Daniele

This is Daniele Monacchini. He is the geometra, the surveyor in the village of Montisi. He was charged with selling the property by the extended family who owned it. With Momo as interpreter, we learned that the property was 2 hectares (about 5 acres), that it came with precious vine and olive rights, that it was for sale for 100,000 Euro flat (plus 20% tax), and that it was owned in various fractions of one-twenty-sixths by ten different members of a two-family clan spread all over Italy.

There were only two catches. We had to get all ten to meet at a notary's office in Sienna, and one of them, a 93-year-old woman in Florence, didn't want to sell.

On Second Thought

Returning to the property, I wanted Sally to take a closer look at all five abandoned overgrown acres, including....

The tiny delapidated sharecropper's shack...

And the severely listing chicken coop beside it...

And the dying vineyard...

And the disheveled unpruned olive grove...

which happened to have some million-dollar views.

But when I tried to paint the picture of the place a little fixed up, Sally couldn't see it.

So I tried another tack and said I really wanted to give it a try. This caught Sally's attention because I rarely say I want anything. But it wasn't until I said I would turn the dilapidated two room shed into a love shack...

that she agreed to meet the sellers.