JOYEUX NOËL

JOYEUX NOËL - MERRY CHRISTMAS

BUON NATALE - FROHE WEIHNACHTEN

P.S. If you would like to receive our 4-colour cards periodically (by e-mail or by snail-mail), please drop us a line at yvette@LaMaisondYvette.com.

Long time no write!

Hi there!

We've been busy during the past few weeks - getting ready for Christmas at the shop in Marsciano (http://lamaisondyvette.com/), which includes a one-week trip with the van to buy and pick up things in France and Switzerland. On the way back, I got stopped at the French-Italian border and discovered (to my surprise) that the inspection was out of date! Bad news (€150 worth)! In addition, the van is off the street until the papers get here that demand a new inspection (maybe next week?). Whoopee!

Anyway, the shop is FULL of Christmas stuff - ranging from €1 and even less to over €500. In the next week, we'll send out our Christmas card (electronic and Posta Italiana). The physical cards are already printed and the picture is available electronically. The problem is trying to get the addresses into a printable label page format in Star Office on the new shop computer (running Vista). I think the solution at this point is to transfer the file to my laptop (XP and Office 2k) and print the addresses at the house or bring the laptop to the shop and do it here.

Anyway, that's about all for now. Hope you and yours are doing great!

Ciao for now,

Craig

A Visit to the Vet

Well, it finally got to that point...

Pradoo (pronounced "prado", originally "Prada", remember?), is now officially Pradxx (also pronounced "prado")! What that means is that he won't be bothering his mother in the future, since they both live with us along with our two remaining cats from France, David (8) and Delta (10). She is an older lady - the vet said about 10 years old - and Prado is probably her last baby. Prado is really a very sweet young guy. He goes with us, Blondie and me, every morning for our 1'600m (1 mile) walk. When the weather is rotten - yes, that happens even in bella Italia - he's not unhappy to be picked up and carried, at least part of the way. He also baits our only neighbor's little dog: he waits until she comes running out, and then makes an arch with his back and hisses and the dog turns tail and runs back to the protection of her house!

I guess that's all for now, so

Ciao!

Craig

Computer Nightmares - AKA "Bye-bye MS!"

Hi there!

I made the mistake of thinking that the pc that we use in the shop in Marsciano was too small and too slow for what we need it to do (it really was, and only partly because we loaded it up with lots of other garbage). So (natural sequence of events) I bought new ones (1 for the shop and 1 for the B&B). First priority for getting them functional was the shop because we're coming into the busy season (Christmas etc.).

I don't know if you've noticed, but these days, it's almost impossible to buy a computer any way but with the operating system pre-installed. And that means MS Vista(R). Which means that your old office equipment won't have drivers for it, the expensive office software you now have probably will not function any more, and even Norton Ghost (now Symantec Ghost Suite) won't function so you can make a clean transfer, unless you have one of the expensive versions of Vista (the "home" Vista packages don't work here either). Also, most likely some of the new devices in the PC also will not function without Vista installed. In other words, you're locked into the Vista, like it or not.

I've spent the past week (7 days, not 5, averaging between 6 and 10 hours per day) trying to get the new machine to the point where my wife can use it without me standing at her side the full time she's on the machine. Two things happened during this week that Microsoft will be unhappy about if they ever happen to read this:

1. I erased the MS Works (R) and MS Office 2007 Home and Student edition 90 day trial software that was pre-installed on the machine - on purpose.
2. I installed an open-source office package (Star Office) that looks more like the software my wife is familiar with than the Office 2007 applications ever will!
   

The one thing I was not able to do was to get the Outlook 2000 e-mails into any new mail-server program (Outlook does not even exist in MS Office 2007 H&S edition). If someone has a solution here, I'm interested!

The end result is that MS lost not only the short term (relatively low price) sale of a new Office installation, they also managed to destroy my 20-year affection for MS products!

Good work for one week guys!

Ciao for now...

Craig

P.S. I also got a new 22-inch LCD for displaying product pictures for the shop when not in use for other things (screen-saver). It's terrrriffic !!!

The last of the ADSL story?

Hi there!

If you've been following our ADSL saga, you'll remember that the microwave version is now installed and working. Also, that we were still waiting for the telephone line version to be installed. Now, there's more...

We received a notice at the end of August that the service should be installed within the coming 4 weeks. The 4 weeks passed with no additional news...

