Friday, October 24, 2008

House in the Country

As I mentioned in my summer notes below, staying at James' and Philippa's stone house in the Marche this summer really got me missing the country life - a place to garden, hang out the laundry, sunbathe, and Andrea can play music really loudly. So, between feeling completely frustrated with our Bologna neighbors (we were accused of being Bush empirialists over a painted gate - long story) we decided to chase a pipe dream and searched for our in-our-dreams country house. We found one while we were on a motorbike ride in the Apennine mountains, an hour and a half from Bologna - a stone cottage that once housed the priest of the church next to it (the photos on the left of are the church; the house and property and views on the right) . It eventually was used as a school house, then left vacant and recently the roof that had collapsed was replaced. It needs a LOT of work, but the views are just gorgeous, there are no neighbors except for the church and an agriturismo down the dirt road (http://www.marzanella.it/index.html). It would be heaven for us, but we need to win the lottery first. We inquired at the church about houses for sale in the area, and they told us about this one. We climbed though the window off an upside-down bucket -there are two bathrooms, a great room with wood beams, a kitchen in the same space with a fireplace. Three sunny bedrooms and a loft, as well as a large space downstairs we couldn't break in to. We were told to talk to the priest about the price, but we haven't taken that step (what is the point...) but James and Philippa went down to look at it and stay at the agriturismo, and they said they would have bought it if they had seen it before their Marche paradise (I still think they have the Italian dream house). So we spend imaginary weekends there and perhaps one day we can call it our "nido". (Ok, M&G, is this your potential retirement home all the way from NJ?)

1 comment:

paula said...

I couldn't leave without finding out the price!! One day...