We're Nikki and Carlo and we live in Positano, Italy. Except we also just bought a house in Tuscany, which we're currently renovating, so we live there too. Join us as we turn this house and olive grove into a dream home, and get to grips with living in two different parts of Italy. We've just spent some time in the UK with family and friends and now we're driving back
to Italy through France. We stopped the first night in Honfleur and now we're driving along the coast. We're in Normandy, we're in a place that neither of us can pronounce but I'm gonna try Aromaa'n Shleba I think is how you say it and we are on the coast where the D-Day landings happened and we're going to have a look around we're visiting three or four places today we're going to take you with us but right behind us here there's a little installation that I want to show you that I find really touching
Yes, I was very impressed to hear, to read about this story, about this man. It makes you reflect a lot.
Yeah, and all the little pictures all the way along the pathway here with photos and you can see as it was then and as it is now. It's really touching.
Yes, one thing I feel like saying is, why, despite all these things that happened more than 70 years ago, and even more recently, and even further away, we don't learn. We keep on fighting, we keep on shooting, we keep on killing, I don't know, we're crazy.
So this is the D-Day 75 garden and it was commissioned in 2019, which would have been the 75th anniversary of the Second World War. This year we reached the 80th anniversary and I did a little interview with my dad on the other channel where he talked about life as a child being evacuated from London during the war. This is a sculpture of Bill Pendle at 97 years old. He sits in uniform with his medals looking across at his 22 year old self about to land on Gold Beach on D-Day. Four more sculptures show other soldiers wading through the waves to get to the beach.
The soldier sculptures are made of welded washers and are haunting to see, as you can see right through them. This was originally designed as an anti-aircraft gun. It was turned into the most famous German anti-tank gun due to its accuracy, handiness and efficiency. This weapon was designed by the Krupp factory engineers. Aramanch played a vital role in the D-Day landings of June 1944. The Allies built an enormous floating harbour here, known as Mulberry Harbour, which allowed ships to unload troops, vehicles and supplies directly onto the beaches because there were no natural ports.
Huge concrete sections are still visible out at sea and they were towed across the channel from England and assembled off the coast in just a matter of days. This temporary port kept the invasion supplied until the main French ports could be captured. It was a key factor in the success of the Normandy landings. Walking out, we're just walking down to town but look at this beautiful little mini chateau with a sea view it is stunning
just on this road here overlooking the sea the town's just down there perfection there are all these flowers everywhere and also to think that someone comes to water them otherwise they would already be dry for a long time and they are all beautiful French, I must say, are much much better than what Italians think
so this is an applause to them, good! I'm going to try to get a good shot of the sea. I'm going to try to get a good shot of the sea.
I'm going to try to get a good shot of the sea.
I'm going to try to get a good shot of the sea.
I'm going to try to get a good shot of the sea.
I'm going to try to get a good shot of the sea. When they say that Italians are everywhere, I have to say that it is really true, because
going around both in England and here thought I would hear English people everywhere I haven't heard many at all I've heard Italian everywhere literally every second person that walks past seems to be Italian but I haven't heard much English very strange I thought on this part of the coast it would be more English visitors because it's so close to England it's so easy to get across by ferry
Maybe you hear more Italian because we speak a lot and we speak in a loud voice
yeah but I still have that radar in me that I hear an English voice and I hone in on it and I haven't been hearing them
Olly is tired obviously we left the bag in the car Obviously we left the bag in the car. Obviously we left the costumes in the car. The costumes?
Yes, to take a bath.
What was I going to do with Holly being tired? We could take a bath. On our way back to Onfleur we stopped in Cabourg for a walk along the beach. We'd heard that parts of the beach were dog-friendly but we parked near the center and it turned out the dog-friendly stretchers were right at each end and the beach is four kilometers long. Cabog itself is an elegant seaside resort full of old Belle Epoque charm. There's a sense of faded grandeur from another era with grand villas lining the
seafront and a lively main street packed with shops and cafes.
I have found the perfect brioche for Carlo because it is actually bigger than his head.
Look at these, they're amazing!
They're huge, they've got a whole load of them there! At least that's how you understand it. pretty villages we've decided to not take the motorway and pay the toll so that we get to drive through like real towns and real inland France yeah because we stay in a not real city no I just think that when you're driving along the motorways you miss a lot. I mean you don't see anything interesting at all.
I'm joking, I'm just joking.
For me it's much more interesting to take the slightly longer route and just get to see a bit of real life France. And we were just saying how well kept everything is.
