An Italian Village: a perspective on life beside Lake Como (Italian Trilogy Series Volume Two)

An Italian Village

A perspective on life beside Lake Como

Paul Wright

© Paul Wright 2016

Cover illustration © Paul Wright

The moral right of the author has been asserted

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser

A note from the publisher

This book is a revised version of 'An Italian Village', by the same author, published by Earlswood Press in 2014

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Table of Contents

About the Author

1 Swapping Villages

2 Arrivati

3 A Challenging Art Commission

4 Winter Food

5 Another Art Commission and Some Ostriches

6 Val d’Intelvi

7 Local Tittle-tattle

8 Beside the Seaside

9 Povera Italia

10 Public Statements

11 Bel Paese

12 In America

13 Young at Heart

14 Traditional Values

15 Bed and Breakfast

16 Random Facts about Italy

A Request and some Recommendations...

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To my daughter, Sammie

and to my cats, Stevie G, Luis, Nando, Crewe Alexander and Ulisse

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About the Author

Paul Wright is an award-winning artist who specialises in large-scale murals, Trompe l’Oeil painted furniture, contemporary oil paintings and watercolour landscapes.

In 1982, following a period spent designing theatre sets around the UK, Paul started his own art studio in Surrey, where he specialised in hand painted interiors for private homes and commercial premises. In 1991 he moved to northern Italy with his partner, Nicola, where he continues to work from his studio and art gallery base in the beautiful medieval village of Argegno on the shores of Lake Como, and from where he travels to other European countries and to the USA.

Paul’s work has been featured in many art exhibitions and on two programmes for Italian television, plus dozens of periodicals and newspapers worldwide, notably The Sunday Times, Architectural Digest, The Wall Street Journal and The Arts Review.

An Italian Village is Paul’s second book, the sequel to An Italian Home.

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1 Swapping Villages

Towards the end of 1990, we were set to move from our Elizabethan cottage in the southern market town of Godalming in Surrey, England, to the ancient village of Arcos de la Frontera in Andalusia southern Spain. Then, my partner Nicola decided to telephone her friend, Christine Masin, who lived with her family in a medieval village on the shores of Lake Como in northern Italy, to inform her that we were considering emigrating. Within twenty minutes of Nicola’s phone call, and somewhat to my amazement, our plans had been completely changed. After twenty years of living by the Lake, Christine’s Venetian husband had been transferred to Rome for work and they needed to rent out their house.

I was, and still am a professional artist, specialising in large scale mural painting, watercolours and Trompe l’Oeil hand painted furniture. Before that, I spent eighteen years as a stage designer and scenic artist, in repertory theatres, London’s West End, for the BBC at the Television Centre in Wood Lane, for TV commercial companies and various British film studios. Prior to that, following three years at Southport Art College I painted murals on the interiors in some of Liverpool’s beat clubs during the Mersey Sound era of the 1960s, as well as playing soccer on Merseyside at a semi-professional level.

When I first met Nicola, she was working as a surveyor’s assistant in Godalming, but after five years she changed career and become a legal secretary for a local firm of solicitors. I had grown increasingly despondent about life in England, and one day I asked Nicola how she felt about emigrating to Spain. I felt that moving abroad would be beneficial for us, because the customary ten-year boom and bust cycle was in full swing once more and Britain had gone into a financial downturn. Whenever there are problems with the economy, art commissions, like anything else that isn’t essential to the well-to-do householder are put on hold. Commissions for my work had become very thin on the ground and I didn’t want to hang around waiting for an upturn in the economy.

Nicola, on the other hand wasn’t feeling the pinch. Her job was handling both divorce and property conveyancing, and at that time divorce statistics were going through the roof. Also, I made my suggestion about emigrating just after the Christmas and New Year holiday period, when couples are most likely to embark on a divorce. Nevertheless, I knew that deep down she was thrilled at the prospect of living abroad. Like me, she was fond of Spain, but she was hesitant about moving because she wasn’t convinced it was feasible. It was only after her telephone call to Christine that she became enthusiastic, because together they had decided that she and I were going to rent the Masins’ house for a year. Nicola and Christine had decided upon a period of a year, because Christine couldn’t be sure their move to Rome would work for them. Equally, Nicola couldn’t be certain that our move to Italy would work for us.

