The first time I came here I was still knee-high: it was on a March Sunday, I remember that day pretty clearly.
Our mum told us that she and dad would have shown us something special.
Davide and I were toddling about: the air, still deliciously cool, made our cheeks as coloured as a ripe red apple.
We cut strike across a lawn and then down a hardly visible path twisting among the trees. We could hear the river flowing beside us and the vegetation was becoming thicker and thicker: our little hands were constantly moving brambles and bush ropes hanging from the branches.
Everything tasted like mystery. We stopped before a curtain made of greenery, hooking on an old net.
Dad raised the metal corner – already lifted by the continuously escaping animals – and led us to the other side. As an endless jonquil lawn widened in front of us, everything around became yellow: those yellow joyful flowers were the wild rulers of the sunbeams which secretly warmed over there too. They were so thick that you were hardly able not to tread them down when walking.
It was probably Davide who said: “hey, look, there’s a house!”… at that point mum and dad smiled, making us their accomplices; they had a secret and were about to reveal it . The house was gigantic and full of windows watching us from their ten-year loneliness. The roof was visibly smashed, dusty and rusty objects were scattered all around. You could imagine it had been once a place bursting with life. It was right then when I first heard my parents speaking the word “agriturismo”.
How we were
