Depth and Breadth

I have been to Paris before. I have been to Rome, Florence, and Tuscany before. So no, this trip didn’t allow me to check new locations off the map, to impress people with the breadth of my travels. What it did allow me to do was to share an amazing week with a group of true friends, and to go deeper in exploring places I have only scratched the surface of in past trips.

When you don’t have to think about the Coliseum or the Eiffel Tower, you can instead focus on people and real life. Side streets. Food. Oh yes, food. And little villages that no one writes about, like Piegaro, in Umbria, where I spent that glorious week with friends.

I must give a shout-out to the BF for all the planning he did regarding the drive to the villa. The owner, Colleen, provided great instructions, but the BF Google-Earthed the route, so he knew every twist and turn on the way there. This isn’t a village you find easily, unless you happen to be on a back road and interested in some hairpin driving, but it's worth it when you get there.

Not a lot of English is spoken, but we all got along just fine. One friend on the trip is Italian, so when needed, we’d defer to her to communicate, but most of the time, we all just muddled through. (One funny misstep- one morning a friend lapsed into Starbucks-speak at the bar, and ordered a latte. She was given a glass of hot milk. It’s caffe latte in Italy!)

We met the locals, ate at their restaurants, shopped at their stores, sat with them, and didn’t see a single tour group lead by someone with a megaphone and an umbrella. We were only there for a week, but we were able to get closer to Italian life than we would have if we had just run in for a photo-op then left town. It may be a cliché to travel to Tuscany and Umbria, but only if you scratch the surface. If you are willing to go deeper, you will be rewarded.