Coins In The Fountain by Judith Works

Description

Pasta! Vino! Hill Towns! Coins in the Fountain will transport you
to Italy where you can find out what it's really like to live the expatriate
life. It's all here in the story of a couple who said “NO!” to middle
age boredom and made a dash from a small-town in Oregon to cosmopolitan Rome
when the author went to work for the United Nations.  

In between actually working there were Italian
weddings to attend, music to be heard, a close-up with the Pope, travel with
the wine club and country weekends in Umbria where the Etruscans still seemed to
be lurking about. A brush with the Italian medical system, an auto accident
with the military police, a fall in the subway, interactions with an
excitable landlord and helping pick grapes at harvest time all became part of
their daily adventures. And of course there were many new friends like the
countess with her butt-reducing machine and the count who served as a model for
statues of naked horsemen.

Taking up early retirement unexpectedly the author's husband met strange vegetables in his valiant efforts to learn to cook Italian-style. When not struggling in the kitchen he played
golf on a course where the rough featured snakes and unexploded bombs and crewed
on a sailboat that came close to disaster on the way to Greece.

Part memoir, part travelogue to off-beat sites in Rome and elsewhere, you will be amused and intrigued with the stories of food, friends and adventures. You, too, will want to run away to
join the Circus (the Circus Maximus, that is). And before you depart Rome, you
will never forget to throw a coin in the Trevi Fountain to ensure a return to
beautiful Rome and enchanting Italy.

 
Recommendations to enhance your reading experience:  

If it's summer: Listen to
Respighi''s Fountains of Rome and pour a glass (or two) of prosecco.

If it's winter: Listen to
Respighi''s Pines of Rome while sipping Brunello di Montalcino.