Day trips near Orvieto

Cindy,
See http://www.discoversoriano.com/day-trips/

Henry, Have you been to this town?

Cindy,
No, I haven't been to Soriano del Cimino. If you need more information go to Slow Travel and look for 'Michael-Soriano' he lives there at least part-time.

Cindy, We stayed at a winery outside of Orvieto for two weeks and made day trips to towns in Umbria, Tuscany and Lazio, so you can cover quite a lot in a day. The towns we enjoyed closest to where you will be are: Pitigliano and Sovana just north of Lake Bolsena, Montefiascone (also near Lake Bosena with tremendous views of the lake), Tuscania and Civita. If you want to go further north you could easily do Montepulciano and Pienza or to the east Spoleto. We made day trips as far to the northeast as Assisi and Gubbio and to the northwest as far as Volterra. Volterra was the longest distance we traveled and it was about 2 1/4 hours from Orvieto. Of course, don't miss Orvieto.

I'm not exactly sure where you are staying, but we stayed 17 KM south of Orvieto in a town called Baschi back in 2003. We did a day trip to Deruta and Assisi from there and it was great. We did not spend a lot of time Deruta- just stopped into a couple of the pottery places. However, that left us with a lot of time for Assisi and we enjoyed it. We started out on a 2 lane road for a short while, but then we picked up a superstrada (four lanes) that was almost as fast as the autostrada but was free. Have a great trip.

Teri,
Thanks! That is really helpful! We plan to go to the Monster Gardens (can't remember where they are at the moment) and thought about Assisi. Do you remember how far that might be? We have two young teenaged boys. Do you remember any highlights from they towns you mentioned that were the most memorable?

Cindy,
What I would suggest is you look at photos at webshots.com (or other websites) of all the towns that you might be interested in and then go to mapquest and put in your starting point of Soriano nel Cimino (you have del, but when I put it in it came up nel so I hope it is the same one). Put in the towns you are interested in as your ending point and that will give you approximate travel time. Mapquest shows you about an hour south of Orvieto so you would be further than we were from Assisi. It took us about an hour and a half. Even if it takes you an hour longer, it is well worth the trip. This was our fourth trip to Italy. The first three were with Rick's tours and after seeing the main cities and getting a taste of the hilltowns, we decided to go on our own with a car. It was a fabulous adventure as there is just so much to see and do everywhere. We bought a map of Umbria and one of Tuscany at the first Autogrill we came to and they were invaluable. Also, Slowtravel.com is a marvelous source of info on driving in Italy. In addition to Rick's guides we also got Rough Guide to Tuscany and Umbria from the library. It has detailed maps of each town and info on where to park etc. Hope this info is helpful. If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask.

hopefully you will have a car. Civita.

Yes, we will have a car. This is the one place we plan to rent a car and are renting an apartment for a week just for the purpose of relaxing and taking day trips. I'm curious as to how long it might take us to get to Assisi or going west to the coastline. Are there any coastal towns we might want to check out? The closest larger town to us is Viterbo. And, yes, Teri, you're right - it is Soriano NEL Cimino. Thanks for all your info!

We enjoyed a visit to Civita and stopped at Orvieto on our way back to Umbria in summer 2007.

go to viamichlin.com. You can find all driving distances there, its really a great tool. You will be able to cover lots of ground from orvieto. The duomo is unreal, Signorelli's chapel is very special!