My first visit to Le Marche was more than thirty years ago…..a college student going to Italy to study art history. We flew into Rome and after spending the day in the capital we got on a bus that would take us to Urbino in Le Marche to the university campus where we would sojourn and study. We left Rome enveloped in the lights, traffic and noise of the city and not having slept in the last 24 hours we were all quickly lulled to sleep by the gentle rhythm of the bus in motion. Next stop autogrill; the half way mark… fifty zombie students staggered off the bus…. coffee,cigarette and trip to the restroom, then off again onto the dimmly lit ribbon of italian highway. After only a few minutes of mumbled chit chat and rolling up jackets to create makeshift pillows; the group drifted back into a heavy slumber. After awhile, I couldn’t decipher just how long, I felt the bus slow down drifting almost to a stop…the driver shifted into gear again and I could feel a decisive change in the road itself.. The engine of the bus was now churning and sleeping bodies started shifting from left to right as we left the straight flat highway of the coastal plain and started up the winding road towards Urbino. “Okay” I thought “we must be near” I struggled to open my eyes to see where we were. Darkness. I gave a hard blink and opened my eyes again straining to understand if I was stil l sleeping or if I was suddenly blind because I couldn’t see anything. I leaned over from my window seat to look down the center aisle of the bus. Okay, I wasn’t blind I could see the headlights shooting down the road and the lights of the dashboard. I turned again to the window and looked out…darkness, total darkness, pitch black darkness, not a light around. I pressed my nose to the window, squinted and tried to focus again. This time I could perceive a slight variation of shades of black… like looking at black velvet. .I scrunched down and craned my neck to see above the bus and I could see an undulating line of black meeting a deep, dark, midnight blue sky. Again I leaned over towards the center aisle of the bus this time to look towards the back window…and there it was…. a huge, glowing, butter colored, full moon . A very strange contrast; for as large and intensely glowing that it was, it didnt illuminate the earth below…..I turned again to look up high from my window seat. Slowly I discovered a little, bright, white star here and there in the sky. I continued to peer out into the darkness searching for a street light, a house, something that would indicate that we not out in the wild but close to Urbino. The bus strained more as the curves became tighter and the incline more pronounced. As we rounded a turn ,up high above us, behind the dark skyline was a little glowing halo of light, the higher we travelled with each turn in the road it became larger and more intense like the sun rising at dawn. At the next curve we veered toward the right into total darkness again. The hill in front of us totally obscured the view but as the serpentine road inclined and coasted again to the left the view of the city of Urbino, illuminated with flickering golden lights, popped out to greet us with a spectacular welcome .The journey had started with grand anticipation like sitting in a dark theater waiting for the curtain to rise, and then there we were; the adventure had begun…..and the adventure still continues even after 30 years of discovering hidden treasures of art ,history, natural beauty, fantastic food, fine drink , artisian crafts, and the wonderful marchigiani people ……the adventure of being Under the Marche Moon !!!!