If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR372.73), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
Lofty cypresses tower over sun-kissed pantile rooftops and blousey flower gardens at Vocabolo Moscatelli, a former monastery where near-religious experiences are never far away, whether enjoying a shiatsu massage in the former chapel, sipping a chilled glass of local Trebbiano by the travertine pool or dining in the restaurant’s candlelit cloisters. This Elysian estate is run with authenticity and a community feel at its heart. Join locals around the fire pit for evening aperitivi – easily the most convivial method of sourcing tips on this rural region’s halcyon pursuits.
Smith Extra
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A bottle of red wine and a handwritten welcome note
Noon. Check-in is at 4pm. Both are flexible when availability allows.
Prices
Double rooms from £351.12 (€410), including tax at 10 per cent.
More details
Late risers, rejoice: the included à la carte breakfast is served all day long, so you can pitch up and order your coffee and eggs with a cocktail once the sun is well over the yardarm, should you so desire.
Also
Theoretically, some of the hotel has been adapted; but sadly in reality not quite enough to recommend a stay here if you have accessibility needs. Ground-floor suites in the old monastery are wheelchair accessible and there’s an elevator in the building for access to the upper levels. The landscaping around the grounds, however, is pebbly and often uneven.
Hotel closed
The hotel closes every year for the months of January and February.
At the hotel
Free WiFi throughout. In rooms: portable Sonos Roam Bluetooth speaker, air-conditioning, underfloor heating, espresso coffee machine, free bottled water, yoga mat, bathrobes, slippers, and L:A Bruket bath products.
Our favourite rooms
There’s no such thing as a disappointing room or suite at Vocabolo Moscatelli. All come with ultra-photogenic character features such as exposed stone walls, time-worn beams and painted shutters juxtaposed with luxury modern touches including colourful Cotto Etrusco bathroom tiles, hemp linens and portable Sonos Bluetooth speakers. Ramp up the romance in the annex’s divine Spa Room, which comes with a private sauna and a garden Jacuzzi, or go large in the main villa’s Terrace Junior Suite, where highlights include an eye-catching brick-red colour scheme (including handmade Lispi four-poster bed) and a giant egg-shaped bath tub on the terrace.
Poolside
It’s an all-Italian affair at the travertine pool flanked with designer sunloungers and furniture by Lispi and Paola Lenti. Take the plunge from 7am–11pm but beware: the pool is warmed by the sun’s rays, so morning dips in March may feel… refreshing.
Packing tips
Its status as Italy’s only landlocked region has left Umbria a little off the tourist map. The result? English isn’t widely spoken, especially in its more rural areas. A good phrase book should therefore be considered essential for successfully conjuring up lunch (with ice-cold vino, natch) in all those cute hilltop villages. Locals will love you for it and you’re way less likely to accidentally order French grape juice when you could have had a cheaper, and (whisper it) more delicious Umbrian wine instead.
Also
Owners Frederik Kubierschky and Catharina Lütjens are alumni of some of the top hotels in Zurich, including the Widder and the Park Hyatt, so it’s fair to say they know their way around the hospitality business.
Pet‐friendly
Furry fashionistas receive a Poldo Dog Couture accessory on stays at Vocabolo Moscatelli. But it’s doggos only here, darling, so cool cats and trendsetting tortoises will have to sit this one out. A nightly fee of €30 applies. See more pet-friendly hotels in Umbria.
Children
Vocabolo Moscatelli is designed with grown-ups in mind, meaning there are no specific facilities for Little Smiths. Kids aged 14 and over can stay, but rooms sleep a maximum of two people and there’s no adjoining accommodation.
