Perugia

I don’t think Rick Steves has Perugia high on its list. His books can’t cover every single place in Italy. A book like that would be thousands of pages. There are other guidebooks you can buy which will cover Perugia. You can buy excellent chocolate anywhere. Cocoa trees don’t grow in Perugia.

Perugia is also a good base for day trips to places like Gubbio, Spello, Assisi among others.

Thank you miuccia for your detailed explanation. I will copy and save this for our trip. Robert...I never said I was going there just for chocolate. Your snarkiness is not appreciated nor helpful.
We have a full day in the Assisi area and we're looking at nearby towns to add to our day journey.

It was a some years ago but we enjoyed our time in Perugia. We chose it as a base, particularly because of easy transportation connections, and visited Gubbio, Spoleto and Assisi on different day trips. The TI office was very helpful in suggesting visits and best transport mode to each. If you are spending time in Perugia I can recommend the Hotel Sant’ Ercolano. It was a very reasonably priced, modest but completely comfortable stay. A pleasant breakfast was included and our room had a balcony looking across to Assisi. The hotel is conveniently located near the minimetro which we used daily. There were many students, many American kids, and as retired teachers we had a nice time, often sharing dinner tables with kids happy to chat with us. It was fun. I can’t recall major sights that “wowed” but that was nice too…a respite from feeling the need to charge around like a maniac 24 hrs each day ( we do plenty of that). There was a huge chocolate festival that we just missed or were about to, but we weathered on. Hope you enjoy your time, and safe travels.

I stayed in Perugia for a few nights in 2022 and enjoyed the city. The last video shows several places & things I saw. I also went to the painted stained glass laboratory.

The trinket shop in the first video is the only shop I saw while I was exploring all of the underground paths, but there’s some nice shopping in the main part of the city.

For Perugia, I stayed at a modern hotel, Locanda della Posta Boutique Hotel. I slept very well there, and they were very conscientious in 2022 about Covid cleanliness at their wonderful breakfast, timed for lots of space between diners. Perugia’s mini metro - the auto-boxes similar to a funicular on the ground were so handy to get from the train station up into the historic city! This hotel was easy to walk to from the last mini metro station.