Life on an Italian Piazza for $2,200 a Month

Life on an Italian Piazza for $2,200 a Month
Teresa and Greg found their dream European home on a small piazza in the Italian town of Castiglione Messer Raimondo.|©Castiglione Messer Raimondo Municipality

Each morning begins with a moka pot on the stove and the steady chime of church bells drifting through the open shutters. Teresa Mastrobuono leans against the balcony rail watching the town stir to life. “Buongiorno, come stai?” a neighbor calls. For some it is like a scene from an Italian movie. For Teresa, it’s home.

She made her long-held dream of Italian life a reality when she bought a modest townhouse on a small piazza in Castiglione Messer Raimondo, a hilltop town in Abruzzo with barely 800 souls. For Teresa and her husband Greg, who moved here from Pennsylvania in 2022, it holds everything they need: community and the gentle rhythms of a slower, affordable life.

Teresa's journey to this lesser-known corner of Italy began like so many others—with a dream and a limited budget. "I have dual Italian-US citizenship through my grandfather, Carmine, and had been dreaming about a house in Italy," she says, "but couldn’t find anything I could afford." A friend who had recently bought in Abruzzo nudged her to look off the beaten path.

She began her search in 2009 and ended it just six days later in Castiglione Messer Raimondo. She still remembers the day they arrived to the town: “We parked along the belvedere, the scenic overlook, and I saw the Italian life I had been yearning for: church bells ringing, children riding around on bicycles, cats slung low in the shadow, men leaning against the belvedere railing, staring out the valley below. I wanted this town to be home!”

People in the town smiled and asked what brought her there. The house on a small piazza that the estate agent showed her was exactly what she wanted, and she quickly made an offer.

In the years that followed, Teresa spent every summer in her new home. But it wasn’t until 2022 that she and Greg, both recently retired, decided to stay for good. “We couldn’t afford to retire in the US,” she says. “We would have had to work until half an hour after our funeral.”

Their home is pressed up against the town’s church—once, it housed the priest, then a laundry, then a tabaccaio, the local convenience shop. Now, it’s just home.

“It’s a front-row seat to everything that happens in town,” Teresa says. “Parades, festas, baptisms, weddings, funerals—we see it all from the balcony. I can even sit on my balcony and listen to Mass if the church doors are open.”

One of the things Teresa loves about living on a piazza in a small town is the conversations with neighbors and passers-by she conducts from her small balcony. No topic is too small.

“We talk about everything: the weather, what we’re cooking for lunch, each other’s health issues, our families. I have a dear friend who lives two houses down, and when we’re both hanging laundry, we banter back and forth. There’s definitely a strong sense of community here. It’s not for everyone—some people don’t like being seen all the time. But for me, it’s a gift.”

Over the years, Teresa has taken on more and more local habits. “I sweep the pavement in front of the entrance, just like local women do, put out on the balcony a red banner with a gold cross for important religious feast days, and cook traditional dishes that my neighbor taught me.”

The couple joins evening strolls around the town with neighbors, have long lunches, go to the town’s festivals, tombola evenings, and communal meals on the piazza. Though she doesn’t consider herself religious, Teresa walks in the town’s many processions.

“Almost every week there’s a feast for some saint. I like walking in the procession at dusk, when it gets a little dark and we go through the alleys with chanting, candles, and the streetlights flickering on. I enjoy the ritual, the atmosphere. And listening to the sermons in the church helps improve my Italian.”

Teresa worked in the theater all her life and still occasionally records voiceovers in the small studio she set up at home. But she and Greg now live at a gentler pace, spending their days doing what they love most: walking mountain trails, paddling on the sea, just a 40-minute drive away, hosting guests in summer, and enjoying unhurried moments on their piazza, chatting with friends and neighbors. “We wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” Teresa says.

Teresa and Greg

Living on a piazza beside the church comes with its rules. “You don’t hang laundry when there’s a church event. People will knock on our door and let us know—‘It’s a baptism today’, and I quickly remove my washing.”

And then there are the bells. “They ring for mass, for funerals—we call them the sad bells—and every 15 minutes, all day and night. I’m told they’ve lowered the volume. Fortunately, we have double-pane windows and shutters, so at night we don’t hear them. But I always know what time it is without needing to check a clock,” laughs Teresa.

The couple runs a small guesthouse from their home, offering travelers a chance to experience small-town life from the inside. “We had an American couple stay with us,” Teresa says, “and they loved it so much that they ended up buying a house here themselves. It’s that kind of place.”

Castiglione Messer Raimondo may be small, but it is not lacking. There’s a pharmacy, a couple of bars (one with a mountain-view terrace), a small grocery store, bank, gas station, and a Saturday market. Restaurants are scattered within a short drive, and prices, by American standards, are astonishingly low.

“When I go back to the US, I’m just shocked by the prices. A cappuccino in our town is €1.20 ($1.34), a small gelato is €2.80 ($3.13). In one of our favorite restaurants, we have a meal with arrosticini (traditional sheep meat skewers), pizza, and wine for €40 ($44.70) for two.”

For the couple from Pennsylvania, life is affordable here. “Our monthly budget is around $2,200 for a very comfortable life,” says Teresa.

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