Sustainability efforts
Sensitive modernisation of this mediaeval Umbrian monastery has seen ancient stonework and rustic wooden beams complemented by art, furniture and ceramics sourced exclusively from local studios like Lispi, Cotto Etrusco and Endiadi Ceramics. The restaurant uses local seasonal ingredients, with fragrant herbs and vegetables plucked straight from the hotel’s own gardens, and velvety olive oils and fat juicy figs sourced from neighbouring groves and farms; young saplings in the hotel’s once-forgotten orchard will also one day bear fruit. A composting programme fertilises gardens designed to bloom year round, and the travertine pool is heated naturally beneath the warm Umbrian sun.
The villa’s ancient stone walls look positively dreamy by candlelight. Nab a table in the cloisters to enjoy the monastery at its atmospheric best, with the blessed bonus of courtyard and pool views.
Dress Code
You’re not expected to dress for dinner here, but don’t let a little thing like that put you off. We’re backing understated Italian labels for the win.
Hotel restaurant
The focus here is firmly on sustainable field-fresh flavours inspired by the bountiful Umbrian countryside: extra-virgin oil from local producers, fine Tuscan and Umbrian wines, and herbs and vegetables harvested from the hotel’s kitchen-garden that very morning. Even the most decorous diner will go feral for dishes such as Parmesan with artichoke cream and black garlic, and duck cooked with apple, cinnamon and orange zest. And the bread pudding with ricotta, pistachio and vanilla cream is a near-religious experience. Or it would be, were it not so gleefully sinful. Burgundy-red banquettes and ancient oak beams draped with Murano-style lamps provide the suitably atmospheric location for such fine feasting. Or you can opt to dine under the wisteria-draped pergola on lavender-scented summer evenings.
Hotel bar
Bar Matite is a convivial space where locals drop by and mingle with guests until late, sampling the huge range of (mostly) Italian wines, and cocktails inspired by local flavours. Try the signature Umbrian Sgroppino, Vocabolo Moscatelli’s refreshing take on the Venetian classic: lemon sorbet, prosecco and virgin olive oil spiked with ice-cold gin. Friends old and new often end up out by the fire pit until late.
Last orders
Breakfast is served all day, and dinner is from 7pm until 9.30pm. Bar Matite stays open until midnight.
Room service
Dishes and drinks can be ordered to your room throughout normal food service hours, from 8am to 9pm.
Cloistered in the undulating hills of rural Umbria, Vocabolo Moscatelli is a former mediaeval monastery surrounded by olive groves, natural oak forest and lavender-scented gardens, all within an hour’s drive of Arezzo, Assisi and Perugia.
Planes
You’ll feel far from civilisation out here in rural Umbria. But, in fact, Vocabolo Moscatelli is a mere 40-minute drive from Perugia Airport. Transfers can be organised on request.
Trains
The closest train stations are at Arezzo and Perugia, both around 40 minutes from the hotel.
Automobiles
Vocabolo Moscatelli’s remote countryside setting means you’ll want your own set of wheels for getting around. And boy, is this part of Umbria worth exploring, promising lost-in-time hilltop villages, fairytale mediaeval castles and long Orvieto-fuelled lunches by the bucketload. There’s free parking at the hotel, and a couple of electric-vehicle charging points.
Other
Cab a little too pedestrian for you? Pimp up your Umbria adventure by helicoptering in (available on request).
Worth getting out of bed for
Since breakfast is served the whole day long here, there’s really no urgent requirement to pour yourself out of that king-sized cloud of a bed before, say, noon. That said, sunrise dips in the courtyard’s travertine pool and gentle morning meditation sessions in the gardens, bathed in the sounds of the forest, do present a pretty good case for getting up with the lark. Grab yoga mats from your room and pick a spot for instructor-led sessions, or practise the ancient Chinese art of qigong with Vocabolo Moscatelli’s appropriately titled ‘director of blooming’.
Further mindfulness opportunities await in the oak forests that surround the property. Enjoy fine-tuned forest bathing sessions with the aforementioned director. Or strike out in search of Umbria’s ‘black gold’. This is the only region in Italy where you can find not one but four different types of truffle, so your chances of unearthing an elusive scorzone on your summer stroll – its rough, bark-like shell belying the aromatic nutty flesh within – are about as good here as anywhere.
