Il Bel Centro: A Year in the Beautiful Center

Such a great book about an American family living in Spello for one year. The trials and tribulations of moving to Italy, the making of beautiful friendships that will last a life time and even great cooking tips with authentic Umbrian recipes. You will fall in love with this family and especially the children, Nick, Siena and little Gabe.

This book is literally a daily journal made into a book. It's boring. There is very little interesting about a family's daily life, even in beautiful Italy. The worst part is that the author is a psychologist and she continuously psycho-analizes her kids over the most minor everyday occurrences. I love Italy, but I couldn't make it through this book. I don't like to leave books unfinished but this one was unbearable. I read it on the Kindle and finally closed it for good at 40%. My recommendation is to skip this one.

This is ultimately a book about self-discovery. In our all-too-hectic lives, it is easy to get caught up in dealing with the mundane and not realize what we're taking for granted. How are the systems around us - the people, the organizations, the food, the language - actually a part of our very fabric and what happens when all that changes. There's a lot in here about resilience, but it's really more about adaptability and willingness to open your mind to something new. We also have three kids and struggle to make sure they make it to their myriad set of activities - I can imagine the challenges of moving within the country, perhaps to get a new job or to be closer to family, but the idea of picking up school-age children and putting them in a situation with an unknown language and culture seems daunting. And yet, the Damianis did just that. You leave the book feeling that this family is indeed a part of your own and the nostalgia of a friend you haven't met in some time, and both the triumphs and despairs become a part of you.

I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review, so I have had some time to really reflect on it. I love the blog/diary approach and the author really has a way of painting the sights, the sounds and the smells with words. Most books that I like, I just plow through, but this one is more akin to a long walk in the woods with new surprises at every turn – you don’t want to rush through it too quickly or you’ll miss something, and the destination is less the point than the walk itself. It also has another interesting quality – knowing that it is about a year in Italy meant that as the days (in the book) progressed, I knew how close I was to the end. You always know you’re close to the end of a book, of course, but I felt like I wanted to continue savoring the stories and actually had a bit of a reluctance to see it come to a close.

There are so many little vignettes that I feel like I will carry away with me. Don't want to give any spoilers, but there is a particularly poignant moment when the author has a sudden realization how it must feel to be a foreigner in the U.S. - to be completely loquacious in your mother tongue and yet to be constantly fumbling in another language, imposing barriers upon yourself and hesitating to take yet another risk. I also absolutely loved the discussions about the elderly and the special needs children in Spello and how they are integrated into the community. The Italian systems are far from perfect, but they clearly have figured out how to draw the inclusiveness circle more broadly than we have in the U.S.

And then there is the food. I haven't mentioned it yet only because I wasn't sure if I would make it to any other topic once I got to the food. But the incredible imagery with which the culinary delights are brought to life are absolutely drool-worthy. I literally would get hungry while reading, and I love that there are so many actual recipes thrown in (haven't tried them yet, but can't wait to give it a shot!).

An excellent journey showing incredible courage to take a step into a new world. Brava, indeed.

In preparing for a trip to Umbria, I came across "Il Bel Centro". I've been savoring the read; one of the best travelogues I've read in a long time. (And I read many, many travel books!) Damiami is honest in her love - and her struggles - of adapting to the pace of Italian life. Her descriptions of the local food and wine, in particular, have me eager to jump on a plane to Italy!

She doesn't gloss over all the mistakes and mishaps she and her family handles; this is thankfully not an over-romanticized memoir. She willingly admits when her expectations based on past experiences and reality of the current place do not mesh, and is clearly grateful to be experiencing a different pace of life than modern American suburbia, treasuring it for the future.

As the book is based off her travel blog entries, the entries are chronicled by date, so the reader will truly be able to immerse themselves in a year in Umbria. Terrific resource for those heading to Umbria - full of recipes, in-depth descriptions, and lots of useful vocabulary! Loved this read!

