The week before I started to work in an American company in France near the Swiss boundary of Geneva, I decided to book a ticket on an overnight train to go visit my girlfriend's place in Macerata and to meet her family and folks. It was the first time I travelled in a sleeper train in the company of total strangers who came from the south of Italy. When it was time to go to sleep, the train steward came to make our beds and to collect our ID cards or passports. At first, I was too hesitant to hand him my passport because I was afraid I might not get it back. However, he reassured me that it was for the usual boundary control and he'd return it after we had crossed the border the next morning.
Finally I arrived at my destination before 12:00 noon and was met very excitedly by my girlfriend. She was accompanied by her younger sister and her boyfriend who drove us in a small Fiat car through the winding green hilly national roads lined up with wheat and corn fields and fruit trees all the way up to the top of the mountain where the old city of Macerata lies. I later observed that many cities in the region are located on the same altitude.
When I arrived at her parents' house, I was greeted warmly and with open arms by her mother and with a big hug, while her father, a strong handshake. Her mother told us that the lunch would be ready in an hour's time and let me take a short rest on the terrace after my long and tiring trip.
When the table was ready, I didn't expect that we had a big party composed of her sisters and brothers with their family. The lunch was sumptuous and rich. I never had such delicious spaghetti with thick tomato sauce combined with roasted chicken and quayle together with leafy green salads, and fried potatoes. Her father served his own home-made verdicchio white wine from his vineyard. Although I'm not an avid wine drinker, I found it more delicate to my taste than the ones I had drank.
During the rest of my stay, her father drove us to visit Assisi, Loreto and Cascia. He showed us his ancestral home and vineyard in Rosora. On my last day, we spent an afternoon on a beach in Porto Sant'elpidio along the Adriatic coast. To be continued.
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