Author: Stew

Lights, Camera, our team in . . . Action! HGTV and “House Hunters International” comes to Umbria

House Hunters International comes to the area to film episode for HGTV.

PACIANO, Umbria, Italy–You look like a pretty international bunch. I’m not just saying that. I can tell. And I bet you’ve heard of “House Hunters International.” I know it is one of the many home and lifestyle shows we watch on HGTV when we are being Arm Chair Travelers.
HGTV comes to Umbria
Bob and Carolyn (seen here outside Aldo’s on a sunny day) just bought a house in Paciano and the House Hunters crew has been following them and documenting their big adventure every step of the way. They’ve been living in Germany for a few years, but on the show, the camera will initially find them at their home on the West Coast of the US “thinking about finding a place in Italy” and then they follow them to Umbria to go house hunting. The show hooks you by asking you to guess “which house did Bob and Carolyn pick?” Which they reveal “right after these words from our sponsors.”

We’ve been talking to the producers about doing this kind of thing for some time but their schedule and the brokers’ schedules never came together before. This time, the planets aligned properly and soon it will be Show Time. Well, not quite. These things take time. My guess is that it will be on in the spring. When we find out exactly when this episode of House Hunters International will air we will post a note here.

As you can see from the pictures, last week in Umbria was a busy time. The crew arrived and put everyone through their paces. Katia with her good English skills was hired on as a production assistant. Her job was to keep everything moving smoothly there on her home turf. She got a chance to “peek behind the curtain” for a few days and see what really goes on backstage. Ahhh, the glamorous Hollywood lifestyle we’ve all heard about. She said it was on your feet ten hours a day, every day, right through the weekend.

Giancarlo played played himself, during the shooting ie: broker and house guide. After hours, he played the host for the crew as they stayed at his nearby b&b, Podere Pescia, just outside Castiglione del Lago. They were there with him for nearly a week doing just this portion of the filming.

The director wrote me and said it all went great. In a few weeks’ time the crew comes back again and film the proud new owners At Home in Umbria. We’ll see if we can get some shots of that session when it happens.

More news as becomes available. Until then we will adjust our berets at a jaunty angle, toss a scarf dramatically over one shoulder and say . . .

See you in Italy,

Stew Vreeland

OLIVE ‘O8. Wish you were here?

Olive harvest in Umbria just outside Panicale

PANICALE, Umbria, Italy–Every day this week Elida and Guenter have been sending us pictures of that day’s harvest. This is from today’s photos. Day Three. The idyllic beach weather has finally turned more seasonal and they are rushing to get as much done as they can. In Iowa we call that “making hay while the sun shines.”
olive harvest in Panicale in Umbria in Italy 2008
Having done both haying on the farm and the raccolta di olive at Casa Wassman, it is safe to say “Frankly, Scarlet I’d rather be picking olives.” They know all of us monkeys here in Maine wish we were there up a tree with them. It is hard work and once you start racing the weather, it is work that keeps on coming. Thinking about emptying that first tree in a grove full of trees is daunting. Once you pick a tree, put down your nets, put up your ladder and start pulling those rascals down into the nets. And the next thing you know the tubs keep getting fuller and fuller and then the magic moment comes when it is time to be hauling your olives off to the press.

Elida says they took several thousand kilos off to the press in Pacino, just yesterday. They had to be proud of that. So much of farming is such a throw of the dice. Last year there we hardly any olives to pull into the nets and the few there were, well they were so small some would slip right through. Not this year!

With friends from Africa and South America, the crop is coming in big time. And some other friends from San Francisco are joining that happy throng in a day or two.

In the meantime as Steve from Australia (who, like us, lamely can’t make this year) says “Elida, you are killing us with these pictures.”

Living vicariously, or however we can, until we get back there.

See you in Italy,

Stew Vreeland

Money can’t buy happiness? How about chocolate? How about zucchini pasta? Picking olives with friends? Can they buy happiness?

friends bringing us chocolate from Aldo, other friends torturing us by sending us fun photos of olive harvest, Perugia written up in Traveler magazine


Even faux euros can bring a taste of happiness if they should happen to be wrapped around a piece of real Italian chocolate, hand carried from Bar Gallo.
chocolate from Perugia, Umbria, Italy
PANICALE, Umbria – WILDS OF MAINE–Our friends Bud and Susan just got back to Maine from their adventures in Italy. Their son got married at Spannocchia outside Siena and then they stayed in Panicale for a few days. We weren’t too jealous when they confirmed what all our Italian friends have been emailing to say/rub in – that the weather this October has quit being autumnal and returned to the balmy days of summertime. Nothing but soft breezes and blue skies for days on end. La dolce vita in fatti. So. That didn’t make us jealous. And Bud, a bit skeptically I’m sure, took our advice, got his hair cut at Biano’s and it changed his life, as I knew it would. And they ate wonderfully with all the Belficos at Masolino’s next door to our house and no, no, REALLY, not at ALL jealous. But! Everything was all better when they brought back a stack of our Italian maps, tour books, etc. On top of the stack was the 500 euro chocolate from Aldo and family. With a note on the back of a Bar Gallo card.

All is right with the world. What did we do to deserve friends with candy? We felt missed, we felt the love and we felt the green eyed monster slinking away.

