A taste of Perugia

Sterlinghe

Bedroom
view

We’ve just soared above cloud level, leaving the warm rain behind and entering a clear, blue layer of sky. It matches the blue that has been present above the hills of Città di Castello every day for the past week as we return from a family holiday at my uncles house in Perugia, Italy; what luxury it has been. Each day has melted into the next with the ever-present sun heating the yellow stones that remained warm well into the night.
Beautiful Sterlinghe, a holiday villa that’s taken D & V 10 years to complete; each detail perfected, from the copper wires to the wood fired oven to the perfectly groomed lavender bushes. If you were to close your eyes and wander through the garden, your body would submit to a completely soporific state, acting as a container for the sun’s heat as the constant hum of a thousand bees filled your ears and the smell of lavender indulged your nostrils. Opening your eyes again would bring you back to life as the vibrancy of the surrounding colours hit you retina, a true feast for your eyes.
Lunch time was my favourite  – bright red tomatoes under white mozzarella topped with a single, green basil leaf; pink prosciutto wrapped around orange melon; huge green salads next to chunks of ciabatta drenched in thick, yellow olive oil and deep red wine in vintage glasses. In the dappled sunlight, under hanging vines everyone would gather to sit around the huge wooden table and eat and laugh. One afternoon, when joined by new company we bonded through a group pizza making session, kneading the dough, spreading the passata and choosing from an array of amazing ingredients. It took a few attempts but soon enough beautiful, organic shapes were streaming out of the wood fired oven, placed upon wooden chopping boards, drizzled with truffle oil and topped with fresh rocket; the whole scene was like an art installation.

One cannot possibly write about a holiday in Italy without mentioning the cuisine given its prominence in Italian culture. One night, we went for a meal in town and as we waited for the food to arrive, D & V told us about Sterlinghe’s creation: how kind the builders were, courteously inviting them to their family homes for a meal – it’s typical for Italian families to own a patch of land upon which they build multiple houses to allow room for the whole extended family to live. During one meal that they went to the food was all served on plastic plates that were placed on plastic tables as everyone sat on plastic chairs with a small TV blaring in the corner. Yet despite their obvious lack of wealth, the richness lay within the food and the joy that it brought everyone as they ate together and welcomed their guests with open hearts and expressive hands.

As the food began to arrive at our table I noticed the energy increasing around us. Beneath the towering 12^th century Cathedral and the ancient sandstone and red brick buildings that bordered the town square, clusters of beautiful, deeply tanned girls began to arrive in groups. Behind them, followed equally brown, well-dressed men with slicked back hair that matched their shiny shoes. Against the yellows and oranges of the buildings, the whole scene gave off its own heat waves, sending my eyes into a lull that I fought off by jiggling my knees.

One of my favourite things about that Mediterranean paradise is the plain elegance with which the Italians conduct themselves socially; they drink no more than a small glass or two of alcohol, no leery voices or obnoxiously loud music could be heard and no over-stimulating advertisements are plastered against the walls. 

The flow was mellow that day as the sky transitioned into night and we ended the evening with a gelato, as one should. My eyes bulged as I held up the supposedly ‘small sized’ cone that was quickly drowning in scoops of fresh fig, walnut and pistachio ice cream – 2 scoops was the minim but it easily beat an English ‘large’. I lapped it off the cone before it became a sticky puddle in my hand. Outside the gelateria, motley crews were standing in circles, eyes down, dodgily licking their ice creams in silence with the polizia parked up under the stone arch nearby in case Iscreamed… Needless to say, the evenings innocence kept trouble at bay and no one went hungry that night… or any night for that matter.

If food is the substance of nurturing, Italy is the mother nurturer and instead of hitting the treadmill running, I’ve opted for the holiday route of indulging in ‘Il dolce far niente’ – the sweetness of doing nothing.

Mm… I just heard my tummy rumble, or was that turbulence? God, I miss it already! 

Soporific song of the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvpThS7zfQ8