Guides to the area
Perugia
Perugia is half an hour from the Casale. The centre sits on top of a hill, and the easiest way up is to leave the car below and ride the escalators, passing through a fortress. Nine stops on foot, in order: for each one there is the way to go, so you do not need a sat nav, and a curiosity.
Distance from the Casale
30 minutes.
Parking
Saba car park in Piazza Partigiani: the escalators take you to the centre, and they are free.
How long
About three hours with stops; the whole day with the museums.
Tips
Comfortable shoes. The Gallery, the Cambio and the Well have their own tickets and opening times.
The Rocca Paolina
From the Piazza Partigiani car park to Piazza Italia
How to get thereFrom the car park follow the signs for the escalators and ride up: they take you all the way to Piazza Italia, at the top of the hill. They are free.
Halfway up, the escalators enter an enclosed medieval quarter: Via Bagliona, with houses, doorways, windows and arches on either side. It is what remains of the Rocca Paolina, the fortress Pope Paul III had built in 1540, after the «salt war», swallowing up the houses of the Baglioni, the family that had led the city's revolt. Stop and walk around the underground passages before you take the escalators again.
Curiosity
The fortress was never used: Perugia was never attacked again, and it remained part of the Papal States until 1860. With the unification of Italy the people of Perugia partly demolished it; the underground passages remained, and since 1983 the escalators have run through them. On the front of the Rocca the architect Sangallo had reassembled the upper part of Porta Marzia, an Etruscan gate from the third century BC: it is still there, on Viale Indipendenza.
Piazza Italia and the Giardini Carducci
At the top of the escalators
How to get thereCome out of the escalators in Piazza Italia. The Giardini Carducci are on the side of the square overlooking the valley, a few steps away.
The Giardini Carducci are the city's balcony: from there you see the valley and, on clear days, the mountains around it. It is worth stopping for a minute before you walk down the Corso.
Corso Vannucci and the Collegio del Cambio
Corso Vannucci 25, inside the Palazzo dei Priori
How to get thereGo back to Piazza Italia and take Corso Vannucci, the pedestrian street that starts from the square and climbs to Piazza IV Novembre. Towards the end of the Corso is the great Gothic palace: the Palazzo dei Priori. The entrance to the Collegio del Cambio is at number 25.
Corso Vannucci is named after Pietro Vannucci, that is, Perugino. The Collegio del Cambio was the seat of the money changers' guild, and he himself frescoed its Audience Hall, between 1498 and 1500, when he was the most sought-after painter in Italy: one of the best preserved cycles of the Umbrian Renaissance, in a single room.
Curiosity
He is among the figures painted too: Perugino painted a self-portrait on one wall, with a plaque beneath it in which he praises himself.
The Sala dei Notari and Via della Gabbia
Palazzo dei Priori, on the Piazza IV Novembre side
How to get thereContinue to the end of the Corso, into Piazza IV Novembre. The staircase of the Palazzo dei Priori, opposite the fountain, leads to the Sala dei Notari. For Via della Gabbia: it is the alley that runs down from the square along the side of the palace to Via dei Priori.
The Sala dei Notari was the hall of the people's assemblies and later of the Notaries' Guild: an enormous hall, with great arched vaults and walls painted all over. Today it hosts concerts, conferences and events; when it is open, entry is free. Above the doorway at the top of the stairs are a bronze griffin and a bronze lion, the symbols of Perugia and of the Guelphs.
Curiosity
Via della Gabbia takes its name from an iron cage that hung there in the Middle Ages, in which people convicted of minor crimes were locked up, exposed to the stares and insults of the city. Sometimes the sentence was not death, but became so because of the conditions they were left in. Since summer 2026 a stretch has been fenced off because some stones fell from the façade: look at it from the corner.
The Fontana Maggiore
In the middle of Piazza IV Novembre
How to get thereIt stands in the middle of the square, in front of the staircase of the Sala dei Notari.
