraannboyle10
and at her website.
You can join her Substack here.
You learn more about her book, Pinch Me: Waking Up in a 300-Year-Old Italian Farmhouse here.
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Hosts
Carol Springer: https://www.instagram.com/carol.work.life
Kristen: https://www.instagram.com/team_wake/
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Hi, welcome to our podcast when Next Travel with Kristen and Carol. I am Kristen and I am Carol, and we're two long-term friends with a passion for travel and adventure. Each episode we interview people around the globe to help us decide where to go next. So today we have Barbara Boyle, author of the book called Pinch Me and a lover of travel. She's going to tell us about, I guess, northern, northern Italy, country, mine country Italy, it's Piemonte.
Speaker 2:Piemonte and the joy of it is a lot of people don't really know much about it. It's very undiscovered compared to Tuscany, or I guess now, sardinia and Sicily, then obviously Rome, florence et cetera. So it's this tiny little nook, I think, the best part of Italy, but it isn't as top of mind for Americans, which is good.
Speaker 1:Right, and what's so funny, barbara? We just interviewed Steve Hoffman. He spent six months in Languedoc and it sounds like the language is.
Speaker 2:Maybe some history is the same, because I saw, heard that saw that name in the piedmont area and the sagoy, which is the south of france you could be italy. They don't, the french don't like talking about it, they don't like to remember that. But in fact there was this all kinds of you know when you'd win and lose a war, you'd give each other provence, or you know piedmont and so for, and lose a war, you'd give each other Provence, or you know Piemonte, and so for a while Italy was Southern France, and then they let it go back to France.
Speaker 2:So people marry different queens and giving them different hunks of land, that kind of thing. But, yeah, piemontese the dialect where we are is almost French and there's lots of French accents and overtones, so there's a lot of a lot of the people there don't speak really Italian. Even they speak Piemontese, which is a really weird sounding language.
Speaker 1:So when I look at Piemonte, Italy, I've got a map over here and I'm looking is it brought up? Piedmont? And you're saying Piedmont, so is it?
Speaker 2:Sorry, that's yeah. You know I had never really heard it mentioned as.
Speaker 1:Piedmont, but that's what we know it as, yeah, Like on the East Bay by Berkeley. I live in the East Bay. I mean you live near Piedmont, yeah exactly.
Speaker 2:I'm like, hey, we have a Piedmont. It means, as you know, foot of the mountains, because we are literally at the foot of all the Alps that go almost 360 around. Where we live, right in the kneecap of Italy, and you know, to your left are the Alps, maritime, the Maritime Alps, and then you see Switzerland and Germany, and you know all that. It's all just almost. You can touch it, you know, it's an hour or two away. So it's quite a different part of Italy with the Alp influence. So Wow.
Speaker 1:And so if you go straight south, is that where the Cinque Terre is, or is that farther east?
Speaker 2:Cinque Terre is sort of both a little bit south and over to the coast, to the east. If you go straight south you're in Savona, you know, and you you kind of go east from there and go to Genova or Genoa, as we know it, genova they call it, and then that's all the Ligurian Sea all along there and Cinque Terre is just past that. So people know Cinque Terre, which is packed, just packed with American tourists, so we don't go there much, okay, beautiful area.
Speaker 1:It's gorgeous, but you can hit the, the Mediterranean. How far does that take you then, from your place?
Speaker 2:Oh, it's an hour and a half to get to the ocean, yeah, so are you?
Speaker 2:living there. Are you there At this very moment? I'm in. You can see the Salesforce building San Francisco. Yeah, we bought a place in San Francisco mostly for the book launch, because we're going to be here for a good five, six months and it's good to have. We have family here and I have roots here.
Speaker 2:I grew up, pretty much grew up here in the Bay Area. Oh, we're right next, but so the ocean. You go straight down about an hour and a half and you have, oh, all kinds of places that are beach related, that are old, famous Italian ones, like where Elizabeth Taylor and all the old Hollywood fans would hang out, you know, all the queens of Hollywood. And then the other way would be towards Cinque Terre and trying to picture it, genoa, cinque Terre and out that way. So it's all beachy.
Speaker 2:There's Liguria and Mediterranean are kind of mingled. Yeah, the Ligurian Sea is, you know, they call it the Liguria area because it's all. The Mediterranean is pretty giant, but we're a little pocket of it is up by us, so it's not far. I mean, the nice place about exactly where I am is we're about an hour and a half from the alps and there's a peak there that's 12 500 feet called monviso. It's just gorgeous and it's really, as you get up there, it's like you, you want to see heidi coming down the hill with her, with her goats. You know, there's those old tile roofs and stuff. It's just beautiful. And then, an hour and a half south, you are at the old world. Uh, who's that guy?
Speaker 2:the fabulous mr winneth paltrow and those guys I can't remember anyhow, it's definitely old, like 50s type world of hollywood, like 50s type world of Hollywood where you vacation and all that it's quite beautiful Riviera kind of world.
Speaker 1:Wow, very, very cool is there surfing like. Are there waves or is it pretty calm?
Speaker 2:I don't know about surfing. I was just saying it's beautiful, it would be more calm. There's a lot of rock climbing going on. There are kids come out and go rock climbing. Yeah, certainly body surfing. My husband's a big swimmer of oceans, so we'll go down. To where did we go? We were in.
Speaker 1:There's Savannah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we'll spend the night down there, and then he just spends the day in the ocean and comes back and forth and I get my feet wet. It's a pebbly beach. It's not quite what you know from California.
Speaker 1:Got it. And then I, when I'm looking at a Ligurian sea and it's showing me, it looks like Cinque Terre. Is that part of the same area?
Speaker 2:Yes, Okay, yes, yes, I think it's heading that way as well, okay. I think, that's all the Ligurian sea, which is somehow I don't know where a sea ends and the ocean begins, but they're sort of attached. It's definitely the Mediterranean world.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:We eat the Mediterranean diet. I say yeah. In between pizzas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, and then. So, since it is kind of so far removed, are there? You know, a lot of people travel by train in Europe. Do trains go nearby? Is that one way to get there, or do you have to definitely rent a car or get a driver to get?
Speaker 2:there. I knew this would come up. One of the reasons it's so undiscovered and why I love it is it is off the beaten path. You know you have to go to Milan and you can't go Milan all the way to San Francisco. You have to go through New York or Frankfurt or something. So you have to first get towards either Milano or Turin or Milan and once you're there you can take a train from Milan. It's about an hour and a half. You go to a town called Bra or Torino and then you were about a half an hour or 40 minutes from there. But it's kind of a hike and the Italian trains are somewhat reliable about half the time. So it's tricky. You can't just train around, whereas you can definitely train around from town to town.
Speaker 2:In Cinque Terre, where we are, is more well, it's a wine region. It's like Napa, where there, where there's just people, I think, much prettier rolling hills and lots of greenery, and there's lots of orchards they do hazelnut orchards, truffles, all that sort of the. What's going on? There is the food, the wine, the food and all that, and a lot of farmers and very small little family run farms or vineyards, because it's actually where slow food began. Do you know about slow food and the idea? I know you talk about slow travel okay.
