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Buying A Property Abroad: An Expert Guide

The Foreign & Commonwealth Office, in partnership with the Buy Association, have released a new video full of advice for people who are planning to buy property overseas.  It is entitled Buying a Property Abroad: An Expert Guide and is full of useful tips to remember when you are looking for a new home in Greece or Italy.

For advice specifically related to moving to Greece or Italy, please have a look at our Removals Advice pages, which have a lot of information on packing for your removal (including videos), choosing the right company, and links to other resources.

New Video – Export Wrapping a Settee

We’ve just added another brand new export wrapping video to our website, and this one focuses on an item that many of our customers find difficult to wrap – a settee.  We hope this video is useful!  As always, if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask us, or alternatively just use our experienced team to do your export wrapping for you.  The new video, along with the rest of our packing and wrapping videos, can be found on the Removal Advice page (scroll down to the bottom of the page), but we’ve also embedded it below:

New Export Wrapping Video

We’ve just added a brand new export wrapping video to our Packing Advice page (please scroll to the bottom for the videos).   In this new video, Hamish and Rob demonstrate the methods for export wrapping a dining table, and the techniques can be applied to any large table.

Don’t forget that in addition to our export wrapping services, we also offer full wooden crating services for antiques or very fragile pieces of furniture.  Making a bespoke wooden crate to transport a piece of furniture is of course the most secure method, but in most cases it is considered unnecessary, and export wrapping techniques are used instead, as shown in the video.

The principles covered in this series should be very helpful if you are doing your own wrapping and packing for your removal, but if you would prefer that our team does it instead please don’t hesitate to ask.

Two New Videos – Export Wrapping

We’ve just added the first two videos in our new series on “Export Wrapping For Your Removal”.   In this new series of videos we have a new star, Hamish Robertson, who will joined by our Removals Manager, Rob Baldwin in the later videos.

The first two videos teach you the principles of export wrapping using a dining chair and a standard lamp as examples.   With all overseas removals (such as removals to Italy or one of the Greek Islands, for example), all furniture must be properly protected for the journey – this is called “export wrapping”.  In these first two examples the main product used is furnisoft, which is a type of heavy-duty bubble wrap, as explained in the videos.  Watching these videos and the rest of the series, which we will add over the coming weeks, will give you a good working knowledge of how to export-wrap your furniture properly before transport.

Alternatively, if it all looks like too much work, just ask your Nomad International removal team to do it instead!   Please let us know in advance of course, then we will bring all of the materials with us.

You can find all of our packing videos here (just scroll to the bottom of the page).

Earliest Sample of Minoan Hieroglyphics Found in Western Crete

From the Greek Reporter – An excavation in western Crete has uncovered a sealstone engraved with Minoan hieroglyphics, the first time such evidence has ever been found in the area.

A four-sided red jasper sealstone is among the finds unearthed during this season’s excavation of the Minoan peak sanctuary at Vrysinas, located south of the city of Rethymnon.  The whole area was officially announced and included in the archaeological sites list by the Central Archaeological Council of Greece.

The sealstone, which is carved on all four surfaces with characters of the Minoan Hieroglyphic script, constitutes the sole evidence to date for the presence of this earliest Minoan style of writing in Western Crete.

The excavation, which began in 2004, is conducted by the Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities under the supervision of the archaeologist Helena Papadopoulou in collaboration with Prof. Iris Tzachili from the Department of History and Archaeology of the University of Crete.

For the full story click here.

Amid Greece’s challenges, Kalamata basks in the sun

From CNN: Amid all the news surrounding the European Debt Crisis, it is easy to lose sight of the positive news coming out of Greece, including an increase in tourism of 9.6% over last year.  Chris Kokenes returns to his ancestral home of Kalamata to see how it is faring.

After reading all the bad economic news coming out of Greece, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the Greek people are still carrying on their daily lives.

Greeks may be cutting back on their vacations, but the country has seen a rise in the number of tourists. The Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises expects more than 10.5 million visitors this year, a 9.6% increase from 2010.

On a recent trip to my mother’s hometown of Kalamata, I was curious to see how this seaside city on the southern part of the Peloponnese, best known for its luscious olives and as the birthplace of the New Age performer Yanni, was faring amid the country’s economic crisis.

Unlike Athens, which is home to more than 3 million Greeks, the images of protests and distress are nowhere to be visibly found in this sun-drenched town of just over 100,000. Here, the city seems to embrace the energy of the sun. Young people seem to outnumber the old.

