Spello & Umbria, Italy, May 2019

1- Umbria, the Grean Heart of Italy 2- The Bed 3- The Quaint Town of Spello

4- Saint Francis's Assisi 5- Risiglia and Foligne 6- Montefalco and the Caprai Winery

7- Farm Tour with Life Italian Style 8- Truffle Hunting with Wild Foods Italy

9- Enoteca Properzia 10- Food and Wine

Umbria - The Green Heart of Italy

We wanted an Italian, food-filled, something you’d see in a glossy magazine, kind of vacation. Tuscany seemed like the obvious choice. But after some research we realized Umbria is where it’s at! We’ve all been to Italy before and were ready for a more authentic, rustic experience. Umbria is in the middle of the country and is known as the green heart of Italy. It has fewer tourists, more farms, great prices and lots of yummy truffles. We wanted an old city with atmospheric alleys, small, but with enough restaurant choices, a few things to do and a great base for day trips. Spello was perfect!

The Bed

After flying into Rome, we picked up our rental car and drove directly to Spello (avoiding the drive through the actual city of Rome). Driving in Italy is very similar to the US, but be ready for round-abouts and speeders! FCO (Rome) airport to Spello took about three hours. Monica, our Homeaway host, met us and walked us to what would be home for the week, explained how things worked, and gave us her number in case we needed anything during our time in Spello. She has renovated one of the old, stone buildings and has three apartment rentals inside of it. Our’s was listed on Airbnb, VRBO and Homeaway. We went thru Homeaway because it was a few dollars less. We read plenty of reviews and decided on Monica’s third floor apartment she dubbed Altana Suite. It was listed as a two bed, 1.5 bath with a kitchen and a living room with sofa bed. We were happy to find that the ½ bath, although small, had a shower as well. The kitchen was fully stocked including with fresh food, yogurt, eggs, prosciutto, strawberries, cookies, crackers and a cake made by her mother! We also could climb up the skinny stairs up to the rooftop veranda with views and a lovely breeze! When we booked our week at Monica’s Altana Suite it came to $164/night all in. A bargain and very comfortable the four of us

 Spello

Spello is a medieval hill town with about about 2000 people living inside the old walls. It was built by the Romans in the first century B.C. Located on the side of Mount Subasio there are vast views overlooking farms and other small towns. Its residents love to decorate their doorways and balconies with flowers. There is an amazing festival called Infiorata that happens 9 weeks after Easter each year and has families decorating the streets in intricate flower petal designs to pave the way for a bishop’s visit. It’s very popular so plan ahead for reservations at this time. At the top of town is an old Roman aqueduct made into a hiking path that takes you to the 20 person village of Collepino. It’s about a 1.5 hour hike each way.

The best Olive Oil tasting was at Extra Vergine Oleoteca. PierreLuigi, the proprietor, knows his stuff, will pair your tasting with a meal (need a reservation) or just with bread and cheese. Spello is on a hill, cobblestone covered and good for those that like to walk. During our first full day in Spello we walked thru a few interesting old churches, one has some beautiful artwork by Pinturicchio but it was closed for remodeling. We popped into a few cute shops where you can taste truffle products, look at the many items made out of Olive wood or view Umbrian salumis or artwork.

We went to VinaSofia, a wine bar right around the corner from our apartment, and tasted some lovely local wines which were paired with bread with olive oil and cheese.

Just one block outside the walls was a new mosaic interpretive center called Villa Dei Mosaici de Spello, or VMS. The audio guide helped explain how they were excavating for a parking lot and found the stunning mosaic floor of an early Roman noble’s home that was shown to have been built during the 1st century B.C. I would allot an hour or hour and a half to fully visit the museum.

Risiglia and Foligne

There are quite a few interesting, quaint and historic villages to explore less than an hour’s drive from Spello. One of those is Rasiglia, a tiny hamlet of 40 people with spring water running right through the middle of it. We jumped into the rental car and took off for this village up in the hills of the Appenine Mountains less than an hour away. There are reproductions of mills showing how they used the water to help mill flour or spin wool. There was a friendly cats and dogs wandering the streets and a couple of places to eat with pretty patios. On our way back to Spello we stopped in the larger city of Foligno, which is 6km (4miles) from Spello. It was founded as a city by Umbrians in the 8th century B.C., taken over by the Romans in 295 B.C. and now has a population of 57,000 people. We got some giant, square pieces of pizza at a hole in the wall pizza place, walked around the city for a half an hour, then went back for more of the delicious local pizza.

Farm Tour with Life Italian Style

What an amazing day! We booked our farm tour, which was from 10am – 4pm, thru Lifeitalianstyle.com well before we came to Italy. Jennifer, an American now living in Italy, is a private chef and has a food and wine tour company. We met her in a neighboring town and then followed her in our rental car to a small farm run by the charming, Marco, on his family’s land. We started in the kitchen at a large table, sampling his cheeses, salumis, fresh ricotta and jam and had a glass of “breakfast wine!”

After some nourishment we went over to see the animals and being that it was May, we were lucky to see so many babies! Everyone loved holding the 6 day old goat, petting the 1 month old foal that Marco is hand raising (bottle feeding every three hours around the clock!) Meeting Nina the pig, the small herd of sheep with plenty of babies, and the gentle cows also with a new baby. Inside a fenced field were chicken, ducks, geese and fluffy rabbits. We held a day old chick and gosling. We saw a minutes old gosling as well as one that had just made a hole in its egg to start the process of hatching. Spring on the farm!

Truffle Hunting Tour with Wild Foods Italy

We couldn’t believe anything could compete with the Farm Tour and then we went on the Truffle Tour with Wild Foods Italy! It was a long windy road up into the Apennine Mountains where we met Matt, a New Zealander that married into an old Italian family that has been on this large area of land since the 1400’s. We followed him to farmhouse in a very small village where we had espresso, a bit of breakfast cake and talked. Afterwards, we loaded into their tough suvs and went up into the countryside to find black truffles.

Seven Maremmano dogs appeared in the distance along with the sheep and shepherd. The dogs all quickly let us know that they were ready to get lots of pets and love from all of us. The truffle hunters made us some scrambled eggs and shaved some of the fresh truffles on top and served it with glasses of prosecco.

That night we had an amazing wine experience at Enoteca Properzia, a 7 minute walk up the main street of Spello. If you love wine and want to learn more about the region’s wines, how they pair with simple yet fabulous food, this Enoteca is the place to go. It is listed as the 3rd best enoteca in Italy. The proprietors are the father, son and daughter of the Angelini family. During the winter months they travel to the US to do private wine events for their best customers. The food features Spello olive oil, local Umbrian bread, the first tomatoes of the season and of course, black truffles. We didn’t even order our meal, they just kept bringing out whatever they decided to cook for us that evening! We loved talking to Lucca surrounded by cases and cases of wine during this festive meal!

Shoot an email to: doug@plazatravel.com if you have any questions or want more details about this, or any of my other trips!