As I write to you today, I am sitting in the summer kitchen of our soon-to-be new home in the medieval village of Tufillo. John and Giacomo are on the upper level finishing some plastering and tomorrow they will continue on the tiling. How did we get from putting our house on the market in May to this point? We have found a house… but not just any house. We found Giacomo’s house.

When I last posted, we had just listed our home in Roccaspinalveti . This was early May and we figured that maybe by mid July or so we would have some interest with serious buyers arriving in Abruzzo for the summer months. We completed our upgrade projects and our curb appeal was at its all-time high, with many of our flowers blooming, especially my roses. John finished painting the house and it glowed. We even buried a statue of St. Joseph in our front yard ;-). We were ready and Abruzzo Rural Property handled the rest. Who would have thought that within two weeks of listing, we would have an offer, and by early June a signed contract.

Our contract gave us a few months leeway to get packed to move… but we needed to find our new home. We knew that we wanted to be closer to my cousins in San Salvo, so we checked out some towns closer to the sea. They appeared too crowded for us with the summer influx of second homeowners and tourists. Also the summer temperatures ran hot and humid. We decided to stay in the mountains but still within 20 minutes of the beach. After visiting a number of different villages, we kept coming back to Tufillo, a small medieval village with so much character and the nicest folks! This town is at the edge of Abruzzo with Molise (the next region south of us) just across the Trigno River. It’s situated on the spine of a ridge, and just a few minutes out of town, there are lots of hiking trails and country roads to be discovered.

Tufillo is a lovely small village inhabited by such big hearted people with a characteristic historic center dating back to the 13th century. The narrow street through the medieval center just captured our hearts, with many stone houses and palaces along the way. The town boasts plenty of amenities; bakery, bar, pharmacy, post office, museum, grocery store, goat cheese maker, library, churches, doctors’ office, weekly market and travelling vendors. I am sure that we will discover more once we are there full-time.

So how did we find this gem of a house? I did the regular route of online sites of a few realtors as well as sites with listings by owners. We viewed a couple of prospective homes in Tufillo but they didn’t meet our criteria. We wanted the size to be about 1/2 of what we had in Rocca, move-in ready, a small garden would be nice, but most of all we wanted a view. I contacted the comune office in Tufillo and was put in contact with the deputy mayor. He was extremely helpful, giving me leads on other houses for sale by owners and answering all my questions. That is how we found Giacomo’s house. And Giacomo. And Giacomo’s family.. a triple blessing.

The house has been a restoration project that reflects the artistic talents and expertise of Giacomo Ottaviano (owner/contractor), but upmost the work is from his heart. And Giacomo has to be one of the nicest men we are blessed to call friend. Patient, understanding, meticulous artist who works his free weekends to finish this house for us, while working very hard at his full-time contractor job. This stone house belonged to his grandmother and he took ownership 10+ years ago. Its exact age of the structure is unknown, due to missing records, but an estimate puts it at 250-300 years old. Giacomo has restored the exterior stonework to its stunning original beauty, with some added modern touches. The inside is all modern, with new utilities and lots of marble and porcelain tiling. John and Giacomo are working diligently to finish all the tiling so we can move in early September. And always, kudos to my husband for his talents. He and Giacomo make a good team. And during all of this, Giacomo’s parents have opened their house and their arms to us, providing lunches for the men hard at work, as well as just some wonderful Sunday lunches for us all to relax, chat and build new friendships.

Leaving Roccaspinalveti isn’t an easy decision, but the pull of family and the sea are calling us. Over the past few years, we came to the realization that we were slowing down…just a little.. and to have a smaller home to care for was in our more immediate future. And as our older cousins are unable to travel to Rocca in their advancing years, it just made good sense for us to cut the drive time so we could visit them more often. We will miss the many wonderful folks of Rocca, but it is not a long drive back to visit. And I am certain we will also return to hike some of the mountain trails.

So we are preparing for this new adventure in Tufillo. It will be a ‘small’ adjustment as I haven’t lived without a garden and some land around me in almost 50 years, but I’m ready. I’ll bring many of my potted plants and flowers and I have lots of trails, fields and woods to hike in just a step away from the house. Our cats, Pierre and Sofie, will have few levels to run up and down as well as a new cat enclosure for the terrace. And once we get settled, travel is definitely in the works. We are already planning a 6 day cammino in Puglia this fall. So the packing of remaining household items continues. The movers will arrive at the end of this month to take our larger pieces of furniture…Oh.. and if you’re wondering, we are taking the statue of St. Joseph to our new house. 😉

Until next time, thank you always for stopping here at my blog to catch up on our adventures…hope you are having a great summer! Look…I got my view 🙂