Product Description

When the journey began we didn't expect to buy a derelict "torretta" and a 10 acre olive farm in the Gargano, Puglia. My wife's father "escaped" from the village and lifestyle of Vico del Gargano. Each year he would return with his family for August and later, we too visited Vico each summer. For my wife in particular Vico always felt like home. She seemed to have a subliminal bond, perhaps acquired when she was brought to Vico as a baby and left in the care of her grandmother. We instinctively wanted to move to the area, but due to the remoteness, the dialect and strong family reaction we were deterred from doing so. Nonetheless, we continued to harbour dreams of the spur of Italy, its beautiful rugged coastline, its mountainous forested interior, its people, dialect and traditions that gave the impression that civilisation had simply passed the region by. One day the opportunity arose for us to escape the UK and we embarked on a long journey that would change our lives forever ...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #157752 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 280 pages

Customer Reviews

Like the bread of life itself, Pan' e Pomodor is steeped in human tales
Having abandoned their careers, their friends and their home in the UK, 'Pan' e Pomodor' is the no-nonsense and compelling story of a couple who decide to start out on a quest to find a new home and a new life.

After some amusing encounters and multiple disappointments to-ing and fro-ing between Switzerland and France, just when the search seemed all but doomed, Vico del Gargano beckons, like a forgotten old friend knocking on the door, out of the blue.

Far flung and way off their original brief, Vico, a small hilltop town in Northern Puglia, slowly starts to work its rugged charm; a charm unique to this community and to the abandoned wreck of a house they both fall in love with. A charm that helps the author deal with the more mind-boggling misadventures between gasps of country air, gulps of wine and hunks of wonderful, crusty bread dripping with the 'sugo' of fresh tomatoes and exquisite virgin olive oil.

This is not the Italy of travel journals or Tuscany chic.
Nor is it just the tale of a place in the sun.
This is an Italy almost unheard of...

Get a glass of wine, make yourself comfortable, and let Ian McEwan introduce to the characters and the challenges that he meets along the way.

An Excellent Adventure.
I'll start of by saying that I live in Italy with my Italian wife and have done for many years, so I have a great deal of empathy for the McEwan family. This book is most definitely one that anyone with even a vague wish to visit Italy should buy. It gives an excellent feel for life in Italy - not only from an ExPat standpoint, but also from an Italian coming home position. It is a wonderful book to read if you are going to live in Italy as well, full of extraordinarily helpful hints and historical snippets of a lifestyle that is rapidly vanishing. The story of the collection of bread for baking by the local baker was wonderful - and very informative as well. Excellent, real life reporting, with great detail, of the problems of getting an artesian well dug locally as well, justifying the book alone - although there are many other such pieces of information lying in the book (now we know how to harvest olives as well, thank you Ian!).

All in all, a good book. It is not a whinging pom "look how difficult life is" type of book, but a really enjoyable to read volume that also contains nuggets of invaluable information to help those that would be helped. Great book! Buy one!

the good life.. bread and tomatoes,
Bread and Tomatoes...the good life...A story about two people who were either very ignorant or very brave.. buying a derelict house in Italy and using local labor to restore it, come on..if there ever was a recipe for disaster..This book unfolds a story just like that. Written in an entertaining witty way it will show you a part of Italy we normally do not meet or experience.
The book takes you on a fascinating, interesting and witty years long trip from England via France and Switzerland to Italy. The couple in question had their heart set on living in continental Europe in the sunshine belt . The north side of the Mediterranean to be precise. The books starts by making the reader part of their deliberations and search to find the ideal location. An insight in their holiday visits to the birthplace of the female half of the couple in Mid Italy sets the stage and background for finding their private rural spot in the sun..Although the goal was not Italy in the first place the journey leads us via France to Italy and the search for a local house. But before we get there a lot is explained about the local Italian culture and way of living. Things we normally never would know or guess.
The writer makes us part of that Italian culture without losing his English point of view.The actual buying of the house reveals facts about Italian house ownership and Italian inheritance problems .Not to forget the extraordinary Italian bureaucracy. It will keep you entertained throughout the process of searching for and acquiring of the house followed by the long rebuilding of the mansion and its surrounding lands. It shows keen awareness of the Italian work ethics but foremost tells about the Italian way of life in that particular area of Italy. Olives play a large part in their lives off course and time or timekeeping is not that important in Italy.
It is a must read for people with a weakness for Italian life but also for those among us that secretly entertain ideas of packing up and moving to a sunny part of Europe. This book will make you think twice or even thrice but makes you smile a lot and at the same time install a yearning to do the same...If there is a message in this book it certainly is that you only live once...so do not hesitate to follow your dream and enjoy the trip.A well laid out entertaining book..the only negative point is that the story ends abruptly and leaves us hanging immersed in Italian life and nowhere to go..yearning for more..