Sagraitalia is the new website from the Livinginlemarche property group and it has been designed along with input from our partners at Livinginitaly.com, the foremost European property website who are based in Todi in Umbria. The site will showcase cookery and food shows in London and the East of England and we hope will become the foremost website for promoting really fab food events in the coming years. Please do take a look at the new website and blog, we hope you like it and it will also be constantly updated with news and the best food and music venues every month. www.sagraitalia.com
July 2010
Livinginlemarche has now formed a partnership with a local Italian agricultural and gardening business near Santa Vittoria in southern Le marche. With this partnership we can now offer a wide range of services including garden and landscape design, ranging from small plots and gardens up to plots of many hectares. Hard landscaping and small garden building projects are easily looked after as well as major earth moving and landscaping.
Also our partner offers a service to look after the cultivation and harvesting of olive groves and fruit trees for clients with holiday homes who cannot tackle these large projects themselves. The Italian farmer and contractor also has his own farm in the area and has many years of experience in all types of farming in the Le Marche region. Please do contact Dermott at info@livinginlemarche.com for more details and to arrange a free site visit.
June 2010
Last month I was invited to visit a new development near the hilltop village of Montefiore in southern Le Marche. This outstanding restoration of a farmhouse has been carried out to the highest standard and is now for sale as part of a fractional ownership scheme that is on offer by the owners, Appassionata.com. The house has been beautifully decorated and furnished and is an outstanding example of a Le Marche farmhouse in its own grounds, which include a large swimming pool, tennis courts and olive grove.
There will be a more detailed article with photos, full specifications and links about this development very soon on our blog, but please do contact Dermott for more details on this outstanding development.
May 2010
Livinginlemarche is always looking for ways of offering new and important services to our clients and are pleased to be able to offer the services of an English speaking Italian mortgage broker based in Florence. Armando has many years of experience working in the Italian Banking and financial system and can offer his highly professional and personal service to would be purchasers in all parts of Italy including our region of Le Marche. There will be a more detailed article on this exciting new service that we offer next month in our blog. For more details please contact derrmott@livinginlemarche.com
April 2010
Along with Olivaverde we at Livinginlemarche have now made a new relationship with a Sicilian tour and accommodation company based near Cefalu in Sicily. The company was started and is run by Carmelina Ricciardello who is a native of Sicily but spent much of her early life in Australia. Sicilian Experience provides simple, comfortable and clean holiday accommodation and a large variety of food, olive oil, wine and walking tours. Sicily is blessed with magnificent mountain scenery, ancient monuments and where the way of life has changed little over the centuries. It is an island with its own unique character, still relatively untouched by tourism. Carmelina brings a wide knowledge and love of her native land to all her activities and please do get in touch with dermott for full details and prices for these memorable holidays in Sicily. Our Sicilian tours are organised on a very personal basis and tailored to the clients tastes and interests. Each tour and visit is bespoke and organised in cooperation with the client, the guide and the local community and businesses. Visits to Sicilian olive oil mills and vineyards are accompanied by our Sicilian associate and visitors experience true Sicilian hospitality at its best and are truly memorable experiences.
Livinginlemarche along with Olivaverde are also pleased to introduce a variety of gastronomic pleasures for our clients to enjoy in other regions of Italy. Be it wine tours and tasting with olive oil appreciation workshops to cooking courses, some of which will be hosted by a celebrity Swedish Chef, and held in some of the most beautiful areas of Le Marche, Tuscany, Umbria and Sicily. Venues which include an 11th century ex Benedictine Monastery, a one thousand year old Castello and its adjoining 18th Century Villa in the mystical ancient landscape that is Umbria, to a beautiful four star historic Relais with spa facilities in Cortona, Tuscany. In Le Marche we can offer an enchanting Castle with 19 century frescoes and beautiful grounds and gardens and only 15 km from the Adriatic Coast.
March 2010
Livinginlemarche has now teamed up with small local companies offering tours and holidays in the south of Le Marche. We will also offer olive oil and wine appreciation tours in southern and central Le Marche during the summer months.The tours will be based in the Monterubbiano and Carassai areas of the Ascoli Piceno province and around Senigallia, Monerado and Corinaldo in central Le Marche. We will be offering this comprehensive service to our clients starting in May 2010.
Clients will be able to visit vineyards and olive groves and spend time with the owners and also enjoy lunch or supper at these establishments. We have also arranged for special events to take place in various villages where we will hold olive oil appreciation evenings with a full tasting panel, and this will take place under the guidance of a local expert and also some of the oil producers as well.
