What Do You Do There? Two wonderful weeks in Massa Lubrense
By caplanco from colorado, Spring 2003We try to spend five to seven weeks in Italy every two years. Several of our friends, while somewhat envious, are also curious. “What do you do there for all that time,” they ask? “We just live,” we respond. This report is an illustration of "living" in Massa Lubrense.
This trip report was originally posted on slowtrav.com.
INTRODUCTION
We were going to be in Italy for seven weeks in April and May, 2003: Florence, Campagnia, Spoleto, Pienza,Venice and Milan. Our friends, Bob and Alice K., wanted to join us in Campagnia as they had never been there. We rented places and leased a car large enough for the four of us well in advance and we all were set to go. In the meantime, their son became engaged and the wedding date was set for the day we were leaving for Italy. Bob and Alice cancelled, thinking that they’d be too exhausted after all the wedding activities to join us. My husband, Michael, and I then changed our plans, switching dates for the Spoleto and Campagnia locations.So there we were in Florence, having a wonderful time at Residenzia Il Carmine and thoroughly enjoying the Oltrarno area. We had arrived on Wednesday, April 9. Six days later, two days before we were to leave Florence for Spoleto, we received an email message from Bob and Alice. They will arrive in Florence on Friday night! They didn't know we'd changed our itinerary and they expected to be with us in Campagnia. Major scurry, lots of phone calls to change plans. Miriam at Il Carmine was able to accommodate us for the extra nights as long as we moved into a smaller apartment, which worked well. The owner of the apartment in Spoleto agreed to the date change and Katrina at Ville in Italia, fortunately with an office in Florence, had a couple of places for us to consider in Campagnia. As it would be Easter weekend, this was not easy. We decided to take a place in Massa Lubrense that was larger than we needed and more expensive than we’d planned on, but sounded very nice.
Sure enough, the Ks arrived on Friday in time for a glorious sunset. We walked to the Westin to meet them and then we all enjoyed delicious lamb chops at Trattoria Angelino in Oltrarno.