15 lu itinerary mrt
DESCRIPTION
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Living Umbria
Staying in Montefalco
Visiting Spoleto, Bevagna, Deruta, Spello, Perugia, Assisi and Orvieto with 2 optional walks
In a setting of unsurpassed beauty nestling at the heart of the Italian peninsula, the valley of Umbria is a dream landscape of serene valleys and fortified hill towns, vineyards and olive groves. The 7 day itinerary explores a region rich in an extraordinary wealth of history, art and some of the oldest architecture in Europe. The towns and villages offer a blend of art, history, food, wine, landscape and crafts that makes them worth a week of anyone's time. From one central and comfortable base in Montefalco you will experience the lifestyle and varied riches of Umbria. Guided visits are organised to impressive locations within the towns where Etruscan arches, Roman architecture and Renaissance frescoes form a fascinating collage. You will wander through local markets, delightful piazzas, enjoy a wine tasting of award winning wines and be brought face to face with a vibrant and attractive way of life that has deep roots in an ancient past while admiring the many architectural and artistic features that enrich the central Italian province of Umbria. In addition two optional walks are offered through dream landscapes of extraordinary and uncontaminated beauty.
LIVING Ita l y
Detailed itinerary
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Montefalco Day 1 Sunday L D
You will be met outside the main entrance of Foligno railway station at 11.30am and transferred to your accommodation near Montefalco arriving at approximately 12.00 noon. After lunch on the estate we walk up to the medieval town of Montefalco where you will be introduced to the art and history of the town. Known as "the balcony of Umbria" because of its lofty position and views over the fertile plain below, the town keeps itself busy as the centre of the Sagrantino wine zone. It also has a tradition of woven linen and linen-‐cotton, kept alive today by the Pardi family. In the Museo di San Francesco, the impact of Benozzo Gozzoli's Saint Francis fresco cycle of 1452 is as fresh and direct as ever. A wine tasting in the town's delightful piazza will be followed by dinner at the accommodation. Spoleto Day 2 Monday B D We travel to Spoleto, a town rich in Roman and medieval history, and explore the ancient Roman centre of the town including the Roman house and visit the Duomo to see Filippo Lippi's final fresco cycle. There is also free time to wander the streets, shops and cafes in this evocative town. Umbrian Farmhouse Holiday: the gods of small things. Ute Junker. Sydney Morning Herald 16 Nov 2014 Bevagna & Deruta (optional walk) Day 3 Tuesday B D Down in the valley and just a short distance from Montefalco, Bevagna is one of Umbria's most evocative towns. An optional walk taking approximately 2 hours can be arranged. The town contains Roman ruins and has a beautifully evocative piazza encircled by three churches. There is some free time to enjoy the ambience of this delightful Umbrian town and we visit a medieval house and roman mosaics as part of the guided exploration of this small gem. Bevagna's other essential sights are San Michele Arcangelo and San Silvestro, the two Romanesque churches that face each other across the intact medieval main square, Piazza Silvestri. Both are fascinating, but my favourite is San Silvestro; its utter lack of adornment and steeply raised presbytery radiate a stern purity. Later in the afternoon we travel to Deruta to explore the ceramics in this town of artisans since medieval times where you will be shown through a selection of some of the 300 outlets selling the famous majolica or brightly coloured plates, and bowls. Spello Day 4 Wednesday (optional walk) B D Today is market day in Spello which warrants a visit in itself. There is a walk around the labyrinth of floral decorated streets to take in the atmosphere and visit the local traditional art and artisans shops which populate the town. The splendidly intact town walls are draped around the centro storico like a necklace. "Hispellum" was originally a Roman settlement – it lay on the Via Flaminia consular road, close to the strategic junction for Perugia. The most impressive remnant of this stage of the town's history, apart from the walls themselves, is the Porta Venere, an Augustan-‐era gate flanked by two 12-‐sided towers, standing in magnificent isolation on the west side of town. Most of the other sights are strung out along Via Cavour, the main street, beginning with Santa Maria Maggiore. This church has a finely sculpted medieval portal, but the real treat is inside: the Cappella Baglioni side-‐chapel is decorated by one of Pinturicchio's most joyous and colourful fresco cycles, painted in 1501. Spello's real pleasures, apart from its two standout sights, are the civilised pace of life of the town and the lovely Subasio marble from which it is built, which takes on a peach-‐pink hue around sunrise and sunset. The day includes a guided visit to the Baglioni Chapel decorated with superb frescoes by the Umbrian Renaissance master Pinturicchio. An optional walk along an ancient Roman aqueduct can be arranged. 