Marta & Michal

Travel information

We are currently

Description

Hello, ciao, bok!

We are an Italian-Czech married couple, Marta (34) and Michal (39) with our two kids - Mia (born September 2017) and Elio (born April 2020).
We have been together for about ten years and after some years and still love each other a lot :-)
After spending a couple of years in Prague but often travelling, we have been living the last five years in the Czech countryside at the egde of the small village where Michal grew up (Havlíčkova Borová).
At the moment we are planning a big change - moving to the South in one or two years and searching for our place in the world down there to settle down! This is gonna be our next adventure...
We don´t know in which Country we will end up. In the past years we have travelled a lot through Greece, for this summer we decided to discover Croatia instead.

MARTA:
I grew up in a small city in northern Italy (Padova, famour s for its university) and spent there the first 25 years of my life, often travelling. I did classical studies, studied mathematics, worked a couple of years as an Italian teacher in Czech Republic, later being a full-time mom which is very fullfilling for me, even if sometimes a little exhausting...but I love my kids and dream to have more :-)
My big dream is to be a children´s books author and illustrator and I like to define myself an artist - at least in my heart, since at the moment I have really little time to spend that way and have never done that professionally before. That´s however what I know I will do in the future, since I love children and I love creating in every way, using my hands and fantasy to make small things out of everything - paper, small pieces of wood, stamps... - drawing, painting, sewing...
I am not a professional singer, but I enjoy singing very much, especially with Michal playing the piano (or the guitar, he´s learning :-)). Sometimes we have a small concert and dream to sing in the streets with our kids playing some instrument or singing, too, one day!
I also enjoy quite much healthy cooking and baking and had a period in which I experimented a lot with raw food, even though this is not the way we are eating now and I just follow day by day what my body tells me.
I love movement since I am daughter of a contemporary dance teacher and dancer and in the last years I have become a passionate free-time yoga practicer. I love swimming in the sea of course and walks in nature.
I also love reading books before sleeping and learning new languages.
In the last years I have learned to sew and enjoy a lot making clothes for my kids - when there is some time for that!
I am the main reason why we are heading to the South for living.
I like the nature and the countryside here, but Czech winters are too long for me and I incredibly miss the sun and the sea. Since I was born, I spent almost every summer on the island Cres where my parents now own a small house by the sea - I feel more home there than anywhere. Sun and sea are fundamental for me, however it is not that important for me in which Country we will finally live. This year we give a chance to beautiful Croatia!

MICHAL:
As I see, Marta has already written everything important - she definitely talks 78% more than me! :-)
Something about me: I spent my whole childhood in the Czech countryside, then I´ve been swimming very passionately in the waters of music, studying in Prague and abroad (piano, conducting orchestras and choirs, giving workshops...). My job and a big passion in last years is teaching kids (age 5-20) to play the piano. I use a lot of improvisation and creative stuff in it.
The best relax for me is physical work. Making wood in the forest (we have a small piece of our own), gardening, or just spending time outside, running, being in movement. I think I am a calm person, not quite much a party-guy, absolute not a good company for talking about politics. I like simple things and sincere way of behaving. I believe in working hard on things you want to achieve. And in taking time for stopping and relaxing, too. I prefer early mornings to late evenings (but since beeing a parent this changed a bit...)
With Marta we had in the last years a few waves and periods (eco/bio/self-sufficient/healthy/permaculture/rural /natural way of living...) and many of those principles are still following us in our everyday life. My daily mission is - to be a good person and to contribute to the world with my gifts.

MIA:
She´s our first child, almost four years old. She is quite cheerful and active (busy with a lot of projects every day!). She loves being outside, eating, reading books, being naked in winter and over-clothed in summer, singing and dancing while dad is playing the piano. She speaks and understands Italian and Czech. She´s friendly, sensitive and lovely, but needs her time to get used to new people. Until that time, she roars at them (but don´t get scared)! When she starts feeling at ease with someone, she becomes a radio you sometimes cannot really turn off.

ELIO:
He has just started walking, quickly learning to run, he likes following Mia everywhere (probably his Goddess), dancing where Mia and Michal are playing the piano - and playing it himself, mom´s milk, new places to discover, wandering in the garden, climbing, running away when it´s time to get the diaper... He´s just a happy child :-)

SOMETHING MORE:
We travelled as volunteers for a very long time in Greece, using platforms like HelpX, Workaway or WWOOFing - in that period we thought we´d buy a big piece of land, work in the garden a lot, do natural building and everything around this kind of living attracted us very much.
However, we finally found out that we are not the kind of people who would be happy and satisfied by just working in the fields and do manual work and that at the first place for us there are our artistic inclinations, so we need to find some compromise - we´re not "city people" indeed, so we imagine that in the future we will keep on living next to nature since we need it. Yet we don´t have clear ideas about where we will live. Join an existing community? Buy a small piece of land? Rent or buy a house in a village? Live in a small town where Michal can work with music? ....
That´s why in the last years we spend every summer (the time when Michal is not working) by travelling and partly volunteering - collecting ideas, inspiration and experiences, meeting locals and possibly trying to find "our own place".