It's all clean kept everything is it's all clean and tidy
yeah everything is really well kept and I have to say again, much better than in Italy even if it's bad to say but it's true
it's so nice here I tried to say that the other day
and you told me I wasn't allowed to say that
yes I know because allowed to say that but here it's more cared for in the places where I've seen in Italy and therefore in the places where I've seen in France
it's true, even though I'm not allowed to say that even though I've lived over half my life in Italy I'm not allowed an opinion on Italy but that's fine
it is just my experience surely someone who lives in Northern Italy or in a well-off place could say, no, it's not true, we in Rimini are all beautiful and clean I've never been there, so I'll speak where have I been in Italy?
where have I been in France?
France is better Anyway, we're going to visit a little village now called Le Belle Hel...
Le Belle Hel...
Oh, I've forgotten the name. The Belle Hel...
Hel...
What?
Hel...
The Belle Hel.
Whatever it's called, I'll write it here somewhere.
And it's supposed to be...
I think it won an award for one of the prettiest villages in France, so it should be nice to
have a look at.
We've just arrived in Lebec Helouin, a village officially named one of France's most beautiful and walking through it you can see exactly why. It feels almost unreal here a gentle stream by the roadside timber framed houses in soft pastels and climbing roses and hydrangeas spilling around each doorway. Wow, we've literally just walked into the edge of a village.
It's stunning. This place is really beautiful, a joy for the eyes.
It's peaceful here, not at all overrun by tourists. From the village green, a quiet pathway leads you under trees up to the majestic Abbey Notre Dame d'Aubec founded in the early 11th century by a knight turned monk named Helouin. The Abbey quickly became a major spiritual and intellectual centre. Though it endured hardships, it was burnt and repurposed during the revolution, even used as a military barracks. Monastic life was restored in 1948 and Benedictine monks returned to live and work here once more.
Today, the Abbey is a quietly living monument. Its centuries-old buildings and cloisters exude peace and the monks there still make candles and ceramics that you can find in the little shop nearby. This town is a bucolic heaven. It is the perfect quintessential country village. It's very medieval, very, very pretty. It's very, very well cared for, flowers everywhere, really beautiful. And what comes to mind is a book I read a couple of years ago
that is in my list of my top 10 favorite books. It is Hamnet by Maggio Farrell, which recounts the story of Shakespeare's wife, well, from his wife's point of view and his son's point of view. And it just described the medieval bucolic period so well.
And this is it. I've found almost what I feel like is the setting of the book which hopefully one day will be made into a film. We've been driving for about three and a half hours and in that time the temperature has
gone up 11 degrees.
It was 21 degrees when we left this morning, it is now 32 degrees. We're back in hot country. it was 21 degrees when we left this morning it is now 32 degrees we're back in hot country not sure how I feel about it are you happy? you were complaining about the English weather?
maybe maybe so sorry I prefer the sun I don't agree when it's very hot but if there's the sun it's even hotter
yeah it depends where you are
if you're in the North Pole and there's the sun maybe it's less than 10 degrees but there's the sun
it looks like it's getting hot everywhere in Europe in the next few days but yeah it's going to take a while to get used to it again. It was so nice and fresh before. Nah, it's not very easy. This morning we're in a town called Saint-Maud-en-Arsois and it is a beautiful, really beautiful medieval town and we've been incredibly lucky to find this little walkway along the river open it's only open on Saturdays and Sundays and today's Sunday so we're extremely lucky that we found it
and it's a beautiful, beautiful pathway on the other side of the town from the little medieval centre where there's also a Sunday market where we're going to go back and buy lunch later but it's really really pretty. Let me show you. So these gardens are about two and a half hectares he said which would be about five acres of land and they were abandoned since the 1940s and basically they have been restored over the last five years the guy said that it was a it was a covid renovation project
just looking at the details look at the railing that is amazing old battered railing it looks perfect here Did you notice the vineyard? Yes, but did you also notice this granite? Yes
Incredible
It's beautiful
It's made of kilos and kilos of marmalade she's calling her mom, Eni is talking to her mom now So we've been in this village for probably about two hours already I think and the whole time we've been here we've been searching this one spot which we saw and wanted to find to get a photo because it is stunning and we have literally walked around the whole village we've been across the bridges we found parks that we thought it must be this one it wasn't that we found everything except what we were looking for and last minute I was like let's
just go down this leafy little alleyway it looks pretty and it led down a load of steps and I found what I was looking for. Finally let me show you what I'm looking at right now. I'm just going to turn the camera around. This is what brought us to this village, this view here. Isn't it beautiful? Very very medieval and lovely. And the further I walk away from the bridge the prettier
the view gets.
And if you're interested that house is for sale. Wow.
It is so pretty and so peaceful. I thought it would be swamped with tourists here, but it's not.
Would you live in a house like that?
I think I would, definitely. so This is the room that we have woken up in this morning.
Rather grand.
