Quiet Umbria Surges with Spirit Continued from Page 1
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INSIDE: The Sporting Vacation 4 A Guide to New Italian Holiday? 6 Noteworthy Travels 7 UMBRIA Where to Eat and Stay TOWNS in Umbria 8 ASSISI, practically synonymous with St. Francis, is home to one of the most famous churches in all of Italy, the Basilica di San Ann Misura Francesco, begun in 1228 to hold the bones of the saint. DERUTA has been the ceramics capital of Umbria since the 13th century. If you’re dream of looking for decorative plates, this is the right place, although after a while, the towns many ceramic shops all look the same. GUBBIO has been called the perfect medieval hill town. Visitors can explore the Apennine Mountains, which look down upon the town. NORCIA’s claim to fame is meat.This tradi- tional town’s chief export is prosciutto. The ITALYVolume 3, Issue 3 www.dreamofitaly.com March 2004 Nursini have displayed fine butchering skills for centuries. ORVIETO, once an Etruscan stronghold, Quiet Umbria provides a window on the life and times of the Etruscans before the Romans sacked the Surges with Spirit city in 265 B.C. Visit three archaelogical museums and the tufa (soft rock) caverns tanding at an overlook at as Umbria has been dubbed, is not constructed by the Etruscans. Orvieto’s Orvieto’s hidden Piazza San overrun by tourists. striking Duomo is the city’s most popular Giovenale with only a neighbor- attraction. hood cat vying for the spectac- Umbria dates back to pre-Roman times S PERUGIA, the capital of the region, might ular view, I catch a late-afternoon sun when it was inhabited by Etruscans, an be best known as the home to Perugina dripping across Umbria’s rolling hills, enigmatic people who traded with the chocolates (yes,you can visit the factory).But a pastoral scene lifted from Greeks. Eventually, the area this city has much more to offer, including a the background of a 15th-cen- was colonized by Rome, then university for foreigners, an annual jazz festi- tury Perugino painting. Lying plundered by marauding val and national gallery devoted to Umbrian at the geographic center of Maria I. Di Cristina invaders during the Middle art. Italy, Umbria is a small, land- Ages. The forces of popes and locked region located midway emperors strafed the area for SPOLETO hosts music and art festivals, between Rome and Florence. centuries before the papacy most notably the world famous Spoleto Bordering well-known took control right up until Festival held each July. With numerous visi- Tuscany, it’s often dismissed Italian unification in 1861. tors, Spoleto offers good lodging and dining Foligno as that trendy region’s plainer options.Visit the 12th-century Duomo and sister—humbler, sparser, more rural. Descended from small, warring city- the Teatro Romano. But while Umbria lacks a city with the states that continually feuded with one TODI charms visitors from the moment star power of a Florence, it shares another, today’s towns peek out from they arrive.This hill town has a perfect piaz- much of Tuscany’s allure: medieval behind massive walls atop the steepest za, medieval streets and stunning vistas. Many hilltop towns, traditional culture and hills, testimony to their violent past. foreigners have discovered this gem and pur- food, and dreamy landscapes of silvery (As are town names such as Sanguineto, chased homes nearby. olive trees and vineyards. Best of all, continued on page 2 this “green heart of Italy,” Umbria is often called “Tuscany’s little sister.” Quiet Umbria Surges with Spirit continued from page 1 a reference to blood.) Isolation and An important Etruscan city, Perugia who lives in Orvieto and conducts insularity linger today, locals say. boasts ancient historical sights along a food and wine tours of the region, and People identify strongly with a particu- labyrinth of narrow streets funneling who kindly agrees to give me a primer. lar place and maintain inter-town down from Corso Vannucci, a pedestri- “This isn’t Italian cuisine because such rivalries. an boulevard lined with fountains, a thing doesn’t exist,” she explains small squares, and ancient buildings. shortly after we meet. “Food is always For travelers, this campanilismo, or Planning to spend a few hours there, I regional. Umbria has Umbrian food, “attachment to your own tower,” has linger for most of a day, engrossed in which is based on what is produced left a rich legacy. Ancient towns are the five-story palaces of polished stone, here.” well preserved. Local, traditional food pocked with age, and the lively street has survived almost unchanged. scene energized by street performers, Umbria is famous for its black truffles, Townspeople know and embrace their vendors selling pizza al taglio (by the the exotic, pungent fungi that grow history, which also is steeped in slice), and chic shops (Benetton cloth- underground in its oak woods. The saints, mystics, and