My wife and I decided to chronicle the story of our move to Tuscany. From initially living here in monthly spurts, to the present, having bought a nearly 950 year-old property in the heart of wine country.
We started coming to Italy nearly 20 years ago and initially came for the history, the art, the food and the wine. Although those aspects still attract us, the real rewards have been to be immersed in the culture and to have created some incredible friendships. In 2016 we rented a beautiful villa in Tuscany for 27 of our closest friends and family from the US. It turned into a magical week for us and was so filled with love and happiness, that we told ourselves we would come back some day and buy a villa. From that goal, we decided the next year to live abroad for 3 months to see if we would actually acclimate to a different life in a new country and we decided on Madrid. We chose Madrid because although we really love Spain, we knew if we started with Florence ( our favorite city in the world ) that we might never live elsewhere and wanted to make sure that Italy was still our top choice.
The experience in Madrid in 2017 hooked us. You get so imbedded in the daily rhythm of a city when you are also working there. You become part of the neighborhood, meeting shopkeepers and neighbors than a more transient vacation stay would afford. In 2018 and 2019 we did our 3 month stint in Florence and it was during that second year that we stepped up our quest to find a property. While finding a place is easy; finding the right place proved to be a bit more of a challenge. In those 2 years in Florence, we knew what part of the countryside where we wanted to build our new life and we knew what aspects of a property were important to us. We wanted at least 5 bedrooms, a pool and a view. After a couple of near-misses, we found the property of our dreams, in what many consider the most coveted region of Tuscany. We actually found the property remotely in fall of 2020, sitting on our couch in the US ( living abroad had to take a hiatus due to the Pandemic ). We wired a modest deposit within days of locating this Agriturismo ( bed and breakfast ) and with a bot of trepidation, we ultimately got on a plane in January of 2021 in order to meet a deadline to move forward on the property and enter a proper escrow.
What you will see via this channel is the story as it unfolds from the first meeting with the family who owned the property to the changes it will undergo, as we add some touches to make this our home. The property is approximately 17 acres, between the olive grove and the villa proper. There are over 300 olive trees and about 4 acres of virgin forest that come with it. The structure itself dates back to the early 1100s as a farmhouse, like so many other properties began. There are 3 bedrooms in the main house and 4 bedrooms in the apartments adjacent to the main house, there are plenty of pergolas and vista points and a beautiful pool. Our plan is to convert one of the external rooms into a gym, leaving us with 6 bedrooms with bathrooms. We will upgrade the pool deck, add a long dual terrace under the parking area for al fresco dining when we have larger parties here. All of the rooms will be re-painted and or/significantly upgraded. There is a large underground storage room, that was the original “cantina” or wine cellar and we will bring that back to life to it’s original use and re-purpose an ancient door into a table that will become the centerpiece of the cellar and re-birth the original door by removing the stones that closed it and replacing with a glass entry.
Please join us as we chronicle the various upgrades and projects and most importantly, as we introduce you to our friends here in Italy. You will get to see why we have been drawn here by the people, more than the myriad of beautiful things that surround us. We hope you will ultimately meet our friends when you visit the Florence area and stop by their shops, wineries and restaurants and get to meet them while you help to re-invigorate their businesses devastated by the pandemic. Ciao!
Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:13 Why we chose Italy
00:40 Our new Tuscan villa
01:09 Meeting new friends
01:33 Closing
Follow our journey on Instagram: @sipsofitaly
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