Good_Will

After visiting the Cinque Terre and Florence we were planning to take the train to Perugia, stay a few days and then pick up a car to travel to a beautiful wine producing agriturismo known as Tenuta Testarossa north of Sulmona in Abruzzo - where we will stay and adventure from for 4 days .

We then have to figure out where to spend the next 6-7 days in Abruzzo/Molise and maybe Umbria before travelling on to Rome from wherever we decide to drop off the car.

First thoughts are to travel south from Sulmona to a base in Molise for 3 nights near to Isernia or Campobasso and then drive north west to a village / agrituismo as a base in Umbria for 3+ days.

The only place in Umbria we have previously visited is Orvieto.

We see Orvieto as a good place to drop the car given proximity on the main line to Rome and because we are familar with the layout of the town, hire car offices and train station.

Any thoughts about this itinerary and how ro fill it would be greatly appreciated.

sandralist

What time of year are you traveling?

How do you most like to spend your time each day in Italy?

sandralist

Also, you might want to add where else you have been in Italy so that people don't propose itineraries covering ground you've already covered and don't want to revisit.

Good_Will

We will be there mid To late August. This part of the trip is defined by our confirmed stay at Tenuta Testarossa/Pasetti Winery north of Sulmona and so we will be travelling south from Florence to get there and thought the best place to start the drive would be Perugia in Umbria with a clockwise journey down through Abruzzo and Molise and back to Umbria.

We have previously been to north and south of Tuscany so do not need to venture into there and we do not want to venture south of Molise. The adriatic coast is also not as important to us as the core of Abruzzo/Molise/Umbria.

We are adventurous 60 year olds who move quickly to see as much as we can. We tend to focus on evening meals and not long lunches. Wine appreciation is uppermost among our interests by directly visiting and we tend to walk/hike extensively.

Thank you for your advice.

Flame123

If you have not yet explored Umbria, as your last post indicates, there are many trip report on this board, including mine, of this beautiful area. We spent over a week in the small town of Bevagna, an unusually flat town in this area, which was good, and from there took day trips to many of the beautiful other small towns and villages, including the glorious Piano Grande near Norcia and Castelluccio. In Bevagna we stayed at a lovely small family run hotel called Palazzo Brunamonti. Highly recommended.

sandralist

Isernia has notable wines, so keeping that area on your list sounds like it would be rewarding for you.

Although last August was rather cool, I don't think I'd be eager to be in Umbria in August. You can taste of the local wines in Perugia, and you could arrange for a winery visits just outside of Perugia and visit Montefalco for lunch after you pick up your car on your way to the Tenuta Testarossa. (It does look pretty.)

Hae you been to the wine country of the Tuscan Maremma near Scansano? It's an interesting area and you could catch a sea breeze. From the Isernia area, heading north, you could stop for lunch in Montefiascone to stock up on Est! Est! Est! (and the town is pretty) before landing in Scansano. From the Scansano area, there are many pleasant hikes in the Maremma as well as interesting wineries and it is an easy drive to Rome.

http://www.lacapitana.it/?lang=en

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Rev...o_Tuscany.html

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Rev...o_Tuscany.html

Having never been to the core of Abruzzo/Molise, can't help you out much there. I would probably be most intereseted in pasta makers there, but don't know if the factories are open in August. If you like a lot of mid-afternoon walking and hiking, I would definitely check out temps for that region. Some elevations in Abruzzo might cool, but it can also be hammer hot in some inland places in Italy in August.


http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/...lds-best-pasta

http://www.italymagazine.com/feature...-mastri-pastai

rbciao47

We are in our late 60's and we travel independently in Italy every summer. Umbria, IMHO, offers everything Tuscany offers, plus a conspicuous absence of hordes of tourists, except in Assisi.

Gubbio is a great hill town with an unusual funicular up some mountain. You must hop on the moving funicular into a 3 ft. wide cage and up the mountain you go. The cages hold two people to move you uphill. On top of the mountain is a small cathedral, which contains a mummified body of a favorite son pope in a glass coffin. The really freaked out my Baptist wife. The body is a holy relic, which this Catholic boy understands.

