Why visit Perugia?

On our trip around Italian region of Umbria started with a stop in the town of Perugia. It is interesting enough just as it is - one can wonder the narrow cobbled streets of this old Italian hill town for hours.

There is even a Mini Metro that will take you into the town center. You can for instance park your car at the city stadium for free and take the Mini Metro into the old town for just a few euros.

The charm of the old town inside the Etruscan walls is just one piece of its charm. Usually people can make the difference between a good and an excellent travel destination. It is no different in this case.

Perugia is the location where many world class events and festivals take place every year. It is well worth planning a trip with these in mind:

• Saint Ercolano's festival
• Saint Costanzo's festival
• Umbria Jazz Festival (this year also featuring Sting!)
• Umbria's Musical Festival
• Euro Chocolate Festival
• Fiera dei Morti (Fair of the Dead)
• ...and many more.

A visitor can get lots of useful information from the main tourist website dedicated not only to the town of Perugia itself, but also to many other nearby attractions worth the attention. If you are looking for exact dates of events mentioned above, PerugiaOnline.com is the information source of choice.
Besides these events the town has many other attractions (mostly historical) worth checking out.

However the main reason of our visit was a bit different. As you might already know Perugia is also the location of Perugina chocolate factory M. wanted to visit for quite some time.

You can expect a detailed report about a very interesting chocolate making class in one of the next posts.

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Wordless Wednesday: Chocolate moments in Perugia

For information about a Chocolate making class in Perugina, you can check out a related post on the link.

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Hill towns of Umbria and Marche

We have just returned from a short trip (4 days really is short) around Italian regions of Umbria and Marche. I am glad to say that despite the changing weather it was a great trip and definitely a place worth returning to.
These two regions are a little bit less known compared to the neighboring Tuscany. Fortunately this also means they tend to get a little less crowded.

During this time of year we were able to find budget accommodations for 45 EUR per night (for a double room with breakfast). You can easily find a decent double room in a two star hotel for 60 EUR per night but if you are on a tighter budget, you should do some research before the start of your trip.

Like Tuscany, Umbria is also a place where those green rolling hills seem to just go on forever in all directions. In my opinion charming little medieval towns sitting on tops of those hills are a highlight of the region.

It doesn't really matter if you are a history buff, outdoor enthusiast or you simply love good food and wine... you can definitely find all of those in these parts of Italy.
During this recent trip we tried to taste a little bit of everything. We even took part in a hands-on chocolate making course.

These are Umbrian towns we had on our list and you should definitely try to fit them into your schedule when visiting the region: Assisi, Perugia, Montefalco, Spoleto, Todi, Gubbio and Narni.
Since we suspected we were not going to make it to all of those, we only added Urbino and a small town on the Conero coast from the region of Marche. At the northern end of Marche region there is also a whole another country worth visiting - it is San Marino.

Sadly we did not make it to all of the charming hill towns on the above list. Since we did not want to jump between them in a hurry, we figured we would rather come back at some other time and devote each of them the attention they deserve.
I suggest you do the same and try to relax and really feel the energy flowing through those narrow cobblestone streets.

I will post some useful details from the places we actually got to visit in future posts. Stay tuned to Travel Photo Blogging!

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