We lived in Italy when I was a teenager and it was a little place on the Adriatic coast called Marina Romea about half an hour outside of the city of Ravenna in Northern Italy. Without sounding like a cliche it was a place where summer seemed to go on forever and you woke up to blue skies and bright sunshine, the beach was a bike ride away from the houses and you reached it through a small pine forest, we had a fig tree in our back garden and I remember the earthy smell of the tree/leaves/fruit. There was an eclectic mix of people here and houses with huge exclusive villas to little apartments and one of my neighbours was the most striking woman in her late 60's I had ever seen, she would pass by and every one would go *aah* what a beauty, she had the best pins/legs and was so elegant- a real blonde bombshell even though she was almost 70!!What I do know about her, she was originally from Germany and had been a bluebell girl in Paris and travelled the world as one of these slightly saucy birds of Paradise. I heard that she at one time was married to an Italian aristocrat...I never found out her story and I really wish that I had, just imagine......... she may even have told me about the make up they used to wear as a Bluebell in the 40's & 50's swoon.......xxx
