You've seen the famous Umbrian hill towns. Now meet the one that feels like Italy used to be — before the coach parties arrived. Spello is a medieval village of pink-and-cream stone draped so extravagantly in flowers that its lanes look more like garden rooms than streets. Geraniums and roses cascade from every balcony, terracotta pots crowd every doorstep, and the air smells of jasmine and fresh bread.

This is real Italian village life, unpolished and entirely authentic — the kind of place where an elderly nonna still hangs her washing above the cobblestones and the bar has the same three regulars it's had since 1965. Time passes differently here. You'll want to stay longer than you have.

Inside the village, the Baglioni Chapel holds a breathtaking fresco cycle by Pinturicchio (1501) — one of the finest in Umbria and largely unknown to the wider world. Spello also sits on the ancient Via Flaminia, the Roman road from Rome to Rimini, and its Porta Venere — a magnificent Roman gateway with twin flanking towers — has stood since the 1st century BC.