LIFE IN TUSCANY – IS IT DANGEROUS HERE? And Other Questions | Tuscany Diaries

I asked my Patreons to send in some questions about life in Tuscany and here are the answers! Let me know if you’d like more videos like this on Wednesdays and leave any questions in the comments (other than where exactly are we and how much did we pay for the house, because some things we’d like to keep private!)

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The plan was that I was going to sit there but as soon as I turned my back these two jumped up so I’m gonna sit here we thought we would do a bonus video today and answer some of the questions that we’ve been getting in our comments on YouTube and

Also from my patrons so I asked my patrons to send in some questions and we’ve got a whole list and we’re going to do our best to answer them for you first of all in no particular order what is the wild wild what is the wildlife situation

There yeah we we have more um wild animals in comparon to Positano yeah and por porcupines see what else have we seen I’ve seen hairs uh luckily Indie was closed in the car when we saw a hair jump out in the road and then run off into the woods

Otherwise I don’t think I would have ever seen Indie again um what else have we seen there’s definitely wild BS around although we haven’t seen any wild BS we can see where they’ve been digging for food uh the next morning so there’s uh yes quite a lot of wildlife here more

Than we’ve seen in a long time yeah for sure we we have meet more um Hunters yeah then than poano it’s also hunting season at the moment so that would explain why next question are you in a dangerous area why are there bars on the windows in your house we’re

Not in a dangerous area no no no I I I don’t know why maybe maybe the previous soer uh I don’t know we’re not sure why they’ve got bars on all the windows here um a lot of the other houses don’t but a lot of other houses have the Persian blinds that close

Um so that when the house is empty they’re closed the windows are completely closed from the outside um we don’t have the Persian Reliance maybe they decided to put these up instead not too keen on them but it does make the house very secure when we’re not here so

Currently we’re in two minds about whether to keep them or remove them we’re not sure maybe maybe for the p is just um I don’t think so it’s not really an aesthetic for you okay maybe strange somebody asked me what do you call the secondhand markets you’ve been

Visiting in Italian how do I find them so I think most people know that in French they’re called Brant in Italian they are called marato deato the market of the used yeah the market of the used so yeah secondhand markets and if if you want to look for this is how we found

All of the ones in our our area I literally put into Google Google Maps merato delato and then it came out with all the ones around us which is quite a lot um nothing like this in in the Amalfi Coast I mean really no no it’s

Just not a way of life there at all and it’s really nice that they do it here because it makes it much cheaper for people coming to live here finding furniture for example yesterday we had to pop out we suddenly realized we didn’t have any chairs of our own we

Were still using the previous owner’s chairs so we went out and we picked up four chairs four lovely wooden chairs for Less than1 so they’re very useful are we going to make olive oil from our Olive Groves of course if happened if happened this tree of Olives

Yes this uh last past season apparently was not very good around this area for olive oil and a lot of uh people in the in the town that we’ve met didn’t make any oil at all and they’re having to buy it at the moment because the crop failed

So hopefully this year it will be a good crop we’ll just have to wait and see yeah this opening for the next question someone asked the bottle on the tree oh yes yeah the batttle on the tree is for put inside the botle the is a trap for um flies flies

Flies the bite the olives and the olives can be damaged yeah yeah so they is it sugar auk no yeah it’s just water and sugar usually I think and uh they just fill fill the bottles with water and sugar which will attract the insects uh to the bottle rather than the tree so

That’s why each tree has a plastic bottle hanging from it very strange if you don’t know that but yes did we know the previous owners we’re going to take the kitchen and the sinks and all the light fittings etc etc etc yes we knew well we knew that they

Were going to take the kitchen we had agreed that they could take the kitchen with us but we did not agree that they could take the bathroom sinks and we didn’t expect that they would take all of the light bulbs and light fittings and a couple of other things