Speaker 2:Well, alice waters, right is in, exactly yeah but before alice was, uh, the town of bra and this guy who spelled that bra, just like the bra bra bra, yes, okay okay, cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, carlo petrini, uh, like petrini's from marin county, the grocery store. Carlo petrini went to the pope in um early 90s, I think to the pope and to the government and said I just heard there's going to be a mcdonald's put on the spanish steps in rome and I'm outraged. We can't become a fast food country. We need to promote slow food. We need to keep our small little farmers thriving. We need to keep the food raised naturally and authentic and delicious and we need to keep big food, big manufacturers coming in and overtaking our country, putting these little families out of business, taking our farms, covering them up with parking lots. And he was so ahead of his time. You know, it's 30 years ago and we're just now, while we know about slow food, we're just now realizing the impact of how we grow food in America, what it has on how we live, you know they take over what it has on how we live.
Speaker 2:You know they take over. You know everything's a mix, something. You know it's very good food and there it's very bespoke and very handmade, artisanal and so delicious and very seasonal. They don't have tomatoes in January because it's cold and the tomatoes are canned, right.
Speaker 1:Well, what they do is they grow them, and the tomatoes are canned, right.
Speaker 2:Well, what they do is they grow them and then the little nonis, the little mamas and grandmas literally can them for like three weeks in August and eat them all year. I mean, it's just how we should be with our food. So the slow food there is fantastic and it's one of the reasons we love it. I'm not sure how I got into slow food, other than the whole lifestyle is like that. It's very, take your time, be in the moment and it's natural and authentic. It's fantastic.
Speaker 1:I have a couple of questions also about how did you end up there? How long were you there? What did you do in your life, you know, professionally or being here in the Bay? Did you grow up here in the Bay area? Pretty much, yeah, okay, oh great.
Speaker 2:Where in the Bay Area did you grow up? Well, it's now known as Silicon Valley, but it was a prune orchard then and apricot orchards, oh my gosh. So on like a farm that you grew up. Yeah, it was a suburban street in Mountain View, you know, which is now, you know, crazy. The same little house is there, but it's, you know, a hundred times more expensive, I don't know how, or probably more than that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I grew up in the Bay area, went to the university of Santa Clara, so you know, great school, looked at other schools. I loved it, yeah, but ended up back there and the only thing I was really good at that I could tell was writing. So I sort of followed a career that was possibly journalism wasn't quite sure ended up in advertising in San Francisco. So I did that for 10 years and decided I wanted the bright lights of Madison Avenue and was able to get a job in New York, in Manhattan. I moved and did that career for 10 or 15 years and decided what's next, where next, and was able to go to Paris and work for a year through my job, then came back and kind of regrouped and then I went to Frankfurt, germany, for four years and lived there.
Speaker 2:So my job has taken me these amazingly exciting places. As a journalist or advertising, I was a copywriter and then a creative director and I became a global creative director.
Speaker 1:Oh, so a company sent you to Germany.
Speaker 2:That was okay, all of this was on someone else's nickel, which was wonderful for my job.
Speaker 2:So I really traveled the world as a global creative director. You're in charge of a brand, like I was in charge of Pampers for a long time creatively. So I really traveled the world as a global creative director. You're in charge of a brand, like I was in charge of Pampers for a long time creatively. So I'd go around to all the countries in the world, talk to the agencies there and work with them, because I'm a writer, I understood how they think and work and I could collaborate with them. We'd hang out and come up with ideas and I would take them back to either Procter and Gamble or Johnson and Johnson or whoever my clients were and explain them. And you know, kind of was a liaison and part of the team, part of the creative team.
Speaker 1:Oh fun, Did you speak any other languages?
Speaker 2:I studied French and school. So when I went to Paris for a year I got pretty fluent, and then, of course, when you're not there, you lose it. But then about six years later, I went to Frankfurt for a career for four years and I got pretty good at that. And so when my husband said how about Italy? I'm like you couldn't have done Germany.
Speaker 1:European speaking, four languages now.
Speaker 2:You have to. You know, because he gave me the pizza argument. I'm like you're right, we have to have pizza. So we found on our honeymoon, my second, our second marriages we just for fun thought we'd try Southern France and Northern Italy and we went there almost like, but I sort of guessed well, that sounds like a nice place to go. I think northern Italy sounds good and there's maybe lakes or something. Literally, I didn't know what I was doing and we got there after a week and a half in southern France, which was beautiful, but it just didn't. I didn't say this is where I'm going to live my whole life. I had a great year in Paris and that was fabulous, but I didn't really want to go back full time.
Speaker 2:Although I had always thought I would live in Provence. I always thought Provence would be a nice place to live, but then, when we got into the Lange, which is called what it's called in Piemonte, we go, we're driving, and as we're getting there, the weather's kind of crummy and it didn't look very interesting and I see a lot of factories and freeways and I'm like, oh my God, where, where are we going? What have I done? We've got another week of this honeymoon. I hope it's nice when we get up to the top of this hill after almost falling off. It was just this crazy drive up. We pull into this completely deserted hotel this is March 31st. And I'm like, oh boy, deserted hotel. This is march 31st. And I'm like, oh boy, this is going to be awful. So I kind of open the door and, walking on these cobblestones that are all wet and slippery, open the door and I say buongiorno, which is the only word, the only word I knew in italian besides ciao, and this beautiful girl comes out and goes buonaona sera, Signora Boyle. Oh, such a pleasure. And we've upgraded you to your best room. And, my God, she was lovely and beautiful and grabbed our suitcases and took us upstairs to this gorgeous room, not huge but gorgeous, with drapes and windows that opened up over the pool, and we just went, okay, well, this is going to be okay, even if we never leave the hotel room for a week, you know that will be fine.
Speaker 2:So we kind of get regrouped and you know, the drive was sort of fading away from our memories. We go down to ask about dinner and I said, would you, could we just eat in the restaurant tonight? And she says, oh, I'm so sorry, we, we make breakfast and lunch, but unfortunately not dinner. I said, well, is there a place nearby? She says, well, it's Tuesday and so the town of Monforte is closed. She says, but, but there is one restaurant that's open and I can make you a reservation. I said, great, okay, that would be nice. The town is closed, I it. The town is closed on Tuesdays.
Speaker 1:All of Tuesdays, not just Tuesdays.
Speaker 2:Whatever, okay. So she seemed confident about that. So we said, okay. She says and I'll take you, it's the restaurant called Da Felicine, it's not far, it's just see a friend. And so I said well, is there a taxi? Also from my years in New York. And she says yes, there is, but he's in Milan. Okay, she goes, but I'll take you. So she literally takes her purse, locks the door, puts us in this little Fiat, drives us down the hill to this incredible restaurant, with course after course and wine bottle after wine bottle. And as dinner's winding up and we've had a couple glasses of wine and feel really pretty good, we're going. Oh, how are we going to get back up that wet, slippery hill? And the chef and the owner comes out and says come with me, I'm taking you back, we're going to just back up.
