Umbria Travel Forum

We are looking at booking a holiday to Umbria next June. We would like to book for 10 days but can only find accomadation in week blocks. Are there any sites that can be reccomended? We are hoping to stay in a smaller country town. If possiable we would like to avoide renting a car and rely on train/buses for getting around. Which area would we need to be looking at staying? Please let me know if it would be advisable just to hire a car.
Any infomation given would be gratefuly received.

Well, what do you plan on doing for those ten days? People often go now to agriturismos, in order to spend a week or more at a working farm (often even working themselves), with little intention of going anywhere. But many of the agriturismos are not only out of town, but are hard to get to, even with the local (slow) bus service.

If you stay in a town with the intention of "getting around", do you mean getting around in the town, or doing day trips to other places? If so, you will likely want a town that has a train station.

And if you want to actually stay in a country town for 10 days, what will you be doing? Walking the streets, drinking the local wine, and eating whatever the local specialties are? While this can be idyllic, for non-Italian speakers, this can become tedious rather quickly in a small town, where there isn't that much to see anyway.

So give us a better idea of what you would be doing; otherwise, I don't know what to tell you...

Bill

There are plenty of reasonably priced hotels to be found in and around the Perugia area. Get on to www.venere.com. As for transport, the train goes from Perugia to many other places in Umbria e.g. Assisi, Orvieto Spoleto and Terni to name a few and most of these are only a short train trip from Perugia. Of course you may want to stay at some place smaller than Perugia. If so, check out the trains on the Trenitalia site to ascertain what the transport will be like to get to see other towns. I love Assisi especially staying in the old city on top of the hill, but Spoleto with its Roman Theatre and Amphitheatre, Duomo with lovely frescoes, and the Rocca Albornoz overlooking the town is another very interesting place to see. When you say you are looking for 10days accom and can only get it in 7 day blocks is that because you are looking for an apartment or a villa maybe? If so, perhaps you could stay for a week in one place and then get a hotel somewhere else for the other three days. You're going to have a great time. Best of luck.

Stay at a lovely countryside villa, apartment or agriturismo for one week and then the remaining 3 days/nights spent in either a big city (Florence, for example) or at another hotel, B&B, pensione, apartment or agriturismo in another part of Umbria, Tuscany, Le Marche or Arezzo areas. You will need to choose carefuly if you want to be able to use only public transport and trains. Make sure the place you choose is either in or near a larger city with bus/train connections there or that you are very close to a bus stop that can take you to a city or town with the appropriate connections. Personally, I would plan on having a car for at least a few days in order to visit some places that are not easily or even possibly reacheable by public transport. Alternatively, hire a driver and guide one or two days to go wine tasting or visiting cities reacheable only by car.

www.venere.com and www.florenceby.com have excellent listiings for accommodations of all kinds and links to other places you might research.

Buona fortuna! LL