After arriving, there was a natural next question:
Where are we?
Before beginning to explore the buildings, the architecture and the possibilities for Borgo Orfeo, we wanted the students to meet the place itself.
To discover where they had landed.
So, on our second day together, we went to Perugia.
Not simply to visit a beautiful Italian city, but to open a door into the much older story of this land.
A story that began long before us
My own relationship with the Etruscans is a story in itself.
Did I discover them?
Or did they somehow find me again?
I still don't really know.
When we first came to Castelvecchio, the dream was already beginning to take form.
Someone had listened to Koen's dream of finding a house to restore — a next project, and perhaps a new home for us — somewhere in the summer of 2020.
In early November 2020, we came up the mountain for the first time.
What I saw was a small village that had been largely abandoned.
But somehow, in my inner vision, I didn't see an abandoned village.
I saw a vibrant community.
A warm and lively place.
Wonderful neighbours.
People coming and going.
Shared meals.
Creativity.
Life.
I didn't know yet how that vision would unfold.
We eventually moved into Castelvecchio in December 2021, after the renovation works were completed.
And from the moment we started living there, I felt drawn to walk.
To explore.
To listen.
There was an Etruscan tomb close to our home, almost in our backyard.
I began to experience it as a safe place to simply be.
To sit.
To breathe.
To listen.
After some time, I also started recording spontaneous little videos there, simply sharing what I was experiencing.
And then I became curious.
I asked one of our neighbours how I could find out more about the Etruscan culture.
She introduced me to Luciano Vagni, a passionate engineer who had spent around fifty years studying the Etruscans in his own unique way.
That meeting opened another door.
Microcosmos. Macrocosmos.
What fascinated Luciano was not simply the history of the Etruscans.
It was their relationship with the cosmos.
The way they looked at the world around them and translated what they perceived into the way they lived here on Earth.
Microcosmos. Macrocosmos.
The greater reflected in the smaller.
The sky reflected in the earth.
A relationship between what is above and what is below.
For me, this became part of the deeper inspiration behind Borgo Orfeo.
Not because we want to recreate the Etruscan world.
We don't.
But because perhaps an ancient culture can still invite us to ask questions that are very alive today:
How do we live in relationship with nature?
How do we listen to the rhythms around us?
How do we translate what we sense into the way we shape our lives?
And what happens when a place is not simply something we inhabit, but something we enter into relationship with?
Perugia — a living classroom
I wanted the students to experience this.
And I wanted them to experience Italy too.
For young people who may know mainly the energy of English cities, Umbria can feel like entering another world.
Perugia is almost an open-air museum.
Ancient stone, narrow streets, layers of history, people, movement, food, beauty, noise, stillness — all woven together.
And of course…
a real Italian pizza.
A little taste of la bella Italia.
But somewhere beneath the beauty and the history, something else was happening.
The students were beginning to understand that they had not simply arrived at an architectural project.
They had arrived in a place with layers.
Layers of people.
Layers of memory.
Layers of culture.
Layers of relationship with the land.
Layers of stories that came long before us.
And perhaps these layers would become part of the questions we would carry into the days ahead.
From the city back to the land
And then something very simple happened.
Izzy, one of the students, had spoken with Koen on our first evening and asked if she could see our vegetable garden.
So, after our day in Perugia, we all went together to the garden before dinner.
And suddenly, the experience shifted again.
From the city back to the land.
From ancient history back to something very tangible.
We picked fresh cucumbers from the garden and ate them together.
Simple.
Fresh.
Delicious.
With Monte Tezio rising in the distance.
There was something almost perfect about this transition.
After walking through the history and energy of Perugia, we were suddenly standing in our own little piece of land, surrounded by the richness of nature.
The students could see, taste and experience another layer of the place.
The garden was not simply producing food.
It was showing us something about relationship.
The generosity of Mother Nature.
The work of human hands.
The patience of growing.
The pleasure of harvesting.
And the simple joy of eating something that had just come from the earth.
We had gone looking for the ancient wisdom of the land.
And by the end of the day, the land was simply feeding us.
Perhaps this was the moment we truly landed.
The story continues at the table
That evening, Maria Grazia welcomed us again with food.
Her table was becoming part of our journey too.
This time Tiziana and Roberto joined us — the two other owners of the properties we would be studying during the students' stay.
Again, different people around one table.
Different generations.
Different cultures.
Different stories.
And yet, somehow, the same journey.
The students had arrived only one day earlier.
Now they had walked through Perugia, touched a little of the ancient story of the land, met people connected to the buildings they would be exploring, picked vegetables from the garden, tasted the richness of the earth and shared another meal together.
Slowly, the place was becoming more than a location.
It was becoming a story they were part of.
Where are we?
Looking back, I think this was an important beginning.
Before asking:
What shall we create here?
We first asked:
Where are we?
Who lived here thousands of years ago?
What did they see?
What did they understand?
How did they relate to the earth, the seasons, the cosmos, one another?
And what, if anything, might we want to carry with us from that wisdom?
We didn't have the answers.
And we didn't need to.
Perhaps the real invitation was simply to begin the journey with an open question:
What wisdom does this place already hold — and what might it awaken in us?
We had arrived.
We had met each other.
We had met the city.
We had met the ancient story of the land.
We had tasted the garden.
And now, perhaps, we had truly begun to land.