Speaker 1:Hospitality Wow.
Speaker 2:It's that we had those moments about three times a day. For the whole week we were there and just went. Where are we? The food was incredible, the people were darling and kind and gracious, and there's nothing not to like. The weather the next day brightened, the sun was beautiful. The views just go forever. They're like miles and miles. In the distance are the Alps covered with snow.
Speaker 2:And between us and the Alps are vineyards and orchards of hazelnuts, and that's it. I mean, it's everything you love about Italy, on steroids, you know, because you don't have a lot of the tour operators. This year they have their first tour of the old town and I'm like, oh boy, we're going to know what's happening.
Speaker 1:It's happening. This was Piedmont, or Ligurian, or what's the actual town that you were in.
Speaker 2:The town where we stayed and that what we call our mothership, is called Monforte d'Alba. So M-O-N-F-O-R-T-E? D apostrophe, alba. Alba you've probably heard of. It's a bigger town, it's 25,000 people, you know there's Alba d'Asti. I remember hearing that growing up, never heard of Monforte. But that's this lovely town. I actually. We actually live in Rodino, which is like a suburb of Monforte, but that's this lovely town. I actually. We actually live in Rodino, which is like a suburb of Monforte. There are 300 people and I'm the youngest one in the town, pretty much. I mean, it's a really sweet, cute little Italians walking around. Nobody speaks English, so you have to learn Italian. You just have to to survive, which is wonderful.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's. Yeah, that's nice. I kind of feel like everyone's just in the whole world and be speaking English, and so it's kind of nice. There's not everywhere.
Speaker 2:Well, part of me, and both my husband and I, are sort of afraid to tell anybody about this place, and yet we can't help ourselves because we are so smitten, so in love with it. Yeah, but we're hearing more English spoken. There's a couple people now who have a kind of a summer home. There used to be we were the only Americans. There were people who there were four families that shared a home nearby and they would take turns coming throughout the year. And then there was us and we were there the whole time. We ended up moving there the whole time. We were so in love with it. What year did you move and how long were you there for? Well, we're still there. I mean, I, I'm just, we just have this as a you know foothold, um, for the book and for you know, did you say you bought it in San Francisco or did you rent it?
Speaker 1:we're actually, we bought this okay, yeah, yeah, oh, that's great, so you're just here for five months and then probably rent it out, or something like that no, I, you know it's a.
Speaker 2:It's a pied-a-terre. It is not like you think. Homes are in San Francisco. We bought it at a great time.
Speaker 2:So, this we're going to keep for our old age, in case there's another doctor. There's a sub story here. We're here for the doctors, literally, and for our grandkids, as they're growing up quickly around us. So we have this as a foothold, because the medical care in Italy would not be something I would seek out and here it's just the best on the planet. So we said we really need a foothold here. Oh, that's great, and plus I'm going to be busy for the next several months on my book tour around the area, et cetera.
Speaker 1:So yeah, absolutely. So when did you move to that?
Speaker 2:So we bought to um that. So we bought. We went that on our honeymoon in I think it was 2010 and came back 18 months later so that's 2012 and fell in love with this pile of rocks that was called a barn and a farmhouse and that's when I talk about on my substack letters from a 300 year old italian farmhouse. It really is a 300-year-old structure where cows and horses and everybody all these animals lived with a family. So it's a giant roof, that's, you know, 50 feet tall, and stone walls and this view that just goes all the way out to Monviso and all the way out across the valleys.
Speaker 2:And we said, well, how about, as a project, we try and do the old fixer-upper? We saw all those HGTV shows and thought, well, we can do a fixer-upper. And we just started taking it apart and putting it back together and built a home and now a life, and my husband has planted 75 vines and we make 100 bottles of wine every year and we have a vegetable garden and we make 100 bottles of wine every year, and we have a vegetable garden and we eat our vegetables and we have a pool. So when it's hot we just jump in the pool because there's nothing air conditioned there it's.
Speaker 1:It's just a dream, it's a dream so we're there as much as we can be is it elevated at all, so like it doesn't get crazy hot in the summer, or that's a great question.
Speaker 2:we're just under 2000 feet, so it's a bit cooler and it's north. You know we're surrounded by the Alps. You always have breezes in the afternoon.
Speaker 2:So, I hate telling you guys, just don't tell anybody except the two of us. Okay, about all this Sounds good Because it really is so authentic and so kind of pristine. Authentic and so kind of pristine. And you see some Northern Europeans coming to visit, like from Holland, and in fact we have a little Airbnb for two people, so we just get a couple at a time that we get to share our property with and get to know them and that's really fun. For us it's just kind of interesting to have Europeans come for a week and leave more of them. For us it's just kind of interesting to have europeans come for a week and leave, but they're very comfortable traveling there because it's sort of a gastro wine region. It's there, you, they come there for the food and the wine, the biking and walking oh, the bike, and that sounds amazing.
Speaker 1:So I was thinking, you know, um, I'm not a big wine person, I'm not a big drinker, um, is, is that like, kind of like the focus, a lot like? Or is it like, you know, if you love I mean, I love the great food, I love to cook you know, would I appreciate it as much, without being a a wine connoisseur definitely, and we have friends that that don't drink, that are that love.
Speaker 2:It is the big basis of the economy, or what separates it from a lot of the regions that are kind of, oh, downtrod, or you know the the kids grow up and move away here, that they move away and come back. You know cause they do they can be the winemakers, or they have tourism, wine tourism. So that's a chunk of it. The wine it's also. I don't know, do you like chocolate, carol?
Speaker 1:Of course, yes, I do.
Speaker 2:And hazelnuts. I love hazelnuts.
Speaker 1:And hazelnuts?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that'll keep you busy. And how are you on pasta and pizza? You know, I mean the food is great, it's just so. It's about that. It's also about bikers everywhere. I mean we share the windy, beautiful little windy roads with bikers. It's called the L, the lange, which means ridges, so all these little ridges, ridge lines, and you're on the ridge lines and sort of winding, but there's views on either side of you the whole time. So my husband's a big biker and a great place for that.
Speaker 2:So it isn't just wine, but wine fuels the economy and keeps it thriving very nice.
Speaker 1:You said something earlier about lakes, and when I'm looking up and I'm just, I've clicked on it and it says, um, the islands of the italian lakes, and there's one little island that has a whole bunch of buildings on it and with a, but it just looks breathtaking, or is that?
Speaker 2:right near. That's what I, where I thought I was going was hopefully maybe the lake district, because I heard good things about it and and that's on kind of right near Milan. That just past Milan so we're. It's a two hour three hour drive to get to the lakes.
Speaker 2:But George Clooney and friends, live on Como and Lago di Garda, maggiore. And now we go there for like a week for fun and just stay in a funky cute hotel or get an Airbnb and that's a nice getaway in the summer. But it's a little more touristy. You get crowds, but they're Italian tourists, you know which is nice, that's not so bad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's very breathtaking and I was curious when you said weather and it gets hot and you can jump in the pool but the Alps are there. What's like kind of the temperature there? What's the climate like?
