The best hidden hill towns with a serious restaurant within 90 minutes of Perugia

Trequanda

Why visit Trequanda

Trequanda is three villages in one comune: Trequanda itself at 453 meters, Castelmuzio, and Petroio at 486 meters, scattered across the hills southeast of Siena. The first written record dates to 1198, when the Cacciaconti of Scialenga held it as fief; in 1211 Emperor Otto IV gave them the right to collect tolls.

In 1553 the village was among the first to be annexed to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. The Cacciaconti castle still anchors the centro storico, the Pieve dei Santi Pietro e Andrea next to it, built from 1327 in a Gothic-Romanesque mix and renovated in the Renaissance.

Petroio has produced fine ornamental terracotta since the early sixteenth century: lions and dogs and pineapples and chimney pots, the surface of half the gardens in central Tuscany. The municipality holds the Orange Flag from the Italian Touring Club and was inscribed in 2018 in the national register of historic rural landscapes.

Il Conte Matto, Fattoria del Colle have been named by a guide.

What to see in Trequanda

• Castello dei Cacciaconti. Medieval fortress at the center of Trequanda, seat of the Cacciaconti di Scialenga from the twelfth century.
• Pieve dei Santi Pietro e Andrea. Gothic-Romanesque parish church begun in 1327, expanded in the Renaissance, holding a fresco attributed to Sodoma.
• Castelmuzio. Walled hilltop frazione between Trequanda and Pienza, on the rural landscape register, the smallest of the three borghi.

How to get to Trequanda

There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Perugia is roughly 70 minutes away by road.

Everything we know about Trequanda

Montone

Why visit Montone

Montone sits at 482 meters on a ridge above the upper Tiber valley, thirty kilometers north of Perugia. The walled centro storico is small enough to circuit in fifteen minutes and steep enough that the route is the climb.

The town is the cradle of the Fortebracci, the condottieri family whose most famous member, Braccio da Montone, was made Count of Montone in 1414 by Antipope John XXIII. The Rocca di Braccio at the top of the hill and the Rocca d'Aries six kilometers out are both Fortebracci works.

The Gothic Chiesa di San Francesco, built around 1300 where the family had its houses, holds the Pinacoteca with a Bartolomeo Caporali altarpiece. The Donazione della Spina, a relic-thorn from Christ's crown given to the town by Carlo Fortebracci after the Venetians thanked him for naval service against the Turks, is processed twice a year, on Easter Monday and during the August week after Ferragosto.

Since 1997 the Umbria Film Festival has run here every July, founded with Terry Gilliam.

Tipico Osteria dei Sensi, Tipica Osteria dei Sensi, Locanda del Capitano & Tipico Osteria dei Sensi have been named by a guide.

What to see in Montone

• Chiesa di San Francesco. Gothic church of around 1300 with a fourteenth-century convent, picture gallery and cloister, on the hill where the Fortebracci had their houses.
• Rocca di Braccio. Fortress at the top of the borgo rebuilt under Oddo III Fortebracci in the late fourteenth century, now a panoramic ramparts walk.
• Rocca d'Aries. Castle six kilometers from the centro storico, the first Fortebracci stronghold according to tradition, restored and reopened to visit.

How to get to Montone

There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Perugia is roughly 47 minutes away by road.

Everything we know about Montone

Cetona

Why visit Cetona

The town sits on the western flank of a ridge at the meeting point of Toscana, Umbria and Lazio, where the mountain divides the Val d'Orcia from the Val di Chiana. The medieval comune passed between Siena, Orvieto and Perugia before falling to Siena in the late fourteenth century, and it was Cosimo I who later sold it whole to a marchese.

The fortress at the top of the grid and the square laid out below it are two halves of the same Renaissance move: a private residence replacing a garrison at the summit, a flat civic stage opened up at the base. Above the town, in the woods, the hermitage and the caves belong to a much older layer, human use of the mountain reaching back to the Mesolithic, long before any comune or marchese laid claim to it.

