Guides to the area
Rasiglia, Bevagna and Montefalco
A day in three towns. In Rasiglia the water runs between the houses and once turned looms and mills. In Bevagna, on the plain, medieval crafts are still done by hand, in the workshops. In Montefalco, on top of the hill, there is Sagrantino and the widest view in Umbria. The mountains in the morning, the square in the afternoon, sunset from the balcony.
Distance from the Casale
Rasiglia and Bevagna 45 minutes, Montefalco 50.
Parking
Rasiglia: the former sports ground. Bevagna: Piazza Garibaldi, at Porta Cannara. Montefalco: Porta San Francesco.
How long
A whole day: Rasiglia in the morning, Bevagna for lunch, Montefalco at sunset.
Tips
In Rasiglia the cobbles are slippery and a pushchair will not do. In Montefalco you taste Sagrantino: decide beforehand who is driving.
Morning · park at the former sports ground
Rasiglia, the village of streams
The spring
At the top of the village, below the remains of the castle
How to get thereLeave the car in the free car park at the former sports ground: after the village sign, about two hundred metres on, turn left, following the signs. From there it is less than ten minutes on foot to the village, partly alongside a small stream. Enter the village and climb, following the water upstream, to the top.
Rasiglia stands at 648 metres, in the Menotre valley, and is built like an amphitheatre around the water. It all starts at the top: the Capovena spring comes out of a rock, inside a cave, at the foot of what remains of the castle of the Trinci, the lords of Foligno. From there the water runs down in channels, streams and little waterfalls between the houses, under the small bridges, beside the doors.
Curiosity
There are six springs around the village. And the channels are not decorative: people dug them, century after century, to bring the water into the mills, woollen mills, dye works and houses.
Via Marco da Rasiglia and the loom
The longest street in the village
How to get thereFrom the spring go down towards the village and walk along Via Marco da Rasiglia, the longest street in the village.
From the fourteenth century onwards, with water as their power, fulling mills, woollen mills and dye works grew up here: Rasiglia is recognised as a site of textile industrial archaeology. Along the main street there are open rooms with the tools of the time — carding machines, spinning wheels, wooden looms — and a building taken up entirely by a mechanical Jacquard loom, still in place.
Curiosity
In its golden age, in such a small mountain village, there were three woollen mills with their dye works, the mills, a post office and even a branch of the Cassa di Risparmio di Foligno. At the foot of the spring there is still the small early twentieth-century hydroelectric plant that powered the woollen mills.
The mills
Along the channels
How to get thereFollow the channels downhill through the lanes: the mills stand along the water.
The same water turned the mills: four are remembered, and they worked until after the war. Two date from the fifteenth century, and the Silvestri mill still has its tools. Usually each mill had two millstones: one for wheat flour, one for other grains.
Curiosity
One of the mills, from 1478, is now inside a restaurant in the village: you eat next to the millstone.
The Peschiera
The centre of the village
How to get thereAll the streams lead there: follow the water to the big pool, in the heart of the village. Then go back to the car park.
All the streams end in a large pool, the Peschiera: it is Rasiglia's square, but made of water. From there the water goes on towards the river Menotre. It is the place to sit and listen: in Rasiglia the sound of water never stops.
Afternoon · park at Porta Cannara
Bevagna, the square and the crafts
Piazza Silvestri
The heart of the town
How to get therePark in Piazza Garibaldi, next to Porta Cannara, outside the walls; at some times of day you pay. There is a free car park, five minutes from the centre, at the sports facilities in Via Madonna delle Grazie. Go in through Porta Cannara, cross Piazza Garibaldi and walk along Corso Matteotti to the end: it comes out in Piazza Silvestri.
It is considered one of the most beautiful medieval squares in Italy, and its irregular shape makes it unique. On one side San Silvestro, from 1195; opposite, San Michele Arcangelo, with its spired bell tower and three portals; between the two, the Palazzo dei Consoli, from 1270, with its staircase, and a nineteenth-century fountain.
Curiosity
Next to the door of San Silvestro an inscription says who built it: Master Binello, in 1195. The same Binello, with Master Rodolfo, also built San Michele, opposite. And San Silvestro, together with the covered market, was a set for the 2019 television series «The Name of the Rose».
The Teatro Torti
Inside the Palazzo dei Consoli
How to get thereIt is on the square: the entrance is in the Palazzo dei Consoli, up the staircase.
Inside the medieval palace is a nineteenth-century theatre, opened on 28 August 1886: three tiers of boxes, a gallery, 251 seats. It is one of the smallest theatres in Umbria, and it is still in use.
