Retire Early Lifestyle
Retirement; like your parents, but way cooler

In 1991 Billy and Akaisha Kaderli retired at the age of 38. Now, into their 4th decade of this financially independent lifestyle, they invite you to take advantage of their wisdom and experience.

Antiche Volte Bed and Breakfast

Lecce, Italy

Billy and Akaisha Kaderli

Currency Converter

After our amazing stay in Faeto, our next stop was a 2,000 year old city called Lecce.

We took a bus out of Faeto to Foggia, then a train from Foggia to Lecce, a total of about 200 miles.

We arrived in Lecce between 3-4pm and walked the 15 minutes from the train station to our B&B.

Sign outside the B&B

The train station wasn't far, and since the area is fairly flat, this was no hardship at all.

The B&B was advertised as being close to two different major Piazzas and had WiFi throughout the establishment. A tea and coffee maker were in all rooms and they boasted a superb breakfast.

As you know, when traveling we like to choose accommodation that offers breakfast. When breakfast is included in the price of the room, and then having one meal a day also in our room, this method ends up saving us quite a lot of money.

Then we spend that savings on other fun things to do around town.

We were in contact with Elisa via WhatsApp and when we arrived at the B&B, she sped up on her motorbike to let us in.

Our room

Elisa began going over the rules and regulations of staying there, and often mentioned "according to the law" this, and "according to the law" that, including how many times a week we may have our linen changed and so on.

It seemed rather odd, aloof and not not very welcoming. But, ok, wouldn't want to break Italian law or anything.

Because there were 3 of us traveling, and our companion was a Friend not a relative, getting to the shared bathroom was a little sticky.

We had two choices.

We could either walk through his room (to the left outside the photo) any time of day or night, interrupting his naps, his nightly sleep and his privacy. Or we could walk out through this door in our room, into the public courtyard (wrapped in bath towels for our shower?) and then back into his room through another door to utilize the bathroom.

2 bedroom set up

Our rooms were conjoined and the single bathroom is to the left of the bed in the 2nd bedroom.

 We worked out the kink in this plan... except that Elisa and her helper Raphaela insisted that the kitchen door into the public courtyard be locked (none of us had keys). This made our friend a hostage in his room.

He had access to the courtyard and his room, but that was it.

He then, too, had to walk through our bedroom at any time of morning, noon or night to get to the hallway and outside in order to have a life of his own.

Door from our room to the patio

We were all adults here, and none of us babysit the other.

Being in our 6th and 7th decade of Life and needing to ask permission to come and go every time one wants a bit of freedom is simply out of character for all of us.

The immovability of our hosts made the boys cranky indeed.

To add to the difficulties of renting this property, we asked about the advertised breakfast included with the room.

"Oh no" Elisa  said. "That's an extra charge of $8Euros per person per day for breakfast."

So... It's a B&B, without the B, if you know what I mean.

Our Friend's bedroom and the only bathroom

To me, the place was really beautiful, an ancient building from the 1400s. The whole town gave a Romeo-and-Juliet feeling.

But the chilly interactions with both Elisa and Raphaela were taking the shine off the glamour of it all.

Paying another $24Euros per night for the 3 of us for a few eggs and some fruit wasn't worth it to us.

We'll just purchase some food and cook it in the kitchen ourselves.

It's no big deal, ... Really!

We don't mind.

Kitchen

"Erm... no," Elisa says.

We are forbidden to use the kitchen in any way, except to make espresso.

We can't use the refrigerator, the microwave, none of the kitchen utensils or stove and certainly NOT the washing machine.

"But, but... we are supposed to have shared use of the kitchen."

Eventually, Elisa concedes that we might use part of a shelf in the refrigerator, but she and Raphaela were agitated that we might want to wash a plate or something.

Warning sign in the kitchen!

All of this took us by surprise and we were trying to be flexible in this situation.

I spoke with Raphaela that our Friend was not a relative, we don't do every-single-thing-together, and he should have the kitchen door open so he can have access from his room to the front door.

This would allow him the freedom of personhood he deserves so he may come and go as he pleases.

She reluctantly agreed, but then got a charge out of giving me that permission... you know what I mean?

Being generous of heart that one time was a feeling she was not familiar with, but it felt good somehow...

Girls! Girls! Girls!

This is silly!

We are twice your age, we're not going to have wild parties, we are not destructive, we just want to have some food and come and go with respect.

