Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Magic Moment
B
y August of that summer ('99) we were back in our little village in Italy, and after a few
days we went to visit Angela over in San Cosimo. The village has an annual festival in early
September every year, and we walked unknowingly right into the middle of it. Hundreds of
peopleweremilling about,chatting andtasting winesandcheeses fromtheregion.Amarch-
ing band with nubile, strutting majorettes and blaring trumpets and tubas was belting out
traditional favorites, and, in an empty storefront, a local realty company had set up a card
table with a “Houses 4 Sale” sign.
If you've seen the movie,
Under the Tuscan Sun
, you will certainly remember the moment
when Diana Lane's bus is blocked by a flock of sheep as she's on her way out of town. Once
she realizes that they have stopped right in front of
Bramasole
, the house that will become
the protagonist of her story, she impulsively leaps off the bus and decides to change her life.
I suspect that many of the people who are crazy enough to buy homes in Tuscany have com-
parable tales of their own rendezvous with destiny.
Our magic moment was at the festa in San Cosimo where, giddy from wine tasting and reel-
ing from blare of the big, brass band, we suddenly remembered that we were supposed to be
looking for a house. So, we stepped into the makeshift real estate office, said we were in the
market, and asked the man at the card table to show us what he had to sell.
The old patriarch who had owned half the houses in San Cosimo had died over the course
of the previous winter. His heirs were apparently not interested in continuing to landlord,
so they put everything up for sale. What people refer to as their “houses” in Italy are what
we would call “apartments” or “condos” in America. Since stand-alone houses are as rare as
hen's teeth in Italy, everybody's residence is simply referred to as their “house”.
Houses in Italy, at least in this part of Italy, are sold by the square meter, the way fabric is
sold in America. There's a fixed, per square-meter cost for the houses that have already been
fixedup,andalesserpermetercostforthosethatstillneedtoberestored.There'sabsolutely
no discussion or promotion of “pluses” like the view, radiant heating, marble countertops,
all-electric-kitchen, neighborhood schools or any of that stuff. The price is based on square
meters, and the simple assumption is that the more appealing places will sell first and the
rest later.
Our real estate agent took us through several old buildings with brick staircases whose deep
grooves had been etched by centuries of passage. The apartments were large and cavernous,
dark,anddefinitelyinneedofmajorwork.Weaskedifhehadanythingavailablethatwasn't
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