As well as these exciting developments in Le Marche we are also now forming close relationships with other small companies offering the same types of holidays and tours in Tuscany , Umbria and Sicily. This is a very exciting development for Livinginlemarche and has come about through contacts made while being involved in sourcing great olive oils and pasta for sale in the UK and Ireland and also because of our promotion of small regional producers and artisans. The individuals involved in arranging the tours in these different areas of Italy all have established track records in offering memorable holiday experiences and tours and we are very lucky to have them co-operate with Livinginlemarche in this new venture.
Please contact Dermott at www.olivaverde.co.uk for more details and prices for 2010.
January 2010
As 2010 begins Livinginlemarche is pleased to help promote the restoration and regeneration of Palazzo Sacconi in the beautiful village of Montalto delle Marche in southern Le Marche. The palazzo was designed and built by the Montalto born architect, Giuseppie Sacconi whose most famous piece of work is to be found in the beautiful eternal city of Rome. Some call his work in Rome the ‘typewriter’, to others it resembles a‘wedding cake’, and it has even been referred to as an ‘eclectic pile’. If you have been to Rome then it would have been hard to miss the huge white marble monument to King Vittorio Emanuel II, the first King of unified Italy. The monument is located in the large central square, the Piazza Venezia in the very heart of the Eternal city. He won the competition to design the monument in 1884, and began building in the following year, though unfortunately it was not finished until several years after his death in 1905.
Many famous works in Italy are also by this legendary Italian architect, Count Giuseppe Sacconi who originally came from the Le Marche region of eastern Italy. Sacconi was a prolific architect and is famous for his contribution to the restoration movement. As the Superintendent of Monuments in Ascoli Piceno in Le Marche and Umbria between 1891 and 1905 he carried out many works of preservation and renovation in Marche, Umbria and Rome. In Le Marche his work includes the reconstruction of the Church of San Francesco in the village of Force, restoration of the Cathedral of Sant’Emidio in the city of Ascoli Piceno, and restoration of the beautiful Basilica di Loreto in the city of Loreto in central Le Marche.
The historically significant hilltop town of Montalto delle Marche, Giuseppe Sacconi’s birth place, is proud of their connection to the Sacconi name. From the main piazza in front of the Cathedral in the centre of Montalto a short walk leads up to Piazza Sacconi which includes a full-size statue of Giuseppe Sacconi. Also as one enters the village of Montalto it is impossible to miss the majestic Palazzo Sacconi as it dominates the north-facing side of the hill. The building is a simple yet awesome structure, designed on four levels as a warehouse to store Sacconi’s grain and has panoramic views over the outstanding Le Marche countryside surrounding the village. As an important historic building in southern le Marche, Palazzo Sacconi is protected for the people by the Ministry of Arts and Culture in the regional capital of Ancona. Also just as in Sacconi
’s day, the architects from the ministry will participate in any approved project to restore and renovate the 3,500 sqm property for use in the twenty first century, and there are many different possible uses for this magnificent building, including contemporary residential apartments or even a cool historic boutique hotel.
At present this beautiful building is at last receiving the attention it has long deserved and in 2010 it is believed that work to restore the fabric of the building will begin. Livinginlemarche.com is pleased to be associated Cocoon Sacconi which is the company involved with Palazzo Sacconi’s renovation and with Fran Kruc who has invested so much time and planning into the regeneration of this magnificent building.
December 2009
The new Olivaverde website is in the process of being constructed and because of the size of the project it will now be online at the end of January 2010. The site is being developed by an excellent young website design team based near Kings Lynn in north west Norfolk and they are bringing fresh ideas to the look and style of the website. The site at the moment is only one holding page at www.olivaverde.co.uk and we hope that you will like the look and feel of the website and the ideas we are trying to convey about our ongoing relationship with small food producers in Le Marche. We hope that in 2010 that the new website wil help raise the profile of wonderful Le Marche olive oils and produce in the UK and other parts of the world.
November 2009
Livinginlemarche is passionate about the Le Marche region and its people, but we believe that the many wonderful foods and olive oils that it produces have not been well promoted in the UK and indeed are also unknown in much of Europe. Le Marche is still relatively unknown by most of the food buying public in the UK, while Tuscany and Umbria are still firmly the favourites when fine Italian food is thought about.
So that is one of the main reasons that we have started to form partnerships with producers and small food companies to promote Le Marche produce and services in the UK. Over the past six months we have been working hard on creating relationships with Le Marche based companies and small producers, and we are now hoping to bring a Le Marche weekend festival to central London in the spring of 2010. Negotiations are still at an early stage but we believe that a weekend event will help give Le Marche produce a much higher profile in the UK. The event is probably going to take place in late March or early 2010 and discussions are currently still taking place to confirm the exact date and venue.
