Monastery Becomes an Enchanting Hotel in Italy

It just may be the most enchanting place I’ve ever stayed, a 13th-Century Benedictine monastery that’s been transformed into a luxurious, 11-room hotel high atop an Umbrian hillside in central Italy.

The official name of the hotel is the San Valentino Hotel and Sporting Club, “Sporting Club” because of its single, immaculately maintained tennis court and tiny swimming pool (almost more a wading pool, really). But you can forget whatever images of golf courses, Jacuzzis, riding trails and fox hunts the name “Sporting Club” might conjure up.

The San Valentino is far more sanctuary than spa, a small, rustic jewel hidden away at the end of a narrow, winding, rocky, rutted, two-mile, one-lane road just outside Todi, about 30 miles south of Perugia, almost midway between Rome and Florence.

The San Valentino is not listed in any guidebook. Thus, it was the great find of the entire 6 1/2 weeks my friend Lucy and I spent in Europe, and we had it almost all to ourselves; only three or four of the hotel’s 11 rooms were occupied on any of the four nights we stayed there.

Four Years a Hotel

The San Valentino has been a hotel for four years, and the director, Maurizio Cipolletta (“It means little onion,” he told us), says the people who own it are only now beginning to advertise the hotel and to seek guidebook listings.

In the meantime, he says, they’ve spent $4.5 million to convert and furnish it, and they’ve done so with, for the most part, remarkably good taste. They’ve managed to create a hotel that still looks and feels like a 13th-Century monastery but that has all the conveniences of a modern hotel.

How did we hear about the San Valentino? A couple of months before leaving on our trip I visited Piero Selvaggio, my favorite Italian restaurateur in the United States, to ask him for restaurant recommendations in Italy. I also mentioned that I’d heard Umbria was beautiful and that we wanted to visit there for several days but didn’t know where to stay.

In the course of our chat, while sipping wine and eating cheese and flipping through several Italian magazines, Piero came across a reference to the San Valentino, which name may have jumped out at him because his own restaurant (in Santa Monica) is named Valentino. When he read the description to me I immediately decided we had to go there.

Over the next 10 weeks, seven weeks of waiting to start our trip and the first three weeks of the trip (in France), the one place I talked most about and most looked forward to was the San Valentino.

“It’ll either be the great discovery of the trip or a great disaster,” I told Lucy.

At first, disaster looked like the most likely outcome.

We couldn’t find the damn hotel.

When I had written for reservations I sent my letter to the town of Fiore di Topi, the name I scribbled down while talking to Piero. I received my confirmation by return mail. But there was no Fiore di Topi on any map. There was only a tiny town called Fiore, not far from a larger town called Todi.

Scribbled Down ‘Todi’

I figured I must have scribbled “Todi” so hastily (and so sloppily) that it looked like “Topi,” and the Italian postal service, its dismal reputation notwithstanding, had seen to it that my letter got to the San Valentino anyway. We decided that Fiore, near Todi, must be the place, and we decided, further, that we’d be smart and head straight for Fiore, bypassing the larger city of Todi.

Not so smart.

As we later learned, there are plenty of signs in and near Todi, directing motorists toward the San Valentino. Indeed, the first “San Valentino” sign is just off the main Rome-to-Florence autostrada, about 20 miles from the hotel. Unfortunately, because we were so “smart” about circumventing Todi and going directly to Fiore, we didn’t see that sign.

Nor did we see most of the 12 other signs (I counted them the next day) along the route. We did finally see a couple of signs, though, one of which pointed straight ahead and the next of which, a little way down the same road, pointed back the way we’d just come (even though we’d seen no possible turnoff in between).

We consulted an elderly man on a bicycle. He didn’t speak English.

Then we noticed another car whose occupants seemed to be as lost as we were. We had already passed each other twice when we saw the driver of the other car ask a passer-by for directions. Then we saw the passer-by point toward a narrow, unmarked, dirt road.

We quickly took off along that road, figuring that if the other party was also headed toward the San Valentino, we might have a better choice of rooms (and quicker help with our baggage) if we arrived first.

But we drove for what seemed like 20 minutes and saw no further signs. Or anything else. The road was barely wide enough to accommodate our small, rented car. We kept driving over rocks so large that I was afraid I’d break something. Or careen over the side. About the time I was ready to give up, there, suddenly, was the San Valentino.

Other Car Pulls Up

A few moments after we arrived, the other car pulled up, filled with four Americans (two of whom had been living in Sicily for several years and had invited their friends to join them on a vacation).

The manager welcomed us all with a big smile, and when we told him of our difficulties in finding the hotel, he nodded indulgently and said, “You came up the back way.”

