Packing List for Todi, Umbria: What Women Should Bring

Photograph: Santa Maria della Consolazione below Todi by stracd, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Todi is a hill town in the province of Perugia, in Umbria, set on a tall hill with two crests above the east bank of the Tiber. The municipality counted 15,481 residents at the start of 2025, but most of them live in the farms and hamlets of the surrounding countryside: at the 2021 census Todi proper, the town on the hill, held 5,159 people. It is small, steep and walkable, and your shoes decide how good the day is.

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The photograph above shows the one great building that is not in the town at all. It is Santa Maria della Consolazione, a Renaissance church seen from above: a grey-silver dome on a tall drum over a pale cross-shaped body, with smaller domed apses around it, standing on its own below the town against green hills, fields and woods, with a few cars on the road at the bottom of the frame. The church sits just outside the city walls, on the slope below them. What the frame cannot show is Todi itself: the Piazza del Popolo on the summit, the Palazzo dei Priori and the other civic palaces around it, the cathedral at the top of its staircase, the unfinished front of San Fortunato on the second crest, the Roman retaining wall called the Nicchioni, the walls and the steep lanes that join all of it. None of that is in this picture, so do not judge the town from it.

Our Umbria packing list gives Todi one line, as a compact hill town with three concentric sets of walls, inside a heading it shares with Spoleto and Gubbio. Start there for the region as a whole. This post adds what that line has no room for: why the main square sits on a water system, why its best-known church is outside the walls, why the hill itself has always been an engineering problem, and what to pack for a town where nearly every walk is up or down.

What Is Here

A border town from the start. Todi was founded by the Umbri in the 8th or 7th century BC under the name Tutere, which means border, because it stood on the frontier with the Etruscans. It became one of the most important Umbrian cities and struck its own coins carrying that ancient name.

Three rings of walls, not one. The innermost and smallest circuit, enclosing the top of the hill, is built of large travertine blocks laid without mortar and is attributed to the Etruscans. A second travertine circuit came with the Romans, and a third, much longer one was built around the 13th century and runs for about three miles.

A hill that has always tried to slide. The subsoil under Todi soaks up water, and over the centuries that has caused landslides and damage to walls and buildings. The Romans answered with a network of drainage tunnels and huge retaining structures, and some of them are still in plain view. The largest is the Nicchioni on the southern slope, a row of great niches more than nine metres deep that earlier writers took for a temple of Mars and that later study showed to be a foundation built to hold the upper town in place.

And a myth to set aside. You will probably read somewhere that Todi was once found by research to be the most livable city in the world. It was not. In the early 1990s an American architecture professor used Todi in design exercises and spoke at a conference there, and the Italian press repeated a press release that wrongly said he had found exactly that. The claim has stayed in guidebooks ever since. Todi is a lovely, quiet place to spend a few days; it does not need an invented ranking.

Piazza del Popolo and the Summit

The main square is the top of the town and was the Roman forum. Piazza del Popolo occupies the highest point of Todi and has been the centre of civic life since Roman times. Beneath it runs a system of large Roman cisterns, built to support the forum and to store water, and many of them stayed in use until the 1920s. Parts of that underground system of cisterns, wells and galleries can be visited, and it stays cool on a hot afternoon, so carry a layer down with you even in summer.

Around the square stand the buildings of civic and religious power. The Palazzo del Popolo was built at the beginning of the 13th century and is reputedly among the oldest civic palaces in Italy. Beside it, joined by a 17th-century overhead passage, is the Palazzo del Capitano, and the top floors of both house the town's museum and picture gallery, the Museo Civico Pinacoteca. On the south-east side is the 13th-century Palazzo dei Priori, with a carved eagle above its inscriptions.

At the far end, the cathedral sits at the top of a staircase of 38 steps. The church before it was almost entirely destroyed by fire in 1190, and the present building is mainly Gothic, rebuilt over the following centuries. Its rose window was begun in 1515. Inside, the wall above the entrance carries a large Last Judgment of 1596 by Ferrau Fenzoni, whose figures borrow openly from Michelangelo's in the Sistine Chapel. The steps are where everyone sits, and the FCDO notes that some Italian towns fine people for sitting on monument steps or eating beside major churches, so look for signs before settling down with a sandwich.