There was another reason for Nicola choosing Italy rather than Spain. Ten years earlier, when she was sixteen, she’d been an au pair for Christine’s family and because of that she could speak Italian fairly fluently. I knew the area around Lake Como too, because we had visited the Masins a short while before and really enjoyed our time there. A further reason for Nicola’s decision was that Christine had contacts in the Como area who might be able to help us find work. On the other hand, neither of us could speak Spanish and we had no contacts living there. A week later, Nicola handed in the three months’ notice her company required of her and a month after that, on April 9 1991, we arrived in the village of Moltrasio. It proved to be a red-letter day in our lives.

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Some people say it takes great courage to swap countries, especially starting afresh in a non-English speaking one, but we were looking forward to the challenge. Because we had visited Italy on other occasions, we felt that everything about the country would be worth the effort. We left with no strings attached and arrived as straight and possibly naïve foreigners, with no assurances, no guarantees and no jobs lined up. We took a chance and trusted in luck. The only thing we had to fall back on was that if we failed to stay the course, we still owned our house in Godalming. We arrived in Moltrasio with ten thousand pounds and we estimated that if we were careful and if we didn’t find any work, we could make it last for a year. My philosophy was that if it didn’t work out, at least we could be certain of some sunshine during the summer months. If nothing else, I was long overdue a suntan!

Looking back, after residing in the country for the past twenty-four years, with hardly a day spent out of it except for the occasional working trip or to attend weddings and funerals in the UK, we still believe the move was the best thing we ever did. However, it wasn’t always milk and honey and at times it was a case of digging in, especially in the early days and particularly for me when I was trying to learn the language at the same time as getting used to a very different mind-set and culture.

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We also had to climb a mountain of almost limitless Italian bureaucracy; the difficult encounters at Como police station over an unfathomable plethora of documentation the authorities demanded before they would issue us foreigners (even though we were EU citizens) with a permesso di soggiorno per stranieri (permit of stay for foreigners) will never be forgotten. From these experiences we thought it was obvious that the Italian state doesn’t want foreigners working in Italy. It was as if the government had formulated what is to all intents and purposes an admission examination: the ones who manage to pass it prove they are serious about staying and will have earned the right to stay. With millions of its own people out of work, Italy doesn’t need foreigners, EU citizens or otherwise, knocking on its door, making the situation even worse. Therefore the system is intentionally made as hard as possible to comprehend. We eventually received the permesso, because without this vital document it is impossible for the foreigner to find legitimate work or operate a business properly. Slowly but surely, after applying for further documentation essential for survival in Italy we learnt how to live permanently, rather than doing what it takes for a two-week holiday and we began to relish the atmosphere and the wonderful scenery.

One of our principal reasons for moving south was to savour all aspects of life in an ancient Mediterranean village. We wanted to get back to a lifestyle that used to exist in the UK when it had an identity and continuity. We wanted to be in a place where we would wake up in the morning and it would be the same as it had been the day before: just harmony amongst a group of people who had the same values that we had, and with no unnecessary changes. To be part of the annual village Carnival, when I designed and painted the float, and in which Nicola took part was exciting. Learning to dance so we could join in traditional festa celebrations was good fun. The all-day eating and drinking coach trips to other parts of Italy that cost next to nothing were, and continue to be outstanding. Watching the annual palio, the village sports competition take place in summer temperatures and my playing football for Moltrasio in soccer tournaments was exhilarating. Being involved in the Christmas nativity scene was fascinating, then being invited to join in fantastic Christmas and New Year celebrations with some of the warmest people in Europe was a true privilege.

Without doubt the rewards for making the effort to immerse ourselves in the local culture far outstripped the downsides and we turned from flirting with the idea of living in Italy to falling in love with it; so much so, we dislike having to leave the country even for brief moments and we have never once contemplated either returning to the UK or living elsewhere in the world.