It was built between 1277 and 1278 to celebrate the arrival of water in the city: a new aqueduct brought it from Monte Pacciano to the top of the hill. It was sculpted by Nicola and Giovanni Pisano, the two most famous sculptors of the time; the work was directed by Fra Bevignate, the monk who also oversaw the Cathedral.
Curiosity
Walk around the lower basin: in its twenty-five panels are the twelve months of the year, each with that month's work in the fields and its sign of the zodiac. It is a farming calendar in stone, from 1278. At the top, the three bronze women holding the amphora are a copy: the originals are in the National Gallery, inside the Palazzo dei Priori.
The Cathedral of San Lorenzo
Piazza IV Novembre, opposite the Palazzo dei Priori
How to get thereOn the other side of the square, up the great flight of steps. You can also go in from Piazza Danti, at the back: that is the main entrance.
The Cathedral shows the square its side, not its façade, and the white and pink stone facing covers only the lower part: the building work, begun in the fourteenth century, was never finished. Inside, coming in by the main entrance, on the left, is the chapel of the Holy Ring.
Curiosity
The ring is, according to tradition, the Virgin Mary's wedding ring. It was in Chiusi; in 1473 a German friar, Winter of Mainz, took it and brought it to Perugia. Since then it has been locked in a strongbox that opens with fourteen keys, held by the city's institutions, and it is shown twice a year: on 29 July and 12 September. And the wooden Christ hanging outside, on the wall facing the square, has been there since 1540: the people of Perugia put it out before the salt war, swearing not to bring it back in until they had justice.
The Chapel of San Severo
Piazza Raffaello
How to get thereLeave the Cathedral into Piazza Danti, behind it. From there take Via Bontempi and then Via Raffaello to the chapel.
A small chapel with a fresco by two hands: Raphael began it as a young man, at the start of the sixteenth century, and Perugino, his master, finished it years later. It is the only work by Raphael left in Perugia, and pupil and master share the same wall.
The Etruscan Well and Porta Sole
Piazza Danti 18, then Via del Sole
How to get thereGo back to Piazza Danti: the Well is at number 18. For Porta Sole take Via del Sole, which starts right opposite the entrance to the Well.
The well was dug by the Etruscans in the third century BC, under what is now a palazzo: you go down inside, on a walkway, until you can see the water. Then, a few steps away, Porta Sole: the highest point in the city, with a viewpoint over the valley.
The Etruscan Arch, and the way back through the Volte
Piazza Fortebraccio, Via Cesare Battisti, Via Maestà delle Volte
How to get thereFrom the Porta Sole viewpoint go down the steps on the left: they lead to the Etruscan Arch. To go back, take Via Cesare Battisti, which starts to the right of the Arch, as far as Piazza Cavallotti; from there Via Maestà delle Volte brings you back to Piazza IV Novembre, and Corso Vannucci to Piazza Italia and the escalators.
The Arch is the largest gate of the Etruscan city, from the third century BC, still intact. Going up Via Cesare Battisti, on the left, you see the medieval aqueduct from above: the one that brought water to the Fontana Maggiore, turned in the nineteenth century into a raised walkway. Via Maestà delle Volte, at the end, is an alley covered by great arches, one of the most beautiful in Perugia. If you want to walk on top of the aqueduct: from Piazza Cavallotti turn left into Via Baldeschi, and shortly after, on the left, is the entrance.
Curiosity
On the Arch is written «AUGUSTA PERUSIA». Perugia was the last Etruscan city to enter the Roman world, after a war and a fire that destroyed it; when Augustus had it rebuilt, his name was carved on its gates. The palazzo opposite the Arch is the University for Foreigners: for almost a hundred years people have come here from all over the world to learn Italian.
In practice, from the Casale
If there is time: chocolate
The Perugina Chocolate House is a quarter of an hour by car from the centre, in San Sisto. Book ahead, online. Perugia in the morning, the factory in the afternoon: they fit into one day.
And in the evening
You are back in half an hour. Dinner at the Casale is served between 7:30 pm and 8:00 pm, by reservation.
Museums and monuments have their own opening times and tickets, which change with the seasons: check them on their websites before you set off.
Half an hour's drive, and dinner ready when you get back.
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