Kirk Friis shares with us the accountof how his family and him managed to settle in Sardinia tackling the whole gamut of problems facing people wanting to move to Italy… and then some! From buyers pulling out at the last minute from the sale of the house is London which would finance the move, to convincing Telecom Italia to install high-speed internet in Alghero airpoirt and even Italy’s new, more strict terrorism laws Kris and his family persevered and are now enjoying their new Sardinia life.
THE HISTORY
My wife (who is Sardinian ) and I moved to Alghero in Sardinia from London about three and a half years ago. Mariangela (my wife) was pregnant and we felt that this would be a great time to try and move somewhere a little more tranquil.
We had done quite well out of the booming property market in London and found that if we sold up we would be able to buy a good size property in Sardinia for cash. We decided to re-mortgage our property while waiting for it to sell and used the cash to buy a house in the Alghero countryside in need of refurbishment.
My wife's father, Mario (a builder ) set about the renovations while we waited for a sale we had agreed on for our London house to go through. The day before exchange of contracts our buyers pulled out, leaving us with a massive mortgage, renovation costs, no jobs and a baby on the way! Life couldn't have been more tranquil!!!!
We managed to find another two buyers who changed their minds before finally selling our London house and ending our financial nightmare. The end result was that we had lost a lot of money but had stopped the rot. We did though have a beautiful son, Luca who we were spending all of our time with.
We now needed to get ourselves some work. This is not easy in Sardinia, recent statistics placed Sardinia very close too the top of a list of places that young people leave at an early age due to the lack of job opportunities. So with little work around we decided that we should try to create some employment for ourselves. Many ideas were on the table such as a shop, bar and restaurant. All of these though entailed having capital so it was time to sell another house! Mario, Maria's father had done such a fantastic job with the renovations of our house that it was now worth double and we promptly sold it to the first viewers with few problems.
THE BUSINESS
With lots of money in our pockets and comfortably located in rental accommodation we began to look at the various opportunities open to us. We decided that having time to spend with our son was what was most important for us so decided to try to come up with a business that would not tie us down to a location too strongly such as a shop.
We launched our first web site last year www.apropertyinsardinia.com a property web site for Sardinia where private persons are able to advertise their properties alongside estate agents. People pay us an advertising fee.
We then set about trying to find the best way of promoting this service for our advertisers. We thought that it would be great to have some kind of screen at the airport with all of the properties rolling like a screensaver.
We figured that a lot of people having had a great holiday would think maybe it would be nice to own a place here. And so our idea was born, if you have a screen why not a computer with full internet access and if you give people access to a service like that then why not a full tourist information service (the tourist information office is nearly always closed!!).
So we simply wrote to the airport explaining our idea to install two internet terminals, one in the departure lounge and one in arrivals that would have a free to consult tourist information web site www.sardinianconnections.com with places to stay, things to do and so on, whilst also working as pay to use internet points. The revenue was to be made up of local businesses advertising and coin usage of the internet service. To our pleasant surprise they wrote back almost immediately and said that they would be happy for us to install this service as long as of course they got a cut of the revenue.
We promptly found a company that produced self automated internet terminals and went ahead and bought them and waited for Telecom Italia to install a very expensive HDSL telephone line as the cheaper ADSL was unavailable at the airport.
As soon as I hear the words Telecom Italia I worry and yet again they proved to be a complete nightmare! First they said we could have the line, then they said that we couldn't, then they sent a technician who set the whole line up for them to then say again that the line was unavailable.
After two months, many raging telephone calls we got our phone line and our service was up and running! The service got off to a flying start both from a perspective of internet point and the use of the tourist information site. Then more drama!
The Italian government, in their infinite wisdom, decided to pass a new anti-terror law that meant that anybody who wished to use the internet, telephone (Telecom Italia phone boxes excluded!!!) or fax in a public place must first present a document such as a passport to be identified! Now this is a little difficult with self automated machines! We consulted with the police and local offices and finally came up with a solution whereby people have to enter their personal information such as passport number e.t.c before using the internet. The tourist information service has been unaffected though and visitors can use this service without creating a login account.
The machines are being used a little less now as internet points but are still proving very useful for people arriving on the island looking for information.
Time and events have had taken their toll on us but we are still spending an amazing amount of time together as a family and Italy like many of the finest things in life although hard work at times offers some fantastic rewards. Some people may think we are mad to stick with it (so do we sometimes! ) but we wouldn't have it any other way!
