Casa Cundimina

€275 a week

From the highest part of the village of ISCA SULLO IONIO ( CZ ) in CALABRIA , taking the mule path towards the river. After passing the water twice you climb the steep in the rocks digged staircase. CASA CUNDIMINA is a former pigsty . Truly something for adventurers, there is no electricity . This house includes a downstairs one room with a terrace and an outdoor kitchen and upstairs two. A sleeping area with single or double bed and a reading, writing or studing space . The toilet house with an outdoor shower are a little further . Of course there is plenty of opportunity to bath in the river.

Pig hutches were often used in the most beautiful places : on land , not too far from the village and with a beautiful view . These buildings are now often long out of use , and reduced to a heap of stones .

From the book Blood Oranges (see books ) :

‘What we hear , has to be water . That ‘s the third touchstone for our choice : a lot of water around . We walk quickly . The sound swells until a loud noise and we get a view of a waterfall that cuts through granite rocks . After another thirty meters opens up a river bed topped by a piece of cultivated land , an orange grove and a stone cottage .
We hug each other . Speechless, we walk on, take off our shoes and stabbing the stream until we are in the ‘Garden of Eden’ . Orange and lemons trees, figs , grapevines , stone walls , terraces. We embrace each other for the second time. We do not even have to say it : for this place we came to Calabria .

I just want to become the owner of the place near the river where, once, all the people of the village had to come to do there laundry and wich is only accessible on foot via a mule path . The orange trees are not watered for at least two years with the water from the two streams that meet at this place. The vineyard , like the roses , not pruned. The cherries on the cherry trees – according to the villagers the best for miles around – are eaten by worms . The heavy crown of the ancient pear tree is broken by the wind . And the roof of the cottage , in which the tools are doing nothing for years, has failed’