Interesting Properties for Sale in Le Marche

Estate Agents Avio Fioravanti has several interesting properties for sale including an 'up and running' business....

An ORGANIC Farm with Farmhouse, Farm Shop, Organic Farm, and Park with a Visitor Centre. Based near FERMO (AP)

The Farmhouse has 6 bedrooms, each having their own bathroom, heating system and air conditioning.
The largest two of the six rooms of the farmhouse, have a wooden gallery with ample room for two extra beds. Perfect for a bed and breakfast business.

The Park Shop, affiliated with the “Agrishopping- La Spesa sull'Aia” association, sells meat, pork and boar salami, (chicken soon) from animals bred on the farm and processed in our own workshops. The Park Shop also offers typical regional foods and wines including jams, preserves, tomato purées, extra virgin olive oil, D.O.C. and I.G.T. wines, spirits, pasta and much more, all made locally.

The Park - with paths, accessible on foot or by bike, suitable for children too. An area for deer, goats, plenty of wildlife, woodlands and a pond.

Contact Avio Fioravanti info@marcheproperty.it

Secret Italy - Tour of Venice & Tour of Marche

Just to tell you about John Hall's ITALIAN JOURNEYS - SECRET ITALY TOURS

www.johnhallitalianjourneys.co.uk


ITALIAN JOURNEYS are planned for people who want to enjoy the best of Italy without having to worry about planning, driving, decisions and deadlines.

ITALIAN JOURNEYS combine culture and conviviality in exceptionally beautiful surroundings. John Hall hopes to make those who come feel more like invited guests than part of a package tour.

ITALIAN JOURNEYS is a small personal enterprise, interested in quality not quantity. The tour policy is to offer one tour each year (limited to 25 participants), repeated if neccessary. Additionally, they plan made-to-measure tours to suit individual requirements.

Further details www.johnhallitalianjourneys.co.uk or call the secretary on 01473 251 223

Holiday in Marche

Ciao Tutti,
Thought it was about time we had a blog section on www.holidayinmarche.com Please feel free to send blogs about your stay in our corner of Le Marche. Tell us about your favourite places to visit, favourite restaurants, best beaches etc to benefit other visitors. Simply go to the holidayinmarche link and email us.

The website covers Macerata, Fermo, and part of Ascoli Piceno provinces, near the fabulous Sibillini Mountains, look here for places to stay, - where to go, what to see. In addition now there are properties for sale by owner, from apartments ready to move into, to restoration projects. Use the link opposite to get to www.holidayinmarche.com

Summer at A&E

Ciao tutti

Time for an update. Just coming off a big nite at friends, feelin' mellow, relaxed, hope same goes for you. Summer's hit and we're all sweltering. Afternoon siestas and sleeping with nowt but a sheet over. Hammock's slung in the shade of the mulberry, breakfast, lunch, supper and Earl Grey breaks happening on the deck. Cherries and figs ripening and miniature bunches of grapes taking place of the vine flowers.

Tractor activity pretty much zero just now as Luciano took a tumble on thursday and fractured a foot. Seems the tractor was parked on an incline in a field while he was sorting the hay cutting device slung on the rear when the tractor started to roll downhill. Superhero Luciano leaps into action and jumped onto the moving tractor but was unable to scale the steps up into the cab, leapt off, landed badly, broken bone the result. I volunteered for the hospital run only to bump into another of our Italian neighbours in accident & emergency (suspected ulcer/s) and the lovely proprietor from Le Logge restaurant (health query undisclosed). Quite the social hub, Macerata hospital. Luciano's fixed up with motocross style boot affair instead of plaster to keep all in place but understandably going out of his mind with frustration. Will be at least a month before physio therapy kicks in. Tractor stopped of own accord just two or three metres away. The sort of drama we can all do without!!

Barzeletta

Una barzeletta al giorno toglie il medico di torno!

Un uomo chiede a un avvocato: "A quanto ammonta la sua parcella, solitamente?"
L'avvocato: "Sono 2000 euro a domanda."
L'uomo: "Non le sembra un po' eccessivo?"
L'avvocato: "No, affatto! Qual è la sua terza domanda?"



A joke a day keeps the doctor way!

A man asks a lawyer: "How much is you consulting fee, on average?"
The lawyer: "It is 2000 euro per question"
The man: "Isn't that a bit excessive?"
The lawyer: "Not at all! What is your third question?"

Olive Harvest

Had to drop you a line to let you know about the latest dining experience Gasparini style. The countryside's been a blur of activity lately, what with the olives coming to maturity. Folk up ladders with their plastic claws combing through leafy canopies, popping off the olives to be caught in nets cast about below.

The Gasparini's have more or less a hundred trees and it's a full weeks work for Luciano, Graziella, and Seconda, Mario when he's mobile, plus various members of the extended family and the occasional volunteer. So far, they haven't finished yet, they've gathered over a ton, can you believe. Luciano dropped by last Sunday to ask for a ride in the pick-up with six quintali (600 kilos) to the olive mill in Loro Piceno. The pick-up's maximum load capacity is half a ton so we were a tad overloaded but made our uneventful way after dark. You'd have loved the sight of all the old boys hanging out, airing their views while waiting patiently for their olives to be transformed into liquid gold. The mill's running 24 hours at present, the air inside a heady perfume and the floors as slippy as an ice rink's. This type of mill, where they cold press the olives, is fast disappearing, the more modern way, an automated, continuous process has done away with the manual labour. Although undoubtedly more profitable for the operator its processes make sacrifices in the finished quality. The old-fangled mills grind the berries to a pulp, the pulp is then pressed without any heat being applied, then a simple centrifuge separates the oil from any water and impurities. Only a slight evolution of the way it's been done for millenia. The result is the very finest cold-pressed, extra-virgin, olive oil, also organic in Luciano's case. Luciano's batch would be milled at around five in the morning so we didn't hang about for too long but once returned home he duly set his alarm for four o'clock a.m. to be back there for his turn. And so it was that yesterday he popped by again to invite me round for supper.

A homely scene, Graziella busying herself with food and table preparation, Luciano perched comfortably in front of the open fire toasting bread and pork escalopes over the wood embers. It was a simple supper. The oil poured over toast with a little salt is the traditional way to savour the new season's bounty. There are variations, rub a cut garlic clove on your toast first, there's salt laced with chilli pepper for the more adventurous and there were slices of toast with sausage spread over for variety, cooked over the same oak embers. Meat, and salad from the veg plot, to follow. With my limited vocabulary and inadequate imagination I'm unable to convey the perfection of the dining experience. The company. The setting. The olive oil; nothing more than the sun and rains and the passage of time, no chemicals or fertilizer. Hand picked by the last of a breed and milled with respect the old fashioned way. Labour intensive and inefficient the process may be, but the product is beyond compare. For a minute I wondered what price you'd pay in Belgravia or Knightsbridge for a meal such as this and then realised it never could be re-created.