Umbria, from Assisi to the Piano Grande

In the middle, the Valle Umbra is a plain of olive trees lined with small hilltop towns. In Spello, the streets are covered with carpets of flowers for Corpus Christi. In Montefalco, frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli tell the life of St Francis. From Trevi, you see the olive groves stretch from Assisi to Spoleto.

To the east, the road goes through Spoleto, follows the Valnerina up to Norcia, then climbs to the Piano Grande, a large plain surrounded by mountains, with the village of Castelluccio at 1,452 metres. From late May to early July, the lentil fields flower there, along with poppies and cornflowers. These are crops: you look at them from the road.

Perugia and the Salt War

Before the Romans, the region belonged to the Umbrians, who gave it their name. Their language is known from seven bronze tablets kept in Gubbio, the Iguvine Tablets. Perugia was an Etruscan town, then a Roman one, then an independent city until 1540.

That year it rebelled against a papal tax on salt: the Salt War. Pope Paul III put it down and had a fortress, the Rocca Paolina, built on top of the Baglioni family’s houses. Since 1983, escalators have run through the fortress and the medieval streets it covers. People say Umbrian bread has been made without salt since that revolt; historians doubt it.

Saints and legends

St Francis died on 3 October 1226, near the Porziuncola, a small chapel that now stands inside the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli. Shortly before, he had written the Canticle of the Creatures, one of the oldest poems in Italian. Assisi remains, above all, the town of St Francis. Since 2026, 4 October has been a public holiday in Italy.

St Benedict was born in Norcia around 480. The earthquake of 30 October 2016 destroyed his basilica; restored, it reopened in autumn 2025. Higher up, the Sibillini mountains have their legends: a sibyl is said to live in a cave, and the body of Pontius Pilate to have been thrown into a lake below Monte Vettore.

What not to miss

1. 1The Basilica of Saint FrancisUpstairs, frescoes of the saint’s life attributed to Giotto; downstairs, his tomb.
2. 2GubbioIn the Bottaccione gorge, a layer of clay rich in iridium helped prove the theory of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs.
3. 3The springs of the ClitunnoSprings with clear water, already mentioned by Virgil, and a small ancient temple listed by UNESCO.
4. 4The Marmore FallsThree drops, 165 metres in all, created by a Roman canal. The flow depends on the timetable of a power station.
5. 5Orvieto’s DuomoA façade covered in gold mosaics and, inside, the Last Judgement painted by Signorelli.
6. 6St Patrick’s WellA well dug for Pope Clement VII after the Sack of Rome: 54 metres deep, with two spiral ramps that never meet.

Umbria in pictures

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The Marmore Falls and their three drops.

The Umbrian table

Umbrian cooking is mountain cooking: strangozzi, long handmade pasta, served with black truffle from Norcia, and Castelluccio lentils in soup. Norcia has been known for its cured meats for so long that in Italian a norcino is the butcher who prepares pork.

Montefalco makes a strong red wine, Sagrantino, also as a passito. Orvieto makes a white wine, in cellars dug into the tuff since Etruscan times. In Perugia, people buy Baci, chocolates sold with a short love note since the 1930s.