tonyntasha

Hi Just wondered if there were any expats living in Umbria? seems to be lots of folk from Lucca, florence and other major cities?

jnalvaro

Hi there,

I am also new to Umbria. I just moved to Perugia in September with my husband (he has a family home here).

I also am having difficulty finding any other english-speakers. So far, no luck.

Well, I hope your first year in Citta' di Castello is going well for you and your children and who knows, perhaps we can meet up sometime.

Jean-Nicole

tonyntasha

Hi Jean Nicole!
Nice to hear from you! we have had a great year here in Umbria and made many new friends, mostly Italians but also some english either living here or owners of holiday homes! how are you finding it? what are you doing for work here? we have just started a little export company selling olive oil and truffle products back to the UK and I am about to begin a mountain leaders course so that I can run walking and biking tours here! though it will take some time to be fully qualified I will be able to run walks from the spring, there are so many wonderfull places to see and the walking is incredibly stunning!

My wife has just returned to the UK to spend a week with her sister who has just had a baby, so I am looking after the kids on my own for a week!! scarey!! maybe when she returns we could meet for a coffee in Perugia? we go quite a lot and we think it is a beutifull place, it has a little more going on than Citta di Castello, though we have noticed that most towns have much more happening throughout the year than any English town!!

Drop me a line if you fancy meeting up with us for coffee in a week or two?

Ciao!

Tony

jnalvaro

Hi Tony,

Glad to see you've found your way here in Italy. It's definitely not easy, so congrats.

My husband and I have an agritourism where we make our own extra-virgin olive oil and red wine (cab. sauv. and merlot). we also rent out 2 vacation apartments on our property.

In fact, as I'm sure you already know, this is olive harvesting season. So although my husband works as a mechanical engineer, he is also running our mill in the evenings. And on the weekends we pick the olives as well as mill in the evenings. So for him it's quite a lot.

As I don't have a job yet, I'm enjoying the picking on the weekends. It's my first time. Although it's hard work, it's very satisfying, especially because I get to reap the fruits of my labor!!!

It's interesting that you export olive oil. What a coincidence! We are looking for buyers in fact. Perhaps when we meet up that's something we could discuss.

So yea, I would love to meet up in Perugia with our better halves.

Keep me posted as to when your wife comes back.

In the meantime, do you have some sort of link to your export business?

Here's the link to ours (keep in mind it needs a major overhaul and the english translation is still under construction).

Snip, please read rule 9 at the bottom of every page.

Have a great day and good luck looking after the kids on your own. yikes!! heheheh

J.N.

tonyntasha

Hi,
Wow! what a handfull!! it all sounds like a lot of hard work but I am sure it gives a great sense of achievement when you get everything done and people have a great time at your place, Agritourismo was one of the things we thought about doing but decided we probably werent capable or knowledgable enough to do it properly!! However as I said I am going to do a mountain leader course in the new year so maybe we could link up and offer your guests guided hill walking??

we dont yet have a site for the export business, though we have just heard today that we have a very good chance of getting some of our products into one of the major UK retailers shops!! great news for us as it makes the delivery much simpler to handle!!
though it will be on a small scale to start with but should get more products in later next year...oil will be one of those products, so would certainly like to taste your oil with a view to helping you sell some! perhaps for next years harvest eh?

Kids being exceptionally well behaved...very odd!! i am expecting some rougher days over the next week, they are usually pretty good kids most of the time, but neverthless I will be glad when Natasha returns next wednesday!!

Let me know when you are both around the following week and I am sure we could meet up?

best of luck with the harvest!

Tony

tonyntasha

Hi Jean Nicole!
Been a busy time for us so not been in touch! how are things going with you and your family? hope all is well?
still working on the export business, but the credit crunch seems to be having an adverse effect!!!

drop us a line if you fancy a coffee? or we are going to a jazz night on the 24th if you fancy it get in touch and i can send you the details. Its a friend of ours who is english and married to an italian guy who plays great jazz...not a great fan of jazz normally but his stuff is really good!!

Ciao
Tony

jnalvaro

hey there!

we're doing pretty good thanks.

i was actually back home in the States for 6 weeks. So that was really nice. But now I'm back here and trying to kick off the season for our vacation apartments, but like you mentioned, it looks like it's gonna be a very slow season.

i noticed you said there was an evening of jazz on the 24th. we are also not fans of jazz in general. but hey, maybe your friend's husband will change our minds. hehe.

we'd love to meet up. so when you get a chance, it'd be great if you can send me the details.

in the meantime, hope you guys are keeping warm and healthy.

jean-nicole

asik

Hi tonyntasha,

You mention a mountain leader course in one of your older posts. I am thinking of doing something like that but in Abruzzo. How is it going? How long does it take to qualify?

Thank you.