Bought an apartment in Impruneta, just outside of Florence, Tuscany ⚜️
The properties available for rent here can be very elegant but after two years of negotiating chaos in Firenze ~ including household floods, building noise nuisance and eye-watering energy bills, we've finally escaped the over-priced rental market, and bought our own little piece of Florence!
We closed the deal late March 2026, on an apartment tucked away in an old Florentine turreted towerhouse (a Villa), with sizeable shared grounds, ample parking, a pool and conveniently only fifteen minutes from our daughter's school and the historical centre, all for the cost of a rural UK semi.
Here she is, our splendid "Towerhouse" Villa Le Torri, hardly an original name, but it's pretty spot on.
We were handed the apartment keys in April 2026, and now that we’re fully moved in, the fun really begins: turning this beautiful old space into a home.. First on the agenda is CORNICING (cornici). There's something about beautifully finished walls and ceilings that instantly makes a room feel more elegant. And, for the sake of doing it well and not spending thousands, we did it ourselves. Two weeks later, and the result is a smarter finish and a rather satisfying saving of 2,000 €. FYI Tradesmen here charge BIG.
From boring white walls with cheap glass shell lamps to a light jade with sparkly vertical lights and shiny parquet! Embracing more tradition with age it seems, moving away from the formulaic Scandi minimalism, which I still love of course.
Having learnt to slow down over the last two years here, we are now adopting our newfound way, the moochy "Italian approach" to remaining decoration tasks. We're allowing the apartment to evolve gradually! Because there's plenty to enjoy beyond decorating, and seeing friends and exploring Italy as well as swimming, tennis and Aperol Spritzing in the sun, are definitely priorities. 🥂 Never did retire, as keep finding billable jobs to keep the house budget healthy and school fees paid. Al is doing well in his Cyber CISO role, so it's not all pasta, pizza and pilates.
Impruneta is south of the centre, still within the Metropolitan City of Florence.
As for the cornice challenge, the top pieces were fun and games, because the maths on the angles had us both flummoxed. In the end we cheated and cut it by eye to avoid fudging it any more. 👀
Downsizing in our fifties feels weird, but kinda right. Don't want to leave it too late and don't need mega-room or a five bedroom old manor house like our last property. Two of my three children have left home... One visiting Ecuador for a couple of months and one living in London. So this comfy and convenient Florentine home is big enough for family and friends to enjoy, and complemented by the shared garden, swimming pool and rugged neighbouring woodland, which we all indulge in. A veritable tree huggers paradiso!
Impruneta, of course, is “the place with the pots”, famous for its classy handmade terracotta.
As for the buying process, in the UK you can get house buying surveys done together i.e. for local authority, drainage, and environmental checks, as well as title investigations and others. Here, it involves employing separate experts and this means inflated costs. I didn't check for radio aerials, wind farms or major construction projects, so as not to declare bankruptcy or sell a body part, but checked almost everything else, within reason.
The buying fees were approximately 50.000 €, including taxes (in the UK it would be around half of that), for a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom apartment. Of course, here they discuss properties in square metres (metri quadri) instead of how many rooms. The price was amazingly just shy of 400.000 € – we negotiated gently with the fascinating and well known Florence Cassetti family, down by circa. 20,000 €.
After dark and the well lit garden, with electric gates and CCTV. (Three apartments left FOR SALE).
In the woods flush to our house there are (big) red deer, cinghiale (wild boar) - pretty huge too, hares, feral cats, foxes, rabbits, crested porcupines, rodents and other critters roaming around, including tortoises-a-plenty that I see on my dog walks. Perfect habitat for our hard shelled sleepy friends of the Western Hermann or spur-thighed variety. 🐢 Love the balance of nature to hand and the city well within reach, but hate the insanely scary cries of the stags which sound like velociraptors, or medieval torture victims.
Our neighbours are Italian and in their late twenties. They work every hour, except Sundays and sometimes Mondays. We don't see much of them but invite them to get-togethers. It all feels very cosy, and we definitely made the right decision relocating from the UK. Once we’d settled in, we found our living costs were roughly two-thirds of what we’d spent in Britain. Also, the level of friendliness always takes us by surprise as I am so used to lowkey slightly grumpy and cynical Brits, where hilarious sarcasm and dry wit is deployed like it's going out of fashion. However, road rage is something Italians share in common with Brits (though not me personally, honest gov).
From start to finish the sale took six months, that's 50% longer than most British home sales we have experienced. Worth the wait and it is starting to feel like home, with newfound friends and always great options to get out of the city.
We drove to Orvieto recently, which is 1.5 hours in the car from Florence. Indulged in a stroll about town and a standard "squisito" lunch. Orvieto Cathedral (another Duomo) is a stunning 14th-century Gothic cathedral renowned for its dazzling golden mosaic facade and the Chapel of San Brizio, which features dramatic Renaissance frescoes by Luca Signorelli depicting the Last Judgment. It's finished with a very similar style to Florence's Duomo Santa Maria del Fiori, absolutely stunning to see ~ before or after a hearty meal!
Doubt one can ever get bored of living in Italy. The people make it amazing, with the stunning landscapes and delicious cibo being the icing on the torta! When it's explored at a leisurely place, it should take a lifetime to discover. If a break is needed (though unlikely) we can always apply to Airbnb our apartment, or long term rent it. Put my former Airbnb Superhost skills to task again! Though for now, two years in, we feel more at home and increasingly enchanted with this country, not to mention the exquisite local vini and cucina ~ wines and cuisine.
Al and I were totally enamoured by this nonna's sassy attire. I hope to be much better at Italian when I get to this age, and equally as colourful.
To wrap this blog up, I will end on a recommendation for if you are buying here... Just check, as you may not need a property lawyer or solicitor conveyancer. The "Notario" does most of it! Had we known this, we could have saved 8,000 €. Our lawyer was good – though the "fixed fee" was added to, but if we buy again, we are going to drop that service and ask the Notary to help us. But for now, there will be no house moving stress, just feta overdoses.
Of course, it's never perfect. A month ago our neighbours above had a bad flood and it destroyed our kitchen ceiling, which is work in progress for now. So you know when they tell you to look up when wandering around Florence, maybe don't do that if you visit us. x
