Bracciano... our home away from home. A little advertising for our wonderful hosts: http://www.vrbo.com/68452 is where we stayed! The only shocker was that the original advertisement mentioned laundry facilities included... but when we got there - we found that the laundry facilities were attached to ourselves. OUR OWN HANDS!! I almost started to panic. I didn't pack enough clothes for the entire stay, and I'd never done laundry by hand before. Much to my surprise - I enjoyed it immensely. I felt immersed in the Italian culture by working hard to help my family. And there was something so domesticating about standing on the rooftop and hanging our laundry out to dry :) (but I was really glad to get home and throw everything in our huge washer! hehe...)
More on the apartment: It was located in the middle of those really small streets... One could get lost turning all the corners! Looking up - you could see all the clotheslines. Stray cats lined the doorsteps (and my children have a soft spot for them!) Letting Victoria walk to the house was not an option, as she'd stop everytime she saw one and yell KITTY!!
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| Small road leading to our villa |
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| View of Bracciano from the parking lot |
From our rooftop, we had a gorgeous view of Lake Bracciano. After a long day of touring, we'd put the girls to bed, then Nico and I would go upstairs to enjoy the cool night air while taking in the view. Now that we're back in Germany, I'm really going to miss that 30 minutes of absolute nothing with him :)
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| View of Lake Bracciano from our rooftop |
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| The moon was just an additional incentive! |
Just behind our little villa, the castle where Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes got married! I don't know why I was so drawn to being in the same place that they once were. We took a tour of it on Friday and I got to see the actual room where they tied the knot. I felt sad that it ended in divorce... I can't imagine the love that might have once existed between them. I mean, for a man to book an Italian castle in such a gorgeous place to profess his love - wow!
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| Old church bell tower on the other side of our rooftop terrace |
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| Castle where Tom and Katie got married (behind our villa) |
Sleeping in our charming vacation home was challenging. I LOVE to be cold when I sleep - and we faced temps of 80 degrees at 6pm. There's no air conditioning, and the first couple of nights we had only one fan in the house. By the third night, we made the trek to a superstore and bought two more fans and then we were in business! Even my rather modest older children took to sleeping only in panties to escape sweating while asleep! hehe... I don't know how the REAL Italians do it! Felt like I tanned my skin from the heat alone :D
On the last night of our stay in Bracciano, we contacted our wonderful hosts (Gloria and Lino) and asked them to join us for dinner. They booked an evening at their favorite "hole in the wall" pizza joint and we gathered for conversation and wonderful food. It was nice to sit and talk with Gloria (a fellow American.) We spoke of men, and of children.... of life... it was nice! I felt a sense of longing as I hugged her goodbye. I can't put my finger on it, but there was definitely a connection shared with her. I do hope we see each other again.
Bracciano... it was a wonderful, perfect place to come "home" to after long days of touring the Italian sights. Thank you so much Gloria and Lino for affording us this awesome experience!
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