The 10 prettiest hidden villages you can reach by train in Umbria
Umbria builds in stone the colour of weak tea and old roses, quarried from its own hills and stacked into walls that hold the heat well past sunset. The olive terraces above the Vale of Spoleto turn silver in the wind, and the November oil, pressed cloudy and green, goes onto grilled bread with nothing else on it. Winter brings black truffle from the Valnerina, shaved over strangozzi, the thick hand-rolled pasta that turns up on every trattoria menu between Terni and Foligno. The regional trains run the valley floors, slow and cheap, past sunflower fields, tobacco drying sheds and hilltowns stacked on their outcrops.
Nearly everyone arrives by way of Assisi, and with reason: the basilica, the Giotto cycle, the view down over the plain. The pilgrim coaches park below the walls from spring onwards and the main street becomes a single moving column. Perugia takes the overflow, its escalators up through the Rocca Paolina running all day in summer. Both are worth the time, and both are busy in a way the rest of the region is not.
The same railway that delivers those crowds keeps going. It runs south towards Terni and the mineral-water hills, north along the shore of Lake Trasimeno, east into the folds where the Nera comes down cold off the mountains. The villages here have the same stone, the same oil, the same pasta, and fewer people looking at them, and each of the ones below has been assessed as among the most beautiful in Italy and can be reached without a car.
Of the 47 communes we have mapped in Umbria, 11 qualify as prettiest villages you can reach by train: each has passed the national assessment of Italy's most beautiful villages, and we have confirmed each is reachable without a car. This list is the hidden ones, 10 in all, ordered smallest first. The smallest, Vallo di Nera, has 345 residents.
Elsewhere in the catalogue: The 8 prettiest villages you can reach by train in the province of Perugia and The best hidden hill towns you can reach by train in the province of Perugia.
Vallo di Nera
Why visit Vallo di Nera
Vallo di Nera sits at 467 meters on a spur of the upper Valnerina, above the Nera river. The town of Spoleto granted the men of Vallo permission to build a castle here in 1217, on the hill where an earlier fortress had stood; the stone houses, the walls and the two symmetrical gates, Portella and Portaranne, have barely changed in eight centuries.
Inside, the village climbs in concentric rings to the Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta at the top, built in 1176 and given to the Franciscans in the 13th century, who turned a defensive tower into a bell tower and frescoed the apse with a cycle of the Giotto school dated 1383. The Procession of the Whites, traceable to 1401, still leaves the church each year.
The population today is 345, smaller than at any point in the medieval records. Black truffle from the woods above and olive oil from the slopes down to the river are the surviving trades.
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What to see in Vallo di Nera
- Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta. Built 1176, Franciscan from the 13th century, with frescoes of the Giotto school dated 1383 in the apse, by Cola di Pietro da Camerino among others.
- Medieval walls. Twelfth-century walls and towers still encircle the village, with two original symmetrical gates, Portella and Portaranne.
- Centro storico. Light stone houses leaning against each other on three concentric rings, with embrasures, narrow alleys and stone portals preserved since 1217.
How to get to Vallo di Nera
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 53 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the months for Vallo di Nera. The Valnerina is green, the Nera river runs cold, and the trails up to Sellano or down to Scheggino are walkable. July and August push the valley into the mid-thirties; the stone houses hold their cool but most of the 345 residents close shutters between two and six.
Massa Martana
Why visit Massa Martana
Massa Martana is here for the Roman road. The Via Flaminia (the original 220 BC consular road from Rome north over the Apennines to Rimini, the spine of Roman Italian infrastructure for 500+ years) passes directly through the village — and Massa Martana sits at exactly the point where the road begins climbing into the Apennine pre-massif, with sections of the original Roman paving still visible in the surrounding countryside.
This made the area an important late-antique Christian community: the Catacombe di Villa San Faustino (3-4 km north of the centro) are the only Roman-era Christian catacombs in all of Umbria — discovered 1968, in continuous use from the 3rd to the 6th c AD, with 200+ tombs, original frescoes, and Latin inscriptions. The Abbazia dei Santi Fidenzio e Terenzio (9th-c Benedictine, on the hill above town, with surviving Carolingian elements + 12th-c restorations) is the other major monastic-era survivor.
The town itself is 3,613 residents at 351m altitude in central Umbria, 17 km southeast of Todi, with a medieval-Renaissance centro that was severely damaged by the 26 September 1997 Marche-Umbria earthquake (the same event that brought down the vault of the Basilica di San Francesco in Assisi). The reconstruction was completed in stages through 2010, and the town was re-inscribed on the Borghi più belli d'Italia list after restoration.
