In the morning we awake to the sounds of a rooster (or multiple roosters) and lots of birds chirping. The rooster crows continue throughout the morning and often into the afternoon but they are drowned out by the din of the town. 

Some mornings, we also hear men’s voices as the hillside plot two doors down from ours is being reconstructed from a sloping hill to a multi-terraced garden built around their mature olive and fruit trees. We hear they are also putting in an above ground pool Construction begins as early as 6:30am, even on Saturday, and one day they worked through siesta until about 4pm. 

By 10am, the cicadas begin and they stop late afternoon. We sometimes don’t hear them in the evening, perhaps because it’s not hot enough on the mountain?

Occasionally in the late afternoon we hear a cow, but it can’t be that close by. We’ve also heard some baa-ing, and whether it’s sheep or goats, they sound angry and cause D and me to laugh whenever we hear them. Paul and I drove through a neighboring mountain with designated hiking trails and found four donkeys, but no cows. We heard the cow bells very late at night when we returned from one of our day trips. 

Because our flat is on street level, we can hear people talking when they walk by the house. There’s no sidewalk – the street is barely wide enough for a car, nevermind a truck, so when anyone is talking when they walk by, it sounds like they are in our kitchen or bathroom. We often hear Angela laughing next door. (Side note: Paul measured the width of the street and it’s 5’2” wide.)

We also often hear calls of “India!” as people in the neighborhood are greeting the dog next door who roams up or down the street. Calls to India may also be trying to get her to move out of the way of a vehicle. 

We think there is an elementary school nearby as we sometimes hear a group of children’s voices in the distance in the afternoon. Maybe a summer camp?

At night, Pico is very quiet, so it’s easy to hear a car approaching or driving through the town while sitting on the terrace. If D drove here, he’d really have to tone down the loud music he plays in the car to not upset the neighbors. 

There are hourly church bells and my guess if someone rings the bell versus it being automated. When we look at the time on our phones, the church bells are often a minute early or a minute late. There are different bells to signal the call to Mass on a Sunday or a funeral. I’ve seen two funerals in the past week. A telltale sign is people gathering around the nazzoni (public fountain) at the beginning of our street. Twice I’ve seen the white hearse carrying a coffin adorned with red and flowers to the piazza, family members gather in the square and then walk behind the hearse as it goes slowly down a street. 

We’ve noticed that people do not dress up for church, whether it was Mass on the feast day or for funerals – jeans, pants, t-shirt, a blouse, or even shorts. No one is wearing black. Death notices are posted on bulletin boards around town.

The town bulletin boards are only used for death notices and not for other promotions. For example, we learned from the electric company that there would be a service disruption on our street Monday from 7am – 1pm because we saw the flyer on the tree next to where we’ve been parking the car.