467 Brecon to Abruzzo

Saw our house in Abruzzo a year ago, moved into it in October and finally completed the purchase on first March this year (yes, we bought from fantastically generous and kind Italian sellers, who are now near neighbours and who could not have done more to welcome and help us). We have already re-wired and got new plumbing, gas boiler etc. Doing most of work ourselves, with some help from people locally too. Had worst winter here for 80, 100 or 150 years (depending on who you listen to) but living on a Welsh hill in Brecon Beacons has prepared us for tough winters and we are always well stocked with provisions! It hasn't all been easy, but the pros outweigh the cons for us - so all we have to do now is sell the Welsh cottage and get settled out here.

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Introduce Yourself - Piacere Conoscerti

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 05/23/2005 - 11:30

I have just had an offer excepted on a town house in Bomba and we need to do the electrics & put in heating do you have any tips for me from your expperiences.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 05/24/2005 - 08:29

Congratulations on making such a good choice. No doubt by now you have discovered that the one headache in Abruzzo is the dialect or rather the dialects. At get togethers with neighbours we can barely understand one word in ten at times, then we travel to Bologna and discover that we can understand and be understood.

We're over by Teramo on the edge of Gran' Sasso, I take it from your post that you are deeper inside one of the national parks?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 05/25/2005 - 09:40

[QUOTE=debbieb]I have just had an offer excepted on a town house in Bomba and we need to do the electrics & put in heating do you have any tips for me from your expperiences.[/QUOTE]
We had help from an electrician to install new consumer unit and trip switches, plus advice, then had a local handyman come and work through the process with us. The system is different from UK obviously, but in some ways is more logical (or at least it was for us non-experts!). It does involve taking lots of individual wires through either surface conduit and/or plastic pipe laid into the walls. In our case, to keep costs down, we used the exisiting pipes and sometimes this meant reducing the number of sockets we could have because we couldn't physically fit the wires in! However, we also bought everthing ourselves (from Castorama and local ferrementar) so we knew what our costs were. Of course, if you have any doubts I would suggest you use a professional or at least get it checked at the end! We are on a very tight budget so we really couldn't afford to pay an electrician to do it all. As for heating, again we used a plumber to install the caldaia (boiler) but we bought this and all the pipes, connectors etc ourselves from his list. We have a friend who has a building business and got stuff at trade prices. You have to have a certificate to show your boiler was properly installed so make sure the plumber gives you all the paperwork, and then get it checked every year. Again, the Italians use a different system for radiators as a rule, which involves lots more pipes as each radiator has two pipes (one to it and one back). If you have 8 radiators you have to accommodate 16 pipes somewhere .... These are all connected to a coliatore, which looks like a candleabra, and this is connected to the boiler. However, you could use the UK system if you prefer - we have seen that in some places.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 05/27/2005 - 03:59

Hi all - we have recently purchased a holiday property in Civitella Messer Raimondo, Chieti, Abruzzo - as we are new to the area can anyone suggest picturesque villages, areas we can visit.

Appreciate the advice,
Ciao
Mark

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 05/27/2005 - 04:21

[QUOTE=markwon]Hi all - we have recently purchased a holiday property in Civitella Messer Raimondo, Chieti, Abruzzo - as we are new to the area can anyone suggest picturesque villages, areas we can visit.
[/QUOTE]

Chieti, very picturesque.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 05/27/2005 - 14:44

You do not have to go far. Villa Santa Maria is beautiful and world renown for its cooking school: [url]http://abruzzo2000.com/abruzzo/chieti/villasantamaria.htm[/url]

[url]http://www.angelfire.com/film/casale[/url]

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 11/26/2005 - 12:58

Hi

Did we meet in the Restaurant by the lake in June when you and your wife we having lunch with Guisy?I was with Angel another HAI scout.

If not forget it if yes sorry about the Scottish comment.We finally bought a house near Manoppello.I found a great site on Civitella,lots of intersting old photos from last 100 years.look in 'general chat' and 'intersing' web sites.

Becky