Anyone know where we are? Good morning! We are in a chateau! We've come to visit Amy and Mark from Chateau de Rosier. I'll leave the link to their YouTube channel below here. This is our third visit here actually. We've been once about three and a half years ago and we came together and it was December, it was just before Christmas and it was really really cold and then I came again with Indy when I drove to England by myself and now we've come back. It's sort of en route so it's quite a nice place to stop and we all hit it off really well,
Mark and Carla get on really well, Mark lets Carla use his digger. Me and Amy get on really well. We chat about all sorts of things and it's a really nice place to come and just have a break from the driving. So we've been here a couple of days already actually and we've just taken it calmly and relaxed. It's very very hot here. There is a heat wave sweeping across Europe at the moment and it was 36 degrees yesterday here I thought it'd be cooler because we're quite high up we're about 500 meters above sea level here so I thought it would be a bit cooler but it's
not and it's very very hot so we're just taking it very very calmly and quietly yesterday we went down to the local river to have a little paddle but there wasn't much water left it almost dried up anyway Anyway today it's Amy's birthday so we've all got some presents for her and Mark and the kids have been baking a cake and we will sit down and have some lunch with them and I think tomorrow we're going to head off and drive straight home from here. It's about eight hours, eight and a half hours, so we're
going to do it in two parts. We're going to
drive for about four hours, stop, have a big break, a big walk, some lunch and then get home. Morning everywhere. I want to show you what we bring for breakfast this morning. I don't know the name in English, even in French, but in Italian, this is a big girella. This is a frusta, and these are croissants, very big. Mmm, bon appetit!
Mark and Amy bought the chateau for the land. They are incredibly passionate about restoring the old gardens, orchards and a working farm to its 17th century glory after decades of destructive forestry ruining it. They have their work cut out as the Chateau has over 130 acres of historic land. You can follow along on their two channels, the Chronicles of Chateau de Rozière and the Lost Gardens of Chateau de Rozière.
They haven't posted for a while but they reassured me that they do have some new episodes coming soon that they've been working on. So my dad is known as the jam king of Cobham he makes so much jam it's ridiculous and he picks blackberries all around the countryside and makes jam and gives it away to everybody he's got about five kitchen cupboards ram-packed full
and we're scared they're going to bring the house down because of the weight of them
so...
Amazing! This was literally made last week.
Black cherry jam!
Top present! Orient Express in Lego!
No but the Orient Express is one of my dreams. I think for my 50th i would like to go on the orient express
yeah exactly there yeah that's in the wrong time
are we gonna make it now
i was wondering what i got because this morning was it her the closest she came to telling me was i want to play your present song thank you cutie pie thank you so much everybody did you make this with papa? yep wow
and I did amazing
what are you doing Nicky?
I'm fulfilling one of my long time dreams my dream has come true I have always wanted to raise angora rabbits and just sit and brush them As the Sun goes down and I've got the most beautiful Gray Angora rabbit on my lap. What's this name? this one's baby bum bum flower the other one's called boing so I've got baby bum bum flower on my lap and it is
the softest thing and he's very nicely letting me brush him get all the tangles out I think the dog's jealous we've put Indian Carlo... Indian Carlo! Does Carlo like to chase rabbits as well? Indian Holly have been taken away by Carlo so that I can do this without them getting jealous it's alright little one, I haven't quite seen his face yet. No, he's trying to find its eyes. I'm just gonna see the setting you're in I mean ignoring all the toys littering the setting you're in. I mean, ignoring all the toys littering the ground,
you actually do have a chateau, a rose plant and the sunset behind you.
I mean, what more do you want in life? Amy has everything that I want.
Hahaha.
Angora rabbits, chateaus, vegetable gardens, baguettes, great pastries in the morning. And what temperature has it been today Nikki? 36 degrees. And do you think that rabbit was happy to be in 36 degrees? Well he was in shade so hopefully he's just been very calm and quiet and now he's gonna feel a little bit better if we can get some of this fur off him. Are you gonna make him an angora sweater with this? Well I think it may take me several years to get enough
angora fur off my two rabbits but I am keeping it and I am hoping to get a
spinning wheel and learn to spin. Really? Yep that was my promise for christmas wasn't it mark
no you're dreaming you would love it mama i would love it wouldn't i to make jumpers for you all soft yeah we could just take the skin of the rabbit and no i'm joking i'm joking! I'm joking!
Did you find its eye? Not really. Oh there's one.
Oh hello! Baby Bom Bom flower!
There's a dreadlock here.
I need to get the clippers don't I?
Mama do you want me to get the trail of my tractor to put the wool in it?
Okay, yeah.
Oh, don't further you...
Clement's got a collector for the fur.
Put all the fur that you have in here. Don't miss Wednesday's video on our midweek channel Aperitivo 50 where Mark sets some Put all the fur that you have in here. Don't miss Wednesday's video on our midweek channel Aperitivo 50 where Mark sets some tasks for me to carry out.
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