The best hill towns with a serious restaurant in the province of Perugia

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

Norcia

Why visit Norcia

Norcia sits at 604 meters on a high plateau on the Umbrian side of the Monti Sibillini, ancient Nursia of the Sabines, fortified in the 3rd century BC by Rome. Saints Benedict and his twin sister Scholastica were born here in 480; the Benedictine Order and the Ora et Labora motto that shaped Western monasticism began on this piazza.

The Basilica di San Benedetto rises on the traditional birthplace, built between 1290 and 1338 over a pre-existing crypt. On 30 October 2016 a magnitude 6.5 earthquake destroyed the nave; only the façade was left standing.

Reconstruction completed on 30 October 2025, nine years to the day, with the original stones and earthquake-resistant technology. The town gave its name to norcineria, the Italian word for quality pork delicatessen, after centuries of Norcia butchers specializing in wild boar and pork.

Black truffle from the Valnerina, lentils from Castelluccio, and ricotta from the high pastures complete the table.

Vespasia, Granaro del Monte, Casale nel Parco have been named by a guide.

What to see in Norcia

• Basilica di San Benedetto. Built 1290-1338 over the traditional birthplace of Saints Benedict and Scholastica, rebuilt with original stones after 2016, reopened 30 October 2025.
• Castellina. Fortified papal stronghold designed by Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola in 1554, on Piazza San Benedetto, now the Museo Civico e Diocesano.
• Piazza San Benedetto. Civic and religious heart of the centro storico, with the Palazzo Comunale, the basilica, the Castellina and the statue of Benedict at the center.

How to get to Norcia

There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Terni is roughly 93 minutes away by road.

Everything we know about Norcia

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

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

Todi

Why visit Todi

The hill the town occupies, Colle Nidoli, rises above the middle Tiber, and the settlement is built as three concentric ring walls rather than one: Etruscan and Roman courses at the base, a medieval circuit at the summit, the whole sequence readable from the hills around it. The square at the top sits directly over a Roman forum, and the cisterns cut beneath that forum still carry water and drainage for the town today, so the working infrastructure underfoot is as old as anything visible above ground.

The building on the square with the triple window keeps that window from the thirteenth century. The lower ground beyond the medieval walls holds the Roman niches, the surviving wall of a first-century BC public building, set at the foot of the town rather than within its defended core, a reminder that the settlement's Roman life extended past what the medieval walls later enclosed.

Outside the walls in the other direction stands the Renaissance temple, built over a century between 1508 and 1607, deliberately separated from the dense center it complements. Todi's layout is less a single town than a stack of settlements, Etruscan, Roman, medieval, Renaissance, each occupying its own ring or its own ground beyond the walls, none erasing what came before it.

Fiorfiore have been named by a guide.

What to see in Todi

• Piazza del Popolo. Square on the highest point of Colle Nidoli, built over Roman cisterns still in use, ringed by cathedral, Palazzo dei Priori, and Palazzo del Capitano.
• Cattedrale della Santissima Annunziata. Twelfth-century cathedral on the site of a Roman temple, north end of Piazza del Popolo, Gothic rose window and a fresco of the Last Judgment by Faenzone inside.
• Tempio di Santa Maria della Consolazione. Outside the walls rather than within the medieval fabric of the center, its dome fifty meters high, a solitary geometric mass against the surrounding hillside.

How to get to Todi

There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Terni is roughly 37 minutes away by road.

Everything we know about Todi

Corciano

Why visit Corciano

Corciano sits on a low hill at 408 meters, its walls unbroken and its gate towers still marking where the open country ends and the centro storico begins. Settlement here goes back to the Neolithic, and by 1136 the Castrum Corcianum shows up in a papal bull of Innocent II as one of the possessions of the bishop of Perugia.

What a visitor walks through is a medieval shell built over much older ground, the streets inside the walls still following the old castello plan rather than any later grid. The town's two churches read as a pair of responses to the same passage.

Francis came through in 1223, back from fasting on the island, and the Franciscan church went up to mark it; the parish church nearby holds the painted record of the plague years, the Madonna's cloak spread over a huddle of rooftops that is Corciano itself. Between them, on Piazza Coragino, the communal palace and its neighbor still face each other as the working center of the old commune.

