Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

Sweet sixteen.

Saturday August 20th Ingrid Elise celebrated her 16th birthday. Terracina is a perfect place for celebrations :-). We started already in the morning with breakfast at Caffe del Duomo owned by Ingrid and Angelo. Ingrid served us a plate of wonderful, fresh croissants and we had cappucino and caffe latte, and a coke for Marta.

We spend most of the nights at the piazza and Ingrid and Angelo's café, but seldom the mornings, so this was a special treat for the  day

Most of the day we spent on the beach. This was our last day in Italy for this time, and we wanted to make the most of it. Well, before going to the beach I did some flower shopping though, and then met one of my highlights from our weeks in Terracina - the small flower shop downtown outside the main church - Vivai Bartoli. There I met a young boy who was a real artist with the flowers. If I had known about this place earlier I would have gone there every day to buy us fresh flowers just to have them wrapped by this young boy.

For Ingrid I bought a small creation with flowers planted in a glass, giving an image of an ice cream or a milk shake - perfect for our nightly celebration of gelateria on the piazza. And I also bought a rose for the owner of the restaurant St.Patrick's, where we had our special Italian dinner. When we went to the restaurant to book the table we told the owner Massimo that it would be the celebration of our daughter's birthday, and he then told us that it was his birthday also. So a special rose for him from our birthday girl it was!

St.Patrick's is our favorite restaurant in Terracina. This time we went there three times. The food is just perfect, and Massimo and his wife has a wine cellar which is well worth a visit.

At the end of the birthday meal Massimo presented Ingrid with a special dessert of the house, with small spoons for all of us for tastes.

The perfect birthday ended at the piazza with a gelateria party. And a very special birthday gelateria for the birthday girl Ingrid made by the Coffee girl Ingrid and her Angelo. Well, for Ingrid and her friends it did not end here. The night was still young and ready for many hours at the discoteque downtown. And saying a tear filled good buy the all the new friends thay had met this summer.

Centro Storico

One thing, among alot of other, I love when I am in terracina is to take a walk in the old part of the town, in Centro Storiko. As "our" flat is situated right on the piazza I just have to climb down the stairs from second floor and I am right there. Turning right and walking through the arch the first thing I come to is a new seafood restaurant. I am not interested in this restaurant today though, but turn around and take a photo of the back side of "our" house. The shutters are new of this year. I love the rich green colour of them, pained by Hans earlier this summer.

Ok, I can give you a glimpse of the seafood restaurant as it looks in the morning with no guests. We have never eaten there. There are so many charming restaurants both in the old and the new part of Terracina, and I also love to buy fresh pasta at the pastabaker and vegetables and cheese at the local market to make our own dinner. So we still need many visits to make all the restaurants.

My morning walk continues, and I walk on a whim with no map, trying to turn as many corners as possible. Some times my walk takes me to a dead stop, other times new roads open up to show small hidden, charming places.

We have not talked about buying a flat here - yet. But when I walk like this I can't keep myself from dreaming about how it would be like to have our own little place here. A place we can call our own, a place to dream about during long, dark Norwegian winter months, a place to paint pink and decorate with flowers during the summer. Nothing can take the dreams away from me :-) And at the same time I know I am totally content staying in the lovely flat of our good friends.

After an hour I am back to where I started, the piazza del duomo. It is not siesta time yet, so I sit down for a cappucina at Caffee del Duomo where Angelo is busy serving the few morning guests but most of all busy with preparations for another busy night at the piazza.

I climb the stairs to the flat to get my swinsuit and my towel, and ehad for the beach and the rest of my family. On the way only stopping at the terrace outside the municipality office to get a view of the new town and the sea.

Short note to let you know we are back home.

Sunday night we came back home after 2 1/2 weeks in Itally. Most of the time we spent in Terracina, south of Rome on this wonderful piazza. Our friends own the flat in the second floor (where the windows are open) to the right of the church. Terracina is a small town on the edge of the sea between Roma and Naples. We did not know about the town untill our friends started to travel here a few years ago, now it has become our paradise :-)

My computer is terrible slow tonight. So I will stop with this first photo and can promise you many more to come.