Gian Carlo Menotti was an Italian-born composer who made his career in America, and in 1958 he decided that Spoleto, a small hill town in Umbria, would be the right home for a festival that brought together artists from both sides of the Atlantic. That is the origin of the Festival dei Due Mondi, the Festival of Two Worlds, which still fills the town with opera, theatre, dance and music every year in late June and July. The theatre that bears his name, the Teatro Nuovo, was built in the nineteenth century and is the main stage, a handsome horseshoe with gilt boxes and a painted ceiling.
The festival gives Spoleto a summer energy that is unusual for a town of its size. The Piazza del Duomo, a sloping square in front of the cathedral, becomes an open-air auditorium for the closing concert, and every little square seems to have a quartet or an exhibition. The town can be cramped and expensive during the festival, so book ahead, and expect the lanes to be full of people at all hours.
For riders, Spoleto is a base for some of the best roads in central Italy. The Via Flaminia runs through, but the pleasure lies east and south: the road along the Valnerina toward Norcia, the home of cured pork and truffles, follows the river Nera through narrow gorges and woods, with long curves and little traffic. Further on, the high plateau of Castelluccio and the Piano Grande flowers in early summer in a carpet of colour. The Monteluco road, which climbs through ilex woods above the town to an old hermitage, is short and twisty.
The practicalities are easy in Spoleto, with petrol stations on the ring road and trattorias everywhere. Park outside the old town and use the escalators and lifts that carry visitors up the hill. Winter can be cold, with fog in the valleys and snow on the higher roads, and the best seasons are late spring and early autumn.