Ribbons Undone

Oma and Opa bought their place in Italy when Simon was just a baby. Opa Friedel’s sister also bought a home in the same village around the same time. So Simon and Ruth got to make some great childhood memories here with their cousins. Opa’s brother eventually bought a home in the same neighborhood as well.

Simon grew up spending most of his school vacations and summers here, so this really is like a second home to him. Some of his favorite childhood memories are of taking the overnight train from Germany to Italy. His cousins also bring their children here for vacations now. Our kids are all around the same age, so we have to coordinate dates sometime so that we’ll all be here together again.

The doorway. These statues of Mary are everywhere. This one always has fresh flowers in front of it.

The girls LOVE Opa’s Motorino (motorized bike). They ask to ride it every day. Kiera squeals with delight every time Simon opens up the throttle 🙂 (don’t worry- they had their helmets on for the ride)

The living room has a wood burning stove- so cozy (especially on rainy days).

View from the roof patio. Can you see Quinnie checking out our neighbor’s chicken coop?

The olive groves behind the house

Lemon and lime trees everywhere!

Our neighbor let the girls pick some of his oranges (and harass his chickens!). I have to say I’m impressed with how decent Simon’s Italian is after not being here for so long! The neighbors are all super nice, and like to stop and chat. The neighborhood often gets together for outdoor meals (especially on holidays) and we’ve been invited a few times (even though they don’t know us).

That chicken got SO much attention! I think this was seriously one of the big highlights of the vacation for the girls. Maybe we should give up on trying to expose them to different cultures and just spend all of our vacations at a farm!

Kiera always insists on climbing this wall when we pass it (which is at least twice a day).

More alters for Mary…

The neighborhood is incredible- you can walk around for hours- so much to see!

Simon remembers this well from when he was a kid (left). / This is where the neighborhood women used to do their laundry (right). Closeup below..

typical mailbox here

Whenever I’m in Italy, the words “elegant decay” come to mind…

How lucky are we that we get to come here (and have a free place to stay!) whenever we want?! I hope someday the girls realize what a gift this is. I think they will 🙂

Here’s some more information on Imperia…

We vacationed at Oma and Opa’s place in Italy twice this past year- October vacation and Easter vacation. Altogether we spent about five weeks in Italy (France and Monaco as well since they’re less than an hour away!). So there are lots of vacation blog posts coming your way!

For October vacation, we flew to Nice, France (closest airport to our place in Italy) just four days after we had moved into our new apartment. Thankfully we’d already bought plane tickets months earlier when we thought we had an earlier move-in date. Otherwise, I probably would have tried to talk Simon into staying in Köln to unpack and organize. Plane tickets meant the vacation was happening no matter what.

We were living in such chaos (stacks and stacks of boxes), that I could barely even find the things we needed to pack for vacation. I barely found one bathing suit each for the girls even though we were going to be spending most of the three weeks there at the beach. It was hard for me to leave that mess behind knowing it would be waiting for us when we got back, but we all really needed the vacation and family time.

We flew out of Konrad Adenauer airport in Köln. There were big slabs of the Berlin wall inside.

Getting on the plane. / I love that their barf bags say, “Don’t worry, we don’t take it personally.” !

The girls both love to fly- especially our airplane obsessed Kiera (though you can’t tell from this pic!). I think the flight was only a little over an hour.

The girls are always fascinated by the luggage carousel. I know they’d get on it if I let them!

Then it was off to pick up our rental car. I love that they call the drop off area “Kiss and Fly”.

The scenic route from the airport to Oma and Opa’s place takes about 2.5 hours- and is incredibly beautiful. The fast route (highway) takes about 1 hour.

Almost there! Our place is in Imperia (in the region of Liguria, Italy).

We stopped at the local grocery store to buy some essentials…

Does chocolate count as an essential? They had so many different kinds of Kinder Chocolate that I’d never seen before!

Before heading to our place we stopped for a sunset swim. It was so nice to be back in Italy again!! This was Quinnie and Kiera’s first time there, so it was extra special.

Oma and Opa’s Place in Italy

Italia!