Meeting Couch Surfer Francesca!

Well, it turned out that the Guatemalan AFS student who is at Francesca's was sick today, so I went to her home for lunch and ANOTHER outing (with her driving!:)). She lives in Sassari just outside of town, and I have passed her street three times before today.
Lunch was at 1:30, which would give her son Simone time to get home from work. I did get lost, since the GPS couldn't pick up the address she gave me. (Later the satellite did get the actual street!) She came to meet me, and I followed her back to her house. She had prepared a lovely lunch of mushroom(?) risotto and chicken and melone with a very nice red wine. (She had a scale in the bathroom, which I dared to step on. OH, MY, I hope it is right!!!)
Francesca is 50, and her husband died of a heart attack four years ago. She has a lovely home, which they built twenty-three years ago. She has another son, Andrea, who is studying engineering in Genoa. Simone, an architect, also studied there; he came back to Sassari, but Francesca thinks that Andrea will not. There are thirty trees in the backyard-apple, orange, mandarin orange, lemon, and olive. She has enough olive trees to provide her enough olive oil for the year!
I had written to Francesca last June to see if I could stay there before I moved into my swap, but that wouldn't work because Rodolfo(who speaks Spanish, English, Italian, and ?)was coming. When I arrived early in the month, I checked in with her, but her mother has been very sick. Francesca is the only daughter with five brothers, so it seems like it has all fallen on her. After lunch she was telling me more about her mother. She is 71 (!) and looks 90. She apparently has had many health issues over the years, including having lost a kidney. Her father, who is 80, had a plumbing and heating business, which all six of them now work in. All, but one of the brothers is married.
After lunch Simone and Rodolfo left for the beach at Stintino, which Angela had told me the other day, was THE most beautiful beach. We were going to Alghero to meet her friend Anna. When I mentioned what Angela had said about Stintino, Francesca offered to take us there on the way to Alghero. She loves to take people around Sardinia, and I was most appreciative!
Stintino, which is now one of the ten richest communes in Italy, has a population of 1000, which expands to 30,000 in the summer. I'd not want to be there then, as I can't imagine how anyone gets anywhere! She said that people go down to the beach early in the morning and put their beach towels down to "save a spot" for when they go to the beach. (Maybe that is how the "saving" of parking spots with chairs in wintry Boston started!?) But today Stintino was quite and quaint; the beach WAS very nice. (I'd thought about driving over there next week, but now I can just go to the Badesi beach!)
Francesca also told me about the towers in that part of the island, which were built when Spain governed the island. A tower was built and within its sight, another tower was built, and so on around the island; so each tower served as a "look-out". In my time there today, I did see many towers.
We drove to Alghero, where we picked up her friend Anna, who works in a bank. She had spent the day on the beach, so she was happy! She said there were only three people on her beach, which was not the case at Stintino! However, it was not the summer crowds.
We were very close to Capo Caccia, which was another spectacular sight! Caccia means wild pigeon hunting(DK Sardinia book), which was once popular there. There is also a place where you can climb down 656(!) steps to the caves of Neptune's Grotto. Grotto is down this spot. (And by the way, that makes my climbs up and down the Spanish Steps NOTHING! 656 steps = 50 flights of stairs! SURE!) We headed back to Francesca's, so I could get on the road ASAP, since it would be dark by the time I got home. Today was all wonderful, and another interesting mixture of delightful new people and new places!