10 Things to do in Perugia

The visit of Perugia can only start from the central Piazza IV Novembre, the living room of the city and is the starting point of the five city streets. On the square, seat of the ancient Roman Forum but of medieval plant, overlook some of the most important historical buildings of Perugia, from the Palazzo dei Priori to the Cathedral of Perugia. Currently the square is the scene of concerts during the event called "Umbria Jazz". In the centre, there is the spectacular Fontana Maggiore, symbol of the city of Perugia: it is one of the most beautiful Italian fountains. Designed in Gothic style in the thirteenth century by Nicola and Giovanni Pisano, it is made of pink and white Assisi stone and surmounted by a bronze basin. The fountain is decorated in 50 bas-reliefs and 24 statues with which Nicola Pisano and his son Giovanni adorned the two concentric polygonal basins. In the lower basin are represented the months of the year with the signs of the zodiac and scenes of agricultural tradition and feudal culture, the liberal arts and characters of the Bible and history of Rome.

The Gothic Palazzo dei Priori was the public palace of the city, seat in the past and still today in part, of the Town Hall of Perugia. It is one of the best examples of medieval buildings of this type in Italy. The spectacular exterior is worth the interior, the Sala dei Notari, with arches and coffered ceiling, is richly frescoed, while the Council Hall boasts a fresco by Pinturicchio. The oldest part is the one that houses the Sala dei Notari, that is the corner part between the square and Corso Vannucci consisting of three three-light windows with trilobed portal on the square side and ten windows on the Corso side. It was the first construction site, built between 1293 and 1297 by Jacopo di Servadio and Giovannello di Benvenuto. Inside the building you can admire: Sala dei Notari, before 1582 called "Sala del Popolo" (People's Hall), is a large rectangular room made up of a sequence of eight transversal round arches holding wooden coffered roofs. The walls are covered with beautiful frescoes of the last decade of the thirteenth century that tell Legends, Biblical Stories and Maxims and depict coats of arms and captains of the people who succeeded each other in the government of the city. They are probably the work of the Master of Farneto and the Expressionist Master of Santa Chiara. The wooden stalls and seats are sixteenth-century; Hall of the City Council, located on the first floor is located where above the door is placed a fresco by Pinturicchio depicting the Madonna between two Angels. It preserves the original statues of 1272 of the Griffin and the Lion, which were outside the portal of the Hall of Notaries supported by corbels; Cappella dei priori, is located on the third floor, which was frescoed between 1454 and 1480 by Benedetto Bonfigli with Stories from the life of St. Louis of Toulouse and St. Herculaneum; National Gallery of Umbria, is located on the third floor of the building houses the largest collection of works of Umbrian art and some of the most significant works of art of central Italy, from the thirteenth to the nineteenth century exhibited in dozens of rooms with the works of Duccio di Boninsegna, Benedetto Bonfigli, Bartolomeo Caporali, Gentile da Fabriano, Beato Angelico, Benozzo Gozzoli, Piero della Francesca, Pinturicchio, Perugino, Orazio Gentileschi, Pietro da Cortona, Gian Lorenzo Bernini and others. Room of the Collegio del Cambio, frescoed from 1498 to 1500 by Perugino, with the help of his pupil Raffaello and furnished with a large wooden counter (Domenico del Tasso, 1492-1493) and seats along the walls (Antonio da Mercatello, 1508). The decoration is completed by a terracotta statue with an uncertain attribution (perhaps by Benedetto da Maiano) representing Justice. Room of the College of Merchandise, located in the second fondaco to the right of the main portal, is entirely covered by a late-Gothic wooden decoration. 

A bit of sweetness never hurts, and in Perugia it's quite easy to get it... Of course, visiting the Historical Museum of the city's most famous factory, the Perugina at the Nestlé Italiana S.p.A. factory. The museum, located in San Sisto, a few kilometers from Perugia, traces over a century of history of the famous chocolate, including period photographs, equipment and detailed explanations on the various stages of processing cocoa. The experience can be completed with a visit to the factory, or with a workshop at the Chocolate School. And, yes! there are the tastings.

It is accessed from the central Piazza Danti, a masterpiece of ancient hydraulic engineering. It is about 36 meters deep and is fed by at least three veins of water. It was the main water reservoir of the city in Etruscan and Roman times. The first 5.30 m of the cylindrical barrel are clad in large blocks of travertine, in the top part of which is a double truss that supported the roof in travertine slabs. In the cavity of the well you can admire the wooden beams used as a roof and proceeding down a tunnel, created at a later age once used as a cellar, you enter directly into the heart of the building through a wet and slippery footbridge through which you can admire its imposing majesty. The walls are large squared original blocks on which are highlighted the signs of the ropes used for water withdrawal, in the initial section of the barrel the wall is covered with travertine ashlars that are now covered with lime scale and mold due to the presence of moisture. Furthermore, on the blocks of the facing, alphabetical signs can be read, which can be traced back to those of the city walls. On the walls of the travertine cladding there is an opening, probably the feeding mouth of the well, which from here received water from the underground aquifers. The homogeneity of material and construction technique between the well, the tank of Via Caporali and the walls allows us to assume that the well was built as a public infrastructure and presumably placed along the main road.

It is located in Ponte San Giovanni 5 km from the center of Perugia, which is what is perhaps the most fascinating of the Etruscan memories of the Umbrian city. The Hypogeum of the Volumni is an underground tomb dating back to the second half of the second century BC. It is accessed through a steep staircase that descends underground, and is divided into several rooms where inscriptions were found and various urns decorated in travertine marble. The Hypogeum is part of the archaeological area of the wider Palazzone necropolis, consisting of almost 200 tombs. A steep and grandiose dromos (corridor) of access leads to the sepulchral chamber of Arunte and Lars Volumnio; the tomb is divided according to the layout of the Roman-Italian house, with the rooms around the central atrium.