mail: Bill Thayer

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Umbria: the 92 Comuni

A region of central Italy: 8456 sq. km. 2003 population: 834,000. Capital: Perugia.
— and around the map, some of my favorite places, repeated.

My six stays in Umbria have totalled only about fifteen months — but Umbria is still the part of the world I know best: since 1993 I've walked something like 2000 km of the countryside, almost always with a camera. Inevitably then, this site is, at least potentially, one of the best Umbrian resources online.

I've visited every one of the 92 comuni. On the map above, each one links to an orientation page, and often quite a bit more, depending on just how much work I've done on the formal side of the site: currently (Jan 08), the best-developed subsite is Spello with 49 pages and 60 photos. Even where I may not have got round to writing an in-depth site, though, the orientation page links to my diary, where there is often a fair amount of additional information and photos. As of Jan 08, my Umbrian site as a whole runs to 571 webpages, not counting translations; my diary to a couple hundred pages more. In addition, each orientation page includes an index of other people's sites, so the map in front of you is the single most comprehensive source online for Umbria, because almost none of those other sites link to each other. (If you're having trouble finding a particular place on the map, you can also navigate to it from this alphabetical index.)

Places shown as are larger towns or cities.

Places shown in red are those I specially like. (Here, I had to be pretty selective, else the whole map would be bright red.)

In addition to the places shown and linked on the map — all of the region's 92 comuni or townships — a few other places, not comuni, are worth noting for their beauty or historical interest; and also because people often know their names without knowing what comune they might be in:

Those of you planning a trip to Umbria, especially without a car, and wondering what your best base might be, will benefit from this discussion of the question, with map, of course.

This site also includes detailed information on train stations and accessibility for each of the 92 comuni — just how steep is each of these beautiful hilltowns, anyway? — and by and by, this non-driver will scrounge up a bit more information on parking; all of it here.

If you are less interested in modern than in ancient roads, I've made a fair start on the Via Flaminia; this important Roman road is covered in about 25 pages and 60 photos over its entire length from Rome thru the Lazio, Umbria, the Marche to Rimini in Emilia-Romagna. I'm still working on it, so expect a bit of "construction" and continuing additions and improvements.

More generally, I've collected on a single orientation page, with links as appropriate, all the information I have on Roman remains in Umbria.

Umbria is well known for its many churches, some few of them going back to Roman times, many of them Romanesque, many of them with beautiful frescoes or sculpture. For those who prefer a topical approach to this important side of Umbria, I am continuing to develop my Churches of Umbria site: in Apr 08, the site covered 427 churches in 263 pages and 1038 large photos.

Finally, if you read Italian, the first instalment of what I hope will be a series of useful texts; this one, a 120‑page book on three Umbrian towns, with 105 photographs: Giulio Urbini's Spello, Bevagna, Montefalco.

Umbria is essentially a rural region; the icon I use elsewhere, as in the navigation bars at the foot of the page, to indicate this part of my site is a photo of a stone table — and a chicken discreetly seeking the shade — in someone's garden a couple of miles SW of Todi.