What the town adds up to is a settlement built in tiers: a prehistoric mountain, a contested medieval center, and a Renaissance overlay that reorganized the base of the hill without touching what stood above it.

Da Nilo, Il Tiglio di Piazza da Nilo have been named by a guide.

What to see in Cetona

• Piazza Garibaldi. Elliptical square at the foot of the medieval grid, flat and open where the streets above it climb steeply. The civic stage of the borgo, still the first thing that orients a visitor.
• Rocca di Cetona. Fortress at the top of the centro storico, its walls and keep still standing though the interior became a private residence rather than a garrison.
• Convento di San Francesco. Franciscan convent below the borgo, founded in 1212, with a single-nave church and a small cloister still in religious use.

How to get to Cetona

There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Perugia is roughly 78 minutes away by road.

Everything we know about Cetona

Bevagna

Why visit Bevagna

Bevagna sits on the floor of the Umbrian valley at 225 meters, where the Clitunno meets the Timia. Ancient Mevania, the name means she who stands in the middle, was a Roman mansio on the Via Flaminia, listed in the Antonine Itinerary.

A black-and-white mosaic of the 2nd century AD survives almost intact in the frigidarium of the Roman baths, twelve meters by seven, octopuses and dolphins in the center, tritons and sea-horses on the short sides. Piazza Silvestri at the heart of the centro storico holds two Romanesque churches that face each other at odd angles, San Michele Arcangelo and San Silvestro, built within years of each other in the late 12th century.

The Mercato delle Gaite each June turns the town into the year 1300 for ten days, four quarters competing on medieval trades and tavern menus, no anachronisms allowed. The Sagrantino slopes of Montefalco are nine kilometers up the road.

Serpillo, Ottavi Mare have been named by a guide.

What to see in Bevagna

• Piazza Silvestri. Twelfth-century civic square ringed by the Palazzo dei Consoli, the churches of San Silvestro and San Michele, and the fountain of 1896.
• Chiesa di San Michele Arcangelo. Romanesque collegiate church built by Binello and Rodolfo at the end of the 12th century, on the main square.
• Chiesa di San Silvestro. Romanesque parish church across the piazza, signed and dated 1195 by Binello, the same builder as San Michele.

How to get to Bevagna

There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Perugia is roughly 39 minutes away by road.

Everything we know about Bevagna

Panicale

Why visit Panicale

Panicale sits at 431 meters on the eastern slope of Monte Petrarvella, overlooking the southern shore of Lake Trasimeno from twenty-five kilometers southwest of Perugia. The medieval castle dates back in its earliest parts to the ninth century, and by the fourteenth Panicale was a small city-state with two gates facing Perugia and Florence and a moat around the walls.

Boldrino da Panicale, born in 1331, became one of the most feared mercenary captains of the trecento. The Chiesa di San Sebastiano, on a slope outside the walls, holds Pietro Perugino's Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, frescoed across the entire back wall between spring and autumn of 1505, the saint's body crossed by the arrows of four archers in a deep landscape.

The Collegiata di San Michele Arcangelo on the main square claims an Annunciation attributed to Masolino da Panicale, the Renaissance painter the town shares as a birthplace claim with a Panicale in Tuscany. Three squares step down the slope on three different levels.

Lillotatini, Lillo Tatini have been named by a guide.

What to see in Panicale

• Chiesa di San Sebastiano. Fifteenth-century chapel on a slope outside the walls, with Perugino's Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, frescoed in 1505 across the entire back wall.
• Collegiata di San Michele Arcangelo. Main parish church on Piazza San Michele, with an Annunciation attributed to Masolino da Panicale, master of Masaccio.
• Castello e mura medievali. Medieval circuit and gates dating to the ninth century, with two entrances toward Perugia and Florence and the line of the old moat.

How to get to Panicale

There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Perugia is roughly 48 minutes away by road.

Everything we know about Panicale

Montefalco

Why visit Montefalco

Montefalco sits on a hill above the Umbrian valley, its walls laid out in two concentric medieval circuits with five gates, the inner ring still complete and the outer ring added in the 14th century by the Trinci. At the top, the circular Piazza del Comune gathers four converging streets around the Palazzo Comunale, the high point from which the rest of the town falls away toward the walls and the vineyards beyond them.

