SMALL GROUP COOKING AND TREKKING IN UMBRIA
4 days cooking package holidays in Umbria - GUIDED HIKING TOUR

Welcome to Umbria! This package is especially offered to fans of walks and trekking who want to discover the most fascinating hidden places of our region. These walks through the gentle landscape of Umbria take us through a countryside that is timeless. Umbria is a region well suited to a walking pace and there is much to absorb. Walk through a varied countryside of rolling hillsides, vineyards, olive groves and forests alive with colour.
Trekking paths in Umbria is a great experience to fully enjoy panoramic valleys.
One can learn much by travelling along ancient pathways which once had a different use than today routes used for commerce and communication; a part of history we must not forget and which you can keep alive.
In this package there will be time for a culinary experience with wonderful cooking lessons in the farm! Reservations are on request for any day, year round, based upon availability, for a minimum of two people.

DAY BY DAY ITINERARY OF THE TOUR

Day 1 - Arrive in Perugia
Arrival at the country farm "La volpe e l'uva" (Perugia, Central Italy, Umbria, near Tuscany). Check-in your apartment at 4:00pm.

Day 2 - Walk to the Etruscan Tomb of Faggeto
Hands-on cooking class starts around 10:00am. You will prepare a four course lunch that you will eat at the end of the class, accompanied by our wines.
The tour take place from 15.00, A guide By the Association Monti del Tezio will bring you by car in the departure place of the path and will accompany you on the paths.
Difficult: medium
Average excursion time: 2 hours
Length of the path: km 8,00 km
The departure place is in the park of Monti del Tezio (580m). During the path you will walk along the old Etruscan road that, in the past, linked Perugia to Camucia ( Tuscany). You will see the old church of S. Gratignano (475m) and the little village of San Giovanni del Pantano (385m). Here there is a medieval church with frescoes by Gerardo Dottori, Italian Futurist painter and pioneer of 'Aeropittura'. The path will end at the Etruscan Tomb of Faggeto. The Faggeto tomb was discovered by chance in 1919-20 by a woodcutter, in a beech wood (faggeto), from which the name of the tomb derives. Situated on the slopes of Mt. Tezio, at Cresta della Fornace near the hamlet of San Giovanni in Pantano, in the Commune of Perugia, it is dug into the banks of sandstone and is preceded by an access tunnel. The burial chamber is small and rectangular, and is built with blocks of sandstone laid in three rows, covered by a vault made from five large stones. The bench for the deceased is at the rear and takes up half of the floor. The front is crowned with a triangular pediment, and the slab of rock for sealing the tomb has conical knobs that act as hinges, set in the threshold and in the pediment, allowing it to be opened and closed. When the tomb was discovered it contained a travertine cinerary urn and a few burial objects. It dates to the second half of the 2nd cent. BC.
Download the map of the itinerary

Day 3- Valnerina
Hands-on cooking class starts around 10:00am. You will prepare a four course lunch that you will eat at the end of the class, accompanied by our wines.
The excursion take place from 15.00 to 19.00 with a professional guide: The Valnerina Valley around Norcia was a main area for retreats, and a centre of spirituality because of the early presence of Syrian monks, who provided the base for the following development of the Benedictine order. Woods, abbeys, landscapes and…truffle flavour are to be experienced along the valley of the river Nera . You will visit the Church of St. Benedetto: built upon the birth place of St. Benedict and his twin sister Scolastica, it preserves a few Roman remains. You will also visit the Romanesque St. Eutizio Abbey, early hermitage for Christian and Oriental anchorites and later a famous Benedictine monastery. Professional guide in the excursion.

Day 4- Walk to the "Neviere" of Monte Tezio
Hands-on cooking class starts around 10:00am. You will prepare a four course lunch that you will eat at the end of the class, accompanied by our wines.
The tour take place from 15.00, A guide By the Association Monti del Tezio will bring you by car in the starting point of the path and will accompany you on the paths .
Difficult: medium
Average excursion time: 2,30 hours
Length of the path: km 5,700 km
This walk begins at the base of Monte Tezio (580 m). Start by ascending the tarmac road on the right until you reach the gate; this is the entrance to the national park. Takes the natural path through the woodland: it’s a steep accent and after 800 m you come to an opening (675 metres) where many various walks begin. We shall take the one upon your left that goes up diagonally with a regular inclination on the west side of the mountain. Once out of the woodland you arrive at rocky point from which you can admire the beautiful scenery of the valley, below you including Lake Trasimeno, Monte Amiata and Cetona.
A few moments later you will come to a green field, one that is characteristic to the peaks of this area such are the ones on the northwest areas of Monte Acuto. Both mountains display the characteristic limestone formations of the region which parallels the chain of the Apennines.
Continue to the right, towards the south, and you reach a small mound, where you will find the ruins of the ancient "Neviere" (917 metres). The discovery, cleaning and documentation of this ruin has been done by the Monte Tezio Cultural Association. Till the beginning of the 1900s these structures were used to accumulate snow during the winter season, so that one was able to use the formed ice through the summer months to make sorbets, cool down drinks and preserve food; this came about as a result of the compressing factor of the ice. There are notes dating back to the 1700s about the Neviere Monte Tezio. In local advertising papers such as the Gazzetta di Perugia dated 1864 you can read that the count Oddi Baglioni of Monte Tezio owner of Neviere, has some holes in the ground for the snow, that will create ice, and therefore he takes bookings from the coffee houses. By looking at the ruins you can see a circular section partially underground, 12m in diameter, and the base for the arches that once held the roof made from terracotta tiles. At the base of the Neviere you would have found bundles of hay to drain away the melted snow, also some 20m long bundles to isolate the snow from the walls, finally upon the top was placed a lid made of hay some 40 cm thick. From this site you can reach the summit (961m) and once there you can see a trench which was used as a lookout point for the valley, just as do Monte Pacciano, Monte Malbe and other sites of the same era discovered at Monte Acuto, and Monte Murlo where archaeologists are still working.
Download the map of the itinerary

Day 5 - Departure

DETAIL OF THE COOKING AND TREKKING TOUR

If you are interested in a culinary holidays without tours (only accommodation and cooking classes) please visit the page Cooking vacations

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