3. The ticket

I had nowhere specific to go or to be--in fact I had become a traveler without a destination. I wanted to explore Europe and here I was.  

Elisabetta's proposal was just the ticket. I could work part-time here near Florence, see the sights, maybe learn a little Italian, eat steady, sleep dry and live.

My second-floor room was fine--bed, desk, chair, bath down the hall, heavy wooden door, window in the thick stone wall with a view of the patio and the rising farmland behind the old mansion--vineyards and the signature cypress trees of Tuscany. The view was so stunning in fact that I made the social error of leaving the solid wood shutters open the first day I moved in. This is not done. Open shutters anywhere in the house raised the indoor temperature noticeably and I was told to please keep the shutters closed during the day.

Another resident worker, Maria, had an apartment in the eastern wing of the house. Fiori, the maintenance man, lived with his wife and children in a nearby village and Elisabetta, the owner, manager, head cook and everything else  lived in a larger downstairs apartment.

The B&B rental rooms were mostly near mine on the second floor but there were several others in nearby stone annex buildings.

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2. Proposition

The hotel--or Bed and Breakfast called Il Poggio (The Hill) is, or was-- since I don't know about it's present condition-- a fine ancient cut-stone building originally constructed by the Medici family on a sunny hilltop  surrounded by a small forest of pine and cypress. trees.


The main building had been a  country estate. When I discovered it the owner had converted into an eight bedroom hotel. 

The building, more solid than elegant, had heavy wooden shutters and massive front doors--a two story structure with mossy pink tile roof.

The owner, Elizabeth Studer, welcomed me warmly--as she did all her guests--and asked how long I planned to stay. When I said a night or two she said, "Perhaps you wold like to stay a bit longer, if you are not in a hurry to be somewhere. I would like to invite you to stay here to help out--you can work for me a half day and have the rest of your time for yourself. Your rent and meals would be free and I will pay you something to keep you in spending money. The work would never be very hard. Why not try it for a while to see if it would be enjoyable for you?"

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