House Hunting in Tuscany (Vagabond Italia) Ep. 4 скачать в хорошем качестве

House Hunting in Tuscany (Vagabond Italia) Ep. 4

(See our blog VAGABOND ITALIA to find out the full story http://vagabonditalia.com/about) We have now been in Tuscany for almost a month and it is getting to crunch time, we need to find somewhere more permanent to live out “la dolce vita” during our time vagabonding here in Italy. Having arrived in Italy in the depths of winter, we are setting ourselves up now just in time for the ‘darling buds of May’ which is late spring time here in Italy. We hope you enjoy our vlog, taking you from the real estate agent, all the way through to a tour of the new home we have selected. What we don’t show you though, is how we got to this point. Here I will share with you how and why we chose our location, our research of the rental market and our wish list of features and amenities. LOCATION We have chosen to house hunt in the rolling hills of Tuscany within the Chianti region, not only for its beauty, charm and of course WINE, but also because this is right near where some of the finest leather bags are made for luxury fashion houses such as Prada, Fendi and Gucci (for those of you not up to speed, feel free to refer to the story of my business start-up ‘HARRY AUSTIN’ HERE to learn more about my plans to get my leather baby bag designs manufactured right here in Tuscany). My practical husband Nick also points out that the Tuscan countryside comes at a much more affordable price tag than city living. As Tuscany has an amazing public transport system, it is only ever a short commute to the major cities such as Florence by train ride, so a win win in our opinion. RESEARCH We started doing some research online while still in Australia, but I am sorry to say that (in my opinion) Tuscany is not as digitally advanced as I am accustomed to. Not everything is online, nor can you trust that it is current. You can’t even expect to get a response to an email overnight… let alone ever. We were able to get a ‘feel’ for the rental costs and the kinds of accommodations available online, but we found that we had the most success from getting off our bottoms and actually walking into a brick and mortar real estate agent in the local area once we were here. As you can see in the vlog, we visit a real estate agent and as quickly as that afternoon he was able to take us to view the house we liked. We signed the papers within days and were moving into our new home the following week. In our experience, there was nowhere near as much ‘red tape’ as we were expecting eg. reference checks, bank checks etc… However, please do not take that as text book, we may have just been lucky. OUR WISH LIST Nick and I fell in love with the ancient architecture of Italy a long time ago and now that we are here we can confirm that even with the (slightly) more modern building techniques today, this architecture is still alive and well all throughout Tuscany. In Australia, a heritage listed building would be considered 100 years old, whereas here it is not uncommon to drive past a building from the 13th Century! It is breath taking. The dream house we are looking for is a stone villa, with traditional features such as stone arches, exposed wooden beams, masonry, traditional tiling and an alfresco living space (with a pool if at all possible). Although we want an old home with such features, we really don’t want to sacrifice it being sturdy and baby proof structure, with all the modern amenities such as dishwasher, washing machine, heating and cooling etc. Completely unlike our city lifestyle in Australia, we want to be surrounded by rolling hills of vineyards, olive groves and natural walking trails. We would like to exchange our ‘local Aussie pub’ for a few prehistoric Castles and Chianti wineries if it’s not too much to ask… Ciao for now, Katie, Nick & bambina Harriet xox