Medieval cities sound romantic.  They are stunning, quaint, and mysterious from the outside.  Inside, their rooms, however, are rather dark and cold.  It makes sense.  The windows are made to let in enough light so that people didn’t bump into each other or suffocate.  In the times before glass, I guess, luminous interior spaces were not a thing.

               Here in my mini apartment in the citta’ vecchia of Sanremo, I have a window and the window has a view of other windows.  The neighbors, luckily, are a little more private than I am, and I guess more used to dark chilly spaces.  I pulled a chair over from the little table and sat it up against the mini refrigerator.  The space is so small that my feet are sticking out the window.  A patio would have been nice, but there aren’t a lot of patios in medieval cities either.  The apartments with terraces were out of my budget.

               Not all of Sanremo is medieval, just the part called La Pigna (“pinya”) but I wanted to stay here.  It seemed romantic, quaint, and mysterious.  And I wouldn’t say that in that regard it has been a disappointment.  It’s also chilly and a very steep hike in all directions from the door.  I like it.  Next time, though, I’ll choose something with more light.

               My stepdaughter Kiara lives here.  We grew up together, kind of.  She’s beautiful, confident, and 26 years old—a force to be reconned with.  Being a step parent is not the easiest thing I’ve ever done.  There is a lot of pride-swallowing involved in the beginning, and opinions you get to keep to yourself, and things you just have to breathe through because that’s the best/only option.  But it isn’t easy for the children either, and they are children and you are the adult.  So you get to suck it up. The good news is that happy endings are possible.  Case in point. You might get to visit medieval cities overlooking the Medeterranean Sea.

               Tomorrow we are taking the train to France together for the day.  Who would have thought?  When she was little, we collected clams from the beach on Sunday mornings, and raked mango leaves out of the yard, and puzzled over how to add and multiply fractions.

               You can sleep deeply in medieval cities.  The stone walls block everything from street noise to wifi.  I’m not one who minds sleeping in rooms where others have been born and died.  It seems to me that, among other things, that’s what houses are for.

               Homes in general are small in Italy–smaller than in the USA anyway. Italy is small and if people weren’t tidy, it would be unlivable.  There are no extra spaces, no extra things, and every object has a place it belongs.  Tidiness is knit into the fabric of how people live their lives.  For as much as Italy is known for chaos, daily life is made of processes of order and correctness. Although, I admit, I haven’t been to Napoli yet. That’s next week’s trip.

               By now, a hot day is under way above the medieval city, but my feet sticking out the window (an egregious violation of order and tidiness) are cold.  I’ll pull the shutters closed over the window now, put on my shoes, and head down the stone stairs that are the public street until I reach the Mediterranean.  People have done exactly that right here for 1000 years.  And in 1000 more I expect they still will. 

I like the sound of my footsteps blending with theirs.