Umbria and Tuscany sit side by side, midway down the boot of Italy. They look alike, and you can pass back and forth over the border from one to the other without realizing it. So we did.

We were having lunch in Gubbio, a small village in Umbria, Italy. We’d been to Italy many times, but to our friendly waiter’s point, this was our first visit to the Umbrian region.

Umbria is the slow food, slow travel capital of Italy. It is the Italophile's Italy, the green heart that rolls up its sleeves and gets to work with remaining authentically Italian.

My first visit to Umbria was a three-week trip to Spoleto, a few hours' drive north of Rome. Most of the drive is up. Like other Umbrian cities, Spoleto sits on top of an ancient rocky citadel ...

Perugia’s Museo Archeologico Nazionale dell’Umbria houses an impressive collection of Etruscan artefacts, from funerary urns to Bronze Age statuary (00 39 075 572 7141; Piazza Giordano Bruno ...