La Vita Nuova

I did not add any pictures because the pictures already posted cover the place well enough. It's a wonderfully rebuilt casale in the midst of the hills of the Marche Region, not too far from the medieval village of Morro, d'Alba, famous for its Lacrima wines. Advice: Although at times the place lures you into doing nothing and hang around the small but cosy pool, use La Vita Nuova as a home base for a few days and from there, plan your day trips into the Marche hinterland. There are great places to visit at reasonable distance, like Morro d'Alba, Ancona, Osimo, Macerata, Urbino, Senigallia - just to mention a few. Good news: Breathtaking surroundings! New, well kept and very clean property. Spacious rooms and comfortable sanitary facilities. Nicely decorated. Easily accessible from Morro d'Alba. Very friendly host, Peter, of Belgian descent, who speaks Dutch, French, German and Italian. Nice salt water pool with a stunning view over the wine fields. Every once in a while Valentina, Peter's associate, cooks an Italian dinner for the guests. Haven't tried it but the guests - mostly Belgian during our stay - seemed to appreciate. There are numerous restaurants at close range that will serve quite interesting food at reasonable prices. Less good news: The breakfast/lunch/cocktail/ dining area is outside under a nicely overgrown pergola. The flip side of it is that, as soon as lunchtime sets in and even more so in the evenings, the place is visited by quite a number of tiny black mosquitoes that sting everybody who gets in their way. Very fastidious and rather painful, so make sure you have your repellents ready or avoid the pergola after breakfast. Breakfast itself is ok, by the way - limited choice but sufficient. Breakfast is served from 09.00 so if you plan to leave early for your daily sightseeing trip to avoid the heat, you will have to do your breakfast "the Italian way" and seek a solution in one of the countless coffee bars that serve cappuccino and cornetto from early morning on. The last kilometer or so of the road to La Vita Nuova is a white, extremely dusty gravel dirt road that will turn your car into quite a spectacular sight. Dust everywhere:) The rooms are cooled by a clever energy saving heat pump system. That is very sustainable. However, the fans that blow the cooled air of the system into the rooms are rather loud ( bit of a nuisance during the night) and on very hot days it does not pull its weight. We were told by the host to keep our curtains shut during the day and use an additional fan (even louder) to avoid excessive heating of the room. He was right - it would have been unbearably hot. We would have preferred another solution however, allowing a view over the beautiful hills outside, on top of a reasonable room temperature. Would we return here? Bet you we would. With a few precautions here and there, maybe. Price / performance is more than acceptable.