A most pleasurable experience.

Give me the Italian countryside. And the tiny, out-of-the-way villages. I’ll take that any day over the big cities such as Rome and Milano and Trieste. I’ll take the hinterlands even before wonderful Venice. I’m enamored with serene and quiet places such as Sutrio and Marlengo in the Italian Alps and the spacious rolling rural areas of Sardinia. Where my true love and I discovered L’Antica Locanda. In the village of Gesturi. It’s a bed and breakfast operated by Grazia Medda. She’s a 65-year-old woman, who looks more like 50. Maybe because she knows how to live. In a quaint setting. That could be out of the Middle Ages. A home with a cobblestone courtyard. With empty glass wine casks and colorful planted flowers and bushes and sea shells and fossils and sculptured busts on elevated stone walkways and terraces. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I walked in. Too good to be real, I thought momentarily. But it was real. And that included the room. With a vaulted wood ceiling. Must be 25 feet high. And during the night, a church bell signaled the time. In a soft, melodic way. My true love prefers a perfectly silent night. But she adjusted to the bells. And also to the breakfast. A light affair. With biscuits and toast and Grazia’s homemade marmalades. And an almost continuous conversation, in Italian, between Grazia and my true love. I couldn’t make out everything being said. But it was emotional enough for my true love to have tears in her eyes. Listening to Grazia’s nostalgic reminiscences. Grazia and her husband, Vittorio, turned the place into a bed and breakfast 10 years ago. It’s a family-run thing. With a big assist from daughter Rita Sofia. And I suspect they’re all in it mostly for the fun and delight of sharing their home with visitors. From all over the world. They can’t be in it to make a very big profit. A double room cost us 50 euros. I would have gladly paid triple or quadruple that. And felt that I got more than my money’s worth. In fact, it was one of my most pleasurable experiences. Ever. Believe me. We’ll be back next winter. And hopefully for many winters to come. –Jim Broede