For Memorial Day weekend, we took a trip to the region of Umbria.  It’s a green area of Italy, in the country, the lower-class sister to Tuscany (where everything is fancier and more expensive).  Umbria makes olive oil, wine, tartufo (a kind of mushroom called truffle in English), and lots of different kinds of pork and wild boar.  It has beautiful ancient villages, vineyards, olive groves, hills, lakes, small mountains, and a lot of quiet country.  We went there because we wanted to eat the food, have a quiet trip, Jess wanted to see the flowers, and Ashton has been wanting to see the stars.  We fit our criteria: we stayed in a very quiet apartment in the country, walked around the ancient villages, ate all the food, drove through the mountains, saw the flowers and enjoyed the stars.  We saw fireflies, too, which was a lovely surprise!

We decided Italy is a real-life fairytale.