Today the centro reads as a meticulously restored small medieval ensemble — the Porta Santa Maria, the Chiesa Madre di San Felice (rebuilt), the Palazzo Comunale, the Torre Civica. Surroundings: the Monti Martani limestone massif (the prehistoric source of the Martana name) rises immediately east, with marked hiking trails, the Lago di Corbara just south, and the Todi UNESCO-fortified town 17 km away.
The food is Umbrian: strangozzi with truffle (Umbria's signature pasta), porchetta, salumi, Pecorino, the local Sagrantino di Montefalco 25 km west. The Festa di San Felice (25 January) and the Sagra del Tartufo (October) are the year's main events.
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What to see in Massa Martana
- Via Flaminia Roman road. Original 220 BC consular road from Rome to Rimini passes directly through. Sections of Roman paving visible in the surrounding countryside — the spine of Roman Italian infrastructure for 500+ years.
- Catacombe di Villa San Faustino. The only Roman-era Christian catacombs in all of Umbria — 3-4 km north of the centro, in use 3rd-6th c AD, with 200+ tombs, original frescoes, Latin inscriptions. Guided tours.
- Abbazia dei Santi Fidenzio e Terenzio. 9th-c Benedictine abbey on the hill above town. Surviving Carolingian elements + 12th-c restorations. The most important monastic survivor in the comune.
How to get to Massa Martana
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 32 minutes away by road.
Our tip
Massa Martana is best April–June and September–October. The Sagra del Tartufo in October is the year's culinary highlight. Festa di San Felice (25 January) is the winter patronal event.
Acquasparta
Why visit Acquasparta
Acquasparta sits at 350 meters on a hill above the Naia valley, fifty kilometers south of Perugia and thirteen north of the UNESCO town of Spoleto. The medieval upper town is walled around the palace at its center, its lanes climbing toward the piazza named for Federico Cesi.
In 1588 Pope Sixtus V raised the territory to a duchy under the Cesi family, and it was Federico Cesi, the cardinal's descendant, who brought his young Accademia dei Lincei here from Rome in the early seventeenth century to convene around his cabinet of natural specimens: Galileo Galilei was among those who came, staying at the palace in 1624 to demonstrate his microscope. Outside the walls, the Furapane and Amerino springs draw on a different history, met by the Roman censor Flaminio in the second century BC and still bottled commercially now.
The town holds both threads at once, a duchy's palace turned briefly into a meeting place for the new science, and a valley whose waters were already known to antiquity. Together with the medieval upper town, they earned Acquasparta its listing among the Borghi più belli.
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What to see in Acquasparta
- Palazzo Cesi. The architectural anchor of the centro storico, where the cabinet of natural specimens once gathered by Federico Cesi drew the Accademia dei Lincei into session.
- Centro storico. Medieval upper town walled around the palace, with narrow stepped lanes climbing toward Piazza Federico Cesi.
- Chiesa di Santa Cecilia. Main parish church near the palace, with a Renaissance interior and altarpieces from the Umbrian school.
How to get to Acquasparta
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 21 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the dependable months. The Stagione Lincea, a summer programme of conferences and concerts in Palazzo Cesi, runs through July and August around the legacy of Federico Cesi and Galileo. July and August are warm in the Naia valley but the palace and the centro storico hold shade well.
Passignano sul Trasimeno
Why visit Passignano sul Trasimeno
Passignano sul Trasimeno sits on a low promontory on the northern shore of Lake Trasimeno, twenty kilometers northwest of Perugia, separated from the lake only by the road that links Perugia to Tuscany. The Umbri held the ground first, then the Etruscans pushed them east of the Tiber; the Romans turned the spur into a watchtower controlling the pass between northern and central Italy.
In 217 BC Hannibal trapped Gaius Flaminius's army of 25,000 in the narrow road between Tuoro and Passignano, killing about 15,000 Romans in the morning fog of June 21, one of the worst defeats in Roman history. The Rocca, built around 850 by the marquises of Tuscany and conquered by Perugia in 1187, holds a quadrangular plan around a 32-meter keep that survived a 1778 partial demolition.
The Festa della Padella, held in late August, fries lake fish for the village in a four-and-a-half-meter pan on the shore. The Borgo dei Borghi finalist designation arrived in the 2010s.
