House shopping, that is.
In Tuscany, house hunting is a lot like mountain climbing. You park the car, climb three flights of stairs up to the street level, then climb up a long hill, then climb four flights to get into the apartment. Then you reverse the process. Then repeat. Seven times.
I'm now sitting on my couch taking inventory of my body parts to see if there's anything that doesn't hurt. Okay, done. Nope. Everything hurts.
So today I saw two places in Montepulciano. One great and the other no so much. The link for the very nice place is here:
Then I saw two places in Pienza, both were rather sad looking--like someone's ancient grandmother lived there till she died and then the place was left unoccupied for several years.
Here's one of the sad bathrooms:
Then we went to Radicofani and looked at three places--all of which needed a lot of work to make them presentable. I'm not sure I'm really up for a construction project.
It's amazing how often the most beautiful features of Tuscan homes--like chestnut-beamed ceilings, terracotta floors and bricked archways are covered up in some way. It's not unusual to go into a place with boxy, charmless spaces and hear: "Well, if you remove the ceiling you will find the beams," or "If you strip off the plaster, there's a stone wall underneath." Today I even encountered terracotta floors that had been painted--in red gloss!
So while I did not hit the house hunting jackpot yet, I am not finished. There's another full day of shopping ahead and I am staying optimistic that I will find that pot of gold (with chestnut beams and terracotta floors) at some point.
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