LATER THAT SAME DAY
We get a raft of magazines at our office. I really have no idea why we have National Geographic TRAVELER magazine, I didn’t order it, but it seems to be coming and I picked this one (Nov/Dec 2008) up to bring home and read because right on its cover it had this well-I’ve-got-to-check-this-out story hook: “World’s Sexiest Small City (HINT: IT’S IN ITALY) Page 98”. Hmmm. What that is all about? Midge got to it first and looked at me over the top of it and wagged her eyebrows a couple times “Want to guess where it is?” she said. “You’ll love it” Quit teasing me, let me see that! What a treat. 12 full color pages on one of our favorite neighbors, ever-chic, ever-Etruscan Perugia.

I’d love to give you a link to the article but that isn’t how TRAVELER is set up, so you may have to take my word that it is a great and engaging article or find a copy in your local magazine shop. Their web site does let you see some great Perugia photos. And like the chocolate bar from Aldo took me to Panicale, this took me back to my days at the Universita’ per Stranieri in Perugia. In a heartbeat, the soles of my shoes were polishing the stones of Corso Vannucci scuffing my way up that promenade to meet friends for a midnight gelato. Con Frutti di Boschi.
olive harvest in Panicale in Umbria in Italy
AND RIGHT NOW.
Right while I am writing this, our dear friend Elida dropped us an email about the olive harvest. Earlier in the week she’d sent us a couple pictures warning that our wisteria was trying to digest our house. So I wrote Dily at Linda’s store and she told her dad Bruno and he’ll teach that wisteria to mess with Casa Margherita! But back to the olive harvest. When it is nice weather, there is no finer way to spend the day than helping friends pick. And then helping yourself to groaning tables of food for hungry farm workers. She mentioned apple tart and zucchini pasta were on the menu today. I remember picking and eating and eating and picking, walking home and falling straight over into bed and sleeping like the proverbial pascha. At seven pm. Like we did the last time we were picking olives at Elida and Guenters. Oxygen and fresh sunshine overload will get you every time.

Ah, I wish we were there. And in my mind, we are.

See you in Italy,

Stew Vreeland

Honey, I’m home. (part six of a series)

Arriving in Maine from Canada. Ape in tow.

GRAY, Maine–Midge, this cute Italian followed me home. Can we keep her? Pleease? Well, we did it. We brought this piece of Italy home to remind us of the old country every time we step out the kitchen door into the garage there. As if we need Italy reminders!
bringing home a bit of italy. an Ape?!
bring home an italian ape. from canada
Could a stranger be forgiven for thinking this part of Maine is crawling with apes? Apes around every corner like we were in downtown Siena or something. Having one in town is just some guy (Paul) being eccentric and leading edge. Two is surely the beginning of a trend, no? I drove it around the yard a bit last night and realized I was way too trippunchy to do that so I bucking bronco’d it into its new home and turned off the key. And went to bed. whew. Going to get comfy driving it this weekend. I’ve never had a motorcycle with hand operated clutch, so I keep moving my left foot around over there. Nope, still nothing there. I’ll get it. Until then, looking into the garage you just want to pinch it on its cheek, it is so cute sitting there.

Before calling it a day, we stopped at our major benefactor’s office, so Bill Goddard could see the whole righteous rig that his valiant Tahoe drug across all of Northern New England and a full Canadian province. Then we showed the STV marketing team the new Company Car and then home. Home. Love the sound of that. By evening I had confused the town hall and the State of Maine as well. They really didn’t have a book sitting around where they could research initial sales prices of one of these. But they kept after it and eventually it worked out, I gave them some money and they gave me a plate.

All’s well that ends well and this may be the end of this part of this adventure. I will try to do one more wrap up with the a photo gallery that shows the Canadian Countryside and the trip adventures in more photo detail. We’ll see how the weekend goes. Thanks for coming along for the ride. Saluti a tutti!

(travel note: the Lavazza Cafe was a giant fun surprise to find on the Mass Pike. Plaza just before Worchester.)

See you in Italy,

Stew Vreeland

FULL MOON. OVER ALBANY.(part five of a series)

EAST GREENBUSH, NY–The miles seemed to just drop away. Heading these Italian horses for their new barns in Maine. Blue skies now instead of steely grey. We pull into an oasis just this side of Albany to think about how far we’re willing to go today before calling it a day. Paul’s first test drive in his Lancia is three and a half hours and its passing with flying colors. Red, white and green?
Italian Lancia, paper plates
We go into the Roy Rogers at twilight, a few bites of a chicken sandwich later it seems pitch black and the Lancia has no lights. OK. Not so good. Luckily Paul thinks like an engineer and somehow defroster settings bring the tail lights to life and fog light setting make the nose end look right. The State Trooper that swooped around me and onto Paul’s tail didn’t see it quite like that and flipped on his multicolored lights to have a better look at him. Handmade paper license plates by us over coffee in Buffalo, no light for the paper plate, and left headlight completely out. That is how he saw it. And who said we could make our own license anyway? He eventually tired of asking questions and let Paul go.
evening in lancia
But oh, that full moon. Huge. Glad I had plenty of time to admire it while Paul talked to Mr Trooper. Kind of glad he hadn’t noticed Paul was wearing one of those miner’s hat things with a light on it when he pulled him over. No instrument lights and he’d wanted to have an idea of how fast or not he was going. He flipped the switch on that and tossed it on the floor as he was pulling over.

Definitely time to get off the road. Only one hour of night driving. But that hour was a long one. Only four or five hours to go. Lets do them tomorrow.

In the day light. We’ll unscramble that Lancia’s wiring another day.

See you in Italy. And if you see me in Gray, Maine, I’ll be the one riding the Green Ape.

Stew Vreeland