I very much enjoyed reading Michelle's diary for her adventure. As a parent living abroad, I enjoyed the question raised about cultural identities for the family. As a food lover, I got a lot of inspiration through the pages and ate artichokes with parmesan and risotto more often recently. As a dreaming adventurer, I enjoyed hearing from her perspective on the practical aspect of her adventure, how she and her family grew through it, her though on the concept of friendship in different culture. As a European, I loved how Michelle described the various events she participates in, the values of her new community, the description of the land and villages, her experience with The Administration. Great read, great humble testimony of an unusual enriching adventure.

I loved this book. So many "I dropped everything and moved to [blank]" books are either disaster tourism or tourist office pablum. But this is the real thing. A smart, thoughtful, move, with difficulties anticipated and acknowledged but not allowed to be deterrents. Wonderful descriptions of beautiful scenery (but watch for vipers), fantastic festivals (be prepared to stay up all night), and delicious food (snails perhaps excepted). Recipes, even.

Perhaps the best part, however, is watching the author and her family cope with a lovely friendly town where everyone speaks Italian, and they do not. Any of us who are parents surely gasp a little at the thought of throwing our children into schools where they are expected to keep up with their classes despite not knowing the language of their teachers (and doing long division differently). The book acknowledges the difficulties her children faced, and describes their various strategies to overcome them. No one is surprised by the end when the youngest is helping to translate for a group of English-speaking visitors.

You may not finish this book feeling brave enough to pack up your family for a year abroad, but I can guarantee you will finish it eager to visit Spello.

To fulfill a lifelong dream, Michelle Damiani moved her husband, three school-aged children, and two cats to Spello, Umbria in central Italy to live for a year.

Although she found a community ready to embrace her family, Damiani also encountered several stumbling blocks, including language difficulties, bureaucracy, and differing educational philosophies.

Written in a journal format that traces Damiani's journey nearly day by day, Il Bel Centro provides a rare glimpse into a transplanted family's sojourn in Italy.

Damiani opens up and shows incredible vulnerability within these pages, and parents will especially appreciate her concerns and frustrations as a mother attempting to guide and nurture her children through this life-changing time. Her descriptions of the people, customs, and food of Umbria are particularly enticing.

If you can't get yourself to Italy for an extended stay, Il Bel Centro is a worthy substitute. Highly recommended.

** A version of this review originally appeared in the Spring 2016 issue of Ambassador, the magazine of the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF). I was given a review copy by the author in exchange for an honest review. **

Three years after Michelle Damiani and her family stayed in Umbria, Italy for a year, the author offered me a chance to read her memoir, while actually I was spending my summer holidays in Tuscany, Italy. Il Bel Centro: A Year in the Beautiful Center is a blog turned into book. An American family from Charlottesville, Virginia, delved many possible Italian cities to spend a sabbatical year, and found Spello to be that vibrant and attractive to go there in July 2012. Il Bel Centro is part travelogue. Not only did Michelle, her husband Keith (graphic designer) and their three children (Nicholas, Siena, and Gabe) plus two cats stay in Spello, they travelled to Rome, Florence, Venice, Paris, Brussels, and other places in Europe. Their three children went to school in Spello, learned Italian, became friends with locals and were part of all kind of cultural festivities throughout the year. Michelle is a food lover, enriched her knowledge of ingredients, pasta, meat, vegetables, local restaurants, and Italian customs. Of course meetings with people, from the local alley ladies, nurseries and doctors, teachers and shop owners take another important part of the book. Language and art lessons, flowers and landscape, past and present, religious and cultural festivals, performances and celebrations fill up the year. Quakers' faith meets Catholicism.
Il Bel Centro is lengthy, almost diary full of details, Italian words. Near the end of the year emotions rise, while the family had to decide whether or not stay, call Spello their permanent home, or rethink in the U.S. and come back again later. "This whole year illuminates one indelible truth. Pasta is good, love is better."

