History
Fontemaggio is the name of a water source that lies only 200 metres from our home.
All the people who are going to the Hermitage, or whoever arrives at the water source, can enjoy the fresh healthy air that surrounds the small courtyard. Our grandparents, Natale Rambotti, who was from Colle di Nocera Umbra and Maria Oliva Cipolloni, who was from Capodacqua di Assisi, bought the farm and buildings in 1949.
The farm was mainly based on agricultural activities, as well as sheep breeding. The current Hotel building was originally the family home, where the grandchildren can still remember the creaky floors, the cracks in the plaster, the wonderful attic full of every kind of object, the string we used to ring the bell situated on the roof and the incredibly grand inscription on the north wall:
You can still recognise the splendour of the majestic Italian garden, where the summer restaurant was built, in some of our old pictures.
All the people who are going to the Hermitage, or whoever arrives at the water source, can enjoy the fresh healthy air that surrounds the small courtyard. Our grandparents, Natale Rambotti, who was from Colle di Nocera Umbra and Maria Oliva Cipolloni, who was from Capodacqua di Assisi, bought the farm and buildings in 1949.
The farm was mainly based on agricultural activities, as well as sheep breeding. The current Hotel building was originally the family home, where the grandchildren can still remember the creaky floors, the cracks in the plaster, the wonderful attic full of every kind of object, the string we used to ring the bell situated on the roof and the incredibly grand inscription on the north wall:
“With St. Francis, Italy gave the holiest of saints to Christianity and humanity”.
You can still recognise the splendour of the majestic Italian garden, where the summer restaurant was built, in some of our old pictures.
The Camping
The Camping was created long before the Hotel, it is the most ancient family activity: the original licence was dated 1959…It was the result of the combination of the position of the property – located on the road to the Hermitage, that was already used by many pilgrims – and my grandfather’s intuitive and premonitory business sense, in times in which no one had ever even talked about tourism in Umbria.
The Camping was a place in which we would meet friends each summer, who would come and stay at our house...
(this is what the Camping is – and was – for us ).
The Restaurant
Our grandmother’s role was no less important: her exquisite cooking was at the base of the creation of the restaurant, that grew thanks to the energy of a group of young people who wanted to create something new and slightly unconventional in Assisi: a place where people could meet, have fun, play the guitar, and even listen to Nilla Pizzi records. Our parents were in that group ( Anna and her brother Franco) and their best friends also.
Their friend, Walter Bernardini, a Surveyor, designed the fireplace, and Ezio Mancini, who had a creative touch, designed the Menu, and many others did many other things that we don’t even know or remember…
This was in the 60’s and soon the restaurant (created in the stables) became a meeting place for all the University students in Perugia.
In 1977 our restaurant obtained the Italian Cooking Oscar, making Anna, Franco, our grandfather and all the cooks very happy and proud (according to the pics). These were decades of crazy work! Our first memories of the restaurant are slightly foggy, probably because of the heavy smoke that filled the room, because the fireplace draft was inefficient, and left indelible signs on the darkened walls.
The smoke was gone when the fireplace was restored, and our memories become clearer: Japanese groups, big conventions, the difficult period following the earthquake of 1997, the year 2000 Jubilee, the post-earthquake construction work and the transition period of the hand-over to our generation.
