At home in Ceriana

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I’ll be sad to leave Ceriana, it has been an incredible insight into Italian village life. They are like one big family.
The church bells ring throughout the day and night but thankfully the night time ones are quieter, then at 7am the ring for 1 minute to wake everyone up. At around 8am the streets are full of people meeting to chat on their way to start the day. The shops shut their doors (although the fruit & veggie display outside is just covered over) and the streets are quiet while they have their main meal of the day. The kids get a fully cooked home style meal at school too. Then at 5pm the streets come alive again they sit out front of the bars and shops to sit, chat and watch the world go by. I don’t know how the bars and coffee shops make any money, no one is drinking or eating just using their chairs and chatting.
The kids all gather in the piazza to play soccer, or ride their bikes or just hang out. Darcy wants to live here, he loves going out with the kids at night although he won’t play soccer with them any more, he says their too good. He’s content throwing his ball around and being surrounded by the other kids. The church bells ring for a full minute at 8pm and by 9pm they return home for a light supper. I found out about the meals etc when we met up with the girl who booked the apartment for us at the bar/taverna for a drink.
The one thing I won’t miss is the road to the village. Narrow and windy with steep drops off the side which was scary enough but the other drivers made it white knuckle scary. They would drive in the middle of the road, at top speed (practicing for the Grand Prix) but they would hardly move out of the way when we passed. It was like they were playing chicken with us; we were being safe chickens. I wondered how many accidents there must be when we noticed a piece of the stone wall missing and red and white tape stretched across. On our last day the church bells rang for a couple of minutes indicating a service and as we pack the car we had to pass through the Church Piazza with a small crowd and a hearse waiting.

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Photos

kids playing at the piazza
little girl and her 'doll' dog

Steep, steep roads
they had me (and the kids) puffing and panting