Persuasive Perugia
We were looking to stay in Perugia while we went to a friend’s wedding. We’d looked at an AirBnB and decided it was a bit too Trumpian for us (too many Instagram-enhanced glossy hair products in the bathroom) so we went downmarket and opted for Booking.com which was reportedly Dutch and therefore intrinsically more honest and less cosmetically or otherwise improved.
We were certainly right about that.
Those in the know told us that Booking.com was also user rated so you could look at the previous stayers’ comments and find out if you were in for a slum or not. Confusingly for us, the place we liked the look of (city outskirts, walk to town, nearby shops, surrounded by orchards) was a new listing. A countryside villa! But it was a new listing and we would be the first ones to book, so would have no previous opinions to rely on — never mind, it was cheap as well as rustic, so we signed up and motored into Perugia to find the place. That was the first problem.
It was so “surrounded by orchards” that the locals were mostly farmers who didn’t speak English, and looked a bit suspicious of obvious foreigners in a hire car driving round and round their backyards for at least half an hour. They weren’t helpful.
Luckily we had a phone number from the booking, so we dialled it. A wall of rapid Italian burst forth. Eventually, we managed to tell the lady on the other end that we had arrived near, but not actually at the villa. And she managed to convey to us that her son (the bloke that owned it and handled the bookings) would call us back, as he spoke English.
She didn’t mention he would be calling from England.
When the son eventually called from what sounded like a swipe-sideways pub, he told us the place was hard to find (as if we hadn’t noticed) as the lane to it was unmarked gravel. He said his mother would drive up to guide us in; just a few minutes and she would be there to show us the way.
She did indeed arrive in just a few minutes, and led us down the back, along the edge, behind the paddocks, past the vineyard, through a gate and into a courtyard full of cars, people, trees, hens and abandoned vehicles.
The second problem was that although the trees, hens and abandoned vehicles could possibly be counted as rustic charm, the cars and people could only be counted as inhabitants. Of our freshly booked villa.
Another wall of even more rapid Italian resulted in one of about five young people who were eating in, cavorting around in and generally inhabiting and messing up our rental explaining that his cousin had said it was OK to stay there and they didn’t know anybody was coming. Freshly rumpled sheets and half empty wine bottles supported his case.
We were on the edge of getting back in our car and driving to the nearest hotel, but the day was coming to an end, and anyway, perversely, we liked the look of the place. It was quiet; it was indeed in the middle of orchards; it was also only a short walk to local shops and you could even see the medieval city walls. Plus Mallika had just spotted some birds she hadn’t seen before. We hung on in there.
More phone calls, much Italianate saggy-mouthed shoulder-shrugging, and a bit of half-hearted packing on the part of the young cavorters was followed by the renter’s mother (who was not young) getting to work with broom, mop and duster to make the place more liveable, and even rentable.
The squatters hardly moved, apart from sulkily loading underwear into their Fiat Panda. I felt so bad for Nonna that I grabbed another broom and started sweeping wine corks, pasta wrappers and mouse droppings (oh dear) into the bin. This gave us both added zest and a sense of vested interest in the place — if we cleaned it, we deserved to stay!
The phone rang again — it was the son/owmer, Mr. Overseas Italian from the pub. “We are very sorry, there was a mix up on the dates (as if we hadn’t noticed) but my mother will take you back to her house tonight and cook you a meal once you have settled in to make up for it.” That would be after she had finished cleaning up the post-pubescent mess, presumably.
That made us feel even sorrier for her, so we moved on to making beds and junking a rash of unidentifiable creams and lotions from the bathroom shelves. The previous occupants revved off grumpily down the lane.
Eventually, the place was cleanish, empty of continental carnal experimenters and their equipment, and all ours. We sank back on the couch, watched a mouse run along the bottom of the bookcase, and realised the previous occupants had been so intent on leaving with bad grace that they had left all their food behind.
The fridge was fully stocked, along with a pile of water bottles and enough coffee, oil, pasta, tomatoes, vegetables and wine to keep us going til the weekend. Molto fortunato!
Plus we had a homemade meal at Nonna’s to look forward to — things were definitely looking up. That evening, we walked up the hill past olive groves full of lyrical songbirds to Nonna’s place. We enjoyed a brilliant home-cooked meal in her kitchen. We tucked into delicious fresh-cured ham from the cellar, courtesy of Mr. Overseas Italian’s dad. The skin-thin prosciutto melted in our mouths as we drank local wine from never-empty glasses, and dipped fresh-from-the-oven torte cake into sweet dessert wine.
Nonna’s daughter wandered in wearing a Sophia Loren nightie and little else, smoking, snacking on ham and laughing deeply in a voice that would have made Nina Simone jealous. We surrendered happily to the local culture.
Later, back at the villa, we slept deep and placid — to be woken a bit after dawn by the chickens clucking around the villa, the wind rustling in the aspens and the doves swooping and cooing around the ancient city walls. Utter bliss. We sat outside in the sun and ate a hearty (free) breakfast of rolls and fresh coffee.
“Allo, allo. Buongiorno, come stai?” It seemed Mr. Overseas Italian’s dad was also keen on staying around the villa. He had not only come to feed the chickens, walk the dog and check his garden tools, he had (we realised later) possibly come to check the likelihood of catching Mallika with no, or very little, clothes on.
Virtually ignoring me, he walked into our little pad after knocking on window, door and window again, saw Mallika in a post-shower beach wrap and proceeded to stroke her shoulder in a very Italian way, murmuring “bella, bella, bella” as he did so.
It wasn’t exactly what she was expecting; but as she noted at the time, not offensive at all. More like an appreciation of quality and beauty, reminiscent of those impressive and magnificent city walls. After a few more “bella, bellas” and a lot more Italian that we couldn’t understand, he wandered off into the orchard, possibly murmuring positively about the benefits of using Booking.com.
Early the following morning he dropped by again, this time peeping in the window to see if we were still in bed, with a few more bella bellas and lots of sighing and accompanying regrets that he wasn’t forty years younger and an English speaker. It was quite reassuring in its own way, as he very ostentatiously locked the gate every time he left.
After three nights and some truly stunning walks around the amazing city of Perugia with the world’s oldest bank — Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena and even rarer: nuns shopping for designer underwear — we said goodbye to our little, odd, cosy villa in the orchards.
And despite the mouse, the chaos on arrival, the wrecked cars and trucks dotting the surrounds, nightie-clad relatives wandering about and a grandfather peeping in our windows, I’m sure we would go back if it was available. The sense of peace, reality, unique culture and timelessness really charmed us.
But you will never ever know if we do go back, cos we didn’t leave a comment on the Booking.com website.
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