The Swiss built a mountain railway here, and it is becoming a path

The Spoleto–Norcia railway opened on 1 November 1926 and closed on 31 July 1968. Fifty-one kilometres of 950 mm narrow gauge, electrified, with nineteen tunnels and twenty-four bridges and viaducts, climbing at gradients up to 4.5 per cent — and a summit tunnel at Caprareccia nearly two kilometres long.

It was engineered by a Swiss, Erwin Thomann of Münchwilen in Thurgau, who had worked on the Lötschberg and the Bernina, with Swiss colleagues alongside him. The helical and switchback sections that lift the line out of the Spoleto valley are Alpine practice transplanted into Umbria. That is why it looks the way it does.

Conversion to a greenway began in 2006; the first thirty-four kilometres opened in 2014 and won the Italian Green Road Award the following year. Be careful with what you read about it now, though. On 29 June 2026 major reconstruction began on the Caprareccia–Sant'Anatolia di Narco section, expected to take around nine months, part of a programme worth more than twenty million euro that also covers Casale Volpetti–Serravalle, six demolished bridges, and the restoration of seven stations and eleven toll houses. Several stretches are closed and traffic is routed onto the SR 395 instead. Anything describing this as an uninterrupted fifty-one kilometre ride is out of date — check Umbria Mobilità's current passability map before you plan around it.

The best short walk starts at the end of the bridge

The Giro dei Condotti is sentiero number 3, and it begins at the Fortilizio dei Mulini at the far end of the Ponte delle Torri. About three kilometres, almost flat, easy. It follows the conduits that once fed water across the bridge, round the flank of Monteluco.

You pass the hermitage cave of San Leonardo, the former church of Santa Elisabetta with its thirteenth-century monastery, and Santa Maria inter Angelos, known locally as delle Palazze. The rock formation called the Chair of the Pope gives the valley view. It ends at the Spiazzo delle Palazze, from where you can drop steeply to the Ponzianina car park and ride the escalators back into town — which is the sensible way round.

The bridge reopened on 7 December 2024 after more than eight years shut, and the Condotti gate was opened two days later. Since April 2025 the bridge itself has been open around the clock; the trail gate's hours have varied since reopening, so check locally rather than assuming.

Monteluco: a wood protected by law since the third century BC

The name comes from lucus, a sacred grove. Two inscribed stones from the second half of the third century BC — the Lex Luci Spoletina, now in Spoleto's archaeological museum — forbid anyone to violate this wood or carry away what belongs to it, or to cut it, except on the day of the annual sacrifice. The penalty was a bull sacrificed to Jupiter, and for a deliberate offence a bull plus a fine of three hundred asses. It is among the oldest written conservation laws anywhere.

Hermits fleeing Syria settled among these caves in the fifth century. Around 1218 Benedictine monks gave Francis of Assisi a small chapel dedicated to St Catherine; it is still the oldest structure on the site, alongside seven cells said to date from his time and a well he had dug. It remains an active religious house, not a monument.

On foot it is CAI sentiero number 1, again from the Fortilizio dei Mulini: about four and a half kilometres, two hours, 420 metres of climb through oak forest, past the hermitages of San Paolo Protoeremita, delle Grazie and San Michele Arcangelo. There is also a road, if you would rather arrive with your legs intact.

Walking in, walking through

Spoleto is a stage town on the Via di Francesco. Stage 10 of the southern route comes up from Ceselli: 15.7 kilometres, 945 metres of ascent, around seven hours, rated demanding — eight kilometres of climbing to the Castelmonte pass, through the abandoned village of Sensati, into the sacred wood, past Francis's hermitage, then a steep drop to the Ponte delle Torri and the cathedral. Which happens to hold one of the very few surviving letters in Francis's own hand.

For something longer and gentler, the Sentiero degli Ulivi runs from Spoleto to Assisi in five stages, around seventy-five kilometres through the olive terraces that FAO designated a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System in 2018. It was devised by the Foligno section of the Club Alpino Italiano, which publishes GPX tracks for each stage.

On the bike

The Spoleto–Assisi cycleway is forty-five kilometres and genuinely flat, mostly asphalt, running from San Nicolò in Spoleto to Santa Maria degli Angeli below Assisi. It is not a converted railway — it follows the embankments of the Marroggia, Teverone and Timia. A trekking bike is enough.

If you want gradient, the two named climbs out of town are the Forca di Cerro on the SS395 — 9.1 kilometres at 4.5 per cent average, 8.8 per cent at its steepest, six hairpins, topping out at 731 metres — and the Valico della Somma on the SS3 Flaminia, 8.3 kilometres at 3.5 per cent to 655 metres. Monteluco is a real climb too, though no climb database has bothered to measure it.

Bikes travel on regional trains for a supplement of a few euro, valid all day for unlimited journeys, but without reservation — so if the bike spaces are full you wait for the next one. Intercity requires a booked bike space. On the Frecce, only folded or dismantled bikes in a bag. Prices change; check before you rely on it. There is bike hire in Spoleto, but ring ahead rather than turning up.

Further out: the plateau, the falls, the springs

The Monti Sibillini National Park was established in 1993 and covers about 71,000 hectares across Umbria and the Marche, topping out at Monte Vettore, 2,476 metres. The Grande Anello dei Sibillini circuits it in nine stages over roughly 120 kilometres, walkable, rideable or on horseback, with refuges along the way. Some trails remain closed after 2016 and the status changes with park ordinances and mayoral orders — check with the park authority rather than a trail app.

During the Castelluccio flowering, access to the Piano Grande is shuttle-only on peak weekends, running from Scentinelle and Monti del Sole, with cars admitted only if you are staying or eating locally. The Cascata delle Marmore, an hour or so south, drops 165 metres in three stages and is entirely artificial — the Romans cut the Curiano channel in 271 BC to drain the marshes upstream. The water is released on a published timetable, announced by a horn; turn up outside the window and you get a trickle.

Closer, at Campello, the Fonti del Clitunno feed the springs Byron called the purest god of gentle waters, and Pliny the Younger described a temple to Jupiter Clitumnus at their source. The Tempietto del Clitunno above them was long taken for Roman; it is now dated Longobard, seventh or eighth century, and has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2011 as part of the Longobards in Italy series — the same listing as San Salvatore in Spoleto. Note that the Tempietto and the springs are separate sites with separate tickets; the park below is privately owned.

When to come, and what will catch you out

Two things govern the calendar more than the weather does. The Castelluccio flowering runs roughly from late June to mid-July and brings shuttle-only access with it. The Marmore falls run to a timetable, not continuously, and the timetable is thinner in winter — weekends and holidays only, two short windows a day.

Beyond that: the tunnels on the old railway are unlit, so lights are not optional. High routes in the Sibillini carry rockfall risk in winter and spring, and the park has warned specifically against trails running beneath rock faces in those seasons. And the single most common mistake is planning a day around the greenway on the strength of a page written before the current works — the route is genuinely being rebuilt, and it is worth checking the week you travel.