The best way to see the Langhe
Updated: March 2017 For all the Langhe’s wonder and beauty, it’s got one big downside (from an aspiring but unfit cyclist’s perspective at least)… hills. Big, long, steep hills. The […]
Tag Archives: Piemonte
No snow? Try Carnevale!
This month’s Blogging Piemonte Group theme is Carnevale. Now I have a small confession to make before I get started… Carnevale is not something that has ever interested me. In […]
That was 2015
2015. It’s been, erm… well, it’s been a year. It’s safe to say there have been some ups and downs, so many in fact that this feels more like a […]
Check out the house!
So, this is it. The house is done and ready for guests! Don’t fret though, this blog is going nowhere, there will still be plenty of stories about our adventures […]
Welcome to troll town!
We’ve finally hit the big time… we have not just one, but two facebook trolls. I didn’t realise sympathetically renovating an old house could incite such hatred, but I guess […]
How to become authentically Piemontese in five easy steps
I’ve joined a blogging group, #Blogging Piemonte. They gave me no choice. A group of women can be really very persuasive. Every month we’ll all write something on the same topic, […]
The big idea
For the last two years I’ve rambled on about the Langhe, wine, food, renovations and falling over. What I haven’t ever really talked about is our plan. Why we’re here. […]
First night: Take Two
Two years ago, almost to the day, we spent our first night in our big, scary new house in the Italian countryside (you can read about it here). It was […]
What a week!
Who needs words when you’ve got photos… Instead of rambling on, I thought I’d just share a few images from the past week here in snowy, sunny, occasionally rainy, but always […]
Snowmageddon
It’s been an interesting week… Last Tuesday it started snowing and it just didn’t stop. By Wednesday afternoon we were well and truly snowed in and by Thursday morning we […]
The Langhe staycation
These past three weeks we’ve taken something of a holiday – a staycation if you will – as we’ve welcomed a constant succession of visitors, all eager to get stuck […]
Surprises of the good kind
As you’d expect, most of the surprises we’ve stumbled across so far during the renovation have been of the relatively bad kind… supporting walls that don’t exist, rotten beams, snakes […]
11 steps to buying your dream home in Italy
Sorry to break it to you, but it’s nearly the end of the year. Which means it’s time for people to start dreaming about new starts and fresh beginnings… just […]
Quanto Costa?
Every couple of days our Geometra, A, comes up to us, grinning from ear to ear. “Ho un’idea!” he says excitedly. We listen to this idea of his, and it’s […]
The great escape
I’ll start with the good news (although actually it’s all good news): the problems with the back wall of the house are not as bad as first feared. It’s still going […]
All that glistens isn’t concrete
It had to happen eventually. After five months of relatively pain-free renovating we’ve finally hit a bump in the road. Or, more accurately, a huge hole in the road. I’ll […]
Alba’s Palio degli Asini
There are few things more Italian than a Palio; A city’s borghi, or boroughs, competing against each other in a winner-takes-all bareback horse race around the piazza, the only prize […]
The day of rest (and Barolo…)
Why did nobody tell me that Living the Dream would be such hard work? I had visions of days spent mountain biking through the vineyards and evenings passed sipping G&T […]
Renovation update: The roof is finished!
So, phase one of our build is complete. Or at least it would be if we were professional enough to have split it into phases. What I’m trying to say […]
The good, the bad and the Italy
There’s this thing about Italy… it likes to build you up, show you how amazing it is, makes you think that everything is good in the world and then, just […]
Langhe makes the list
A couple of weeks ago, we received some rather good news… the Langhe, or large swathes of it at least, has been named Italy’s 50th UNESCO World Heritage Site. Now, […]
And so it begins…
After months and months of waiting, work has finally started on the house and suddenly things are really moving fast. At ground level, the existing concrete floors have all been […]
Food glorious food
The Langhe is a food lover’s paradise. It’s the home of the international Slow Food movement, the land of the white truffle, even Nutella comes from here, need I say […]
Barbaresco or Barolo
As all you wine aficionados know, Novello (where we live) is in the Barolo zone; a group of 11 villages which is able to take its finest Nebbiolo grapes and […]
The story so far: Part 3
As you might expect, buying a house in Italy is very different to buying a house in the UK. As you might not expect, the whole process is actually considerably more straightforward in […]
The story so far: Part 2
Having decided we were definitely moving to Piemonte, a region in which we’d spent just three days between us, we thought we’d probably best leave Google alone for a bit and actually […]
The story so far: Part 1
Last week, we celebrated the anniversary of buying our house here in the Langhe. Actually, celebrated probably isn’t quite the right word… we noticed it had been one year since […]
Knowing Novello
It’s not easy growing up in the shadow of a famous brother. Ever heard of Doug Pitt? Nicholas Cowell? Gesine Bullock? Nope. Thought not. That doesn’t mean they haven’t achieved […]
Renovating reality
Big news… we have a date for the renovations to start: April 1st. April Fool’s Day. There’s a joke in there somewhere. It’s taken almost a year of planning, quoting, […]
Congratulations, it’s an Italian!