There’s also a negroni-making masterclass, the results of which you can take home in a souvenir bottle, and an opportunity to come over all Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze at pottery classes held by local studio Endiadi in the chapel or beneath the vine-clad pergola. Your gallery-worthy creations will be glazed, fired and mailed to your home as a unique memento of your Umbrian sojourn. And all of this is before you’ve even left the hotel grounds…
Outside those honey-coloured monastery walls lies a whole world of undulating hills and valleys, fairytale castles, lush vineyards and mediaeval hill towns for the intrepid traveller to explore. Expect wine tasting with a view at the nearby Santo Stefano and Del Carmine vineyards, and get an authentic taste of Umbrian life in the mountain village of Montone, with its steep stone staircases, brick-paved streets, mediaeval city walls, church and bell tower. Arezzo, Assisi and Perugia are also all do-able day trips, each within an hour’s drive of the hotel.
Local restaurants
Pizza is never far away in Italy… Just a hop and a skip from Vocabolo Moscatelli, Il Vecchio Granaio produces the kind of wood-fired beauties from which dreams are woven, all puffed-up crispy edges, and toppings – locally sourced cheese, meats, vegetables and oils – that pay serious homage to Umbria’s farm-fresh bounty. The setting is pure Umbria: an old stone farmhouse overlooking those endless rolling hills. And, in the unlikely event you’re not in the mood for pizza, the menu also offers local favourites including gnocchi with porcini mushrooms, pappardelle smothered in wild boar ragù, and bison osso bucco.
Showstopping scenery is hardly in short supply in this part of Umbria, but you’d be hard-pushed to find eye candy more epic than at Erba Luna in the pretty hilltop town of Montone. The interiors are spectacular enough, all soaring stone arches, vaulted ceilings and flickering candlelight (the restaurant is set in what was once part of the old castle here), but it's the glorious terrace views and menu’s tantalising truffle-infused treats that will have you waxing lyrical in your postcards home.
Local bars
Just across the Umbria-Tuscany border, the historic hilltop city of Cortona is home to opulent palazzos, broad piazzas, a thousand-year-old cathedral and… wine bars on nearly every cobbled street corner. Sottovoce is as good a place to start as any, thanks to its prime spot on Piazza della Repubblica. The menu’s no slouch either, running the gamut from inventive cocktails and moreish tapas to a wide selection of Tuscan and Umbrian wines from small producers.
Suitably refreshed, stumble off the piazza and into Cortona’s equally atmospheric lanes, where options includeGlobe’s young cocktail-swilling crowd, Bottega Barrachi’s cave-like interiors and panoramic terrace, and the small-but-perfectly-formed selection of local wines at La Bottega del Vin Bono.
Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this former monastery in Umbria’s southwest and renounced all worldly pleasures (with the possible exception of those foraged black truffles and bottles of silky olive oil), a full account of their off-grid adventure will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Vocabolo Moscatelli in Umbria…
In the gauzy summer twilight, gazing wistfully at the Vocabolo Moscatelli’s mediaeval monastery and bell tower across lavender fields alive with the hum of a hundred honey bees, you could easily be forgiven for thinking you’ve stepped into a real-life Monet, van Gogh or Fattori masterpiece. Tall purple alliums sway gently in the evening breeze and olive trees rustle around the stone entrance arch; a well-tuned ear might even hear wild boars snuffling for truffles in the nearby oak forests as the dusk birdsong subsides. Inside the monastery, bold fabrics, contemporary prints and stylish 21st-century flourishes by Italian design gurus Lispi and Cotto Etrusco add pops of colour – moss green, heather pink, sky blue – against honey-stone walls and rustic wooden beams that have become beautifully warped, bowed and twisted by centuries of service. Part house of god, part work of art, Vocabolo Moscatelli is nothing short of divine.
