Tuscany/Umbria Questions

Hi, We've just spent 5 months living in Perugia, and totally loved it. It's got all that you might need, with plenty of restaurants to choose from, plus very easy access to the likes of Spello, Spoleto, Montepulciano, Montefalco, Montalcino and such. We stayed in a fantastic apartment a short walk from town, with close access to a safe, free parking lot. We visited Cortona, and found it small and touristy compared to Perugia. There's really only one street to speak of with restaurants and bars, so the choice is limited. With Perugia having a foreign language university, there's plenty of studenty type places, plus plenty of local places, and a good few high class places too. Lots of choice. I agree with another responder here: Siena was worth a visit, but not worth a stay. It's an easy drive, though, from Perugia. If you're interested, send me a private message, and I'll link you to our blog, which has loads of pictures of Perugia, plus our travels around and about. Cheers!

Disclaimer: my husband and I love Cortona and have been there seven times so obviously we think it is the best place to stay. In 2005, we rented Pancrazi, an apartment in Cortona. It might be a good compromise for you. The apartment has four levels and the top level is a terrace where you can see across the valley. If I remember correctly, you can see Lake Trasimeno, in Umbria, from the terrace. one caveat though, Cortona is a steep town and you have to go up a LOT of steps to get to the apartment, and then there are a lot of steps in the apartment itself. I really liked the apartment though and thought it was worth the exercise. not to mention I think it helped with all the gelato I ate. we rented through classictuscanhomes.com. I think they still list Pancrazi.

Facing a similar challenge a couple of years ago, we stayed 3 nights in Siena and 3 in Montalcino. I liked this mix of "larger" city (Siena) and smaller town. However, we didn't really like Siena (I know people are screaming "sacrilege!") but are glad we saw it. We spent 2 nights in Orvieto and that is a wonderful town, especially at night. We also spent a week last year in Spello, Umbria, a hop, skip and jump from Assisi, Perugia and Spoleto.We liked staying where we could walk to dinner and not worry about driving. In fact, in Spello we didn't have a car at all. I would spend 6 nights and split it between two locations so you get a feel for the different locations. Maybe Montepulciano or Siena to see northern Tuscany, then Orvieto, Spello or Spoleto for the Umbrian experience. You cannot go wrong and will have a glorious time.

Siena and Assisi are easy day trips by car from Cortona. We have taken Anne Robichaud's tour of Assisi and Spello twice now and she is wonderful. If you take that tour, do the wine tasting in Spello. Montalcino and Montepulciano is also a good day trip from Cortona. You could even fit in Pienza probably. Orvieto is not too far from Cortona and the train might be the best way to get there. the train station is in Camucia which is down the hill from Cortona. Orvieto and Civita make a good day trip, but you might want a car if you are going to do Civita too. On our first trip to Italy we stayed in La Badia just outside of Orvieto and spent a wonderful evening in Orvieto.

Ditto the vote on Cortona. We spent a week 5 km outside of Cortona in the countryside with a view. We thought Cortona was a great location. We had a rental car, so it was right off the A1. We spent two days in Cortona, it's very close to the train station (we took to train to Florence twice), drove to Siena one day, Montepulchiano another day and our last day we drove up through the Chianti region on the way to the airport.
We drove into Cortona most nights for either dinner or gelato. For our trip to Tuscany next year we are visiting Montalcino but are staying IN town (and will still have a view of the countryside.)