For our last day in Umbria yesterday there was no question but to spend it in a hilltop town. The question was which one?
A great place to start for guidance is the organisation I Borghi piu Belli d’Italia (Borghi Italia Tour Network) which runs tourism promotion for the Most Beautiful Villages of Italy. According to the network, Umbria has the largest number of beautiful villages of any Italian region – 24. By its definition the most beautiful ‘Borghi’ are places whose …
…beauty, consolidated over the centuries, transcends our lives; whose squares, fortresses, castles, churches, palaces, towers, bell towers, landscapes, festivals, typical products, stories allows us to understand what the real Italy is, beyond the rhetoric, the most beautiful country in the world.
Quite something but when you have been to a few of their listed villages you can understand the enthusiasm. More specifically the Borghi are small clusters of houses built around a castle and often surrounded by protecting walls.
We choose Corciano as it is under an hour’s drive from where we are staying. It is midway between Perugia and Lake Trasimeno at the top of a hill overlooking the valley that links Tuscany and the Trasimeno area with the Tiber River valley. Its history dates back to Etruscan-Roman times.
The village is enclosed within 13-14th century walls and we walk the circumference in 20 minutes, rewarded with beautiful views of the surrounding countryside including olive plantations and on the way see school children returning into class.
There is a 13th century tower rising from the highest point of the village which is a central landmark as you explore.
As we have arrived at lunchtime it is best to follow the example of the Italians and settle into a good lunch. We have the atmospheric ‘cave’ of the restaurant of Locanda San Michele set in a 14th century building to ourselves and enjoy toasted walnut bread with smoked Scamorza cheese and stewed red chicory, potato ravioli filled with Tench fish from Lake Trasimeno with lemon and mint, gnocchi with Pecorino cheese, and lastly a delicious warm chocolate self saucing pudding with raspberry sorbet and traditional Italian ice cream cake with custard and candied pine nuts.
Going back to the description above of what makes a ‘most beautiful’ village we can readily see why Corciano is included.
After lunch we continue exploring and are impressed at how immaculate and clean the village is kept. When the staff return from lunch to the 15th century Palazzo Municipale (town hall) which was originally the residence of the Della Corgna dukes, we sneak in to take a look at the beautiful frescoed ceiling of the council chamber.
Inside the church of Santa Maria Assunta we see two noteworthy works of art – the Gonfalone by Benedetta Bonfigli (1472) and L’Assunta by Perugino (1513).
We would have liked to see the farmhouse museum Casa Contadina and the Museo Diocesano in the castle of Pieve Del Vescovo but they aren’t open.
We settle instead for a macchiato at a cafe overlooking the valley and head back to our villa to pack for the next day’s journey to Bagni Di Lucca in Tuscany.