We are planning to drive over to our place in northern Tuscany in April with a van load of furniture (all second hand) bits and bobs for the house etc but I have suddenly realised that this may not be as straightforward as it was pre brexit!!
JanJ's activity
Questions Asked
I know from reading the many previous posts that buying a car in Italy as a non resident seems nigh on impossible.
Sat, 10/01/2011 - 14:49
This is the porch I saw that I liked the look of! Unfortunately not a great photo.
Tue, 08/23/2011 - 19:01
Try again!We have a hideous canopy porch (green corrugated plastic) over the front door of our village house and would like to replace it with something more stylish.
Tue, 08/23/2011 - 17:27
Can anyone living in the Bagni Di Lucca, Fornoli area tell me if there are any free Wi Fi spots available near by? I would like to bring a netbook (or something) with me to our little place up in Vitiana so that I can check emails, do a bit of 's
Sun, 11/21/2010 - 06:42
Advice wanted. We need to travel to Bagni di Lucca in November to sign the final bits and pieces for our house in Italy (very exciting!) but our usual flights, Bristol to Pias do not run in the winter. We can get good flights to Rome however so
Sat, 09/04/2010 - 10:57
Does anyone know if it is possible to buy a stone staircase? We stayed in a rented house recently near Bagni di Lucca that had a lovely stone staircase which on close inspection could have actually been new (although it looked authentic) Having n
Sat, 07/31/2010 - 15:43
This may sound like a stupid question, but how do you change that horrible green school boy thingy photo that everyone (except those with the know how, and those who are a bit more switched on than me!) has by their name?
Sun, 07/25/2010 - 18:18
Can anyone give advice? We have just bought a place in Italy to use for holidays and hopefully at some point for longer stays. Do we need an Italian bank account or can we do most transactions via the UK? The previous owner of the house (also B
Sat, 06/26/2010 - 18:06
Comments posted
I think we might just stick with this option and give up on getting internet at our house full time. I was able to watch UK tv as well as all sorts of other things, useful when I'm on my own! Also, as you only pay when you need it it means we are not paying out when we are not there.
I have been struggling with the eternal 'internet' thing for some time in the same area but last summer I bought myself a little mobile wifi device in the UK (the one I bought was Huawei mobile wifi E5330) I put a Vodafone pay as you go sim for the UK in it (just a minimum £5) so that I could set it all up and try to link on to it etc whilst at home, which turned out to be easy. Then when I got over to Italy I popped into the TIM mobile shop and bought their best deal sim on pay as you go which worked out to be €19 for 3 months! I am now able to just top up when I need it. In terms of wifi availability it really does depend where you are. TIM happens to work best at our place further up the valley from you towards Bagni di Lucca / Coreglia but it can be patchy - you might have to wander about a bit to get the best signal (much like it is here for me at home! Grrrrr) Anyway worth a shot for relatively little cost and the best thing is you can just pop it in your pocket and take it with you when you're out and about!good luck
Your dilapidated shepherd's house sound interesting. We have a little house in the Coreglia Antilminelli area - would love to hear more about it!
Brilliant - thanks for making me smile!!
Sounds interesting, like you Terry, I want to progress from Michel Thomas but am not keen on the 'school' option. I'll have a look. Thanks Susan. Jan
Glad things are now feeling more positive for you SA. I find it a shame that there are folks out there who still think Autism is an 'illness'. Being Autistic means you're different, you see the world in a different way but it certainly isn't an illness. Unfortunately for people like SA, being different causes much stress in an attempt to fit into a difficult world. But hey, enough of that...... Have a great time in Italy.
Many thanks for your very comprehensive reply Fillide. We will follow up the suggestions next time we're over there and see what works. It's great to have the Italian names for things as I have spent many an hour in the local DIY store (Brico) with a dictionary trying to work out what I need and even then being rather apprehensive as to whether I've got the right thing or not! We've got 1950's green terazzo tiles downstairs that I can do nothing about (it's not worth going to the effort of replacing them) so I'm looking forward to revealing the cotto ones upstairs! Will let you know how it goes. Jan
Some great information on cotto tile floors. Can anyone tell me the best way of getting what I'm presuming is floor paint off our cotto tiles? Would paint stripper or 'cementone' damage the tiles? Thanks
By the way - forgot to add - Advantage give you the empty / full tank option. We always fill up on return. Have just checked costs: It was 27 euros per day including fully comp. If we hadn't filled up it would have been 57 euros.
We have also been subject to the Goldcar rip off at Pisa - don't go there! I have always used Auto Europe (broker) to book car hire and in fairness have always found them fine (until Goldcar!) We had a scrape some time ago but fortunately I had taken the 'refundable excess' option and got my money back. I have since always taken fully comp insurance as it was a pretty stressful experience. Since the recent Goldcar fiasco I decided to go through Advantage directly. We've had Advantage cars in the past via the broker and although they are often older vehicles, for us they are fine. We need to drive through a very narrow 'gate' into our village so a small, less than perfect Fiat Panda is just what we need! I found going to Advantage direct was reasonably priced and I was able to add the extra insurance, online for 11 euros a day which I thought was ok. As long as you don't want anything fancy they are fine - if something goes wrong I don't know what they are like but as always it's a case of fingers crossed! In theory with fully comp insurance there shouldn't be a problem.