Hello Everyone,

Your suggestions are great and we will certainly follow up on them.

Annabelle2, we will be staying in L'Isolina.
Please tell me more about this place ? My only concern is that---we won't want to leave!!!

Our best meal of the trip was at L'Alchimista in Montefalco, so good that we made it a point to get there twice. The food choices are incredible and everything is delicious. Not terribly expensive either, as other places were.

Also loved Ottavio in Bevagna, since it was our "adopted city for 9 days" we ate there 3 times. But it was not inexpensive. The only place we thought was not that great was Onofri. The food was extremely expensive, service was not good and portions were miniscule. But as people say, different strokes........

As for the scaffolding Jean, maybe I was not clear. What I meant is that many many areas had completely crumbling buildings. Indeed there are many cities in Italy where this is the case, and scaffolding goes up (if they are lucky as you write and have the money) for repair. However, in Spoleto, I found that this was the case almost around every corner we turned. It made for a feeling of decay.

Hi merrytimes
You won't want to leave (unless maybe it is cold & rainy - I don't know how warm the place is!).

If you look on the website at the photo under 'accommodations' you see a two story house and a little one story building next to it. That is your apt. The other 4 are all in the big farmhouse.

Really nice people, also from the US, stayed in your apt. while we were there and seemed quite happy with it.

We all became friends and my group of 5 and the 2 of them are meeting this summer in Canada for one of our birthdays (we were at LCG for my birthday 3 years ago). It is a friendly kind of place.

Every morning we woke up early because there are a lot of birds, far away barking dogs, etc (I think cuckoos were one type of bird) so bring ear plugs if the lovely sounds of nature tend to wake you up.

If you like wine Mauro is an expert in the local wines & can set you up with tastings.

Before you arrive, make sure to email Silvana and Mauro and ask about directions and shopping - you will be supplied with a few basics but may want a day's worth (or more) of things to eat so you don't have to go food shopping right away.

There is a Coop in Foligno, but we always got lost in that town (5 people with good brains usually, but not in Foligno). Thus we did our shopping in sweet little Bevagna.

Silvana can tell you the name of the shop there w/ fresh pasta. Lemon ravioli seems to be a speciality. We served it with LCG olive oil and fresh herbs from the garden and cheese of course. Mauro & Silvana have two children and the girl (the kids are from Africa, I believe) helped me pick the best herbs. Hmmm - those kids must be getting big by now!

There are some farm animals on the property, but on the other side of the family's home from the apts, so no farm smells that I noticed. The family is near enough to be available more or less, but they tended to let us alone unless we needed something. I thought they were great, but one of our group didn't think they were around when we needed something. You will have to tell me what you think. I liked them!

Hello Annabelle2,

Thank you for taking the time to answer , also the tips re shopping.
I just love this forum !

It sounds like such a wonderful place , I am even more excited !

We love that laid back kind of holdiay;have no problem with say cuckoo birds ,roosters etc.Hey, it is life and nature.

What time of year did you go ?

Our holiday has to be in the summer, since our one daughter-in -law is a teacher.
I am wondering how hot it can get in Umbria.I realize it would be a dry heat ,which is better . I have checked on overall temp and it does not seem that bad.
Our one son was speaking with a co-worker ( born in Umbria) who went to Umbria last year in August and said it was 40 degrees,she suggested staying in a pool of water !!! Ha!ha!
I am not sure where in Umbria she was visiting ? It has to be a little cooler in the north vs the south.

I spent a week in eastern Tuscany & Umbria last summer when it was 104F several straight days - temps in Umbria were the same. Umbria isn't that large that there is a climate difference from north to south. Having a pool is a definite plus. The several days we did not it was much less enjoyable - too hot to be out and about in the afternoon.

Yes, it is a dry heat, so we didn't need any AC - evenings were cool in the countryside. Towns/cities don't cool down as much at night due to all the stone.

Thank you J62,I appreciate the input.

As I mentioned, we have no choice ,but to go in August, however I am sure a "good time will be had by all". Am I correct in assuming it cools down enough in the evening to warrant a sweater?

I think everyone has a different experience and may or may not connect with a town for a number of reasons. I didn't connect with Spoleto at all. I found the scaffolding which was quite extensive depressing. No town I've been to in all of Italy was under that much scaffolding. Even during the mass restoration before the turn of the Millenium, no place I had been to had that many buildings under wraps. Not Spoleto's fault of course...much damage from the earth quakes but it seems to be taking the town forever to restore the damage. We found the town rather traffic choked and the jack hammering behind our hotel did little to improve our impression. It was bad timing and our frame of mind I suppose.

We did wander around and found some of the beauty but not enough to keep us there for the three nights we had planned. We moved our base to Spello for the next two nights and we're so happy that we did. It was more to our taste...quiet and our hotel had a wonderful terrace that overlooked the Vale.

I've heard many good comments about Spoleto so I chaulk it up to my own experience and feel a little sad that I missed the boat but sometimes as much as you want to like a place...you just don't.

merrytimes, we dropped off our car at the Foligno train station. We had extended our car rental by one day direct with Auto Europe. We thought it would be advisable to go to the location the day before our intended drop off to make sure the paper work was in order.

The location has posted hours of operation but both days we were there the lone employee was no where to be found. They have a phone number posted on the door which we called. The first time, the Avis rep said she would be along shortly. She arrived an hour later. The next day she promised to meet us at a set time and was 35 minutes late. Luckily, we allowed plenty of time to catch our train and had time to spare. Hopefully this was an isolated incident as I know others that had a smooth transaction at that location. Not sure if they rented with Avis or Europcar.

