An Italian Escape...
Masseria Don Giulio was born in our minds in September 2006 on holiday on the Cilento coast on the other side of Italy, near Naples. Lucy had recently returned to work after the birth of our eldest daughter the previous autumn and Ian was nearing the end of another stressful IT project where a salesman had promised the world for the price of a small house in the country and then done a runner as soon as it became clear that it could never be delivered (pretty much the day after the contract was signed - but hey as least he got his commission!).
We were enjoying a lovely quiet, family holiday and the wonderful Italian climate, food, wine, gelato (so much better than ice cream back home!) and history - all of which was re-enforcing our view, built up after a number of previous visits, that Italy was a brilliant country to visit on holiday. However, one afternoon after a visit to the wonderfully hectic city of Naples, made slightly more stressful by the fact that our 10 month old daughter had just discovered the thrill of walking and so was very unhappy about being taken anywhere in a pushchair unless she was asleep, we caught the train back to the town where we were staying. We boarded the train and sat down across the aisle from a group a suited and booted businessmen making their way home from a meeting. Millie of course was not content to sit still and promptly wobbled over to the aisle and fell over onto the legs of one of the men. He promptly reached down, picked her up, sat her on his knee and proceeded to spend the next 10 minutes bouncing her up and down and singing local nursery rhymes to her - explaining to us that she was the same age as his grand-daughter. Millie spent the rest of the hour long journey being fussed over by the four businessmen who seemed slightly disappointed as we pulled into our stop and Lucy and I tried desperately hard to get all the things together that a day trip with a small child involves. This was the moment where a fabulous place to visit turned into a wonderful place to raise our family and a dream was born.
Italy is everything that the tourist brochures and magazines claim it is - great beaches, fabulous architecture, amazing history, beautiful climate, mouth-wateringly tasty food and drink... But it is the people that really sets the place apart - particularly down here in the south of the country. Puglia is an incredible place to live, a real escape from the hectic, corporate lives that we had in the UK, where everyone is interested in your story and is keen to help where they can.
Hopefully, we can use our experiences to help our visitors find that perfect holiday escape - who knows where it might end!!!
Masseria Don Giulio was born in our minds in September 2006 on holiday on the Cilento coast on the other side of Italy, near Naples. Lucy had recently returned to work after the birth of our eldest daughter the previous autumn and Ian was nearing the end of another stressful IT project where a salesman had promised the world for the price of a small house in the country and then done a runner as soon as it became clear that it could never be delivered (pretty much the day after the contract was signed - but hey as least he got his commission!).
We were enjoying a lovely quiet, family holiday and the wonderful Italian climate, food, wine, gelato (so much better than ice cream back home!) and history - all of which was re-enforcing our view, built up after a number of previous visits, that Italy was a brilliant country to visit on holiday. However, one afternoon after a visit to the wonderfully hectic city of Naples, made slightly more stressful by the fact that our 10 month old daughter had just discovered the thrill of walking and so was very unhappy about being taken anywhere in a pushchair unless she was asleep, we caught the train back to the town where we were staying. We boarded the train and sat down across the aisle from a group a suited and booted businessmen making their way home from a meeting. Millie of course was not content to sit still and promptly wobbled over to the aisle and fell over onto the legs of one of the men. He promptly reached down, picked her up, sat her on his knee and proceeded to spend the next 10 minutes bouncing her up and down and singing local nursery rhymes to her - explaining to us that she was the same age as his grand-daughter. Millie spent the rest of the hour long journey being fussed over by the four businessmen who seemed slightly disappointed as we pulled into our stop and Lucy and I tried desperately hard to get all the things together that a day trip with a small child involves. This was the moment where a fabulous place to visit turned into a wonderful place to raise our family and a dream was born.
Italy is everything that the tourist brochures and magazines claim it is - great beaches, fabulous architecture, amazing history, beautiful climate, mouth-wateringly tasty food and drink... But it is the people that really sets the place apart - particularly down here in the south of the country. Puglia is an incredible place to live, a real escape from the hectic, corporate lives that we had in the UK, where everyone is interested in your story and is keen to help where they can.
Hopefully, we can use our experiences to help our visitors find that perfect holiday escape - who knows where it might end!!!
