Buying property in Italy Archives

My Perfect Italy

Casa Pace e Gioia, Tolentino Italy — Casa Pace e Gioia in le Marche, Italy

In Italy, my name is Erica. Italian for heather, it’s easier for Italians to pronounce. I am zero percent Italian but feel at least 50% using an alternate name.

I last left our vacation rental home, Casa Pace e Gioia in le Marche, Italy on February 2, 2020, just as Covid began devastating the country, the first hotspot outside of China. Apprehension filled the airport. The check-in agent, seeing our Chinese visas asked when my husband Matt and I had last traveled to China. She took our temperatures and cleared us to travel home to the U.S. But I felt like I was leaving home.

In 2018 after we bought the house in Italy, I was seated on a plane next to an Italian woman who was born in Milan but now lived in Rome. She asked me what I loved about Italy in general and le Marche in particular.

I started with the pace of life. Italians work to live, not live to work. It’s a relaxing backdrop. Then the food, so fresh and buonissimo; the landscape, so varied and jaw-dropping gorgeous; the art, the abundance of it and the cultural importance it holds; the people, their kind hospitality and patience; the light, shimmering and ever-changing. She nodded in understanding.

Then I told her about the first-century ruins that we drive past on SP78, just a few minutes from our house. The atmosphere of history is thick there. The castle that overlooks the piazza in Urbisaglia. The city walls in San Ginesio. How every time I drive or walk through a city gate, I feel like I’m stepping into a rich and storied past.

She shook her head. “Funny, those things are boring to me. We’re so used to ruins, we walk by them every day, we’ve seen them our whole lives.”

“I am surprised that you chose the Marche,” she said. “Not many international tourists go there. Tuscany is more popular.” I nodded. Yes, exactly. And we found a home with a view of the Sibillini mountains and two medieval walled towns, and 10 minutes from a city that we reach by driving over a one-lane bridge from the 13^th century.

The view of Colmurano from Casa Pace e Gioia

The Marche found us because I had seen an ad for a house and we flew to see it, then we bought it. But what I ended up finding in the Marche is my perfect Italy. The regional foods here are my favorites: fresh seafood from the Adriatic, pork, truffles, wild boar, spreadable sausage, stuffed and fried olives! I even like cicoria, the ubiquitous plant that grows in between our grapevines and is picked by foragers. I watch the clouds roll past the Sibillini mountains from my hanging chair. Notable artworks from every era are displayed in museums and churches that we can visit without crowds. The nearby village of Ripe San Ginesio is filled with outdoor sculptures, an open-air gallery. And I’ve learned not to wait to take a picture because the light changes so quickly.

But the people here make the Marche home to me. The guy working on our house who, after seeing Matt cut wood for our stove with a hand saw, brought his chainsaw and made quick work of a huge pile. Our neighbor who, when I asked him where we can buy farm fresh eggs, handed us a dozen of his. Another who shares her flowers, plants, and figs. The friends we made at a wine dinner, one of whom, upon learning that I’m not Italian, tells me “you are one hundred percent Italian in your heart.”

The view of the Sibillini Mountain from Casa Pace e Gioia

I am, for the foreseeable future, 5,193 miles away from our Italian home. Instagram unhelpfully reminds me of the distance when I post to our house account. But my friends there write me: “Erica, ti aspettiamo a braccia aperte e con il sorriso.” Erica, we wait for you with open arms and with a smile.

Non vedo l’ora is one of the first Italian idioms I learned. It means I can’t wait!

Le Marche’s Soundtrack

“We have no earlids.”

North Valley view from Casa Pace e Gioia

I read that sentence in two different sources, in a week during which I had suffered recurrent auditory assaults. Our Florida home is near a freeway and the steady whir of traffic is my soundtrack. In a fit of collusion, our neighbors took advantage of the clear weather that week to use power generators, concrete pumpers, weed-whackers, pressure washers, skid steers, and chainsaws.