Curiosity
The palace was the town hall until the 1832 earthquake. The theatre was wanted by the townspeople: they formed a committee in 1871, and it took fifteen years to see it open.
The Roman town
The baths, the temple, the theatre
How to get thereFrom the square, the Roman remains are a few steps away: follow the signs for the baths mosaic and for the temple, then look for Via dell'Anfiteatro, with its curving houses.
Bevagna was Mevania, a Roman town on the Via Flaminia, and today's main street still follows the ancient one. Of the second-century baths, the floor of the frigidarium remains: a large black and white mosaic with sea creatures. The Roman temple has become a church, the Madonna della Neve. And of the theatre, what remains is not the theatre but its shape: the houses of Via dell'Anfiteatro still follow the curve of the seating.
The medieval crafts
The workshops of the Mercato delle Gaite
How to get thereThe workshops are in the districts of the centre, around Piazza Silvestri. Then go back to Porta Cannara along Corso Matteotti.
Every year, at the end of June, Bevagna goes back to the fourteenth century for ten days: it is the Mercato delle Gaite, held since 1989. The four districts, the gaite, reopen the craft workshops and the residents live dressed as they did then: they work, eat and play like their ancestors.
Curiosity
The workshops are real: there is the paper mill, where paper is made from cotton rags; the chandlery, where candles are made of pure beeswax; the silk works, which follows silk from the silkworms on mulberry leaves to the loom; and the mint, which recreates how the coins that circulated in Bevagna in the fourteenth century were struck.
Late afternoon · park at Porta San Francesco
Montefalco, the balcony and Sagrantino
The Balcony of Umbria
On the hill, a few kilometres from Bevagna
How to get therePark at Porta San Francesco, practically in front of the main entrance to the town. From there Via Matteotti and then Via Ringhiera Umbra take you in a few minutes to Piazza del Comune.
Montefalco stands on a hill at 473 metres, between the valleys of the Clitunno, the Topino and the Tiber, surrounded by vineyards and olive groves. Since 1568 it has been called the «Balcony of Umbria», because from here you can see almost all of it. It has a double ring of walls with five gates, and its lanes radiate from a circular square. On the square is the town hall from 1270: from its tower, with 110 steps, you see the whole valley.
Curiosity
In 1907 Hermann Hesse, the author of «Siddhartha», passed through and wrote about it. The sunset from the balcony is the reason to leave Montefalco as the last stop of the day.
San Francesco and Benozzo Gozzoli
The civic museum, in the former church of San Francesco
How to get thereThe museum is in the former church of San Francesco, along Via Ringhiera Umbra, between the gate and the square.
The church was built between 1335 and 1338, and has been a museum since 1895. In the apse is the reason to come: the Stories of the Life of St Francis painted in 1452 by Benozzo Gozzoli, a pupil of Fra Angelico. There is also a Nativity by Perugino, and below, in the friars' cellars, since 2024 there has been the Sagrantino Museum.
Curiosity
If you have done the Assisi walk, here you find the same story: the life of Francis, told by a Florentine painter a few kilometres from where it happened, a little over two centuries later.
Santa Chiara della Croce
In the San Leonardo quarter, along the walls
How to get thereFrom Piazza del Comune the church is about ten minutes away, along Via Tempestini and Vicolo del Castellano. Then go back to the square, and from there to Porta San Francesco.
This is not Clare of Assisi: it is Clare of Montefalco, an Augustinian mystic who lived between 1268 and 1308, the patron saint of the town. She had the first stone of the church laid in 1303, and died there five years later. Her body is kept in a silver urn; from the sacristy you enter the chapel of Santa Croce, with fourteenth-century frescoes.
Curiosity
Inside the convent of the enclosed nuns there is a Sagrantino vine about a hundred and fifty years old: it is considered the oldest in Montefalco and in all of Umbria.
In practice, from the Casale
The day
Rasiglia in the morning, when there are fewer people. Then Bevagna, on the plain, for lunch and the early afternoon. Montefalco last, for the museum and for the sunset from the balcony.
When
Rasiglia can be visited all year round; at weekends in fine weather it can be very busy. In Bevagna the Mercato delle Gaite is at the end of June: the exact dates change every year.
And in the evening
Dinner at the Casale is served between 7:30 pm and 8:00 pm, by reservation. In Montefalco you taste Sagrantino: decide beforehand who is driving back.
Water, crafts, wine. And dinner ready when you get back.
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