For clothes and textiles, Tela Umbra is one of the most famous ones. It was set up in 1908 by a young American, Alice Hallgarten-Franchetti, who has improved the conditions for workers and built schools for their kids. Today, you can not only buy finest woven textiles abut also visit a museum about textile making.
Very famous for finest cashmere is Brunello Cucinelli in Solomeo near Perugia. Not cheap but maybe the best and finest cashmere on the planet.
Deruta and other little villages are well know for marvellous ceramics.
Norcia, the tiny village in Umbria’s eastern part, is the world capital of the best sausages. As I was here by plane and then travelling in a rented car, my luggage capacity was quite limited. So I only bought what I could eat while I was there. And thus my only shop recommendations are for Norcia.
The sausage I bought (photo 4) was the best I ever had. I bought it at Lanzi, Villa della Stazione in Norcia, which is off the piazza. For three of these pairs I paid 18 Euro.
The other very much delicious shop I found was Cioccolateria Vetusta Nursia (photo 3), also just off main piazza, where they had the most marvellous chocolate products. As it was only briefly past Easter, they still had their chocolate Easter eggs (main photo), huge and with hand made icing decoration. I was very much tempted, but… didn’t buy one of these and only bought some chocolate (photo 2), each for 2,50 Euro, as well as some chocolate truffles with a mint-green tea filling (3 Euro).
Other local products are wine of course, olive oil and truffles (as in mushrooms). But as mentioned, I didn’t want to transport these in the plane. But I’ll write some more information about these goods in the general section here.