We can’t close our ears against noise as we shut our eyes to avert witnessing something, or plug our noises to avoid unpleasant smells. For those of us lucky to be hearing-abled, our only defense against audible onslaughts is deep sleep or good headphones, which might explain why so many people wear them as an accessory now. They’re replacing unwanted noises with chosen sounds.

In a way that’s what I do when I go to our Italian home, Casa Pace e Gioia, in the countryside hills of Le Marche. Even though our house is close to a road, it’s not often traveled and I can predict who’s driving by the sound. The cowbells that jingle across the valley bring me comfort. The woodpecker’s tap-tap-tapping each morning nudges me awake. Unfamiliar birds chirp as they flit about, a new soundtrack to learn.

I had been taking pictures, crouched down in our grapevines, when I heard an animalistic, metallic sound. I stood up and surveyed the area. Nothing. No stray fox or cat or deer, all of which I have seen among the vines. I bent down and heard it again. Above my head large grapevine leaves flapped in the wind. Grapevine leaves make sounds?

Without the whine of an air conditioner, we sleep with the windows open. Dogs near and far bark in an animated discussion I do not understand. Rhythmic beeps we originally thought were hunter’s beacons became Scops owls, calling as they hunt. An unidentified animal that shrieks in the night we now recognize as a little owl.

As I hang laundry on the clothesline one morning, Colmurano’s church bells chime eight times. I always count, then check my watch, as if to audit their timekeeping. But the bells give me a pause to be present. The wind hasn’t picked up yet; my pinwheel is silent and motionless. The farmer’s tractor whines by, an empty trailer clangs behind. He takes a left at the bottom of the hill, then ascends it to collect the alfalfa bales that had been sitting like monopoly houses in the empty field.

One of our guests had left a pair of headphones at the house. “I don’t know why I took noise-cancelling headphones to the Marche,” he wrote me, “there’s no noise to cancel.” He’s right, there isn’t noise. In Le Marche we appreciate peaceful sounds.

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Italians do Garbage Better

Two weeks after we bought our Italian farmhouse my husband Matt and I were still trying to understand how the garbage worked. This is doubly embarrassing because in Italy we generate much less waste than we do in the United States. Italians use less packaging, they do not sell items in bulk, and reusable bags are the norm when shopping. If you forget your reusable bags, you have to buy plastic or paper ones, or try to carry your purchases without dropping anything.

During our walk-through of the house, the sellers briefly explained that the garbage was color-coded. Glass went into the tall green container at the garbage collection bin 800 meters up the hill. Paper and cardboard, when it was not burned in the stove, went into a paper bag. Plastics and metal recyclables went in blue bags. Everything else went in yellow bags. Free bags were available at the old service station down the road that has beads hanging in the doorway.

We recycle avidly at home in Florida so raccolta differenziata rifiuti (waste sorting) seemed easy enough. We put our food waste in the required biodegradable plastic bags that we quickly learned ripped to shreds. Every day we took a triple-layered bag to the bin so it would not stink up the house or attract bugs. Every day we would see them, piling up in the bin, right where we had put them.

We share the garbage bin with about 6 other families and we were concerned that our unusually large new-house trash might cause trouble with our new neighbors. The first week, our yellow bags in particular piled up and filled the bin.

In searching the web to find out what exactly could go in the blue bags, I discovered that the garbage guys collected certain bags on certain days. Yellow bags and paper are only picked up on Mondays and Thursdays respectively. Blue bags are taken Wednesdays and Saturdays. The handy graphic said nothing about the biodegradable sacks that still sat there degrading at the bottom of the bin.

Giuseppe our farmer-neighbor-friend came over and I showed him the website that I had bookmarked on my laptop. He looked at it and nodded. I asked him when they pick up the bio bags. He shook his head. “In the country, they don’t collect the bio bags.” He waved his hand around. “They expect farmers to compost it.”