The next day he showed us “the front way . . . a simpler way.”

Well, it was simpler, all right. Sort of. It was about 8 or 10 inches wider and much less steep. But it was still narrow, and winding and unpaved rocky and dusty and long. And it took us through at least one backyard and two small farms, requiring us to stop occasionally, and suddenly, for chickens crossing the road. But by then I’d decided that the approach to the San Valentino was more delightful than dangerous, and I’d already fallen in love with the place.

The San Valentino was a monastery for more than 500 years after its founding in the 13th Century, and it then became a farmhouse for more than 100 years. It gradually fell into disrepair and had been deserted for many years before the current owners took over. Now everything is in perfect order.

The San Valentino is filled with antiques, more than 1,500 of them, some dating back to the 16th Century, and each room is designed and decorated in the style of a different period. Three rooms have fireplaces. One has a four-poster bed. Another has an enormous, sunken bathtub.

All have wood-beam ceilings, terra cotta floors, tile roofs and white walls. All also have modern bathrooms, including an electric hair dryer attached to each bathroom wall, but most of the modern conveniences have been installed so as not to diminish the period feel of the hotel. The radiators, for example, are all concealed behind wooden grillwork (although the mini-bar is not concealed and, in our room, it sat anachronistically amid the 17th-Century antiques).

Our room also had a skylight, though, and a loft and a glorious, 180-degree view of the valley below and of the town of Todi beyond, all of which more than compensated for the mini-bar (which, it must be said, contained its own compensations at the end of a warm day of sightseeing).

All the Little Touches

The service at the San Valentino is as splendid as the setting, despite a staff of only five: the manager, the cook, a waiter, a chambermaid and a gardener. All the little touches are just right. Perugia chocolates are placed by your bedside every night. Terry-cloth bathrobes are placed in every room.

If you want to play tennis, the hotel provides the rackets and balls. The manager is always waiting for you with a warm word of greeting (and, if you want it, a cold drink) when you come downstairs in the morning or when you return to the hotel after a day of sightseeing.

The hotel is open all year, with good skiing about 10 miles away in Terminillo, so I assume he also provides hot drinks after a day on the slopes.

Was there anything we didn’t like about the San Valentino? Well, the recorded music in the hotel dining room, though played softly, seemed a bit incongruous for an Italian monastery. One night we heard “We Are the World,” “We Shall Overcome,” “The Eve of Destruction” and several American rock hits from the 1960s and 1970s in succession. (Did the management think that, being American, we’d like to hear American music?)

The cuisine wasn’t exactly dazzling, either. Although we had a couple of excellent dishes--a bow-shaped pasta (farfalle) with fresh lemon being the best dish of the four days there, much of the food was disappointing. It wasn’t bad; it just wasn’t exceptionally good. And some of the cook’s choices were a bit bizarre. A much-touted “ham steak Parisian,” for example, turned out to be a slice of cooked ham topped with a slice of pineapple. (Pineapple? Parisian? Italian? Oh, poi!)

But the cuisine at the San Valentino seemed to get better each day we were there, and when it failed, it didn’t fail for lack of effort.

Each day the chef bought fresh foodstuffs and planned his menu accordingly, changing the menu daily. Most of the food was relatively simple: grilled chicken, sliced tomatoes, bufalo mozzarella cheese and fresh basil, pasta with smoked salmon and mushrooms; an entrecote in a Barolo wine sauce.

If you wanted something special, you had only to ask, and if it was available (and within the cook’s capabilities), it was on your table that night. Otherwise, you were given a choice between two selections in each category each night.

Reasonably Priced

No matter what you ordered, dinner was reasonably priced: appetizer, pasta, main course, dessert, coffee, tax and tip cost about $23 per person. Wine was extra, of course, but the wine was inexpensive. We had very nice wines for $5 or $6 or $7 a bottle every night and the most we spent was $14 for a 1967 Barolo that would have cost at least three times as much in this country, if you could find it here.

Ten of the 11 rooms are 140,000 lira a night for two, about $72 at the rate of exchange when we were there. That included breakfast, service and whatever wine and soft drinks we drank from the mini-bar. (The eleventh room, a suite with a sitting room, is 240,000 lira, about $124 a night.)

I realize that $72 a night is not exactly cheap, but I’ve spent more than that for a hotel room, and I suspect that many travelers have had similar experiences. At the San Valentino, $72 is a bargain. Believe me.

The San Valentino Hotel and Sporting Club, 06059 Todi (PG), Italy. Telephone (075) 88-41-03.