We picked Tilda up from the smaller Rome airport and headed up to Orvieto.  She is between jobs so decided to take the opportunity to spend some time with Mum and Dad.  She was determined to get into the magazine industry and has finally made it.  She will be working for British Vogue for 12 months doing a maternity contract.  It is only a junior position but she is thrilled to have her foot in the door.  In the meantime she is travelling with us.

We headed to Orvieto because our lovely German friends, Gert and Bea, were having a holiday there with friends of theirs and invited us to park the car outside the lovely Rustico house that they had hired.

They were on holidays with Helmut (guitarist), Matthias (singer), Gunter (guitarist) and Margie (singer). Gert is a fantastic guitarist and Bea a beautiful singer.  They are all in a band together and were on holidays to practice.  We felt very lucky to meet them all and they were all great company.  The first night we went out to dinner at a lovely local restaurant.  The towns nearby  were really small and the house was down a dirtroad.  It was real country Italy and we loved it.  Once we parked the van up we just left it there and Bea very, very kindly lent us her car to get around and see the local scenery.

On the Wednesday we headed into Orvieto,  which is a beautiful hilltop town in Umbria.  The Duomo there is truly beautiful and we enjoyed wandering around the town.

Wednesday the housemates put together a fantastic meal for us.  Four or five course of great Italian food.

Bea and Helmut trying to figure out if you peel black truffles or not!  Till googled it … peel blacks truffles, leave the skin on white!

The house is on a working organic vineyard.  The owner even has a vegetable garden planted for guests to use the organic produce.  How good is that!?