Speaker 2:I know you're sensitive to that. I was listening to you about. You know where you travel and what you like, and I'm the same way. When you grow up in the Bay Area, it's always perfect.
Speaker 1:So I grew up in Redondo Beach in Southern California, so also perfect.
Speaker 2:I'm real sensitive to weather and what I like is the winters. It might snow a couple times and it's chilly, so we have a lot of fires and make a lot of soups. April, may, june is just beautiful and perfect. And it starts warming up. I mean the sun there. When the sun comes out, you feel it, you know it's toasty, but it's in the 70s 80s. You know. You get a few days in August, end of July, especially where it might be 90. And that gets a little hot because the sun is up until 915 on the 21st of June and is up again at by 530. So it's a long day of sun, yeah, like here.
Speaker 1:Like no, it's and you're in a brick house, right?
Speaker 2:It's stone but it's this thick, so if it doesn't get too hot it will cool down at night. If you've had 10 days of high nineties it's a little hot, you know. You have fans in all the rooms, but it's beautiful and in the morning it's like 65, 68. So you take a walk when it's cool and you go. Of course nothing's heated, so the water's cold when you jump in the water and then you're comfortable all evening. I leave my hair wet, you know. I eat dinner with a kind of a cold stomach for my bathing suit and it feels great. I just swim every day. You know it's wonderful.
Speaker 1:Is it humid there or is there a humidity or is it kind of the area I'm just thinking, like with Napa, like if the wines and things. It must be similar climate to this area.
Speaker 2:It's similar there because we're up on the hills a little bit and the Alps are right there. There's snow on the Alps almost all year round, I think in August it maybe melts right at the top of Monvizo, but it's dryish. You'll get some rain. So it's very, very green, but it is not a humid climate. It's pleasant and there's kind of breeze breezes most afternoons in the summer. It gets foggy in the fall. It's beautiful, but you'll have fog, I mean sometimes all day you know, but I like it.
Speaker 2:I like the cool and freshness of it. It's wonderful. I walk every morning. That's my thing. I get up, have my smoothie and then I have to take a walk or I'm really cranky the rest of the day. So how long do you walk for? Oh, I don't know, 45 minutes to an hour, but just but it's hilly, so I'm back. You know, I feel like I've I've moved. It's good, Absolutely.
Speaker 1:So I have a question. I don't know where I've seen this, but at one point I remember they said oh, you can buy a house for a dollar in these like small little towns in Italy, but they need to be need work.
Speaker 2:Is that kind of what?
Speaker 1:you searched out, or like that's, that's another part of the country.
Speaker 2:No, no, we'd heard about that, and there are towns that do that. They tend to be a little more rugged. I think there's more southern. This has got sort of a German, swiss, nordic influence and that they're very clean and very proud and very kind of on time and organized, the water's clean and all that. I think there are some towns that are really just like 40 rundown abandoned homes and three families that live there and that's a kind of a harder thing and I think you could get those for a dollar. However, when we found our barn, which was literally decrepit, without you'd look up and you could see the stars through the wood beams, you know, really not a good place to sleep and the animals were fine with it, but, um, we were going to make it for people and we thought we should probably insulate it and put on windows. That wait, the question was.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I lost it again oh, about um, like there was towns that had these dollars like how did you decide? Um, I shouldn't probably confide, yeah no, we don't need to know the price, but like how did you know where to look? Like, did you find a realtor?
Speaker 2:yeah, we, we got a realtor. Um, we do that often, you know, when we travel just get a realtor and look at homes and get curious about it. We had done that over the years. We had just gotten married and thought, ok, we really do need a home. Would we ever do this here? And it was just sort of a project at first. But it was quite affordable. I mean, I wrote a check for it, you know, not talking, we didn't need a mortgage. It was very, very cheap by American standards, by California.
Speaker 1:It was very, very cheap by American standards but California standards, it was ridiculous. Okay, if someone were to say, okay, I want to buy a second home, but I don't want to do that kind of work. Like are we talking a hundred thousand dollars to buy something very modest, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:But you would need to usually put something into it.
Speaker 2:You know, you don't have to or you could get something around there Like we have friends from that's funny, a long story. He had been my teacher in high school and through all kinds of random things. He comes walking into a cafe the other day and I'm like is that my teacher from high school? I mean, it was that random and he lives in Sonoma and so he and his wife who was wonderful have bought an apartment here. That's quite cute, it has beautiful views and I don't think they spent, you know, anywhere near what they would have on their home in Sonoma. What they do is they rent out this when they're not here, they rent out their home in Sonoma and they just switch back and forth.
Speaker 2:So, that exists and people do buy smaller places as a second place. Our home is pretty big. It's three bedrooms, three bathrooms, a den, a whole area that we don't know what to do with but I use it for my laundry and a little cave that has where we keep our wines, and then a winery attached and then an apartment we rent out. So it's almost like not a villa, because we're also attached to another family who we adore. You know they've become like our extended family, but we have a pool, so that's. It's a kind of wow posh looking place. Again, about a fifth of what you would expect it to be in in California.
Speaker 1:Just to say you're attached to a family. Is that when you rent out the apartment, the Airbnb that you do? Or are you because in Sweden I'm Swedish there's like this it looks like a castle and then you'll see it, they've cut it and there's three houses that people buy. Is it something like that?
Speaker 2:Yes, it is. It's what happens is. It started as a house and then they had kids, and so the kids moved in and built on, and then they moved in and they had kids and they moved in, and then they moved in and they had kids and they moved in. So it sort of grows, you know. And so we live where the animals did, because they have the best views, because they don't care about views in Italy, they have them everywhere. They don't think twice about it. We're like what we put it in a California window so we can see the sunset at night, and they're going, yeah, but then the sun streams in and they're right, it's hot because of it, because of it, but yeah.
Speaker 2:So there was a couple other families. There's a house attached this way that is literally falling down and should just be destroyed, but they won't sell it because they like to park their tractors there. And there's one attached to that and this is the sweetest old family. We loved them. They were both in their nineties and they'd come out from Torino every summer, climb up and down the stairs and work in their garden and go out every night and play cards and come back at midnight. I swear they were adorable and as they passed away, their granddaughter has taken it over and their daughter, their daughter and their granddaughter lived there and they're adorable and they make life better. It's not like well, if only we had the whole place to ourselves. They're fun, you know, and we practice our Italian and and they're friends now and family.
Speaker 1:So when they died.
Speaker 2:That was a heartbreak and then we have our home and then there's another room in the back that we rent out, um, just to couples. You know, it's it's small Airbnb thing that you do, is it? Yeah, and that's all. We just go through Airbnb because it's easy, you know, yeah, and remember that that sounds all summer. I'll let you know anytime you want, but but it's already booking up for next year, it's. It's really fun, that's fantastic.
