La Scarzuola — Attraction in Montegabbione

PLEASE AVOID! Leaving one star because I can’t leave no stars. I don’t even know where to begin. We arrived after 11am on a Saturday morning (hadn’t checked the website as I always check opening times on google maps, perhaps my fault), and were rushed in by somebody standing at the gate to the property. Without explaining much, he told us it was 10€ per person, and we paid in cash. He locked the gate and told us to follow him. We arrived to an amazing amphitheater where there were about 100 people, half of them listening to an older guy speaking very loudly in Italian. It was no problem we didn’t understand half of it, at least we would get a tour of the place, or so we thought. He rambled for at least 45 min… not really sure if that was supposed to be a tour or what, but we decided we were not willing to spend the next hour listening to a mad man talking about the universe in the intense heat, without seeing any of the actual place! Worst 10€ spent, ever. Still, we thought we’d cut our losses and asked the man who we paid to let us in, to let us out. No big deal right? He told us to wait 5 min, which we did. After that, we asked again if we could leave. Very very quickly he got quite defensive, and said (not jokingly) he “might not let us out at all”. EXCUSE ME, WHAT? I’ve never ever experienced such awful customer care/experience. We can laugh about it now but panic was starting to set it, honestly. I was so ready to call the police when he started walking towards the exit. We followed him and thank god! What an absolute nightmare. We were finally free. I’m sure the place is amazing, and I would have loved to see more of it, but it’s really not worth dealing with such tw*. Spend your money somewhere else. In a pizza, a glass of wine, an aperol spritz or anywhere else where you’ll feel you’re actually treated with respect....

We were here in late winter and had no idea that it’s completely closed off. You will need to call and book a tour if you want to get inside.

Unfortunately, we didn’t know this when we took our rental car down the muddy dirt path for a good 30-45 minutes or so. We came from the north, SP57.

Driving this path was an adventure on its own. We had no idea what to expect other than “let’s check out this cool monastery in the middle of nowhere because we’re close by” — we drove and drove, the road was unpaved, narrow, full of pebbles, it was foggy and cold, and it felt like we were driving into nothing except more mountain and forest.

We considered turning around because we thought we might have taken the wrong path (this was back when this was still relatively unknown and there were no obvious signs.) We pushed ahead, too curious now. And then, we saw the towers rising above the tree crowns, and it was eerie. We arrived at what seemed like a forgotten place. Empty, except for a lonely dog patrolling the monastery, which only added to the feeling of having found something special.

Since we could not find a way in (we actually did ring the bell, but no response), all we could do was walk around the estate and take peeks. What we saw was fantastical, and it all reminded me of something out of Alice in Wonderland.

I can’t rate the actual tour or property (hence the 4 stars), but the experience was unique and the...

If Dante had envisioned an eleventh circle of Hell, it would surely resemble this grotesque 1950s fantasy city, a soulless wasteland of brutalist delusions dumped unceremoniously into a landscape once graced with natural beauty. Here, nature’s majesty has been efficiently smothered beneath a labyrinth of cheaply soulless tufo, festooned with tasteless faux-historic pastiches that suggest an architect with a grudge against aesthetics itself. Guiding us through this aesthetic apocalypse was a man of singular vulgarity, whose charm was exceeded only by his staggering self-regard. With the air of a bargain-bin Nietzsche, he spat contempt at any who dared question the genius of these architectural blights. His commentary—equal parts pretension, profanity, and petty insult—suggested he considered himself the last surviving intellect in a world of philistines. One might have admired such conviction had it not been attached to a man who likened an eye to a vagina. The only redeeming feature of this tour was its end, when one could finally flee this dystopian daydream and return to a world where beauty has not been sacrificed at the altar of hubris...