For a unique experience, pass through the entrance into the Villa Pambuffetti Hotel and you enter an Umbrian family palazzo, once their summer home, backing up to the walled hill-top town of Montefalco. The palazzo is in a park-like setting surrounded by evergreen oaks and century old cedar and cypress trees. We were told one great cypress tree is three hundred years old.

As with most palazzos, each generation found reason and resources to add to the original structure. With Villa Pambuffetti, the additions were done with such architectural harmony and grace to produce a place of elegance and beauty. It is hard to tell where the original building stood and how it was enlarged. The cozy lobby area is distinguished by its lovely fireplace. The warm wooden trim, beautifully crafted doors and the distinctive tiled floors of the entrance and formal dining room and the logia overlooking the garden out front--all speak to a time when art and comfort were closely related.

The hotel's eleven rooms (four more in the guest house) and common areas are furnished in antiques. Each has modern bath facilities, individually controlled heat and air conditioning, TVs and a mini-bar. At the rear of the hotel is a large heated pool (a bit too warm in August, when we visited).

Weather permitting, breakfast and dinner are served in the garden in front of the hotel. The restaurant offers a wide range of Umbrian specialties together with an impressive list of both the distinctive Montefalco wines along with others from the Umbrian region.

The weekend we were there was a time of great festivities. One group was celebrating the baptism of a baby while the other was celebrating a wedding. The wedding group enjoyed dinner in a tent in another part of the grounds. The children with the baptismal group turned the softly lighted and very romantic dining area into a playground. It appears to be part of the times that children at play feel it necessary to scream and modern parents have never developed the ability to control their children. Aside from screaming children and non-controlling parents, Villa Pambuffetti offered us a lovely experience.

Having spent 4 days in the Villa, it grew on me.
The positive: some of the staff are very dedicated, good food, nice setting in Umbria, heated pool, comfy bed
The negative: in need of renovation, it's quite simply dated. For a 4* hotel they need to redo things like the showers, put in new phones, revamp the pool, in a word: modernize. I felt I was in the '80s!
All that said, I spent a lovely 4 days and much enjoyed the area.

We stopped at this hotel without reservations and were lucky enough to get a room...and not just any room. We were given the tower room with spectacular views over Umbria. The inn and its grounds are beautiful, with established trees and vegetation (some of the trees, we were told, were over 300 years old). The inn itself is beautiful, with a warm and welcoming atmosphere and plenty of books on Umbria. It is casual, yet elegant, in an understated, unpretentious way. The staff was wonderful and helpful. Breakfast was excellent, with lots of choices, even gluten free items. We wish we'd eaten dinner there! Pool was heated and we were able to swim at 9AM, an impossibility at many other places that early in the AM. Plenty of chaise lounges for guests, as well as wonderful hammocks spread around the grounds. We'll definitely return to this wonderful place.

Greatly enjoyed our stay and would recommend the hotel to others.Family run business where nothing was too much trouble.Good healthy breakfast and an excellent evening menu.