Casa Nandana is a lovely two bedroom property located in a quiet cul-de-sac in the village of Uscio, in the hills above Recco, about 25 km from the city of Genoa. The property enjoys wonderful views across the valley and is south-facing, so gets uninterrupted sun from early morning to late evening. The house is detached and sleeps up to six people. The entrance is on first floor level, with 12 steps up from road level. You enter into a large living/dining room with a modern fully equipped kitchen off it. This room has a large couch that that doubles as a bed settee. Also on this floor there is a double bedroom, with a large double wardrobe and a bathroom with wc, washbasin, bidet and bath with overhead shower. There is a washing machine conveniently located in the bathroom. The living room and the bedroom each has an air conditioning unit, and SKY tv with some UK channels is available in the living room.
There are two terraces at this level on opposite sides of the house, one off the living room and the other off the bedroom. The terrace off the living room overlooks a small sun drenched garden with a 5m x 4m swimming pool that is perfect for cooling down on those hot summer days.
The ground floor is accessed by stairs and has a large double bedroom with double wardrobe and en-suite. This room is beautifully cool in summer. There is also a garage at ground floor level, which has an extra fridge that will prove very useful in summer. There is space to park a car directly outside the property.
A public tennis court is available opposite the house and can be booked locally.
Local Region:
Casa Nandana is located in a wonderful area for walking, along quiet roads or trails. It’s also a great area for the keen cyclist, but be warned, the hills are steep! The village centre can be reached on foot from the house by climbing steps and takes about 10 minutes, or if you’re feeling less agile, you can drive. When you get to the small square you’ll see two churches, side by side-one is 1000 years old while its modern neighbour is a mere 400 years old! The square also has the Taverna Del Banditio, with its spectacular views down the valley, where Luigi and Lucio serve great aperitifs and fantastic pizzas.
There are a number of local shops in the village, where you can get all you need, including an English speaking pharmacy, bank and post office. There is a supermarket, Ekom, about halfway down the hill to Recco, with great value in groceries and a great cheese counter. Their wines are cheap but for better quality you’re better going to Recco. Here you will also find numerous specialist shops and bars.
While it is possible to use public transport to get around, a car certainly makes it easier to explore the wonderful local region. The world famous Portofino and Santa Margherita, much frequented by celebrities, as well as Rapallo and the gem of gems, Camogli, are all easily accessible in about 30-40 minutes. Enjoy wonderful drives along the coast road with spectacular views of the azure blue Ligurian Riviera or take a hop-on hop-off boat tour along the local coast, for example from Recco to Rapallo, and then hop a train back to Recco to pick up the car. The nearest beach is about 15 minutes away in Recco, and there are numerous others all along the coast.
The ancient city of Genoa, or Genova in Italian, birth place of Christopher Columbus who was later to discover America, is well worth a visit and the many narrow streets in the old historic centre never cease to impress. There’s also an aquarium and an old galleon for the kids. If you want to visit the famous Cinque Terra, it’s best done by local train, as there are strict controls on cars. Pisa is about an hour and a half away by car on the Autostrada, and Florence another hour or so. You can do a very nice day trip visiting these historic cities as well as taking in San Gimignano, and then Lucca on the way back. Parma, the city that gave its name to parmesan cheese and the famous cured ham, is also in this area. If you prefer it, a relaxing train journey to Pisa and onwards to Florence has also got much to recommend it. If you fancy a trip to glitzy Monte Carlo, it’s about 2.5 hours away by car.
Food and Drink
As you would expect the area has numerous superb places to eat from simple but wonderful trattorias to fine dining restaurants that cater for all tastes. The local cuisine is varied with inland areas having wonderful vegetable and meat dishes, with great locally caught fish dishes in restaurants closer to the sea. The rule of thumb is ‘if you can see the sea from the restaurant, it will specialise in fish’. As you would expect there are some wonderful regional pasta dishes that reflect local produce.
Italian wines are probably the finest in the world and without doubt, the Italians keep the best at home for themselves. The range is vast, from sparkling wines in the Piedmont region, that rival the best champagnes, to robust reds from Tuscany, with everything in between. There is no duty on wine so you can get superb wines for much less than in the UK, for example. A trip to a small winemaker is also well worth considering and there are some excellent small producers about an hour away.
The other great passion of the Italians is olive oil and the range and complexity of these is huge. The local extra virgin olive oil comes from the taggiasca olive and is perfect for salads and light summer dishes.
The most famous export of the region is Pesto, that deep green sauce made with basil, pine nuts, olive oil and parmesan cheese. It’s really at its best when it’s made with these ingredients that are grown locally, and when you taste it here with Trofie pasta, nothing else is quite as good. The other famous local speciality is Focaccia col Formaggio, which is two layers of wafer thin pizza dough, with cheese between and fired in a wood oven – simply delicious!
Getting there
There are a number of options for getting to Casa Nandana by air. The most convenient is to fly to Genoa Airport which is about 30 minutes away by car. The other option is to fly to Pisa, which is about 1.5 hours away, while it’s also possible to fly to one of the three Milan airports, which is about 2 or 2.5 hours depending on which one is used.