by Kathy Holwadel
"Why Savona?" people immediately ask when they hear about our new home on the Italian Riviera.
"I've always wanted a villa," they tell me with a misty, far-away look in their eyes. "A view of the sea" or "anything in Tuscany" are other popular responses when friends describe their Italian dreams. But nobody ever says they want a simple apartment in a medium-sized city in Liguria. Folks are even more confused when we tell them that Michele's family is in Naples, 6 hours away by train, and that neither one of us had ever been to Savona before we went house-hunting late last year.
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| Torretta, symbol of Savona |
When we started to talk about a long-term commitment to more time in Europe, we had no idea where we wanted to locate. I spent at least an hour a day for a year combing real-estate listings on the internet, talking to well-traveled friends about where they would buy and learned a lot about Italian geography.
After a while, I figured out what was important to us:
1.
Affordability. It was very important to both of us that we never have to wake up in the middle of the night worrying about our finances. That means we had to be able to afford not just the apartment and furnishings - we had to factor in the cost to get around, utilities, taxes and eating.
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| Italian soccer fans in Piazza Mameli |
2.
A Thriving Community with Lots to Do, Year-Round. While you can find plenty of bargains in tiny, little towns out in the middle of the country-side, we wanted the advantages of city-life without being overwhelmed by noise and traffic. Savona has 62,000 year-round residents - and serves as a port for Costa Cruise lines, which means lots more nice shops and restaurants than you would typically find in a city of this size. There's a lovely medieval section, a big fortress, a theater, a couple of museums, and Genova with lots of culture is only an 40 minutes away by train. A villa in the Tuscan countryside is great if you're there for two weeks in the summer, but for extended stays, especially in the winter, we needed more action.
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| Tipical porticos in Savona |
3.
Walk-ability. Northwestern Italy is beautifully connected by public transportation alternatives and Michele and I can take a 6:30pm flight from Cincinnati and unlock our front door in Savona around 1pm the next day. Great train service, an easy to use bus system, local bike and car-sharing programs all combine to make life in Liguria very pleasant without the cost of private transportation. From our prime location in a 19th century building in the historic city center, we walk to the train station and to get our groceries, as well as at least 5 hardware stores within 2 blocks of our house. I can go across the street at 11pm to pick up a wood-fired pizza. There's a multi-screen theater, lots of bakeries, shady parks, a couple of pedestrian zones for high-end shopping, bars, bookstores, tons of sidewalk cafes, the beach, fantastic restaurants and several great gelato choices - all within walking distance. It's also easy to get to Southern France, Montecarlo, Nice and all the beautiful tourist attractions - like Cinque Terre and Portofino - in Liguria.
4.
The Sea. Since I grew up land-locked in Ohio, I wanted our second home within walking distance of the beach. The rhythm of the waves, all that blue, the empty sky and water - it's mesmerizing. We couldn't afford smaller tourist towns on the Riviera, but the bigger capital cities of Liguria have a wider range of properties.
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| Restored kitchen |
5.
Ristrutturato. The first thing a real estate agent asks when you're looking for an older property in Italy is if you want "da ristrutturare" or "ristrutturato." I thought all we could afford was a "fixer-upper" but Michele's only comment about the first apartment we toured was, "E' come Pompeii" (It is like Pompeii) and our agent quickly figured out that we were not suitable candidates for restoration. We had so much to learn about property in a foreign country that major renovation was not realistic. So we gave up restoration to buy Old World Charm that was move-in ready.
6.
Friends. My best friend and her husband inherited a small apartment from his grandmother in Albisola Marina, 2 miles down the road. That's how we found Savona in the first place. They let me stay there while I was house-hunting. Michele's friend, Laura, also inherited her place in Camogli, a stunning coastal town on the other side of Genova. Neighbors in our Cincinnati condo own a house in Bordighera near the French border and it was nice to be able to visit when Michele was working in Ohio. We've recently met a couple from Houston who own an apartment one block from ours. It's a small world and the stars for Savona came into perfect alignment.
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| Via Pia: medieval section |
So these are the whys of Savona, our one-floor-walk-up, "ristrutturato" Italian dream. Here I am, right now, sitting at my desk in my bedroom, typing this blog-post a year later about how we made the big decision to change our lives and there's a statue of St. John the Baptist gazing down on me from the small church across the street. Michele arrives tomorrow. We'll fly to Sweden to meet our new grandson. Then we'll spend the holidays in Napoli. And everyday, no matter where we happen to be, we will pinch our selves, look into each others' eyes and repeat the same thing we always do. "Aren't we lucky?" we'll say. We stumbled across more charm, more beauty than we dared dream possible in our conservative, practical way, enough romance to last a lifetime in Savona, by the sea.