I finally (October!) went back to the system messages and found that there was a way to follow up on the progress of our request on the internet. Nice. I did that and found a message that the status of the service as of 24 July 2007 was "order cancelled." No notice from the theoretical provider at all. Then, I went to the area that was supposed to show the details of the cancellation. It's a general statement that says the it's most likely technical problems for the connection.

Oh, we also got a new bill for service for the months of August and September...

End of this part of the ADSL story!

Ciao for now...

Craig

More busy!

Hi there!

Just got back from a week-long trip to France and Switzerland. Both sides were on business, France mostly buying for the shop in Marsciano (http://LaMaisondYvette.com) for winter and Christmas. Switzerland for personal business, etc.

The weather changed while I was gone! Wow!! I left with clear skies and temperatures in the mid-20's during the day (high 70's to low 80's Fahrenheit) and came back to strong winds, temperature about 6°C (43°F) and rain! Somebody in the weather department slipped up while I was gone! Now, things are getting back to close to what is was before, but maybe a little cooler.

We are busily looking for guests for the B&B. We have a new advertising program using Google AdWords, an on-line booking and billing organisation, and other contact operations are on-going. If you know someone who is interested, please direct them to the website! http://Tenuta.info Yesterday, if not sooner!

I guess that's all for now. Hope to see you soon!

Ciao,

Craig

Time Flies When You're Having ____ (fill in the blank!)

Hi there!

Well, "fun" is the accepted alternate in the title, but we've been working hard! In order to have the time to work the Tenuta's B&B and thereby make your stay the best we can, we have decided to close the beer shop, "Meeting Point", and the gallery, "Galleria Yvette Tucci" (both in Marsciano). The business load is not high enough to justify the expense of additional help, so they're history. It's too bad, and particularly those of you who visited the Galleria will agree that the closing is a loss.

However, the small loss there should be outweighed by the gain at the Tenuta! The on-line, real-time reservation system is working well, and there are TWO special rates, starting tomorrow, 1 October:

1. The first is a 14% reduction on the price of a week's stay, valid until 15 December -- not bad, eh?


2. The second is the same thing, but with a fixed U.S. Dollar rate, regardless of the exchange rate! This will protect those of you who are based in US Dollars, and are afraid of the present swings in the $/€ exchange rate.

Not bad!

But there's more!

For those of you who like to gamble, we now have a "last-minute" rate, which is 10% off the standard rate -- provided there is space available! The "last-minute" rate is only applicable for reservations made within two days of your arrival, and it is only available by telephone! You will see that the cutoff time for Internet reservations is two days before arrival, so this fills the gap!

Take a look at the specials at http://TenutaCollicello.com/rooms1.htm. While you're there, take a look at the rest of the website. It's changing at least weekly!

Ciao for now...

Craig

Short notes...

Hi there!

As titled, this will just be some short notes about the Tenuta.

Grape picking time!

Our neighbours (they own and work the farm that you pass through when coming to the Tenuta) are harvesting their grapes this week, starting last weekend. The first grapes they picked were Merlot - blue/black grapes that are used to produce predominantly dry red wines. The Merlot vines are new, and this is only the second harvest from these vines. The white grapes (don't remember the type) are being harvested this week. There are many more vines, and the vines are more mature, so the quantity of grapes is much greater. Both types are "DOC" qualified for the area "Colle Perugini".

Our neighbors generally use some of their grapes to produce their own wine (which is usually very nice, although it varies in style from year to year). The rest of the grapes are sold to the local wine-growers cooperative in Marsciano. The wines produced there are sorted by type, but also by location of the grapes -- my guess is that there are about 15 different local wines, and about 6 or 7 different types and styles of wine, including a sparkling wine called "Perugino". We use Perugino as a mixer in our house cocktail, along with Xango(R) juice (for more about Xango(R) juice, click on the advertisement in the sidebar column). If you would like to help with the grape harvest next year (it's a family outing), plan on sometime during the first two weeks of September - although we can't guarantee that it will be then, of course!

The New Website : New Room Rate Savings!

The new website is functional and the on-line reservations system as well! To celebrate this, we have initiated an Autumn Special rate for weekly stays. There are actually to rates, one fixed in Euros and one in USDollars. For you bargain hunters, either one has at least 14,28% savings (7 nights for the price of 6), and if you play the foreign exchange game, maybe more. :-)

Try out both! Try out the website, and try out a week with us here in Italy!

