One of the things I enjoy most about living in Italy is when you're driving along quiet country roads with an obscure destination in mind and you emerge from around a bend to find the place suddenly in front of you, completely unchanged from centuries past with no modern buildings or ugly suburbs and only olive trees and cypresses spread out below ancient city walls.
Our first view of Magliano in Toscana was like this, also Montemassi, Casperia, Trevi, Campiglia Marittima and many others; it's even better if you arrive from the west in the early evening when the town is warmly illuminated by the setting sun as happened on our visit to Gualdo Cattaneo while touring Umbria.
Despite the beauty of these small towns we thankfully never see any of those annoying instagram influencers when we pull over to the side of the road and take our photographs; long may that continue because these are all places to take your time to quietly appreciate without crowds.
You have to make a little bit of effort and know your way around Italy to replicate our experiences which is why, starting in 2025, we will be leading small group tours with various itineraries covering Abruzzo, the Maremma and Val d'Orcia in Tuscany and then Umbria too. If you think you might have an interest please get in touch at Mike@mykindofitaly.com
The resident who sells bread and olive oil also has a small gallery of old photographs showing the town in the 1930s under fascism. The sign (below right) in deliberately misspelt Italian reflects the local dialect.
Gualdo Cattaneo is a very small town that is trying very hard to stay alive and stay relevant and it is succeeding. When you drive through the Martani mountains that stretch down central Umbria all the way from Bettona to Terni you realize that tourism in this part of Italy is almost exclusively concentrated on all the famous towns that form a circle around these mountains.
This fact has not escaped the attention of the Martani communities so a tourism initiative was launched recently by 8 municipalities in this zone, including Gualdo Cattaneo in the north, Giano dell'Umbria (where we stumbled on the ancient olive tree), Castel Ritaldi and Spoleto on the eastern border and San Gemini, Aquasparta and Massa Martana on the western side.
In the middle of this zone is the abandoned ghost village of Scoppio so the initiative was named the Scoppio charter and its goal is to promote local archeology, hiking, food and wine with festivals and events to encourage a seasonal repopulation of this neglected area of Umbria. The initial activity has been to restore old paths and trails that reflect the local history of the transumanza.
Gualdo Cattaneo is a town with a 1,000 year history so it is an important part of Umbria's cultural heritage. In 1435 it came under the control of the famous condottiero Count Carlo Fortebraccio of Montone and then at the end of the 15th century it was owned by the infamous Rodrigo Borgia, at this time better known as Pope Alexander VI, and it was he who commissioned the military fortifications and defensive walls that are largely intact today. Galileo was one of the first visitors to the Rocca, as it is known, when he stayed here briefly in 1624 a few years before his trial for heresy.
The fireplace for grilling meat and the restaurant dining room with a fridge full of various huge cuts of meat. A very typical Umbrian theme in restaurants these days.
Gualdo Cattaneo is fortunate in having a very comfortable and well regarded hotel and restaurant right in the middle of the centro storico called Il Grottino, where we had dinner and spent the night; both the accommodation and evening meal here are very good value, especially for those accustomed to Tuscany prices. Il Grottino has a separate bistro a few steps away in the main piazza for breakfast and coffee which ensures that the centro storico will not lose its final bar and coffee shop like so many other small rural villages in Italy and the hotel also hosts jazz evenings in the summer.
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