During his first visit to Tuscany in 1997, Nicholas fell in love with Italy…the beautiful landscapes, its friendly and passionate people, its art and architecture, not to mention of course its food and wine!
From then on he wanted to retire to Italy.
After numerous further holidays in Tuscany, plus a week on the Amalfi Coast, in 2003 Nicholas wanted to see a more ‘real’ Italy, away from the tourist hordes and found in a specialist Italy holiday brochure just 2 pages about a place called “Puglia” in the South, with its strange little “pixies houses”.
The holiday was booked and was fabulous, his “perfect Italy” just got even better. Time spent gazing through estate agents windows (as we all do on holiday!) showed that these fabulous conical houses came with great chunks of land and were cheap, very cheap by UK standards. The dream of retiring to Tuscany at 55 took a severe “knock”…he could buy a piece of Italy in his early 30s!
Immediately after arriving back home he booked flights straight back out to Puglia and 4 weeks later spent a week viewing potential holiday homes.
The trip was successful, and after a few months of the legal bits he owned a trullo in need of full renovation between Alberobello and Martina Franca.
As well as fulfilling this dream, Nicholas and Sarah now handpick their own olives and by using the traditional stone ‘cold press’ method of pressing them, produce their very own Extra Virgin Olive Oil. (Be sure to book your holiday for November if you would like to help them out with the next olive harvest and take home some of your handpicked olive oil!)
Nicholas, now 49, had 8 years experience in estate agency in England, plus 8 years as a Financial Advisor, whilst Sarah, now 51, worked for over 18 years as an Insurance Broker. Now in Italy, they are certainly far from being retired…but they are living ‘la dolce vita’!
Nicholas and Sarah now have a wonderful son, Gianluigi, aged 10, born and bred in Puglia…of course!