This really has been a heck of a trip so far…By Wednesday I figured Joel would be over his jet lag NOT! So best to let him sleep late because we have a 2:30 appointment with my friend, Raffaele to take us on a tour of the medieval village. Sleep deprived and a little grumpy, it’s been hard to get him eating on an Italian time schedule.
We are blessed to have Raffaele as a tour guide because he actually lived in the medieval village. His was the world of these myriad stone paths and steep stone steps to where?
Enjoying the view!
We spent a couple hours traipsing through the labyrinth of narrow streets, spotting the churches, small plazas, steep stairs going where(?), the new doorways and the abandoned
I Wonder Who Lived There?
All throughout this formerly abandoned town (village) you can see the reclamation and restoration work of the 100+ expats who have bought homes here. The following photo was taken on The Artist’s Way, a street called that because many of the houses are owned by artists, one being Clare Galloway, a Scottish painter who was the first foreigner who moved into Guardia.
Along the Artist’s Way
Clare was featured in three episodes of House Hunters International, probably the main impetus for infusion of Americans and Canadians in Guardia.
In the midst of one of my descents down some stone stairs, my phone rang and it is Peter. He was at the airport and his flight had been cancelled! Was this airline crap ever going to end? He had been hanging around for hours with about 22 other angry passengers, getting mixed messages from TAP. He thought they might get on an AIR Italia flight ( didn’t happen). I would call him back when I left the village.
After the tour, we went to the Bar for a drink and joined a festive group of expat friends, Mike, Cindy, Steve, and Dawn. It was lovely sitting out on the terrace sipping wine and nibbling on snacks ( except for the noisy diesel tractors coming home from the fields). I called Peter and he didn’t pick up – maybe he is on a flight. So I contacted our house sitter who was going to leave tomorrow and asked him to contact Edith, our NYC cat sitter and ask her to feed the cats because only God and TAP know when Peter will get home!
Drinks turned into dinner at a new restaurant in town, Il Platano, the place is lovely, pizza is good, it’s really hard to get bad food here, lol 😂. It was late, we had climbed up and down a lot so going home and to bed sounded like a great idea because we had to get up early the next day for a trip to Caserta. I tried Peter one more time with no luck.
My phone rang at 1:30am! Guess who? My husband was excited to tell me that finally TAP flew them to Lisbon, put them up in a fancy hotel 50 minutes outside the airport and will fly the tomorrow to JFK. I said, it’s 1:30am here, I’m in bed, have to get up early, glad you are at least in Lisbon, nice you are in fancy hotel, I took care of Seth who should call Edith, make sure you pay when you get home, pay the electric bill too, I love you, good night, talk to you….
To Be Continued…
Bill Ding and his band of clowns are the security patrol for this blog site. He is a favorite toy from the 50*s. By the way sometimes a blog is just an ego-maniacal stream of conscience.
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