2 hours approx. Perugia Day 5 Thursday B D Perugia is Umbria’s largest town. The morning is free in Perugia for shopping and lunch. Once an important Etruscan settlement, Perugia has piled up layers of history ever since, turning Renaissance palaces into shops and inserting modern escalators into medieval remains, Perugia’s surprising underground city. Our afternoon guided tour includes a walk through the medieval ghost town under Rocca Paolina. The virtual underground city was a stroke of genius by the architect who was ordered to destroy the area. After Perugia lost out in a salt war in 1540, Pope Paul Farnese III crushed part of the medieval city and built a new fortress, the Rocca Paolina, on top. But he left entire streets intact beneath, which still have their pavements, tall doorways and rooms with windows and fireplaces. Some are now incorporated into the system of escalators that bring visitors up from the lower town. The tour also includes a visit to an Etruscan well and the extraordinary Etruscan gate from the 2nd century BC
Mary Rossi Travel Suite 205, 40 Yeo Street, Neutral Bay
Tel +61 2 9957 4511 Email: [email protected]
Please note: The program is always subject to variation in order to accommodate seasonal variations and activities, including local festivals. The essential content of the itinerary will remain the same. B L D means that breakfast, lunch and/or dinner will be included that day.
THE ACCOMMODATION While in Umbria you will return every night to the tranquillity and comfort of the Fabrizi family Agriturismo, a sixteenth century farmhouse nestling high on the hillside just outside the walls of Montefalco, with spectacular scenery stretching across the valley to the Apennines. The term 'agriturismo' applies to a category of family run hotels in a rural setting. The property is the home of a distinguished Italian family with a basis in agriculture, who have been in residence here since the 16th century. Four of the farm buildings have been converted into high quality accommodation, with a swimming pool. The complex is surrounded by fruit trees, olive groves and vineyards. There are twenty rooms, all with their own bathroom and private entrance. The rooms are not air conditioned but the thick walls, the window shutters and the shady trees keep the temperature pleasant even on hotter days. The swimming pool in the garden is wonderful for fresh morning swims or a soothing dip on hot afternoons. The accommodation is ideally situated for visits to the nearby hilltowns that are such a feature of this region. Whether relaxing in the shady garden or by the pool, or strolling past vineyards and olive groves, you will appreciate the serenity of the country setting. Montefalco has a long history of being one of the best producers of olive oil in the central Umbrian region and one of Montefalco’s Sagrantino red wines is officially listed as the best in Italy.
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Assisi Day 6 Friday B D We spend the day in Assisi, the home of St Francis, Italy's favourite saint. There is a guided walk available in the morning from the hermitage above Assisi or you can simply enjoy the time exploring the town. The afternoon includes a guided tour of the town, including the Roman remains under the still-‐standing temple of Minerva, and the Basilica of San Francesco with Giotto's frescoes which decorate the lower church.
Orvieto Day 7 Saturday B D In the morning travel to Orvieto, a ruggedly beautiful hilltop town, where there will be free time to visit the weekly markets and to explore the town centre with its fascinating array of shops, cafes and an award-‐winning gelateria. The day includes a guided visit to the Duomo, among the greatest of all Italy’s cathedrals, containing the work of Luca Signorelli. Signorelli's greatest work was a series of frescoes done for the cathedral of Orvieto. These hallucinatory imaginings introduce a heightened sense of drama and a new, almost paranoid degree of spiritual extremism into the art of early-‐16th-‐century Italy. Apocalyptic hysteria was in the air at the time, epitomised by the activities of the charismatic Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola in Florence. Signorelli has the dead miraculously rising up from the ground, heaving themselves bodily out of the earth to emerge into the afterlife. Keen to demonstrate his knowledge of anatomy, he included several risen souls as walking skeletons awaiting the restoration of their flesh. The apocalyptic brilliance of Luca Signorelli inspired Michelangelo and many other renaissance masters. Cocktails and last supper at the accommodation. Foligno Day 8 Sunday B On the last day of the tour you will be transferred to Foligno Station leaving the accommodation at 8.30am, in time for the 9.18 train to Rome. Individual transfers at a time you prefer can of course be arranged