Montecarlo October 2015

 

Autumn vacation in Montecarlo is not so bad. With 20 degree and more each day, sun that shine with few clouds around was just what we were looking for. For sure we had a special mission this time as well, but most of the time we could enjoy as vacation.

 

 

The progress of our house I will be back to, and so I will with the restaurants visits. Some new visits some older with new experiences.

 

 

 

We could have done some visits to wine yards as well in their hectic harvesting season, but when we stayed at a wonderful B&B that also did wine tasting, why should we.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Montecarlo is picturesque at night so a walk around let you see things you did not noticed during day time. And at daytime a walk in the surrounding hills let you see the Montecarlo Tower and silhouette from different angels.

 

Bringing back home 350 pictures taken it is always a challenge to choose what I like and what was not so good to give the best impression of what we looked at. Either or my story is to give you a teaser to visit the beauty of this small town.

 

 

One major thing that not must be forgotten, we stayed at B&B Antica Dimora Patrizia. The young Lady who runs this B&B, Erica, does a fantastic job from early morning to late night. The B&B do not have many rooms (5-6), so if you visit in high season make sure to book early. Erica gives the place her individual personal touch from breakfast into wine tasting. You are welcome as a friend of the family who she has known for a long time.

 

 

 

 

 

Next time we are back it is an obvious choice for us where to stay, until our house in Montecarlo is finished and we can move in. Progress report will come in few days.

Workers vacation

 

Yes we soon in the middle of August and most workers in Italy take a well-deserved summer vacation. These days it is usual a 2 week vacation from around the 10^th until the 23^rd. Back in the 1980, 90s and even into early 2000 companies in Italy was in Norway known to take the hole August off. This has changed. It is to understand that a manufacturing plant need to stop working for a few weeks to do maintenance on machines, and that is what we see today, two weeks complete stop at a company.

 

There are special reasons for a vacation at this time. Ferragosto is an Italian and Sammarinese public holiday celebrated on August 15^th, coinciding with the major Catholic feast of the Assumption of Mary. By metonymy, it is also the summer vacation period around mid-August, which may be a long weekend (ponte di ferragosto) or most of August.

The Feriae Augusti (“Festival of Holidays of the Emperor Augustus”) were introduced by the emperor Augustus in 18  BC. This was an addition earlier ancient Roman festivals which fell in the same month, such as the Vinalia rustica or the Consualia, which celebrated the harvest and the end of a long period of intense agricultural labor. The Feriae Augusti, in addition to its propaganda function, linked the various August festivals to provide a longer period of rest, called Augustali, which was felt necessary after the hard labor of the previous weeks.

During these celebrations, horse races were organized across the Empire, and beasts of burden (including oxen, donkeys and mules), were released from their work duties and decorated with flowers. Such ancient traditions are still alive today, virtually unchanged in their form and level of participation during the Palio dellAssunta which takes place on August 16^th in Sienna. Indeed the name “Palio” comes from the pallium, a piece of precious fabric which was the usual prize given to the winner of the horse race in ancient Rome.

 

During the festival, workers greeted their master, who in return would give them a tip. The custom became so strongly rooted that in the Renaissance it was made compulsory in the Papal States.

The modern Italy name of the holiday comes directly from the Latin name.

The popular tradition of taking a trip during Ferragosto arose under the Fascist regime. In the second half of the 1920s, during the mid-August period, the regime organized hundreds of popular trips through the Fascist leisure and recreational organizations of various corporations, and via the setting up of the “Peoples Trains of Ferragosto”, which were available at discounted prices.

The initiative gave the opportunity to less well-off social classes to visit Italian cities or to reach seaside and mountain resorts. The offer was limited to August 13^th, 14^th and 15^th, and comprised two options: the “One-Day-Trip”, within a radius of 50-100 km, and the “Three-Day-Trip” within a radius of about 100-200 km.

In religion the Catholic feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary also falls on the August 15^th, and is a major feast and Holy Day of Obligation.

The ancient Roman goddess Diana was honored on August 13^th.

Seen from the West side

 

Seen from the East, look pretty good

 

Our great architect and Construction Company arrange the work force so it will be only one week complete stop on the progress on our house. No work will take place according history between August 10^th and 15^th.

 

With sunny weather and temperature above 30 degree C since late June and its looks like it will not stop until way into September we have been fortunate with extreme good working conditions, maybe a bit too good as the temperature has touched 40 degree C at times. A reason for the workers to have a working day from 6 a.m. until 2 p.m.

 

Looking at the pictures we got from the architect this time show us work in progress and some interesting things for some. Yes, getting close to finishing the roof and they have started to remove the floor at first floor. For those who have not seen an Old Italian floor before have an opportunity now. For our guest who will stay at first floor, we do changes to the better.

Things moves quick

 

Looking down to what will be the kitchen

 

We expect to have a trip to see the progress in October, but I am sure both the Pasqual, Gianluca and Galileo will send us photos so we can update the blog prior to that.

Enjoy the summer !!

PROJECT REPORT JULY 2015

Grass cut already

 

OK, so on to what most have been waiting for. Get to know our neighbors and how have the progress been over the last 3-4 weeks.

We will be his new neighbor next year

 

When we arrived July 4^th  3 of the old beams had been taken from the roof, when we left 8 of the 9 new beams was installed, including all most of the new concrete structure along the walls to support the roof. They also had started on one of the walls that should have extra insulation.