The other crest belongs to San Fortunato. Building began in 1292 and stopped in the second half of the 15th century, which is why its Gothic front is still unfinished. The crypt holds the tomb of Jacopone da Todi, the friar and poet associated with the hymn Stabat Mater.

Recommended Tours and Experiences

Santa Maria della Consolazione, Below the Walls

The church in the photograph was built for a small painted icon of the Madonna. A chapel stood here first, and the story goes that a workman blind in one eye recovered his sight after wiping it with a cloth that had cleaned the image. Building began in 1508 and took about a century. The design is usually attributed to Bramante, though no document from his lifetime proves it and the attribution is still argued over; what is recorded is a long list of architects consulted along the way, Peruzzi and Vignola among them.

It is a Greek cross under a dome rather than a long nave. Four apses open off the centre, three polygonal and one, on the north side, rounded, and the icon is still kept in the Baroque altar of that north apse. Inside, twelve niches hold giant statues of the apostles, there is a wooden statue of Pope Martin I, a native of the Todi area, and four large stone eagles carry the town's insignia between the apses. Part of the stone came from the demolition of the town's own fortress.

Getting there is the practical point. Because the church stands below the walls, reaching it on foot from the piazza means walking down out of the town and then back up again, and the return is the hard half. Plan it as its own outing with water and sun cover in warm months rather than as a quick detour, and wear shoes you would happily climb in.

Getting There and Getting Around

Todi is about 40 kilometres from Perugia and 18 from Spoleto, with Orvieto to the west. By car from Rome the usual route is the autostrada towards Florence as far as Orte, then the E45 towards Perugia. The valley and the town are at very different heights, so whatever way you arrive, check before you travel how you will get from the valley floor up into the centre, especially with luggage.

If you drive, the FCDO's two Italy driving warnings both apply. Historic centres are usually limited traffic zones, marked ZTL in black on yellow, and driving past the sign without a pass is likely to bring a camera fine. And theft from parked cars is common across the country, so do not leave luggage in a car, even out of sight in the boot. Park outside the centre, take what you need, and walk.

Once on top, you walk. The centre is small, but almost nothing in it is flat, the paving is old stone that gets slick after rain, and many of the lanes are partly stepped. Bring a bag you can carry up steps.

When to Go

The climate here is temperate, and no source for this post gives figures for Todi itself, so none are printed here. What matters for packing is the height. The town sits roughly four hundred metres up on an exposed hill, so evenings are cooler and breezier than the valley below, and the stone lanes hold the chill after dark outside high summer. Summer days are hot on unshaded stone, and the FCDO notes that wildfires are a risk in Italy during the extended summer months.

Is Todi Safe for Women Travelers

The FCDO publishes no advised-against areas anywhere in Italy. Its guidance concentrates on petty theft in crowded tourist areas and on the ZTL, the limited traffic zones in historic centres that catch drivers out with automatic fines months after the trip.

The FCDO's Italy page, updated 3 November 2026, currently leads on demonstrations in northern Italian cities, and nothing in it names Umbria. Its safety page describes crime levels as generally low, with petty crime such as bag-snatching and pickpocketing concentrated in city centres and at major tourist attractions, which in this region means Perugia's station or a crowded Assisi more than the lanes of Todi. Carry photo ID at all times, and note that a police report for a stolen passport is not enough to leave Italy, so keep a copy apart from the original. The FCDO also warns against accepting drinks from strangers or leaving drinks unattended.

Many parts of Italy lie on a major seismic fault line and the FCDO notes that minor tremors and earthquakes happen regularly. Learn what to do before, during and after one. Our Umbria post covers the 2016 earthquakes in the east of the region in more detail.

The Todi Packing List

Shoes and socks for a town with two summits

Grippy, low, waterproof hiking shoes are the most important thing in the bag. Every walk in Todi involves old paving, steps, or both, and the round trip down to Santa Maria della Consolazione ends with a climb. Merino wool socks handle the sweat of a warm uphill and stay comfortable when your feet get damp.

