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"..................... we bought near Rome never imagining in a life of Sundays that it was such an important route worth it would never be dropped...alas!!" Anyone thinking about getting a holiday home in Italy should consider how you are going to access the place - relying on one transport provider is always risky, and should be avoided if possible.  This is one of the advantages of a place 'up north', near the lakes - my place [near Lake Maggiore] is drivable in a day in an emergency, [and with a couple of overnight stops makes a very pleasant start to the holiday], has 3 airports within 90 minutes [Turin, Milan Malpensa and Bergamo, plus Geneva as a back up], and can be reached in a day by train - so access isn't a major concern. [There are also no Brits in the area, which is a major plus].  It gets harder the farther south you go, and this should be factored into any consideration of "where to buy?", rather than just going where the sun is.

"earthing for house with 2 core electrics ............, cooker & water heater. " Is your power supply up to dealing with the power requirements of these appliances? - You probably only have a 3kW  supply, and if you brought the cooker and water heater from UK [for example] they would probably exceed the system's power availability

Several years ago we stayed at the 'Best Western Hotel Rothaus' - not too bad  Nowadays about £100 a room plus 22SF for private parking [book when you book the room]

I've got one on my UK wood burning stove - seems to be effective. [Apparently they were originally developed for narrow boats where the stove would be at one end of the boat and there was no electricity for 'normal' fans to shift the warm air about] Still prefer the open log fire in my ½ûÂþÌìÌà 'holiday home' - not so efficient as a log burner stove, but visually more pleasing, and nice to snuggle up to in Winter - but would go for a stove if the ½ûÂþÌìÌà place was my permanent residence

"Even if you are getting the UK state pension, the winter fuel allowance is not an automatic payment. You have to fill in the form, and my husband is not in receipt of the state pension is also entitled to the allowance."   The married couple allowance is the same as a single persons - they get half each - so its hardly worth the second person applying   [until after the other one dies!]

"............ Maybe pushing on to Switzerland - Luzerne maybe for the first night if this isn't overly ambitious. .............." Switzerland is expensive to stop in - we've stayed at a few places in and around Lucerne, and I do recommend the Hotel Engel in Stans [a few miles beyond Lucerne, but as quick as driving into Lucerne centre.]        Cologne to Stans is about five to five and a half hour driving - I would avoid the risk of getting caught up in trafffic in Basel by bypassing it using the motorway turn off to Lorrach just before Basel.  The dual carriage way goes straight into Switzerland and doesn't add any distance to the journey.  

"Any advice about great places to stop for the first evening .......... " It might help if you could give the approx area you would be looking to stay in that night

".............  It's not my doorway I'm constantly finding Cat Sh1t in, it's my Garden and potted plants. And before you say it, the Water thingy doesn't work  ........... " Just been having some work done on my garden in the UK.  The gardener says that one way of keeping cats away is to put some plastic/rubber snakes in the garden - he swears that cats are petrified of snakes and won't go near them. Anyone know if that works?

Sounds dodgy to me. Ask him to put this 'method' of progressing the scheme in writing to you - that should sort out how legal he feels it is

Just checked on the DirectGov.uk website  "Moving to another country If you move to another country, you should check with the driving licence authorities there for information about driving and exchange of licences. You don't need to notify DVLA of a change of address when moving to live abroad."