Cenadi our future home?

Well, if you looked outside our Cenadi villa window this afternoon you’d swear that you’d been somehow transported overnight to the Florida everglades. The window vista is filled with a Florida-like palm and, just to make Floridians feel at home, the rain is pouring down like hurricane season has just arrived and plans to stay awhile. Our plans to go to Squillace for food and photographs have been squashed. But since it’s been some hours since breakfast, the girls are busily fixing our luncheon feast of pasta with fresh-caught tuna from Soverato and homemade wine from Franco downstairs.

Franco, the builder of the multi-unit building in which John and Helen purchased their town home, is one of those do-anything guys. It doesn’t matter whether it’s doing all the bricklaying on this three-story building, laying tile floors, or making his own wine, he does each with equal enthusiasm and expertise. At one time Franco had immigrated from Cenadi to Canada and spent his career as a contractor and jack of all trades. Then, at very early age, he retired, came to Italy, bought a piece of property from his grandmother, and built this marvelous building full of very nice town homes. The building still has three units available for sale and Franco would dearly love Concetta and I to purchase either the three-bedroom unit or one of the two two-bedroom units. Since it’s raining so hard outside and Franco can’t be working on one of his projects, he prevailed on me to come and see the three units. Like Goldilocks, I found the three-bedroom unit too large and the smallest two-bedroom unit too small. But the larger two-bedroom unit I found to be jusssssstttttttt right. The units are all concrete and steel, which makes them very earthquake proof, and they have tile floors throughout. The exterior is all brick and stone for low maintenance. Truly, it would be an ideal getaway place in Italy if we could afford the purchase price of $120,000 Euros.