That wasn't so short, was it! But I guess that's all, so

Ciao for now...

Craig

Latest revision of our Website is on-line

Hi there!

You haven't heard anything from us for a while. There's a good reason! We've finally gotten to the point that our new website is on line! You can see the latest version (internally, it's number 9.5) of our website at www.TenutaCollicello.com. It has been simplified, more pictures have been added, and it now sports an on-line, real-time reservation system with billing capabilities. That means that you can determine what units are available now for any time up to September 30, 2008, reserve what you want, and pay for them on-line using PayPal.

For us, this is a significant step forward. We lost an important reservation for November just a few days ago because we were not able to respond quickly enough. That hurt, but it won't happen again!

Our system is being furnished (for a price, naturally) by an outfit called Oceanic Consultancy, and their system is called "Globekey". If you are interested in their product, drop us an email and we will put you in contact with them.

The original idea was to install the new website (version 10) in four languages. We have had significant problems with the translations, and decided that we should concentrate on getting one (the English one, obviously) on line, then add the others as we can get them done. We bought a translation software to make the translations, and it turned out such ridiculous translated texts that we decided to go the way we did. Our money for the translation system was a total loss. We have enough languages within our organisation and families that we should be able to get the job done by real people. I hope we can do it!

Please take a look at the new design! The web address is above, or use http://Tenuta.info as a shortcut.

Ciao for now...

Craig

ADSL wireless wins!

Hi there!

IF you've been following the ADSL thread, you will be surprised to learn that this very post is being produced through ADSL via microwave! There were a few more telephone calls, but yesterday, the boys were here, and last night, it worked!

Also, we got an e-mail from the telephone wire type ADSL people telling us that they would be contacting us in 10-15 days for the installation of their ADSL. We will have two systems, mainly for security of supply, just like the power plant about 7-8km (5 miles) away. They're installing a new gas pipeline (underground) to be able to receive gas from the eastern grid as well as the southern one. Different suppliers, bargaining power, mor secure supply in case of emergency!

Us, too!

Ciao for now (via ADSL @ home!)...

Craig

P.S. If you're local to our neighbourhood, drop me an e-mail or call, and we can talk about the company and how you can contat them.

P.P.S. Stay tuned for the development of our ADSL connection into a complete LAN/WLAN/VoIP system for all the guest rooms! We should be doing this within the next month or so.

The Morning Group changes...

As you may remember, we had a morning group that was designed to take Blondie for a walk each morning somewhere around 6-7 am. That group self-activated to include Delta, our dark grey 10-year-old cat who came with us from France, and Prada, the youngest member of the animal crackers.

After we went through the experience with Prada going up a tree and needing rescue, we had a second similar experience, but this time, Yvette was able to talk her down without a ladder. The cause of the second tree experience was the neighbours’ dog Giulietta, a small, black, terrier-type. This little bitch (excuse the apparent language, but that is an accurate biological description in addition to a social comment) was coming into our house at night via the cat-flap, and eating all the cats’ food. We stopped that by putting the cat food outside on a shelf that the dog cannot reach.

The appearance of Mami and Prada on our scene about four weeks ago also helped solve the situation. Originally Mami had no fear of Giulietta, and in fact has faced her down a number of times. Last week, Blondie and I went for her evening walk, and Prada decided to join us. I was concerned, because I suspected that if Giulietta charged Prada, Prada would turn, run, and probably climb a tree. Again. The first night, I noticed that we were joined by Mami and Delta, the protection committee! And no Giulietta. A few nights later, it was just Blondie, Prada, and I. When we passed the neighbours’ house, Giulietta came out of the house at full tilt! My nightmares of tree climbing in the dark were about to come true! But no! Prada stood there with a stiff straight-up tail, and dared Giulietta to come all the way! Well, I suppose you can guess the rest, but just in case, here’s what happened: Giulietta came to within about 1 meter (a little more than 3 feet), stopped, turned tail, and ran back to the house yipping all the way like she had been severely scratched! With no contact!

A few days later (on the weekend), I was playing with Prada, when I noticed a potentially significant development: “Prada” was becoming “Prado”! What a surprise! Well, we were going to have Mami and Prada sterilised anyway. And it’s less expensive for boys than for girls!