The origins of the city’s name remain murky, but according to relatives, it’s probably derived from the Greek words “kala ommata,” which means “beautiful eyes.”

Kalamata is hardly a destination most tourists consider when they think of a vacation in Greece. The islands of Mykonos and Santorini are usually the headliners in that fantasy.

Kalamata, the 10th largest city in Greece and the capital of Messinia, is built on the foot of the Tavgetos and near Messinia Bay. It draws mostly Greek vacationers, as it’s a good home base close to other tourist sites in Messinia and ferries to some nearby islands, including the Ionian island of Kythira and Kissamos in Crete.

But for most people, the lure of Kalamata is the beaches, with their blue waters and free sun beds.

The tranquil beaches in Kalamata are more than 6 miles long, and elderly people taking a morning swim is a familiar sight.  Take a leisurely walk or bike ride along the promenade, and it’s hard not to stop into one the many tavernas for a cold Mythos beer and a Mikri Pikilia: a selection of sardines, meatballs, calamari, tomatoes and cucumbers.

For the full story click here.

New Video – Packing Fragile China and Glassware

We’ve just added another video in our series on “Packing For Your Removal”.  Many thanks to our Removals Manager, Rob Baldwin, for again starring in the video.  In this film we show you how to pack a box of fragile items such glassware, china and fragile ornaments.  This is an example of export packing to BAR standards, which is very important when you are transporting goods as far as Italy or one of the Greek Islands, for example.

Alternatively, if it all looks like too much work, just ask your Nomad International removal team to do it instead!  Please let us know in advance of course, then we will bring all of the materials with us.

The new video on Fragile Packing is in two parts.  You can find all of our packing videos here (just scroll to the bottom of the page).

Rhodes Town, Greece: A cultural guide

From the Telegraph: Robin Gauldie offers an essential cultural guide to Rhodes, a Greek city once ruled by the Knights of St John.

The old hammam on Plateia Arionos is a relic of Ottoman rule and part of a group of buildings that makes Rhodes’s medieval town unique. Dotted with the domes and minarets of more than a dozen mosques, within a ring of ramparts built by the Knights of St John, this is one of Europe’s great surviving walled towns.

The Knights ruled Rhodes with a mailed fist for more than two centuries until Suleiman the Magnificent turfed them out in 1521.

Modern residential suburbs sprawl on the outskirts, but farther in, the “New Town” is a grid of shopping and restaurant streets, behind an esplanade of Art Deco-meets-fake-Moorish buildings dating from the Italian occupation of 1912-43.

Walk up Odos Ippoton (the Street of the Knights) to the Palace of the Grand Masters, past the elegant stone inns where each of the “Tongues” of the Order – England, France, Germany, Italy, Auvergne, Aragon, Castile and Provence – had its headquarters. If these, and the palace, seem to be in suspiciously good shape, blame Mussolini, who ordered the rebuilding of the dilapidated relics in 1935. Today, the palace’s echoing halls house two permanent exhibitions (dedicated to medieval and ancient Rhodes), and it’s easy to imagine how imposing they must have been when the Knights were at the height of their power.

Fifty yards south of the palace, the Roloi towers above the grey domes, pink walls and cypress-shaded precinct of the Mosque of Suleiman, the Old Town’s most splendid Ottoman relic. If you have a head for heights (I don’t), make your way to the top of the clock tower (built after a mid-19th-century earthquake). From the top, red-tiled roofs, domes and minarets, palm-shaded squares and battlements are laid out below you.

Read the full story here.

Extra Vehicle in August

Due to high demand we will be having an additional departure in August.  We were fully-booked for August both for our Crete Express and premium door-to-door removal services to Greece and Italy, but now we have some capacity for both of these options on both of the vehicles departing next month.  The dates for these departures will be approximately 12th and 24th August.

For the most up-to-date guide to available capacity on our Crete Express services, please always remember to check our Crete Express page.

New Packing Video – Choosing the Right Packaging Materials for your Removal

We’ve just added a new video to our Packing Advice page.  This will be the first in a series of videos on packing for your removal.

Although we recommend using Nomad International’s team to do the packing and wrapping for your removal of course, we understand that some of our customers still prefer to do some or all of this themselves.  For those customers who would like to do this, these videos will teach you to pack and wrap for your removal according to principles recommended by the BAR for overseas removals.  The first video is on choosing the right packaging materials – it is embedded below and you can also find it with a full text explanation at the bottom of the Removal Advice page.

The voice-over and acting are a bit sketchy (!), but our main priority was getting the information across to our customers. We had fun creating it and we hope you enjoy it.