Umbria is our happy place. We spend a big chunk of every year there, and it's where most of our homeschooling abroad happens, so we were definitely in our comfort zone while filming this episode.
Driving in Italy
We get asked about this constantly, so here's our honest take. Don't drive in Rome. Don't drive in Florence. And definitely don't drive in Naples. Honestly, don't drive in any big Italian city if you can help it. There are ZTLs (limited traffic zones) and you can get hefty fines for entering them. You won't necessarily get pulled over by a policeman, but you'll get a surprise ticket in the mail months later-- if this happens, make sure you pay it right away because the fine increases as time passes!
Driving in Umbria, however, is super easy. You can pick up a rental car right at the Rome airport (FCO) and you're on the freeway almost immediately, no city traffic at all. It's about two and a half hours to Paciano, and once you get off the highway it's all hills and farmland and little towns. You will be able to see so much more if you have a car- it's worth it!
Those quick lesson clips
There's a fast montage in the episode of the kids doing lessons around Umbria, and a few people have asked about them. Here's what those were.
The kids made their own leather belts with a local leatherworker. They still wear them all the time.
They took a pottery class and made mugs and plates. We use them at home, which means our kitchen cabinets are slowly turning into an Umbrian ceramics collection.
Piano is a big one for us. We belong to a music conservatory in Umbria, where the kids take piano lessons, perform in recitals, and also compete. Sometimes they sing in the choir with the orchestra- ask us about this if we ever meet. We have funny stories.
They've also done painting lessons, which is pretty great when the view outside is the subject.
And of course, there's pasta! Umbria is one of the first places we ever learned to make it, at il Fontanaro with Alina, who you'll recognize as the chef in this episode. We've been cooking with her for years now and she is family. We highly recommend classes with Alina (and the olive oil at her family farm is the only olive oil we use in our house).
The lasagna situation
Alina taught us to make lasagna in the episode. The recipe's in the cookbook so we won't write it here, but we will tell you this: a couple of our crew members, and two of our own kids, confessed they don't really like lasagna.
Then they ate Alina's and they love lasagna now! It has become a part of our weekly dinner rotation and there are never ever any leftovers.
The friend trip
Every year we invite friends to come travel with us in Europe, and this year it got a little out of hand in the best way. We rented a villa for 40 people. Families, single friends, and a priest. And the villa had its own chapel, so we could have the sacraments daily.
There was a huge pool and tons of space outside, so the kids basically lived in the water or on the soccer field. We ate every meal outside, drank a lot of good wine, sang way too many songs, and just hung out. That kind of slow time with friends is so hard to come by at home.
We took day trips to Assisi, Siena, Florence, and Perugia, and each one could be its own post. You can catch glimpses in Episode 2. We love to show our friends around Italy.
The saint five minutes away
One night our priest mentioned that there was an incorrupt saint about five minutes from the villa. None of us had any idea, so obviously we went.
Her name is St. Veronica Giuliani, and she's at the Capuchin Poor Clare monastery in Città di Castello. She became a nun at seventeen, had the stigmata, ended up being abbess, and wrote about 22,000 pages of spiritual diaries. Before she died in 1727, she told her confessor that the symbols of Christ's Passion were imprinted on her heart, and when they examined her heart after her death, they found a cross. Her heart is still incorrupt and kept in its own reliquary.
We'd never even heard of her before that week, and now she's one of our favorite stories to tell. That happens a lot when you travel in Italy. Saints are everywhere.
Come with us
If you're reading this thinking you'd love to go to Umbria someday, we'd love to help. Planning trips like this is what our travel planning service is for, and Umbria is the place we know best.
And if the friend trip sounds like fun, we do host group trips all over the world that you can join. Watch our announcements for upcoming trips.
Watch the Paciano episode of Fork in the Road on EWTN and EWTN+, and find Alina's lasagna in our cookbook, Fork in the Road: Hungry for Adventure.