Umbrian-based Il Bel Centro shares the good company of celebrated travelogues like Under the Tuscan Sun or A Year in Provence, with sparkling humor, lucid style, and thoughtful cultural/ psychological insights. More rural than Tuscany, Umbria may be less traveled but not less charming. Right off, Michelle Damiani’s story shows that any enduring, heart-felt dream worth imagining is worth trying: her willing family exemplifies the audacity of living life as an experiment. Kudos to sensible adults who conquer the mountain of stuff in the way before departure. Her second heroic feat is taking three children and two cats far away for a year of unknowable challenges. Third, perhaps most daunting, Michelle conceives and finishes that which others merely fantasize: an honest, coherent book. That means polishing a storyline with clear themes, juggling a fistful of intriguing characters, with keen focus on the prize: how a year abroad changes her entire family.

Throughout, IBC presents refined aesthetics (on cooking, food, wine, flowers, architecture and landscape), satisfying St. Francis’ notion of the artistic (as recited by her daughter, Siena): “he who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.” Hand work is all about the story’s physical dimension : packing, moving, shopping, cooking, keeping house — and feasting, of course, with loving descriptions of mouth-watering (ultimately spiritual) meals. Head energy shines forth in the psychological and cultural insights that naturally emerge; what a pleasure to see an adult (therapist) acknowledge, then make sense of complex, disturbing feelings. Heart-iness bubbles up on every page and topic: the glories of Spello, bright-eyed children, spirited husband, warm friends, cats, the weather and travails of the adventure.

IBC's array of goodies deliver a terrifically accessible initiation for anyone, neophyte or veteran traveler, one who’s already gone or still contemplates relishing Italy. What most intrigued this ex-teacher/traveler was Michelle’s deft sense of what makes Spello village life unique, so enduring and so much to teach westerners addicted to work, status or surface excitements. Item: Yanks exaggerate individualistic prominence, she notes, thus stress and isolation shrinks healthy community contact. Easier-going Italians live in the moment, though aren't let off the hook — sometimes too complacent, accepting what doesn't work well (like its notorious bureaucracy). All in all, a book with many splendors -- its unrushed pace conveys the right message, that joy, love and satisfaction prosper not with speed and quantity but emotional depth and blessings of collective experiences, whether we "choose" them or "they" choose us.

Although I wasn't sure in the early chapters that I would totally get immersed in this book, it gradually drew me in until I felt like part of this family's life in Spello. I can now imagine relocating for a full year with three children and two cats, something that seemed improbable in the early pages of being part of this book. The ups and downs of this inner and outer journey for the family is fully presented - there are difficult adjustments and emotional highs that carry everyone through to the place of being sorry to see the end of the year and the return home. I'm feeling the same as I come to the end of this deeply personal memoir of a journey. I am sorry to see it end, but so grateful for the experience.

I loved this book! This is such a beautiful story. The descriptions of the people and places and the experiences this family had in their year of living in Italy is breathtaking! The author writes with such love and feeling. I must admit, I cried at the end as if I was leaving these wonderful people behind. It reminds me of when we get to visit our family & friends in Italy. After living amongst them, for even as short a time as two weeks, the feelings that overtake us are indescribable. I loved every minute of this heartwarming book!!

What a pleasure to read a book about enjoying and surviving living in Italy. the book slowly takes you by the hand and shows a very honest account of the struggles but also of the victories and the warm friendly reception of the people they meet. It makes me want to move to Spello and meet them all. Alongside the process of getting established you get a very honest account of the inner conflicts which are more clear in a country where you don't know the language and culture. It shows the insecurities, the strenght and the personal growth of the family and its individual members The book makes you part of the family live, it makes you want to see the beauty and friendly people in Italy and you think to yourself why shouldn't I do the same.It was hard to stop reading and I hope there will be a new book so I can follow the family who seem so close now.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review, and I was happy about it.

I loved this book! This is such a beautiful story. The descriptions of the people and places and the experiences this family had in their year of living in Italy is breathtaking! The author writes with such love and feeling. I must admit, I cried at the end as if I was leaving these wonderful people behind. It reminds me of when we get to visit our family & friends in Italy. After living amongst them, for even as short a time as two weeks, the feelings that overtake us are indescribable. I loved every minute of this heartwarming book!!

