Category: Blog

Fenella found an interesting old farmhouse online – quite different from all the other properties we had been to see. The marketing pictures looked charming, it was within our budget and it even had a swimming pool. It was about 20 minutes drive from Lucca, but not up into the hills to the north (an area we had already rejected). We thought it would be interesting to see what our budget could get us in a rural setting. So, after a drive by and a quick explore of the garden, we booked a viewing.

On 10 September we turned up at the house to meet the agent Martina and the owner Domenico.

Domenico guided us round the house and we could feel how emotional it was for him. It had been his grandparents’ home and he had spent many summers there as a child. Later his parents lived there and, since his parents had died, he and his sister had kept the house and used it for family gatherings and holidays. Now their children were grown up and the house was getting less and less use. Sadly for them, it was time to sell.

The house is big – much bigger than any property we had envisaged buying. While our heads told us it was too big and much more of a project than we had in mind, our hearts were telling us something quite different. We found ourselves feeling very much at home and the house certainly seemed water tight and habitable. We could see ourselves moving in and getting settled before having to undertake any serious renovation or projects.

The front door opens onto a couple of living rooms on the ground floor, but the business end of the house is on the first and second floor. There we found a sizeable kitchen / living room, about six usable bedrooms and two bathrooms (both in need of updating). There are also a couple of garages and a bunch of storage rooms full of junk. A couple of these could easily be converted to give even more living space and one of those would make a great extension to the kitchen with views across the valley to the hillside town on the other side. In total, the house is about 400 square meters (that’s about 4,000 square feet).

Domenico is an engineer and knew the bones of the house intimately. He wanted to show us everything and I think he could tell how much we were warming to the place. He told us he’d be leaving most of the furniture (and probably the junk too) and made a special plea that we keep the kitchen table that generations of his family had eaten at. We were, of course, happy to agree.

The garden was also very large – rising behind the house in terraces. The pool was a wreck, but at least the house would come with permission for one in place. The final terrace has a football pitch made by Domenico’s father for the grandchildren with a stream running along the boundary. The garden is about 3,100 square meters in total (that’s about 3/4 of an acre).

Massive, daunting, exciting, with all kinds of possibilities. We were smitten.

Just the short version I think.

We did a lot of driving around and looking at different areas round Lucca and further afield. Some were too remote, some too touristy, some too expensive and some too ugly.

We came back to Lucca in the evenings and developed a stronger and stronger feeling that we would be happiest in Lucca itself – just outside the walls. We viewed a fair few properties in Lucca. Our budget looked like it would only stretch to a flat with very little outside space (if any). Many flats seemed to be above a lower floor that was given over to storage. Some had converted that floor to living space, but those rooms were always height restricted and we are tall. Still, we were becoming more and more convinced that we would come back to Lucca the following year and continue looking for somewhere in the city. We felt very much at home in Lucca and it has so much to offer.

Then, about three weeks in to our trip, we went to look at a large old farm house about 20 minutes drive out of Lucca and everything changed.

We had a wonderful holiday revisiting parts of Tuscany we knew well and discovering places we’d never visited before. Of course we went to Bagni di Lucca and up to Benabbio to take a look at the house we had enjoyed so much in our twenties.

We also got to know Lucca so much better and both became convinced that this was the right area to focus future searches on. It’s so beautiful and full of history and culture.

We kept returning to Monte Carlo. The village was stunning and the food was excellent.

Life just seemed more normal than back home. Perhaps a touch too normal.

The apartment we had rented was a disaster! The idea was great: an apartment just outside the city walls so we could easily walk in to the hustle and bustle but have a peaceful place to stay. Peaceful my arse. We did not realise till we got there how close it was to the busy main road round the ramparts. It was so noisy we had to keep all the windows closed (and then needed noisy fans to keep cool) and we could not enjoy the outside space. There was a pond in the garden resulting in a veritable plague of biting insects which added to our misery.

We stuck with it for a few days as we’d paid for the whole stay up front, but in the end we decided we had to abandon ship if we were to salvage the holiday. We found another apartment one road back from the main ring road and it was like night and day. Disaster averted.

We made a fabulous choice of base for our holiday and search. Lucca is a beautiful and friendly city with ancient ramparts all the way round. We got reacquainted with the city and fell in love with it. We took regular walks on the ramparts which were most magical in the early evening when the sun was low and warm and golden.

I think we may have had a unique experience of Lucca in that summer as there were far fewer tourists than usual.

The gods smiled on us and we could stick to our plans. We loaded up the car and headed for Dover.

It felt liberating and exciting to be on the ferry heading for Europe.

The ferry was called Spirit of Britain which felt uncomfortably BREXIT like. The fact that the UK was leaving the EU would restrict future visits to the home we were off to find. Not the worst impact of BREXIT I’m sure, but a personal one.

Once we got to the mainland, we drove to Lucca in three days stopping off in Épernay (grand but rather soulless) and Annecy (beautiful by the lake).

Goodness me. The French motorway tolls were not cheap and the Mont Blanc tunnel from France to Italy was extortionate. We decided we’d try to go via Germany on the way back as their motorways are toll free.

As the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic receded, we made plans to visit Tuscany for a month to start the search for an Italian holiday home. This was to be the first of a number of trips to different regions of northern Italy as we wanted to look at a few areas with a view to narrowing down the scope of our search when it came to buying at a future date.

We chose to start in Tuscany and base ourselves in Lucca as we had visited before and it seemed like a good base for exploring. When we were in our 20s, Martin’s parents had a house near Bagni di Lucca which we visited a few times. While we were pretty sure we wanted to buy somewhere a little less off the beaten track, we felt that Lucca would be a great starting point.

We had no intention to buy on this trip. In fact, we would only have the funds to do that once Martin’s pension kicked in when he got to 60 in June 2021. This trip was just to take the first steps in realising our dream of a second home in Italy by firming up what it was that we were looking for and where to concentrate future searches.

So we booked an Airbnb just outside the city walls of Lucca, the outbound and return ferries and a couple of hotels to break up the car journey. We made the bookings in mid-July for a trip from 24 August to 21 September. We knew there was a fair chance we’d have to cancel as there was no way to be certain of any plans at that time. Still, we took a punt and it paid off.