A warm layer for the hilltop and the cisterns

Our merino base layers are 100% Australian merino at 17.5 micron, and a merino wool base layer for women covers the swing between a hot climb and a cool church interior, the Roman cisterns under the square, and a breezy evening on the summit. Add a fleece mid layer for spring, autumn and winter evenings. Shoulders and knees should be covered to enter the churches, so a long sleeve top does double duty.

Rain and sun

A packable rain jacket earns its place in the wet months and on the walk to the Consolazione, where there is no shelter on the way. In summer a wide brim sun hat helps on the unshaded slope below the walls. Our affiliate registry has no sunscreen and no sunglasses entry at all, and both matter here, so buy them before you travel; we would rather say so than link something we cannot stand behind.

A bag you can carry

A small daypack for water and a layer is worth having for the walk down and back up. It is deliberately unlinked: the only daypack entry in our registry is still marked verification pending, so we are not pointing you at it.

Essential Resources for Women in Todi

Emergency numbers: 112 for police, ambulance and fire, free from any phone including a locked mobile, with operators who will find an English speaker. It is the single number across the whole European Union.

Police: 112 reaches police, ambulance and fire together anywhere in Italy, and 113 reaches the Polizia di Stato.

Main hospital or clinic: the Ospedale Santa Maria della Misericordia in Perugia, about 40 kilometres away, is the regional referral hospital with a 24 hour emergency department, the pronto soccorso. Ask your accommodation which nearer emergency department serves Todi, and dial 112 for an ambulance. Pharmacies are marked with a green cross and post the night and holiday rota on the door.

Healthcare costs: Italy is in the EU, so a UK Global Health Insurance Card or an EU European Health Insurance Card gives you state-provided medically necessary care on the same terms as an Italian resident. That means the same ticket, the co-payment Italians make, rather than nothing, and it does not cover repatriation, so travel insurance sits on top of it. Italian public hospitals are good and the emergency department, the pronto soccorso, treats anyone who arrives. Pharmacies, farmacie, are marked with a green cross, are staffed by pharmacists who can advise and dispense for minor problems, and post a rota for nights and Sundays on the door. Tap water is drinkable across the country, including from the public fountains that are common in Italian towns.

Official health authority: the Ministero della Salute, the Italian health ministry, covers national health guidance for visitors to Italy.

US Embassy: the United States Embassy in Rome, in Rome, reachable from Todi by the Orte route described above.

Official tourism authority: ENIT, the Italian national tourist board, covers the national picture; for Todi, confirm current opening times for the Roman cisterns, the Museo Civico and Santa Maria della Consolazione before you travel, since none is printed here as a fixed schedule.

US State Department travel advisory: the Italy advisory. Read the current level there directly rather than relying on a figure printed in any guide.

UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/italy, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits.

Solo women safety assessment: Todi is a small, calm hill town and a low-stress place to travel alone. Petty crime in Italy concentrates in big city centres and crowded attractions rather than in towns of this size, and a woman eating, walking or sketching alone in the piazza draws no attention. What deserves respect is the ground: steep, worn stone that is slippery in rain, the long climb back up from the Consolazione, and quiet lanes after dark away from the square. Good shoes, a warm layer, a charged phone and a known route home cover almost all of it.

Reading On

For the whole region, our Umbria packing list sets Todi beside Spoleto and Gubbio and covers the church dress code and the regional hospitals; this post is the long version of its one line on Todi. Within Umbria, Gubbio is the other hill town from that shared heading, steeper still and with its open funivia, Perugia is the regional capital about 40 kilometres north, Orvieto to the west sits on its own rock with its own underground, and Assisi is the pilgrimage town on the far side of the valley. Just over the border in Lazio, Civita di Bagnoregio is the extreme version of Todi's sliding-hill problem. Spoleto, Spello and Montefalco are all close and do not yet have posts of their own in this library. For the country, see our Italy travel guide for women. For why one fine wool layer handles a hot climb and a cold cistern on the same afternoon, read our guide to merino wool base layers for women. Every destination we cover is listed at the travel packing guide for women, and the base layers themselves are in the Roman Trail collection.

If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.