Cooking and Walking in Medieval Umbria
(Options: Day Cooking Classes, Self Guided Version)
Umbria, Italy - 7 nights
Available year round
Umbria invites you to discover its history, beauty, delicious cuisine and warm people. This tour allows you to see all that this region has to offer by enjoying walking tours with a certified guide. You will be in awe of the beautiful Umbrian countryside with its vineyards and olive groves. Enjoy two hands on cooking classes at different venues so you can enjoy a couple of unique experiences with different instructors.
Stay in six different hotels and B&B's along the way. Your first night is spent with a wonderful family who will teach your first cooking class in a large comfortable kitchen. This home is a restored 19th century country house located 15 miles from Perugia. Your hosts will go over your itinerary for the coming week answering all questions you may have about this fascinating area of Italy.
Welcome to Italy for a week of discovery, walking, cooking classes, great cuisine and wonderful wines!
ITINERARY
Day One
You will be picked up at Perugia train station or airport. Transfer to your bed and breakfast where you will be welcomed with a detailed explanation about the week's tour.
Afterwards, you will participate in a hands on cooking course where you will prepare a five course typical Italian dinner, composed of antipasti (appetizer), handmade pasta, main dish (meat or a vegetarian dish), vegetables as a side dish and a dessert.
Your cooking instructor has been giving cooking classes for many years and will share some wonderful recipes and techniques with you.
For dinner you will enjoy what you have prepared. Following dinner your hostess will make you taste one of her handmade liquors prepared with local herbs and traditional recipes.
Welcome to Italy!
Day Two
After a classic Italian breakfast (coffee, cappuccino or tea, with fresh homemade bread and jam, yogurt and cereals, orange juice) in the garden or in the ancient kitchen of the bed and breakfast, your certified guide will walk with you through the Nestore valley to reach the Monte Vibiano wine cellar, the first farm in Italy to have reached the zero emission of CO2. There, you will go on on electric karts uphill to the vineyards and the olive groves and explain how the farm works and tell you about its history (there are some Romans remaining in the area!). Back in the cellar you will taste Monte Vibiano wines and their incredible flavoured extra virgin olive oil.
Your guide will then pick you up and transfer you to the superb town of Montefalco, to a B&B on the small street in the old center of the town. The afternoon is free, and you can walk along the town alleys and streets and do some more wine tasting on your own (there are enoteques and restaurants). Sagrantino di Montefalco is one of the best red wines in Italy, and its passito too is superb! There is a small museum to visit, organized in the ex Church of San Francis. Don’t miss looking at the characteristic fine fabrics of Montefalco, made with traditional methods using natural fibres like linen and cotton. Enjoy your dinner in any of the several small restaurants or enoteques in the old town where you can eat typical food, like gnocchi al Sagrantino or strangozzi al sugo d’oca, paired with local superb wines.
Overnight at hotel.
Day Three
From Montefalco, accompanied again by your local registered guide, you will walk downhill to reach one of the rare towns that in Umbria are have not been built on the top of the hill, Bevagna, that was set up as a Roman camp along the river Topino. Thanks to that, a thriving paper production was developed and you can still see nowadays an old house with all the wood equipment used to prepare it in the Middle Age, still functioning. You can even buy some handmade sheet of paper! On your way to Bevagna you will stop at the famous Cantine Caprai for a wine tasting and visit of the vineyards and wine cellar.
The guide will then leave you at your hotel, after suggesting several places where you can enjoy typical Italian food. Choose your restaurant or trattoria and then discover Bevagna, wandering from the unique square with three churches and the Palazzo dei Consoli, Piazza Silvestri, to its small streets and alleys, and some interesting Roman remains (you can admire a stunning mosaic inside a thermal small building). A good dinner in one of the typical restaurants or trattoria in Bevagna will end your day on a tasty note! Overnight at hotel.
Day Four
After a typical Italian breakfast with cornetti and cappuccino and more, your host will make you taste the best “cornetti” (Italian "croissant") of the area! You can begin your easy walk, accompanied by the guide, toward Cannara where you will have your cooking class followed by lunch at a local restaurant. Then, again a short walk to reach a lovely farmhouse where your guide will leave you. Here you can relax surrounded by the typical Umbrian countryside, mainly vineyards and olive groves, admiring the skyline of Bevagna and enjoy an aperitivo – tasting before dinner. The buildings are from the XV century, well restored to preserve the antique atmosphere. The cellar is specialized in the production of the passiti wines using old grapes’ varieties like Vernaccia di Cannara (very few farms produce it nowadays, vin santo and a Passito Bianco. The Passiti are called dessert wines because they are quite sweet (but no sugar added at all!) but they are paired at their best with local sheep or goats’ cheeses!