Will keep you informed as “things” develop!

Ciao for now…

Craig

More ADSL stories

Hi there!

Well, the ADSL stories continue...

Last week, we got notification by post from the telephone-type ADLS provider that we would hear from them for installation within two weeks (nothing yet, but it's only been one week more or less).

We also got a phone call from the wireless-type ADSL provider that the antennas had arrived, but that they were swamped, and they would call us the end of last week. Surprise, they did! They now are going to call us again next week - our choice of Thursday or Friday (we said Thursday) - to install! But they will call first. Wow! NOBODY in Italy returns calls and calls voluntarily!

Will report next week, when we will see what happens!

Ciao for now...

Craig

New Website!

Hi there!

There is a new version of our website (Tenuta.info) on-line now! If you know the old website, you will see some of the changes, others are less visible. The most important thing is that the new version will have real-time on-line reservations and payment capability. This is not yet functional, but it should be within a week or so. Stand by for developments! It will (eventually) also be extended to Italian, German, and French versions. We wanted to do this now, but we just had too many problems with the translations.

IF you find something wrong on the website, PLEASE let us know! The email is TenutaCollicello@gmail.com. Thanks for your help!

Ciao for now...

Craig

Summer summer summer!!

Hi there!

Well, we're working into the so-called "dog-days" of summer. Why are they called that? I don't know, but I know that our dog, Blondie, is really not interested in the hot weather. On the other hand, she has never had the opportunity to learn what water (for swimming) is all about. That, for a Labrador, is unusual! Maybe when she learns about water, she'll like summer more? My other retrievers all liked water, regardless of the time of year, as long as it wasn't frozen solid! I hope that we will be able to organise something for Blondie soon; she's missing out on her natural inheritance!

Ciao for now...

Craig

Farming in Umbria

Hi there!

Since we are in the countryside, surrounded by fields in crops, I do pay some attention to what the farmers are doing. It’s interesting to me that nearly all the crops are in now (first week of August) except for the corn (“maize” in UK English), sorghum (“milo” in US English), sunflowers, and tobacco. Not only that, the majority of the fields that have been harvested are now also ploughed under, so we are surrounded by freshly ploughed fields.

And talking about ploughing, the Umbrians go really deep when they plough – between 50cm and 75cm deep (about 1½-2½ feet). To do this, they mostly use tracked tractors (“Caterpillar” is a brand name but is also a pretty widely recognised generic term world-wide, I think that Lamborghini is the second most popular brand around here) instead of the more conventional 4-wheeled type, even with 4-wheel drive. Also, they seem to ignore the practice I’m familiar with in ploughing with the land elevation contours to minimise soil erosion. The fields tend to be ploughed in straight lines and up and down the hills! Have I missed something or are they missing something?






Ciao for now…

Craig

It's BLACKBERRY time!

F L A S H !!!

The blackberries are ripe! Yes! It’s true! The wild blackberries around Tenuta Collicello are ripe! The local Umbrian people (can’t talk for the rest of the Italians) don’t think much of blackberries. They use the same name for blackberries (that grow on vines with thorns) and mulberries (that grow on trees), but otherwise look similar and taste similar. The difference is that the blackberries have much more taste (and you don’t have to knock them out of trees to eat).

Gone blackberry eatin’!

Craig

Progress!

Hi there! Yes, back again. Work is really progressing on the B&B area these days. I’m surprised, because Italy tends to be like France, where the whole country goes on vacation in August. What’s happening this week is really significant: the pool will receive it’s internal lining and the fill around the outside, and the landscaping should be finished – well, not the landscaping is not done but the earth-moving is complete. Then, we’ll get to the gardening to finish things off (well, sort-of, a garden is never finished).

I expect next week to be a disaster; it’s a mid-summer holiday season called ”ferragosto” that runs from the 11th to the 19th of August (at least this year). EVERYBODY is on vacation during ferragosto, even the vacationers! However, the neighboring village of Villanova is having their 20th “Sagra dello Macedonia” from the 15th to the 26th. For those of you who don’t know, “macedonia” is fruit cocktail. I scanned the advertisement for the Sagra; see below. There was one in July in Sciavo, a suburb of Marsciano, for beer (that was great; my beer shop was ignored, no wonder I'm closing it!), and one the same time as Villanova for "primi piatti" or first plates = pasta dishes in Ammeto, a neighborhood in Marsciano. The flyer is attractive and I scaned it also to add it to the entry.