Which you’ll see in Sunday’s video how different is the climate in Tuscan compared to posan not too much in reality I I think to me it’s very similar it’s a a bit more fresh in the morning yeah it’s a bit cooler in the morning we have had frost here a bit

Further down in the valley not actually here but down in the valley we’ve had Frost and Frozen puddles which you don’t get on the mfi coast at all and I’d say it’s less humid here yes it is it is I can feel the difference for example in patano my jeans especially always feel

Damp in the winter when you put them on the bed feels slightly not damp but it doesn’t feel dry and cozy when you get into it we use an electric blanket to warm it up before we get into bed and here I found that it’s much drier even

Though people here say that it’s humid and they complain about the humidity for us it’s absolutely wonderful yeah but uh another things it is uh we are very exposed at the sunlight but in Positano we are in a valley yeah we’re the opposite it’s opposite from the year I think in

Positano uh the home like my my parents home it is very different it’s more dry the the yeah um next question are the locals friendly yeah yeah we have a lot of friend now yeah we’ve met a lot of people Italian friend and uh and the

People are not Italian yeah we’ve made a mixture of people Everyone is very friendly and we’ve also noticed like in the supermarkets everybody’s so and and waitresses and waiters and stuff everybody’s just so lovely and yeah it’s a very opening to chat to to be friendly yeah they’ve got time whereas on the

Amthy coast I think people are very rushed cuz there’s so many people there and people are very busy and they work very long hours I think here people are just a little bit more relaxed and they have time for quick chat time to explain for example in the bakery why the Tusk

And bread doesn’t have salt in it or time to explain why they use this piece of meat instead of that piece of meat and it’s everybody’s been really nice to us so far yes I hardly think the people are here are more relaxed is uh less stressed that

The amaric cost even because um the rhythm of the life here is more slow than Positano malos in general yeah like part from one person there was a very grumpy woman in the post office last week who didn’t want to hand me over my mail because my dad had sent me

Something and put Nikki in instead of my official name Nicole and she wanted to see my identity card and when she saw my identity card with Nicole she didn’t want to hand me the parcel because she said it was for somebody else and eventually the man next to her told her

To don’t be ridiculous and hand it over it’s obviously the same person so other than that everybody’s been absolutely lovely will we have a vegetable garden I I want I I want have um Garden here veg Garden but we need the time we the we need to um check this Garden

Every day I don’t know is if this is possible yes for sure we try yeah the trouble is don’t forget that we’re going to be going back and forth between patano and Tuscany and it’s difficult to keep a vegetable garden up and running when you’re not here for two months so

We don’t have a Luca here to look after it for us another we need another looker so we yeah we’d need somebody to come in and look after it which um is not something that we have at the moment so hopefully one day but we yeah I mean I I

Do miss having the vegetables in the garden I miss being able to go outside and pick broccoli and potatoes and all the cans of tomatoes I’ve had to buy canned tomatoes for the first time in years and years and uh it’s yeah they’re not the same I’ve got to say they’re not

The same yeah um how far away are the nearest Services quto quto LAN uh very close we have um phaia Pharmacy y very close I think 3 minutes yeah on car yeah every time is on car not by foood yes you can’t walk anywhere but we’ve got um let’s say in the nearest

Village there’s a pharmacy there’s a bar there’s a couple of shops that have a bit of everything uh the nearest super Market is about 8 minutes drive away yeah 10 10 maybe 10 10 minutes drive but really I mean for us coming from batana where the nearest supermarket was 20

Minutes walk to the car plus 30 35 minutes drive a 10-minute drive to the supermarket with car park outside it is just the dream inano we have the very close um grocery shopping yeah at 15 minutes on foot yeah we have more and more and more here in 10 minutes

On everything’s very convenient so it’s we’re finding it re just just such a lovely easiness to get anything and getting know we’ve run out of milk we can just hop in the car in 10 minutes we’re in the shop we can pick up milk and a few other things and come back

