Parrano |
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It was 2006 when the Soldera family began to recover the value of Parrano with an integrated renovation project. The centre of the estate is the castle resort, inside of which there is a boutique hotel unequaled in charm and beauty. The resort includes a spa, or better, a Salus Per Aquam, with tepidarum, calidarum, and frigidarum all fed by natural thermal water. There is also an aesthetic wellness centre carved into an alluring niche that boasts a thousand years of history. Water and aesthetics are integral parts of the main objective here: Wellness, in the full meaning of the word. The Soldera family lives here and personally supervises the master plan, the architecture and both the indoor and outdoor styles of the estate, employing the most talented experts to fulfill their vision in full respect for both the Genius Loci and the surrounding nature. Time, in Parrano, does not pass. The sky above remains the same, the silence is eternal and the aroma that fills the air is that of nature in its purest state. This total commitment to the Castello di Parrano assures that clients will always personally be guided in each of their projects by the Soldera family, even the future generations. The Principality of Parrano project came about to make a more intelligent use of the thermal water springs, the stunning natural surroundings and the ages-old architecture. One of the things that characterises the fiefdom is the fact that its architecture has remained the same since the Middle Ages and is intrinsically tied to the castle, which has dominated and protected it for centuries, surrounded by the woods, vineyards, olive groves and fields typical of the Umbrian-Tuscan landscape. Functional integration is the final objective and strong point of this project, one of the Region of Umbria’s most important integrated development projects. HistoryThe ancient fiefdom of Parrano still has its hamlet intact around its mediaeval castle, but the history here goes back much further than that.Important prehistoric relics found here date back to Upper Paleolithic times, the Bronze Age. Later eras have left behind evident signs of their passing, such as the Etruscans (recent digs have uncovered relics that date to the 6th century BC) and the Romans. In the 9th century AD it became a strategic fiefdom and since then has retained all the characteristics of a Principality that conditioned its life from its birth onwards. Its climate was enviable and its spring water much desired, it offered security thanks to its natural protective shield of deep ravines and gorges, known as the Parrano Ravines. Thanks to its highly strategic perch, it was a lookout and defensive outpost. The surrounding territory is hilly and offers a great variety of landscapes that go from pristine high plains to uncontaminated valleys. The views from here are truly breathtaking, and the sunsets are beyond beautiful. From the outside, Parrano appears like an architectural jewel set in verdant woods. Before the Etruscans came to claim this perch for themselves, cavemen lived in the caves deep inside the impenetrable woods in the warm ravines by the Bagno ravine, or Forra gorge, near to where the village now sits. These caves were also lived in by the cavemen’s successors until, in the Middle Ages, the population having become somewhat more civilized, left them behind to build the castrum they would then call “Parrani”, that is, “near to the river” or “beyond the river”, referring to the Bagno River where they had come from or to the Chiani river. The first documentation we have of human settlement at Parrano dates to the Upper Paleolithic (a Miolithic Age). Near the Bagno Minerale ravine there is a canyon that was carved into the hillside by tens of thousands of years of running water. It flows for about a kilometer between light-blue calcareous walls that are 15-20 meters high, and in certain places its width barely reaches 70cm. Along the left hand side of the Bagno Minerale ravine, there are some twenty caves, many of which were certainly inhabited in the dawn of civilization. They left some interesting traces of their settlement and have given us, without a doubt, the oldest relics in all of the Orvieto territory (from the Upper Paleolithic to the Bronze Age). In July 1932, Frenchman Gilbert Pineton of the Counts of Chambrun, a man with a passion for caving, was a guest of his brother-in-law, Prince Alessandro Edmondo Ruspoli, at the time the owner of the castle. He explored these caves and spoke of them to Professor Umberto Calzoni, the director of the Archaeological Museum of Perugia. Prof Calzoni soon organised a systematic archaeological dig of the area and uncovered many fascinating anthropological remains, as well as material from the earliest Stone Age and shards of terra cotta from pre-Etruscan times (Bronze Age). The finds were taken to the Archaeological Museum of Perugia, where they are still preserved today, as proof that man has been in this part of Umbria for as long as 28,000 years. News of the discovery of the early settlement spread through Italy and was considered vastly important for the extraordinarily rare relics of paleontological life and for the terracotta shards, but also because it proved the existence of an Apennine civilization that predated the Etruscans. These caves, located on cliff edges that drop straight down into the ravine, are considered sacred by the local population. Just below the Forra di Parrano gorge, right by the river’s edge (Bagno Minerale ravine), is a rich source of 29°C mineral water containing sulfur and magnesium, for ages used as highly efficient therapeutic thermal baths. The calcareous ravine of the fosso del Bagno Minerale, with its