My Story by Jessica

As owner/operator of a horse trekking business here in Tuscany with my husband Paolo, I am often asked the question “how did you end up here”.

Most expats living in or nearby Florence seem to have fairly interesting stories regarding what brought them to Italy. Some came for work, others for love, and others due to a spouse’s job opportunity. I first experienced Italy as an 18 year old escaping a terrible Au-Pair job in Germany. My parents refused to let me come home after only four months.  I was told to stick it out, or find something better in Europe – but no return ticket would be provided for me. So it was then that I left my job under the disguise of a “weekend away”, and took a train from Hamburg all the way down to Florence.  I had an address of a horse farm in Tuscany, and not much else to go on.  It was December, cold, damp, and dark when the train pulled into Campo Marte station.  A kind businessman called Alberto helped me find a bus to Santa Maria Nuovella station, and took me out for coffee while I waited for the next Sita bus to Barberino Val’d Elsa. The chance I took on this job in Tuscany turned out to be well worth it. I stayed for a year in Italy, learning basic Italian, and fell in love with my co-worker trekking guide at the farm. I left Italy at 19, returned to New Zealand to finish my studies, and gradually forgot Italy’s chaotic beauty and charm, and my little “rapporto” with an Italian man.  Five years later, at 24. I returned to Italy on Sabbatical leave. I intended to take 6 months of travel leave before accepting a transfer to the Frankfurt office of the software company I was working for at the time.

Things didn’t work out quite how I planned though… I never counted on meeting up with my ex boyfriend Paolo again, nor did I ever imagine I would have my first baby in an Italian hospital (not something I would like to repeat either), nor did I ever imagine swapping the comfortable corporate lifestyle for horses, mud, and manure.   Still…that is how things worked out in the end.  Before my residency came through, I struggled finding a decent job.  My husband had four nice horses that he used for the odd trail ride with friends, so we decided to expand that business to offering trips for visitors in

Florence. The business grew slowly. We started out in an old farmhouse with a bathroom the size of a single wardrobe, and the horses lived in a paddock in the forest. Slowly we improved what we had, eventually working with one of the nearby agriturismo, where our clients would stay for a week long riding holiday. We were never short of clientele, nor supportive agencies.  Within one year we had 8 horses and a nice makeshift stable in the agriturismo.  Now after three years, we were headhunted by a larger agriturismo near Montaione where we moved the entire business last November.  We now work in close collaboration with the Agriturismo clientele, and have riding arenas for lessons, stables, paddocks, and a good team of 14 horses and a pony.  Life is never boring, and juggling a growing business and an energetic two year old daughter is never dull, but living in Italy pushed me into creating a business and lifestyle that I would never have had the courage to attempt in Australia or New Zealand.  I would most probably have spent the rest of my life behind a desk, and would never have had the chance to raise my daughter in some of the most beautiful countryside in the world.  For all the problems one can encounter in this country, after 5 years I consider Italy my home now.