23/06/2026
It borders Tuscany, looks exactly like it, costs less, and the rest of the world keeps driving past it.
The hill towns
This is where the comparison stops being a trick and starts being the reason to go. Assisi rises out of the green slopes below Monte Subasio, its great Basilica of San Francesco covered in frescoes by Giotto. It is the one town here that draws a crowd, pilgrims from all over the world, and even so it never feels like Florence in August. Orvieto sits on a flat-topped volcanic cliff with one of the most spectacular Gothic cathedrals in Italy, a golden mosaic façade and a whole Etruscan city of tunnels and wells beneath it. Spello is built from pink stone and spills flowers from every windowsill. Spoleto has a medieval aqueduct bridge, the Ponte delle Torri, striding across a wooded gorge. Todi, Gubbio, Bevagna, Montefalco, Trevi, each one a walled town on a hill, and on most days you can have them almost to yourself.
The wine nobody warns you about
Tuscany has Chianti and Brunello, and everyone knows it. Umbria has Sagrantino di Montefalco, a deep, powerful red made from a grape that grows natively nowhere else on earth, and far fewer people have heard of it. Montefalco itself is called the balcony of Umbria for the view from its walls. For white, there is Orvieto Classico, crisp and easy, made in the hills around the cathedral town. You taste these along quiet wine roads where the cellar door is often the family who made it, and you pay noticeably less than you would for the Tuscan equivalent.
The food
This is truffle country. Black truffles come out of the forests around Norcia and end up shaved over fresh pasta for a fraction of restaurant prices further north. Norcia gave its name to the whole Italian craft of pork butchery, the norcineria, and its prosciutto and salami are protected by name. The lentils grown high up at Castelluccio are considered the best in Italy. The cooking is plain and serious, built on a few very good ingredients rather than a long menu.
One honest note
Norcia and the high country around Castelluccio were hit hard by the earthquakes of 2016, and parts are still being rebuilt, with scaffolding in the old centre and some businesses working from temporary buildings. The town is open, the shops and restaurants are running, and the welcome is as warm as ever. The plateau of Castelluccio, where the wildflowers bloom across the plain in early summer, is back to being one of the most beautiful sights in the country. Go, and spend your money there. They have earned it.
How close it is
This is the part that makes the whole thing absurd. Umbria is about two hours north of Rome. Orvieto sits right on the main Rome to Florence railway line, around an hour from Rome, so you can step off a fast train and be in a cliff-top medieval town before lunch. Within the region, Perugia to Assisi is twenty minutes. You do not need to choose between this and the famous route. You drive twenty minutes off it.