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What to see in Passignano sul Trasimeno
- Rocca di Passignano. Quadrangular fortress built around 850 by the marquises of Tuscany with a 32-meter central keep, partly demolished in 1778.
- Chiesa di San Bernardino. Sixteenth-century church near the Rocca with a Renaissance interior and views down to the lake from its portico.
- Centro di Documentazione Annibale e Battaglia del Trasimeno. Small documentation centre on the Battle of Lake Trasimene of 217 BC and Hannibal's ambush of Gaius Flaminius.
How to get to Passignano sul Trasimeno
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 28 minutes away by road.
✷ We have written about Passignano sul Trasimeno
“The lake is like a sanatorium compared to the sea. It’s relaxed. It’s calm. It’s silent. To find this level of almost disturbing quietness, you either go up into the mountains, or you really need to know your way around the sea to find that particular spot not overrun by vacationers and beach people. In Trasimeno, this is easy. Even the most popular towns like Castiglione or Passignano sit in quiet harmony with the stillness of the water.”
Read our piece on Passignano sul Trasimeno →Lago Trasimeno | Never Compete with the Sea
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the months the lake works. The water warms enough by late May for swimming off the Lido and the ferry to Isola Maggiore runs to a steady schedule. July and August are crowded; the Festa della Padella in late August is the loudest weekend of the year. Festa dei Barbari - Castel Rigone falls in July.
Stroncone
Why visit Stroncone
Stroncone sits at 451 meters on an olive-covered hill eight kilometers south of Terni, in the Conca Ternana on the western slope of the Apennine. The name traces to Duke Ugone of Spoleto, whose castrum Hugonis evolved through Castrugone and Strungone to the present form.
A group settled here around the tenth century and built a castle; Stroncone first appears in documents in 1012, when Giovanni di Pietro made a donation to the monastery of San Simeone. Pope Innocent III granted municipal self-rule in 1215.
The Convento di San Francesco, south of the walls, is one of the older Franciscan foundations in Umbria, founded by tradition by Francis himself in 1213, two years before papal recognition of the order. The medieval circuit walls remain almost complete, with the original gates framing a network of stepped lanes that climb to the small main square.
The Cammino di San Francesco passes through, picking up walkers between Rieti and Assisi.
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What to see in Stroncone
- Convento di San Francesco. Franciscan convent south of the walls, founded by tradition by Saint Francis in 1213, two years before papal recognition of the order.
- Centro storico. Walled medieval core with original gates intact, climbing through stepped lanes to the small main square at the top of the hill.
- Chiesa di San Giovanni Decollato. Main parish church at the heart of the borgo, with frescoed interior and a Renaissance baptismal font.
How to get to Stroncone
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 18 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the months for Stroncone. Olive harvest carries the autumn rhythm into late November, and the frantoi work into the evening through October and November. July and August are warm in the Conca Ternana but the hill is high enough that nights cool quickly. Sagra De u Cecu Maritu falls in July.
San Gemini
Why visit San Gemini
San Gemini sits at 337 meters on the southern slope of the Monti Martani, ten kilometers northwest of Terni. The archaeological park to the north preserves a stretch of polygonal Roman paving, a gate or honorary arch, an amphitheater, mosaic floors and the remains of an aqueduct, all part of a municipium abandoned probably after an earthquake.
The mineral springs rise just outside the populated centre, close enough that the town and the water source share the same ground without sharing a single street. The walled core steps down the slope in two halves that still define the town's rhythm: the district built around the old fortified height and the district gathered around the main square, each fielding its own team when the joust between them runs its course every year.
The cathedral, rebuilt in the nineteenth century but keeping a portal a great deal older, and the Gothic church on the square, each anchor their own end of the settlement. The Corpus Domini Infiorata blankets the procession route with petal mosaics nine weeks after Easter.
A hill town this size holding a Roman ruin, a bottled spring and a rivalry that still stages a joust suggests a place where the past was never cleared away to make room for the present, only built alongside it.
We confirmed you can reach this one by train.
What to see in San Gemini
- Parco Archeologico di Carsulae. Roman municipium four kilometers north of San Gemini, with the Via Flaminia paving, the Arco di San Damiano, amphitheater and aqueduct remains.
- Chiesa di San Francesco. Thirteenth-century Gothic church on the main square, single nave with pointed arches, alongside Palazzo Canova.
- Duomo di San Gemine. Originally twelfth-century late Gothic cathedral, rebuilt in the nineteenth century by Livoni with consultation from Antonio Canova, keeping a fifteenth-century portal.