Ciao for now…

Craig

Saturday excitement

Hi there!

Last Saturday, Blondie and I went for our morning 1,5 km (mile) stroll. The main purpose for the “stroll” is to have Blondie (our golden Labrador, almost 2 years old) get some exercise (me too!), and take care of necessary business. Since I’ve been back from my Bulgarian trip, the composition of the stroll group has changed. Now, instead of just Blondie and me, the group has grown to four: Delta, our 10-year-old large (6kg = 13lb) grey cat (whom we brought with us from France) and Prada (a new kitten “orphaned” with her mother on the steps of our shop while I was in Belgium buying beer in June – “Prada” as in “The Devil Wears Prada” – about 3 months old) have joined us on a daily basis! This does slow us down some, because four are always interested in more things than two!

The morning crew at Tenuta Collicello

Saturday morning, Delta was feeling aggressive even before we left. Along the way, we met up with David, our 7-year-old Siamese-style cat, also from France. Delta was unhappy about this, which he decided to take out on David. David, being a good middle-level manager, passed the grief on to Prada. Prada went up a handy oak tree to escape the heat, but David was also forced up the same tree by Delta! David stopped at about 3m (10ft), but Prada made it up to about 10m (33ft)! David, being an experienced tree-climber, made it back down under his own power after about 30 minutes “cool-off time.” Prada was never up a tree before (as far as I know), and didn’t have the foggiest idea how to come back down. After trying to climb the tree myself (branches too small) and to coax her down for another 15-20 minutes, I gave up. I went back to the Tenuta (about 300m = 330yards) to get an extension ladder and bring it in the van because (1) it’s heavy, and (2) since we had a thunderstorm Friday afternoon, it was still quite muddy. I managed to organise this all and got the little one down without additional serious problems. That shot about 70-80 minutes of my day, but created conversation and blog material!

Unfortunately, Blondie missed some of her stroll, but the back-and-forth probably made up for that.

This morning (Monday), it was just Blondie and me again. The end of an “era?”

Ciao for now…

Craig

ADSL again...

Hi there!

We were supposed to hear from the wireless ADSL people on Monday. No contact (surprise?). We called on Wednesday (Tuesday was really busy), and they told us that they were waiting for the receiving antenas to arrive, and it didn't make any sense to spend time making contact if they couldn't install the antenna. Also, since we are next to another client, they knew that we had excellent line-of-sight contact with their emitter. They will contact us when the antennas arrive...

Mmmm... that makes nine (my wife only counts 6 but she ignores the unanswered calls).

Ciao for now...

Craig

ADSL etc. continued...

Hi there!

I don't believe it! Today, we got two phone calls from the wireless ADSL provider (different people) within five minutes of each other. We are supposed to have contact next Monday (that's the only day we have relatively free)! Is there light at the end of the ADSL tunnel?

Ciao for now...

Craig

Back from Bulgaria

Hi there!

Well, if you read my other blog, you already know that I have returned from my three-week trip to Bulgaria on "other business." If not, well, I'm back.

Things have piled up some, and this will be a short report. The best news is that the work continued in my absence, although one of the contractors took a week of vacation. The pool is structurally complete, but there is still alot of earthwork to be done around it before it's finished. That is supposed to begin this week! Wow!

As for the ADSL situation, we're at 8 calls and still waiting...

More later on!

Ciao for now,

Craig

ADSL and other alphabetic maladies... Part 2

Hi there!

This is the second tirade against bureaucracy, Italian style, identified by alphabet soup. This version is the dot-IT jungle.

As you most likely have discovered, we have a website called www.TenutaCollicello.com which is the basis for this Blog. Since we are located in Italy, we thought it would be nice to have www.TenutaCollicello.it, even though we would only use it to redirect misguided souls to the dot-com website. This is the story of our dot-it adventure…

04 April. On 4 April, I found an on-line advertisement for a hosting organisation in Italy that featured (surprise?) dot-it domains. I won’t mention the name of the organisation, since they really did try to help. I registered www.tenutacollicello.it in the name of the company of the same name, registered and located in Italy. My wife, the managing director of the company was listed as such, and I was listed as the responsible website manager. The payment was made (and accepted) on-line by credit card.

