More information about Italy
Cluttons in Italy are experts in Italian property and our mission is to provide a highly professional property consultancy service to people who want to buy, sell or restore property in Umbria, Tuscany, Le Marche, Lazio and in other regions of Italy. Our staff is small but dedicated and fully qualified to act as real estate brokers in Italy.
To buyers we offer a wide range of exclusive real estate in Italy and particularly in Umbria, Tuscany, Le Marche , the Amalfi Coast and the Italian Lakes. We work when necessary with selected professional partners such as architects and surveyors and when a client intends to restore a farmhouse in Umbria or Tuscany we can put together an appropriate team of Italian property restoration specialists including trustworthy project managers.
To sellers of luxury Italian property we offer objective and realistic property valuations, and promote their properties through the international Cluttons network with the help of a highly professional PR office in London.
Cluttons in Italy has its base near the ancient Etruscan city of Perugia, today the capital city of the region of Umbria in central Italy. Umbria, like its neighbouring region Tuscany has long been known to tourists from all over the world as an area rich in history, Renaissance art and architecture, as well as excellent food and wine. In the Umbrian National Gallery in the historic Palazzo dei Priori in the centre of Perugia are works by the most famous Italian painters including Perugino, Fra Angelico, Piero della Francesca, Pinturicchio and Duccio.
Not far from Perugia is the town of Assisi, home to San Francesco (Saint Francis) who is the Patron Saint of Italy. Assisi is a year round magnet to pilgrims and tourists, with its magnificent frescoes by Giotto in the Basilica and in May the town organises the spectacular festival known as the Kalende di Maggio, when the inhabitants of the different quartieri or localities within the town compete with each other in putting on magnificent pageants in mediaeval costume. The wines of Umbria are becoming better known and include the strong but subtle red Sagrantino di Montefalco, as well as the crisp dry white Grechetto.
Just over the border in Tuscany, as well as the ubiquitous DOC Chianti visitors can savour the Rosso di Montepulciano and the world famous Brunello di Montalcino. On the matter of food, the woods above the dramatic limestone gorge of the Val Nerina in the south of Umbria are rich in black truffles, wild boar are hunted in the woods all over Umbria and Tuscany and provide the raw material for delicious prosciutto, sausages and salami, and the long pasta strips known as “strozzapreti” or “priest stranglers” are a humorous testimony to Umbria’s anti-clerical history in the 19th and 20th centuries. The capital of pork products in Umbria is Norcia, also famous as the birthplace of Saint Benedict.
Other famous towns within easy reach of Perugia by road or rail include Spoleto with its Festival dei Due Mondi , a cultural festival which links Spoleto with Charleston in Carolina, Siena with its Palio or horse race in the town centre, and of course Florence the capital of Tuscany.
It is not just the big names which attract visitors and foreigners who have bought holiday homes here – every small town such as Spello, Trevi, Umbertide, Castiglione del Lago and even every village puts on some kind of festival or celebration in the summer months – jazz or classical music concerts, dances, and above all eating the local specialities prepared by the ladies of the village at simple tables set out in the square. Perugia itself hosts the annual Umbria Jazz Festival which attracts big name composers and performers from around the world.
Farming including wine and olive oil production is an important part of the Umbrian economy, but there is plenty of industry as well. The town of Terni in the south of the region used to be home to one of Italy’s biggest steel factories. This is now run down but has been replaced by light engineering and electronics factories. Foligno in the centre of the region is still an important maintenance and repair base for the Italian railways.
At Passignano on Lake Trasimeno is a now ruined factory which made seaplanes during the second world war, and about which the local inhabitants are still arguing as to how the site should be developed. Ask any Italian what Perugia is famous for and he will immediately say “Chocolate!”. Baci or Kisses from the Perugina factory just outside Perugia are still Italy’s favourite brand – dark chocolate with a delicious praline filling and a whole hazelnut on top! And a little love message in every wrapper! Several hundred Perugini are employed in the factory and more work in the associated industries which have grown up around it – packaging, printing, and marketing services, and Perugia hosts the Eurochocolate festival, which lures coach parties from all over Italy.
Communications in modern Umbria are good: the main A1 motorway from Florence to Rome runs right down the western side of Umbria, the parallel E45 superstrada runs from Rimini right through Northern Umbria and past Perugia to join the A1 at Orte north of Rome, the east west direction is catered for by the dual carriageway superstrada connecting Perugia to Siena, and there are good rail links from Perugia to Florence and all points north and to Rome in the south. Perugia airport now has almost daily flights to London with Ryanair, and the rest of the world can be reached by a 3 times a day feeder flight to Milan’s international airport hub Malpensa.
Most of the people from outside Italy who have retired to Umbria or who have bought holiday homes here are attracted not just by the aesthetic and gastronomic delights described above but also by the beautiful countryside and the charming villages of stone built houses which offer the possibility of enjoying the life of county gentlefolk now difficult to afford in England and other northern European countries or of becoming part of a small and friendly human community in one of the villages or smaller towns.
Zoning laws in Umbria and Tuscany are strictly applied and in practice no new building can take place in the countryside unless there is an existing old building or recognisable ruin already on the site. The effect of this is that there are mercifully few large scale new build developments in these parts of Italy. Instead a small group of farmhouses or hamlet, known as a “borgo” in Italian, may be tastefully restored and divided into just a small number of residential units, say 6 or 7, with a condominium to run the grounds and swimming pool. Or, and this is how it all began, individual foreigners have bought a ruined farmhouse in an attractive location and restored it to provide a private residence combining traditional building materials – stone, terracotta, oak and chestnut wood – with the latest in modern comforts.
Property prices have held up well during the recent world crisis, proof that the underlying long term value of premium property in Tuscany and Umbria is well understood by discerning investors.