The garbage guys finally took our bio bags. That or some wild animal got into them. Either way, they finally disappeared. We starting composting our bio bags or dropping them in a designated container on our drive into town. Using raccolta differenziata, our city of Tolentino recycles 74% of its waste. Figures are updated monthly and published online. In contrast, our county in Florida recycles less than 2% of its waste.

We now stockpile our trash and drive it up the night before our appointed day. We still don’t know what day glass is gathered but we know that one of neighbors likes Moretti beer on the weekends. We don’t judge because they know we like our wine.

See a map of the area here.

If you’d like updates on the opening of our vacation home Casa Pace e Gioia, click here.

Owning a Little Piece of Italy

I saw the house advertised in a magazine about Italy. Restored country home on eight acres with olive trees and grapevines. Recently reduced in price by one-third. Stunning views of the Sibillini Mountains and hilltop towns. Four bedrooms, four bathrooms, 2500 square feet, comes furnished. Restorable ruins on the property and room to add a pool. I showed it to my husband Matt. “What’s the catch?” He asked. “There has to be something wrong with it for that price.”

Kevin, the real estate agency owner, emailed the GPS coordinates, floor plans, photos, and the estimated fees and taxes. Two prior sales had fallen through and the British couple that owned it was ready to sell. “By far, it is the best value on my website,” he wrote in one of his many replies to our questions. He mentioned that the neighbor’s dogs sleep in the road that the house was built curiously close to.

View of the house through vines and olive grove

We arranged a trip to see the house and explore Le Marche in February. I had dreamed about having a home in Italy and this house checked all of my boxes. Our original plan had been to fall in love with an area, rent a place for a couple of weeks every year until we could retire. By then, we would get to know the locals and hear about a great opportunity. The night before we departed for Italy, my fortune cookie said: “Don’t be afraid to take a chance when the opportunity of a lifetime appears.”

We visited six other properties before arriving at the one we had traveled 5,000 miles to see. I got out of Kevin’s car and got the goose bumps. It wasn’t from the view. Thick heavy clouds in the grey sky portended rain and obscured the hilltop towns and the Sibillini Mountains. My feet, standing on the gravel driveway, felt connected to the earth in a way they never had.

The interior looked better than the pictures. We loved the wood-beam ceilings, the open floor plan, the many windows. Mild humidity damage in the walls was easily fixable for €2,000. Matt and I returned to see the exterior over the weekend. Two dogs slept undisturbed on the road, no cars passed by to disturb them. We walked through the house again Monday morning and I emailed our offer at lunch. It was accepted that evening.

Before we flew home, we met with our English-speaking lawyer Fabio. With one signature and a photocopy of our passports, he would obtain our codice fiscale, the identification number required to do almost anything in Italy. He would open a bank account for us across the street from his office. He would draft our compromesso, the binding contract written in English and Italian, signed by the sellers and the buyers.

While we had pre-qualified for an Italian mortgage, Kevin had told us “avoiding the mortgage would really help,” and Fabio described a mortgage as “a really big headache.” Thankfully, the day after we returned from Italy we sold our Florida rental property.

The weak dollar was hurting us, with €100 equal to $123 at the time. I obsessed about the exchange rate. I checked it on my phone, (even adding a widget), watched for market fluctuations, and created accounts with four registered currency exchange providers to see which one had the best deal for our situation.

Traditional Le Marche farmhouse exterior stairs

One month later Fabio watched on Skype as we signed the compromesso the required 52 times. We wired a deposit directly to the sellers. We would send the balance to the notaio, the public official responsible for property sales, prior to signing the deed. Fabio said, “Next time you come to Italy, you will own a little piece of it.”

Read my introduction to Le Marche here.
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See a map of the area here.

Aperitivi in Urbisaglia

It was dark the first time we went to Urbisaglia, a partially walled hilltop town. My husband Matt and I walked toward the piazza, following dubious GPS coordinates. To our left a tall round tower was illuminated. I deviated down the side street to approach it. Behind it loomed a massive castle.

