Changing in Orte is quite wrong-headed, and wouldn't be the first time Trenitalia steered people wrong, as the FS did to me on my second trip to Umbria in 1994. . . .

Orte is S of Spoleto; why do they want you to go to Orte and double back?? Come to think of it why do they want to send you thru Florence??? The train route is straightforward, down the Adriatic coast from Venice to Falconara Marittima (just short of Ancona), and a single change: change for the Rome train, get off in Spoleto. If you stay on that train, of course, you'll wind up in Orte and may, if it appeals to you, turn around and go back to Spoleto!

Orte-Spoleto is not a regional carrier, either. It's a segment of one of the major national lines, the Rome-Ancona.

Well, I asked why....

(The 1994 time, though, was definitely an error: for Todi, they routed me from Rome to Perugia, then train S to Todi. The same train, had I done more footwork, should have taken me to Terni then N to Todi and got me there about 2 h earlier.)

B