Wiltshire, England, United Kingdom

John and Sandra Voyez,

My wife and I both like walking, and, as I am half Italian, walking in the Italian countryside is our ideal holiday. We had read an article on Borgo di Vagli in The Times, and as we had already arranged to walk a section of the Cinque Terre returning to Pisa, the obvious thing to do was tack on an inspection visit to our walking holiday.We had toyed with the idea of buying in Italy for some time, but were generally put off by the fact that we would be absent for most of the year, and continually worry about the security of the property and its upkeep. Also, we did not want to spend a large part of our holiday each year carrying out maintenance work in order to keep anywhere we bought in good condition; so fractional interest seemed like the ideal solution.If we are honest, we would probably have looked for a location slightly to the North, but when we first saw Borgo di Vagli we were immediately sold on the hamlet and its location, although the approach via the strada bianca was a little more than interesting !!! We both tend to go on first impressions, and we both knew immediately that this is what we wanted – there was not much “selling” to be done.The main concern regarded what guarantees we would have that Borgo di Vagli would be maintained into the future, and would there be sufficient funds to keep the hamlet going at its current level of operation and upkeep – in short, would the owners cut and run once all the interests had been sold. The continuing presence of Fulvio at the hamlet provides a lot of comfort on that front, but this was very much a purchase from the heart, with relatively little consideration given to the financial investment aspect..We visit at least twice a year, and would like to do a few more trips in the future, possibly a week at Borgo di Vagli, followed by a week somewhere else in Italy, and then returning for a week. We have been owners now for just under 5 years and we are still finding new things to do and places to visit.

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