Speaker 1:And then what do people do? Like you say, you know in terms of like professions and lifestyle, like what's a typical day for and and and I meant to also also confirm so you, from 2012, have lived there, so you've been there since then.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, um, the one of you that had started to read my book said don't give me any spoilers. So this is a spoiler alert. Sorry I was there. Um, we were able to move in about 2015. And we said, boy, do we I don't know, should we? And we're like, are we crazy? Well, let's just try it.
Speaker 2:So we rented out our place for a year and decided we loved it. So we sold our place in the city and we're there full time for a couple of years and out of the blue, I get breast cancer, which I hadn't planned and was not on my agenda. And I'm talking to our son, who's a doctor. He says you should be treated where you have the best support. And we just started thinking we love it here, but when you're tired and not feeling well, you need to speak English. So we didn't even rent it out. We really like packing right. You know, like you're getting ready for a fire, almost. We came home quickly, rented a place here for a year, had fabulous treatment. I'm cured. Literally seven years later, I can tell you I'm happy ending. Yeah, it was amazing.
Speaker 2:It was a really, really rough year. So we were gone for that year and came back for a while, but I have to go back and forth every six months. So for a while we kept a place here that we rented, and then, as I got better, we're like, okay, sell it. In the midst, though, covid showed up. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Also not on the agenda, and we happened to be here during the winter when it started, and that's when you were seeing all those people on the balconies in Italy singing we will win, we will win. But then it came here, so it started in Milan, really right by us, and then it got to be in California, so we couldn't go back for like six months there, you know. So we've been juggling with life and renting when we have to, or we finally were able to buy again this fall, and so we have always kind of a foothold with our family here and our grandkids, and all that, although they come to visit us all the time. So it's not like we're not seeing them. But yeah, since so 2015,? I feel like that's where my heart is, although I've been here a lot we were there almost two years straight again now that I don't have to go every six months, so how nice that flexible lifestyle and travel and well we're flexible, yeah, because we're retired, although my husband's still working.
Speaker 2:But these days everybody is, everybody can work from home, it seems like, and and they have really good internet there. Now it's not quite like you'd find in the states, but it's certainly, you know, serviceable so you can do the nomad thing and work from.
Speaker 1:Italy for sure. So how long does it take you when you're flying from San Francisco to like fly to, I guess, milan and then take the train and the car? Whatever, um, planes, trains, automobiles, what's your like? Full door-to-door, 15 hours, 12 hours? No, it's 24, you know, if you really we're couple hours from Milan.
Speaker 2:what we often do is spend the night at this lovely Sheraton that's at the airport, literally in Milan. So we get there in the afternoon, have dinner, relax, you know, because when you leave you have to close up the whole house, you're not just racing out the door.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So that's we leave like at three, get there for dinner, spend the night, leave like an eight o'clock flight, spend the night, leave like an eight o'clock flight and we're here. We're actually in San Francisco, usually by three or so. You usually have to stop at another major city in Europe, like Amsterdam or Paris or something, one of the bigger cities, because there are no Milan SF non-stops I'd love it if there were or you go through New York. So it's really almost 24 hours of travel, but it's you just figure. That's why not. That's what you do. It's worth it A day of your life.
Speaker 1:Okay, and you know, as Chris and I both are approaching empty nesting, you know there's a lot of purging going on, so you have probably done with all your purging, I would assume, with all these moves.
Speaker 2:It's a really good feeling. It's like losing weight. Seriously, you're like do I need this? Do I do it really? And you do. We get smaller places that we need and the things that are left are the things you love the best. You know my mother's pot, my father's chair, you know those kinds of surround me now. So when we moved back into this little place, everything we brought out we loved it was really easy. And you do. You feel like, do I need all this stuff? Americans have so much stuff. Europeans have a couch that they buy when they're married and then that's it, and they don't like change colors or update or go to the pottery bar and fall sale. They have a couch because it's perfectly fine and if it's a blue, that's what it is. They spend way less money at Christmas. They're buying perfectly fine, and if it's a blue, that's what it is, you know it's there. They spend way less money at Christmas. They're buying less stuff. And the gosh, the food is about a third of what we pay here. It's so cheap I think.
Speaker 2:Okay, it must be another question is subsidized or something, because the grocery stores will live with a giant cart and sometimes it gets up almost to $100. Whereas here you buy eight things and you're at $300 and you go. How did that happen?
Speaker 1:Yes, Right, oh yeah, so is Amazon prime there.
Speaker 2:It wasn't whoa, it wasn't for the longest time and I kept going. I'd kill for a home improvement store, for you know, bed, bath and beyond, but of course they're there now. I mean, things have changed since 2015. It's much more online and we get Amazon a couple times a week, but we don't need that much.
Speaker 2:Literally not that we have the vegetable garden. You know you go buy fish or you might buy chicken, although they don't have a lot of chicken there. You have to really look for it and grill a couple nights a week. And then you go to the markets are great. You go to the markets on Mondays and Wednesdays. The giant, the whole town is taking over with vegetables and cheese trucks and pasta, handmade pasta, those kinds of things. That's what you do and you run into all your neighbors and you have coffee and so it's so inexpensive. You go to the farmer's market and it's hard to spend five dollars on anything. You know you get like this veggie, that veggie, and it's like three, three euros and 50 cents for like so much food. So you know, when you're retired that stuff does matter. You're happy what you spend.
Speaker 2:You go out to dinner I know you've asked about dinner. Going out to restaurants might cost 40 euros for the two of us, so maybe 50 and you leave full and with the best food and that's with wine drinks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, oh, wow, yeah yeah, I know now it's like a glass of wine. It's like 14, 14. I know the wine I bought 20 like for a drink, or 20, 25, okay, that's, that's. I don't drink either. So it's like well, I'm not spending my money, that's, I don't drink either. So it's like well, I'm not spending my money there, that's good.
Speaker 2:So you guys get off, get off well after that. I have a bottle of Arnaz that I love, um, that we buy at the grocery store. That has gone up in price from four euros, 75, all the way up to six euros a bottle. But I'm willing to stick with it. You know, and literally it's so delicious and you can pay eight or nine, maybe 10 euros, but you don't spend that much on wine. It just it's probably not to ship it that far.
Speaker 2:It's just right down the road, right, and it's delicious and it's or you make your own too right, no, yeah, and we now make our own, which is probably we joke that in order to pay for you know our costs we have to charge 300 dollars a bottle for my husband's homemade wine yeah, that's funny.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the neighbors that have chickens. My husband's like we should get chickens. I'm like I just don't want, I just don't want that one. I know they're easy, but I just don't want that one. I know they're easy, but I just don't want that thing. And you know, and our neighbor's like, yeah, basically it costs us $7. And she sells it to me for $7. I'm like, well, that works for me. I don't have to do the work and I get the chicken eggs. Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:For the eggs? Yeah, I was curious.
Speaker 1:You said that chicken. There's not a lot of chicken there. And what's the protein beef or meat source there?
