We're Buying an Apartment!

It has been a busy weekend for us. On Friday we drove to Lucca, stayed in Partigliano overnight and started the process of buying an apartment.

It is located in the town of Capannori 7 km east of Lucca. The town is a mix of old and new with a large, modern square that is ringed by the Comune of Capannori government offices, a supermarket, and a number of apartment buildings some of which have commercial establishments on the ground floor. Our apartment is on the 6th floor (5th Italian-style and, yes, it does have an elevator). It overlooks the square and has wonderful views south to the Pisan hills and north to the hills of Lucca and the mountains.

In addition to being closer to Lucca than Partigliano, Capannori is a great spot for cycling and walking. We are minutes from the autostrada. There is frequent bus service into Lucca and there is a Capannori train station on the line between Lucca and Florence. There are a bar and a newsstand on the ground floor of our building, a gelateria less than a block away, several restaurants, a pasticceria, banks, and other shops all on the square or a short walk away in the older part of Capannori. All of this means it will be much more guest friendly. Capannori is pronounced cah-PAHN-or-ee, something it took us years to figure out.

The apartment itself was all redone not many years ago and the current style is very modern. It has a large living/dining area, a small but well laid out kitchen with a pantry, three bedrooms, 1 ½ baths and a large storage room. There is also a large terrace with double doors accessing it and space for the washing machine out there.

The process of buying a house in Italy is multi-step. On Friday evening we signed an offer and made a small deposit. It was immediately accepted and the next step is to do a compromesso, a contract that spells out what the buyer and seller both have to do before the purchase is completed. It will be done in early November before we leave. At that time we will pay 30% of the total purchase price. In January we will return and complete the final contract and pay the rest of the purchase price. In the meantime, the seller has a number of things to take care of including painting the interior. We are fortunate that we negotiated the purchase of the kitchen, which is beautiful, as part of the deal. It is not uncommon here for sellers to take the kitchen with them. In January we will also move have our furniture, etc. moved from storage into the apartment.

Here are lots of pictures in sort of an odd order. It seems to be difficult to get the pictures to load into the blog as I think they should.