Aaaaah Villa Rosmarino… there’s a lot to be said for a name that simply makes you want to pack your bags and hop on the next plane to Rome, take an easy drive into the hills in the heart of southern Umbria and open the door to your private Italian hideaway, where you can live like a local, dine like a local, and feel right at home.
When the land was first spotted by the owners 20 years ago, the beautiful Villa Rosmarino was in fact a ruin, but was painstakingly rebuilt over two years to heritage requirements with all the original stone walls and characterful bricks reused. It was a labour of love, but this five-bedroomed gem (all en suite) is in a less touristy location than most, making a stay in Umbria so much more authentic. The owner’s roots are clearly in Africa, so their décor style has an easy reference to outdoor living and they know what it’s like to travel far for precious holidays with family and friends.
Proportions are just perfect with a generous entrance and open-plan design to a large superbly equipped kitchen, dining and living area … all flowing out to the lawn and swimming pool and shaded pergola for outdoor meals in the garden below – all with beautiful views of the surrounding hills and farmland. A pizza oven out back, off the kitchen, is a magnet for kids, and always the scene of laughter and happy memories. Days are spent gathering delicious ingredients to cook new dishes together, along with local wines… what more could one want? Two of the bedrooms are on the ground floor and three on the upper floor, all of which are en suite, but one is the master bedroom.
Stay here a while and you’ll discover that Villa Rosmarino is set on the border of Umbria and Lazio, and that Rome is an easy day trip by train (from the town of Narni Scalo just 5kms away) or for an evening out, but there are some characterful restaurants within 3kms. The historic hilltop towns of Assisi, Todi, Orvieto, Spoleto, Narni, San Gemini, to name a few, surround the region and are all within easy reach to explore as soon as you’re ready.
What we love!
• This family friendly garden is glorious and expansive: a wisteria-clad pergola boasts a scented purple haze in spring, followed by rows of blooming lavender and rosemary in the midsummer heat.
• There’s loads to do: you can go on wonderful walks from the villa and cycle all over the surrounding farmland, with e-bikes for rent in Narni Scalo. At the villa, guests can play boules, badminton or table tennis in the garden, or have a game of soccer on the lawn. Three lakes – Bolsena, Trasimeno and Corbara – are within an hour’s drive and offer fishing, boating and water sports. Seasonal white water rafting, below the Marmore Falls, is 40 minutes’ away and beaches on the Tuscan coast are a 90-minute drive. In winter, you can go skiing at the Gran Sasso, about 90 minutes’ drive from Villa Rosmarino.
• Golf enthusiasts will find two great golf courses about an hour away: Marco Simone, on the outskirts of Rome, is where they just held the Ryder Cup, and the other is Antognolla, a beautiful location in the hills just north of Perugia. Or practice at the golf driving range, just 15 minutes from the villa.
• The region is known for its variety of wines, including the local Ciliegiolo and the Classico wines from Orvieto : on the way to the beautiful, but little known hill town of San Gemini, you can do wine tastings at Cantina Violati. It is closer than Orvieto … and the Limone and Nocciola gelato is not to be missed at the Central Bar in San Gemini itself.
• Umbria is heaven for foodies: while the owners recommend Il Torchio in San Gemini, Ristorante Umbria and Le Scalette in Todi, there are great restaurants with simple local offerings all around. Even eccentric ones like Oste della Mal’ora in Terni (25km away): ‘It’s a crazy restaurant and wine bar…people sometimes walk in and start singing!’
What you need to know…
• Rome airport is 1h25 minutes’ drive by car and is the easiest to connect to internationally, but you can also fly into Perugia. We highly recommend you hire a car from the word go as it allows you to get to all the prettiest hilltop towns and explore with ease. That said, Narni Scalo, is the closest station and you can hop onto a train to Rome anytime if you fancy a day of sightseeing or shopping (it takes just about an hour to go by train).
• Nearest shops are in Narni Scalo. There is a market every Friday with fresh food, flowers, clothing, shoes and even kitchenware. ‘We go most Fridays to have a cappuccino and a croissant and people watch,’ say the owners.
• An antique market is held on the first Sunday of the month in Campello, near Montefalco, about 75 minutes’ drive away.
• The medieval old town of Orvieto is well worth a visit. It’s busier than San Gemini and Narni Scalo (closer to Villa Rosmarino) but rises majestically above a mass of tufo or volcanic stone. Once up top, visitors discover a largely traffic-free hilltop town with one of Italy’s prettiest Romanesque-Gothic Duomo that took 300 years to build and dates back to 1290, medieval palazzos and a tall clock tower. Unscathed during the war, it’s medieval archways and Etruscan caves remain intact (many of them housing little boutiques, cafes or cellars). Start at Corso Cavour and then take your time to wander through its atmospheric alleyways lined with original thick stone walls over a hidden world below of Etruscan caves dug out of the tufo around 2 500 years ago. Grapes grow well here because of the mineral-rich volcanic soil and the hollowed out caves make excellent cellars to age wine. Equally fascinating to visit is the Pozzo di San Patrizio, a water well that was built to supply the town during sieges, dating back to 1527 – a masterful feat of engineering with a double spiral staircase that never intersects!
• Orvieto is quieter at night when day visitors have left, so the most authentic time of day is early evening when families spill out into the alleyways for an aperitif together – the traditional passegiatta. Strangozzi is the local pasta, but regional dishes include wild boar and truffles. Trattoria La Grotta restaurant is one of the owner’s favourites.
Reviewed by Michelle Snaddon