05 April. The next day, the website was placed on the web with an “under construction” sign, and the hosting organisation sent an invoice on-line.

09 April. On this day we received a notice that we needed to register with the appropriate dot-it authority that we were running out of time.

10 April. I responded by asking what exactly it was that we needed to do. The host organisation responded that there was an on-line form that we needed to fill out, called (abbreviated) the LAR. We sent the form, appropriately filled out (we thought), and faxed it to the number in the e-mail. After that, no news…

28 June. Out of the blue, we received a letter from the authority that said that the time limit on our application had expired – that certain items in the LAR were inconsistent with entries in the technical module. Also, the address used (in Italian in the accepted Italian format of postal code, city, neighbourhood, street address) in the LAR for the registration address did not conform to the format 'street:', 'city:', 'stateOrProvince:', 'postalCode:', 'countryCode:'

03 July: One week later, after we had talked to the host organisation by phone and corrected the entry and sent it again to the fax number, we received the same form letter, but this time, it was the address of the company that was wrong (same format problem).

05 July. After another phone call with the hosting organisation, I responded with an e-mail showing the postal address and the physical address of the company (these are not the same, the office address is different from the physical address).

The same day, I received a second form letter that complained that the name of the person who had applied for the registration was not the same as the web administrator. It also said that the address format of the seat of the company was incorrect.

07 July. I responded to the above by email again. This time, I was so frustrated that I really didn’t care whether they accepted the changes or not.

13 July. We received an e-mail notice that our application had expired.

We received a second e-mail notice that our application had expired from the hosting organisation.

Guess what? I don’t care! We don’t need it and I only expect more bureaucratic red tape in the future. For those who are interested (and have the intestinal fortitude to go through all the red tape), www.tenutacollicello.it is again available.

Ciao for now!

Craig

Hot weather!

Hello again!

I'm on a business trip to Bulgaria, but I still have access to the weather in Italy. I can see that it has been really hot the past few days - 35-36°C (mid-90's F) to 42°C (well over 100°F). The positive part is that the nights have been and continue to be cool, around 13-20°C (55-70°F). This kind of weather has two advantages. One is that the low temperatures at night tend to keep the humidity low, so that the high daytime temperatures don't seem so uncomfortable. The other advantage is that the big solid house at the Tenuta cools down at night, and stays cool during the day. Natural air conditioning! The pool will help next month when it's finished, and I expect to make good use of it!

Ciao...

Craig

ADSL and other alphabet illnesses

Hi there!

Well, I’m in the throes of trying to get ADSL installed at the Tenuta. First some history…

1. We have ADSL at the shop in Marsciano (see www.LaMaisondYvette.com for more information about the shop), but it took us two months to get it installed to start with. What we ordered initially (I was skeptical) was a pay-by-volume arrangement with the provider, Wind, a subsidiary of Telecom Italia. After it was installed, the system didn’t work. Surprise? Well, we tried the Wind telephone help line (190 – free but never free, if you know what I mean), and after about three hours on the phone, they eventually said they would send someone to look at the installation. About two weeks later, someone showed up (Wind uses contractors for this kind of work). They spent about an hour, and could not find what the problem was. Since the rule is, after an hour, we pay for the repair and it’s not cheap, it was getting a little ticklish. They finally found the problem in a small junction box that the original installers never opened. Luckily, at the 58-minute mark. Finally, ADSL worked!

2. After about three or four weeks (even before the first bill arrived), I found that we would be better off with a flat-rate arrangement. No change of provider, just a switch in accounting, right? Well, that’s what we thought, and innocently called 190, and after only about 35-40 minutes, the job was done. We thought. Then the ADSL stopped working. Why? Call 190 again. “Oh, the service will be disconnected until the new ADSL connection is installed.”
“Installed?”
“Yes, they have to change things in the switch room.”
“When will that be done?”
“Well, it shouldn’t take more than a week or two.”
“And what do we do for an Internet connection in the mean time?”
“Well, I guess you could use our analog dialup?”
Two and a half months later, it finally worked. Sort of.
What we discovered is that the Wind ADSL systems in Marsciano apparently are not the greatest. From noon to about 3 in the afternoon, the access speed was faster using the old analog dialup. And again from about 5:30 to 7:30 in the afternoon, the same.

