Vallo di Nera

Vallo di Nera sits 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.