While looking at some earlier pictures, I noticed a house in the background that I’d noticed before but never really thought about. Here it is in a picture from my October trip. It’s right in the center of the view from the back of our house, almost straight to the west.
House across the Valley
I went to Google Earth and it was easy to identify. In fact, it popped up with a place name: Le Foglie Ridenti.
Here’s the Google Earth view. Our house is the pin on the right.
Avventura and Le Foglie Ridenti
Here’s Le Foglie Ridenti from above. If you look closely at the first picture, you can make out the pool that you see in the overhead shot.
Le Foglie Ridenti
From the topological map, you can see: just down the hill and back up.
Terrain around the Houses
I found Le Foglie Ridenti on Google. It’s a house for rent, owned by Saranne and Graham, who live in the attached house with their two children. They describe it as an “eco-friendly farmhouse.” The name means, “the laughing leaves.”
The site says Graham is Irish; it doesn’t say specifically about Saranne. In addition to renting the house, they offer catering and wine expertise. Here’s the link to their site: Le Foglie Ridenti
On the site, I found a picture back across the valley. Our land is right in the center.
Our Land in the Center
Now, the question is how they’ll feel when they find out about the Americans across the way. We may contact them and see about staying there on an upcoming trip.
Last week, Kevin asked me to make payments to the geometra Jimmy and the contractor Francisc. They have both been doing a lot of work in advance of payment as we waited to get the final construction contracts signed.
Kevin sent me the bank details for the transfers and it all seemed very straightforward.
Currency Transfer FormClick image to enlarge
The only tricky piece is getting the correct SWIFT/BIC codes for the receiving bank and the IBAN code, which determines the bank and the receiving account at the bank. (This second one is the place where it can be easy to make mistakes, as it is of variable length and can be up to 28 characters. Here’s and example: IT57O0570469010000000013861)
The transfer to Jimmy went smoothly, but on Friday afternoon I found out something had gone wrong with the transfer to Francisc. Apparently, one of the codes was wrong.
This created a bit of a problem for Francisc. Apparently, he had told his bank the money would arrive within 72 hours. Kevin told me that if it didn’t, he’d have to pay penalties and fines.
We scrambled to get some document to them explaining the problem and promising a transfer as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the following Monday was a bank holiday, so the transfer couldn’t go out until Tuesday.
Again, when I prepared the form, I was told the SWIFT code was wrong, even though I’d used the exact code for a successful transfer in December.
So, we’re still struggling to get the money over to Italy.
An Update
It’s Tuesday and we’re still having problems. I checked all the codes and numbers against the paperwork I got from Francisc and resubmitted the transfer. We still were told the SWIFT code, BPSPIT3S is wrong, even though we had used it before.
I searched online for the code and it still seemed right. Finally, I found a source that used BPSPIT3SXXX. It said the XXX represented the branch, but I don’t have a branch code.
I looked at the successful transfer we made to Jimmy and his bank’s SWIFT code ends in XXX. So we’ll try adding the XXX and see what happens.
Another Update
It’s a day later and the problem still is unsolved. Adding the XXX didn’t help. We’ve exhausted all options from this end. I asked Kevin to ask Francisc to contact his bank and explain what we’ve done and see if they can enlighten him and then us.
A Final Update?
Let’s let Kevin tell the story of what we hope is the resolution of this mess.
You’re getting a dose of Italian incompetence at its BEST (WORST?).
I went with Francisc to the branch today where we were told to send the transfer to that other BIC your guys discovered yesterday. The director then called him after we had departed to say that the regional direction in ANCONA had confirmed to her that in the last 10 days they had INDEED executed a change and that with the release of February statements they would be communicating this change. Can you believe that?? I can’t even imagine the chaos created over 10 days for all their commercial customers doing business with foreign clients. So, the attached has the CORRECT, UPDATED, NEW BIC/SWIFT CODE…please use this and disregard all other communication on same.
The bank has waived all fees and penalties levied against Francisc due to this being THEIR error.
While clearly this is completely out of our control, I am nonetheless VERY sorry that you and your transfer people have had to waste so much time on this crap.
Done
Finally, ten days after we started the process, the transfer went through.
Today, the mailman brought a registered letter from Italy. Against my better judgement — we’ve been burned in the past when Anne was served in a lawsuit this way — I signed for it. I figured it had something to do with the house.
Wrong. It was a notice of a traffic violation. A quite tardy notice, since the date of the violation was last July 5, over 7 months ago.
A side of the road speed monitoring camera had caught me going 118 km/h in a 110 zone and they wanted 58€. Very steep for 8 k/hr (5 mph) over the limit.
Here’s the section outlining the violation:
The comune that had issued it is all the way over on the west coast north of Rome, I figured I wouldn’t need to pay it, but I thought I’d check with Giovanna. Sadly, she told me I should pay.
Given the amount of speeding I’ve seen in Italy, this all seems terribly unfair. La dolce vita, I guess.
An Update
My online Italian teacher Silvia sent me a link to an article that explained the speeding fines in more detail. After reading it, I realized I was lucky to be going only 118. If I’d been measured at 121, the fine would have been at least four times higher.
These side-of-the-road speed cameras, called autovelox, are everywhere. Usually, they warn you in advance that you are in an area with them, but not always. Apparently, not all the cameras are active; some are just dummies, but unless you live in the area you don’t know which are which.
The fine depends on two factors: your speed relative to the limit and the time of day. (Fines are higher between 10pm and 7am.)
The fines can get really high, even for a small violation. Here’s a chart I built from the facts in the article. Ranges are given. I assume that the specific fine depends on the locale:
We’ve been using “Casa Ideale” as the working name for our house. It’s the name Kevin used when he was marketing the property and the house concept.
We hope the house will turn out to be “Ideal”, but we know getting it built and moving in will be an adventure, so I’m going to use “Casa Avventura” as our working name from now on.
Once we have the house connected to the Internet, we need to get a good wireless signal throughout the house. My plan is to use a router connected to the modem by a cable. The router will be in the office and have wireless capability so we can connect laptops, phones, iPads, etc.
My concern is that because of the thick concrete construction, the wireless signal from this router won’t cover the whole house. So I want to connect the router via cable to two access points, one in the main room of the ground floor and one on the top floor.
An access point is very similar to a router. (In fact, many routers can be used as access points.) It takes an Internet signal and connects devices to the network, either by wire or by wireless. Since it’s hard wired to the router, it gets a strong signal to broadcast, not one that is reduced by the structure.
On the electrical plan, I included the needed wiring and outlets. When I sent it to Kevin, he was a little confused about the particular outlets and cables we need to use. I mentioned an RJ-45 connector and CAT6 cables, but my explanation wasn’t clear.
So I made a network diagram and wrote a written explanation of all of this.
Network planClick image to enlarge and see network description
I’m hoping the installation of of this all goes as planned, as how could we live these days without a good wireless network?