3. About nine months later, we opened a new shop in the Old Town of Marsciano, and told Wind to please install ADSL there as well.
Mmm.
After about six weeks, the installers came. They installed the physical equipment, but I was not able to try out the installation before they left. They seemed to be in a hurry to leave.
Mmm.
I tried for about five weeks to get the ADSL there to work, without success. I spent five continuous hours on the phone with 190 technical people.
They insisted that it was functional.
I could not get a signal.
After about a year, we called Wind and told them to take their equipment (a wireless modem) out and disconnect the service. They said that it would cost €100 to terminate the contract. We said we would think it over.
This has gone on for almost 18 months now.
We’ve decided that we’re going to close the shop now (not enough business to support the expenses), so I first said, “this is the opportunity to get ADSL installed at the house in San Biagio della Valle!”
We called 190, and they said “no problem, we’ll send someone out next week!”
That was a month ago.
We’re still waiting…

4. Last week, we discovered a different system, using a direct broadcast system (not satellite but with an antenna) from Perugia. Sort of like terrestrian digital TV. Our neighbor (our ONLY neighbor, we really are out in the countryside) got it installed, and he says it works just fine! He also said he had to call about 28 times before the people finally came and installed it… Sound familiar?
Anyway, now we will try this in parallel with Wind. It will be interesting to see what’s installed first! Oh, we’re at call number 4 and counting…

Will keep you informed!

Ciao for now…

Craig

P.S. One of our goals at Tenuta Collicello is to keep you isolated from such typical Italian red tape!

Activities today

Hi there!

It’s 9:20pm (Friday) and I’m sitting outside with my laptop, watching the sky get dark. The weather was nice today – 30°C (86°F) with a nice breeze – but the house was full of workers for the terrace and walls outside and also for the plumbing and the radiators. I supervised and read and slept a little. The three major projects at this point are completing the tiles on the terrace, completing the colored concrete for the exterior walls (where there are no native stones), installing the remaining radiators and sanitary equipment, and installing piping for the future solar heating collectors. All this should be finished by the end of next week, just in time for the pool people to start their work – they say two weeks start to finish. I don’t believe that! Well, maybe for the pool itself, but we need water(!), landscaping around it, furniture, etc.

Just to prove that I don’t believe it, I’m traveling to Bulgaria to look after my business there next week. For about 2½ weeks. We’ll see at the end of July!

I don’t know if you know what they are (at least by the English name) but I just found a small (about 2 cm = less than 1 inch long) light tan praying mantis in the garden. It’s the first one I’ve seen in Italy. I remember the first one I ever saw when I was about 13 or 14 in North Carolina. I was climbing on a railway boxcar at the place where my mother worked, and as I got to the top, there was a big (about 10 cm = 2½ inch long) bright green one looking me right in the eye. I wasn’t afraid (much) but he sure startled me! They are good in the garden, because they eat other insects that damage plants. Needless to say, I returned him (her?), the tan one here in Italy, to the garden unharmed.

Ciao for now…

Craig

Introduction

Hi there!

This is the first entry on the new blog for Tenuta Collicello. What is Tenuta Collicello? Well, it’s a few different things. Primarily, and as the subject of this blog, it’s a brand new Bed & Breakfast working towards Country Inn outside a village called San Biagio della Valle, about 15km (10 miles) southwest of Perugia, in central Italy. As things go along, you’ll discover various things about the B&B business (and business in general) in Italy, about the countryside where we’re located, about who we are and where we come from (and where we’re going?), plus a number of other maybe not-so-related things. As is usual with blogs, we welcome comments and participation, although we retain the right to control what goes up on the blog from 3rd parties.

If you get interested in coming to visit us, please take a look at http://Tenuta.info, which is a short address redirect to the main website at www.TenutaCollicello.com. There, you will find many things about our new operation, and about some of the other things we do as well.

My sign-off will usually be “ciao for now…” What you need to understand (if you don’t already) is that “ciao” in Italian (pronounced “chow”) is like “aloha” in Hawaiian; it means “hello” as well as “goodbye”, so you can say “ciao!” when you see a friend (it is rather personal, you don’t say “ciao” to just anybody), and again when you part. So,

Ciao for now…

Craig