Perugia and Assisi

Your chauffeur/guide from Discovery G Tours will welcome you at your hotel or any other place of your convenience at around 8.00am (suggested time). This private tour of Assisi and Perugia begins with a lovely drive north of Rome into one of the Italy’s most picturesque regions, Umbria. Umbria, one of Italy’s smallest regions includes the Lake Trasimeno, the fourth largest lake of Italy called Lago Trasimeno and is crossed by the River Tiber where Hannibal defeated the Romans in 247 B.C. The regional capital is Perugia.

Once arrived in Perugia your chauffeur/guide will introduce you the city and suggest the most famous sights to see and visit as the Maggiore Fountain, the gothic Basilica of San Lorenzo and the Town Hall within Palazzo dei Priori. The town of Perugia, however, is characterized not only for its artistic and architectural treasures, but also for its cioccolato events, first of all “Eurochocolate“, the exhibition dedicated entirely to chocolate. It takes place every year in the month of October, the streets and main squares of the city, attracting many fans and always greedy who come here from all over Italy and abroad, to taste the many varieties of chocolate available, the various dishes made with chocolate prepared by top chefs and pastry chefs in their booth, and to admire the sculptures of chocolate made by expert craftsmen.

If time permits we can drive up to the Eremo delle Carceri, a small hermitage in a steep forest gorge at the Monte Subasio, in Umbria, in middle Italy, four kilometers above Assisi, the steps and bows of which arch over a quatrefoil-shaped hole in the smooth pink stone: the so-called “Devil Hole”, a grotto. The word Carceri is from the Latin ‘carceres’ and means “isolated places” (as well as “prisons”). In the 13th century, Saint Francis of Assisi returned here during his life to pray and contemplate as did other hermits before him. When he first came in 1205, the only building here was a tiny 12th-century oratory. Soon, other men followed him to the mountain, finding their own isolated caves nearby in which to pray. On the way back to Rome enjoy a final stop in the town of Santa Maria degli Angeli (Saint Mary of the Angels) to see its beautiful basilica, is a church situated in the plain at the foot of the hill of Assisi, Italy, in the frazione of Santa Maria degli Angeli. The basilica was constructed in the Mannerist style between 1569 and 1679 enclosing the 9th century little church, the Porziuncola, the most sacred place for the Franciscans.

Back to rome at around 6.00pm.