On a patch of land in Tenerife, a go-to holiday destination for Brits, can be found a scattering of homemade dwellings, joined together with an improvised footpath in the sand. In a hut and two caves functining as bedrooms, live a family and their dog, Orion. Jennifer Ranza, 40, and her husband Graziano Rossi, 44, followed her brother Irio, 47, to the Spanish island, who left Tortona in the north of Italy a year ago, in December. Mr Ranza told the Express that he felt like a machine as a plumber before upping sticks.
“My life in Italy is boring, f*** you,” he said. “Little man, maximum work. No good life.” He also likes the weather, and that locals “smile”. His sister agreed. Pointing at the red, white and green colouring of her home, Jennifer said: “We’re Italian. You can see from that.” She added: “We miss the place. It’s a really nice country with castles, hills, so many trees. But not the people. Everyone here smiles on you.
“If they don’t know you, they smile on you. Maybe you can be a friend. In Italy, they are angry on you. Maybe you can be an enemy.”
She then joked: “Exterminate and repopulate!”
Jennifer, a former dance teacher also said: “It’s really amazing to live here. You can watch the skies and the stars and the ocean. We’re not so near, but not so far.”
There is rain and fog where she is from, she added.
This lifestyle means, of course, that the family saves money.
“It’s really hard for water and light,” Jennifer said. “But if you’re organised in the right way and live with the right people, you can be happy without tax, without a lot of bad things.
Handing over a bowl of freshly cooked pasta – Irio was standing behind a hob in the family’s hut kitchen and would love to work as a chef – she added: “There are one or two shops that sell Italian food, but it’s so expensive.
“So we try and make it with Spanish ingredients we’re very good cooks.”
The Italian however misses her two children, a 16-year-old boy and 11-year-old girl.
Mr Rossi is a builder, and previously worked for 25 years as a fabric machine operator.
He said that the thing he missed the most about living in his home country was watching his local football team.
The family spoke to the Express on the weekend that locals took to the streets of Tenerife to protest against overtourism, its consequences – including higher rents and an impact on the availability of properties – and the way politicians are handling the situation.
Canarian Weekly reports that in Arona, nearly a third of housing stock has been converted into tourist accommodation, driving rents up by more than 66% in just four years.