extraordinary geological wealth, archaeological importance and its flora and fauna, constitutes a truly unique area in Umbria, and has been proclaimed “of naturalistic importance”. The hills of Parrano were also inhabited by Etruscans and Romans. The castrum built at Parrano was actually constructed over older Roman ruins. Around the year 1000, houses began to spring up around castles, settlements became villages that grew into towns, forests where cut and fields took their place to grow food for an increasing population. The first document that actually mentions Parrano dates to 1118, when the Bishop of Orvieto gave its as a fiefdom to Count Bulgarelli. The powerful Baglioni family eventually inherited it and in 1568 it went to the Marescotti di Vignanello family, who ruled over it until 1816 (when the Papal State abolished fiefdoms) with the title of First Count of Parrano and then Prince of Parrano. It was 1733 when Pope Clement XII promoted the little county of Parrano to Principality. The estate and the castle, as it went from owner to owner after Augusto Marescotti, absorbed the signs of those who lived in it, the traces of their passage and their love for this most enchanting of places remained, without removing anything from the past pro-tempore custodians of this treasure. And so the castle is an open book of history, of different lifestyles and expressions of certain periods, past but still present and alive. These are the details that make the Castello di Parrano warm, cosy and unique. They are what tell of a thousand years of history jealously safeguarded by the love of those who have lived here. As you go up the main stairway of the Castello you are immediately surrounded by history. It almost seems as if you can still hear the hooves of the horses on their way up – you see, the stairs were built there for them, not for us. The Pope would be accompanied by the Prince, both still on horseback, up to the “noble” floors. He was actually the padrone di casa as the Principality of Parrano was, in fact, a fiefdom belonging to the Papal State. Once upstairs the ambience is warm, it feels lived-in, not the cold museum-like feeling you all too often get when you visit ancient castles. You can feel the history, and how, you feel like you have stepped back in time that is still the present. This feeling comes from the fact that every generation that lived here left something of themselves, something that recalls the times in which he or she lived (and remember that more than a thousand years have been lived out here), something personal that was put there because that’s what was in vogue – just like we do when we live somewhere, we put this object here or there because we like it, because we think it goes well there, even though others may not agree! In a word, it is the warmth of a home that embraces us... a home that has been lived in for a thousand years. The guest rooms are another pleasant surprise. They are all different, each linked to a person, his taste and his story. The Torre Alta room has 5 levels, and when you reach the 5th the passageway narrows so that men in suits of armour cannot pass and swords must be left behind – the tower, after all, was the ultimate defense of the Castello. The Castello di Parrano has seen its fair share of battles and was as fierce as the best of them in their defense of the Papal State, perennially on sentry-duty over the Valle del Chiani, the plain along the Chiani River that was the main “highway” to Rome in ancient times. It was a delicate and vitally strategic defensive outpost and supply deposit. The Pope’s bedroom is also full of surprises, which do not end when you discover that you can go from the San Biagio chapel right into the church – yes, the Church, the one to which the villagers go, where Holy Mass is celebrated, the one with that lived-in feeling. It is here, in the Church, that the locals listen to their parish priest, a place that, more than any other, strikes everyone. From the prie-dieu that faces the altar the soft aroma of incense from the thurible wafts into the air and the voices of the faithful murmur in prayer after Don Mario’s sermon. There is no more emotionally powerful place in the entire Castello than the Church, because it is here that once senses the presence of the Church of Rome, of the Papal State, of God. But the Castello is not just a mystical place to pray. History has also left us the culture of wellness and water. By water we mean the thermal water of the Thermal Baths, from the Thermal Spring of Parrano that runs through the Castello’s thousand year old stone walls, the ancient water reservoirs and ages-old pools – the water of one of the most beautiful Spas in the world. Going from Tepidarium to Calidarium to Frigidarium and back again offers a unique treatment that is extremely beneficial to one’s physique: an exciting experience for the body and the mind. Emotions and wellness are sensations that remain with you, an experience not to be missed. The Salus Per Aquam treatment is something everyone should do at least once in their lives! Over its long history, Parrano, before being in habited by the Etruscans, hosted a settlement of cave-dwellers in the caves over the warm ravines of the Bagno Ravine or Forra Gorge, not far from where the hamlet now sits. These canyons are spectacular, with walls that reach 60-70 meters in height. The “baths” (and the benefits of its water) were known, we now know, long before the Etruscans arrived. It was already considered a sacred place for the salutary effects of the “mineral water ravine”. A rich source of sulfur-magnesium mineral water has been bubbling up out of the earth here since the dawn of man, and it has always been used to benefit the health of those who bathe in it. |
