The Valley

I've been thinking about starting a blog for a long time now, and in this Summer afternoon of boredom I decided that the time to do it had finally come. So here I am! I actually don't know where to start, this is totally new for me but I will try. Sooo, my name is Camilla and I'm 22. I was born and raised in Sondrio. Ok, that's the first fact and you're probably already saying: "I've never heard of it, where is this place?"; well, that's a question I get asked a lot and that's why today I thought I would share with you some info about my hometown, since you probably can't find it in the English version of Wikipedia! ;) 

Sondrio's park and landscape in the Summer

The view from my house during Winter

Sondrio is a town in Valtellina, a valley situated in the Lombardy region of Northern Italy. With a population of nearly 25000 people I can't really define it as a city, even if it is the capital town of the Province of Sondrio. It is located between the Rhetic Alps and Prealps. So yes, I grew up surrounded by mountains and I must say I really enjoyed it, I still do: mountains are probably the thing I miss the most about Sondrio when I'm not there. I remember many family trips to the villages nearby and many excursions during my childhood which made me really grow to enjoy all the nature around me.  

Sondrio, February 2014

It may seem like I love my Valley a lot from what I said, and I do, but I also must admit that, especially growing up, I had my moments of disappointment, if not hatred, towards it; that was mostly caused by the fact that being sooo small (I think you could walk around it, and I mean all of it, in less than 2 hours!) it doesn't offer as many possibilities as you may wanted during your teenage years, when you're in High School and you start to find out about the world, even if only from your computer.

The town itself is quite small and doesn't offer many ways of entertainment: until I was 17 there was only one cinema, that being run by a Catholic association didn't even show all the movies released. 

I remember myself during my fifth and last year of High School being impatient about starting the University. There is no university in Sondrio and not even in the entire Valtellina, beside a separate branch of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Milan which I was not really interested in; so for me that rappresented the moment I could finally leave the nest and go out to explore the world by my self. I didn't go that far away, I must say, since I decided to study in Milan, which is just 2 hours far from Sondrio; but it was nonetheless a big change being Milan the second biggest city in Italy.

Anyway, since I'm now grown up and maybe in the adulthood I started to appreciate Sondrio and Valtellina a lot more; sometimes I really really need some time off that metropolitan frenzy typical of Milan. 

From my roof :)

I hope that my words, but even more the pictures, intrigue you to find out more about this small but peaceful place in the North of Italy. I guess that being born there it is a big part of who I am.
If you want to find out more about Valtellina checke here: http://www.valtellina.it/eng/index.html

I apologise for the possibile mistakes, since English is not my Mother tongue but just my first language of study and long time passion. :)

Hope you're all having a great day!

Love,

Cami 

P.S: Surprisingly enough, I found out that actually an English Wikipedia page about Sondrio exists; here it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Province_of_Sondrio

Byeeee