What I love about Italy is that sense of family tradition which often transpires into those small trattorias that serve simple yet excellent traditional food. This is the case of the restaurant where I have been going to since I arrived in Menaggio, Albergo Ristorante "il Vapore". Pinuccia, the owner, with her relentless work, manages both the Restaurant and the Albergo with such grace. She creates her own family of clients who turn up every year from the surroundings of Milano. This is the case of Giavanna and her mother who have apartments in the same square as the restaurant, Piazza Tommaso Grossi, where I'm staying.
Giovanna and her 102-year-old mother ate at il Vapore each and every day, not only to eat a good meal but also because they are good friends of Pinuccia. Giovanna lost her beloved husband last year and from what I was told, he was a real gentleman with a generous heart who was a very successful construction engineer. They were married for some 53 years and he apparently took good care of Giovanna's mother as well. Giovanna and her son, who is a journalist covering the world of movies, together with her mother, live in a villa situated in Basiano near Milano. Basiano is a comune in the province of Milan in the Italian region of Lombardy, located about 25 kilometres northeast of Milano.
Unlike on the other side of the Atlantic, where the elderly are placed in homes for the elderly or assisted living retirement homes, families tend to keep their ageing parents with them hence the reason why elderly people live much longer in these family circumstances.
I feel truly blessed to be here in Menaggio where the energy of Lario keeps sending me these messages of love and beauty. A quote from Rumi truly resonates with my appreciation of the beauty of Lake Como: ''Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.''
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