Inspiration: discover the Blog

Two Umbrian cities sixty kilometres apart offer, between them, the complete range of what this region does best: sacred art of the first order, one of Europe's great performing arts festivals, extraordinary food and a landscape of sustained beauty.

From the autostrada below, Orvieto appears hallucinatory: a medieval city perched on a sheer plug of volcanic tuff three hundred metres above the plain, its skyline dominated by a cathedral facade that may be the most beautiful in Italy. We design the visit that does the reality justice.

Norcia, Assisi and the beating heart of Italy — the case for Umbria in November, when the region is at its quietest and its most authentically itself. There is a moment in early November in the upper Valnerina, the high valley that runs eastward from Norcia toward the Sibillini, when the chestnut forests above the town turn the particular bronze that the late Italian autumn produces and the smoke from the wood fires of the small villages drifts low across the valley floor. Th