We are currently in Lucca for the week. We will be driving from Lucca to Bevagna and then spending three days in Bevagna. Looking for any suggestions for towns/villages to visit on the route from Lucca to Bevagna as well as villages to day trip to from Bevagna. Love just exploring small villages and eating good food. Restaurant suggestions are welcome as well. thanks

Oops only 2 days, not 3 days in Bevagna.

If you have never been to Umbria, the choices are fairly endless, dependent on your interests, The internationally recognized major sights of artistic and historic interest within a short drive of Bevagna would easily fill those 2 days, and surely you know what they are. Food/wine/little village lovers usually focus on Montefalco and Norcia, and detouring through the Chianti towns and hills to get from Lucca to Bevagna. Your choices are more or less touristy.

Do you have an Osterie d'Italia with you? One way to plot both an interesting and tasty day of travel from A to B is to pick a slow food restaurant between Lucca and Bevagna in either eastern Tuscany or western Umbria.

Was in Umbria only once and hit the " main" towns then. Norcia sounds nice. Shoot, didn't know about Osterie d'Italia. Perhaps I can get info thru goggle. Thanks.

You should be able to buy the Osterie d'Italia in Lucca in a bookstore. I hope they still have bookstores in Lucca! You might even be able to buy in a kiosk (at the train station?). You would do well to have it anyway, for Umbria. They have an app version, but I don't know if you can access it where you are and with whatever device you have.

Bevagna: Enoteca Piazza Onofri, in the center of town. Good local food and wine. Adequate parking.

Montefalco: l'Alchamista, on the main piazza and downstairs. Endless antipaste. Of course, Sagrantino!

Spello: La Bastigia, at the top of town. Great views, good parking, adventurous kitchen. Bring money.

Near Pigge, just south of Trevi and on the right side of the road (look for the one small sign: Taverna del Pescatore. Small and isolated. Lunch under the big tent along a stream: memorable!

Buon appetito!

PS: Every year Luciano Pignataro down in Napoli posts the Slow Food picks in the guide. So you can see the names and locations of restaurants that would be along your likely path from Lucca to Bevagna (and what's near both towns).

http://www.lucianopignataro.it/a/tut...-a-roma/77713/

What's missing (and very helpful) is the info about opening/closing days and what dishes they serve that merited their Slow Food designation. That is harder to find online, reliably, although sometimes if you crosscheck an entry with Michelin online, you can get pretty much the same info.

It is just easier to use the book.

Thanks all! And yes, there are still several bookstores in Lucca.

I would stop in Cortona--just off your main route---and have lunch at this delightful place.

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

You're probably already doing this, but do continue to be hawks about watching the weather forecasts over the coming days. Italy is enduring an extended period of intense October weather instability, and the fluctuations are producing a lot of localized heavy rain and causing floods and mud, especially in steep areas, in every region of the country.

Il Meteo is useful pan-Italia weather website, with drop down menus for every town on the map, whereby you can switch locations and see what the weather forecast is fore wherever you might be thinking about going, and you get an hour-by-hour forecast, day by day. Only very short-term forecasts mean much.

http://www.ilmeteo.it/meteo/Bevagna

http://www.ilmeteo.it/meteo/Cortona

http://www.ilmeteo.it/meteo/Barga

http://www.ilmeteo.it/meteo/Norcia

Just saw something on the news about two women dying in maybe a mudslide, but couldn't quite figure out where. We will keep an eye on the weather. Thanks for the reminder to do so.

The women who lost their lives were in the Maremma (southwest Tuscany). Another woman near Trieste lost her life because of a mudslide near her house. The biggest risk comes from super cells that dump a lot of water in a very short period. Because of a lack of warning in Genoa before a flash flood earlier this week (which resulted in a death), the weather forecasters are now being hyper-vigiliant in issuing alerts. Looks like by the weekend the weather will be dry and stable, but the fact that it is so unusually warm could see some spot thunderstorms returning, so nobody really knows.

We have had rain every day, so entires very heavy, but in between the deluges it has been nice, today was sunny and lovely until 4 or so. The fog started to roll in just as we were leaving the mountains and then the rains came as we approached Lucca.

Forgot to add all the weather forecasts have been different for the same time period. Have yet to see a day where there was consistency with forecasts.

We've stayed in Bevagna twice - LOVE the town & the surrounding area! In addition to the other restaurant recommendations, you might want to check out La Trattoria Di Oscar and Osteria del Podesta.

Lucca is one of the rainiest places I know. It's is one of the reasons the local villas have so many English-type gardens. Much of Lucca's former wealth came from textile mills producing luxury silks, and the mills were powered by the abundant mountain streams. Lucca's canals were part of that system. The industrial revolution destroyed the economy. Lucca was the first large inland town in Italy (I'm pretty sure) to develop tourism in replace lost jobs, back in the 19th c.

http://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/w...s/nb54_slk.pdf

Fascinating. Well, it's pouring today so we are revising and going to drive SE where it appears to be sunny.
Thanks for the restaurant recs in Bevagna. Will check them out.

Hope you found some sunny weather and had a rewarding time SE of Lucca. I often see Lucca recommended as a "base" in lieu of le Cinque Terre for the off-season, on the grounds that there is nothing to do in le Cinque Terre when it rains -- which is true -- but I don't think is much to do in Lucca when it rains (except leave town and go someplace sunny).