With events
Sagre and feste in Umbria
20 towns
Each town page lists what happens there and the month it happens in, with the source. Always check with the town before you travel.
Assisi
Province: Perugia · 424 m
A pink limestone town at 424 meters on the western flank of a mountain above the plain, the birthplace of Francis and a UNESCO site since 2000.
Bevagna
Province: Perugia · 225 m
Roman Mevania on the Umbrian plain at 225 meters, four medieval quarters that compete every June in a reconstructed market of the 13th century.
Foligno
Province: Perugia · 235 m
A valley town at 235 meters on the Topino, where Dante's Divine Comedy was first printed in 1472.
Gubbio
Province: Perugia · 522 m
Pre-Roman Ikuvium of the Umbri, where seven bronze tablets carry the longest text of the Umbrian language.
Montecchio
Province: Terni · 377 m
A small hill commune at 377 meters above the Tiber, sitting on top of one of Umbria's largest Etruscan-tied necropolises.
Amelia
Province: Terni · 406 m
A pre-Roman hilltown ringed by polygonal walls, with ten barrel-vaulted Roman cisterns beneath its main square.
- ✷ We've been
Castiglione del Lago
Province: Perugia · 304 m
Trasimeno's western promontory, once the lake's fourth island, fortified in 1247 and later frescoed for a marquis of Corgna.
Città della Pieve
Province: Perugia · 508 m
A red-brick hill town at 508 meters above the Valdichiana, the birthplace of Perugino and the home of Italy's narrowest alley.
Deruta
Province: Perugia · 218 m
A hill town at 218 meters on the left bank of the Tiber, the maiolica capital of central Italy since the late thirteenth century.
Fossato di Vico
Province: Perugia · 581 m
A medieval village on Mount Mutali at 581 meters, where the Via Flaminia's Roman waystation Hellvillum became a tenth-century castle still threaded by covered alleyways.
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Magione
Province: Perugia · 299 m
A hill town east of Trasimeno built around a medieval Order's fortified base.
Montefalco
Province: Perugia · 472 m
The hilltop wine capital of Umbria at 472 meters, where Sagrantino is grown almost nowhere else.
Narni
Province: Terni · 240 m
Narni is a hilltop town on a travertine outcrop above the Nera valley whose Latin name, Narnia, gave C.S. Lewis a word for a fictional kingdom he never set foot in.
Nocera Umbra
Province: Perugia · 520 m
A hill town at 520 meters on the Apennine slope, leveled by the 1997 earthquake and rebuilt, with mineral springs flowing since the sixteenth century.
Paciano
Province: Perugia · 391 m
Walled hill town of 957 people at 391 meters above the lake, three parallel streets, eight towers and three medieval gates intact.
- ✷ We've been
Passignano sul Trasimeno
Province: Perugia · 289 m
A near-peninsula on the northern shore of Lake Trasimeno, on the road Hannibal closed when he ambushed the Romans in 217 BC.
Sellano
Province: Perugia · 641 m
A medieval village in the upper Valnerina at 641 meters, twice flattened by earthquakes, now linked to Montesanto by Europe's highest pedestrian suspension bridge.
Spello
Province: Perugia · 280 m
Augustan Hispellum sits at 280 meters on Monte Subasio, its Roman gates still standing over streets that Pinturicchio once painted a chapel for.
Spoleto
Province: Perugia · 396 m
Lombard ducal capital at 396 meters under the Rocca Albornoziana, where a 230-meter aqueduct bridge crosses to Monteluco and Menotti founded the Festival in 1958.
Stroncone
Province: Terni · 451 m
A walled medieval borgo at 451 meters eight kilometers south of Terni, with a Franciscan convent traditionally founded by Francis himself in 1213.
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From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Cicala
Province: Catanzaro
A village of 887 people at 829 meters, founded in 1616 by farmers asking for land.
Fossombrone
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
An inland Marchigiano town on the Metauro river, layered over a Roman colony with a Renaissance ducal court rising above it.
Bagnoli del Trigno
Province: Isernia
The 'Pearl of Molise', a 637-resident borgo built into and around a massive limestone outcrop above the Trigno valley, with a medieval castle rebuilt on its summit.
Varenna
Province: Lecco
A fishing village founded in 769 on the Lecco arm of Lake Como, with a steep grid of streets falling into the water.
Rocca di Botte
Province: L'Aquila
At 750 meters on the Carseolani slopes between Abruzzo and Lazio, the birthplace of an eleventh-century hermit and a fief of the Colonna.