My last few days at Villa Sampaguita were wonderfully relaxing, somewhat busy, but overall fantastic. Life there is ideallic, every morning I would rise from bed around 7:30 to go downstairs for a breakfast of freshly picked fruit, some tea, and home made bread and jam. Then we'd gather ourselves together as Tim layed out the days work (with our important 3 hour afternoon nap and relaxing time planned in) before we'd head out the door to get to work.
During my 5 days at Villa Sampaguita I got to:
-Clear an old vineyard of the poles that held the vines (hard work!)
-Build a greenhouse
-Construct the doors of the greenhouse and the doorframes from old scrap wood (it was like a big geometry puzzle game)
-Load and unload a few truckloads of 'fertilizer' from the neighboring horse stables
-Drink lots of delicious wine and enjoy as much wonderful cooking
-Attend a wine/proscioutto tasting event at a nearby winery
-Try a local delicacy, raw sausage (questionable, yes)
-Learn how to life a wine glass with a toothpick
-Get lots of goodnight kisses from Harriet, the 18 month old princess of the farm
-Learn lots about soil quailty and how to get good soil
-Hear a lot about plans to build a forest (Tim has plans to turn the back portion of his property into a forest with some EU stimulus funding) And with this came lots of information on EU farming policies
It was a really amazing 5 days at the farm with the family and I can't wait to return there as a friend and a guest. They were wonderful hosts who have lived inspiring lives and whose beliefs about life I found to be very much in line with my own. I had a wonderful time there, learned a lot, and definitely made some lifelong friends. So many thanks to them for having me!
Now if you ever take a trip to Italy and want to visit the famous wine region of Piemonte (Piedmont), you should absolutely go and visit Villa Sampaguita. They are wonderful hosts, will help arrange your day trips, will cook for you, and are all-in-all super nice hosts.More info at www.villasampaguita.com
But for me, my time was up and I headed off early one morning to go to a farm outside of nearby Tortona (about 1 hour by train away). I will spend my last three weeks of this European adventure on a small family farm in the Piedmont hills of Avalosca with a Belgian woman, her Italian husband, their son, and an array of fields, fruits, and livestock to keep me company.
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