Inspiration to slow life

Simple, natural and authentic. These were the first impressions our host  Alberta Cavazza  gave  as she met  our group smiling,  when we got off  the motorboat that stopped in the tiny harbour on Isola di Garda, a little Island on the Garda Lake in Italy.   

We went to visit  the heritage of the Cavazza  family,  taking a break  off our cycling  tour  on the shore.  It turned out, that our guide was  one  of the  Cavazza  children ( four brothers  and 3 sisters ), a successor of the family  who have always  lived   and worked  on Lake Garda.  Now they  are managing a group of companies  active  in agroturismo, boating,  campsite and olive –growing.  The  seven children  have decided to work on restoring the many centuries  old Venetian  neo-Gothic style villa and old park, which  has a unique composition of  vegetation  „a harmonious wood of pines and cypresses, acacias and lemon trees, magnolias and agaves”.   Alberta  grew up in one  part of the Villa, where the whole family  lived  from the end of the 1960s.  

Today three of the  seven siblings  live on the island with their children having divided the Villa in three parts which they take the responsibility  to restore.  Alberta ’s part is the  beautiful  tower  which we learned as she  told us  their story.They have  opened up the Island to guided tours  and events to  be able to carry out  ongoing important restoration work, so slowly they can improve  the state of the villa and the old park.

Their children and cousins go to school on the shore of the lake  by boat.  „ When I was a child the motorboat didn’t have a cover ,  so we  were frequently  drying  our  books  and  ourselves   at the radiator”, she said. 

Getting home from school,  each child  takes care of their own plants and fruit trees, vegetables on the Island.  They  play in the wild nature and a little playhouse that was built roughly 2 centuries ago for a little girl ancestor of theirs who had no sisters or brothers.  

Alberta  is  very busy with everything, but she is in no rush.  She organises these guided tours 3-4  times a week, she just finished a book  about the Island, she manages  her family  with 2 children, she runs several   businesses  and activities.  As she moves, talkes , smiles  in this  environment, she  lookes as if she was living in complete harmony with the slowness , silence and the beauty of this Island and breathtaking architecture.

Are  you  looking  for  your  harmony and slowness in life ?