A World of Magic Cities and Byways of the Saints

The brilliant winter day was crisp, clear and not too cold. The sun glinted on snowy mountaintops far in the distance, giving a golden tinge to the earthy browns and russets of closer forested hills.

I was driving the satisfying curves of a country road in southern Umbria. The air was so clear it seemed to magnify everything in sight, and every so often there would come the scent of wood smoke from a farmhouse hearth.

As I rounded a bend I slammed on the brakes so I could take in an eerie panorama. Fog, white, dense and smooth, filled the valley below like a thick, silent sea. At intervals, for miles into the distance, the church towers and old fortified walls of a hilltop town or village poked up through the calm surface into the sunlight.

They were islands above the clouds, cities in the sky, floating and dreamlike, hard to connect with the reality of mundane life, or Italy in the 1980s.

“Here is Italia Mystica,” Englishman Edward Hutton wrote about Umbria more than 80 years ago, “full of lovely and magical cities and the byways of the saints.”

I drove on, more slowly. Umbria sits like a misshapen mitten on the Italian boot, inland from both coasts, at just about the point where the “calf” bulges into the Adriatic.

Oddly Remote Place

Despite its central location and famous attractions such as Assisi, Perugia, Orvieto and Spoleto, it remains oddly remote from the usual tourist routes, for most visitors to Italy a place to pass through en route between Rome and Florence.

But an excursion into Umbria’s hidden charms makes a perfect two- or three-day jaunt or even a day trip from Italy’s more famous tourist centers, taking the traveler into a region where the tourist can still feel like an explorer.

Todi, one of those cities in the sky overlooking the Tiber valley in central Umbria, makes a good base for such exploration. It is a two-hour drive from Rome, taking the Autostrada (toll road) to Orte, then the superstrada (expressway).

I would recommend, however, taking the Autostrada only as far as Magliano Sabina (the first exit after entering the toll road) and winding to Todi through the countryside.

The drive is gorgeous, the scenery good for the soul. Umber, the color of earth, is said to have been named for Umbria and “earthy” is a good description of the hues and features of the landscape, and of the rural life style and traditions that characterize the region.

Chestnut and olive groves, vineyards and tilled fields (including in the summer, brilliant yellow fields of sunflowers) cover slopes and valleys. Housewives cook over open wood fires and sheep occasionally block the road.

The lonely ruins of 800-year-old military watchtowers loom through the trees on isolated ridges and medieval fortified villages, looking much as they did 500 or 1,000 years ago, crown hills or were built halfway up a gentle mountain.

Huge Fortresses

Some, like Sismano and Casigliano a few miles from Todi, include the remains of huge fortresses. Park the car and walk inside through the village gates: You feel as if you are inside an ancient castle or citadel (you are). In Casigliano, for example, all the houses are arranged in a circle around a piazza, like pioneer covered wagons ringed for defense.

The larger towns, Otricoli and Narni, pyramid-shaped Amelia with its 2,500-year-old walls of hewn rock, the ancient spa towns of San Gemini and Acquasparta that still produce mineral water, all preserve the look of the past. It’s well worth it to stop to explore the narrow streets and stark medieval churches.

Roman Ruins Nearby

Nearby are other sights, such as the extensive Roman ruins at Carsulae between San Gemini and Acquasparta.

The Gabelletta restaurant outside Amelia is a favorite stopping place. Run by an Italian and his English wife, it serves traditional Umbrian fare, specializing in grilled meats--the guinea hen or faraona is delicious--and game. The pappardelle con la lepre , wide noodles with hare sauce, is excellent and the stuffed dried figs, an Amelia specialty, make a tasty sweet.

Todi, whose history dates back to before the Romans, sprawls down the steep slopes of a 1,300-foot hill, dominating the Tiber valley against the dramatic backdrop of the Appenine Mountains to the east.

The first view of the town is the spire of the 13th-Century Church of San Fortunato jutting from the peak of the hill, the medieval stone buildings of the town flowing down the slope. All within the circle of ancient walls, some of them dating to pre-Roman Etruscan times.

At the foot of the hill sits the extraordinary and totally unexpected 16th-Century Church of Our Lady of the Consolation, a tall, white, elegant dome and rounded Greek cross.

A Beautiful Square

Todi’s main square, Piazza Maggiore, is considered one of the most beautiful in Italy, even if its harmony is somewhat spoiled by its being used as a parking lot.

Like most of the town it is medieval, dating to the 13th Century, though it’s built on the site of the Roman forum.

The buildings seem simple, even austere, with their crenelated roofs and decorated, arched windows punctuating stark facades.

Palazzo del Popoplo, the town municipal building, dates from 1214 and is one of the oldest medieval public buildings in Italy. The Romanesque duomo, or cathedral, at one end, dominates the piazza from the top of a broad flight of stairs with its squared-off, flat facade and single spire. It is similar to architecture from the same period in other medieval Umbrian towns such as Bevagna, a jewel a half-hour drive northeast from Todi, and Gubbio to the north.

Inside the duomo are examples of medieval and Renaissance art, including some beautiful 16th-Century intarsio works, detailed pictures in inlaid wood.

