When Sam said “let’s go and live in Italy” I had an instant vision of rolling Tuscan hills and strolls around Florence with our perfectly presented children. Enjoying gelato and café and taking in the delights of the Italy I fell in love with during my single backpacking days.
Of course I said “Why not?” So within months we had sold our house, car, and the majority of our possessions, arranged our wedding, celebrated both of our children’s birthdays, christened our son Luca, moved from Qld to Melbourne to celebrate all of the above and boarded the plane with no idea where we would end up just that we would be in Italia.
This image of Italy (that we had stuck on our fridge door along with the latest artwork from our kids) got us all onto that plane. For Sam and the kids it was the first time out of Australia. The journey to Italy really began with Sams dream to take his parents back to Calabria and Sicily, to find the homes where they were born and walk the donkey tracks he heard about from his Papa.
Our life together has mainly been separated into Aussie and Italian family gatherings with the two worlds joining together only a few times. Our trip to Italy was my chance to step directly into the lives of my beautiful Italian family, for our children to stand where their Nona and Nonno grew up. I wanted our children to experience their Italian heritage first hand. Viva Italia!
