Loop from Perugia

01 Castle

Rocca Paolina

From 1540 to 1543, Antonio da Sangallo the Younger built this fortress for Paul III over the Baglioni quarter, whose streets and towers were buried beneath its vaults. Demolished after Italian unification, it has left only this underground maze. Pass through it by the 1983 escalators, as far as the Etruscan Porta Marzia set into the brickwork.

02 Monument

Fontana Maggiore

Walk slowly round the two marble basins to read the carved months, each with its farm work and its sign of the zodiac. Nicola Pisano and his son Giovanni signed these reliefs between 1278 and 1280, in the centre of Piazza IV Novembre. The fountain celebrated water at last raised to the top of Perugia by a new aqueduct.

03 Castle

Palazzo dei Consoli

Raised between 1332 and 1349 on a terrace on the hillside, the Palazzo dei Consoli towers over Gubbio with its limestone façade. Climb the fan-shaped staircase to the Gothic portal, then look up at the bell tower where the Campanone, cast in 1769, rings out. The civic museum, housed here since 1909, holds the Eugubine Tablets.

04 Church

Basilica of Sant'Ubaldo, Gubbio

Basilica di Sant'Ubaldo

On Monte Ingino, this basilica begun in 1513 keeps the incorrupt body of Saint Ubaldo, patron of Gubbio. Here you can see the Ceri, tall wooden structures that the town carries at a run up to the sanctuary on 15 May. A brick cloister with remains of 16th-century frescoes leads to the five naves.

05 Church

Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi

Basilica di San Francesco

Discover two churches, one above the other, raised from 1228 over the tomb of St Francis, on the north-western edge of Assisi. The chosen hill, once reserved for the condemned, then took the name Hill of Paradise. In the light-filled upper basilica, frescoes unfold the saint's life along the nave.

06 Village

Assisi

Town of St Francis and St Clare, who lived and died here, Assisi clings to the flank of Monte Subasio. Wander through lanes built of pink Subasio stone, above the Valle Umbra. Before the saints, the Roman town of Asisium had become a municipium in 89 BC.

07 Church

Papal Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels in Assisi

Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli

Beneath the nave of this basilica, built from 1569 to designs by Galeazzo Alessi, nestles the Porziuncola, the tiny chapel where Francis of Assisi prayed. The building, 126 metres long, was kept deliberately plain. On your way out, walk along the left side to the Pilgrims' Fountain, a gift from the Medici in 1610.

08 Village

Spello

On the slopes of Subasio, ancient Hispellum preserves some 800 metres of Augustan walls, pierced by the Porta Consolare and the Porta Venere, flanked by two twelve-sided towers. In the Baglioni chapel of Santa Maria Maggiore are frescoes by Pinturicchio. At Corpus Christi, the streets are covered with carpets of flowers, the Infiorate.

09 Village

Bevagna

Bevagna was first Mevania, a Roman municipium on the Via Flaminia with a river port on the Topino. Remains of its walls, baths and amphitheatre survive, and the mendicant orders later raised their churches here in the 13th century. Follow its lanes from one quarter to the next, these gaite whose name goes back to the Lombards.

10 Village

Montefalco

You'll soon see why this village perched above the Topino and Clitunno plain has been nicknamed, since 1568, the Ringhiera dell'Umbria. In the former church of San Francesco, now a museum, Benozzo Gozzoli painted the life of the saint, not far from a Nativity by Perugino. All around, Sagrantino vines and olive trees hug the hill.

11 Village

Trevi, Umbria

Trevi

Trevi coils around the top of its hill, among slopes of olive trees favoured by a free-draining limestone soil. The little town, already mentioned by Pliny the Elder, preserves much of its first circuit of walls. Then head down to the springs of the Clitunno, waters deified by the Romans and sung by Byron and later Carducci.

12 Church

Spoleto Cathedral

Duomo di Spoleto

The Romanesque façade of Spoleto cathedral lines up its rose windows beneath a mosaic signed by Solsterno in 1207, behind a Renaissance portico by Antonio Barocci. In the apse, you'll find the cycle of the Virgin painted by Filippo Lippi between 1467 and 1469, in the last years of his life. Further on, the Eroli chapel holds frescoes by Pinturicchio dated 1497.

13 Monument

Ponte delle Torri

Nine arches span the Tessino over 230 metres and at a height of 80, from the Rocca Albornoziana to the Fortilizio dei Mulini. On top, a channel carried water to the fortress and the town, and Goethe devoted a page to it. Take in its sweep from the Giro dei condotti path.

