love thursday: making it pretty

Italian women love their homes.

They express this love by keeping them cleaner than some hospitals and by decorating them.

Now I don't mean like for the holidays kind of decorating, because actually, that's not so common at least where I am. And I'm also not saying that all the southern Italian homes I've been in are especially warm and homey, at least for my taste. I've seen quite a few stark white walls, and since many of the apartments (most Italians live in flats stacked one on top of another) double as echo chambers, an overall sterile feeling isn't uncommon either.

That said, Italians are masters of making things pretty. We know this. So while maybe some homes lack a certain lived-in feel, it's rare to find a bare balcony or terrace. Flowers, plants, and trees are everywhere adding splashes of color to complement the lush green hills and achingly blue sea.

Other that a simple love of nature, this, in my expat opinion, has a lot to do with the bella figura, making a good impression. I have to believe that there's some sort of logic along the lines of "If the outside of your house is brutto, it doesn't matter how well you clean the inside."

I don't know if that's true, but it goes a long way in explaining sights like this:


This isn't an uncommon scene here in Calabria. Unfortunately, many unfinished concrete monstrosities line the SS 106 that runs along the Ionian Coast. And man are they fugly (even when they're completed for the most part).

But that doesn't stop Italian women from making homes out of them from the outside in, from trying to make them pretty, from showing them some love.

Happy Love Thursday everyone!