Up on the Roof

A place that is well loved by our guests is our roof terrace. In the midst of our city we thought it would be nice to have a green spot to sit and enjoy the sunset or sunrise, the company of others with a coffee, tea or glass of wine. Many enjoy having the bird's eye view of the Via Nazionale as strollers and parades pass by.
 As you may know, Jeanette loves cooking and having some fresh herbs on hand so you will find rosemary, thyme, sage, lavender, basil in the summer, and whatever can escape her hopelessly brown thumb.  Some guests have found this great for  brewing their own infusions and tisanes, or add a few leaves to sandwiches or salads. We're also excited that it can help support honeybees and butterflies and hopefully sustain our fragile ecosystem.  It seems like a win-win to us.

One of the challenges of running Casa Chilenne with the services and amenities we offer is keeping our energy costs down, Our five rooms with air conditioning, mini-bars , televisions, kitchens with ovens, refrigerators, dishwashers, washing machines, not to mention all our lights, leave a gigantic carbon footprint. We've decided this year to make a change which we hope will enable us to keep offering the same services at the same prices, and also reduce the impact that excess energy consumption has on our budget and the planet. Our well-reknown neighborhood electrician, Giulio Moretti and assistant Simone are back again. This time for more than maintenance after our year and a half restoration project here.  We are converting all of our illumination to LED!  We've been happy with the quality of light that these light sources can now produce (warm and inviting, contrary to some of the earlier versions) so we are very excited about this change. We are hoping we have found another win-win situation.

The next project  hopefully for 2018, will be creating a shade structure for the roof terrace and finally repaving to correct the pitch!. It faces south so enjoys full sun all day. Not so great in the summer but the star jasmine and roses seem to be more forgiving than previous victims. We have enlisted the experience of a garden consultant, Francesco, who we have known since he was but a bambino. With his help, We may venture into a little roof top victory garden- will heirloom cherry tomatoes or tuscan round zucchini escape Jeanette's  touch of doom?  The proof will come in the zucchini bread.