14 Village

Vallo di Nera

In the Valnerina, this village, disputed between Spoleto and the Papal States, remained mostly loyal to Spoleto. Stop in front of Santa Maria, built around 1176, for its Gothic portal and its rose window with twelve small columns. Its apse was painted in 1383 by Cola di Pietro da Camerino; San Giovanni Battista keeps a Death of the Virgin by Jacopo Siculo.

15 Village

Norcia

On the edge of the Santa Scolastica plateau, Norcia was the birthplace of Saint Benedict, father of Western monasticism, at the end of the 5th century. Walk along its ramparts to glimpse the marcite, meadows soaked with spring water that a network of channels floods to produce an abundant hay crop. The town lies within the Monti Sibillini National Park.

16 Village

Castelluccio di Norcia

Castelluccio

From the panoramic road, look at the hamlet perched at 1,452 metres on its mound, above the vast Piani di Castelluccio, facing Monte Vettore. The earthquake of 30 October 2016 almost entirely razed it, bringing down the church of Santa Maria Assunta and its bell tower. On the plateau, lentils flower in early summer in coloured bands overflown by paragliders.

17 Church

Basilica of Santa Rita of Cascia

Basilica di Santa Rita da Cascia

Climb a few steps to the white travertine façade, flanked by two spires, of the basilica that holds the remains of Saint Rita. Built from 1937 to 1947 for ever-growing numbers of pilgrims, it is laid out as a Greek cross beneath a dome painted by Luigi Montanarini. On the portal, Eros Pellini sculpted the life of the saint.

18 Abbey

San Pietro in Valle

Abbazia di San Pietro in Valle

Founded in the eighth century by Faroald II, Duke of Spoleto, the abbey later received the remains of several dukes. In the church, reopened in April 2026, you can see mid-twelfth-century frescoes and four ancient sarcophagi. On the altar, a Lombard slab names Duke Ilderico, who commissioned it, and Master Orso, its sculptor.

19 Waterfall

Cascata delle Marmore

A Roman consul, Manius Curius Dentatus, had the channel dug in 271 BC that sends the Velino plunging into the Nera: the waterfall, 165 metres high in three leaps, is therefore man-made. Its flow is regulated for hydroelectric power, and a siren announces the opening of the sluices. Watch for the moment when the trickle becomes a torrent.

20 Monument

Bridge of Augustus

Ponte di Augusto

Around 27 BC, this marble bridge of Augustus carried the Via Flaminia over the Nera; of its four arches, only the southernmost survives. A stop on the Grand Tour, it inspired an 1826 painting by Corot now in the Louvre. From the riverbank, take the measure of this solitary arch rising 30 metres above the valley.

21 Church

Santa Maria della Consolazione, Todi

Tempio di Santa Maria della Consolazione

Arriving from Orvieto, you'll see this pale stone sanctuary rise up from afar, built outside the walls of Todi. It all began in 1508 with a Virgin painted on a wall and reputed to be miraculous; the building work lasted a century. Four apses curve around its tall dome, on a perfectly centralised plan.

22 Village

Todi

Founded by the Umbrians on a hill overlooking the middle Tiber valley, Todi has kept its medieval face almost intact. In 1244, its three craftsmen's districts were encircled by walls some 4 kilometres long, whose gates and bastions still stand. Follow this line of stone on foot, in the home town of the poet Jacopone da Todi.

23 Church

Orvieto Cathedral

Duomo di Orvieto

Begun in 1290, the cathedral owes its façade to Lorenzo Maitani, master of the works from 1309, followed by more than twenty artists. On the lower pillars, follow human history carved in stone, from the Creation to the Last Judgement. Higher up, the gilded mosaics catch the light around the rose window.

24 Museum

Pozzo di San Patrizio

Follow with your eyes the two spiral ramps that plunge, never crossing, down to the water 54 metres below. Antonio da Sangallo the Younger had this well dug into the tuff from 1527 for Clement VII, who feared a siege. Mules went down by one ramp and came back up laden by the other.

25 Village

Città della Pieve

Perched at around 508 metres on a hill facing the Val di Chiana, the little town is built largely of exposed brick. Perugino was born here, and the surrounding area has yielded Etruscan urns of the Purni family. Wander its streets at leisure to see up close the brick that gives the town its colour.

26 Village

Castiglione del Lago

On its limestone promontory jutting into Lake Trasimeno, the town keeps the rocca del Leone, a 13th-century fortress on a pentagonal plan. In the 16th century, Ascanio della Corgna held a learned court here and enlarged the ducal palace, decorated with frescoes by Pomarancio. Watch the lake stretch out at the foot of its walls.