Orientation

If you’ve been making your way through tiny Tuscan towns for the past few weeks, getting to the Umbrian capital will be a shock. Perugia is actually enormous, an unattractive urban sprawl full of actual people living lives unrelated to the tourism industry. Nonetheless, there is, in fact, the usual centro storico for all your tourism consolidation needs—it just exists on a different plane, literally. You will likely arrive from the train station or the bus station across the street. If you’re facing the train station, turn left and walk across that parking lot to the mini-Metro. Tiny red light-rail trams will spirit you up the mountain to the centro (the stop is Pinchetto, the end of the line). Escalators will bring you the rest of the way up inside the old walls.