Villa Bonocore Maletto

A lovely hotel and Spa.

Beautiful.

The garden is lovely, with lush lawns and old trees, and the historic building is charming and carefully maintained inside and out. The interior is sparse and basic, though, without frescoes or historic pieces. This 18th-century property has recently been renovated as a luxury hotel, and it also hosts weddings, graduations, meetings, and all sorts of parties. Its distinctive staircase and façade have a real old-time feel. With good catering, an event here could stay in guests' memories for years.

The wedding reception was held outside on the lawn in the courtyard behind the entrance, and it was a welcoming setting on a lovely summer evening. I liked all the dishes, though I couldn't tell whether the catering was brought in or handled by the villa. I went with my wife and our almost two-year-old son. He wanted to wander, so we explored the garden's star-shaped paths, which meet at a fountain with a tall, steady but discreet stream, among papyrus and water lilies. We also went up and down the big exterior staircase to the piano nobile about ten times, in stages. Each wing has 26 steps, split into two sets of 13 with a landing. My methodical little boy always wanted to go up the right side and down the left, sometimes pausing at the top to look into the entrance hall on the piano nobile. I was there as a wedding guest and only saw the outside areas, though from glimpses through the balconies, the rooms seemed carefully finished and furnished. The villa itself is beautifully restored, in the style of the city's other grand Baroque villas. You enter through a large gate in the high outer walls and reach a broad courtyard, with the main façade and its magnificent double elliptical staircase. A large tree stands in the middle. Between the two stair flights, a passage through the building leads past the ground-floor rooms to a rear courtyard and the tree-lined paths of the private garden. One last detail, the very spacious parking lot is close to the villa, but outside it.