If someone had suggested to me, at any time prior to 2024, that we would be living in Italy right now I would have thought it utterly ridiculous. To be honest I would not have wanted it either. I never had the dream so many other's do, of "Living La Dolce Vita" in the Tuscan countryside, for example.
For us, our plans of making a base in Europe were either in Spain or France, close to one of the yachting hubs. Italy never entered that equation, despite running boats with mostly Italian itineraries.
But as we know well by now, things never turn out as planned and here we are in Sardinia with our own apartment and a life settling into a community on the Costa Smeralda, learning to live slower and simpler.
Looking back, the writing was on the wall. In big bold flashing lumo letters but obviously you see mostly what you want to and inevitably need to be forced into the thing. Anyone else have this problem?
The first time I visited Sardinia was in 2019 and I thought that would be it. But almost every year since we have been back and 2024 was spent primarily there, running a private yacht of course. This is when the decision was made to buy an apartment and make the Costa Smeralda our base for the short term future - because things are always changing for us and so we never plan more than 5 years ahead (which actually means 1yr ahead).
We have transitioned from running one boat full time to managing multiple boats and new builds, as well as a little racing here and there. It made sense to have a base in Europe where we could be close to our primary client's boats and then also easily get to other areas in Europe for new projects, boat shows and ship yards.
We started looking at apartments to rent in the area and the options were limited, to put it mildly. Most Italian/Sardinian owners don't want to rent their places out because they either keep them as holiday homes, which means the closets are full of all of their things and you have to move out over summer holiday season, or they are terrified of the housing laws in Italy which can easily screw them over (a complicated, ever dramatic, topic for another time). The market rates are ridiculously expensive for tiny run-down places with no wifi or closet space - and the Italian's are not known for their enthusiastic maintenance schedules (don't come at me - I am quoting the locals!).
In the end we were basically forced into buying a specific apartment because it was the only "reasonably" priced place in the area and the monthly bond payments are close the same as renting a tiny hovel for 7 months of the year. The interest rates in Europe are around 1/4 of South African rates, so that was a welcome surprise. We were able to split the place in two and rent out the bottom level: longer term to expats in off-season and then cash in over summer (mid June - mid Sept) with holiday rentals, to make a healthy contribution to the finance repayments.
We affectionately call her our little "turd" and we have been lovingly polishing her since May to get her in a lovable and rentable state. More on her progress at a later stage.
She has become more of a home than we ever expected and the Sardinian community that surrounds us has truly warmed our hearts to the island and it's culture (also an interesting topic for another post = these will all come in due course).
We ended 2025 in South Africa and started the New Year here too. February will be an adventure in Patagonia, and then back to our home in Sardinia for the rest of 2026.
It was always a dream to be "Swallows", like the Germans escaping the European winter, here in SA, and then returning for the Med summer. It recently dawned on me that we have indeed created our version of that now and I am not sad about it.