We couldn’t stay. We had dinner reservations—as it turns out, down the hill on the main highway. The enchanting village of Urbisaglia would have to wait.

Urbs Salvia was an important Roman city, likely founded in the first century BC at the crossroads of two major routes that spanned the region. Roman walls still stand guard along the main highway at the bottom of the hill, now an archeological park. Remarkably preserved ruins include temples, a theater, and an amphitheater that held gladiatorial events. Every summer, actors perform classical plays in the amphitheater.

The Amphitheater at the Parco Archeologico

The Visigoths destroyed Urbs Salvia in 409 AD, and the citizens fled up the hill for safety. The lower city’s prosperity was preserved under a landslide for future discovery. Dante writes about Urbisaglia’s demise in Paradiso: “…Seeing that even cities have an end.”

The castle on the top of the hill was finished in 1507, built on the site of ancient Roman remnants and hints of a twelfth century fortification. It is an asymmetrical trapezoid with four towers at the corners. We had passed the largest one.

Built by the city of Tolentino, who ruled Urbisaglia at the time, the castle’s layout was designed to not only defend against outside threats, but also to repress internal rebellion from the resentful citizens of Urbisaglia who wanted autonomy. They would not obtain it until 1569.

Called La Rocca, the castle overshadows the city’s main Piazza Garibaldi. An adjacent church faces the piazza. On the opposite side is a bakery we go to for an aperitivo. Matt always orders a spritz. He says the guy there makes a good one. I always order a prosecco. We sit outside, always at the same table, the one closest to the church. It’s become “ours.”

Waiting for my drink, I go to the cash machine across the street to my right. It’s molasses slow but reliable. The pharmacy, a post office, and a clothing store are on the left side of the piazza. A good restaurant is down the block. A gelateria and another bar is on our walk back to the car.

The waiter carries our drinks with the reverence of an offering plate. Or it could be that he does not want my prosecco to tip over. His tray is laden with small pizza triangles, focaccia rectangles, potato chips, olives, peanuts, and breads of all sorts. I picture him looking at what he has on hand and deciding what freshly baked goods we should try this time. He plates it just so. It’s his work. That and Italians never drink alcohol without food.

We arrive after school is out and before dinner starts. We can smell it cooking. Young kids play soccer in the square. They make up rules Matt understands and he explains them to me. The ball hits the church frequently. It flies our way often. Once, the ball hit the bakery’s facade and I thought the door would break. One time, the ball went through the open door and into the store.

Men gather and talk politics. I try not to eavesdrop but pick up helpful phrases. Mothers arrive, yelling “ragazzi, ragazzi,” to collect their children. One evening a woman apologized to me (in Italian!) for the noise. I replied that it was fun for us. At least that’s what I hope I said.

A grandmother and her cat peered out from a balcony window in the same pose and I could not bring myself to raise my camera. It would intrude. I realize now I have no pictures of this piazza, our favorite aperitivo place. In Urbisaglia, despite my huge camera, I am not a turista. I am a non-local.

Our country house is technically under Tolentino’s jurisdiction, although we are equidistantly 15 minutes from Urbisaglia and Tolentino. We do our shopping and business in the higher-populated Tolentino. But Urbisaglia is where we relax under the fortress that protected a city worth fighting for.

See a map of the region here.
Read my prior story about Le Marche’s Small Town Treasures here.
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Small-town Treasures Found in Le Marche

San Ginesio is a fortified hilltop town and is named one of the borghi più belli d’Italia, (the most beautiful villages in Italy). At the bar in the piazza there, my husband Matt ordered us sandwiches and wine for lunch. I was emailing our real estate agent Kevin our offer to buy the house that we had traveled to see. We had left him less than fifteen minutes prior at the main city gate.

Kevin had told us that San Ginesio was hit hard by the earthquakes that struck the region in the fall of 2016. The clock on the tall tower in San Ginesio’s piazza was stuck at 7:29. The Collegiata church, a treasure of the city since 1098, was braced with steel bars and fenced-off, closed for repairs. It is said that Charlemagne’s parents, King Pipin the Short and his wife Bertrada are entombed just inside the entrance.

