Umbria, between the hill towns of Assisi, Spoleto and Orvieto

Umbria lies in the middle of Italy, between Tuscany, the Marche and Lazio, and it is often called the green heart of the country. It has no coastline and no foreign border, and for a long time it was overshadowed by its famous neighbour, Tuscany. That has been to its advantage. Its landscape is softer and wilder, a country of wooded hills, valleys of olive groves and vines, rivers and lakes, and its hill towns, each perched on its own height above the plain, feel less crowded and more themselves.

Most of those towns were Etruscan or Umbrian settlements before the Romans came, and they grew in the Middle Ages into independent communes, each with its walls, its cathedral, its town hall and its rivalries with its neighbours. Walking between them, along country lanes and old paths, is the way to see how close together they are, and how different.

Assisi

Assisi is the most famous of them all, a town of pale pink stone on the slopes of Monte Subasio, and the birthplace of St Francis, who was born here in the late twelfth century, gave up his wealth to live in poverty, and founded the Franciscan order. The great Basilica of San Francesco, begun soon after his death, stands at the western end of the town on a massive arcaded base. It is in fact two churches, one above the other, and its walls are covered in frescoes by Giotto, Cimabue and others, among the most important paintings of the late Middle Ages, including the cycle of scenes from the life of the saint.

In 1997, an earthquake brought down part of the vault of the upper church, killing four people and shattering frescoes into thousands of fragments. The basilica was restored and reopened within two years, and many of the fragments were painstakingly pieced back together. The town and the Franciscan sites around it are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Bevagna, Montefalco and Spello

South of Assisi, in the valley of the Topino, lie a group of smaller towns. Spello, on the hillside, is a town of steep lanes and flowers, with Roman gates and frescoes by Pinturicchio. Bevagna, on the plain, is a small walled town with one of the loveliest medieval squares in Umbria and a Roman mosaic of sea creatures. Above it on its hill, Montefalco is known as the balcony of Umbria for its views over the valley, and for its wine, Sagrantino, a powerful red made from a grape grown almost nowhere else.

The countryside between them is classic Umbrian walking country, a patchwork of olive groves, vineyards and sunflower fields, with paths and white roads between farmhouses and the occasional chapel.

Spoleto and Orvieto

Spoleto, further south, is a town of Roman, medieval and Renaissance layers on a hill beneath a great fortress, the Rocca Albornoziana. Its cathedral has a fine Romanesque facade and frescoes by Filippo Lippi, and beside the fortress, the Ponte delle Torri, a medieval aqueduct bridge some eighty metres high, spans a deep wooded gorge. A path leads across it and around the hill beyond. Every summer, the town hosts the Festival dei Due Mondi, a festival of music, theatre and dance founded in 1958.

Orvieto, in the south-west of the region, stands on a sheer-sided plateau of volcanic tufa high above the valley of the Paglia, one of the most dramatic sites of any Italian town. Its cathedral is one of the great Gothic churches of Italy, its facade a blaze of mosaics, carvings and coloured stone, and inside, the chapel of San Brizio has Luca Signorelli's frescoes of the Last Judgement. Beneath the town, the tufa is riddled with caves, cellars and tunnels dug over the centuries, and the Pozzo di San Patrizio, a deep well with a double spiral staircase so that mules could go down and up without meeting, was dug in the sixteenth century to supply the town in a siege.

The holidays

Explore Worldwide's Upgraded: Walking Italy, Rome & Umbria, seven nights, combines Rome and its Testaccio district with walking in Umbria, at Montefalco, Bevagna, Assisi, Spoleto and Orvieto. It runs in May, June and September.

Travelsphere's Grand Tour of Italy, fourteen nights, travels the length of the country, from Venice and Bologna through Pisa and Florence to Orvieto and Rome, then south to Montecassino Abbey, Pompeii, the Sorrento peninsula, Calabria and Sicily.

Spring and autumn are the best walking seasons in Umbria, with mild weather, green hills or the colours of the grape and olive harvests. Summer is hot, but the towns come alive with festivals.