I loved this book! After spending several days in Assisi last year, I fell in love with Umbria. This book was so perfect...Michele's descriptions of the people and places...the Italian language lessons on every page...the recipes, omg the recipes... And the writing - as if she was writing to me, in an email or letter... I didn't want the book to end and I secretly hoped the Damiano's were staying in Spello...please go back and write another book...tell me more about the kids and Angelo and the alley ladies and the cats.....I'll read it - and love it- more than once, as I love Il Bel Centro... Grazie !

I loved the story except for mentions of politics. Luckily, the author didn't spoil the read by coming right out and telling us how she voted. I also was a little uncomfortable when she talked about Catholicism. With that having been said, I thoroughly enjoyed her writing and story. I look forward to reading more by her. She is truly talented.

I so much enjoyed this book; it brought back many happy memories of our trips to Italy, driving the back roads, exploring small villages and staying in farmhouses, monasteries and convents. We felt like we really got the flavor of the country and enjoyed meeting local people and interacting with them. What a wonderful experience for the Damiani family and their children......one they will always remember. The book touches on so many topics that are truly Italian......family, conviviality and the luscious food! Thank you, Michelle, for sharing your story with your readers. I look forward to reading more of your work!

Il Bel Centro brings sunshine on a gloomy day. It is like spots of happiness on your paperback/kindle. Michelle has done an excellent job of bringing ITALY to us readers. I have been fascinated and in love with Italy since years now and I think this book heightened it any more. I am grateful this book in my life. It was right at the time when I was missing my Umbrian trip. Thanks Michelle, I have learnt so many things that I probably would have learnt later on..And you know once the book was over, I felt like a lost friend. It was sad to think that I wouldn't read more about Spello.. I felt like after a year of staying there, I LEFT SPELLO WITH YOU. Thank you for everything and for such a deep heartwarming writing. For bringing Spello in my life. I can't wait to visit that town already.!!

PS- This book will give you instant wanderlust to hop on a plane too Italy. Beware ;-)

For anyone thinking about living in Italy or anywhere where English is not your first language I feel this is a must read. After reading two other “living in Italy books” one I enjoyed the other I wanted to throw away(bit hard with a kindle) I was apprehensive in giving my opinion. We are at the opposite end of the life spectrum from the author. No children at home, my husband retired, me working so we can travel .Our dream (more mine than my husbands but he will go along) is to live in Italy for one year in the near future. I started reading on Friday Night and finished it on Sunday morning. It was worth not doing housework to finish the book.
From the first pages I related so much to the author. After all don’t we all have to get the house ready to rent out for a year. I do not know the author or her family but felt connected to them by the honest account of the year .The story is an account about the good and bad times of living away from your home. The respect and non judgements that the author shows to different religions, politics,cultures, food and people is heart-warming in the world political climate. Sure there are comparisons to her home country but they are done in a non critical way. Unusual in travel books these days. The descriptions of people and events made me both laugh and cry. To be able to read and be walking with the author is a truly wonderful experience and happened for me often throughout the book.
There is no condescending or superior attitudes coming across in this book. The author is not even a pretend art critic and recounts stories how they are told to her. The softly softly approach to the reality of day to day living and the humility of the author is something that shines through and really appealed to me. The perceived personality flaws (warranted or not) of the author are there for the world to read and it made me think how vulnerable we may be when outside of our normal environment. Also how brave she was to write them down.
“What would I put on one side of my tshirt” “I am a scaredy cat”. On the other side it would be “but I will try overcome my fears” . If you want to know what this is about please read the book as I highly recommend it.
Days after reading this book I was still thinking about the message.
I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What a nice book! Michelle has interesting insights into the very nature of "foreignness" and acceptance, both internal and external. She has a nice way with words and is especially deft when writing about nature and food. Her children sound delightful, though the large dollops of armchair psychology (yes, I know she's a psychologist) were a bit overwhelming at times. A very pleasant read by a woman who seems blessed with a lovely family, a keen mind, and an adventurous spirit.

