House Hunters International

House hunting has been interesting. We have seen six places with three different agents. Four of them have possibilities although nothing has made us swoon and declare, “let’s make an offer!”


We have seen three apartments, two duplexes and one townhouse. All of them need some work but mostly cosmetic. Some fit our criteria better than others but undoubtedly we will need to make some compromises. The best thing is they are all within our budget. We are happy we are finding places we can afford that tick most of the boxes. This coming week we have appointments lined up to see another twelve places so we are hopeful something wonderful is still out there.

We also picked up our new Permessi di Soggiorno (long stay permits). It’s nice to have that taken care of for another year and a half. One of these days perhaps we will get one of the ten year permits we have heard about. It would be nice not to have to go through this process every two years.

Amongst house hunting we have been reconnecting with our friends in Partigliano and nearby. On Friday night we had dinner with Mary and Orlando, another American couple who have a house nearby and their three guests. So, nine of us had delicious hors d’oevres made by Mary (aka the Martha Stewart of Tuscany) and then pizza at a nearby restaurant. It was a really fun evening.

Last night we went to the bar in Partigliano about 9:30 pm and visited with locals and semi-locals. It turns out that quite a few of the English speaking part-time residents are here this weekend. It was nice to catch up with everyone. We all had so much fun that we will probably see the same crowd there tonight.

The weather has been lovely since we arrived. Daytime highs are around 70F/22C although it gets chilly at night. We have had only one afternoon and evening of rain. It is the nicest conditions we have seen for several weeks because Whidbey Island seemed to go from August to October right after Labor Day. Hopefully this trend will continue for the next few weeks.

This morning we rose at 6:15 am and went to the Sunday marcia. It was one we had not done and we really enjoyed seeing the area of Lunata on foot. The locale was a substitute for the one originally scheduled (no one seemed to know why it was changed) and there were only three routes—2 km, 7 km and 14 km. We chose to do the 7 km and it was a great walk. Luckily the area is dead flat or it would have been a bit long for our first march in quite a while.

Afterwards we stopped for cappuccino and arrived back at the house by 9 am. I went to mass at 11 am and reconnected with more of the local people. Now we are watching the Formula 1 race from Singapore. Ferrari’s Alonzo is leading so we, and no doubt most of Italy, are happy.

More in a day or two.