Anyone been to Perugia?
 

I am thinking of heading to Perugia sometime next year. I know that there is a chocolate festival, maybe in October? Has anyone been here recently? Is it best to fly into Rome or Florence? Any help/suggestions are appreciated.

Distance from either Florence or Rome to perugia is about the same--choose the city with the best flights prices and schedules for where you live.

I thoroughly enjoyed my stay in Perugia a few years back. In addition to seeing the sights of Perugia, we also daytripped to Gubbio and Assisi.

We were actually on our way to Perugia and 'made a quick stop' in Gubbio - for two days!! That blew our schedule out of the water and we never made it to Perugia - and I missed the chocolate!

I was there a few years ago and really enjoyed it. It was a three day stop in the middle of a longer trip but from Perugia we did day trips to Assisi, Spello, Gubbio, and Cortona. We stayed at the Chocolate Hotel (we had our daughters with us and they thought it was cool). It's really just a modern hotel, down near the highway but it was easy to drive to the parking garage that has the escalators up to the old town which pass through the old ruins. That was a very interesting way to approach the upper town. I highly recommend Perugia and don't know why it's mentioned so seldomly here.

I really like Perugia. There's much more than chocolate to tempt you here. The current issue of National Geographic Traveler (Nov./Dec. '08) has an article on "Perugia: The World's Sexiest Small City."

www.nationalgeographic.com/traveler

Look also at:

www.perugiaonline.com
www.umbriatourism.com

Excellent choice -- Perugia is fascinating. There are fantastic restaurants, wonderful churches and historic buildings with great art. Good hotels, good shopping, fascinating medieval streets that crawl down from the city's hilltop historic centre.

Great transportation links, you can fly into either Rome or Florence and both have good train connections to Perugia (I've done both.) Because Perugia is capital of Umbria province, you can easily reach other towns in Umbria and parts of Tuscany as well. It's only about 20 minutes by train to Assisi, a bit over an hour by train to Arezzo (great town in Tuscany)or an hour by bus to Gubbio (a fascinating, medieval town.)

Perugia has a new minimetro tram that makes it very simple to get up or down from the historic centre to the train station. And it also has a series of escalators that cut through the underground city of Renaissance Perugia and link parking lots down in the modern town with the historic centre.

If you visit Slow Travel's Italy chat board (www.slowtrav.com) there are some Perugia/Assisi/Umbria experts with lots of great ideas.

I've visited Perugia in May, June and September, I haven't been there for the Eurochocolate festival in October. But that would likely just add to its charms.

Despite its many, many charms, it doesn't get huge numbers of tourists which can be appealing.

Ditto to all above

stayed there for several days not too long ago - a great lively city (at least when the 1000s of students are there)

and did fine day trips by bus to Gubbio (great great old town), Urbino (longish bus day trip) and Todi by bus or you could take the train there as well - though bus goes thru the famous ceramic village en route - and Assis

other great day trips would include Cortona, Spoleto, etc.

The National Gallery of Umbria in Perugia is one of the nicest museums I know. It is a great space, with well presented, gorgeous art.

Perugia is great - a cultural hub, an old historic university town with an international outlook, with lots of private schools for leaners of Italian, also check the calendar, it can get really lively when festivals are on, like the Umbria Jazz Festival, Chocolate Festival, Journalist's Festival, and other such gatherings.

It's only 20 minutes by train to Assisi, less than two hours to Orvieto, just over two hours to Florence, just under three hours to Roma Termini.