Again and in in half an hour we’ve done it all whereas in platana popping out for milk would probably take half a day yeah uh here here here um can be forget something to to buy and then you go another time yeah but in Positano yeah that’s the thing in

Posetano we have become used to just going out maybe once a day and trying to get everything done that one time because you don’t want to go up and down those 500 steps yeah to or three three times a day so now we’re um we we we’re

Trying to get used to the fact that we can pop out in the morning and then we can pop out again in the afternoon and we can pop out separately and come back and it’s it’s just a whole other way of living and it’s something that most of

You take for granted but for us it’s really special still yeah I just want to pide then um we in Positano are very far away not every people in Positano are are the same yeah yeah not everybody has the inconvenience that we have to get somewhere so many people are just uh go

One minutes on foot for the shopping and the Pharma and other things yeah next question is do we finally get our mail delivered to the house so in patano the post guys and the delivery guys will come down to our house so we get everything left up at at Road level um

And here they put up right outside the front door it’s so exciting see do you have suggestions of a good location for xats that are affordable where strer Amic can make friends so it um somebody’s asking whether I can suggest a good place for Americans to go and live in Italy I

Think so affordable place are not the Amalfi Coast that’s for sure but I think this area is very friendly with everyone it seems to be yeah and there seems to be I mean obviously Tuscany is known for having a lot of expats and different areas of Tuscany so

Kti is obviously very well known for I think a lot of English and Americans go to keti but the prices are higher there I think cheaper places in Italy would be abuto or Pula is still fairly cheap and even further down south anywhere near the sea is more expensive I mean that’s

For sure and near the M major cities as well so it’s really I think it’s one of those things that you if you’re looking to move to Italy and live in Italy you have to come and find what you like because it really depends on what clicks

For you like we tried to look in Umbria um because it was also more convenient it was 3 hours closer to patano for us and it was beautiful it was stunning and we saw some great bargains there but it was just not right for us we we felt

That this area of tusy was was more what we wanted so it is the same things uh someone asked me why you choose Nicki I don’t know yeah yeah I love Nikki but can be possible if don’t find an Nikki maybe I find another woman or stay alone I don’t know

And finally what has been the most difficult part of the process of moving to Tuscany apart from buying the house actually buying it the house definitely uh once we’ve got that done um getting the previous owners out of the house making the beds building the beds that really broke us

No not to me okay to me is uh um I don’t understand very well uh at the begining the beginning beginning beginning uh how work the the hitting yeah on the woods uh one because is a a slow process another things because is a

Something is wrong uh but I I I’m fix it now and uh yes it was very cold the first few days we couldn’t figure it out so because because the home is is not one inside for for a out I think yeah they they they actually moved out a month

Before um the Handover date which I wish we’ known about that but we didn’t but obviously that meant the house sat quiet and cold and empty for over a month in the midwinter so it was icy icy cold when we moved in and we couldn’t figure

Out how the heating worked it’s a bit of a strange system so you have the fireplace in the kitchen that you have to constantly feed with wood and that heats up the radiators and the hot water but it takes time so it takes about do I order

Prim yeah because before the starting uh the pump uh put the water in the radiator uh I need to have a the a big tank of water 2,000 L to be hot and then when this water to be becoming hot start the pump for uh for the radiator yeah so it takes quite

A long time for the radiators to kick in and start warming up the house so um you’ve got to be here to put wood on the fire constantly to keep it going so it’s not the greatest system and everyone’s going on about how much it it’s it’s the

Most it’s the most efficient MoneyWise it’s the cheapest heating system system yeah um I prefer the pets but yes it’s it’s quite a time consuming way to do it as well so it’s not really ideal so we are looking into other Solutions at the moment yeah

That those are all those are all the questions I’ve got so um I think we’ll just keep this short it’s Wednesday evening so come and join us on Sunday evening at 5:30 we’re going to be giving you a tour of the house and then going

Off to do a few other things so so join us for that I hope you have a lovely rest of the week and thank you very much for coming and joining us this evening bye bye