Locanda Nazionale In Fontanellato

05/05/2024: Superb place, very good service and top menu

03/05/2024: Really? This monastery is absolutely wonderful. We’re travelling around France, Switzerland, Germany, and have stayed in all sorts of apartments and hotels, but now they seem completely bland compared to this. It’s my chance to stay in a monastery, but with all the luxury that the monks gave up. They might disapprove of our comfort and lack of otherworldliness, and as I went to bed I could imagine all the ritual and constant prayer of the monastic life, and perhaps I borrowed a little of it by being here, but one thing’s for sure, neither the Abbot nor the monks ate as well as we did last night for dinner and now at breakfast. The restaurant is exactly scored at 4.5* because it’s a logarithmic scale in my book and 5 is a tall order. In short (says he after all the hyperbole!) this is a simply wonderful place to stay, unique and we will remember it long after we’ve forgotten every last little hotel and apartment. Come, relax, eat really well, enjoy the quiet, and whatever else you do, say a short prayer (1) to ask God to let you come back, and (2) that he protect this fabulous hotel so that you can enjoy it again. One last little thought… Just maybe, this might have been a wonderfully luxurious place all along, and perhaps the most prayerful, abstinent, and holy of monks were sent here to enjoy the pleasures we take almost for granted, in return for the prayers they offered on our behalf? I’m going to search for my long put away Rosary Beads when I get home.