I Heart Umbria

My first visit to any town in Umbria was Assisi in 1998 as part of our honeymoon. It was essentially an uneventful day trip as it was a sweltering September day, overcrowded with tourists and Steve and I found ourselves escaping to the cool and quiet of the Parco Regina Margherita and foregoing the sightseeing.

Shortly after Giulia was born in 2000 we started making bi-weekly trips to Orvieto. We had discovered it on another day trip and enjoyed ourselves so much and the close proximity to Rome, that we started going quite a lot. We had also discovered an excellent restaurant called Duca d'Orvieto on via della Pace. We became friendly with the family and since then we have tried others, but they remain our favorite. In the winter time, we enjoyed the relative solitude of the town - the crisp cool air with a hint of mist, the homemade mulled wine at Duca d'Orvieto and the smell of wood burning as we strolled around town.

With the birth of Paloma in 2002, our trips to Orvieto and our contemplation of perhaps even moving there were put aside. Fast forward to early 2004. I was having major Rome burn-out, which has subsided some, but the sentiment remains the same. I want peace. I want the countryside. I want clean air. I want my children to know the names of trees and not the numbers of buses. I want my kids to pick up flowers and not worry about being stabbed by a syringe while doing it. I want my kids to be able to look up and see birds and sky and not worry about having to keep their heads down dodging dog shit.

I attempted to find a place in Italy that could offer these things to me and thankfully, I encountered Rebecca of Brigolante Farm Holidays. We became fast and furious e-mails buddies and in February 2004 I accepted her invitation to come up for a visit. Rebecca is originally from Chicago, married to Stefano and they have two strapping young boys. She runs the agriturismo side of the family farm just outside of Assisi.

The Parco Monte Subasio - the area where Rebecca and her family live in - is absolutely gorgeous. Green, hilly and breathtaking - you automatically feel your blood pressure lower and your mind at peace while taking in this halcyon scene. Several subsequent trips later I was ready to move to Umbria, but unfortunately for us, completely unrealistic.

Fast forward to the present and my countryside yearnings have not subsided, but I've had to stuff them down and look at things in that awfully dull pragmatic light that having three children and two businesses forces you to do. Yes, we are dreamers, that's what brought us here, but we also move in a very calculated way and I think that has helped a lot in helping to realize many of our dreams. In the meantime, we take our countryside escapes whenever we can.

We went up to Assisi this past Friday evening for our yearly pilgrimage to Rebecca's oldest son's birthday. Rebecca's agriturismo is full this time of year so we stayed at a place called Antico Borgo that just opened up about a month ago and was close by. The place is very nice - redone with quality in that old fashioned stone farmhouse way and we had a very good night's sleep. The next morning we were full of good will thinking to talk to the owners about our stay, perhaps even offering to translate their website into English if we could work out some kind of exchange. All that went down hill the moment we sat down for breakfast.

It never ceases to amaze us how Italians who pride themselves on fresh, local ingredients and making everything by hand, could ever possibly serve anything from a package. Many an Italian we've encountered who makes and/or grows their own - well, you name it - olive oil, wine, pasta, vegetables, even grinding their own meat because they don't trust the butcher. And yet on more than one occasion, we've had the same awful breakfast - cakes, cornetti, cookies torn out of plastic wraps, syrupy sugary fruit juice and with the ping of the microwave - Nescafe cappuccinos - a travesty to the senses. You can't tell me that these people don't have the ubiquitous Italian macchinetta sitting around in their kitchen and they couldn't make us a REAL coffee???

Well, we left without burning the place down. (After all, we don't hold a grudge.) I still have my countryside dreams and I still love Umbria. Our newfound admiration of Puglia hasn't waned, but Umbria still calms me and feeds that part of me that yearns for greener pastures. If only Steve didn't have his Umbrian allergies. They seem to come out in full force the second we drive over the Lazio/Umbria border. There must be somewhere in Italy that doesn't wreak havoc with Steve's immune system. Perhaps we'll find that place one day.