Our home for a week
View to the back (a field of tobacco?)
View to one side. Can just about see the nearest neighbours!
All around the property, there were rosemary plants: not just polite little potted shrubs that we grow in our gardens for some fresh herbs but thick, gnarly, ancient plants that had grown into fragrant hedges. To release the most wonderful smells, one had only to run a hand over their foliage. Needless to say, rosemary featured in one of the meals that we cooked - it would have been rude not to!
Inside, the villa was spacious and pretty well-appointed with a choice of three dining areas: very informal (kitchen), quite informal (a covered area adjoining the kitchen that could be opened onto to the garden) and completely alfresco, the preferred option for meals when it was dry. It has to be admitted here that, alongside the very, very good weather, there were a couple of wet periods. And when I say wet, I mean ‘wet’ as in Noah and the Ark, virtually. In fact, the first day it rained, we suddenly found that quaint properties sometimes have little faults. In this case, some of the seals where a sloping roof butted against a wall were obviously less than sealed and we found water running down the wall, a shower on the main staircase and a lake forming behind one of the sofas in the living room! However, we decided not to panic as a) the floors were all stone tiled, so no wood to warp or rot and b) this was pretty definitely a problem that happened whenever the rains came. Rain is probably inevitable in Umbria as the region is so lushly green. If you are looking for sun 7 days a week, head further south but the colour pallette will not contain such a variety of greens.
All in, it was a relaxing week although we did not stick solely to turning ourselves lobster-red by the pool. We took a day trip out to Gubbio, a lovely medieval town just north of Perugia and, on another day, drove a circuit taking in Lake Trasimeno, Citta della Pieve and Orvieto. Pieve is an old walled town with lots of character and many, many churches. It also claims ’the narrowest alley in Italy’ in Vicolo Baciadonne (Kisswomen Passage) which is less than half a metre wide at its narrowest. Orvieto too is a beautiful town with a striking duomo at its heart, the external colours of which (striped in light and dark stone) reminded me of the duomo in Siena. In fact, the colour palatte of the area is gorgeous: the greenery (numerous woodlands, young crops in the fields, hedges) against the light, sandy-coloured earth, the light rose of building walls, the darker tones of the sun-bleached curved terracotta roof tiles and, standing out aganst all, the bone white of civic and religious infrastructure. However, along with a feast for the eyes comes a test for the muscles, mainly those powering the legs. I thought Ramsbottom was hilly but it has nothing on these towns: everything one might wish to see involves steep ascents on cobbled paths. As you stagger ever upwards, sweating and daring not to look at how far you still need to climb, you need to remain vigilant for cars, vans and, of course, scooters. There are virtually no areas in these old towns that are 'pedestrian only’ as the streets are too narrow to cater for such niceties. You can only pray that God is protecting you, the poor pilgrim, as you progress slowly to the architectural gem that (invariably) sits at the highest point in the region.
One final note: aside from the man-made beauty that we got to see during our week in the villa, there are two memorable moments that were provided by nature. Firstly, sitting outside following a meal, we carried on talking and opened another bottle of wine as the sun went down. Although there were meant to be external lights, we never did find out how to turn them on so, after a time, we found ourselves sitting out with just enough light to enable us to find our wine glasses. Suddenly we saw first one, then two or three and finally, many, many firelies were flitting between plants around us, a magical display of natural fairy lights! Secondly, preceding a storm, we were treated to an hour or more of lightning flashing among the dark clouds of the afternoon sky before we had to move inside as the rain began. That show was good but the sounds that accompanied it were even better: throughout that period, there was virtually no break in the sound of thunder. While the flashes were numerous, they remained discrete, but there was no way of knowing when one thunderclap began and another ended, an endless gigantic ‘grumbling’ in the hills around us. Truly, that was rolling thunder.
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