Of all the romantic obsessions in Lisa St Aubin de Teran's life, the search for a castle occupied her longest. From London to Venezuela, from Norfolk to Italy, she hauled her numerous bags from one train, and one temporary home to the next - dreaming of the house which might one day end her travelling. The moment she saw the Villa Orsola deep in the Umbrian hills, she knew she had found it. Only later did she and her husband, painter Robbie Duff-Scott, discover that they were the owners of a vast ruin. Window-panes and parts of the roof were missing. At night, bats swooped in and out of the empty frames. Months of labour by Imolo and his team of workmen began to restore the crumbling grandeur of the villa and - more urgently - render it habitable. Initially wary of their exotic neighbours, the villagers drew them into the gossip and card-playing at Regina's Bar, the complex rituals of baking and bottling, the festas. With six-year-old Alexander the village pet, Robbie the maestro, and Iseult, Lisa's daughter, attracting a stream of teenage admirers, it only remained for the Irish beauties - the two au pairs - to make the Villa Orsola the most desirable destination in the area. This account of an eccentric family is also a rare portrait of the life of an Italian village; a place where history and change connect young and old and the rhythms of the land shape experience.