We will be there in early October. This is a new area for us (and the first time we have booked anywhere for a week!) and I'd appreciate any suggestions about the best places to eat, and the most interesting (to you) places to see.
Le Case Gialle is not far from Foligno - and I think it's close to Bevagna and other little towns. I haven't found a good map and the Fodor references to this area are from 2003. I"m looking for more recent information. It's also the first time we have rented a car in Italy. Lots of firsts here.
Help!
Carol

There are a few things to see in Foligno -- the Cathedral and a museum whose name I forget (many detached frescoes from former churches, and interesting simply as a medieval palazzo) -- but it's not a very attractive town, to my mind.

Bevagna is supposed to be lovely.

Personally, I very much enjoyed Montefalco. For an excellent Umbrian meal (emphasis on grilled meats), have lunch at Coccorone and drink a red Sagrantino di Montefalco with it. It's the view from Montefalco that is quite special, and the Museo di San Francesco, with many, many frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli.

Spello is a jewel, in my opinion. Tiny, untouched by time, built mostly of a lovely pink stone. There I would suggest either Il Mulino or La Cantina for lunch. Il Mulino is a little bit more "creative" (and expensive); La Cantina is traditional Umbrian. Both are on or just off Piazza Matteoti, the main "square" in Spello, which is really only a slightly widened street.
Again, the view from many parts of Spello is enchanting. The single loveliest work of art in Spello is Pinturrichio's chapel in La Collegiata, the church conveniently located on Piazza Matteoti.

Assisi is not that far away. The frescoes in the Lower Church of the Basilica are particularly interesting, but so are the Giotto frescoes in the Upper Church. For a simple and inexpensive meal, Pallotta, through an arcade on Piazza del Comune and down a few stairs; for a more formal and expensive meal, San Francesco, with a lovely terrace.

we spent several days in the area. i have a post somewhere here under my name.
you will not be bored. great location for side trips. the hills and views are unspoilt and never ending.

at night if you have clear skies the stars are fabulous.

you will be able to visit the numerous wineries.
have fun.

Eloise,
Thanks for the replies and leads. I always value your opinions.
Lincasanova,
I'll search for your report - but sometimes it's hard to pull up things. I can't even pull my OWN reports up sometimes. What was the subject?

if you click on my name it is post 105 right now.

Go to slowtrav.com and you'll find a wealth of info about the area, incl. restaurants and things to do.

I have already searched out Slow.Trave but thanks for the suggestion. I was looking for comments/recommendations more current than 2003.

Thanks lincasanova. I did find your post and after reading it I wish we were going to be there for the summer festival in Bevagno. Maybe we'll get lucky and find something like that in October. Bevagno sounds like the ideal town to explore.
Carol

Hi brahmama

I stayed there at the end of May for 7 nights (5 of us). If you click on my name and look for a past query I wrote with Le Case Gialle in the heading, you will find lots of great details from fodorites who have stayed there.

I have a partial trip report done of the trip, but life got in the way and I have not written the Umbrian segment yet, sad to say, as it was wonderful.I still plan to, but meanwhile, here are a few comments:

Bevagna was our favorite choice for food shopping; don't miss the ravioli al limone at La Casareccia pasta shop. Silvana can give you more recommendations for shopping and eating there. It is a charming little walled town (not a hilltown) that was a favorite of ours.

Foligno has the Coop if you need to do more extensive shopping, but everytime we went to Foligno we managed to get lost driving through town...kind of our "twilight-zone" town. The closet train station is there, however, and several good restaurants...

As mentioned here, Montefalco, which you can see from Le Case Gialle, is very nice. We liked L'Alchimista on the central square. Try the regional pasta with saffron-flavored cheese. Yum! The sagrantino wines are good as well. Mauro can direct you to local wineries if you are interested in more wine-tasting, by the way.

One moonlit night we walked up the road to the tiny town on the hilltop above Le Case, Gualdo Cattaneo. Very mysterious and spooky at night, with cats wandering around and a castle. However, walking on the dark road was a little dangerous -- fast cars and no shoulder.

If you do like to walk or hike, there are lots of trails; ask your hosts for directions. We took a couple of short hikes right from the agriturismo.

Assisi is definitely a must if you have not been. Some of us had been there before but we all enjoyed seeing it on this trip. This time, in addition to the town and its churches/sights, we hiked the fairly steep trail up to the mountain-side monastery where St Francis lived part of the time. (You can drive up to it if hiking is not your thing.) It is an amazing place, with great views of the countryside, white doves flying around, and a very quiet and meditative atmosphere. You can walk through the tiny rooms and grottos where St Francis and his "brothers" stayed.

