Casa di Antonio

"If you were stranded on a desert island with only the music of one artist, who would it be?" 

"So I can have all their albums?"

"Yep." 

"...The Beatles."

And that my friends, is one of many conversations that were exceptionally random and brilliant during my stay at Casa di Antonio*.  Somewhere, I suggest, everybody everywhere should spend at least 3 nights, as I did.  If you read on I hope you'll understand why.

Four and a half hours by train, from Pescara, is the "city" of Ferrara.  Honestly, it definitely has more of a small town vibe.  It is full of people, and the sound of the piazza outside the Cathedral on Sunday morning was amazing.  On a crisp, sunny and autumnal day it is a very happy and sparkling place.

On the Saturday, due to the four and a half hour train ride (which I endured in a 1st class, spacious seat next to no-one), I did not arrive until 13:04 but the greeting from Karen and Tony made it worth it.  It was so nice to see two friendly faces.  Now in my time here so far I have seen many, many friendly faces but this was different because I knew these people.  When I was at high school, 11 years ago, I became best friends, as only you can when you are fourteen, with Karen’s daughter, Rebs.  Obviously Rebs and I are still good friends otherwise I would not be staying with her mother, in Italy, very far away from my Italian base!

Anyway.  Over the weekend I was able to enjoy Casa di Antonio, Karen and Tony's Bed and Breakfast, as their guest.  It is a stunning place.  The building itself is a farmhouse surrounded by agricultural land that is worked by local people.  As a result of this there isn't really much around except land and sky.  Which, compared to my views of buildings and roads, was a very welcome change.  The tranquility of living in the middle of, well, in my terms, nowhere, is a blissful existence.  With the farming community busy all around; ploughing, digging ditches and the like, I was surprised at still how calm and beautiful it was to just....sit.   Yep.  I like sitting.  Thankfully Karen and Tony like doing the same, with drinks and food (and sometimes wine) and good conversation of course!

So.  Food.  Because I was in the company of friends who have a few years of the Italian life under their belt, I felt happier being a bit more adventurous.  I am not one to turn my nose up to anything when I am with others (except raspberries and pineapple) but I had tried cockles the previous Wednesday with people that are "friendships in progress" so I felt a bit odd eating something I had never tried before.  This made Saturday's dinner at a restaurant, The Three Pines (in English), awesome.  Basically we had cockles, mussels and a fish risotto with stuff in that I had never had before and it all tasted AMAZING!  I think I might be at an age where shell-fish is a bit more appealing than before, pretty good timing when I've moved to a country where there is a long-lived-love-affair with all food fish!  This food was so good (I had a mixed grill as the next course, with ice-cream from a gelateria and coffee at a bar to finish) that 5 days later, today, I can only vaguely remember the other food I ate that weekend, which is annoying because all the food I ate was exceptional and made me very happy to be eating it!  We had sausages cooked on the chimney, wood burning thingy-ma-jig on the Sunday night, and then pizza on the Monday night.  Yum...and I'll never tire of antipasto, ever.

Wine.  Tony doesn't like wine, so he buys it from shops to stop them selling it.  And then we had to drink it to get rid of it!...As with the food, I tried lots of wine that I had not tried before.  Prosecco is the typical Italian, white sparkling delight which I have been known to drink but, from the area where the B&B is, Tony has found some other types of sparkling white wine that were pretty damn tasty.  Oh.  My taste buds are tingling.

And so that just leaves the "stuff we did" section of the weekend.  I can't fit it all into a blog but two things that really, really stood out for me was:

- walking into the Cathedral, just to have a look, and it was the end of a mass with a choir singing a Taize chant to finish.  My ears were in heaven.

- seeing a colony of wild, yes wild, flamingoes. 

So much, so, so much to "report", but I cannot do any of it justice.  Riding around the city walls on bicycles, looking at art, (by, amongst others, Mondrian, Picasso and Monet), sitting in a park with conkers falling out of the trees around us, are literally just a few more snippets of what I did, and what I was shown whilst staying with Karen and Tony. 

Please.  Do yourself a favour and just go.  Go and stay in a fresh, perfectly-finished room at Casa di Antonio.  Enjoy eating homemade fresh fruit jams on your pastries in the morning before heading out to the culture that surrounds this tranquil and beautiful place.  Then finish the day sitting "under the barn" with a glass of red and the stars to amaze you. 

I am not the only person in the world that wants to keep this place to themselves, reserved for only me (I have read the guest book).  However, Tony and Karen have worked so hard to make Casa di Antonio the perfect place for tourists to use as their home and base when visiting northern Italy, that they deserve every piece of tranquillity they capture.

*Pass on their website, http://www.casadiantonio.com/ to everyone!  
(Karen and Tony will offer a discount to anyone who mentions me.)