The new year has started and temperatures here in Italy are rather spring-like, so it must be time to think about booking your stay in Castiglione del Lago! Here are a few ideas to combine your stay with a local event: the 15th edition of the Strasimeno running race on March 6 – you can take part in a variety of distances, from 10Km to 58Km (ultramarathon race, all the way round the lake) (more info here: www.podismo.it); the Meeting di Primavera airshow at the end of April (more info here: www.meetingdiprimavera.it); and the Coloriamo i Cieli kite festival from 29/4/2016 to 1/5/2016 (more info here: www.coloriamoicieli.com. Our rates remain unvaried and we look forward to welcoming you soon 🙂

  

Umbria is famous for the high quality of its olive oil. Century-old trees find the perfect climatic conditions to produce deep green oil that is packed with flavour and sought-after from afar. After last year’s poor harvest caused by the dreaded olive fly, this year is one of celebration! The oil mills are now open, and so is Casa Leone Italy. Time for some bruschetta con olio nuovo? Cooperativa Oleificio Pozzuolese is our local mill: http://www.cooperativaoleificiopozzuolese.it/

Where to go next? Visit a painting exhibition in Pozzuolo Umbro? Or perhaps the Cortona on the Move photo expo in Cortona or the Trasimeno Panorami e Foto show in San Feliciano? Listen to famed opera singer Katia Ricciarelli in the castle of Castiglione del Lago on August 12 or do the Vintage Festival in Passignano on 29-30 August?! It’s all happening this month. The choice is yours!

  Summer is in full swing in Castiglione del Lago. The lake is full of water and fish, and events are coming in quick succession. Umbria Jazz has just ended, with Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett performing amongst others; the Notte Bianca was held on Friday; and now is time for the Trasimeno Blues Festival! As we still have some availabilities this next month, why not come and join the fun?! (image by very talented local photographer, Giorgio Brusconi)

Our part of Italy looks like this right now! Come and stay at Casa Leone Italy and see it for yourself 🙂        

All pictures by Ferdinando Maino, my colleague in the office!

Our skies will be full of planes, balloons and kites this month! First up is the Meeting di Primavera being held from 24 to 26 April. Over the weekend, helicopters, ultra light planes, small cesnas and many other flying objects will hover above our lake and our old town. The following weekend (30 April – 3 May) it will be the Kite Festival known as Coloriamo i Cieli, another splendid event held at the Aeroporto Eleuteri, the airport in Castiglione del Lago that was used during the war and is now an airbase for small planes, and in this instance, everybody’s kites! Come and join in the fun!

It’s Venerdi Santo tomorrow and the beginning of one of the most important weekends of the year here in Italy. If you are in the area, look out for Good Friday processions in Gubbio, Assisi or Orvieto and even in the smaller villages like Paciano that houses a church build solely to keep procession statues and that opens only at Easter every year. The Via Crucis processions, where the faithful stop to pray at points marking the life of Christ, are also very colourful. Try Cortona so you can admire Gino Severino’s stunning mosaics along the way.

Lake Trasimeno is still at a record high at the moment – the good side of a wet winter – and is looking absolutely stunning! We think that swimming, canoeing and exploring on a pedalo will be fabulous this summer. In the meantime, the kite surfers are making the most of the windy days and the water birds are having a field day.