Here’ll you find insights into Umbria, culled from living in Spello for two years, as detailed in my memoir Il Bel Centro: A Year in the Beautiful Center, which you can download right here or at your preferred marketplace here or you can find it on Amazon here. Buy it now to read about how our family of five abandoned life in the United States to clink glasses with local communists and join the village all-nighter decorating cobblestone streets with flower petals. You’ll also read about embarrassing language minefields and a serious summons to the mayor’s office. Ultimately, though, Il Bel Centro is the story of how travel can change you if you let it.

November 17, 2020

Deruta's Past and Present

November 17, 2020/ Michelle Damiani

As part of our Local Guide Series, Joan and Giovanni share how their family history is inextricably linked with the history of artistic ceramics in Deruta. You can read the story of how we met Joan and Giovanni, and about our visit to Deruta and Antica Fornace here.

Have you been to Deruta? Isn’t it a marvelous place to find a unique and irreplaceable souvenir of a visit to Umbria? Use the buttons below to share this post!

Michelle Damiani

Website for Michelle Damiani, author of Il Bel Centro: A Year in the Beautiful Center, the funny and heartfelt memoir of an American family living in Spello, as well as Santa Lucia, a page-turner set on the Umbria border.

Rumors. Romance. And more than a little espresso.

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I am grateful for family and the awesome beauty of our world (and how Gabe’s hair in the wind illustrates for us how these peaks formed).

The longer I live, the more I value process. If I don’t enjoy the process, the product doesn’t matter. Which is why I created my Gift Guide for Italy Lovers. Because I don’t want to feel stressed and harried when I’m getting g

Oh hello there parrot on my porch. Fancy meeting you here! Just one of the wondrous surprises on Mount Tamborine.

There can be no greater sign of how thoroughly I sank into Australia than the fact that while in Noosa I bought myself two summer dresses. Completely forgetting that at home, we’re veering into winter. So imagine my surprise when we got to the

**Festival participant, speaking about “Il Bel Centro: A Year in the Beautiful Center”**

Featured speaker on panel discussing Romance for “Santa Lucia”

Visiting Umbria

Michelle Damiani

Rumors. Romance. And more than a little espresso.

Follow me on Instagram!