Part-time Italian

A distracted American, an Abruzzo vacation home.
What could go wrong?

At Home in Fossacesia

Around Abruzzo

Around Italy

Jul 24
6 min

Table for Six, Per Favore!

This trip was a real departure for me. I’m accustomed to traveling to Italy alone, but this time I was flanked by a jaunty gaggle of...

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May 12
6 min

Robbed in Rome

I was robbed at Rome’s Tiburtina bus station last week. A Roma woman took my portfolio-style wallet with about $500 in cash, my passport,...

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Nov 27, 2021
3 min

Fill ‘Er Up and "Check" the Oil!

I arrived in Fossacesia in time for il raccolto, the olive harvest. The harvest here came a bit later than usual, in part due to rain...

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Nov 19, 2021
5 min

Inauspicious Beginnings, with a More Auspicious Twist

My triumphant second arrival at the house in the epoch of Covid proved to be a trifle short of entirely triumphant. It started with the...

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Aug 4, 2021
2 min

A few curiosities and one wardrobe malfunction

After weeks of dread prior to my departure — dread that I wouldn’t have the right Covid documents to enter Italy or get back into New...

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About

I’m a New Yorker with one toe in Italy, having bought a small vacation home in Abruzzo 12 years ago. So I’m a visitor in a somewhat familiar land and a homeowner on pretty unfamiliar ground.

Part-time resident, part-time tourist, I’ve landed in Italy more times than I can count.

I’m no longer breathlessly besotted by the country; nor am I at all indifferent to its charms.

These are postcards of my experiences. I hope they’ll be of interest to other part-time Italians, however they be defined.

—Kathryn Casey

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