In the seventeenth century, Italy was on the itinerary of every wealthy Euro- pean or Briton making a Grand Tour of the continent—a trip that could take up to three years. But, for all its appeal back then to Germans, Brits, Austrians, and others with deep pockets eager to study this great country’s art and architecture, Italy did not become a truly international tourist attraction until after World War II, when a generation of American GIs came home starstruck. Despite the devastation of a terrible two-front war that finally ended in 1945, Italy—and, to be fair, France—cast a spell on thousands of Americans who now found themselves able to return to a Europe at peace. A booming postwar economy and low airfares meant that America’s large (and war-weary) middle class now could travel to places they never had dreamed of visiting.
For Italy after the war, and for decades to come, that most often meant Rome in Lazio, Venice in the Veneto, and Florence in Tuscany. For France in the war’s immediate aftermath, the obvious destination was Paris. (Not for nothing did the 1951 Academy Award for Best Picture go to An American in Paris, starring Gene Kelly as an ex-GI who remained in France to pursue his dream to be an artist.) Umbria, in the very center of Italy and the country’s only landlocked region, was largely ignored after the war—which probably didn’t matter much to this beautiful and fertile region full of picturesque farms and hill towns that often is called “the green heart of Italy.”
But today that is changing. In addition to being Italy’s green heart, renowned for its olive oil, truffles, artisanal meats and cheeses, and some of the finest wines in the world, Umbria also is known as “Tuscany without the tourists.” It is poised to become Italy’s next major travel destination and, remarkably, seems able to do so without surrendering its uniqueness or its charm.
First, you have to get there. Today one can fly business class direct from the US to Rome and do the same with but one stop before landing at Venice’s beautiful Marco Polo airport or Florence’s Peretola. But there simply are no international airports in Umbria, save for a smaller facility in Perugia serving international flights only from neighboring countries. And given Umbria’s terrain—hill towns, after all, are built on hills—it’s unlikely that there is a large intercontinental airport in the region’s future.
With no direct flights from the US, most Americans will fly to Rome, then have to wend their way into the city to the big Roma Termini train station, there to board one of several local milk runs north to Umbria. The first time my wife, Judy, and I did this more than fifteen years ago, heading to a rented villa near Cannara where we would lead a photography workshop, we had to schlep all across the station before we finally happened upon a siding with the local train we wanted. (In stark contrast, nearly a decade later when connecting with family in Venice, Judy and I relaxed in a private VIP lounge at the same train station until our luxury class, super-high-speed, Frecciarossa, or Red Arrow, train from Roma to Venezia was ready to board.)
On that first trip to Umbria, we stepped onto the local train and stowed our luggage and camera bags as best we could. But at least the train left on time. The trip from Rome to the Umbrian city of Foligno, where we would meet our students, and the van driver who would take us all to the villa, was less than an hour and a half, but—O Dio Mio—how the landscape changed. For nearly an hour out of Rome the somber urban terrain reminded me of Newark. But then the magic happened. Suddenly, the landscape opened up and grew exponentially greener. Hills and small mountains loomed in the distance with ancient stone ruins—not urban detritus—punctuating the foreground in the lengthening golden shadows of a sunny late fall. Sheep, goats, and every so often horses, provided living counterpoint to the natural beauty passing before us. The olive groves were endless. This was Umbria, and we were dazzled.
Read the entirety of Frank Van Riper and Judith Goodman's Introduction in thier new book, The Green Heart of Italy.
Frank Van Riper and Judith Goodman
Frank Van Riper and Judith Goodman are husband and wife documentary and fine art
 photographers, whose work has been published internationally. Goodman’s photography has hung in the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC and the Baltimore Museum; she also is an award-winning assemblage sculptor and a member of the Washington Sculptors’ Group. Van Riper’s photography is in the permanent collections of the National Portrait Gallery (Washington, DC) as well as the Portland Gallery of Art (Portland, Maine.) His 1998 book of photography and essays, Down East Maine: A World Apart, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and won the silver award for photography from the Art Director’s Club of Metropolitan Washington.
