Four streets away from the sea (Natali)

The summers of my childhood I spent in my grandparents' house, in a city on the coast. I remember with great affection several details. Especially, what it meant to go to the beach with my brothers and cousins.

We lived four streets away from the sea, it went downhill all way. Most interesting was the last part, which separated the city from the coast: 198 unmanageable steps! A long gray stone staircase on a slope of intense green lawn. Getting down was fine. But climbing up, after we had played in the sea and the sand ... it was exhausting!

Once at the top, we sat down to get the sand with the towel of the feet ... excuse to rest. But there were still two long streets to get home, all the way up! But it had its rewards too. For example counting, how many fossils of snails we had embedded in the sidewalk ... You can not remember how often we counted them.

The second reward was to recover the energy spent on the beach by snacking with plenty of fresh bread, butter and ... best of all ... the homemade jam of my waits! How rich! We could sit at the table eating breads and bread covered with different flavors ... strawberry, peach, plum, apricot with apple.