Dinner on your own this evening and overnight at hotel.
DAY FIVE
After a good night of rest in the countryside, your guide will accompany you in your walk toward Spello, to your hotel in one of the well preserved “rioni” (neighborhood) of the old town. This is the longest walking stage of the tour. The last kilometres to reach the top of the hill where there is the old town of Spello will be uphill. You will enjoy discovering the ancient city walking toward the top from the slopes, as you will be able to admire the ancient houses with their wonderful flowered balconies.
There are also several churches to visit, and Pinturicchio frescoes decorating the cappella Baglioni in Santa Maria Maggiore to admire. Your guide will show you an interesting Museum and the Pinacoteca, in the Palazzo dei Canonici, a well preserved building of the XVI century, that you can visit in the afternoon. You will also find ancient remains of the Roman times mixed with medieval ones.
Dinner tonight is on your own in one of the several gourmet restaurants in the center of the old town or taste wines in one of the two enoteques. Overnight at the hotel.
DAY SIX
Departing from your hotel with your guide, you will walk outside the ancient walls toward the top of the hill and then toward Collepino, a small village where it seems like time has never passed, as it is perfectly preserved. Going on the Spello loop you will find a path going downhill along the remaining of a Roman aqueduct. The view of nature surrounding you is stunning.
Back in Spello, the guide will drop you off at your hotel.
Enjoy a different restaurant for dinner, tasting local wines, superb extra virgin olive oil and typical food. Overnight at the hotel.
DAY SEVEN
You will walk toward Assisi, accompanied by your guide, along the “Path of the olives groves – Il sentiero degli ulivi” that will bring you straight in Assisi, to your hotel that is 3 minutes walking from the Basilica of Saint Francis. Enjoy this mainly medieval town, very well preserved. The Basilica di San Francesco is worth a visit, with its double church, the upper basilica with the Giotto frescoes telling visitors and pilgrims the story of San Francesco, and the lower basilica with its medieval aurea and the cripta. The guide will leave you at lunch time and you can then wander through the streets of Assisi, from San Francesco to the Church of Santa Chiara, the Dome of San Rufino, the Piazza del Comune.
In Assisi, we can recommend some restaurants and trattorie for dinner.
Overnight at hotel.
DAY EIGHT
If you wish, you can walk uphill till the Eremo delle Carceri (Saint Francis retirement) and spend another night in Assisi or transfer to train station or airport. Arriverderci!
GROUP SIZE
A minimum of 2 participants is required to run this tour and the tour is limited to a maximum of 8 participants.
(The number of participants refers to how many persons are required to run the tour, not to how many persons you must have in your party. Please inquire.)
HOW TO ARRIVE
By car, a 15 minute drive from Perugia, 20 minutes from Assisi and 1 hour from Siena.
*These details are provided as additional information. Please check below to see if transfers are included in this tour.
2024 Fees Per Person
GUIDED TOUR
Double Room/Starting From US$2375
Single Supplement/Please inquire
Non Residential Day Cooking Class/Please inquire
*Pricing may vary depending on market fluctuation
Deposit
After availability is confirmed, a 30% non-refundable deposit per person and the completed and submitted registration form will secure your reservation. Final payment is due in full 75 days before your arrival date.
2024 Dates
Available year round upon request based on availability for a minimum of two persons
Included
GUIDED TOUR
•Pick up and transfer from/to Perugia airport or Foligno train station
*Seven (7) nights' accommodation wtih breakfast
*One (1) cooking course with dinner
*One (1) cooking course with lunch
*Three (3) wine tastings
*Five (5) walks with a guide (half day each)
Airfare and personal expenses are not included.
For further inquiries or to register, click here.
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CANCELLATION POLICY
Please contact us for cancellation policy information. Travel insurance is highly recommended.
Furnished upon request.
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This exciting region is depicted below. You can also access Google MapsTM by clicking HERE.
*In some cases mapping may give clients a general sense of location due to changes in venue. Please inquire about specific location.
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