The 6 best hill towns that live slowly within 90 minutes of Perugia

1. Monte Castello di Vibio

Best for a small town. 1,418 people live here.

48 min from Perugia · homes €540 to €760 a m² in the center · 1,418 people

Why visit Monte Castello di Vibio

Monte Castello di Vibio sits at 422 meters on a ridge above the Tiber valley, eight kilometers north of Todi and thirty south of Perugia. The town is a walled fifteenth-century borgo on a slope of cultivated Umbrian hills, and its later name carries the trace of an old Perugian Roman family, the Vibii, attached to it in 1863 to distinguish the place from other Monte Castello communes.

The Teatro della Concordia, built in 1808 by nine wealthy families in the spirit of the French Revolution's ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity, is the smallest theater all'italiana in the world: 99 seats, 62 in four tiers of boxes and 37 in the stalls, an auditorium of 68 square meters in a bell-shaped plan, a stage of 50. The theater closed in 1951 after wartime damage and reopened in 1993 after restoration.

The Chiesa dei Santi Filippo e Giacomo, built in 1851 on the main square, replaced an older parish on the same footprint. The Madonna delle Grazie, an older stone church from 1505, holds frescoed walls.

What to see in Monte Castello di Vibio

• Teatro della Concordia. The smallest all'italiana theater in the world: 99 seats, built in 1808 in a bell-shaped plan, closed in 1951 and reopened in 1993.
• Chiesa dei Santi Filippo e Giacomo. Main parish church on the central square, built in 1851 on the footprint of an earlier and smaller church.
• Madonna delle Grazie. Stone church of 1505 on the edge of the borgo, with frescoed interior walls dating to the early sixteenth century.

How to get to Monte Castello di Vibio

Perugia is about 48 min away by road.

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2. Anghiari

Best for everyday life on foot. Eight of the ten everyday services we look for are mapped within 500 meters of the center.

1 h 17 min from Perugia · homes €1,050 to €1,450 a m² in the center · 5,411 people

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.

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

Perugia is about 1 h 17 min away by road.

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3. Cortona

Best for olive oil. It belongs to the national association of olive oil towns.

42 min from Perugia · homes €2,100 to €2,600 a m² in the center · 20,834 people

Why visit Cortona

Cortona stands on the southern flank of the Val di Chiana, looking across to Lake Trasimeno: a position that put it in sight of both the plain it governed and the water beyond it. The Etruscan name Curtun survives fixed in stone, and the city that carried it was built in tiers up the hillside, walls and fortress at the crown, church and convent lower down at the edges of the slope, houses and squares filling the ground between.

The bishop granted Francis of Assisi a place for retreat in 1211, and what resulted was built into a narrow valley below the town rather than within its walls, a retreat kept apart from the civic center even as it stayed within reach. Santa Margherita, the city's patron, is held on the ridge above the streets she once walked.

The painters Luca Signorelli and Pietro da Cortona were born inside the walls that still define the town's shape. Frances Mayes published her memoir in 1996, and the town has not been quiet since.

What emerges is a hill town whose Etruscan skeleton, medieval faith, and modern fame sit stacked on the same slope, each layer visible without erasing the one beneath it.

What to see in Cortona

• Mura etrusche. The walls still ring the city entire, the foundation under every later layer of building, Roman and medieval alike.
• MAEC. Museum of the Etruscan Academy in Palazzo Casali, holding the bronze plaque and the lampadario di Cortona.
• Museo Diocesano. Collection in the former Chiesa del Gesù with Beato Angelico's Annunciation of 1430 and works by Luca Signorelli.

How to get to Cortona

It has its own railway station. Perugia is about 42 min away by road. The full route from Florence.

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4. Montefalco

Best for a wine weekend. It belongs to the national association of wine towns.

51 min from Perugia · homes €610 to €760 a m² in the center · 5,251 people

Written about. No. 81. Read the letter →

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.

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

Perugia is about 51 min away by road.

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5. Città della Pieve

Best for a trip without a car. The train stops in the commune.

45 min from Perugia · homes €820 to €1,200 a m² in the center · 7,388 people

Written about. No. 78. Read the letter →

Why visit Città della Pieve

Città della Pieve sits on a hill at 508 meters between Umbria and Tuscany, about 260 meters above the Valdichiana and within sight of Lake Trasimeno. The town is built almost entirely of the local red brick that has been fired here since the Middle Ages, which gives the centro storico a uniform terracotta color.

Pietro Vannucci, known as Perugino, was born here around 1448 and returned in 1504 to fresco the Adoration of the Magi inside the Oratorio di Santa Maria dei Bianchi, one of the largest works he ever painted. The Cathedral of San Gervasio holds two more Perugino panels from 1510 and 1514.

Pope Clement VIII elevated the town from Castel della Pieve in 1600, restoring its episcopal seat. Vicolo Baciadonne, eighty centimeters wide, threads between two brick walls and is cited as one of the narrowest alleys in Italy.

What to see in Città della Pieve

• Cattedrale dei Santi Gervasio e Protasio. Cathedral on the main piazza with two Perugino panels, the Madonna and Child with Saints of 1514 and the Baptism of Christ of 1510.
• Oratorio di Santa Maria dei Bianchi. Confraternity oratory holding Perugino's Adoration of the Magi, frescoed in 1504 and considered one of his largest single works.
• Torre del Pubblico. Twelfth-century civic tower in Lombard Romanesque style, thirty-nine meters tall, set next to the cathedral on Piazza Plebiscito.

How to get to Città della Pieve

It has its own railway station. Perugia is about 45 min away by road. The full route from Florence.

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6. Trevi

Best for a stage of a long walk. The Cammino di San Francesco passes through.

45 min from Perugia · homes €690 to €960 a m² in the center · 7,927 people

Written about. No. 90. Read the letter →

Why visit Trevi

Trevi sits at 412 meters on a conical hill above the Spoleto valley, the centro storico still inside the Roman walls of the 1st century BC. The town stood on the Via Flaminia, the consular road from Rome to the Adriatic, and grew into a Guelph commune by the 12th century.

Olive oil is what people come for. Over 200,000 trees blanket the slopes below the walls on near-ideal calcareous, well-drained soils, and the Olivo di Sant'Emiliano, at Bovara by the abbey of San Pietro, is about 1,700 years old, identified with the tree the bishop of Trevi was tied to in 304 before his martyrdom.

The Santuario della Madonna delle Lacrime, built in 1487 to mark a miracle, holds a fresco by Pietro Perugino. The centro storico runs in concentric rings up the hill, each ring older than the last, with the Palazzo Comunale and the Pinacoteca holding works by Lo Spagna at the top.

What to see in Trevi

• Santuario della Madonna delle Lacrime. Built in 1487 after a Marian apparition wept tears of blood in 1485, with a fresco by Perugino in the Cappella dell'Adorazione.
• Chiesa di Sant'Emiliano. Romanesque parish church at the top of the centro storico, dedicated to the bishop martyred in 304, the patron saint of the town.
• Olivo di Sant'Emiliano. About 1,700-year-old olive tree near the eponymous church, nine meters tall, traditionally the tree to which the bishop was tied before martyrdom.

How to get to Trevi

It has its own railway station. Perugia is about 45 min away by road. The full route from Rome.

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