We had traveled to Umbria for a wedding a long time ago that feels like yesterday. It was the bride and groom and my wife and I, that's it, a simple town hall affair in the square of a medieval village on top of a hill. My wife and I were to meet the couple already there in Italy. Apart from being a familial obligation I looked on it as an excuse to visit Umbria as I had always been curious about the region. I had traveled through Umbria often enough on my way to points north and west but never really spent much time there.
My wife and I landed in Fiumicino and got into a Fiat Panda. It was small, efficient and slow, too slow it turned out. As soon as we hit the autostrada in the left lane a motorcycle zoomed right up to our bumper. We were driving very fast but apparently not fast enough. More motorcycles and cars and even old italian women in their 70’s appeared out of nowhere to attach themselves much too closely to our car. After about 20 minutes of this treatment we gave up trying and stayed put in the right lane as we left the city behind and made our way into the country.
What can be said about Italy that hasn’t been said 1000 times before? To say it’s the most beautiful place on earth and has the most amazing food and wine and fashion and people wouldn’t do it justice. Verdi once said, “You may have the universe if I may have Italy”. Italy feels like home in a way that is complete. It calls to you in your dreams.
We stayed in a castle, not really a castle but they called it a castle. It was an ancient home that had a turret and a courtyard. It was in a town just outside of Todi where the wedding was taking place. My brother in law rented the whole place just for us. Extravagant, but it was a wedding after all and if you can’t go all out for your wedding when can you really? To get to the “castle” you had to go through gates and get buzzed in through an intercom, then make your way up the steepest gravel drive lined with tall manicured trees on either side. The Fiat had trouble getting up the hill and stalled on the first and second attempts and rolled backwards into the street. We needed to get a running start to attempt the hill. I got out of the car and stood by the gate to get buzzed in yet again, when the gates started opening I signaled to my wife who was in the car down the road to gun the engine and get up the driveway at speed. After failing a third time we finally got the timing right and my wife revved that little Fiat’s engine to the point I thought it would explode and she shot past me up the drive and into the courtyard leaving me to walk the rest of the way.
When I finally joined her, we found ourselves on top of a hill with the entire valley below and all the hillside towns circling us on the horizon. The walls of the villages were ochre and soft yellow and pink with green shutters. The colors of the turning autumn were everywhere. Reds and yellows from the trees and rolling fields glowed under the late morning sun.
After we put our bags away and had coffee we fell immediately to sleep. We woke at 4:00 in the afternoon and then after getting our bearings went back down the drive and out the gates to one of the small towns we saw from the castle.
We needed a good meal and good wine and to just sit and rest and breathe the air. We ended up on the patio of a trattoria in a family home on the side of a hillside. It was unseasonably warm that day so we ordered an ice cold bottle of white wine. I have no idea what it was but it was local and amazing and served by a small Italian woman who looked like my nana. I felt at home, we all did. It was Italy making us feel welcome, telling us that it was time to slow down, time to recenter, time to remember what was important. I vividly remember the pasta with fiori di zucca... I dream of it still.
Sitting on the patio, we ate almost in silence. Only talking to tell someone, “you need to try this”. We passed our plates around to each other to taste and had more wine, this time a red that was earthy and deep red to the point of being brown. It smelt of the air and the earth of the town. To this day anytime I open a bottle of wine from Umbria the first sip puts me back on that patio on that warm autumn night with the rolling hills and fields below.
After our dinner, which took almost three hours, we took our time and strolled lazily through the narrow streets of the village and back to the Fiat, which honestly took a bit to find as we couldn’t remember where we left it. Back at the castle we sat at a table outside under some vines looking out over the valley below and had even more wine followed by an Amaro and then a coffee. This is why we were here, to eat and drink and slow down. We watched the lights of the distant towns come on as the very last rays of sun dropped over the hillsides. The colors of the fields and sky at sundown were deep red with the sky turning purple and the stars coming out in force in a way you can’t see from the city. The night air smelled sweet, the breeze moved the trees softly, somewhere a dog was barking. A friend told me, “nothing changes in Umbria in 500 years”. Perfect things don't need to change.
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