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DIMORA DEL PRETE DI BELMONTE |
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VENAFRO, MOLISE, ITALY
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Nobody ever goes to Venafro. Well, that's not quite true: this little town, between Rome and Naples, sees the occasional relative looking for closure in the World War II cemeteries that surround the town, or the odd second- or third-generation American returnee keen to get back to his or her roots.
Recently, though, Venafro has been getting another kind of visitor: adventurous, curious independent travellers who have heard about the Dimora del Prete di Belmonte and who are keen to use it as a base to explore rural Molise, one of Italy's least-known regions.
If it weren't for that capital P, one might be tempted to translate the name as 'the residence of the priest of Belmonte'. In fact, this handsome, frescoed townhouse is the home of the Del Prete di Belmonte family and has been for the past 400 years. Dorothy del Prete welcomes guests to the historic building, in which medieval, Renaissance and baroque elements cohabit.
Most of what we see today - the marble staircase with its cast-iron lamps, the neo-classical frescoes on the first-floor piano - dates from a radical 1860s refit.
The extraordinary thing about the house is its state of preservation: not only frescoes, but furniture, walls hung with rare San Leucio silk, a historical archive and a whole cellar full of winemaking and kitchen implements have survived intact through at least six generations.
Best of all, however, is the garden, where breakfast is served in summer, a perched rectangle of green shaded by two towering palm trees, which breathes the languid elegance of the southern aristocracy.
CONTACT
Dimora del Prete di Belmonte, via Cristo 49, Venafro (00 39 0865 900159; email: info.dimora@tin.it; www.dimoradelprete.it)
Each of these B&Bs can also be booked direct through Caffèlletto (00 39 02 331 1814; www.caffelletto.it) |
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 FIND AND BOOK MORE ITALIAN B&Bs AND SECRET HIDEAWAYS AT I-ESCAPE.COM |
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