Assisi is nice, but popular among the tourists. We spent a day there last summer visiting the massive cathedral and then wondering around the town.

Also worth a day or two is San Marino near Rimini. I've wanted to visit this place since I wrote a report about the town when I was in 4th grade. The city is immaculately clean and free of graffiti. There is also a Ferrari Museum in the zone of Maranello, which is a district of San Marino. We are going back this August spend more time in the hill town.

Buon viaggio,

sandralist

Here is an article about the Scansano wine country in case you've never been.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-d...b_5263458.html

My own feeling is that if you aren't interested in the art aspects of Umbria, then returning to someplace so hot in August might not be fun if you are planning mid-day walks. The hilltowns are very steep, the flat ones in the valley are very hot, and all of the Umbrian towns are usually mobbed in August unless you go east, off the tourist track, and up the mountains -- and then it is harder to get back to Rome.

But if your mind is fixed on the places you've identified....

bvlenci

We once spent a week in Pescasseroli, not very far from Sulmona. The town itself has nothing much to recommend it, but there were great hiking opportunities there, and many of the agriturismi offered free guide service. We took an eight-hour hike with another couple, guided by the brother of the woman who owned our agriturismo; he was a former forest service guard. The tourist office in Pescasseroli also offered guided hikes, and we saw similar offices in nearby towns. The town is in the large national park of Abruzzo, Lazio, and Molise, which extends into all three regions. It's not a wine-growing area, because at that elevation, grapes don't thrive.

The area is very popular with vacationing Italians (and almost no foreigners). Many of the places in the area required that you take half board in August, which limits your evening dining choices. We took day trips nearly every day, so preferred to eat lunch elsewhere, and we didn't mind having dinner at the agriturismo; the meals were furnished from the organic garden on the property.

That trip was about ten years ago, so I don't want to recommend lodging or restaurants. However, I did want to say that the temperature in Italy depends to a great extent on the elevation, and while it did get hot at midday in that part of Abruzzo, we always needed sweaters in the evening. The same is true of many parts of Umbria. We have a summer house in Le Marche, within walking distance the Umbrian border, and there we often sleep under wool blankets when there's a heat wave nearer the coast. Almost any place east of Assisi will be cool at night. The Umbrian plain can be very hot, though.

Norcia is one of the more interesting places in Umbria from the gastronomic point of view. It's famous in Italy for its sausages and other cured meats; the Italian name for a shop that specializes in cured meats is a norcineria. Another Umbrian town (or area) that has gastronomic interest is Colfiorito, in the park of the same name. They have excellent pecorino cheeses in that area. You might also want to venture into nearby Le Marche, where you can find good food, good wine, and lots of charming little towns and castles.

The National Park of the Sibillini Mountains, which straddles Umbria, Le Marche, and Abruzzo has beautiful scenery and lots of hiking opportunities. I don't know if it's as easy to find guide services as it is in the part of Abruzzo I mentioned above. We've always gone hiking alone or in informal groups, where one of our group was a friend who knew the trails.

TDudette

A second vote for Gubbio. Also check out Spoleto, Montepulciano, Montalcino (big wine!).

bvlenci

In Umbria, apart from towns already mentioned, Spello (a stone's throw from Assisi) is one of the prettiest small towns I've seen in Italy. Another town I like a lot is Todi.

Closer to Rome, Narni and Terni are good choices.

Good_Will

Thank you all for your comments and advice.

There is enough valuable information above for the next trip in a year or two - particularly Scansano and parts of Le Marche and San Marino that we will not be able to fit in to our 11 days in Abruzzo, Molise and Umbria this time.

I am still working away on this part of the trip including rental car options and routing .

My thoughts are that we will pick up the hire car from Perugia after a train ride in from Florence (having already seen the southern part of Tuscany, Montalcino, Montepulciano, Pienza etc. in 2009) and ultimately take the car all the way through to Rome travelling clockwise down into Abruzzo then Molise and back through the western part of Umbria.

Generally the core of Abruzzo and Molise is the most challenging part of a much larger itinerary.

I will return soon to tell you of our plans. Thanks again.