Speaker 2:should use the fish another, another speech I have to give to every guest that walks in the door, especially the ones from california um, they just don't, they're not interested in chicken.
Speaker 2:They just think, oh yeah, they're these weird little animals that you get eggs from, you know, and that's how you make your pastas from their eggs, and they don't eat oats. Why do we eat oats? It's for the, for the horses, but they happen to grow. There's just beautiful, beautiful animals. They're cows and they harvest them just like a couple of weeks before two years, but they've been raised beautifully. They look like Popeye, they're very lean and they're very muscly and they're beautiful and they've been grazing their whole lives outside. So it's technically veal, but it is nothing like the veal we know because people go veal.
Speaker 2:And I don't eat that kind of veal here either because it's really terrible what they do to the animals. But it's as lean as chicken but it has complete amino acids and is good protein and if you have iron deficiencies it's delicious and good for you. Very tender, because the way the muscle fibers of the animals are very, somehow webbed so that they're very, very delicate and juicy and yet light and tender. So we have that. That's the meal, that's the veal that goes in the pasta. They'll have pork and veal, but the pork is often the wild pork. So it's just that you just have to kind of go think differently. I'm in a different country and this is what's keeping the farmers here, it's what keeping the keeping the grass green and the landscape is beautiful and and they make money on it and it's. It's just, it's the ecosystem there that works, yeah, so maybe a couple of times a week and I can seek out chicken, but they now have a something called the Polaria that you go to and that's where you get the chicken we have.
Speaker 2:When the first year for we were there for Thanksgiving, we ordered a whole Turkey and they were so excited oh, we've heard about that holiday where you eat a Turkey. Wow, and they, they wrote it up. And when we, when we come in to pick it up on the wednesday, we pull into the driveway and they're like you can see them running to the back and coming out and they were so excited that the people who wanted the turkey were arriving. They gave us this big thing with like floppy arms and legs that look like a two-year-old, without a head. Swear to god. We've kind of brought it home. It barely fit in the oven. We had to break the arms and the legs to stick it into the oven because the ovens are so tiny and it was the best I've ever had. So they just they eat differently and I'm learning from it and they're learning from us. It's kind of fun.
Speaker 1:Wow, so did you have a traditional? I know we've got Thanksgiving coming up really shortly. Did you have the Thanksgiving there with stuffing and all the a few times.
Speaker 2:We had smuggled in some cranberries, canned I think. I think our son brought it over that summer in his suitcase. I couldn't find pecans, which was a heartbreak, because that's my, my mom's, from New Orleans. If you don't have pecan pie, you know I made one yesterday actually. But so what did we do? Do? I think we skipped that? We did a pumpkin pie but, now I bring.
Speaker 2:When I come back here I load up on pecans and cranberry and but there they have potatoes and squash and pumpkin and and now that we know where to get the um, the, the one turkey in town, we get that and we're famous for it.
Speaker 1:Now they like the turkey. How about the sweet potatoes? Are they accessible?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so many kinds. We grow our own potatoes now. They're actually delicious. Have you ever grown potatoes?
Speaker 1:No, my Swedish relatives do a lot in the fingerling potatoes and then we were at we have there's a family member that has a very old farm and they do everything and I was so busy seeing all my family I didn't get out, but all the kids got out and they got to pick them. I still dig them up. So you dig them up in it. And how is that? How like? You just like find it. How do you find?
Speaker 2:it. It's kind of you got to go. You know six to eight to 10 inches. You need some kind of trowel to get down there and it's real messy and the dirt. I mean. Even when you go to the farmer's market you bring home the potatoes, the dirt is just clinging to them. You know that's not all sanitized, it's all real. You know all of the food I have to wash like four more, five more times than I do at home. But yeah, we just dig them up and they're shockingly better. It's like everything that tomatoes are like. Why are those tomatoes so good? Why are the potatoes so good? It's, the carrots were all gnarly and they were delicious, it's just oh wow.
Speaker 2:It's just different. It sounds good, and what are the?
Speaker 1:traditional meals like breakfast, lunch, dinner. When do you have them? Is it? Do they eat at the same time as we do here, and what do they eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner?
Speaker 2:It's funny because when guests come they say, well, where should I go for breakfast? And I have to tell them they don't really do that. They don't have like a breakfast place. Yeah, they have coffee everywhere and that you can get a croissant, and their croissants are not as good as French. Sometimes, when we will drive down to to Savona and go towards France instead of Italy just to get the bread and bring it back. It's a two hour trip but it's worth it. But but they're okay, they're pretty good. So you get the croissants and a coffee, a couple of coffees, and they might be stuffed with almonds or pistachio cream or something or they might just be plain. Obviously, the families I know will have like yogurt at home, maybe cornflakes we saw my neighbor eats cornflakes every morning. They don't really have orange juice much, they don't think about juice, but you might have fruit and yogurt.
Speaker 2:Very light breakfasts and then the lunches are usually more of a sit down, but not giant. They might have a big soup or something or they might have pasta and maybe a roast stew, some kind of stew, and wine often, which that one always. Yeah, even the guys building our home would go for their workers lunch for an hour and a half every day and have wine and not not have it phase them. But of course they work from seven 30 till noon, and then again from you know one, 30 till eight. They just worked so many hours. Question that yeah, they work really hard, so the lunches are kind of more homespun. I think the typical mom will wake up, you know, give her kids. Oh they, you know, what they have a lot of is Nutella.
Speaker 2:They'll put chocolate and toast and send the kids out with chocolate and toast, which is like peanut butter, you know.
Speaker 1:I had that for my kids too growing up.
Speaker 2:Well, your parents and grandparents know about chocolate for breakfast. It's different. You know I can't quite do that, but I usually have my breakfast is a smoothie, yogurt and fruit every morning, and then lunch will be whatever we had last night. You know, grilled veggies at Room Tampa, or a caprese or something. Or maybe I can't really do pasta at lunch, but I might have some leftover chicken or something if we grilled it. And then dinners are just, you know, fantastic. It's like going to an Italian restaurant every night. You know we grill at home or we'll make simple things in the oven. I love to cook, so that's a big part of it, but you go out for the pasta because it's so good and the pizzas are great, very light.
Speaker 2:They're light and they don't have a pound of meat on them. They just have the right amount of cheese, the right amount of. Maybe there is a pepperoni, maybe there's just mushrooms, maybe there's the white pizza, but they're very light and filling. You know, you, each you order one pizza, or my husband does, or I'll have a salad and one piece of his pizza. That's plenty. But they don't go out to restaurants every night, necessarily.
Speaker 1:They cook at home a lot, yeah, and then how much? If someone wanted to go there, how much should they anticipate spending To stay, to stay like to visit or stay, or if they wanted to stay there for six months a year or something like that, how much would they should they budget?