Perugia, which is a favorite Umbrian city of mine, is where we picked up our rental cars. I love the "heavy" feel of its main square, very medieval. The Etruscan well and a tiny beautiful chapel with artwork by Raphael are worth seeing. Good chocolate, too, and a lively student population.

Spello, as mentioned, is a pretty little town and could be combined with the trip to Assisi; both of these towns are about a half hour drive from Le Case Gialle, I think.

Some of our group spent an enjoyable afternoon in Deruta shopping for pottery.

We took a long daytrip into Tuscany one day, to the monastery at Sant'Antimo to hear the beautiful Gregorain chants. We picniked outside the abbey and then continued on to Montalcino for wine-tasting and on to Siena, since it was one place none of us had been to and all of us wanted to see. We spent a magical evening there, despite the fact that one of our reasons to go was to see the famous "good & bad government" murals and as luck had it, the museum closed early for some unspecified reason that very day!

We also managed to spend a lot of time just enjoying Le Case: cooking and eating; playing guitars borrowed from Silvana and Mauro; sitting outside amidst the fireflies in the moonlight; swimming in the refreshing pool; and getting to know the other guests. I celebrated my birthday there and it was a perfect place to be.

You will enjoy it!
Hope this helps...
annabelle

oops, typo: Gregorian...

I heartily second Sant'Antimo: It's a jewel of a church set in the fields.

Nor will I argue with Montalcino or Siena.

Personally, I am not wildly fond of Perugia, but to each his own. However, I would mention that the chapel ("Collegio del Cambio&quot was frescoed by Perugino, not Raphael. Raphael is thought to have contributed one figure, that of "Fortitude." Some say he was also the model for Daniel.

Eloise, I can understand your comment about Perugia -- our group was split on it! It was my second visit and I really like it. I work at a university, so always enjoy a place infused with student energy.

I think we are talking about two different chapels -- the one with the Rahphael works is Cappella di S. Severo; it is teeny, a little treasure of a room (a former private chapel)with just one amazing frescoed wall with about 8 folding chairs set up in front of it. That is it! It is close to the Etruscan well and the same ticket allows entry into both places.

Annabelle2: I can't really say I saw that much student energy in Perugia; about the only students I recall seeing were lounging on the cathedral steps.

What disturbed me more than anything, I think, in Perugia was that it had become (I first knew it in the 60s) a rather prosperous, smug and self-satisfied town. The Max Mara store was more prominent on the Corso Vanucci than the Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria...

And yes, we are talking about different chapels; I admit I don't know the Cappella di San Severo.

Thank you for replying, Annabelle2, and filling in some of the gaps. I'll still be looking forward to your completed trip report, but I understand how "real life" gets in the way of our travel life!
Which location did you stay in? They all looked charming on the website.

I can't wait to try the local foods and wines. And the hikes sound just about right for us. Maybe NOT the one at night!

We want to go to Tuscany for Sant'Antimo - and am glad that both you and Eloise give it high marks! I'm a retired choir teacher (among other things) and I will thorougly enjoy the chanting of the monks. I'm not at all sure where that is, but it's good to know that it's within driving distance.

We have visited Sienna and also Assisi in 03 when we were staying in San Gimignano. We had a local guide drive us to Assisi (what a LOT of traffic that day!) and also show us around Sienna another day.
When we left Assissi, she said that it would be too crowded to have lunch there - so she drove on to Perugia. It was getting close to afternoon closing time and we had to make do in a little shop with a sandwich and soda. So really the only thing we saw of Perugia, besides that little shop, was a chocolate shop next door where I quickly bought some wonderful chocolate before it closed. And yes, that day, there were young people lounging all over the steps to the main church! They were probably resting after lunch. (that we really didn't have)

Montefalco and Spello (thanks Eloise) are on our short list, along with Bevagno and Sant'Antimo.

On our way to Florence, our guide stopped at Greve in Chianti to look around a bit, and we had a lovely lunch up at Panzano in Chianti and then visited the Fattoria Montagliari for a wine/vinegar tasting.
That's about all we have seen in Tuscany.

So many places, so little time!
Thank you and Eloise for being so generous with your time and suggestions; I will print all this out for our trip.
Carol

Brahmama, the two apartments we rented were la Terrazza, with very pretty rooms for two, and il Portico. Although il Portico was on a lower floor and thus was minus the high ceilings and sunlight that the upper level rooms had, we liked it because of the outdoor area (the portico) which is where we took a lot of our meals.