My sunbathing activity only lasted for six weeks, because Christine’s contacts pointed me in the right direction for finding plenty of work. In the end, we stayed in the Masins’ house for three years and it might have been possible to stay longer, except they needed to sell the house to raise the money to put their two children through university. After that, we moved into an apartment in the historical part of Moltrasio, above a disused, three-hundred-year-old butchers shop. I subsequently rented the shop, which I converted into a much-needed art studio. We had not moved earlier because we were still unsure that our adventure would work for us. Also, we were apprehensive about committing ourselves to a rental contract with a landlord we didn’t know, but the need to move gave us the shove we needed.

For a further eight years everything went fine. Nicola was working in Milan for a PR company. I received a number of art commissions to paint murals in the homes of some wealthy clients, and from my studio I sold both watercolours of the region and my unique, hand painted Trompe l’Oeil furniture to passing tourists. Then, suddenly we were shaken out of our comfort zone by a series of significant events. The first one happened on the morning of September 11 2001, when an Al Qaeda faction destroyed the World Trade Centre in New York City. A few days later, Al Qaeda’s leader, Osama bin Laden issued the prophetic words, ‘The world will never be the same place again.’ The repercussions of that atrocity didn’t do my business or anybody else’s any good, as tourists fled Italy on the first available plane.

Five months after that, on January 1 2002 the second blow hit, when euro was launched. It affected everybody in mainland Europe, and finished off any hope that the slump in the tourist trade caused by the September 11 atrocity was only temporary. Practically overnight, the price of a holiday rose by twenty-five per cent, in line with the rise in the cost of living in the Euro zone. That spring, when the holiday season was supposed to be starting, the few foreign visitors who did visit my studio all remarked on how expensive they found Italy compared to their previous visit when the lira was the currency.

The third reason was much closer to home and it happened on the evening of the eighth anniversary of our living in the apartment. Three months after the advent of the Euro, a hand-delivered letter dropped onto the doormat, informing us that the rent on our flat would be increased by twenty-five per cent, with immediate effect. As if this wasn’t bad enough, a month later another letter arrived, demanding a separate rent rise of thirty per cent for my art studio. My immediate reaction was to confront our landlady over these considerable increases, but after further consideration, we decided to direct our energies into moving house.

On asking around, it appeared that rents were being hiked up all over the local area. Likewise, thanks to the euro property prices were escalating beyond reason, so rather than waste time squabbling over the rent of our flat or waste time hunting for something with a rent we could afford, buying a place of our own became our immediate goal before we were priced out of that market too. Unfortunately we were in for another shock. After viewing only three properties for sale, we discovered we already had been priced out of Moltrasio, which had suddenly become the twelfth wealthiest community in the whole of Italy. For such a tiny village to hold its own with the big cities was a dubious accolade, but we could not hang around to appreciate it before it became number eleven.

Until the moment our rents were increased, we had not seriously considered buying a property, but after we had made the decision to buy, we knew that unless we won the national lottery we would have to look further afield. Seven years previously we had sold our Elizabethan cottage in Godalming but had been hesitant about entering the housing market in Italy, as offshore investment rates had been satisfactory. But following the slump, the stock market boom of the early 2000s, the drop in interest rates and the uncertainty of the world economy, people had returned to buying bricks and mortar as a secure investment and we were being left behind. Suddenly we found ourselves trying to compete against an influx of highly paid Italian and international soccer stars, both past and present, as well as business tycoons, oligarchs, property developers and what can be called the celebrity effect with the likes of film star George Clooney, for highly desirable lakeside properties.

For over a year we had little hope that we would be able to claw our way out of our melancholy. Then, from out of the blue, a minor miracle happened, when an attractive three-bedroom property appeared on an estate agent’s web site. It was a three-floored villa, built into the mountainside, just forty metres from the lake road. It had a separate one-bedroom apartment on the first floor, terraced gardens, wide balconies, a garage and a spectacular, twenty-seven kilometre wide view from north to south over the magnificent Lake. This was a property we could really get excited about, especially as it was one we could actually afford. All this and it was only ten kilometres further up the Lake from Moltrasio, in the appealing, lively and unspoilt village of Argegno. After five months of bureaucracy we became the proud owners of the villa.

