The cultivation of sunflowers throughout Italy adds a joyful floral frame to the views of the medieval hilltowns… …..and creates a butter-yellow carpet setting off a simple farmhouse ..,,,while rolling yellow fields of sunflowers blend with the greens bordering rolling hills… A Greek myth recounts that the sun – Apollo – transformed the nymph Clizia…
The sugar, salt and coffee are the only foods on the table in Giuseppa and Paolo’s farmhouse kitchen not raised by them. Lunch or dinner there is truly a “farm-to-table” experience or, as they say in Italy, feasting at “chilometro zero.” Paolo (and son, Loris) cultivate the wheat for the breads Giuseppa makes in her…
It was a joy for us to create the Assisi countryside apartments behind our house – and the joy continues as our guests share with us their appreciation of our lodgings. Maura, Kathy (and little Eva), wonderful to have you and delighted you discovered the secrets of Assisi, Spello, Bevagna, Montefalco, Gubbio and Perugia during…
At any time of year, the town of Bolsena and Lake Bolsena beckon – but especially in the summertime. We often spend many a weekend on the Lake at the family-run Hotel Eden. What serenity lakeside under those palm trees…. ….and after (or before swims), enjoy lakeside feasting: On a recent Hotel Eden outing with…
We always tell our apartment guests that the best eating – and at the most economical prices – is at the evening food festivals of the small villages, le sagre. Our favorite sagra? La Festa di Sant’Anna here in the Assisi countryside (not far from our farmhouse): At Sant’Anna, many of our rural neighbors volunteer to…
The curtain’s up on our Assisi countryside apartment, Casa dell’Arco: literally….. but not only. Creating the interiors of our Assisi countryside apartments – so tastefully designed and built by my husband Pino – has been a joyous adventure right from the start. Even one of the curtains was the result of an adventure: a fortuitous…
Lisa and family, a joy to host this summer – che bello!Your notes to us when you left were most appreciated. And Paolo, glad you noticed the kitchen marble-top table (with so much history – as you can read here): “Dearest Anne, Compliments on such a beautiful space. The house we stayed in was so…
With 90% of the elegant Renaissance buildings lacerated in the October 2016 earthquake, Marches region hilltown gem Visso awaits a resurrection. The town is now zona rossa and cordoned off: ……. and the merchants must welcome their customers from small wooden pre-fab shops outside the devastated town: The butcher now slices prosciutto, grinds meats, debones rabbits,…
When we moved to Umbria to work the land in 1975, our farmhouse – without heat, running hot water, electricity, bathroom – rented for 25, 000 lire per month. Sound like a fortune? That would be about US $25 today. The right price as you can see here: Animals lived in the stalls below (la zona…
We headed through the magnificent Valnerina to a wink of a hilltown, Todiano, not far from Preci. The arched entryway to the village is testament to its origins as a 14th-c feudal castle. Above the arch and stretching to the right stands our reason for the jaunt to Todiano Palazzo Anzuini. The wounded regal facade…