Column: live your dream!

Wonderful! The flight attendant bends over William and tickles his little chin. She quickly calls her colleague who then bends over Gabriella cooingly. Daniel, two and a half, looks at it in amazement. He sits on Aunt Isabella's lap while my mother bottle feeds Gabriella and myself William. 

They are now three months and indeed… endearing. The exclamations and cries of the two Italian flight attendants will be the first of many expressions of love for our children, because Italians love children whether they are male, female, old or young.

We are on our way to Italy. Our great adventure is about to begin. Our dream in Italy. Six weeks ago, Fred left with his father and my father to make our new home habitable for our young family. Everything is ready for our arrival, so now I am sitting here with my three young children, mother and niece on the plane to join my husband and live our Italian life piedmont to start.

Under the Italian sun

That's how it was ten years ago. Fred and I had been dreaming of a life under the Italian sun for several years. Alternately, we had kept each other in balance in recent years: then he wanted to take the step and I stopped things. Then again I wanted to go and he was not enthusiastic. But when our oldest son – Daniel – was six months old, we decided to take the plunge and seriously look for a home under the sun. After all, what was the worst that could happen? If it didn't turn out to be as fun as we thought, we could always come back with an experience richer.

And it worked out. It was just as fun as we thought it would be. Heavier, more intensive and more frustrating than we thought, but great, inspiring and propulsive. Our life in Italy is a celebration of warmth, nice people, delicious and honest food, good wine and a great view.

We have made the choice to base our lives in the Netherlands after three years. This had to do with the rhythm of life in the hills of Piedmont and the education for our children. At the end of 2009 we returned to the Netherlands, keeping our wonderful company in Italy, full of plans for the future and good prospects for our children.

Eleventh Season

Now we will start our eleventh season next summer. We are still just as enthusiastic as in the first year. It is our passion and we are not satisfied until our guests have had the best holiday ever. We have also come up with new offers for this next year. Simply because as an entrepreneur you should never stand still and always have to improve yourself. We have grown from three accommodations in the first year to seven accommodations in the coming season. More expansions are planned for the coming years.

The step we have taken has made us realize our dream life. We are living our dream and we are very happy about it. It is a lot of work to reconcile the school diaries and our seasonal calendar every year, but it works and we are very happy.

The dream of others

We are now ready for a new phase in our lives. After ten years of successful business abroad, we can also help other fortune seekers who are about to start living their dream in Italy. We want to guide them through this entire process. They can contact us with their questions, doubts and we can assist them with advice, inspiration and our knowledge. As experts by experience, we are happy to help them on their way. Soon our new site will be online, which will contain an online program.