Tartuffa's activity

Questions Asked

Welcome To Sulmona in AbruzzoSome of you will already have been following the Facebook page which I have been co-editing for nearly 2 years now.  What started as a voluntary project, to help promote the local area which we love, has now grown into

Fri, 05/16/2014 - 01:32

If you are near Sulmona this weekend, why not come along and enjoy the Ovidian themed weekend of fun and entertainment?  There are displays, exhibitions, tastings, competitions and some great shopping opportunities.

Thu, 12/05/2013 - 07:29

As promised, a post that may be helpful to others. We bought a LHD UK reg car last year and are now trying to re-register it here. Fingers crossed we are all sorted now but we have had to jump a hurdle which we had not anticipated.

Mon, 09/26/2011 - 11:05

We've realised that it may be another 3 years before this one has a home with us so perhaps it's time to pass it on. It's an AEG Favorit 40850. No longer in production but spare parts are available if necessary. Bought in 2005.

Sat, 08/20/2011 - 15:26

Land Rover Discovery 3 SE For Sale (Sulmona AQ) It's served its purpose for us so it may well suit someone else now.

Sat, 01/15/2011 - 04:00

We're off back to the UK for a visit by car and we'd like to stay in or near the city. Although I'm happy to do the usual searches on-line it would be helpful to have any ideas from Forum members.

Thu, 05/20/2010 - 13:27

Our lease is up at the end of April and we are putting out feelers.  We've spoken to our local agents, asked our friends and colleagues, and we'll start to call the numbers on a selection of bright orange Affitasi notices that we've seen around to

Wed, 02/10/2010 - 07:04

  My husband and I moved to Sulmona in the Abruzzo towards the end of last year.

Mon, 01/11/2010 - 06:20

Comments posted

Thu, 05/20/2010 - 13:17

Hi Pete, Whilst I admire your entrepreneurial spirit, the only thing I miss are decent tea bags.  Marmite is an annual purchase and I can live without it.  The rest? Personally I'm happy to have left most of that stuff behind. My family are originally from LA and there is a famous (and well supported) English food store in Santa Monica. It has to be said though that there are probably more British Ex-pats in LA than the whole of Italy.  Make sure you have your demographics right and do some thorough market research.  This is a good start...yes

Mon, 04/19/2010 - 02:21

I sent you a PM last night but not sure if you got it.   More than likely we will need / want to take you up on this - leaving tomorrow from OX to Abruzzo.

Sat, 04/10/2010 - 04:45

I thought it might be helpful to update other readers on our situation.  We are now in a beautiful appartamento here in the CS of Sulmona, where we want to be, on a 12 month lease.  To be honest it wasn't easy and it did in fact take us nearly 2 months from start to finish.  For starters there is not much rental property here.  I think that the Italians generally are not as transient certainly as the Brits in this respect.  The situation is no doubt better in the larger towns and cities.  We explored all avenues and probably saw EVERYTHING that was vaguely suitable that was on offer - a total of about 8 flats.  We found that not only does 'unfurnished' mean without any kind of kitchen at all - just tiles and pipes strategically sticking out (we did know this before) but in a couple of cases it was obvious that real work needed to be done - painting and decorating as a bare minimum.  Anyway - we found this flat through a property agency that doesn't actually operate in the rental market at all.  But 'Oh! - we might have something - come back tomorrow and I'll see if I can get the keys...'  We have paid an agency fee of one month's rent for this but in the end it boiled down to how much we wanted this place.  There were extra fees however.  We anticipated a condominio charge on top of rent (thankfully only E10 here) but hadn't budgeted for another E55 as our share of the 'contract tax' (?). No big deal but these costs do mount up...Thankfully our landlords are delightful and have managed to dig out an old cot from Nonna's cantina for our little one and she has lent us some towels and bed linen on a short term basis.  All's well that ends well but another lesson in patience (not my strong point) and the need ALWAYS to go and talk to local people - do not rely on Tinterweb for this kind of stuff.

Fri, 03/12/2010 - 09:33

Some countries are primarily concerned with birth and / or residency and some with blood.  I have dual nationality UK/US despite the fact that I was born in the UK of a British father and a dual mother.  Never lived there - and now we are in Italy probably never will :P

Fri, 03/12/2010 - 09:28

I have the CELTA and it would be appear to be the more highly regarded / recognised qualification.  You can certainly get a job teaching English without any Italian but it is harder going.  If you were teaching a multi-lingual group in the UK no one would expect you to speak anything other than English in the classroom but here it definitely helps if you can speak some basic Italian - especially with beginners / children. In due course I will take my DELTA too.

Wed, 03/10/2010 - 17:51

Hi Cilla, You don't say over how many weeks you have had these lessons. Once a week for an hour maybe?  If you are learning Italian in order to come and live here (or regular visits to a holiday home?) then you really need a total immersion - minimum 5 hours a week if possible and homework everyday.  It has to occupy your thoughts and you need to keep building on what you know.  Please persevere - you will be so pleased with yourself and it will be so much easier for you in the long run if you can get your language up to a certain level just as soon as you can.   Buona fortuna :)

Wed, 02/24/2010 - 02:33

My advice is to try The Golden Triangle:  Roccaraso, Pescocostanza and Rivisondoli.  Val d'Isere it aint but that's why we like it!  Do tell us how you found out about skiing in the Abruzzo.  Are you back in the UK or already here in Italy?  Those of us who are involved in Tourism are very happy for the cat to be out of the bag...

Mon, 02/22/2010 - 03:09

We've had a bit of a song and dance with our dongle but fingers crossed we now have it sorted.  We have an open (ie non affiliated) dongle bought here for about E50 and currently have a Vodafone SIM which we top up every few weeks at the equivalent of E1 per day up to a certain limit of band width.  You can't download movies etc without going over the limit (which then gets pricey) but you can Skype and do most standard stuff which is fine for us.  We need time not bandwidth per se.  You can then use whichever network has the best deal for you and chop and change if necessary.  No contract so if you only come out to Italy occasionally then it can lapse between visits.  In due course we will get ADSL but a mobile dongle is really our only option right now.

Wed, 02/10/2010 - 17:16

Thanks Gromit!

Answer to: Community Spirit
Fri, 02/05/2010 - 09:44

OK - that's really funny.  I was talking about lifeinitaly.com and I'd never heard about italiauncovered until just now.  Seems there are plenty more forums than I had thought.