What we thought we were renting as per the Booking.com listing.

The above listing is clipped from the advertisement for Antiche Volte.

We weren't trying to be picky, it's just that we thought one thing from the promotion and received another thing in reality.

I wish I could say this was the end of the misunderstandings, but it wasn't.

We had hit a weather pattern in Italy of chilled rain that had lasted for days. It was the kind of dampness and cold that gets into your bones.

Our first night passed and we were freezing in our rooms.

Billy doesn't do well when he's cold (he's a beach guy) and adding to it, the lack of sleep just gave him that "look of death."

We couldn't continue like this, feeling wintry in our rooms, not being able to use the kitchen and going out into the drizzling rain on the patio and back into our Friend's room to use the can.

Elisa the manager acted like we were spoiled oddballs for asking to have heat in our rooms, and kept reciting things like "according to the law." She said they could only have so many hours of heat during the day (24 hour period).

"But," - she said rather Stasi-like - "perhaps I could request more hours."

The next day, after we received more heat, she made a point to let us know that our room was “very hot” yet I could barely feel the relief from the dampness of the cold. I had on two shirts and my vest inside our room.

I mentioned to her that perhaps she was used to the weather here in Italy, but to us it was cold.

She looked at me confused and bland-faced…

“This is May. This is our weather in May.”

Living room and dining room

See how beautiful this renovated place is? You can see the black front door straight ahead.

As we were working out having permission to place some food on a shelf in the refrigerator, one afternoon the 3 of us sat here in the dining room to have lunch.

It was basically an antipasto plate with olives, bread, olive oil, mixed cheeses and meats. There was some fruit and glasses of wine.

We hadn't used any kitchen utensils, we bring our own plastic plates, glasses and we had our own silverware.

Elisa and Raphaela come through while we were eating and the look of shock on their faces told us we had done something against the rules.

Elisa didn't say it, but we never used the dining room again.

!!!

Oh! This is going well...

Patio and door to the kitchen on the right

This is the public courtyard.

Our Friend's adjoining room is the first door on the left.

The kitchen door is on the right.

Our bedroom door is at the back with window to the kitchen.

We had been given the "hairy eyeball" so many times that basically we stayed in our rooms, freezing in the damp 58-degree weather when we went about town.

We ate in our room and put our trash in the trash can for Raphaela to toss for us when she cleaned.

But apparently, Raphaela reported us to Elisa, so one morning Elisa begins to school us on the separation of our trash.

There were bins for plastic, bins for glass (please wash them first), bins for cardboard that was used, bins for cardboard that was clean, bins for organic matter, and bins for paper products.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Please, please. Make the nightmare with these women STOP.

Then my prayer was answered.

The next morning, a society woman and her daughter who were renting the upstairs room began SCREAMING.

Apparently, the hot water in their shower didn't work.

The boiler was broken and the heating system had failed (which is why we were FREEZING in our room).

All of a sudden Elisa JUMPS into action to get this matter settled.

We are no longer the enemy, as this beau monde verified with her anger and disgust that she would not stay at a place that couldn't even provide the basics of heat in the room and hot water in the shower.

Elisa offers to move the high society mother and daughter to another location.

She gives us the same choice... or we could get a 50% discount on the stay at the B&B while she gets the boiler fixed.

Bathroom

Our bathroom was like a shoebox, about 3.5 feet wide, with no place to put clothing or items like a comb or makeup.

Truly, it was as if Clarity hit her like a punch in the face.

She tried to do everything she could to make our stay comfortable even though we didn't have hot water.

She apologized for the inconvenience, and all of a sudden we saw her smile for the first time.

The past bad behavior and attitude was erased and her icy style had melted.

Elisa was quite beautiful and endearing when she shone like that...

But would we recommend this place for you to stay?

Sadly, NO.

__________

B&B Antiche Volte

 Via Coniger 22

73100 Lecce, Italy

Contact the property for any questions or special requests. +39 333 382 5226

Retire Early Lifestyle appeals to a different kind of person – the person who prizes their independence, values their time, and who doesn’t want to mindlessly follow the crowd.

HOME   Book Store

Retire Early Lifestyle Blog      About Billy & Akaisha Kaderli      Press     Contact     20 Questions     Preferred Links    

Retirement     Country Info     Retiree Interviews      Commentary     REL Videos