What the walls, the gate, and the two churches add up to is a hill town that kept building on top of itself rather than abandoning what came before, so that centuries of foundations, a medieval circuit, and a fifteenth-century painting of the town's own image all still occupy the same small space.

Osteria del Posto, Aldìvino, Annina Locanda have been named by a guide.

What to see in Corciano

• Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta. Thirteenth-century main parish church near the main square, redone in neoclassical style in 1870. Holds the processional banner showing the Madonna sheltering the town's citizens under her cloak.
• Gonfalone della Peste. Painted by Bonfigli for the parish church, the panel sets the town at the foot of the composition, a small huddle of roofs and walls beneath the sheltering cloak.
• Porta Santa Maria. Main gate tower of the medieval walls at the northern entrance to the centro storico, still standing and still the way in.

How to get to Corciano

There is no station we could confirm here, so this one means driving. Perugia is roughly 19 minutes away by road.

Everything we know about Corciano

Assisi

Why visit Assisi

Assisi sits on a terraced spur twenty kilometers east of Perugia, the town built into the western flank of Monte Subasio where it drops toward the plain below. The Umbri settled the site before the Romans came, and the municipium of Asisium grew up around what is now Piazza del Comune, the square that still forms the civic center of the medieval town.

The centro storico runs between two poles: the basilica holding Francis's tomb at one end and the church holding Clare's relics at the other, with the Roman square and its temple facade sitting between them as the oldest layer beneath the medieval one. Below the town, on the plain, stands the basilica built around the chapel where Francis founded his order and died.

Further up the mountain, past the town walls, the hermitage occupies a beech wood where Francis and his companions withdrew from all of it. The layout traces the life it commemorates: birth and burial at the center, founding and death on the plain below, retreat in the wood above.

The town has arranged itself, over centuries, around the geography of one man's biography.

Une, La Locanda del Cardinale, Benedikto and 1 more have been named by a guide.

What to see in Assisi

• Basilica di San Francesco. Two superimposed churches over the saint's tomb, frescoed by Cimabue, Giotto, Simone Martini and Pietro Lorenzetti.
• Basilica di Santa Chiara. Church at the eastern end of the centro storico, holding the relics of Saint Clare and the San Damiano Crucifix.
• Tempio di Minerva. Roman temple on Piazza del Comune, six Corinthian columns intact, one of the best-preserved temple façades in the country, converted to a church in 1539.

How to get to Assisi

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 35 minutes away by road.

Everything we know about Assisi

Spoleto

Why visit Spoleto

Spoleto sits at 396 meters at the southern edge of the Valle Umbra, the Apennines rising behind it toward Monteluco. The town was Roman Spoletium from 241 BC, then capital of one of the two great Lombard duchies of Italy from 576, controlling Umbria, Sabina, Picenum and the Pescara valley for more than five centuries.

The Rocca Albornoziana on the Colle Sant'Elia was built between 1363 and 1367 by Matteo Gattapone for Cardinal Albornoz, both a papal fortress and a residence, now the Museo Nazionale del Ducato. From the Rocca the Ponte delle Torri, 230 meters long and 80 meters high, crosses the Tessino gorge to Monteluco, an aqueduct of the 13th century built over Roman foundations.

The Duomo holds a Byzantine mosaic of 1207 across its façade and Filippo Lippi's last fresco cycle in the apse. Gian Carlo Menotti founded the Festival dei Due Mondi in 1958; the Roman theater, the Rocca courtyard and Piazza del Duomo still carry the program each year from late June into mid-July.

Apollinare, San Lorenzo, Il Capanno have been named by a guide.

What to see in Spoleto

• Rocca Albornoziana. Papal fortress built 1363-1367 by Matteo Gattapone for Cardinal Albornoz, now the Museo Nazionale del Ducato di Spoleto.
• Ponte delle Torri. Aqueduct bridge 230 meters long and 80 meters high, crossing the Tessino gorge to Monteluco, 13th-14th century on Roman foundations.
• Duomo di Santa Maria Assunta. Twelfth-century Romanesque cathedral with Byzantine mosaic of 1207 on the façade, Renaissance portico, and Filippo Lippi frescoes in the apse.

How to get to Spoleto

There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Terni is roughly 41 minutes away by road.

Everything we know about Spoleto