With its steep, narrow streets, irregular piazzas and picturesque jumbles of houses built one on top of each other and connected with arches and vaults, Todi is a town for walking. Cars are a major aggravation, both parking and driving difficult inside the city walls.

Todi’s history is violent and warlike and, like most Umbrian towns, its hilltop position and strong city walls figured in defense. Walking down Via Cavour, the main street that leads for about half a mile from near Piazza Maggiore down the steep hill to the Roman Gate, once the main entrance into the town, one goes through three gates; they denote three concentric circles of walls, each built around the other as the town expanded.

Woodworking and Antiques

Todi is a center for woodworking and antiques. You can sometimes pick up bargains at the antique shops, specializing in copper work, near the main piazza. Also, each spring the town hosts a national antique fair as well as handicraft exhibitions.

Of several hotels in Todi, only one is at the top of the hill in the center, the plain but inexpensive Hotel Cavour ($30 double). The Hotel Bramante, just opposite the Church of the Consolation, is a pleasant place to stay, especially if you get a room overlooking the panorama of the valley. Double room with breakfast, $70. The luxury Hotel San Valentino, in a romantic old convent on a wooded hillside several miles outside of Todi, costs $125 a night double, with breakfast.

Several good restaurants are in and around town. My favorite is Cibocchi a few miles outside Todi, on the road to Fiore. It’s a mom ‘n’ pop place serving homemade tagliatelli and ravioli and the simple peasant fare that’s typical of Umbrian cooking: meat grilled on the hearth, chicken roasted on the spit, rabbit or chicken sauteed with olive oil, garlic, olives and tomatoes, and homemade pizza baked on an iron griddle--the traditional flat bread of Umbria known as torta al testo , with prosciutto ham. Nothing fancy, but it’s what the locals call genuina , genuine, and you can eat well for about $12, including local wine.

If you care for something more elegant, two of Italy’s best restaurants are within a 20-minute drive of Todi: Le Tre Vaselle at Torgiano on the superstrada north, and Vissani on the spectacular road between Todi and Orvieto along artificial Lake Corbara.

Torgiano is a wine-making area, and in the village is a wine museum, a “must” stop for the wine enthusiast, full of artifacts telling the history of wine making. Both the museum, the restaurant and the elegant Tre Vaselle Hotel, housed in a 17th-Century palace and costing $130 a night double, are associated with the Lungarotti vineyards.

Traditional Dishes

The Tre Vaselle serves traditional Umbrian dishes using seasonal ingredients of the region: thick green olive oil, local wine, truffles, herbs and game. A full-course meal, with wine such as the 1982 Rubesco, costs upward of $60 for two.

You can buy a cookbook giving the recipes for the restaurant’s specialties such as Easter cheese bread, roast rabbit with rosemary, truffled pheasant, gnocchi made with winter squash and others. The restaurant also offers cooking classes in English at various times of the year. (Contact the hotel/restaurant for details.)

Near Torgiano is Deruta, a little hill town famous for centuries as a center for hand-painted ceramics. The town is filled with dozens of workshops large and small. In any of them you can buy pottery in the traditional, brightly-colored Deruta designs of plant and bird motifs, and in most workshops can watch the items being made.

Vissani restaurant, recently given highest marks by an Italian restaurant guide, is an exclusive enclave serving imaginative, elegant dishes such as ravioli of shrimps in orange oil, many of them invented by chef Gianfranco Vissani, rather than traditional Umbrian fare.

It overlooks Lake Corbara at the foot of a 2,200-foot mountain. It’s worth it to take the road up the mountain to Civitella del Lago, a particularly lovely medieval fortress town with a marvelous view (an inexpensive restaurant, Da Peppe se Pappa, has a terrace overlooking it).

Farther on, over the mountain at Montecchio, one can visit the Bartolomei olive oil plant and, in late fall and winter, watch the huge stone wheels and presses squeeze Extra Virgin oil from mountains of olives, before buying some for yourself, or other local products, in attractive containers.

Celebration of Saint

If you’re lucky you’ll visit the Umbrian villages at the time of a festa . Each village celebrates its patron saint, usually in the summer, with entertainment, dancing in the piazza, food such as porchetta (whole roast pig) and sometimes a church procession.

Also, at harvest time in the fall many villages stage celebrations marking the end of the chestnut and olive harvests at which local products--oil, cheese, salami and the like--are sold and mountains of roasted chestnuts or bruschetta (grilled bread doused with olive oil and garlic) are eaten, along with local wine.

An especially interesting festival takes place on the Sunday after Easter at the Pasquerella Chapel, an old hermitage in a cleft in the hills on the banks of the Tiber off the Todi-Orvieto road. Hundreds come to attend Mass and have personal articles blessed by having them held aloft in front of a beautiful fresco of the Madonna.

Some addresses:

Hotel/restaurant Le Tre Vaselle, Via Garibaldi 48, 06089 Torgiano. Restaurant Vissani, Civitella del Lago (closed Wednesdays). Hotel Bramante, Via Orvietana, Todi. Hotel Cavour, Via Cavour, Todi. Hotel San Valentino, Fiore (near Todi).

Prices may change due to fluctuations of the dollar.

For more information: Italian Government Travel Office, 360 Post St., Suite 801, San Francisco 94108.