We Picked a House!

Well, an apartment anyway.  We had talked a bit about this apartment before we even got out here--the guy who was originally our sponsor moved about 2 weeks ago and he had described his place and sent us pictures. It was the 6th place we looked at. We were getting a little tired, and had high hopes for this last place on our list... Once we saw it, we decided to take it. 

 

One of my main priorities for a house was that it be near the "wall". I may have mentioned before, Ferrara is surrounded by about 9 miles of a big wall built in the 15th and 16th centuries. There are walking and biking paths on top of the wall and below it, there are lots of little parks along the route (including one with a small zip line and some slides build down the hill), and it's a big part of my "get back in shape while in Italy" goal.  While we originally wanted to live inside the wall to really get the Italy experience, the other houses didn't really jump out at us.  I was nervous about too many stairs with Michael and didn't want to spend my days trying to keep him from falling down marble staircases. Parking also would have been a problem at many of them, and the buildings were so close together it was a little claustrophobic.

 

This apartment is on the 6th floor of a building just outside the wall.  You can see it from one of the three (!) terraces. It's also very close to a grocery store, has a garage space, and a little more open space to walk and play.  The apartment itself has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a study, a kitchen, and a living/dining room.  It's pretty much move-in ready, except that the landlord is in Greece and we don't know when exactly he'll return.  It is fully furnished, but we're going to have them remove most of the furniture and wall hangings so we can put our own stuff up and it won't seem too full and cluttered. 

 

I'm really excited to move in and make it ours. It's one of the smaller places we looked at, but the rent is more reasonable and I'm actually looking forward to having a little less space to maintain.  Their goal for us moving in is the end of August/beginning of September (to allow for the landlord to return and accounting for the August holiday that is coming up where nothing in Italy gets done).  Though we'll still be in the hotel for awhile, it's nice to have some progress and feel like we're one step closer to getting settled somewhere.

 

So pictures! Here's what it looks like now--I'll post more once we get moved in and get it set up the way we like.

 

 Michael's room

 

 Bathroom

 



 Bathroom (they're right across the hall from each other)

 



 Master bedroom

 

 Little Robbie's room/guest room with a terrace

 

 Kitchen (with another small terrace)

 

 Living room

 Study

 



 View down the street