After reading Il Bel Centro: A Year in the Beautiful Center I found it to be a very interesting approach to documenting a year spent in a foreign country. It wasn’t a travel log, it wasn’t a cookbook, it wasn’t a novel yet it read like all three. This book took me on a yearlong journey with a family who decided to shake up their lives and take their three children and two cats with them on this adventure. I like that it expresses the fears and trepidation of getting ready for such an experience. Without including these fears and even frantic moments it would sound just a bit too romantic and unrealistic to me.
It didn’t take long reading into this book to feel as if I knew this family. I was fully engaged trying to imagine what it would be like to take three children to a country where they did not speak the language and plop them in school. I chuckled at the reference to mother guilt and can relate to what Michelle must have been feeling.
What I enjoyed about this book was the way the reader followed the life of each family member while they each discovered their own experience, made friends and created their own footprint in this small town.
The way that the town welcomed this family almost seemed unreal. The festivals and relationships, the dinners and holidays and the way the townspeople embraced this family gave me a sense of the warmth and a feeling of what this community is like.
I enjoyed the way recipes were inserted because they were relevant to the experience. They added some of what seems to be such an important part of Italian everyday life and gave believability to the story.
Being a mom who has traveled a lot with my daughter I particularly enjoyed the little anecdotes of the children that were inserted throughout the book. They gave a very personal touch and a much different perspective. Normally when I have read books on a travel experience it is always from an adult perspective and I found this approach very refreshing and added such poignant humor that I found myself laughing out loud.
All in all I found Il Bel Centro: A Year in the Beautiful Center to be a really enjoyable read and I would recommend it to anyone whether they be a world traveler or someone who has never traveled. It gives a great insight into how stepping out of your comfort zone can prove to be a wonderful and memorable experience. Bravo !!
In return for an honest review I was given a copy of the book Il Bel Centro: A year in the Beautiful Center.

This work is a poignant, funny and creative memoir, full of poetry and yet reads like a novel. Michelle Damiani brings her experience alive within moments and we start loving her, her husband and their children within the same amount of time. The tastes, smells and colors come alive inside and outside the house in this small hill town.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. What good fortune.
Open it up and you will want to turn the pages on this look at the life of an American family in a small town in Italy. Perhaps you too will get the bug to go. Michelle makes it seem possible.

What a lovely book! I’ve always dreamed of moving to another country for a year so getting to live vicariously though this wonderful family’s adventure was so much fun. Funny and thought provoking and so well written. Have tissue ready for the last chapter. Thank you for such a great adventure.

Ciao Michelle! Such a lovely book! You pour your heart and soul in every word. Honest, and enriching, where the reader can walk through your challenges and victories building a new life in that year in the small Italian town of Spello. By the end of the book, I have the feeling that I knew your neighbors, your kid’s teachers, your Italian teacher, everybody. I can recall every nook and cranny in Il Bel Centro. The ladies on the alley, my goodness, even when we see photos in every Italian brochure, trough you I learned they were real people in their everyday lives! Thank you for this beautiful piece. I highly recommend it, you will not be disappointed!

Why do we think ‘travel’ is a magician…one that will transform or conjure up a better, truer more authentic self? Cut loose from the shackles of birthplace, the 'real' us will out, reveal, revel and blossom in this [usually warmer] parallel universe.
Perhaps more than any other country, Italy has for centuries been the siren whose unparalleled wealth of cultural beauty and promise, has lured the Romantic in all of us onto its thirsty rocks. Il Bel Centro, which I read in one sitting, two coffees and three cry’s, takes its’ turn at navigating the daily challenges that modern Italians’ appear frustratingly resigned to, in the hope of landing safely on the shore, or in this case a landlocked hillside Mediterranean Brigadoon.
In a reverse of the modern appetite for bigger, faster, louder… and by fully embracing a more intimate, simple and considered existence, the young Damiani family’s comfort zone gets ‘une belle schiaffo.’
If one aim of the author was to transport the reader into tasting the essence of what a diet of small, daily, open-hearted kindnesses can achieve… then it’s a winner. My one gripe is that if as a result of the book, the secret that is Spello gets out… I will personally shoot her.