Interests

Skills and knowledge we'd like to share or learn

We're interested in:  

Babysitting and creative play

General Maintenance

Creating/ Cooking family meals

Life at a Farmstay

Eco Projects

Helping around the house

---

Some knowledge of:  

Gardening

DIY and building projects

Animal Care

Hospitality/Tourism

---

Able to teach about:  

Language practice

Art Projects

Teaching

More details about your skills

We are open to any task you are going to offer us, we try to learn quickly things we don´t know yet and we try to be active and "see what needs to be done" around.
We are also open to share and "make available" in any way our art inclination (music, drawing...) and ideas in general.
I (Marta) can practice yoga together with you, teach you Italian, sewing, making stamps, cook for you...
Michal is a passionate piano player and teacher, so feel free to use that :-)
We love spending time with kids!

Languages

Languages spoken
Czech: Fluent
English: Fluent
Italian: Fluent
German: Beginner
Greek: Beginner

More details about my language interests
I (Marta) tought Italian for several years, so I´ll be happy to help you with my language :-)

Find a language buddy

Age

35 & 40

Nationality

Italian (Marta), Czech (Michal)

What else ...

ABOUT TRAVELLING WITH THE KIDS

Spending time with two small kids at our own place is already sometimes demanding. When we are in a new place with new people around, they always need some time to get used - and more care from us therefore.

We know that because when Mia was almost two years we spent with her two months in Greece, moving from place to place and volunteering or just helping friends with their own projects. This was quite demanding and we almost never could both work/help at the same time, since one of us had to take care of Mia. Now - with one more kid - we guess it will be even more difficult, yet we want to give it a try.

This means we cannot guarantee we can fulfill the 5-hours-for-each schedule nor have a fixed working time and that´s why we want to ensure you we will be as self-sufficient as possible, buying our own food, maybe contributing with some money to possibile expenses connected with our stay.

On the other hand, we are willing to give you as much help as possible and join your family life in order for you and us to get the maximum from the time spent together. What´s sure is that our goal is not to have a "vacation with accomodation for free", what we search for is to be part for some time of the local life in order to get in contact with people, talk, share ideas, have a nice time together, understand what life is like there, discover the place and the possibilities it may offer to us and of course join the family life - which for us means also take part of the daily "routine" as we were at our own home and help you with what you need...as far as the kids allow :-)
_________

Practical info: we will be travelling with our own tent, so the only thing we need is a spot in your garden for it.
_________

As we wrote, we have already volunteered for a long time (more than one year in Greece, plus one experience here in Czech Republic), so we think we know a bit what volunteering is (and is not ;-) ) about.
We are also hosts here in Workaway and have already had a couple of experiences as hosts, so we got to experience also the "other side of the coin".

________

Something about or previous experience ar volunteers in Greece:
We worked in Santorini in a taverna (O Panos) with an organic garden, in Evia island at a painter's place (Susanne Riedl, Paliaskala near Vasilika), where we worked in a small permaculture garden and helped to build a fence, plus some smaller physical tasks like cutting wild bushes around the house or tiding up a small hut.
Marta continued the summer trip to another place in Evia (Ioannis Mastoris, Farakla) - another partly-permaculture bigger garden, and then in the island of Chios (Galatea Paradissi's farm The Lime Tree, Volissos), at an organic farm - working in the garden, weeding, healing sick trees, painting and decorating old furniture and taking care of the "million" adopted cats and dogs...
Next year we visited again some of these places where we actually made friends with the hosts and volunteered also in Peloponnisos (Liveloula and ReGreen ecocenter), in Crete (collecting olives, oil making), Pelion (mostly gardening), Marta then helped for a period some puppetier-friends in Athens and later in a small village (Zitsa) in the mountains near Ioannina (in their bakery, bookshop and in and around the house).
In 2019 we travelled again to Greece, this time with almost two-years-old Mia, visiting again some of the previous hosts who became friends and helping them with their projects and then volunteering in Lefkada (gardening, cooking recovering materials from ruins in an abandoned village, caravan-sitting and taking care of the hosts of a Robinson accomodation) and in Corfu (again gardening, cooking and some smaller jobs around the house).

________

If you have any questions, feel free to ask whatever you´d like to know.
Thank you for reading us!
M+M+M+E

Some more information

• 

  Smoker

• 

  Driver's licence

• 

  Allergies

• 

  Special dietary requirements
  Not really, we just try to eat healthy.