Castello di Guarene

Castello di Guarene

In 1773, King Vittorio Amedeo III and his queen visited the newly completed Castello di Guarene, and much of what they saw then is still standing today, a Piedmontese Baroque residence begun in 1726 by Count Carlo Giacinto Roero, its façade credited to the architect Filippo Juvarra. The Italian gardens laid out in the same century still frame the nearly 25-metre building, which looks out over the UNESCO-listed hills of the Langhe, Roero and Monferrato from a genuinely privileged position. Fifteen protected rooms on the piano nobile function as a museum, holding frescoes and Compagnia delle Indie tapestries that a hotel built to resemble history could never claim; past them are the twelve guest rooms, some set into the oldest core of the castle with original frescoed walls and velvet furnishings. There is a spa with a sauna, steam room, solarium and indoor pool, a restaurant built around Piedmontese ingredients, and an antique piano the staff keep tuned to preserve its original vibration rather than modernize its sound. Free Wi-Fi and free parking sit alongside more old-fashioned courtesies: staff who move between English, Italian, French, German and Spanish, bikes for the surrounding hills, and a policy that lets pets stay for a nightly fee. Weddings and events use the gardens and frescoed halls directly. This suits people drawn to a family seat still doing its original job, who don't need a resort's scale or a city's noise to feel looked after. It will read as too quiet, too small, and too slow for anyone wanting a buzzing lobby or more than a dozen rooms of company. Few Piedmont hotels double as a working museum wing. A working Piedmontese castle from 1726, complete with a museum wing of original frescoes and just twelve guest rooms behind it. Come for the history you can touch and the spa over the Langhe hills, not for company or a fast pace.