Why Rosignano Marittimo?
We get this question a lot. Like A LOT. The short answer is that Rosignano Marittimo is pretty perfect for us and has everything we were looking for. The longer answer is below in several parts:
Choosing Italy
I always knew I wanted to live in another country. Italy was a great choice because Luca is a dual citizen and speaks the language. Also the food is so good. Once we decided to move to Italy we made a list of what we were looking for and then ranked how important each item was. Below is what we came up with:
Our List
Must Haves:
- Space for Lila
- Horse for Fara
- Sea for Luca *clear water*
- Internet
- Water, electricity, plumbing, flushable toilet paper (there is a story there…)
Nice to Haves:
- Stairs
- Mud Room (to clean Lila and swim stuff)
- Dunk tank (for wet suits and swim stuff)
- Fireplace
- Constant hot water
- Super fun sink faucet for kitchen
- Town walking /biking distance
- Guest room
- Windows/ lots of light
- Hardwood or tile floors
- Gas stove
- Fireplace
- Public transportation
- Aquarium
- Museums
- Good food
- Quadcopter flying
- Weather
Visiting Italy
The Scouting Trip
In January of 2022 we took a trip to Italy to find a place to live that checked off as much of our list as reasonable. Before the trip Luca spent a lot of time making a google maps list with horse barns along the coast. This gave us a great outline as we drove around Italy looking for a place to move to.
We started out visiting with some of Luca’s family friends for a few days in Torino. Then we drove to San Remo, Luca’s grandma’s town, at the top of the coast next to France. Next we made our way down the coast looking at a lot of barns, swimming in some cold but beautiful waters, and eating great food. There was one little town North of the Cinque Terre that met most of our needs. I was ready to stop looking but Luca convinced me to keep going, just to see what else was out there.
As we drove into the Tuscan region and passed all the olive fields I mentioned to Luca that Lila probably needed her own olive grove. Luca laughed at me and told me that was definitely going to be out of the picture… little did he know where we would end up 6 months later!
Rosignano
When we got to our future town, Rosignano Marittimo, we visited a few horse barns and I was sold. The horses looked great, their paddocks were large, and the trails were expansive.
Next we went swimming. Before we got in the water we found a water sports store with freediving equipment right next to the beach. On our walk to the water we ran into a fellow freediver about to get in. Luca made fast friends and then we got in the water to be greeted by tons of fish. Perfect. This town had everything we needed, all we had to do was find a house.
House Hunting
We planned to rent a house, but we were not finding a house with land for rent. Our searches kept showing houses for sale. We were lucky to be staying at a B&B with a wonderful woman who happened to be a realtor. I showed her a few houses I found and she called around and got us showings.
The first house we saw had beautiful floors and ceilings but it needed a lot of work and I thought it was a little spooky. The next one we saw had a beautiful lake in the back but needed a ton of work and was next to a small wine factory.
The house we really wanted to see, the Wisteria House, was not avaible to been seen the two days we were in town. So I convinced Luca to drive by and look at it from the outside. When we saw it in person from the street for the first time I knew I loved it. We couldn’t go inside so we continued our trip down the cost.
Wisteria House
We went to the island of Elba for a night and our lovely B&B host kept working and got us an appointment to see the Wisteria house! We returned to Rosignano to see the Wisteria house the day before we flew back home to California.
The Wisteria house felt like home as soon and we walked in. Luca walked around with the realtors speaking Italian while I wandered around the house and the yard. The Wisteria house has everything we wanted and more, space for Lila (actually it has a 55 tree olive grove!), a pond, a pizza oven room, stairs, it is close to horse and beautiful clear beaches. And that was it, we were sold.
It took a lot of effort, paperwork, and was pretty nerve-racking, but we got the house. Luca put in an enormous amount of work and we were supported by family, friends, lawyers, and a lot of luck. When all was settled we moved into the Wisteria house in June 2022, about 5 months after we first saw it!