Speaker 2:Should they budget?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:For food. Like I said, I think it's about a third of what we pay in California, so I don't know how much that is, depending on each family. Our Airbnb, that is two stories with a little kitchen and a living room downstairs. Upstairs, a nice bathroom with a big american type shower, you know, and of course it has a bidet that I don't know what to do with bidets, but in a toilet. And we ask. We're at about 170 euros a night, which I find extraordinarily expensive, but the europeans pay it and they're happy with it. You could certainly get something for a hundred a night, a hundred euros, pretty easily.
Speaker 2:And that would be like 110, 115 if you're doing a night by night. And I imagine you can get deals for a week or two If we were going to rent our place out in the winter, which we would only do if we're there. So we can. We like to help people and make reservations for them and tell them where we think they might want to eat oh nice, we like that. And also if there's a problem, I, you know, we've only ever gotten five stars at our Airbnb and I, I would hate. If there's a problem we can't help it, you know, fix it if we're right away. So we don't rent one, we're not there, yeah. But I think we would rent it for a hundred or less a night in the winter or for the month. We did rent it to an American tour operator. This lovely single woman came and spent two months with us. We gave her. It was super cheap. I don't remember what it was, but it was certainly you'd do a deal in.
Speaker 2:April. You know why not yeah.
Speaker 1:It's not expensive.
Speaker 2:It's getting there, you know gas. Gas is expensive, energy is expensive, and but food is reasonable.
Speaker 1:Lodging is, by our standards, a couple grand a month or so, like because it sounds like if it's 100 a night. Or like if they rented you know, got a place for six months or something like that it would, assuming you know, $2,000 a month rent or that would be extraordinarily high.
Speaker 2:I know families that pay 300 a month.
Speaker 1:So that's what I was wondering. Okay, so it's a hundred to stay at an Airbnb, but 300 a month. If you're going to stay there somewhere, they'll live there.
Speaker 2:I think my friends and she was also an Italian teacher were paying about $300 to $400 a month. It could be more. It could be more, certainly, but that's a very modest probably simply furnished a couch and a bed and you'd have to do everything else, and then maybe utilities on top. Although I don't know, I think they're included. I don't know, Very nice, it's very reasonable. Yeah, no, I think they're included.
Speaker 1:I don't know. Oh, very nice, it's very reasonable, yeah, okay. Well, we are getting close to the end of our time.
Speaker 2:I do have some rapid fire questions and I also wanted to quickly.
Speaker 1:One question was Pinch Me the book. When does it come out and why did you call it Pinch Me? Which I kind of have an idea once we've talked.
Speaker 2:Now that you know it's February 11th, you can pre-order it now on Amazon or usually at a bookstore near you. It's Barnes and Noble. It's being distributed by Simon Schuster, so it's everywhere. But thank you, if you go onto Amazon, you'll find it right away. Pinch Me. There's two reasons. The subhead is waking up in a 300-year-old Italian farmhouse, so it's like, pinch me, am I dreaming? Am I really living this life? It can't be real. That's one level. The other level is the pasta there that is unique to them and unbelievably good is called plin. So ravioli del plin means the ravioli that's been pinched. That's Piemontese for pinch.
Speaker 2:So, the pinch ravioli because it holds the nooks and crannies of the butter and sage and it is the most perfect morsel of food on the planet, I'm convinced. There's a little bit meat, lots of veggies, touch of cheese, very healthy, so satisfying, and such comfort food. You have a small plate, you are content, you are full, you're not stuffed, it's perfect. So I'm obsessed with ravioli, d'opline and that's, and as you read it, you go wait, there's a couple levels to the pinch here and there are jokes about being pinched in Rome, but I've never been pinched in Rome.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's great, I'm writing it down. I'll have to look up ravioli del plin.
Speaker 2:Del plin. Yep, it's special. You can also. They have it at some restaurants known as Agnolotti. And there's a what's? The restaurant in Napa, the most expensive restaurant in the world of.
Speaker 2:French laundry, yes, he makes. He has a whole show on and he calls it an Agnolotti. And I'm like it's not a latte. A latte is a coffee with milk. It's a lotti Agnolotti A-G-N-L-O-T-T-I agnolotti. But if you ever come across agnolotti you see them occasionally in California order it and you'll go oh, I get it, they're perfect. I'm going to search it out Search it out.
Speaker 1:It's worth it, you'll be glad I actually have a really great Italian place next to me. Maybe I'll check that that's been there, ask them.
Speaker 2:There's Piemonte, which is different than you know. The pastas are really regional, but they might know them yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm ready.
Speaker 2:Andiolotti means little corners, whereas plin means little.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, very cool.
Speaker 2:Love it. Okay, I'm ready Rapid.
Speaker 1:All right, so what's a?
Speaker 2:popular holiday tradition that's maybe unique to not in America. There's the oh, there's two things. Panettone I always leap to the answer in food. Panettone is this lovely kind of cake with sort of a crunchy top and sugar these big chunks of sugar on top with just raisins we have a co worker.
Speaker 1:Do you remember Annie Mergens, carol? Do you know that name, annie Mergens? I don't think so. We worked at the same company back in the 90s and that is by far the one thing I know. When I get her, that's what she wants for the holidays or christmas, is that?
Speaker 2:no, and you. We buy them here and they're dry and horrible, but the ones we have at our local thing, you eat a bite and go. Why is this so good and like? But we have to buy two now, one to eat in the car on the way home and one to have for the holiday because it's just so crazy. Good, it's crazy.
Speaker 2:The second thing is on november 1st I I did a post on that in my letters from a 300 year old farmhouse instead of halloween and costumes and candy and all that, the family gets together and goes to the cemetery and it's not morbid, but you have it, remembering your grandparents, and then they go for a nice lunch and it's kind of a lovely, lovely day. It's like the Spanish tradition. It's not quite the Day of the Dead, but it's All Saints Day, you know, or All Souls Day, I guess, and it's a holiday. So they get the 31st off or they take the day off and so the kids might have a party. You might see one pumpkin or one costume it's only imitating Americans but it's a very sacred and lovely and cozy kind of a Thanksgiving. I think that's a special holiday, that's one.
Speaker 1:And this might already might've we might've mentioned this like, if you're going to have one meal at your favorite restaurant, what would that be?
Speaker 2:No question.
Speaker 2:The ravioli, the ravioli d'Alpine I mean I can't wait to get off the plane, wash my hands, wash my face and go to the local tractoria to have a ravioli d'Alpine with butter and sage, the burro, salvia, nothing fancy. Is there cheese in there On top? There's a tiny bit of cheese in. I think what they do is whatever you've cooked all week, which they always use, a couple of roasts, you know, pot roasts of veal or or rabbit or pork, but usually usually rabbit and a little bit of veal, a lot of greens, a lot of um escarole or radicchio, a lot of big loose greens and a tiny bit of cheese. And then you put it in this little pocket and it's, oh, it's heavenly.
Speaker 1:And do you make?
Speaker 2:it yourself. I have taken classes three times and I have not made it at home by myself, just because I don't tend to do that. In a typical week, I don't need a pile of meat and a pile of veggies, and you could use other things. I think at the French La, the french laundry, they stuff it with mashed peas, which would be good. You could probably use, just you know, ricotta or something as well. That would be fine, but the way they make it, the trattorias are, you know, extraordinary okay, and is there any music?
