Wine, olive oil and possibly the best pizza in Italy – a holiday in Umbria has it all

Vineyards rolling as far as the eye can see, ancient towns perched on mountains and lakes you can dive into and sunbathe alongside. Umbria is one of the smallest regions in Italy, but it sure packs a lot in.

An hour’s drive from Rome – which attracts celebs including Paris Hilton – Orvieto is a great base to explore the area’s offerings, including its world-famous wines and olive oil.

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For the ultimate in holiday luxury, live it up like a VIP and hire a villa or country cottage with a pool. Italian Country Cottages has a selection of idyllic properties from cute stone cottages to huge mansions – there is something for any occasion or party size. It works out much cheaper than a hotel.

We booked Casale Castelluzzo II, Lubriano, which worked out at less than £20 per person, per day (sleeping 10 people). A huge stone building with five bedrooms, an airy kitchen, spacious lounge and two outside eating areas, you won’t go stir crazy.

The best bit is the pool with loungers and a gazebo at one end so you can alternate swimming, sunbathing, drinking and playing card games with ease.

The cute town of Lubriano is a ten-minute drive from the villa and worth a visit for the views alone.

Civita – known as “the Dead City” because it has only 14 permanent residents – is reached only via a steep walkway from neighbouring Bagnoregio.

The journey may have proved too much for many residents but hundreds of tourists flock to the medieval city every day in high season.

Also worth a visit is Orvieto’s old town, built on a volcanic plateau. Just 20 minutes drive from the villa, you can park at the new town’s train station and catch the funicular railway up to old Orvieto.

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Check out the Duomo – a patchwork of baroque, gothic and art-deco style stripes. And stock up on wine, olive oil and chocolate pasta from Alimentari Stopponi Vera on Via Duomo. Two bottles of local plonk (Orvieto Classico and Sangiovese) came to just over a fiver.


It’s easy to relax at the villa and hang by the pool, surrounded by your mates and cheap supermarket food and booze.

But for a different day out head to one of the lakes. Lake Bolsena is lined with pizza places, coarse sand beaches and watersports centres. The azure water looks so inviting on a hot day, we couldn’t resist diving in to cool off.

There are also vineyards and olive oil farms around the area, where you can stop off for a tasting.

Food and booze are possibly the biggest attractions of this abundant region. We loved Il Frantoio, a restaurant in a cave, up in Lubriano. I shared a plate of faggotini – pasta twists filled with raddichio, pancetta, ricotta, mushrooms and cream – with a fellow greedy diner, as we wanted to try a meat dish too.

Everyone else finished their meals as we were still munching through our mountains of tender beef with black truffle shavings.

Best of all, the house wine was about £4 a litre, served in rotund earthenware jugs, and better than some of the more expensive bottles in UK supermarkets.

The food is so wonderful in Umbria you want to try everything. Pizzas with balls of soft mozzarella oozing with cream and the reddest, ripest tomatoes, perfect pasta, tender and tasty wild boar…

And the perfect gelato, from banana to pistachio (which comes deep olive green, rather than the synthetic pale green you usually get in the UK).

We even managed to track down the “best pizza in Italy” (and surely, therefore, the world?) according to a guide in our villa.
It took a drive down winding roads, a trip on the funicular railway to the old town of Orvieto  and getting lost in the cobbled alleyways. 
But finally there we were – about to be served this superlative pizza by a guy called...Charlie.

Pizzeria Charlie is so popular it recently moved to its bigger location from a small shop on the main street. The dough is thin, crispy and billowy at the edges and toppings range from buffalo mozzarella, tomato and basil to pecorino cheese with pear.
Now THAT’S amore.


We stayed at Casale Castelluzzo II, Lubriano, with Italian Country Cottages (italian-country-cottages.co.uk; 0845 268 8800; property ref US098). The property costs £1,346 for seven nights self-catered accommodation, based on arrival September 24, 2011.  Sleeps 10 with room for two pets.

Fly to Rome via Paris Charles de Gaulle with Air France (airfrance.co.uk; 0871 663 3777). Flights from Heathrow cost from £145 return.
Air France offers a choice of nine UK and Irish departure points, including London Heathrow, London City (with subsidiary airline CityJet), Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dublin.

You can hire a car from Car Rentals UK (carrentals.co.uk; 0871 434 1300) from £63 for three days.