The website says it sleeps two-four; three of us shared it, two in the bedroom and one on the sofa-bed.

I think that two people sharing the sofa-bed in the main room would be pushing it, as the bed tended to sag towards the center as sofa-beds so often do. How many in your group?

I was only in Italy in the fall one time, so you probably know the fall weather better than I do, but if you think it will be cool, I would opt for an upper level apartment; il Portico was a little dark. The other apt for two (can't remember the name) is in its own little building, kind of a studio set-up, seemed nice as well.

I like hearing your impressions, Eloise. My impressions of Perugia are strongly based on my first visit there, when I stayed in accommodations mostly geared towards international people (all ages) studying Italian. We met students and teachers from many countries. I remember enjoying a 1:00 a.m. midweek drink in the piazza, which was packed with people at that late (early?) hour. The people at the tables around us were students from Italy and other countries and we shared some interesting conversation. Good memory.
I am sure the charm that was there in the 60's has diminished as the city has grown.

re: Sant'Antimo

I am trying to remember where we got our driving directions...probably a combination of info from Lonely Planet and Hiking in Tuscany & Umbria guidebooks. It is just south of Montalcino, which in turn is south of Siena. I think that the slowtravel website has information and directions as well.

The abbey has its own website, too. santantimo.it or .com (maybe it was in Italian only, can't remember, sorry!)

Make sure you go down the little staircase under the altar, more or less, and see the tiny chapel with some pretty cherub frescoes on the curved side arches.

We based in Todi for 4 nights in 2002.

Highlights:
Todi (itself) - little touristed, a great slice of Italian small town living - nice piazza & several important churches & great gelato
Carsulae (Roman ruins) - south of Todi & seldom visited
Deruta (for pottery)

Ian

For a great photo guide of Umbria see:

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/...mbria/map.html

Ian

We will arrive in the middle (not early) Oct and I'm not sure about the weather. (Such weird weather nowadays!) We will stay in il Sartino one night and then move to l'Acquaio for the next 6 nights. I think that was all that was vacant for that time period. Do you know anything about those apartments?
There will be just the two of us so beds are not an issue.

I am hoping that there will be a GTG somewhere close enough to drive! It's always fun to have other people to talk English to - especially after a couple of weeks.

Ian,
Thanks for the info about Todi and the Umbrian website with the photoguide. Todi is now on my short list!

We fly over on the 3rd October, so it's only about 6 weeks now to get all my ducks in a row.

We've stayed at LCG several times over the past few years. In fact, I am the US agent for his olive oil sales(whatever that means). Silvana and Mauro are wonderful, generous people who will respect your privacy but are always there to help if needed.

The walk to Gualdo Cataneo is fun and its an interesting little town.

In Bevagna try either Ottavio at the south entrance to the town and/or Enotece Piazza Onofri in the center of town. You can walk the main street end to end in ten minutes.

We've eaten with Mauro and Silvana a couple of times at Bacco Felice (I think) in Foligno. Its in the center of town and you'll have to ask directions. Everyone knows of it because Salvatore is a singular guy in complete control of his little place and serving only local food along with Mouro's olio olivo.

I can also recommend La Bastiglia at the top of Spello. Its a hotel with an adventurous kitchen. Worth looking up.

My favorite in the area is Taverna del Pescatore in Pigge, which is just south of Trevi and just off the main road between Spoleto and Perugia. Wonderful for lunch under the big tent along the stream. Good food, wine and service.

YOu'll be at LCG around harvest time for olives. Some fun.

Hope this helps. One of my very favorite places in Italy.

DRJ,
Thanks for chiming in. Everything that I hear and read confirms that this was an excellent choice.
We will train in to Foligno where we will rent a car. But we will have a couple of hours to wait - as it's during the lunch/siesta time.

Silvano did recommend IL Bacco Felice as a place to have a light lunch while we're waiting, but I"m not sure how to get there from the station. But "Dove" works wonderfully well. I have the Pimsleurs and have been practicing since early 03, but still I freeze up when I actually try to talk. I can only get a few phrases out - my wonderful sentences just seem to evaporate under duress. And the more nervous I get, the more my hands start to flap around. Ah well. People are kind anyway.

I thought we would be too early for the olive harvest! This is something we would be very interested in - so I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Carol