We are a family of three and hope to stay 6-8wks in Umbria, but am having trouble picking a suitable town to stay. We don't want to rent a car but we also don't want to stay in a really big city. want to cook for ourselves as well.Any suggestions would be welcome.

Welcome to SlowTrav!
Cathie, is there a particular reason you don't want to rent a car, for at least a small portion of your stay? It would certainly open up your choices. In any case, the question has been addressed before in previous threads. Using the advanced search from the "find" button will locate them, but here's one to get you started--
Carless Base in Umbria

And I hope you've found your way over to the main site, which has massive amounts of imformation to help in your research and planning.

If you really do not want to rent a car, I suggest you stay in Perugia, it's a lovely college town, good public transportation, and from the stazione there, you can easily connect through Roma Termini for train travel to other parts of Italy... or elsewhere in Europe, certainly the bordering countries.

Amy
Just getting used to how this message board works, thanks so much for your suggestions. We don't want a car to be burdened with the hassle or with the expense. We are just farmers hoping to take our son on a historical tour and to experience a different culture, perhaps even check out some small farm operations similar to our own. My husbands family is Italian, yet relatives are too distant to look up.
thanks for the input.
cathie

I recently spent two weeks in Todi in Umbria without a car. I know others have talked about how difficult that can be but I found it no trouble at all. I visited Perugia twice. Assissi, Spoleto, Spello and Terni. I also took a bus from Todi to Massa Martana, hiked the Via Flaminia to Carsule(ancient Roman town) and took the train back. There is good bus service from the train station to Todi centro.

I took the train from Rome to terni and transferred to the local train line to Todi with no problems.

All of this involves some transfers and some organization of schedules but all the information is available from the Tourist office in Todi or the train station. I just did my planning after dinner each night or on the train. Most trips were well under an hour one way.It is best to leave around nine Am and the last train/bus connection is about seven PM but that never presented a problem for me.

Todi is a wonderful city to explore with good restaurants and wonderful views. I can highly recommend the place I rented, Apartment alba and the wonderful landlords, Jens and Maria. See my review in ther vacation rental review section.

No Italian relatives are too distant to look up. I wouldn't expect to stay with them, but if you can make some kind of contact, it will add a lot to your trip.

>>No Italian relatives are too distant to look up.<<

That's exactly what I was going to say...and I might I amend it to say that no Italian contact is too remote. If you can make a connection with someone who lives in Italy, it will almost certainly enrich your experience.

What a wonderful gift to your your son and yourselves. I'm also in agreement w/others about your relatives. Italians love to welcome their families, especially "long, lost" family....

Todi is a good choice, but you might also consider Orvieto, as it's just on the train route, yet a self-contained mini city. It's an hour to Rome by train, a little longer to Florence, and buses to some of the other places in Umbria that were mentioned. Farms all around in the surrounding area.......Anyway, you have many good choices. Have a great time, ciao, Cheryl