The name Sagrantino belongs to the slopes right around those walls, where the grape has been traced back to the 1st century AD, and three of the largest producers, Caprai, Antonelli and Adanti, keep cellars within four kilometers of the centro storico. The harvest runs late September into October.

The fresco cycle Gozzoli painted in the apse of the former church of San Francesco is counted among his most complete surviving works, and the town's own name for itself, the railing of Umbria, describes the same eastern walls where the belvedere gathers seven hill towns into one view. Wine on the slopes, frescoes in the old church, a view of the valley from the walls: a hill town whose economy, art and setting all sit within walking distance of each other.

Camiano Piccolo, L' Alchimista, Locanda del Teatro and 2 more have been named by a guide.

What to see in Montefalco

• Museo Civico di San Francesco. Former Franciscan church holding Benozzo Gozzoli's fresco cycle, plus works of the Umbrian school, in a building that has stood as the town's museum since deconsecration.
• Piazza del Comune. Circular medieval square at the top of the hill, ringed by the Palazzo Comunale, the Oratorio di Santa Maria di Piazza and four converging streets.
• Belvedere of Umbria. Panoramic walk on the eastern walls that takes in Perugia, Assisi, Spello, Foligno, Trevi, Spoleto and Todi from a single viewpoint.

How to get to Montefalco

There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Perugia is roughly 54 minutes away by road.

Everything we know about Montefalco

Anghiari

Why visit Anghiari

Anghiari sits at 430 meters on a spur above the upper Tiber valley, the Valtiberina, between Arezzo and the Umbrian border. The walled centro storico is intact, the streets running steeply from the Porta Sant'Angelo up to the Castello.

On 29 June 1440 the Florentine army defeated a Milanese force under Niccolò Piccinino in the plain below town, a battle that secured Florence's hold over central Italy and gave Leonardo da Vinci the commission for the Palazzo Vecchio fresco he started in 1505 and never finished. The painting, the Lost Leonardo, is presumed still to be hidden behind a Vasari wall in Florence.

Palazzo Taglieschi in the centro storico holds a polychrome wooden Madonna by Jacopo della Quercia and a working sixteenth-century table organ. The Mostra Mercato dell'Artigianato della Valtiberina has filled the streets with craft producers every spring since 1976, a working continuation of the textile and woodwork traditions that supported the town through the twentieth century.

Da Alighiero, Il Cappello di Paglia have been named by a guide.

What to see in Anghiari

• Palazzo Taglieschi. Sixteenth-century palace in the centro storico, now the Museo Statale di Palazzo Taglieschi, with a wooden Madonna by Jacopo della Quercia and a working table organ.
• Castello di Anghiari. Medieval fortified core at the top of the town, walls and gates still intact, the visual anchor of the silhouette from the valley below.
• Campo della Battaglia. The plain at the foot of the walls where Florence defeated Milan on 29 June 1440, the battle that inspired Leonardo's lost Palazzo Vecchio fresco.

How to get to Anghiari

There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Perugia is roughly 82 minutes away by road.

Everything we know about Anghiari

Chiusi

Why visit Chiusi

The hilltop stands above the Val di Chiana, the valley floor visible from the town at a height that made it defensible and gave it command of the surrounding farmland. The cathedral, the museums and the tunnel network are close enough to walk between within the old center, while the painted necropolis and the lake lie outside it, a few kilometers apart in different directions, one inland toward the tombs and the other north toward open water.

The tunnels themselves connect the upper town to what lies beneath it: built as drainage, later folded into legend by Pliny the Elder, who took them for part of a king's tomb. The cathedral's own columns, lifted from earlier Roman buildings, make the same point in stone that the tombs make in paint and the museum makes in bucchero and alabaster: this is a town built repeatedly on top of itself, each layer reusing what the last one left behind.

