We were very lucky to find a two story flat in the city with a yard in a building located on a very large city block, which means there is very large central courtyard between the three buildings that share the courtyard.

We have over 250 m2 of yard with a row of full grown (20+m) trees at the back. When we moved in, except for the big trees it was nothing but dirt, bare walls (stone and wood) and illegally buried building materials. Every time I dig in the yard I find more! It’s like inverted pirate treasure.

Now (years later) we are surrounded with green from the back of our flat. We added grapevines and flowering plants on the upstairs terrace to “green up” that space, and recently added flower boxes between us and our upstairs neighbor for even more green. Finaly, we have cultivated vines to cover all the walls in our yard area of the courtyard. That has created our little biosphere oasis in the city. The vines hold moisture. That brings bugs. Between bugs and tree/plant seeds, we have a few field mice and lots of birds. It is a lively little jungle. Sadly we even have the brutality of the jungle, as the dominant crow family that lives in the old trees will eat the blackbird babies if they find them each spring.

I’ve been to Rome a couple of times. Beautiful, but I can only imagine how stressful it was to live there! As far as I remember, much less green space than Vienna, and far more traffic. I’ll note that Italians drive much better than Austrians, so that makes the heavy traffic less stressful.