Tess Key - A Rivarossa Hollywood Story

Today was a good day. There was some lovely news from the south of Europe that just made me happy for an entire month. And even though 8 hours of listening to ca.11 different bachelor essay's made me tired as hell, a tennis game in the evening picked me right up.

The photo of the day is by a very special photographer from a very special and lovely period of my life. It smells of spring, wine, grass, flowers and love.

This was in the old days when I stilled lived in little Rivarossa, a village just 25 km outside Turin up the montains. A place so special that you think you ended up in one of those hollywood movies from Tuscany or Provance you watched as a little girl the first time you go there.

In Rivarossa you can find the panetiere, verduriere, macellaio, pizzeria, il bar, l'edicola and you can even find a kindergarden run by nuns. And yes, yes of course there are also to churches with their very loud churchbells, that make's sure to wake you up at 10.oo every sunday. And then just a few steps away from the house where we lived there was a little river with icecold water coming right down from the alps.

Beeing people from Piemonte, everybody in the village tried to pretend that they DIDN'T notice that there was a strange, swedish girl suddenly living among them. They will be nice to you and remember your name and eve occasionally tell you about the latest news from around the village.
BUT, it's only after some warming up, just like with swedes, that they started to relax. And you know you have them in the palm of your hand and that they've started to love you when;

* The "verduriere" ( where you go to buy fruit and vegetables) tells you all the gossip from the villages and makes sure you always get the best fruit available and that you never get on the buss for Turn without a clementine in your hand and gives you tips about how to rob corn from the fields by the river without getting caught

* The "macellaio" ( where you buy meat), who you never met before in you life, knows that your mother from Sweden is comming visiting in a few weeks and asks if he could meet her.

* The old man with the kind smile and grey hair and mustache from the grocery shop gives you different "amaros" and liqueurs for free and asks about your cat Eva and that cute "fidanzato" of yours.

* The two ladies working at the panetteria ( where you buy bread and sweets) asks how your studies are going and how your vacation has been.

* The girl who works at the bar and makes capuccino's and drink's asks you how come you've been gone for so long and where you've been and what you've been up to when you haven't passed by the bar for more then two weeks.

No one should die without having been to a place simular to Rivarossa with it's wonderful, warm, funny and kind people.....and cats.....oh so many cats.....

Tess Key