Tcreath...if you're out there perhaps you can comment as it was after your report that we booked our drop off for Foligno. Originally we were going to drop off in Perugia. You may be able to chime in with your experience at that location.

HEllo Crazyfortravel,

Great to get feedback on car rental.
I have concerns of being able to pick up our 2 cars at Foligno as I understand they close at noon on Saturdays?We have not rented vehicles as of yet.
As a backup plan:
I probably will e-mail the owners of our rental to see if there is a way we can be picked up ,as there is 9 of us?

merrytimes..have you already purchased your train ticket? Perhaps you could take the train to Perugia instead as I understand the car rental locations may be open extended hours. It's not that far from Foligno to Perugia on the train. Just food for thought as it might be difficult to get a transfer with that many people.

HEllo crazyfortravel,

I appreciate your input,
No, we have not purchased our Eurorail tickets yet.
We will look into what you suggest.I have concerns also re transport for 9.

Hello crazyfortravel,

I e-mailed the owners of our first rental- Serre De Parrano and she was surprised to discover that Avis is the only car rental that provides cars out of Foligno. She said it makes our trip so much longer to go to Perugia ,plus two extra train stops.

The car rental office in Foligno closes at 12:30 and opens again at 3pm.
We were hoping to rent from Auto Europe (positive feedback), I guess that will have to change.

We rented at Spoleto. I think it was also an AutoEurope/Avis station. You might look into their hours.

Thanks, Jean.

I will look into that.

crazyfortravel, I'm so sorry to hear about your problems with the car rental office in Foligno! We didn't have any problems, but that would have made for a very stressful situation I'm sure. As we had a particular train that we wanted to catch to Rome, I would have been totally annoyed and upset to say the least.

The rental office is indeed tiny and there was one person working when we dropped off our car. I do recall that we had to arrange our trip somewhat around the hours that the rental office was open. While we had no problems with the office in Foligno I agree that a drop off in Perugia may be a better idea. Perugia is fairly close to Foligno.

Tracy

By the way, we too loved le Case Gialle and I always recommend it. Our apartment was just delightful, the views amazing, the owners very nice and helpful, and the location fabulous. We had excellent meals in Bevagna and Montefalco.

I also have to agree with flame123 in that we too were less than impressed with Spoleto. It gets varying opinions on this board, but I personally won't be going back.

On a different note, I loved Trevi and did not find it industrial at all. Quite the opposite, it seemed more quite than the other towns. It's a true hilltown with narrow, meandering streets that seem to be set up in a maze-like pattern. We loved getting ourselves lost in the little town. We stopped in a small coffee shop for pastries and coffee; there seemed to be little else in the town. It was one of my favorite experiences in Umbria.

Tracy

Hi Tracy, glad to hear you had no issues with Avis. We had a small ding on our car and with the one day extension, we wanted to make sure everything was in order. It was a long and painful process but I'm glad we did the paperwork they day before we were leaving. We would have missed our train for sure if we waited until our departure day...plus Avis in Foligno had no record of the one day extension. We had to call Autoeurope twice to ask them to fax the new voucher to the Avis desk in Foligno as apparently the office in Rome has received it in error but didn't forward it on.

I have only good things to say about Autoeurope and perhaps the compromise of picking up on Spoleto may work for you merrytimes...worth the phone call to see for sure.

Good luck with you planning.

Oh Dear , we have run into another snag!!!Thank goodness , we have been planning this for more than a year ; at least "most" plans are firm at this point.
I won't go into all our trip plans again, as I have no intention of boring anyone, hence as follows:

My husband thought it would be great for the family to see more of Germany as we leave and then, some of Austria etc.while heading into Italy(Foligno) We realize now, this is going to take too long.

I should have posted a question earlier, on the length of time it takes by train.


Would anyone suggest flying out of Munich to Perugia airport, and then picking up a car to go to Nocera Umbra?

crazyfortravel, what a mess! The Foligno office was tiny and did seem rather disorganized. I guess I should be lucky that we had no issues with them. I do think that merrytimes would be better off picking up at a bigger office.

Tracy

Hi all
Just to chime in on the car rental & the heat:

We picked up two cars in Perugia at the train station; we were coming directly from Rome.

I am trying to remember (it was 2005) why we picked up in Perugia, not Foligno. Perhaps it was the timing, but I am thinking for the two cars we needed, Perugia worked out better.

Anyway, we put our luggage in the car trunks and left them there at the car rental (not saying this is a good idea, but the cars were right outside the rental office and so we did it) and took the bus up the hill into the historic district of Perugia. Some of us hadn't been there before, so we spent several hours having lunch and so on.

Then, with only one brief glitch (getting on the right road out of Perugia - one car did, one missed the turn) we got to LCG in the late afternoon.

As for the heat, we were at LCG in late May/early June, and the weather was gorgeous. The pool will cool you off in August, and those thick stone walls should help the apt. stay cool.

I've had to travel in the 'wrong' time of year (try summer in India, yikes!) due to schedules. You just adjust:

Wear cool gauzy skirts, eat gelato, drink cool drinks in shaded cafes whenever possible, enjoy delicious, ripe summer produce, hit air conditioned museums in the heat of the day (or take a siesta and a swim at the agriturismo) and sit in churches to look at your map (politely, of course) and rest.