SUMMER TIME IN MONTECARLO

 

Summer time in Tuscany is sun, sunflowers, grapes, wine, good food and a relaxed environment so you can feel stress disappear. People watching become your hobby along chatting with the guys at your local “Alementari”.



You enjoy the different festivals that appear local, either it is food festivals or it is Historic Festivals, Charity events or local marked.



We popped into two of these during this summer in Montecarlo. Middle of June it was the charity “Cena della Misericordia”. The whole main street Via Roma was covered with a long table from one end to the other. Locals along with tourist sitting down pay 15 Euro for a 4 course meal with local wine. All supported by local business in Montecarlo. The chat went lively among them, and as more wine the better the tourist were speaking Italian.

 



It was a fantastic evening and look forward to the same event next year.



A few weeks later Montecarlo celebrated its founder Carl VI. Montecarlo can celebrate 700 years so the festival with old costumes and artistic presentation during the last weekend in June.



If this will be a yearly happening is too early to say, but it was fun to see the involvement of the community.



We are lucky to become “Montecarlese”.  Montecarlo is located very central to larger cities ac Florence, Pisa and Lucca in addition you will find in each smaller city in Tuscany that they celebrate in the same way as in Montecarlo or Lucca. Just drop in, look for the posters to see what is happening and it does, more or less all year round.

BEFOR AND NOW

BEFORE

 

AND NOW

 

 

Yes I guess it is time to give you the before and now status. Let us say the house is 99% completed. Some minor electrical adjustments to be made, lamps missing and gas to be installed. The outdoor kitchen, swimming pool and outdoor area to wait until next year. Other than that our new home in Italy is completed and we can live there.

How could someone be that crazy and jump on a project like we did. Looking at the pictures from two years back and believe that the results could become as the pictures shows today.

We did and we did it.

I guess both the architect, construction company, and all the other workers were a bit sceptic, but also very pleased with the end result.

For those who have followed the process know how it all has developed step by step. For others it is to look at the pictures posted June 1^st 2014 just few weeks after we purchased the house and look at the pictures taken this month.

Upstairs it original were 3 rooms, today 4 bedrooms, two for adults two for children, and a bathroom plus a hallway. Downstairs our apartment with kitchen, living room, bedroom with bathroom and walk in closet in addition our office/hobby room.

If you think it is not possible, just think again and say it is possible and you can do it, as we did it.

KITCHEN BEFOR



 

AND NOW

 

LIVING ROOM BEFOR

 

AND NOW

 

BEDROOM GROUND FLOOR BEFORE

 

AND NOW

 

 

 

 

OFFICE BEFORE

 

AND NOW

 

  BEDROOM 1 BEFORE

AND NOW

 

BATHROOM UPSTAIRS

BEDROOM 2 BEFORE

 

 AND NOW

 

HALWAY

  

BEDROOM 3 and 4 BEFORE

 

AND NOW

 

 

AND

 

 

 

 

IT WILL BE A BUSY SUMMER

 



After 2 months in Norway with some short trips to Italy and Moscow it is soon time to head back to our beloved house in Montecarlo.

It is not completely finished with our furniture on the road to the house and arrives in week time, so I just will give a sneak peak of what you can imagine.

Pasqual from Limpresa sent us a picture of the sidewalk where we also could see the nice color of the house with the green shades.

Gianluca from Limpresa posted already some pictures of the doors to our master bedroom on the ground floor to his Facebook page, so he must be very pleased with the job. Our architect Galileo told us he was very very pleased  with our solution for that challenge. We reused a couple of the doors from the bedrooms upstairs and Limpresa managed to treat them excellent so we can see the character and soul of the house in these doors.

We got some bad news the other day from the architect. We get electricity in a day or two, but water and gas will not be connect until later in July. Guess who got frustrated with the Italian late ordering services when you got fixed dates in the plan and plenty of original time. OK just have to cross our fingers that the architect manage to push them nicely so we can have part of our summer vacation with a nice shower and water in the toilets. In addition we have to work on alternative solution within the next two/three weeks.

 

 

 

I did spend the last months in Norway with 7 of the 8 grandchildren. We had fun and enjoyed many events during the period. The last months in Norway also gave me the opportunity to arrange shipment and sent away our furniture and other parts we have had in storage for the last 2-3 years. The company has an agreement with Team Relocation and I can just say that their staff at Forus, Stavanger is efficient. When their office people in Oslo tells me it would take 4-5 hours to fill up the container, the guys at the storage did it in 1,5. Wonder what will be on the bill to the company.

We did not do a truck direct to Italy, we arranged a container load by boat to Rotterdam and then by truck to Montecarlo. Savings is more than 50% so why not. I rather pay 25000 NOK than 65000 NOK. Thanks to Thore at STB who I have known since 1983 from the same business, and he have been in this business all the time so he know how to get the right price for you. We will get you accommodated and find you tickets for the ANDREA BOCELLI CONCERT 2017.

 

 

When I arrive next week in Montecarlo it will be a couple of nights at our regular B&B until I have managed to organize the house and make it livable. The day after my arrival I have to get hold of the VAN for transportation from the offloading point at Casata Davini and to the house. Mario let me do this and it would not take too much time or space at his place. It is a part of the relation building done over 15 years in Lucca area. And we look forward to build even more relations now, people we know but have not met. Even an Italian teacher we have connected with so I am prepared to start picking up on the Italian I started to learn when we lived in Houston. No more Russian lessons for me.

 

Must say it was good today know some of the Russian and could communicate with the driver for the lost suitcase two days after arrival myself. Got it and got the Norwegian chees in the fridge.

So that’s all for now, we will travel to Italy, spend 2 months finish the house interior as best as we can and prepare you for the result and give you an update sometime into August.

It will be great to go and lower our shoulders as almost all are finished and all milestones are history.

Have a great summer all.