[I received an advance copy of in exchange for an honest review.]

Michelle Damiani's book, based on her blog by the same name, is one of the reasons I'm living in Italy today. Her stories of her family's year in the town of Spello are delightful, and concern both the pleasures and the difficulties of living in Italy, of adjusting to a new language, a new culture, and a new country. Her struggles with learning Italian are like my own, and her encounters with Italian culture have helped me immensely in my own transition into life here.

Michelle spices the book with recipes, brightens it with photos, and shares her fears and anxieties as well as the wonderful moments. The book is a very real, very personal and personable account of transition, alienation, learning, acceptance, and acclimation. There are fraught encounters with the Italian national health system, fantastic descriptions of food and wine, and a charming and vulnerable honesty about her life and her friends in Spello. When Michelle offered me a copy of the book to review, I jumped at the chance. It's a wonderful peek into a year in the life of a fascinating person in a beautiful place.

Il Bel Centro should be read by everybody. While it is about the day to day experience of an American family in a small town in Italy, there are lessons here on how to meet the challenges of dealing with the unknown gracefully. I would like to buy copies of the book and give them to my family and friends.

I loved journeying along with them as they navigated the logistics of living abroad, as well as the social and emotional challenges of stepping way outside of their comfort zone! I can’t decide if my favorite parts were reading about how they overcame major hurdles (like discipline in the school system or a serious illness that required immersion in the Italian health system) or the many sumptuous descriptions of Italian cuisine. I could smell and taste the streets of Spello in so many of the book’s chapters. I feel like there is something in this book for everyone. FYI- I received an advanced copy with the promise of posting an honest review.

As some one who loves Italy I really enjoyed this book I especially loved reading about the children and their bravery in starting a school where they didn't speak the language or know anyone. I've read a lot of books written by people that have moved to Italy, but the daily blog was different and I liked it. Congratulations to the family for being brave enough to tackle such a challenge, and for making it work so well for all of them.

I’ve read many books about Italy, but this was, by far, the best about the Italian way of life in a beautiful town. It was written with passion, humor, and the gift of a storyteller. We’ll be in San Donato in Poggio in September and will definitely make a day trip to Spello. Thank you, Michelle, for your wonderful story (even though it did make me cry!).

Michelle Damiani beautifully captures life in a small town, the relationships with the people her family interacted with every day, and the customs and rhythm of daily life. More importantly, she shares the lessons she learned from living a very different pace, something I cherish during the time I spend in Italy. There are many things to take to heart in this book that can help make us all better people.

I was expecting another typical "year in Italy" story, but this one surprised me. It was heartfelt, honest, fun and inspiring. I would definitely recommend it to anyone spending time in Umbria, or contemplating spending 6-12 months living in Italy. I really enjoyed it.

That Michelle and Keith Damiani choose to strike out with three children, Nicolas, Siena and little Gabe and two cats, Frya and Juno, to land in Spello, Italy for a year is a marvel. That Michelle carefully chronicled their daily life to share with us is a true blessing!
Armchair travelers will be interested in Michelle Damiani’s rich descriptions of integrating into community life where a whole new world is right outside her doorstep and belly laugh at her attempts to order pesce (fish) brined in oil at the butcher shop when she actually ordered pesche (peaches). She shares the joy, the fun, the shared laughter of making deep connections with the Spellani and also her fears, her introspective moments and the challenges of allowing her children to grow wings attending new schools in a foreign language that none had mastered before arriving.
Living in a foreign country, especially one so rich in history, art and culture in the center, il Bel Centro, of Italy in the green heart of Umbria, is an open invitation to examine her American culture, to learn new ways of being and to move to a different daily rhythm, sometimes a rhythm unchanged by centuries. Her witness to deep shifts of consciousness by living in a country with different values is profound. Chapter after chapter, she offers insights and the reader is invited to stretch and grow vicariously. Michelle and Keith had a dream that they worked diligently to realize. She inspires the reader to consider what they really want, what is their dearest held dream. We could all use a bit of prodding in that direction. This exquisite book is a nurturer of dreamers.
Immersing themselves for a full year in beautiful, welcoming and captivating Spello, they were able to feel the movement of changing seasons, some challenging, as trying to dry clothing on racks in winter dampness, or the joyful abandon of running through fields of red poppies together in spring.
There are just too many jewels within this book to begin to enumerate in a review, so this is only a small attempt to share the qualities of a compelling memoir of family life in a new place.
A Quaker by faith, Michelle Damiani has a quiet and discerning wisdom that she brings to each new experience and it is gratifying that she is able to share that with her readers. She also has never met a meal that she did not savor with great gusto: falling in love with an Easter cake, licking her fingers while eating a grilled lamb rib, adoring an afternoon Aperol Spritz, cooking for the first time with pork skin or learning to make perfect ravioli from a country woman. The book is full of recipes in addition to her beautiful writing. So enjoy, cook, heft a glass of wine and savor Damiani’s really good book, il Bel Centro!