Speaker 1:that's very um. Representative of the area well, we go.
Speaker 2:We love Vivaldi and every year we go to Venice in December and go to a Vivaldi concert and you get the Four Seasons playing and I just go home and there's like music in my head all night as I'm sleeping. But in Monforto, where we live, they have what they call jazz concerts, which is not really jazz, but they call it that and they about six times in the summer have an outdoor concert. Up in the old town there's a, there's two churches, there's the old church and the very old church, and the very old church is at the top of the hill and it got deconsecrated when a woman dared to preach a sermon, so they took it out of the catholic church, chopped her head off, named a bar after her, and now they have concerts in the amphitheater outside of the old church, the old old church, which is at the top of the hill and beautiful. That's a tradition there.
Speaker 1:They love their music funny story, oh my gosh. And and then how about um money, like, obviously I know it's the euro, you mentioned that, but you know, do you typically exchange your money ahead of time? Is everything on you know on your phone for pay, or do you really want cash? How does that work?
Speaker 2:Cash is king. I mean exchanging money on your phone. It does not happen. When we come to visit our son here, I go. Could you give $5 to the guy that took the suitcases? He goes, I don't have any money. I'm like, well, you're grown up, you're 30 years old, you don't have any money. He goes. I have my phone, you know, and in Italy they they don't even use their phones for phone calls. You know, literally it's cash, it's. You know, or you check and you have to walk out with a little receipt. If you pay money, they have to give you a receipt.
Speaker 1:It's legal that you buy a receipt.
Speaker 2:So it's very uh 50 years ago for us, but it's worth it because it's way less expensive, you know, okay, great.
Speaker 1:And that's just the closest place to surf. We mentioned that early on. There's like a couple hours, but probably not like surf surfing in the Mediterranean it must be.
Speaker 2:I mean, you could Google it. There probably is a place. I mean there's great beautiful beaches, you know, and the lakes are fantastic. Obviously they're not surfing. But there's a place in Liguria but it's a kind of a gentle, more shallow probably, geography than what you're used to on the West Coast, where you get real waves coming in, you know Right, yeah, and then for you, are you a coffee or a tea person?
Speaker 2:I used to be coffee and then I had a really bad flu, almost a pneumonia, and it was just nothing sounded good. So I switched over to decaf green tea. So there I am, which makes it really easy when you travel. Could you just put little packets of tea with you and you can go all around the world and take up this much room in your suitcase.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You're set. You know, if you can get hot water, you're good to go.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's great, very good, all right, I'm looking actually at surf and there's a lot of surf legoria, and then there's a whole bunch here, italian riviera so you're in that community and they'll reach out to you. I don't hear that stuff spoken, so now you know, that's good to know, and it just kind of has a whole bunch of different spots. Let laracy larice l-a-l-e-r-i-c-i, levanto nervy is it farther down? Kristin, like along, the is the leg of the boot like the alps are kind of going on.
Speaker 1:It looks probably south it's. It looks like no um imperia is way, yeah sure imperia. But so there's imperia and then it goes up and it goes down the coastline and then you go up from imperia. Then, on the way down, all of those spots are the surf spots, it looks I believe that You're more out into the ocean.
Speaker 2:You're probably much closer to the Mediterranean. There You'll get waves there. Yeah, probably the difference between an ocean and a sea the ocean gets the waves, the sea is, you know, fine. Yeah, lovely Are there centenarians in Deer Town. What are centenarians?
Speaker 1:People that are over 100 years old. Oh, like that. That climate and the mediterranean is really good for the. You know I joke about.
Speaker 2:I mean one of the talks I'm going to give on my book tour is um living in a light blue zone, you know, because the blues are. There's a big one in the mediterranean. Yeah, I mean, the way of life is slower. It's better for your heart. You eat organic food that you've just had in your backyard and you get together every morning for coffee and talk to your buddies. That's part of the whole blue life. You know the blue zone thing. You get up and work for a couple hours but then you take a real good nap in the afternoon and you drink maybe one glass of wine a day. Maybe, you know, not too much it's. Yeah, there's certainly. Literally I tell you I'm the youngest person in our town in in Rodino. There's a couple of little kids in me.
Speaker 2:So, a lot of 90, 80, 90 year olds and our neighbors next door at 90 going up and down the stairs every day. They just keep vital, they wake up and stuff to do you know. So they're gone. That's great.
Speaker 1:They're awake they're alive for their family. Their family is so powerful, really holds everybody together, it's wonderful sounds lovely. Yeah, bucket list okay, great anytime jamie, I'll remember you, just thanks. Yeah, I'd love to have you uh, it'd be so much fun to. It just sounds wonderful. I'm definitely oh yeah and then um social channels. Obviously your book's coming out. You sent me some links. We'll put those all in the in the in the notes um, thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean you can google on amazon. Pinch me you have to put my name in because there's a couple other pinch me's over the last 10 years. But um, I love, I love subscribers to substack if you guys want to subscribe that would be it's called letters from a 300 year old italian farmhouse and it's.
Speaker 2:I'm now officially in san francisco, so I'm going to have to come clean and let them know I'm here. For the last two weeks I've been sort of using old, old um letters that are, uh, had been done before. But yeah, I will be back there in march and they tend to be from literally from my farmhouse. So um I'd love to have followers.
Speaker 1:That would be great so it's on what platform that, if you go?
Speaker 2:to substack and and just ask for letters from a 300 year old italian farmhouse, or my name, barbara Boyle, and you can subscribe and it's free, so why wouldn't you? And then, once a week we get every other week you'll get an email from me with just a two minute story and some photos, and we're not connected with Facebook or any of those, so you don't get, you know, you're not overloaded with ads. There are no ads connected to it. Oh nice, it's just like sending you an email. It's pretty nice. It's a nice platform.
Speaker 1:Oh, very good, Absolutely Okay. Well, thank you so much. I'm so glad, thank you, we're able to host you.
Speaker 2:Lovely ladies. I've enjoyed meeting you and lots of fun to talk to. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Absolutely you too. Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful story and journey in life. It sounds beautiful.
Speaker 2:You know you can't help share it I probably shouldn't, because there'll be more tours someday but it's worth it. It's so special.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Fantastic.
Speaker 2:Well, have a wonderful weekend.
Speaker 1:Enjoy this great weather. I know we had rain yesterday, but it's nice today.
Speaker 2:I'm ready. That sounds great. Thank you you too. Nice meeting both of you.
Speaker 1:Nice to meet you. See you in Piemonte. Sounds good. Bye, buongiorno, arrivederci, arrivederci. That's right, there we go. Thank you for the correction, bye, bye. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the podcast, can you please take a second and do a quick follow of the show and rate us in your podcast app, and if you have a minute, we would really appreciate a review. Following and rating is the best way to support us. If you're on Instagram, let's connect. We're at where next podcast. Thanks again.
