Guests whom we like…..
The most pleasurable thing about holiday accommodation are the ‘guests’. Many come and go and your memory of them fades over time.(particularly with a memory like mine) Others arrive as strangers and leave as friends. After an idle hour or so over a glass (or two) of wine you find you share common values and views of the world. In those two hours you are unable to ‘fix’ all the problems in the world but it is fun discussing them. A few guests even return the following year. And then there is a small number who you seem to be so in ’sync’ with, that you find yourselves maintaining an ongoing contact from afar.
One such couple who fall in to this latter category for us are Dario and Rowena Castelli. They live in Dario’s home country of Italy, (you wouldn’t guess would you) just north east of Milan near the southern tip of Lake Como. (I could kill them for that) You know the standard image of Italian men right; dark, tall, suave, macho, ice cool looks, boss of the family, etc etc. Well Dario by comparison is a teddy bear; laid back, gentle, smile on his face, easy paced, considerate and an all round good guy.
As for Rowena, well, she talks like an Italian, and throws her hands around like an Italian but she hardly looks Italian at all. The fact that she is Hawaiian may have something to do with all that. What is she doing in Italy married to Dario? That’s Rowena’s story to tell. But Rowena could be the poster girl for Hawaiian tourism. As well as being cute looking, she has that smiley, enthusiastic, eternally optimistic attitude that seems to be imbedded within many ‘island’ people. As Dario will attest, Rowena is fun to be around.
Rowena has been clever enough to create her own stimulating blog. http://www.rubbahslippahsinitaly.blogspot.com/ If you are keen on Italian food/cooking you share a passion with Rowena and on her Blog you will find all sorts of enticing recipes and dishes. They are accompanied with great photo illustrations too. And in between recipes there are many interesting stories of life in Italy, sprinkled of course with much Hawaiian humour. If you need to give your day a lift or to lighten it for 5 minutes, you may find a visit to Rowena’s Blog will do just that.
A Bientot,
Bruce.
March 28th, 2007 at 10:02 am
Now if *I* lived on the edge of Lake Como, catch *me* slumming it around french Gites for my holidays…
Our friends who live adjacent their gite always have tails to tell of their assorted guests. Mostly good or at least amusing, one or two horror stories, not least the one which was “the final straw” as far as macerator “small bore” toilets were concerned. Oh yes, following that visit they were all removed and new soil pipes installed so “proper” units could be used. I won’t go into detail, I’m sure you can imagine, you are just left wondering WHY an apparently intelligent and “normal” child of 14 puts *so many things* down the toilet after having been explicitly instructed not to…
Since we’re *not* there day-to-day, our contact with our guests tends to be the occasional follow-up email or any comments they leave in our log books.
April 2nd, 2007 at 11:02 am
Bruce, you shouldn’t have! All this fawning over. No wonder my stats counter has gone through the roof for the past few days!
But anyhow, thank you for the mention. Dario is indeed a teddybear and I WILL talk a wild streak whenever I come in contact with english-speaking folk. Not that I wouldn’t be able to hold my own in italian…it’s just that I can’t speak it as fast — yet!
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November 13th, 2007 at 5:33 am
Celebs Video Archive
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