Old beams to be changed

As you may understand, we are not doing insulation due to the cold weather in the winter time, no it is for the warm summer day as we had it these 3 weeks in July with more than 35 deg. C each day.

Reinforce part of the wall

 

Reinforcement block, looks like good insulation too !!

 



On our way to a pizza the first evening we had to see what had been done. The pleasure of working with Limpresa are that they send us regular photos of what going on so that the roof was gone was not a surprise, but to see the changes in live where very exciting.

Pasqual Cosentino, the person behind our

construction company Limpresa

 

Galileo Menichini, our architect with

the company GLIARCHITETTIASSOCIATI

 

The area around the house was secured according the rules in Italy, but we got around to see what we wanted, not climbing the stairs the first day.

Checking !!!

 

I had plans of do a lot of cutting grass the first week, again that was taken care of and they had made parking on the land behind the house.

First day we also noticed the type of tree we had in the garden. Walnut, and I had never seen this before and tried to get this cleaned. It was a bit to early in the season, and I will not do it again as my nails did not get clean in two weeks. Part of what you call experience.

Walnut tree

 



Day after day we passed the house and could see on a distance how it progressed. One day the new beams had arrived and a few days later the first beams was installed.

 

One of the expected regular visitors wondering

how the view will be

 



Over the weeks on vacation we had several meetings with the architect and the construction company as well the electrician. With electrician we had to ensure we got enough power and the cable into the house could take any addition for the future or if we moved on with additional solar panels one day. What we are used to in Norway is not the same in Italy, maybe it is because of the electricity prices are different.

 

 



There was a lot more support from the Italian government before installing solar panels, today you only get a bit when you sale the over capacity to ENEL. However it is my basic education after 5 years study 40 years ago, so I have a bit more involvement in that than some other issues maybe. We had to include lines for outside work, garden kitchen and any pool that may come, in addition agree on fuse sizes and lines inside the house.

Looking for governmental support ??

 



We went away from the breathing roof and made a decision on extra insulation on the walls the turned south and east. Hope it will help on the air in the bedrooms for guests during the summer time.

New beams on the spot

 



Progress for the next month or so will be that before they finish the roof they will do the floor at first floor. Have open air in the roof make it easier to lift out any trash. When that is done and roof is one they will start in the ground floor with digging and digging and digging out a nice bit of mother earth.

 

 



The progress plan is flexible. Even it is more predictable weather in this area than like Norway flexibility is needed as long as it kept within the progress plan and what is on the right side of this plan do not move.

Not all will be 90 degree corners

 



Over the time we visited the house in these weeks we also got to know some of the neighbors. Very pleasant for us and obvious people to invite to the big day when all is finished.

Fire woods for the winter ??

 



Now we just look forward to the next mile stone and pictures sent from our friends working on the house. Will keep you all updated.

Keep on working

 

And by the way, if you look for a fixer upper there are more of them so just give us a call and we can assist you in the details.

 

Beauty of an old Tuscan house

 

 

Guided Tour in Montecarlo

Montecarlo

 

As newcomers to Montecarlo we wanted to spend some time of our vacation to learn more about this smaller Tuscan town and its surrounding. By coincident I popped into Tripadvisers recommendation of Discover Lucca with Elena - Day Tour. According this she even lived in the same street as us in Montecarlo and should be good to give us some inside.

Some I know we could have read, some is information that goes by speak and I have learned that at times I remember more when I get it into my ear and not my eyes by reading.

Elena picked us up as agreed at Casolare dei Fiori and we drove up to Montecarlo. Parked the car and found a place outside the town to take a view across to the local cemetery. Going almost 1000 years back in history this cemetery could have been the old town that once was moved to the hill of Montecarlo in 1433.

 

 



Montecarlo is made step by step from one “tower” to five defending to Lucca from Florence. I have been writing about Montecarlo before so I do not want to dig into all the history other than what we got to see and have not presented before.  

 

The local cemetery

 



Have a guid you will obtain to see and learn the smaller things the books will not tell you when you read the history and you need that special person to guide you into them. We got to see the local theater, small but interesting with is concerts and other arrangements during the year.

 

From the theater

 

We got to meet Erica Galli who runs the local B&B “Antica DimoraPatricia” and was shown around in this historic building that Erica have made sure to put her own touch to for you to feel at home and put back in time. Even histories back to Puccini and the many special families that lived here.

 

B&B “Antica DimoraPatricia”

 



In the cellar of the B&B there even was a Wine museum and if you wanted some wine tasting of local wine.

 



We headed for the fortress and had an interesting tour around along with the person that looked after it. Today it is owned by a family who keep an interest to have the fortress open to the public as much as possible.

 

 



After a small stop at the Osteria Fortezza for something to drink in the warm weather we headed to a winery. One of two we should have visited. No reason to why we ended up only with one. Either or, this one “AziendaAgricola Enzo Carmignani di Elena Carmignani” ended up to be one of the best we did during the vacation. Learned about one of the hidden treasures of Montecarlo and was invited back for a wider tasting two day later with a lot of locals.

 

 

 



I must say that it is an advantage to take some of these guided tours and I can recommend Elena who did our tour even we got a bit disappointed missing out on one winery as long as it is a special interest of ours. She is born in Lucca so she know Lucca very well and all the surroundings, just drop her an email and she tells you what you can get of alternative guiding. Hope to do some cooking lessons with her as well one day.