I Salotti, Il Grillo è Buoncantore, La Solita Zuppa have been named by a guide.

What to see in Chiusi

• Museo Nazionale Etrusco. Holds canopic urns, alabaster sarcophagi, bucchero pottery and grave goods pulled from the necropolises around the town.
• Duomo di San Secondiano. Cathedral built around 560 AD over an earlier basilica, renovated in the thirteenth century, nave and two aisles on antique marble columns from Roman buildings.
• Labirinto di Porsenna. Visited from the Museo della Cattedrale, the tunnels run beneath the streets at a scale that still reads as engineering rather than legend, whatever Pliny made of them.

How to get to Chiusi

There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Perugia is roughly 58 minutes away by road.

Everything we know about Chiusi

Deruta

Why visit Deruta

Deruta sits fifteen kilometers south of Perugia, its hill rising above the Tiber on the river's left bank. The walled medieval core, organized around Piazza dei Consoli, occupies the high ground, while the lower town spreads along the old road linking Perugia to Rome.

That road is where the workshops cluster, most of them family businesses running three or four generations deep, and it is also the route that carries traffic five kilometers south to the pilgrimage church, its walls built up over four centuries from votive tiles left by travelers on the same stretch of road. The first documented kilns appear in the archaeological record in the late thirteenth century, and by the early sixteenth the town's workshops had developed the lustro finish that gave Deruta wares their metallic shine, along with the Bella Donna plates that paired painted portraits with flattering banderoles naming the women depicted.

That convent complex, once a working monastery, now holds both the ceramics museum and, next door, the civic gallery with its Perugino and Alunno panels, so the town's religious architecture, its art collection, and its ceramics history sit under the same roof by accident of reuse rather than design. The upper town's churches and museums hold the record of what Deruta made and believed; the lower town's workshops are still making it.

I Rodella have been named by a guide.

What to see in Deruta

• Museo Regionale della Ceramica. Holds over 6,000 pieces from medieval to modern, arranged through the convent's old cloister and cells.
• Chiesa di San Francesco. Consecrated 1388 after earthquake reconstruction, Sienese 14th-century frescoes inside, Domenico Alfani Raphael-school panel above an altar.
• Pinacoteca Comunale. Civic gallery with Perugino's Eterno and Saints Romano e Rocco, plus two altarpieces by Niccolò Alunno from the surrounding churches.

How to get to Deruta

There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Perugia is roughly 19 minutes away by road.

Everything we know about Deruta

Montepulciano

Why visit Montepulciano

The ridge runs between the Val di Chiana and the Val d'Orcia, 70 kilometers southeast of Siena, and the town follows its spine uphill: streets climb from the gates toward the high point, where the main square sits ringed by the buildings that define the skyline from below. The origin predates the Renaissance fabric by centuries.

Etruscan tombs survive in the surrounding hills, though almost nothing of that period shows in the centro storico itself, which was rebuilt wholesale in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries over whatever came before. The wine and the festival both use the climb as their setting rather than their subject: the cellars are cut into the rock beneath the palazzi, keeping a constant temperature for aging, and the barrel race each August sends two men from each of the eight contrade hauling an eighty-kilogram cask up the same gradient that every visitor covers on foot, only slower.

The steepness that shaped the defensive site nine centuries ago is still what a person feels first, in the legs, before the buildings register at all.

Ristorante Caffè Pasticceria Poliziano, Osmosi, Le Logge del Vignola and 3 more have been named by a guide.

What to see in Montepulciano

• Tempio di San Biagio. A 13-meter dome and travertine façade standing alone outside the walls, the ground falling away below it so the building reads as a single volume against the hillside.
• Piazza Grande. The high piazza at the top of the ridge, ringed by the Duomo, the Palazzo Comunale and the Palazzo Tarugi, all rebuilt in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
• Palazzo Comunale. Town hall designed by Michelozzo in the fifteenth century, its tower offering a view over the Val di Chiana and Val d'Orcia.

How to get to Montepulciano

There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Perugia is roughly 57 minutes away by road.

Everything we know about Montepulciano