Get Hot in an Italian Villa

I used to live very close to the city center of Padua. Houses and building are packed into small spaces because real estate is at a premium. So the gym I joined in that area was a tiny little hole-in-the-wall with great people, good prices, yet a horribly small space. See post. If there were more than 10 people inside, it felt like a crowd and you had to be very patient to get on the machine you wanted.

However last year I moved to, basically, the suburbs. I decided to find a new gym in my new neck of the woods (or rather-fields). The new choice happens to be Sportville, a big restored Italian villa on the riverbank of the River Brenta. There and to my eyes' delight, I can gaze at old restored wood beams in the ceilings, beautiful big windows and Italian-style awnings while sweating on a treadmill.

The owners reinvented this "house" to the contemporary needs of a 21st century gym culture. Sportville looks gracious and classic Italian on yhe outside and has state-of-the-art machinery on the inside. Many creature comforts are also embedded into this villa's sheath, such as a spa and café. The only thing that it doesn't have is a tanning bed, which I am happy about, but have seen in other gyms. Italians already tan enough as it is!

So I've gone from one extreme Italian gym experience to the other: tiny and cramped to lovely villa styling. Now I don't have to fight for a space in the aerobics room anymore. I can run along the nearby Brenta if it's a nice day, instead of having to wait for a treadmill to become free. I am in a villa, after all! Everything is better in a villa, right?

Although there are several Italian gym chains in the Padua area that completely mimick US versions, down to the big ugly structures and carving a space out of a big office building, I have ended up choosing something else, twice.

Hot US Celebs Buy Property in Northern Italy

It wasn't enough to only have one of the sexiest American men alive with a beautiful luxury villa in Italy since 2002. That is George Clooney, who has also been in the news over the last couple of years because of his romantic liason with Italian TV sweetheart Elisabetta Canalis. He bought Villa L'Oleandra in 2002 on Lake Como.


Now there is another sexy duo on the Italian scene--in Northern Italy! Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are reported to have recently bought a mega villa in the hills of Valpolicella, the region famous for its red wine of the same name. Paying a mere $40,000,000 their new abode includes a park, two swimming pools with waterfalls and jacuzzi tubs, a cinema room and a well-equipped gym. They have supposedly been in Italy for the last 10 months while Jolie has been working on the film, The Tourist in Venice. According to the property firm owner Alexander Proto, "They wanted something more exclusive and in record time to spend the summer vacation in Italy."


So Brad, Angelina and family, any plans to come to Padua soon?



Photo credits:
Clooney's villa: MailOnline
Clooney and Canalis: cinema-tv.guidone.it
Pitt and Jolie: myluxury.it

The American Dream of an Italian House?

Would you like me to say I bought this as my house? It's a very old historic Italian villa over the water. In fact, this is the not-very-famous Piovego river. Reading other blogs and listening to many American experiences in Italy, I feel like I should be living a dream of buying property like this. But who can afford a monstrosity like this with an honest Italian salary, I ask? In fact, the Americans who buy fantastic property are either independently wealthy, have been paid well for many years by an American company and are probably retired, or have chosen to buy in the small towns in the countryside of the south, where most Italians are not interested in purchasing because there is no industry or nightlife therefore prices are kept low.

I didn't move into this house. I only drive by it everyday on my way home from work. This picture was taken close to sunset.

No one seems to live here or even do events in this villa, a typical use for majestic old villas in these parts. I need to find out some more information about it, but it sure looks fantastic in its romantic aura of decay and history, along this extension of the Riviera del Brenta, bordering Padua.

Via of the Villas

Doesn't this just make you think of Miami or California? No, it's on Via XXV Aprile, Noventa Padovana (Padua).


The dream of a 1960's/'70's Italian villa: also on Via XXV Aprile. Basically, this house is next door to the picture above.

A country villa from 1800's Veneto style, yet again on Via XXV Aprile.


Don't you see how this area is the utopia of Italian villa-land. Each plot of land offers its century, style and ideal?

Welcome to my new quartiere.