The daily diary of a wandering restaurateur
May 17 - Fun with Bob and Alison

This is our fourth trip to Italy and each time we have rented a house for at least a week. Our agency of choice has been Summers Leases. The company is nominally based out of the UK but the heart of the operation is in Italy.

Over the years and through many e-mails back and forth, we have struck up a "pen pal" sort of relationship with Bob Monroe and Alison Leeming, the principals of the company. Since we had a lot more time on this trip -- and since we are still trying on the idea of a potential move to Italy at some point -- we thought it would be interesting to see if we could connect with them while we were in the area. A phone call or two later, we had arranged to meet for lunch in Cortona.

As it turned out, Tuesday was an interesting day in Cortona. They were filming scenes for a movie in the main square, obviously set during World War II. I am sure the Nazi uniforms and the red swastika banners were more than a little unnerving to those old enough to remember those days.

Our lunchtime conversation covered topics from the Italian tourist industry (suffering at at the moment), to politics (of course.) As it turns out, they left England seventeen years ago because they could not abide the politics of Margaret Thatcher. We talked about what it is like to live in Italy, the cost of things, and on and on -- all facilitated by a couple of bottles of Vino Nobile. I like their style.

They recently moved from Perugia in Umbria to a small town in Tuscany where they are renovating an old house. They invited us up to see their project and since it had started to rain, we thought that was as good an idea as any. We stopped first to show them our villa and it turns out they represent a rental unit owned by the "evil cousins" on the other side of the house. Small country!

Then it was off through the rain to the hills outside the Chianti region, about an hour away. They have three stone buildings set on 11 hectares (about 28 acres) of olive trees. They have quite a tiger by the tail, but are slowly chipping away at it. We toured the house, shared a cup of tea by the fireplace in the kitchen and came away with a bottle of their cold-pressed olive oil. The trick will be to get it home without lubricating the contents of the suitcase ... but we are clever devils and will figure something out.

Fun with Bob and Allison

More Fun with Bob and Allison


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