We woke up in our little bed and breakfast - and discovered another car in the parking lot! Apparently we were not the only guests, though we had no idea when the other people had arrived. The other couple were Italian, and I have never noticed them doing anything quietly, particularly at night.
We had the usual Italian breakfast. I like almost all of the pastries, and the espresso is good as long as I can put some milk in it. But offerings like strawberry yoghurt with Coco Puffs for a topping — I’ll never figure that one out.
After we packed up our first stop was Ascoli Picena. It has a charming Renaissance square.
There was not much of interest in the churches there, and it was hard to visit them because it was a Sunday and people were actually using them for prayer. We were particularly disappointed that we could not see the cross in the Chiesa di San Francesco that supposedly has bled twice! We went to the local museum instead. The collection was not large, thigh it had a few decent pieces, particularly from the fifteenth century.
The prize piece of the collection, a stunning embroidered papal cope, turned out to be out of loan to one of the museums in Milan. After having an overpriced espresso and some gelato on the Piazza del Populo, we returned to the car and started north again.
On our way, John insisted that I stop the car so he could photograph the endless fields of sunflowers.
Our destination today is less a town than a hotel. Researching The Marches, John read about the Castello di Monterado, a grand palazzo in the Italian countryside. Here is the history of the place from the hotel website:
The castle building rises above the perimeter walls of an ancient parish church from the year one thousand, belonging to the monks of the Fonte Avellana hermitage.
Once owned by the Duke of Urbino, it passed on to the College of the Jesuit Fathers, to whom the present shape of the palace is owed, built in the early 1700’s to the designs of the architect Luigi Vanvitelli. Preserved from the period are the Jesuit style chapel, the immense cellars, some of the monastic cells and the crest of Pope Gregory XIII over the entrance door.
During Napoleonic occupation, the Castle and lands became an appanage of the viceroy of Italy, son of Giuseppina Beauharnais wife of the emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, Prince Eugène, who remained in possession of it even after the Congress of Vienna.
In 1824, it was inherited by his son Maximilian who, charmed by the place, turned it into a princely residence, having the nobility floor decorated with mythological frescoes, nearly all of which are preserved.
In 1846 the assets were acquired by the Papal State and then sold. Monterado was acquired by Count Cerasi, who arranged the park as it is still today. During World War II, the building was bombed and occupied by both of the warring parties.
The present owners have seen to careful restoration and reinstatement of the structure.
And all of this for a whole lot less than the Best Western in Rome. He had to book it.
We found it without much difficulty. The house dominates a hillside.
And the entrance, on a bridge above what must have once been a moat, is certainly impressive.
Our room is really a suite. There is a sitting room, a bathroom, a bedroom, and large balcony. Any one of these rooms, including the bathroom, is bigger than most of our accommodations so far. And who can complain about this panorama from your bedroom window?
The bedroom has an antique ceramic stove.
And when you lie in bed, you look up at this marvelous trompe l’oeil ceiling.
Orlando, the home’s owner, offered us a choice of suites. John picked this one because of the balcony. It has one unusual feature - the now unused servants stairway would have once opened into the bathroom. The door has been replaced with a piece of glass.
Nevertheless, when you are lying nakied in the tub, it is a little unnerving to be looking at a staircase. And, as John points out, the has all that beautiful Italian plumbing — so you are never quite sure how to turn the water off or on!
Guests are free to use any of the public rooms like this drawing room
or the library.
There is a large pool. From the knoll on which the pool sits you can see the Adriatic about 20 miles away.
But our favorite place in the castle is still our balcony. We pulled out two big armchairs from the sitting room and we still had enough space to park a Honda Civic.
In the evening we had to tear ourselves away from our roost to go get some dinner. The local taverna was crowded with people, all locals, mostly families, having those long Italian dinners. There were so many people they had to set up a separate tent to accommodate everybody.
