When I say beach, I mean a beach with with the usual frills and accommodation that are a staple in Italy: sun beds, sun umbrella, drinks and a loo/rest room (facilities that make life very civilised to my mind). This attachment to “sameness” is a concept that non-Italians will perhaps find difficult to appreciate but is a way of life that is deeply imbedded in the culture (or was rather, things change, even in Italy.) When my daugher was just one year old, we sought a beach that was relatively “quiet” and off the beaten track, not too crowded etc. An Italian singer called Piero Focaccia came out with a song in 1963 that says, “For this year, don’t change, stick to the same beach, to the same sea, and come back to me” ( ). It is a twenty minute drive away from the town of Porto San Giorgio. My husband and I adore the sea and there was no way we would have spent so many weeks in Monterubbiano, Summer after Summer, if it wasn’t within easy access to the sea. One ball per person is enough, let me tell you, they are indeed very ‘rich’ ! These are fettuccine cooked and seasoned with a bechamel and cheese sauce, then shaped into a ball, breaded and fried.
Monterubbiano’s signature food dish is the “tagliatelle fritte”. When our daughter was little she used to call it “il fumo della pioggia”, the smoke of the rain. The view from our bedroom early one September morning … foggy. It is close to a mountain range, after all. Monterubbiano can get very ‘foggy’ in no time at all, even during the Summer, not to mention unseasonably chilly. My in-laws leave Rome some time in May and stay in Monterubbiano until early September, sometimes very late August when the weather there can change sooner than it does in sunny Rome.
So many outdoor dinners, friends and family gatherings, laughter and silliness and looking forward to future frolicking. Even so, Monterubbiano maintains an iconic status in the vault of family memories, and always will do. There comes a point in children’s lives when they feel it’s no longer ‘cool’ to spend holidays with their parents and sure enough, that happened with us too. When my father in law retired, he bought a house there which became the Summer Holiday go-to venue for me and my husband and our kids for several years in succession. My mother in law Maria hails from a small hilltop town in the Marche called Monterubbiano.
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