Easter in Italy

We arrived home on Saturday night from an amazing week in Italy. The trip almost didn't happen, when we couldn't start the car just as we were leaving for the airport. A quick call to Maria and Lol, and their spare car was delivered for our use.  Phew! We flew to Rome, picked up a hire car and drove north east for an hour or so to Umbria, Italy's so-called 'green heart', to stay at hilltop Todi Castle. We first visited 8 years ago, with  baby Scarlett, on the way to England for her christening, Dad's 70th and his wedding to Alexandra. On that visit we stayed in the castle grounds, in a 17th century farmhouse, with Liz and Mike, Moira and Fraser, Giles and Lucy and Ruth and Pete.  After writing a piece for the Sydney Morning Herald travel section, owner Mario reported a summer of Australian bookings. Ever since, he has promised to repay me with another stay, and it has taken us this long to arrange it. On this visit he put us up in the castle itself.  This amazing 12th-century former fortress was the perfect base to explore the surrounding towns of Orvieto, Assisi,
Todi and Perugia.
Any drive from the castle was a treat - green lush countryside, rolling hills punctuated by beautiful hilltop towns and villages. At all of them we parked at the bottom of the hill and were transported to the top by lift, escalator or funicular. As a result the towns are car-less, unspoilt and quiet. We spent our days lunching on impeccable pasta, pizza and salads washed down with red wine and sparkling water, sitting on sundrenched terraces looking at the views. We strolled piazzas, ate gelato, explored ancient churches and local cemeteries and dozed in the sun on church steps. One day we caught the train two hours' north to Florence, to show Flo her namesake city. It was the only day of bad weather, raining on and off, but we managed a great walk through the city, ending up on a hill overlooking the famous duomo. On slower days, we walked the grounds of the castle, through the olive groves and hiked up a local hill in search of ruins and views.


A highlight of the trip was Flo learning to ride a bike without training wheels. With a little help from Scarlett, she was very quickly up and running on a bike, much too big for her.  On the last night were hosted by the castle owners in great style. We missed Mario on this visit as he lives half the year in New York, as you do, but his brother Flavio and their father invited us in for dinner in the private wing of the castle. While a fire roared in the huge stone fireplace we were served the best risotto I've eaten in my life followed by venison, from the deer in the grounds, followed by gelato and grappa. Flavio and Mario's father is a former Italian Ambassador to Cuba, Tunisia and the United Nations, so the family wing is filled with amazing collections of art and sculpture from their times overseas. It was a great end to our time in Umbria. On Easter Saturday we drove back to Rome for a whistlestop tour of the city. We arrived 20 minutes before St Peter's was closing for Easter Sunday preparations, so had to race through the basilica, After lunch Rob drove us from site to site, parking illegally, allowing us a few moments to leap out snap a few pictures before zooming off again.

 

 

Here are a few pictures to explain the trip better than I have here.