Ian
I guess I have always been a bit of the country boy at heart - growing up on the south coast of Kent and enjoying long summer holidays on the beach, roaming across the fields of Romney Marsh or re-living the best moments of the previous World Cup / football season with my best friends from school (Alex, Glen and Richard). I then spent three largely wet and cold years studying history at St David's University College Lampeter, deep in the heart of the Welsh countryside. As a brief aside - much as according to Sky, football only started in 1992, so history for me only really started in 1870. Even after starting a career mainly based in London, I have always enjoyed escaping back to the Kentish countryside in the evenings / weekends, living on the outskirts of Hadlow (near Tonbridge) and Great Chart (near Ashford).
I spent 20 years working as an IT consultant specialising in business analysis and / or project management largely with blue chip organisations including Lloyd's of London (insurance market), Shell, Centrica, Cofunds, United Utilities and the Civil Aviation Authority. Career highlights include building up the UK Business Analysis and Change Enablement practice at Avanade (brilliant company to work for!), working on the Maaxxio project delivering a contract management system for a gas-fired power station in Holland and loading the final data migration script at Cofunds after a 27 hour working day.
My favourite things about Italy and Puglia (in no particular order) are: spending more time with Lucy and the kids, gelato, almost every Centro Storico in the country (some amazing architecture even in some quite small towns), seafood, trees bursting with lemons / oranges and waking up to glorious sunshine with hardly a cloud in the sky. Oh and not having to get on a commuter train to London every morning!
I guess I have always been a bit of the country boy at heart - growing up on the south coast of Kent and enjoying long summer holidays on the beach, roaming across the fields of Romney Marsh or re-living the best moments of the previous World Cup / football season with my best friends from school (Alex, Glen and Richard). I then spent three largely wet and cold years studying history at St David's University College Lampeter, deep in the heart of the Welsh countryside. As a brief aside - much as according to Sky, football only started in 1992, so history for me only really started in 1870. Even after starting a career mainly based in London, I have always enjoyed escaping back to the Kentish countryside in the evenings / weekends, living on the outskirts of Hadlow (near Tonbridge) and Great Chart (near Ashford).
I spent 20 years working as an IT consultant specialising in business analysis and / or project management largely with blue chip organisations including Lloyd's of London (insurance market), Shell, Centrica, Cofunds, United Utilities and the Civil Aviation Authority. Career highlights include building up the UK Business Analysis and Change Enablement practice at Avanade (brilliant company to work for!), working on the Maaxxio project delivering a contract management system for a gas-fired power station in Holland and loading the final data migration script at Cofunds after a 27 hour working day.
My favourite things about Italy and Puglia (in no particular order) are: spending more time with Lucy and the kids, gelato, almost every Centro Storico in the country (some amazing architecture even in some quite small towns), seafood, trees bursting with lemons / oranges and waking up to glorious sunshine with hardly a cloud in the sky. Oh and not having to get on a commuter train to London every morning!
Lucy
I met Ian whilst working at Lloyd's of London, also in IT, but left shortly after we started dating to live in Brussels for a year or so. We managed to spend most weekends together, either in Kent, or visiting various parts of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. I previously also spent a year living in Spain and Japan, so am used to settling in to new places, although that was definitely B.C. (Before Children). More recently I worked at Wye College, which then got transferred into SOAS, University of London, where I worked with lots of great people.
I enjoy spending time in the kitchen, making jams and chutneys and making cakes and have been decorating celebration cakes for the last few years for friends and family. I joined the Ashford branch of the Sugarcraft Guild, and hope now to have more time to spend practising some of the skills I have learnt.
I met Ian whilst working at Lloyd's of London, also in IT, but left shortly after we started dating to live in Brussels for a year or so. We managed to spend most weekends together, either in Kent, or visiting various parts of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. I previously also spent a year living in Spain and Japan, so am used to settling in to new places, although that was definitely B.C. (Before Children). More recently I worked at Wye College, which then got transferred into SOAS, University of London, where I worked with lots of great people.
I enjoy spending time in the kitchen, making jams and chutneys and making cakes and have been decorating celebration cakes for the last few years for friends and family. I joined the Ashford branch of the Sugarcraft Guild, and hope now to have more time to spend practising some of the skills I have learnt.
A cake I did for our good friends Amanda and Renato, with traditional Puglian trulli houses.
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Millie and Freya
We love having swapped wellington boots, scarves and raincoats for flip-flops and swimmies! Our favourite things about Italy are swimming in the sea, playing on the beach, gelato, lemon sorbet and our pets - two puppies and a kitten! |
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