Our Story

Our Italian farmhouse sits tucked into a south-facing slope below the medieval center of a small city in the Piedmont region.  How we got here, how we found and remade the house, and what it’s like to live here—all these are parts of the story I want to tell.

Our love affair with Italy began in 1983.  During the next 25 years we returned for milestone birthday and anniversary celebrations and to renew friendships, and at some point the fantasy of retiring in Europe shifted from aspiration to intention to reality.

We arrived Mondovì in August 2012, traveling by road and two ferries—from Tbilisi to the Black Sea; across Anatolia, Thessaloniki, Macedonia, Albania, to Brindisi; up the coast and then overland from San Marino to Mondovì–a journey of almost 4000 km (2485 miles).  A year to find and buy the house, a year of planning and obtaining permits, 15 months of demolition and reconstruction; by December 2015 we were at home.  We continue finishing and improving, decorating and burnishing, gardening and landscaping.  We have friends, both English speakers and Italians; we have doctors, an accountant, a banker, a pharmacist.  We buy fresh food in the year-round open air markets: vegetables and fruit in season; alpine cheeses and artisanal breads; fresh fish; chicken, rabbit, and pork from local producers.  It’s a quiet life full of simple pleasures, time for coffee with a friend, a walk in nearby mountains, pottering in the gardens or the woods.

Welcome to our website.  Who We Are tells you a bit more about us.  Our Story tells how we realized our dream of retiring to Piemonte, it continues below.  Postcards from Mondovì is a collection of articles previously published in Margutte, an online literary publication.  In Other Places, Other Times you’ll find the chronicle of our road trip from Tbilisi to Mondovì, plus writing from places we’ve been privileged to travel, from Alexandria to Zanzibar.  And soon I’ll begin to post photos and brief observations to my Blog to keep you current with our life as it rolls on. Thank you for reading.