THE FACTS ABOUT RESIDENZA D'EPOCA L'ORTO DEGLI ANGELI

Italy

This quiet, civilised retreat is run with great warmth by owner, Francesco Antonini dei Conti Angeli Nieri Mongalli, an architect with a passion for old buildings. His family lived in the palazzo from 1778 until 1950, when his mother moved to nearby Foligno. Francesco and his wife Tiziana started using it at weekends and restoring it with painstaking attention to detail and authenticity. The house is filled with the family's collection of fine 17th-and 18th-century antiques and handsome oil paintings. The couple greeted their first hotel guests in 1997. Now, there are 14 grand but lovely bedrooms, nine in the Palazzo dei Andreozzi and five in the more rustic Palazzo degli Alberti, a medieval building with a double loggia accessed through the garden. The restaurant sits in a curved room, with a rough-stone, barrel-vaulted ceiling and brick arches which have been left virtually as they were 2,000 years ago. The décor and furnishings have been kept to a minimum: modern, polished-wood tables are laid with simple, white linen mats, so nothing detracts from the great setting. The food is a creative take on earthy Umbrian culinary staples, you may try farfalli with duck sauce or tortelli stuffed with pork. CONTACT Via Dante Alighieri 1, Bevagna, Perugia, Italy (00 39 0742 360 130; www.ortoangeli.it) COST Doubles from 200 euros