A number of people have told me that they like reading about the Italy of my childhood. I spent a good deal of my childhood in the then very small town of Monte Porzio with our relatives. It was wonderful to get away from the much more formal life that my parents led in Rome.
In the early Twenties everyone traveled by train. The train to Frascati was sublimely indifferent to timetables. Instead of leaving on time, the trenino di Frascati would hoot three or four times, making believe it was going to take off, in order to keep the passengers from rioting over the delays. Also, the train did occasionally depart on time, so that no one ever dared come late or go for a cup of coffee.
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