Casal dei Fichi - Progress - January 05
Luxurious holiday apartments in Italy's stunning Marche.
At last, we are pleased to report that on all fronts things are progressing well. On our latest visit to Marche late in January we found that half of the ground floor has now been excavated to a depth of nearly a metre, steel reinforcing bars inserted and then a new concrete foundation laid which will then be filled with insulating layers (igloos!) and pipework before the new floors are laid. One of the staircases has been demolished (as planned!) as has the small barn which required total rebuilding, we are - we think - still on plan to have one area of the house vaguely habitable by the spring.
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No, not the outside swimming pool but the demolished sheds which will be rebuilt as bedroom and bathroom for our favourite apartment - living room pictured alongside. |
Cleared of junk - old carts, cars and farm machinery this room will have a picture window looking over the pool and the valley. Minus a superfluous staircase space is created where one day bathrooms will go. |
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The road to the house proved perfectly adequate for us to get our (or rather Hertz's) little Micra back and forth to the house in the depths of the Marche winter - with snow on the ground and although having deemed the road complete we notice that our architect Michele is still reluctant to drive his car down it! Anyway, when he walked down for our Monday morning meeting without his interpreter we realised that our Italian was about to be put to the test again. We seemed to manage, Michele has the sense to speak slowly and clearly to us so we usually understand what he is saying - or at least we think we do!
We always stay at the charming Hotel Castellani in nearby Mogliano where we have got to know the family (Castellani) very well. The core of the family - parents Jeremia and Santina and two of their adult children Michela and Daniele are mainly responsible for the running of the hotel, we have also met the other son and daughter, Ricardo and Barbera as well as aunts, uncles and Santina's octogenarian motorcycle riding father. The family epitomises the helpful attitude which makes the area feel so different to London, nothing is too much trouble and if they cannot help then they know someone (probably a relative) who can! On this visit we were pleased to once again see Santina who has been caring for her mother on our previous visits, she always finds time to patiently listen to our mangled Italian rewarding each semi-intelligible sentence with a bravo or bravissimo. The hotel acts as a magnet for British couples in search of 'La dolce vita' and on each of our visits we have met people either looking for, buying or, occasionally, getting away from their slice of mediterranean life. Some of these are clueless one timers others we have now met many times and forged friendships with. All of them are drawn into la familia Castellani and Santina has regaled us with stories about many of them, taking us all under her wing like a mother hen. We finally met Lesley and Dean last week who greeted us like long lost friends although all our previous contact has been via email. We haven't encountered Mr Brian yet, although we did meet some friends of his whom he has introduced to the region.
We will miss our stays at the hotel when we do move to Italy, primarily because they have the most comfortable beds, we will make sure we continue to stay in close contact with our friends there so we will not miss the people. (and we know where they bought their beds!)
Slowly we are forging other friendships and acquaintances, we are getting known in local restaurants, are on first name terms in the bank and have been the guests at our builder Rosario's home for lunch. This was an event which we faced with some trepidation, Rosario is from the south of Italy and speaks very quickly, we had never been beyond pleasantries without an interpreter. On arrival at the house we were introduced to Rosario's daughter, wife and various of her uncles, his daughter spoke a little English but other than that we were on our own. Fortunately Rosario's wife understood the concept of vegetarianism, unlike her husband who thought that we would eat chicken though not tomatoes, and kept a steady supply of simple, delicious food flowing onto our plates. Washed down with home made wine and then grappa the conversation flowed remarkably easily and it was with reluctance that we finally left to finish our olive picking and make our 4pm appointment at the mill. We even seemed to answer the question which wine was best (Rosario's home made red or an uncle's white) without causing offence!
Back in the UK the imperative to move is becoming greater. We have had to move out of our rented accommodation due to impending building work and are now staying with friends on a strictly temporary basis. We have promised to be out by the end of February which we are sure is more than they had bargained for! At the same time Bob is really, absolutely positively finishing work so we will have neither reason nor ability to stay in London and the search is on to find a rented apartment in Francavilla d'Ete. Needless to say this is done not through local papers but by word of mouth - so we have enlisted Rosario and Jeremia to find somewhere, we are confident that we will have somewhere soon!
Retrace the optimistic story of the creation of Casal dei Fichi:
December 2004 going backwards
April 2005 going forward