Umbrian Countryside

For our last day in Rome we spent half of it sleeping, we had to catch up on a few z’s after our late night dance party. We got up, packed up and got in the car for the next leg of our trip. Simone came with us as we were heading to his family’s hillside house in Umbria (another region of Italy, to the east of Tuscany). It was a couple hours drive up very winding roads into the hills. Simone’s house is up in the hills of a tiny town called Piegaro (population of about 20). It was one house in a little castle community, complete with its own tiny chapel, a pool, and a fortress. The view of the surrounding rolling hills was unbelievably beautiful. We settled into our latest accommodations. Erin took roughly 200 pictures outside because it was so beautiful.

Erin made me promise to write this: After my long night of drinking, and then driving the next day through roads that felt like you were on The Beast at King’s Island; I got out of the car once we arrived to the castle house and immediately puked. What a memory of beautiful Italy!

We then got dressed and headed down into Piegaro for some dinner. We told Simone that we really wanted to go to a family owned local restaurant. He picked the perfect spot. The cook was ‘Mama’ (a cute gray haired slightly round lady who walked around with an apron on) and the one waitress there was her daughter. We were one of two tables eating. The menu was strictly in Italian. The food was genuinely home-cooked by Mama and the wine was ‘Casa vino’ (translates into house wine which was made by the family) and was only 3 euros for a whole liter. This was the dinner where we felt like we were in small town Italy, having dinner with a local family. When we were ready to leave they gave us hugs goodbye and Erin was so happy that he had tears in his eyes. Certainly a dinner we will never forget!!

From there we went to the town of Perugia to check out the nightlife…..and wow did we find some!! The main street and square of the town was packed full of around 2000 young people. There was a hug set of steps at the end of the square and they were full of people just hanging out and socializing. We spent an hour acting as locals and sat on the steps for some great people-watching. Among some of the more entertaining people in the crowd were jugglers, drum players, and a guy doing various tricks with his bulldog. The nightclubs were tempting, but we decided to pack it in early, catch up on sleep and get up for a full day….off to Venice!