So, fate and a lax attitude to family planning have combined to leave you expecting a baby in Italy. Here, with the help of my lovely wife, Allegra, is what […]
Back to the build
Feed, burp, sleep, cry, change, feed, burp, sleep, repeat. Parenthood is pretty rock and roll. Our little Italian bundle of poop and puke (who is awesome by the way) has […]
Looking Back
It’s the end of the year. Time to look back at what I’ve learnt over the past 12 months before setting some frankly impossible targets for the year ahead. The […]
A Year in the Langhe
We’ve had an amazing time this year.. in fact, words can’t really do it justice. Instead, I thought I’d post a few photos that, to me at least, sum up […]
A first time for everything
Someone who clearly knows what they’re talking about once said you should try to do something new every day. It’s a nice sentiment, one I’d love to live by, but […]
Goodbye autumn, bring on the winter!
It’s been a while since I last wrote anything. So long, in fact, that we’re now in an entirely different season. Everything was autumnal back then. The vines were changing […]
The Italians are coming: Part 2
I’m not a very adventurous eater. I once ate turtle, but only because someone told me it was beef. And then of course there was Wontongate, where I was viciously […]
Piemonte in autumn
I got up early this morning. That’s right, pre-8am! And for the first time in my life it was because I wanted to, not because I had to. My new […]
The Italians are coming!
Not a phrase that has instilled fear into too many people over the years, granted, but right now I’m terrified. My wife’s cousins are on their way, eight of them, […]
People power
The more astute among you (who am I kidding…) might have noticed that I was slightly angry when I wrote my last post. I hid it well I think, but […]
This blog is not a blog
As you’ve no doubt all noticed, it’s been about a month since I last blogged. We’ve done a lot in that time, there’s loads of things I could write about, […]
Not quite living the dream
Autumn is an exciting time of year here in the Langhe. For a start, it’s harvest time and everyone is talking about how good this year is going to be. […]
Let’s go up that one…
A couple of weeks ago (before the Emmental Bandits made away with my camera), a friend and I hatched a plan to walk up a mountain. We had no maps […]
The Night of the Emmental Bandits (aka The Photoless Blog)
We had a great night out on Saturday. It was Novellando, Novello’s answer to Mangialonga. Basically, a stroll around the village, with seven stops for food and wine, a live […]
Really Renovating Italy
My wife is one of those people who like to furnish themselves with all available information before doing anything. She is most definitely not one for surprises. Right now, she’s […]
24 hours in the Langhe
The Langhe is all about food and wine. Sure, you can go for nice walks and bike rides, admire the incredible scenery, check out the hilltop villages, the churches and […]
An appointment with the Italian health system
Italians are a poorly bunch. The slightest breath of wind can lead to three days of bed rest, air conditioning can cause pneumonia and an overly-chilled drink can kill a […]
Permission Granted
I come bearing good news… as you may have guessed from the title of this post, we have just received planning permission for our renovation.
Eight things to love about Piemonte
Between AWOL geometras, pointless planning committees and a frankly incomprehensible health service, Italy has been giving us a tough time of late. In various fits of frustration, I’ve made a […]
Meeting the neighbours
I think we might be bad neighbours. Not like Channel 5 documentary bad, we’re not “From Hell” or “Who Kill”, we’re just not very good. We don’t do neighbourly things. […]
Italian planning controls: Playing the game
It’s just dawned on me that I’m supposed to be blogging about renovating a house. I’ve written a bit about gardening, some stuff about falling over and breaking things and […]
