The Joys and the Perils of living in Bella Italia! (Part 1 - A Welcomed Storm)

Eccoci di nuovo! (Here we are again)

When one thinks of Italy, they most probably conjure up an image of strikingly beautiful countryside, preserved historic towns, food so good you'll come back from a long weekend 3kg heavier and a passionate vibrant culture.

While all of that is true... The sweet inevitably comes with a healthy dose of bitter.

I'm MatcheCahelo. Traveller. Entrepreneur. Thinker. Joker... But more importantly for this series of posts, I'm a British Expat living in the depths of central Italy.

And I'll be drawing upon that experience to present you with some sweet vs bitter of living in the one and only Bella Italia!

Who's that little monkey? Oh yeah, that's Tequila. Just another Essex boy - Original Staffy. He'll be joining us on our voyage. 👊

So that was us about a year ago, when we both drove down from London to Perugia - a beautiful medieval town sandwhiched inbetween Rome and Florence.

We arrived in July. And very much like now... It was HOT.

Probably the best word I could find to describe the weather down here during the summer is... Monotone.

30+ degrees celcius (90+ Fahrenheit) more every day. Clear skies and you'd better take the dog out nice and early for a good walk... Cos even a good lad, like Tequila will find the shade in this weather...

The heat sounds like a dream for most Brits, escaping the daily grind of "grey skies and continuous light drizzle," but you do eventually get used to it and you develop a much healthier relationship with the sun... Namely, not getting lobster red like an idiot on the beach in the midday sun.

It is nice though - I'm not going to lie, I do like it... But so do a whole variety of blood sucking mosquitoes and venom injecting arachnids...

That’s something you leave out when they’re selling you the holiday in the travel agent’s. Yeah, there are scorpions. Like, proper SCORPIONS.

A dog's anti-parasite medicine back in the UK is pretty simple... Just basically fleas.

But that's far too mellow for the Italians...

Oh no, down here you'll have to contend with lifelong mosquito transmitted diseases, ticks that carry lyme disease and the whole host of aforementioned arachnids (and reptiles) that would love to unload some venom on you.

Unfortunately curiosity did not kill the cat... Instead, it lead Tequila to find out what a scorpion is the hard way.

At the peak of the swelling, his lip was the size of a tangerine and he had a raging fever. A visit to the vet, various injections later and a few days of some much needed rest, thankfully he recovered fully. But I'm still not convinced he's connected the danger to moving insects, as he still loves to stick his snout into anything that moves!

Amidst the incessant heat and death traps of the Italian summer, there is (both literally and metaphorically) never too far away the respite of an intense thunderstorm, where a few hours of intense lightning, thunder and rain bring a sweet chill into the air, leaving everybody in the blissful freshness that ensues...

For even though the reality of an Italian summer may be a bit harsher than you imagined, all of the promises of la bella Italia are real... And they are within arm's reach...