Perugia to Rome, quickly

It does indeed take that long. You could rent a car which would make the actual transit between the two cities faster, but the time you would need to rent it and return it would eat up that advantage. You might want to list out your itinerary here and see if anyone has any suggestions.

Your travel information for train travel between Perugia and Rome is correct. In fact, some runs take just over 3.0hrs. Anything in that area of Umbria, including Assisi, is about 2.5-3.0hrs from either Florence or Rome. Most train travel to and from these areas are almost always on the slower Regionale trains. Even a day trip, which we have done to Assisi from Florence, is a long day. It's even a 2.0+ drive without stops in a car should you be considering that option. The distance between Perugia and Rome is about 110 miles.

Looking at the Perugia Airport website, I see that it is served only by budget airlines. So, you can't easily connect to a flight back to the US (it flies to airports that don't have US flights). I think you'll have to leave Perugia the night before your flight back home, unless you can get a VERY late flight out of Italy. I, personally, wouldn't chance even that. What if there's a train strike? I'd just get to Rome the night before, enjoy Rome that night, and fly home the next morning. If you want to do that, here's Ron in Rome's thoughts on why you should spend the night in Rome rather than a hotel "near the airport," and in it there's a link on what to do in Rome at night: http://www.roninrome.com/hotels-spas/hotels-and-bbs-near-the-fco-airport

Thanks for the input thus far!
Our itinerary has us in Rome for six nights, then going to Perugia for two nights. I think we may have to do six in Rome, one in Perugia, and go back to Rome for the final night...

How about Rome for five nights, two nights in Perugia, and your final night in Rome?

Are your travel dates flexible enough to put your Rome time at the end. It is more efficient to not just burn an overnight in Rome for departure. So arrive in Rome on the 19th and immediately travel to Perugia. Stay there for a couple of nights and then finish up in Rome.

We lived in Perugia for six months, and did this trip 5 times. We traveled by train three times, and by car twice. The train can be as quick as 2 hours, and upto 3 hours. The quick trains are more expensive, and are timed to get you into Rome from Perugia before 9 am it seems. They cost twice as much as the regular trains. You can check the train times here: http://www.trenitalia.com/cms/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=ad1ce14114bc9110VgnVCM10000080a3e90aRCRD (this does not seem to be working right now, but it's my bookmarked page so it should). Pick a day, put in Perguia for your departure station and Roma for your arrival station (or the other way round), and then put that you want to leave at 4 am. This will then show you all the available options of trains for the day, plus their times of transit. When we drove we took the toll road, and thought it was one of the most beautiful drives in Italy (and yes, we did drive the Amalfi coast and the CR222 in Tuscany!) For what it's worth, it's really easy to get to the Rome airport by car, and we had no idea how small and easy it was to get around the place...it's like a regional airport such as Sacramento or Spokane. If you're doing a one-way rental, our friends used Hertz down by the train station with great success. Cheers,
David

I should say that our favorite pizza in all of the Italy we visited for the six months was in Perugia, right off the main fountain plaza. Pizzeria Mediterranea. Amazing. I reviewed it on TripAdvisor here: http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g187907-d1508818-r131409678-Pizzeria_Mediterranea-Perugia_Province_of_Perugia_Umbria.html If you IM (or actually I think it is PM) me, I can send you a link to my blog on this place, and to my absolute favorite place to get that morning cappucino. Cheers!