It’s been a long two years since my last post. Actually, something more. Covid has indeed changed our lives immensely. Two years in which we have basically stopped travelling and, as holiday home owners, also stopped renting out. For two years, I have walked past Casina di Rosa to see it empty and closed. I confess that it made me feel very sad. We have been coming to the village less often than we used to, because it is difficult with the kids in school. Moreover, we did not want to risk getting the older members of our families sick.
Luckily, things have changed a lot. Covid is still here, sure… but we have pretty much all had it, somebody more than once. It has become a fact of life. We have learnt to live with it, with the uncertainty that comes with it. We have gone back to a more normal social life, to travelling (although, truth be told, it forced us to cancel our long-awaited trip to Canada 3 weeks ago!!), and… at last, to hosting again!
We have reopened the door of our Casina di Rosa to incredible guests, some returning, some new. We have taken advantage of this “pause” to fix a few things that needed fixing, to repaint the interiors, to upgrade some of the things we make available for our guests. And we plan on keeping doing that for a while more: one little bit at the time.
We have had to make some changes. We now have two kids in school (and they go to school on Saturday here, yes!) so being in the village every weekend is not always possibile. So, we have installed a key lock box, and now our guests can access the house even if we are not here. We are still available for a “virtual check-in” of course, even when we cannot be there in person, because we love that personal first encounter! So we ask those we cannot meet to give us a video-call once they are in the house and have connected to our wifi. This way we can still give them the grand tour of the castle!
We still try to be there in person when they arrive as often as we can. But this solution will hopefully give us more flexibility and will allow people to arrive on a day other than Saturday in low season if they wish to do so.
So… we are back in business! And we hope to see our little house lively with curious travellers once again!
We would like to thank all the friends and former guests who have written to us and liked our posts on Facebook and Instagram and chatted with us on Twitter over these long break. They have been the input we needed to reopen our doors!
Grazie!