pilgrims. ing, Calvin Klein watches). At dusk, I region boasts pork products—porchetta, Bloody Umbria is the birth- find myself still on the boule- roast pig stuffed and cooked in a place of St. Benedict, patriarch vard, strolling past sidewalk wood-fired oven, is a specialty—wild of Western monasticism, and cafes with townspeople and mushrooms, tangy pecorino cheese, St. Francis, whose vows of students participating in the and prized lentils. It produces some of poverty sparked a spiritual passeggiata, the regular Italy’s best olive oil and has a growing revolution in the 1200s. evening promenade. reputation for good wines. Whites “Umbrians are have dominated—Orvieto Classico is ‘Francesconi,’” an Orvieto In the following well known in the U.S.—but the coffee shop owner told me. days, I use Perugia as sagrantino grape, which produces a 2 “Reserved, modest people a base for day trips. It full-flavored, deep-colored red wine, is who are happy with a house, a lies within an hour’s car ride now all the rage. small farm….” to key areas—Lake Trasimeno, Gubbio, Assisi, Todi, Isidori has a handy philos- I arrive in Perugia, a sprawling city Spoleto, Orvieto—and also is ophy for food: Keep it sim- with a youthful, international flavor— within striking distance of ple and seasonal, and use it’s a university town with a major Tuscany. Each town has its only high-quality ingredi- summer jazz festival—and find it own appeal, but they tend to ents. On the road to resplendent with palazzi, churches, and seduce you in a similar way. Gubbio, we stop at Castello museums that trace the region’s turbu- de Magrano, where Remo lent history. A modern-day escalator Most have lovely churches, Gisella Isidori Giunta, a nobleman’s leads me up a jagged hill through Rapunzel-like towers, and descendant, makes com- Rocca Paolina, a fortress built by a pope terra-cotta-tiled houses mercial truffle-based in 1540 to subjugate the city. Climbing spilling down hillsides in sauces and foods. Having through an underground city of old postcard-perfect form. earlier found truffle- streets, the escalator delivers me near Country roads roam based oils too strong for the main square. Two massive build- through a harmonious my taste, I’m wary of ings dominate: the San Lorenzo cathe- blend of forest (scattered what’s being prepared: Gisella Isidori dral and the Palazzo dei Priori, a 15th- oaks, cypresses), cultivated crostini appetizers featur- century palace housing the National land (olives, grapes, sunflowers), and ing different truffle spreads, followed Gallery of Umbria. This art museum stone farmhouses in just the right state by a turkey Norcina (a paste of truffles, represents Umbria’s Golden Age, of neglect and neediness to stimulate garlic, and olive oil). But they’re sump- displaying Renaissance-era, religious cruel fantasies of bagging your day job tuous—smooth and aromatic, not the paintings created by Perugino, and moving to Italy. In addition, each blast of moldy earth I feared. “You’re Raphael’s teacher, Pinturicchio, and town has great food. used to products with chemical addi- Piero della Francesca. tives,” Giunta says. “They produce an This I learn thanks to Gisella Isidori, off-taste.” Umbria is the only Italian region that doe Gavin Crawford Gavin The next day, a dinner at Locanda about Umbria. While the region’s Solomeo Country House introduces me medieval looks initially seized my to formaggio di fossa, or “pit cheese,” a imagination, its food is providing the pecorino (sheep’s milk) cheese buried follow-through, connecting me to its and aged underground for three people and heart. “The food here is a months. “It’s the most expensive living tradition,” Isidori says that cheese in Italy,” Isidori whispers. evening. “In Umbria, the simple “Probably $80 a pound in New York.” tratorrie are the best. You see the roots I bite into a chunk. Sharp and extra- of the culture.” pungent, it tastes like Parmesan cheese Orvieto that’s been hiding out since Crawford Gavin Charlemagne. named Claudia Spatola-Faina, whose prominent Orvieto family bought the In Foligno, we visit Il Bacco Felice, an property in 1752. unpretentious wine bar with four tables squeezed in among shelves of When Spatola-Faina arrived in 1982, it wine. During a two-hour feast of had been abandoned, and today she snacks, Salvatore Denaro serves us has refurbished it by converting the robust Montefalco Rosso red wine and la farmers’ houses and barn into apart- cucina povera— ments and rooms. More rustic than Orvieto humble, soul- continued on page 8 ful, inspiring If the food hooks me, the landscape Maria I. Di Cristina peasant food outside Orvieto reels me in for good. dream of that causes me Dramatically perched high atop a vol- 3 to stop taking canic bluff as if floating in clouds, notes and lose Orvieto combines the best of old and myself in a new, offering magnificent medieval ITALY procession of palaces with cosmopolitan galleries, Kathleen A.