On show will be the many wonderful Le Marche wines, such as, Rosso Piceno, Rosso Conero and Verdicchio. We will be showcasing eight wonderful olive oils from different parts of the region and with these there will be the chance to taste delicious Le Marche cheeses and Salami. If at all possible we will also try and present some of the fine pasta that is also found in Le Marche, including the famous Maccheroni pasta from Campofilone in the south of Le Marche. Many of our friends amongst the small Le Marche producers and artisans are looking forward to coming to the UK and to promote their excellent foods, olive oils and wines. So please do contact me for further details and if you wish to attend or even particpate at the show and I will be more than glad to advise you closer to the time.
October 2009
Property Videos
We are experimenting with providing videos for properties for sale in Le Marche, we believe that we should provide as much detail about a property as possible to help customers both see the property and also it's location before visiting. As well as the interior we also will try to show the surrounding area and the street or lane that a property is located in.
Over the next few months we are aiming to improve our service as a Le Marche estate agent provide video and in some cases slide shows of all the new properties we add to our portfolio. Where possible we will also try to provide video of some of the more popular properties on our database. We will link through to the popular video website, You Tube and an example of one of our videos is below;
Olive Oil
We at Livinginlemarche have been very busy over the past few months with our new Organic olive oil and pasta venture. We are now importing limited quantities of high quality organic extra virgin olive oil under the name of Olivaverde. For more information on our new range of sole producer organic olive oils please do check out the Olive oil section at Livinginlemarche. A new update and detailed article about this development will also be appearing soon on our blog.
Latest News a new feature on Livinginlemarche and we aim to bring you the very latest news and reports from Le Marche at least every week. So please do come back and join us soon.
September 2009
August and September have been very hot in Le Marche, with weeks of sun and high temperatures with only occassaional downpours of rain! It seems that this year will be a very good year for both wine and olive oil and I am looking forward to tasting the new olive oil that will be produced in late October, early November. The nights are now starting to draw in and the evenings are cooler than they were even only two weeks ago. Autumn in Le Marche is starting to close in and soon the wonderful smell of wood burning stoves will fill the evening air.
The housing market in Le Marche is at last starting to pick up and alot of properties of all types and sizes are now coming onto the market. I have been visiting many wonderful village and country houses over the past few weeks and these will be added to our property section over the next few days. The properties available are in all parts of Le Marche, from Urbino in the north to Grottamare in the south of the region.
I think many clients are again thinking of buying Le Marche properties for investment (check out our Le Marche Real Estate Buying Guide) and also for holiday use, rather than to move to Le Marche full time. Many retired couples do still want to sell up and buy a country property to live in all year round. But alot of clients now look for apartments and village houses which they can lock up and leave over the winter, while still living and working in the UK or their home country. Many high quality village houses are now on the market and I am pleased so many clients are now visiting Le Marche to see and purchase them.
One such property is an elegant large townhouse in Numana. Only rarely do properties come on the market in this beautiful resort. Numana is extremely popular with visitors from northern europe and is near Monte Conero, but I now have this outstanding large townhouse with garden and balconies in the very centre of the village for sale. Casa Numana is two interconnected houses and would make a really wonderful home or could even be used for rentals as two seperate properties.
Another wonderful property is Casa Sauro in the coatal village of Altidona. The house has been throughly restored over the past couple of years and the owner has reluctantly had to put it up for sale. It is in the historic centre and has a small piazza to the rear with breathtaking views toward the coast and Adriatic sea. The beaches at Pedaso and Cupra Marittima can be reached in just over 10 minutes by car and it would make a great investment for holiday rentals as it has 4 bedrooms.
I have also had the opportunity to visit a new development in the coastal resort of Campofilone in the south of Le Marche. The development features fourteen duplex apartments and flats in two fine historic Casa Colonica and all having the use of shared landscaped gardens and a large outdoor swimming pool. All the apartments have marble floors, airconditioning, some with open fireplaces and balconies. They each have three bedrooms and two bathrooms and will be on sale in November, you really have to visit them to appreciate the level of luxury and finish that this development has achieved. All these properties and many more can be seen on my You Tube pages at, www.youtube.com/user/marchetownhouses
Over the past few months I have visited many other properties that are now for up for sale; old ruined farmhouses, restored country houses currently used for bed and breakfast, and many lovely village houses, some restored and many still needing restoration. I think this autumn and winter will be a good time to start looking for your dream Italian home or investment in the beautiful Le Marche region. So please do look at my Le Marche property for sale section frequently as I will be updating it with new properties all the time over the coming months.
Casa Giacomo is a chance to buy a share of 5 weeks in this fully restored beautiful country house near Montefiore dell Aso in southern Le Marche. There are 10 shares in total in this new Fractional ownership scheme offered by the local developer Appasssionata.