How to get to San Gemini
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 16 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the dependable months. The Infiorata di Corpus Domini covers the procession route with petal mosaics nine weeks after Easter, usually early June. The Giostra dell'Arme runs over two weeks at the end of September into early October, the rioni in fifteenth-century costume, the joust in the main piazza.
Nocera Umbra
Why visit Nocera Umbra
Nocera Umbra sits fifteen kilometers north of Foligno. The Romans called it Nuceria; the town has held its own bishopric since the early Middle Ages and was contested between Perugia, Spoleto and the Trinci of Foligno through the medieval period, a tug of war between larger powers that left it walled and defensible on its slope rather than absorbed by any one of them.
The centro storico climbs to a summit where the tower, the cathedral and the former Rocca stand together, the civic and the religious and the military crowded onto the same high ground. Below, five kilometers down from that core, the springs form a separate pole of the town's life, functional rather than defensive, drawing visitors for water rather than for stone.
The Bandiera Arancione recognition was reconfirmed after reconstruction, a marker that the rebuilding did not just replace what fell but held the town to the standard it met before the quake.
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What to see in Nocera Umbra
- Campanaccio (Torre Civica). Eleventh-century square tower at the highest point of the borgo. Only part of one side remained standing after 1997; the rest is reconstruction, stone matched to stone.
- Pinacoteca e Museo Civico. Civic gallery in the deconsecrated Chiesa di San Francesco with works by Niccolò Alunno, Matteo da Gualdo, and the school of Cimabue.
- Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta. Cathedral at the summit of the centro storico, partially damaged and restored, set beside the tower and the former Rocca.
How to get to Nocera Umbra
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.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the months locals prefer. The slopes around the centro storico hold light well into the evening and the Bagni di Nocera springs are at their easiest to walk. July and August push temperatures into the low thirties, manageable at this elevation; the Pinacoteca and the cathedral stay cool through the afternoon. Palio dei Quartieri falls in August.
Trevi
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 near the abbey of the same name 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.
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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
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 47 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the months for Trevi. The olive groves are in leaf or in harvest, the hill is green or silver-gold depending on the half, and the valley below holds the morning light. The Festa di Sant'Emiliano runs the last week of January with the Palio dei Terzieri, when the three quarters of the town compete.
Spello
Why visit Spello
The centro storico climbs the lower southern flank of Monte Subasio, still contained within the circuit of walls raised when the town was renamed Splendidissima Colonia Julia by Augustus. Before that it was Hispellum under the Umbrians.
The Roman gates and stretches of wall from the Augustan period were not rebuilt over, so the line of the ancient town is still readable in the streets that climb from them today. The same streets carry the Infiorata each June and the fresco Pinturicchio completed for the chapel he painted in Santa Maria Maggiore, two things separated by roughly fifteen centuries but occupying the same short stretch of the old town: the chapel's Annunciation, Nativity and Christ Among the Doctors sit near the piazza the petal pictures are laid across.
A Roman villa with ten mosaic floors, found only in 2005 and left in place under cover, adds a third layer beneath the town that is still being uncovered rather than one that was always on view. The town's Roman skeleton, its painted chapel, and a floor uncovered within living memory all sit within the same small radius, which is unusual: most places show one era at a time, Spello keeps three in view at once.
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What to see in Spello
- Cappella Baglioni. The Cappella Bella, commissioned by Troilo Baglioni, with four sibyls ranged across the vault above the painted scenes below.
- Santa Maria Maggiore. Twelfth-century church on Piazza Matteotti, its interior built around the fresco cycle and the later panel it houses.
- Porta Venere e Torri di Properzio. First-century BC gate flanked by two dodecagonal towers, still standing at close to full height with the stonework legible course by course.
How to get to Spello
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 33 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the months for Spello. The slopes of Monte Subasio above town carry wildflowers, Cammino di San Francesco walkers pass through, and the Infiorata weekend on Corpus Domini in late May or June is the most concentrated day on the calendar. July and August touch the mid-thirties on the valley floor; the centro storico at 280 meters stays a few degrees cooler in the upper streets, but most visitors come early or wait until after seven. Borgo diVino tour falls in October.
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.
We confirmed you can reach this one by train.
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.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the months locals prefer. The Tiber valley stays mild and the workshops keep regular hours, with kilns running on weekdays and tastings open on weekends. The Festa della Ceramica in late August opens the cellars and the older workshops to the public. Palio della Brocca falls in August.
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