Castello di Valenzano

This was my favorite place to stay in all of Italy, from Lecce in the south to Venice in the north. Aside from the fact that it is a real castle, the staff is fantastic. When we arrived from a ho-hum stay in Florence, we were checked in by Lucca, a fantastic young man who was later our waiter. Lucca's English is perfect and he immediately took us to our room. The walk to our room in the tower (if it's available, you MUST book it!) is one of my favorite memories to relive. We had to walk outside from the reception area to the front of the castle, through the front door and up several stairways, one of which is outside. We walked down a long hallway and you could just feel the history all around you. It felt like hundreds of people had walked that same hallway and I had the sense of the age of the place, despite being renovated and up-to-date. Once we reached our landing, we had to then walk DOWN a small set of stairs to reach our room. In total, we probably climbed 4-5 stairwells, making it circuitous and showing how the castle had been built and rebuilt over the centuries. We walked around the grounds for a while and met the dog, a lovely creature who was absolutely thrilled to play fetch with me. The cat was also nice, but quite a bit more shy. The castle has a beautiful view of the valley below (I must assume it's the Enzano Valley from the name) and we enjoyed a glass of wine watching the sun set from the outdoor terrace on the second floor. As the castle is remote (20 minutes from anything significant like a restaurant), we ate dinner there. The chef is extremely talented and we had an amazing meal. Lucca told us that she gathered much of the food from the castle grounds itself, so everything was fresh and tasty.Despite being the only people in the restaurant (we didn't see another guest our entire stay), the menu was extensive and everything was available. We felt guilty that the staff had done so much work for just us, so we over-ordered. Thank goodness we did, because it was all fantastic. My favorite part was the rabbit, which was fresh and tender, but also fried like chicken. It was served with lemon, which I had never experienced, and it was amazing. I will never have rabbit again without asking for lemon to go with it. The one thing to note is that this is a historic place, so window screens are not in place. We opened the room to get a breeze and some flies came in. No biggie, but we left the windows open over night and in the morning, we had mosquitoes. That's a bigger issue. Tip: Close your windows before dusk and dawn to avoid mosquitoes. But feel free to have them open the rest of the time. The boiler for the heating is wood powered, so you'll have a nice scent of wood the rest of the time! Do yourself a favor and get off the beaten track of Florence and Venice. This castle is honestly something you will be telling your great-grandchildren about!