Wednesday 26 March 2014

Our holiday home in Southern Italy

Front entrance and car parking of the little villa

 
The view from the terrace


The terrace is being completed this year.

 
The lounge room and original cottage, showing stone wall.

New solid oak country style kitchen with stone worktop and views overlooking a picturesque valley.

Double bedroom with en-suite shower room.

About
Sleeps 6-8

Situated in a stunning rural location with distant views of more than 8 different hilltop towns, nestled in over 3 acres of olive groves and fruit trees.

The old cottage has an original corner fireplace fitted with economical wood burner, oak beam ceiling and beautiful stone feature wall.  Split level stairs connect to the large open-plan kitchen/dining room.

Two double bedrooms each with a shower en-suite, double beds in each room, one room currently has bunk beds.
The whole house has good reliable facilities including gas central heating.

The main outside terrace overlooks amazing views of the property and has a massive extension roof with wraparound tiled patio area and bbq.
 
Location:
Contrada Cannovella, Palmoli, Chieti, Abruzzo, Southern Italy

Co-ordinates:
41°55'42.71"N

14°35'29.07"E
Elevation 443m/1453.41ft



Easyjet.com ~ flies Bristol/Rome
BritishAirways.com ~ flies London Gatwick/Naples
Ryanair.com ~ flies London Stansted/Pescara
 

Rome has 2 airports:
Ciampino is closer, located South east of Rome. 3 hours drive in good traffic.
Fiumincino is furthest from the house, located west of Rome. There is no such thing as good traffic around Rome, this will take 4 hours to the house.


Naples Airport is 3 & 1/3 hours drive to the house.

Pescara Airport is the closest airport to the villa, only 1 hour, however, not many companies fly into Pescara.

Car hire:
carhire3000.com is a quick search comparison site with probably the best prices all round.

You can catch a bus from the main bus terminal of Rome to Vasto (Seaside resort only 25mins drive to Palmoli).  Bus takes approx 3 1/2 hours with the Di Fonzo bus company (Italian language only but can be translated via your automatic website translator) and costs approx €30 return!


There is only 1 taxi that covers the whole of the Vasto area so must be booked in advance or organise for transfers from Vasto Bus station to wherever.

To stay in Vasto, we recommend the Hotel Rio, which backs directly onto the beach at San Salvo Marina. It is clean, warm and staff are very friendly. However, the Eden Hotel get's good reviews and is cheaper.

Search booking.com and search for Vasto Marina.

Closest hotel to our villa in Palmoli is Montefreddo which is an Agritourisimo restaurant/bed & breakfast. We have eaten and stayed there, so thoroughly recommend. Unfortunately they don't answer emails frequently enough, so you will need to call for bookings. They can converse a little in English.

Vasto has a fab waterpark is called Aqualand and they also have night time shows with good reviews and with ride names like "Kamikaze", "Twister" and "Torrent", some rides are not for the faint hearted!

House fire

It has taken over a year for me to look at the pictures my husband took after our holiday home was devastated by the fire which was lit by our Italian builder at the time!  It's taken over a year and a half to put it right, and our new builder is still completing the works with the last part, the parquet flooring, due to be laid this week.  Finally we can put the fire completely behind us and look forward to many wonderful holidays in our beautiful Southern Italian villa.

new studio shop

It's been sometime since I posted.  I've been busy...
Opening my new studio shop in Cowbridge, South Wales!
Selling not just my own designs in jewellery but the new Eat Play Love prints and E=mc2 t-shirts.  As well as many lovely originals and prints from Susie Grindey, porcelain tea lights from Luna, Spice Studio cards and beautiful homewards from Sass & Belle.  The shop is now bursting at the seams with lovely bits and bobs.

I look forward to welcoming new comers from near and far.  Located at Rear Ground Studio, 27 High Street, Cowbridge, Vale of Glamorgan CF71 7AE.