We have rented a house in Todi for a week in May and would like some suggestions relative to things we enjoy.
We have seen the insides of enough churches and castles. We enjoy seeing the charming towns, people watching, strolling through a town, having wine and sitting in a cafe, a nice but not necessarily "starred" restaurant meal, shopping and cooking on our own; is that living like the local people? We tend to be Slow Travellers in a slightly different sort of way.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kim,

Daniel:

Have you read thru this thread?
http://www.slowtrav.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=000628

Bill Thayer offers lots of ideas for things to do around Todi.

My thoughts: Are you guys much for walking, hiking? If you are, I'm sure there are many hikes in the area on which you could have an entire day's outing, enjoy the scenery, pack a picnic, end up at a nice trattoria for lunch, etc. You could explore the Monti Sibillini to the east of Norcia on the Umbria/Le Marche border -- supposed to be fabulous.

Do you want to take some drives? Have you been over to Pitigliano, Sorano, Sovana? There's an area there of Etruscan tombs which is very interesting. Also you might enjoy going over to Spoleto. Unfortunately I don't think that the festival will be going on yet -- I think it starts in June (but I may be wrong about that so you might check) -- but the aquaduct you can walk across is fantastic.

What we are really looking for are the nicest old hill towns, the places where you can lunch in a small garden with a view of ....something... easy walks through picturesque areas...no hiking, no climbing, no museums, but perhaps a small old church or monestary. Local shopping for food that we will cook in our rental house.

Daniel:

Gotcha. Sorry, I misread your first post. Well it looks like there'd be pleny of opportunity to find places like that. I just reread Bill Thayer's post -- the one that I gave the link to on my last post above -- and there are a lot of good suggestions there. Bill knows the area very well, as do others around here that either live in or out of Umbria. Maybe he or Decobabe or some of the others will post something here, but if they don't, you might like to email Bill with your questions and ask him for more specific recommendations that fit your criteria.

Cheers.

Always delighted Daniel to hear of someone sitting somewhere in Umbria (or elsewhere in Italy!) just enjoying life...

I'm taking you at implicit face value and not even thinking about anywhere more than say 30km away from Todi; and I'd start off for sure with Todi itself, since that's where you will, after all, actually be living.
Todi is somewhat untypical of Umbria in one sense: it's frequented by a fair number of non-Tuderti, including wealthy people from Rome and/or from the entertainment industry, who like the place because it's one of the more closed towns of Umbria. People keep a bit more to themselves than elsewhere in the region. That being said, you could do much worse than spend your afternoons and evenings in the piazza, one of the liveliest and at the same time most medieval around; and the Ristorante Umbria, though on its way slowly downhill since the 80+year-old owner/chef died and it has passed to his sons, is still one of the great places to eat, with a fabulous view. If you saw The Mouse That Roared, with Peter Ustinov, you will remember the piazza of Todi and other parts of town as well. The two caffés on the piazza are socially quite different: the larger one on the side is where we tourists tend to sit, and it's an older group; the other at the corner where the via Mazzini comes in, is a younger hangout.

Todi was a tough enemy in the Middle Ages: this will have an effect on your sittings in caffés. The comune of Todi, like that of Gubbio for the same reason, is one of the largest in Umbria; it has created a mild "desert" around itself, as capitals will. So in the immediate area around Todi, towns are small and maybe not so lively: if you want lively, you're back to hopping in a car and going quite a ways off. The nearest: Spoleto and Orvieto, each about 40km away in opposite directions, but that's not what you sound like you want? A bit better from your standpoint, because far less visited, but largish and lively and quite attractive, very urban despite its size: San Gémini about 30km SE of Todi on the way to Terni.

   Most of the many small places you see on your good map of Umbria -- the DeAgostini "Italia: Atlante Stradale 1:250 000" standard road map is what I have on my knees right now, but an Umbrian section of the same map is in the flap of the DeAgostini guide to Umbria -- are very quiet; I have friends who call them glum. Sometimes that means that although they're often lovely, there's no place to sit at all: no caffé, no restaurant. I lived in a little town (not in this area) for 3 months that has no caffé, just a Circolo Sportivo for the local men. Those little places that do have caffés, well, you may be sitting by yourselves looking at a passerby every five minutes. If you've taken a look at my diary, you may have noticed that I get to some charming town (Stroncone, Calvi dell' Umbria but many others) only to find that there is no restaurant open anywhere, even at lunchtime. Often these places seem to be too small to support a full-time restaurant: you have to go there in the evening, and then sometimes they're excellent, of course.

With all those caveats, my favorite Todi-area town for scenery, gardens, atmosphere is without a doubt

1. Portaria (comune of Acquasparta, about 20km SE of Todi). No outdoor caffé that I remember, but a snack bar with a balcony over a 40-meter sheer drop and a very nice view. One of the prettiest little towns in Umbria. As I mentioned elsewhere, there is a restaurant there, on an odd schedule, widely reputed excellent: I don't know it.

Others, in no particular order:

Titignano (about 15km W of Todi, off the old road to Orvieto). Tiny but just conscious enough of visitors that it might have a caffé, I honestly can't remember.

Bastardo, if you want typical. About 12km NE of Todi; nothing to see at all: a big agricultural town.

Collazzone. There is a caffé, and though there's a church etc., it's a working town; the views are lovely.

I know you said you're tired out of antiquities, but I'll take David's cue and recommend a place for a picnic that no one has ever come back to me and complained about, much the contrary. The Roman town of Carsulae, ruins out in some very green countryside, and super-quiet. No entrance fee or gate or anything like that, at least the last time I was there, when I admit it was crowded: I saw about 8 visitors in the few hours I was there. Staging area -- excellent sausage shops and so on -- is the aforementioned San Gemini, 5km away.

***
If you have that map in front of you, you'll notice I've skipped any number of places, even largish. Marsciano, Fratta Todina, Montecastello di Vibio, Massa Martana, Acquasparta, Avigliano Umbro, Gualdo Cattaneo. I'm either not so sure you'd like them -- Marsciano, Fratta and Avigliano, I'm not that keen on either -- or what I remember of them includes a good restaurant and a lovely town (M'castello) but not together, so to speak: the place to eat there is indoors.
   I've also skipped a lot of places I like, but they're tiny, and either there is no caffé (Petroro, about 8m NE of Todi, beautiful) or I don't remember any (Pesciano, 13km S, another lovely town, views, gardens, old stone), or in some cases (Doglio roughly 10km NW of Todi), the lone caffé is quite dismal: typical but will you like it?

[Giano dell' Umbria: haven't been there; I've heard good things -- fellow SlowTravelers?]

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Finally, if you didn't really mean the immediate area around Todi, but thruout Umbria, then it's back to the many previous excellent posts on this list. My personal faves for eating in a beautiful and/or lively town setting: Norcia, Trevi, Montefalco, Perugia (Il Sole: view). For caffés, in roughly descending order: Norcia, Orvieto, Spello, Castiglione del Lago, Deruta, Arrone, Castelritaldi, Costacciaro, S. Pellegrino (comune of Gualdo Tadino), Umbertide; plus Perugia, Città di Castello, Terni, these last very lively.
Narni -- fascinating place -- the one restaurant with a fabulous view, Il Grifo, is the only place in Umbria I've ever had a thoroughly nasty meal. (My good meal in Narni was in someone's house; failing which opportunity, if you have a liking for pastry, the big pasticceria on the main square is wonderful, and you'll be looking onto the Roman Via Flaminia, the medieval Duomo and other old stones.)

In cauda piscis,