Hotels in Perugia

Perugia

Perugia crowns a 493-metre hill above the Tiber Valley, serving as Umbria's regional capital and one of central Italy's best-preserved medieval cities. Its Etruscan walls — some sections dating to the 3rd century BC — still frame the upper city, where Corso Vannucci leads to the 13th-century Fontana Maggiore and the Palazzo dei Priori. Beneath the streets, the Rocca Paolina fortress, built by Pope Paul III in 1543 over a razed noble quarter, survives as an underground city open to walkers year-round.

Two distinct crowds fill the hotels here. Students attend the Università per Stranieri, founded in 1921 and one of Europe's oldest Italian-language schools for foreigners, giving the city a year-round academic energy unusual for a town of 160,000. Festival visitors arrive each July for Umbria Jazz, which has drawn artists including Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock since its 1973 founding. Chocolate tourism is a third draw: the Perugina factory in the San Sisto district, operating since 1907, produces Baci chocolates and runs a museum and factory tour. Every October, the Eurochocolate festival draws over 900,000 visitors to Corso Vannucci.

Trains connect Perugia's Fontivegge station to Florence in roughly 2 hours and to Rome Termini in about 2.5 hours via Foligno. The Minimetrò funicular links Fontivegge to Pincetto in the upper city in under 7 minutes.