Palazzo San Benedetto

08/06/2026

It is now 18 years since we bought the palazzo! But this is the year we move in! 💪

18 years: That is how old our daughter is this year but she has cost us less in financial terms and levels of stress 😆

Channel 4 spoke to Andrew Miles and Katja von Schweitzer - who first fell in love with the southern region of Abruzzo in 2005, after going on holiday there.

06/06/2026

Endless days of cleaning and varnishing tiles and clearing the garden means we like to get distracted. Andrew showed me a fantastic door on a little break we took from our chores today which he wants to use for our little chapel...

02/06/2026

Our little lunch break today. Note my socks and sandals 😀
Andrew has been very busy in the garden landscaping and I've been prepping terracotta tiled floors covered in builders' dirt, dust and cement ready for varnishing. 2 have been varnished, 3 are ready to varnish. Only another 6 rooms to do now! The rest don't have terracotta tiles or have no flooring and are not yet ready for living in.

01/06/2026

Only testing but our antique new doorbell works! 🔔 😊

31/05/2026

The birds and their songs around the palazzo 🐦🪶🎶

30/05/2026

Check out Andrew's handy hints for installing door handles and locks in our latest video: "DIY Doors Do's and Don'ts". Link to video on our channel in comments below.

I certainly learnt a lot from filming this. It's quite a process to get everything right but well worth it if you are having doors made to measure and want to cut costs by doing the installation yourself.

There is so much to do renovating our ancient Italian Palazzo in Abruzzo, Italy but we now feel like we are on the home run. The moving in date could be getting much closer, although, this footage was filmed just a few hours before that of our previous video from which, if you watched it, you will know that I had an accident which has set us back somewhat in terms of our moving in timings.

However, nothing is going to get in the way of us moving in to our palazzo in the next few months having waited for that moment since purchasing Palazzo San Benedetto in 2008.

26/05/2026

I can't sit still if nobody else is. I found a fun way to help Andrew clear the soil from stones 😀

25/05/2026

Busy in the garden, sorting out the soil.