The last adventure - Italy
An adventurer.
I have always been an adventurer, a person who is eager to see what’s behind the next corner, a person who never settles and accept the things states. I always want to do better or see if it can be done differently (not necessarily better).
It started 25 years ago, when I joined a solo course in French as the Embassy in Copenhagen. Yes, I had fallen in love with France. Some years later, I discovered Italy and it became my new love. From 2006 and forward we only vacate in Italy, both winter and summer and the idea to emigrate to Italy grow’ed in my mind. Went to several language courses to learn the italian language, and after 4-5 years I have a basic knowledge of the language.
In the spring 2017, I met Thomas Liepsner, an american in Tuscany who have lived 40 years in Italy, and on a trip we became close friends. He have an agriturismo and we formed a partnership, where I was involved in the business handling all the rentals, bookings, marketing, etc. Year by year, my late wife and I became closely more and more attached to Italy.
In spring 2022 we made the jump. I had a remote-only project at the time and we decided to try it out. We could always return to Denmark, and furthermore we had the agriturimo in Tuscany. We just blocked an apartment at the agritusmo, cancelled our rental house in Denmark, moved all our belongings into a storage facility, and just left Denmark for Italy. No plan, no savings, we just did it.
It was a bit crazy, but we had one important factor in place, which has become my mantra; you can easily move to another country within the EU, but you have to create your own job! And I had my IT freelance remote-only project that we could live of easily.
It was a great time, we lived almost a year in Tuscany on the agriturismo, and later 7-8 month on an italian estate in southern Umbria. We lived out our dream to live in Italy and it was a great experience. Well, all dreams comes to an end; after almost 4 years working remote for my client I lost the project for the cheap Eastern Europe contractors, and had a hard time getting the next contract, so I finally decided to return home to Denmark.
Living in Italy for almost 2 years was the greatest experience of my life (besides the birth of my son…). I would give my left arm if I could stay in Italy for ever (by the way, I’m left handed…).
But adventures can also be a combination of a homebase and long adventures during the year. And that is probably what I will do next. Having a base in your home country, and maybe fill 30% of the year with great adventures throughout Europe or maybe even further….
Well, that’s the intro to my blog here on Explore with Anders and feel free to follow along. My next adventure will be 6-8 months in southern France, where I’ll work and explore the area of Languedoc-Roussilion - But more about that in future blog posts.
à bientôt - ci vediamo - see you soon …