What a marvelous book. I have read several other books telling similar stories but none as well written as this one. The author tells her story vividly and with such emotion. I was sorry to finish this book which is I think the ultimate compliment

Enjoyed this book very much. An intimate diary of an American family living in Spello, Italy for a year. By the end I felt like I knew the family well! Appreciated the author's insight on the differences between Italian life and American life, and what Americans can learn from the Italians!

I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I lived in southern Italy for a couple years several years ago. It brought back many happy memories and the people, their landlords with hearts of gold, the merchants of the small town, the connections they made by having children in school and of course the hassle of the Italian powers that be in getting various permits are all a part of living in Italy. Far braver than I to take two cats and putting children in school lead them to a really rich experience of the life in Italy, the kindness of the people when your struggling with language or trying to get something done and you have no idea about how to go about it was a real slice of Italian Life. A great read!

A sweet "ride-along" through 4 seasons of life abroad, getting to know the local people, colors and customs of an Umbrian town. I've lived in Italy for 15 years now, and this took me back to my initial days of tripping through my phrase book, ordering the wrong foods, getting lost and being thrilled about it, etc.
Makes for a great "get-away" read for Summer.

While on a walking tour of Tuscany and Umbria, one of the towns we stayed in was Spello. Only there for a couple of days, my wife and I found it to be very special. When we came back home to New York, I wanted to find a book that could give me a good understanding of everyday existence in this "Special Place". I found Il Bel Centro. Michelle's account of every day life in a small town was just what I was looking for.
The book captures the love and warmth of the towns people as well as the simple way of life.
I honestly did not want the book to end. I couldn't get enough. I can't wait to get back to Spello!!

Engaging read! The the author is delightfully articulate and insightful. I think her kids are pretty awesome, too. She was able to paint pictures with her words and I felt as though I was part of the experience. Well-done!

This is one I read via Prime Kindle Lending Library. I will probably go ahead and buy it outright so I can read it again and again. It captures so sweetly the experience of being in Italy, and she shares a lot of deep human emotion that really resonated for me.

Loved it! Not only are there sumptuous descriptions of living in Italy (The food! The wine! The scenery! The people!), there's thoughtful reflection on all the different facets of living life in a foreign country. This is a lyrical, meditative book that's perfectly balanced with lightheartedness and humor...Just like an excellent Italian meal!

A beautiful vicarious experience abroad. I loved every passage, the balanced descriptions moving from food, to culture, to community, to relationships, to deep insights. Quite literally, reading this book gave me respite, repose, and a slower pace when I needed it most. It inspires me to seek out a more engaged community experience where I am.

A genuine reflection of an awesome life experience, it brings laughter, tears and enjoyment with excellent insights into life and love in a learning and affirming environment. It is about moving out of the box and expanding horizons, accepting life in its ever evolving ways with new insights and new freedom. It is about love, community and coming into a new place in life and self-esteem and awareness.

This book takes you into the magic of the Italian culture with a heart that has room for you to join... I highly recommend this beautifully written book for an Italian escape to a charming community through the eyes of this brilliant and bright shining author. Bravo Michelle!