MILWAUKEE-NYC-ITALY-GREECE AND A DAY IN LONDON BLOG POST EIGHT

FATTORIA ARMENA

For us saying good-bye to Fattoria Armena is always the saddest part of our journey. We started out traveling there when our daughter was three. We had been invited to stay with a client who had rented a villa in Umbria and after our stay we wanted to spend a couple of weeks on our own. We contacted the same rental agency as our clients and poured through their list of available places to rent.

There was some sort of fate that drew us to Armena. Stefania and Alessandro had just begun transitioning from their actuarial jobs in Siena into opening their Agriturismo on the farm that had been in Alessandro's family since it was built back in the 1500's purportedly by the architect Baldassare Peruzzi.

Since her birth our daughter had come out of the womb like a dolphin with a strong connection with the animal world. There wasn't a cow or a goat or a snake she wouldn't adore and want to pet or hold. It was those pictures and the Pidgin English description of the animals on the farm that made us say okay and plunk down our deposit for that first visit to Armena.

We rented a car to get us from Umbria to Tuscany and give us the flexibility of traveling around and into the beautiful hill towns rising out of Tuscany's valleys. The road leading to Armena from the south diverts you at a certain point off of the main artery to the north, the A1, and then onto a series of very narrow and extremely windy country roads that left me with white knuckle driving and Emmy with an acute case of motion sickness. The very last part of the journey to the top of the hill that is Armena is a dirt road pocked with ruts and water worn rivulets and holes. It's barely wide enough for one car to pass let alone two going in opposite directions, but it's lined with forests and cypress trees providing a series of beautiful views as you ascend to the top that dead ends at the Fattoria.

That first trip to the farm was anything but luxurious. The pool was above ground and the place was still very much a working farm with all the necessary out buildings needed to keep the farm running but Emmy was in love with every dog that slobbered over her giggling face, every bunny she could hold in her little arms and especially every horse she could sneak an apple to without reprimand.

The farm's architecture is divided into two main buildings: one having been the original home and the other a combination of living quarters and stables for the livestock and horses. The stables had been converted into two apartments one on top of the other with the bottom one containing two bedrooms and one bath and the upper housing three bedrooms and two baths. We rented the lower.

The farm is now much more luxurious but without pretention.

Pomegranate trees are mature and laden with fruit.

It now has a breathtaking infinity pool.

Poolside lunches are a common occurrence for guests.

The vineyards and olive groves have matured and they've added on another apartment.

This is where we stay now. After so many trips back to Armena, we've now lost count of how many times;

it's in this apartment that we now make our beds.

We've met friends for life on our stays at the farm and try to coordinate our stays with families who have also fallen in love with this heaven on a hill.

But as much as it is now the beauty that draws us here,

the real reason and the reason from our very first hello on our very first visit nineteen years ago was and is the Saraceni family. There has never been a greater set of hosts starting out with Stefania and Alessandro and now their sons Jacapo and Giulio.

If you travel once to the farm you'll be treated as royalty.

If you return you're treated as family.

This is not meant as a review but as our love letter to them.