Umbria

We're going to go and I'm going to, you know what I love about us, you know, podcasters and radio people is I'm going to tell you something as if you don't already know, right? Right? You know, what I'm really excited today is we are going to be talking to a couple that owns an awesome hotel, Vocabolo Moscatelli.

It's a boutique hotel in Umbria, Italy, and it's a 12th century monastery reimagined as an intimate boutique with a restaurant at its heart.

So...

Let's welcome to the show our guests today.

Well, after half a lifetime in hospitality, we were looking for something a bit more personal and we were trying for a long time to climb the corporate career ladder.

And then it happened that with a lot of elbow oil and charisma, we managed to convince somebody to fund us to do our own thing.

And then Umbria was the land of opportunity, and that's basically what happened.

All right.

So they will talk about Bigfoot over there now, but there are old, old lore that is not, like, lost lost, but just isn't, like, mainstream anymore because of World War II.

So that's why we are talking about Italy in the forests of Umbria, near a small town called Scheggia, is, I think is how you pronounce it.

Um, and obviously we know it's not a bear, wasn't a gorilla.

But, uh, it is, it's simply just called the Monster of Scheggia or the Beast in the Italian Woods.

So this only occurred in the spring of 1997, so it, they don't see it after that, but, um, we're gonna talk about the Monster of Scheggia too.

Before we get to the monster, I'd like to understand the place of which the story unfolded, um, 'cause I think if you wanna understand mystery, you need to know, like, you gotta understand the, the lay of the land, if you will.

So, um, Scheggia is located in the Italian region of Umbria, near the Apenne, Appenine, Apenne Mountains.

I think it's Apenne Mountains.

But yeah, so like that kind of reminded me that, It's really fun to take him to weddings, but also I do have to still be dad and I still have to tell him what to do.

His first proper experience of a full wedding day was last summer and it was in Umbria in Italy.

We were there on holiday.

I did two weddings, bizarrely back to back, half an hour away from each other in Umbria.

It was really strange.

But he came to the second day and it was 38 degrees, really, really hot.

He took some images that I would actually be proud to have taken.

And one image in particular with bride and groom walking up towards the wedding breakfast, taken from like a window of the castle high up above.

So I do these group trips every year.

Last year, I rented a villa for 40 in, in Umbria and we had our own private chapel and we brought a CFR and,

um,

and it was wonderful, but some of the families were like, okay, we're going to go on the group thing, but we're going to come a little early or stay a little later.

went to? Um.

It's so hard for me to pick a favorite.

I mean, whenever we go, so we go every year for a month or two to homeschool in Italy and we always stay in Umbria.

So just that whole region, our friends are there.

It's not exactly travel insurance, but it's kind of related to travel.

I had a disconcerting experience last year going to Umbria trying to hire a car.

Trying to hire a car.

Cars are very cheap over there in Italy.

And the palace is in the middle of the village.

The same applies for all Tuscany, Umbria.

And then I can give you a lot of names of towns, you can check it out.

But essentially, personally, I'm in love with Tuscany, Umbria, Abruzzo is severely underrated.

I

love Abruzzo.

And he's like, you should look at Pescara.

But it's interesting, you know, we're looking at these places we might not have looked at before because we can work anywhere.

This trip is also gonna continue my big global project to visit every state, province, or in the case of Italy, every region of the countries that I've spent significant time in.

So in Italy, my earlier travels have mostly taken me through the western side of the country and a couple of central s- parts from all the way from Piedmont to Calabria, and I visited, I think, 10 of Italy's regions, so that would be Umbria, Emilia-Romagna, Calabria, Tuscany, Liguria, as well as Lombardy, Campania, Piedmont, Veneto, and Lazio.

So this time I'm gonna be spending time in the eastern half of the country, which I've never visited.

So I'm gonna start with a whole month in Molfetta, which is near Bari, which is a bit more popular.