Hi, my name is Dave and my wife is Janet. We first went to Italy in 2001 when we motorailed to the Lucca region of Tuscany via Brussels and Venice. We bought a two-bedroomed village house just north of Barga in May 2003 on the strength of a single visit, a handful of photos, and - the sensible bit - a survey!
We had very little work to do as it came fully furnished and used it as a holiday let for two years before we made the decision to turn our school holiday-ruled five weeks a year visits into a permanent move.
Our village is entirely non-English speaking resulting in our picking the language up much quicker than we could have hoped for and we have been warmly welcomed, no doubt due to having three kids in tow!!
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