We had already realised that saying goodbye to Moltrasio and its residents was not going to be easy. In the thirteen years we had lived there we had become extremely fond of the place and our neighbours regarded us as part of their family. We were looking forward to living in our own home in Argegno with our four adopted cats, but on our last day there were tears aplenty as we said our farewells to our friends. They said they would miss us; it was as if we were letting them down by leaving the village. We tried to assure them that we would be back to see them and I tried to make light of the situation by repeating we were only moving down the road, and that it was purely for economic reasons. Nicola did persuade some of the younger ones that we had been forced out by circumstances, but we knew the older generation were not convinced. The mountainous nature of Italy historically split the country. Being virtually isolated, each village had its own identity and communities were very close-knit. Even with the advent of modern day communications and the effects of access to the outside world that this brings, if anybody becomes accepted in such a community, it is not easy for them to turn away.

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2 Arrivati

The first thing we had to do on our arrival in Argegno was to select what we wanted of the furniture we had inherited along with the villa. Our apartment in Moltrasio had only one bedroom, so our limited amount of furniture wasn’t anywhere near enough to furnish a large villa. The villa had an extensive run of wardrobes in one of the bedrooms, a double bed and an L-shaped divan in the lounge, which all came in handy until we had time to replace them. Because the previous owners had moved to an apartment they had also left a complete set of outside furniture and a pile of gardening equipment. As there was no garden attached to our flat in Moltrasio we found this very welcome.

Our second task, which was more essential than getting the villa sorted out was to meet the neighbours, because we had already heard that the locals were interested to learn about the two Moltrasini who had moved in. Word had preceded us because our friends, Sandra and her husband Gherado were eager to introduce us into their community. We knew them from reunions at a hotel they once owned near to Moltrasio prior to their retirement, and until recently we hadn’t seen them for nearly twelve years. Sandra was Scottish and Gherado was born and bred in Argegno, so Nicola had been in touch with them to tell them that we would soon be neighbours.

Gherado in particular was most helpful in enlightening inquisitive residents about us, and while Nicola was working in Milan he introduced me into the Bar Onda society, where he and the majority of local men hung out to pass the time of day. It was a case of déjà vu, because it was almost the same scene as the one I had become accustomed to in the Bar Centrale in Moltrasio.

The one thing that gave me some security when I did meet the local men in the bar was that I could now speak Italian and I could actually communicate with them. Thirteen years previously, when we first moved to Moltrasio and the locals spoke to me, I used to just smile and nod agreeably at I knew not what. However, under some circumstances learning to speak Italian in Italy is not always an advantage. The locals in the Bar Onda prefer to converse in their own dialect, which is very different from Italian and different again from the dialect in Moltrasio. Trying to learn a dialect is extremely difficult if a person is not brought up listening to it. Apart from the occasional abbreviated Italian word, dialects seem to comprise of a lot of grunts. After the exhaustive struggle I’d had in order to learn Italian to an acceptable standard I found the locals, known as Argegnini, were telling me to forget about Italian and learn to speak their dialect.

I particularly enjoyed the weekly il club di lunedi (the Monday club), a strictly men-only affair, held in the Bar Onda. It was also referred to as the ‘church-going club’, because those in attendance told their wives they were going to the late morning mass in the village church, rather than the real reason, which was to escape from home for a few hours. The members were Gherado and half a dozen of his retired mates, plus another half a dozen working restaurateurs from the area, whose day off was Monday. They would all meet up at eleven o’clock in the morning to discuss every subject imaginable, but mainly it was to have aperitivi (aperitifs), before lunch, when they would consume several bottles of vino, accompanied by several plates of salume (sliced cold meats) with black olives, wild onions, duck pâté on panini or warm focaccia and alici marinate in olio di oliva (fresh anchovies in olive oil).

A couple of weeks after we’d moved into our new home, we had a visit from our nearest neighbour, who lived half a kilometre away. He introduced himself as Vittorio, a sprightly chain-smoker who told us he was born in Argegno, seventy years ago. He also informed us that thirty-four years earlier he had sold an acre of his land to the man who built our villa. Vittorio happened to be one of a largish group of energetic, retired men who occupied the seats around the village fountain in the Piazza Roma, the central piazza in the village and he invited me to join him and his friends for their daily pre-lunch aperitivi around the fountain. This was a slightly different group from the Monday Club, because although some of them did attend both unions, all the members