The florist across the church was open. Flowers and plants spilled out into the walkway, a display of undaunted beauty. The heat of the February sun was an antidote to the cold.

Part of its accessible charm, Le Marche has no large cities. Its many cultural, historical, gastronomical, and natural gems are spread throughout the region, scattered like Carnevale confetti. Ancona, the Adriatic port transportation center and capital of the region tops population lists with about 100,000 inhabitants. Yet only one in four of all municipalities in Le Marche have more than 5,000 residents.

You might think that all of these beautiful-medieval-walled-hilltop towns look alike. That they are nondescript, that they would blur into each other after seeing maybe, two. You might think they are tourist traps filled with souvenir shops. That they are contrived for our visiting benefit. You would be mistaken.

Not far from San Ginesio (pop. 1500), the ‘balcony of the Sibillini Mountains,’ with its enviable views, is Ripe San Ginesio (pop. 800). A jewel box of a village with public sculptures displayed everywhere. It even has a huge chessboard with tiered seating and panoramic vistas over the valley, should your attention wander from the match.

Amandola (pop. 3500), to the south and west, another gateway to the Sibillini, is a labyrinth of narrow zig-zags up a steep hill. Through the city gate barely wide enough for a Fiat 500, the lovely piazza is above a church reached by descending steps. Too cold to try the local gelato, at a gourmet shop just inside the city gate we sampled, then bought, local cheeses (one aged in a cave), truffles (a local speciality), and wines (at bargain prices).

The Marchigiani themselves voted the Piazza del Popolo in Ascoli Piceno as the most beautiful of the piazze in Le Marche. With 49,200 residents, Ascoli Piceno is the fourth-largest city in the Marche, but retains a small-town feel. Two football (soccer) nets stood on opposite ends of the large piazza and children were playing. Decorations hung overhead to celebrate the upcoming Carnevale. Made of shimmering travertine, the piazza is fronted by a church, cloisters, and Caffè Meletti, justifiably famous for its anise liquor made on site (really good in coffee). Every August, Ascoli Piceno holds a medieval reenactment festival and a jousting tournament in the piazza.

Tolentino (pop. 20,000), along the Chienti River, was a settlement of the Picenes who came to Le Marche in the early Iron Age (ninth-century BC) after being guided here by a woodpecker (picus in Latin). Accessed by a 13^thcentury, one-lane bridge (yes it’s scary) called Ponte del Diavolo (Devil’s bridge), Tolentino is a town with intact fortifications, a continuing heritage of pilgrimage visitors, and a thriving leather making industry.

Tolentino’s clock tower is worth driving over the bridge for.On the north side of Piazza Libertà, the 16^thcentury bell tower of the church of San Francesco has five elements. The top circle indicates the moon phase, the second shows the hours for prayers, the third gives the time, the fourth the day and the month, and barely visible at the bottom is a solar meridian line.

Loro Piceno (pop. 2400) is perched on a hill and dominated by a Norman castle with a large shaded park. Loro, as it is commonly referred to, is known for its Vin Cotto, cooked wine, made by heating it to concentrate the flavor and is often served for dessert. (Or with dessert, it’s that good, and no one will judge you.)

We returned to San Ginesio three months later, in May. We had closed on the house and went to the weekly market there. Our bag of potatoes, onions, and peppers was only €0.80. Matt brought our haul down to the car and we walked up to the piazza, to where it all started. The church was still boarded up behind the chain-link fence. But this time, the clock accurately displayed 12:35.

See a map of the region with the cities mentioned click here.
Read my prior story about Le Marche and its founding myths click here.
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Finding Hidden Italy in Le Marche

A founding legend of Italy’s Le Marche region says that in the early Iron Age (Ninth century BC), a group of the Italic Sabines headed west, over the Apennine mountains. They were part of an ancient ritual, ver sacrum, or sacred spring, whereby all the babies born in the spring after a year of hardship were consecrated to the god of Mars. As children, they lived under Mars’ protection as sacrani. When they reached adulthood, they were sent away from their community to establish a new one elsewhere, guided by a spirit animal sacred to Mars. Strabo tells us that a woodpecker (picus in Latin) guided these sacrani to their new destiny in southern Marche.

Another legend relates that some Pelasgians, ancient Greeks, coming from the North, asked Mars to give them a sign after not finding a suitable place to stay. A woodpecker appeared. Following it, they were led to a fertile place to settle in Le Marche.

Le Marche, the Italian plural word for the Marches, means borderlands, and served as a buffer zone between the Papal States and their northern neighbors. This diverse area bordered by the Apennine mountains, Umbria and Tuscany to the West; the Adriatic to the East; Emilia-Romagna to the North; and Abruzzo to the South, is worth seeking out.

Medieval hilltop towns overlook the rolling countryside of patchwork farms and woods. A heritage of high-quality craftsmanship permeates the area known for its ironwork; shoe manufacturing, (Tod’s is headquartered here); and papermaking, (Euro bank notes are printed in Fabriano); to mention but a few. Twenty-five villages have been designated as borghi più belli d’Italia, (the most beautiful villages in Italy) and host frequent festivals and reenactments.

Le Marche has fewer tourists, friendly locals, 400 museums, 200 Romanesque churches, 150 castles, and 33 archeological sites. Ten percent of the territory is protected as parks and preserves. Excellent local meats, seafood, cheeses, pastas, produce, truffles, and wines add to the allure.

A complicated history; competing and changing loyalties; mountainous terrain; rivers that challenged north-south travel; a tenant farming culture that encouraged independence; and ingrained humility; all combine to make Le Marche today: Italy’s best-kept secret.

My husband Matt and I went in off-off-season February. We were not there to visit Urbino, the UNESCO World Heritage Renaissance city in northern Marche, or to swim in the dazzling Adriatic, or to hike in the mountains. We had planned to do all of that in the spring but pushed up our trip because I had seen an ad for a restored farmhouse on eight acres at a reasonable price and we wanted to see it.

Savvy travelers rent vacation homes in Le Marche lured by the peaceful countryside, relaxing atmosphere, and incredible views. We prequalified for an Italian mortgage in case we found a home that we could enjoy in our spare time and rent out to visitors.

Online pictures of Le Marche showed impossible blue skies, paper-white clouds, and vibrant sunflowers. I assumed they had been photoshopped. Thick gray clouds threatened rain as we drove the two-and-a half hours from Rome to our Airbnb in Loro Piceno in south-central Marche.

Below us, wispy fog wafted in the valley. On either side, sloping squares of green and brown fields were bordered by olive trees. Smoke curled upwards from chimneys. A neighbor’s dog barked occasionally. Magpies darted about, landing on nearby trees. The cold, clean air carried the promise of the nearby Adriatic.

During our week in Le Marche we encountered no other tourists. We found generous residents, resilient and recovering from three earthquakes that struck the region in 2016. We found hilltop villages with medieval secrets. We found an almost reverential respect for the environment. We found ancient Roman ruins right by the main road. We found honest, delicious food and unpretentious wines at affordable prices. We found warm welcomes. The guys at Saputi, a winery where we showed up unannounced, who made us sandwiches and taught us about local wines. Gabriele at Osteria Scherzi a Parte who made an international toast to us with his entire restaurant. Palmira at Ristorante Casa Mia who, after a four-hour lunch, hugged and kissed us goodbye and ordered us to come back.

Three months later, in early May, we returned to Le Marche. It was almost evening and Matt and I were unpacking in the farmhouse we had initially traveled to see, having bought it earlier that day. We heard a noise from outside. Rhythmic and insistent, almost urgent. I looked out the window. A stubborn woodpecker was pecking away at the eave above our bedroom.