Campoli Appennino, Frosinone, Lazio, Italy

A beautiful and peaceful retreat, suitable for both summer and winter entertaining and family get-togethers, Villa Bosco is set in 3,100 sq m of gardens and wooded grounds.

In summer, the gardens, pizza oven, and many nearby activities (hiking, riding, swimming, fishing etc) are ideal, and the house is designed to open out onto the gardens and porches for easy indoor/outdoor living. But in winter the many log fireplaces and dark wood make the home warm and cosy, and an excellent base to explore the nearby downhill and cross-country skiing (the house itself is situated below the snow line). For gourmets, being only a few minutes from Campoli Appennino, the heart of Italy's truffle region, means that fresh truffles of various types and wild porcini mushrooms are readily available in season, as is wild asparagus.

Villa Bosco is set in a small enclave of luxury homes, each with extensive grounds, situated on a ridge above the charming medieval town of Campoli Appennino. (Campoli Appennino holds a festival for black truffles on the third week of June, and one for the white truffles on the third week of November.)

Entering through electric gates, a drive sweeps down through a wooded area towards the house, which is positioned to take full advantage of the panoramic view across the valley below. The house can be entered on either level. The main entrance on the upper level (which opens onto a large patio with covered dining area and pizza oven) is into an attractive small sitting room, with a large log fire for winter (although at the moment this fireplace is filled with a 'presepe', a type of intricate nativity scene traditional around Naples). From here you pass into a large, light room, with views over the garden and the valley: this is currently set up as a very large formal dining room. There is a very large log fireplace, with solid wooden mantle. Wooden stairs ascend to a mezzanine level, currently used both for musicians for formal parties and a children's play area for informal family events.

The kitchen area is large, and compromises several interconnected rooms, providing a little place to fix coffee and snacks, an appropriately sized area for cooking family meals, and an area for more large scale catering. (The current owners have also found this allows several different family members to cook without getting in each other's way.)

Also on this floor are two bedrooms and a bathroom, both bedrooms very charming, with dark wood ceilings and white walls.

The lower level has a sitting room, also with a fireplace, and stone and stucco walls. One window looks out over the garden, the other across the valley. Behind the sitting room, there is an entertaining area, with a built-in wood bar, seating area, small fireplace and guest w.c.

The entrance to the lower level is between the sitting room and the bar area.

Also on this level is the master bedroom suite, a separate area taking up almost half of the lower floor. The bedroom, which looks out through the trees to the valley beyond, opens off a very large wood-lined dressing room - so large that it is in fact not used by the current owners as a dressing room but is set up as another sitting room and study. From the dressing room, a short corridor leads to the bathroom and also to a utility and laundry room.

The extensive wooded gardens have been beautifully landscaped; features include a statue and large ornamental vases and urns placed as focal points throughout the grounds. There is a boules (petanque) grass court which could also create the ideal site for a swimming pool. The 71 sq.mt. of terraces and balconies afford many opportunities to enjoy the magnificent views, while the large wood-fired pizza oven offers fine al fresco dining.

Two further, smaller buildings on the property, currently unused, offer the potential for further expansion.

Villa Bosca is around 10 minutes drive from Sora, the main administrative town for the region, and possessing a wide range of shops, supermarkets, services, bars, cafés and restaurants. Other attractive medieval towns such as Isola del Liri (which hosts an international blues festival each summer) and the historic hilltop town of Arpino are within half an hour's drive.

Energy classification: G



ARPINO AND THE CIOCIARIA

Arpino is one of the major medieval hilltop towns in the area of Italy called the Ciociaria, the name given to the fertile land that lies south of Rome but north of Naples, situated inland in the hills in the heart of Italy.

The Ciociaria region is within easy reach of both Rome and Naples and their respective airports. A day's shopping in Rome is a common pastime, while an even shorter drive brings you to the charming beaches south of Rome. Alternatively, drive east, and the mountains of the Abruzzo National Park await with horse trekking in the magnificent beech forests, and sparkling mountain lakes and rivers where you can swim in the heat of the summer. And at the other extreme of temperature, although Arpino itself is temperate, less than an hour's drive brings you to the winter ski slopes.

Often overlooked, both by tourists and by those foreigners in search of an Italian home, in favour of the more publicized regions of Tuscany and Umbria, the Ciociaria remains largely an unspoilt gem with beautiful scenery and medieval hilltop towns. A home or second home in the Ciociaria, in the hilltop towns of Arpino, Veroli, Alatri or in the rolling countryside that surrounds them, will afford you a setting where over two thousand years of history combine with an idyllic rural Italian lifestyle, where you can still discover the 'real' Italy and take time out from the busy crowds of the larger tourist cities, while being less than ninety minutes journey from central Rome or either of Rome's two airports.


VIA ROMANA Srls and CASE & CASALI REAL ESTATE AGENCY

Via Romana Srls is an Italian-incorporated company owned by a British/Australian Chartered Accountant and her photographer daughter, and offers a package of services to facilitate all aspects of the purchase and restoration of Italian property by overseas clients. The Via Romana team works in collaboration with various fully-licensed Italian real estate agencies including Case & Casali Real Estate.

Case & Casali Real Estate Agency is represented by Sig. Ciro Tomei. Sig. Tomei has been enrolled in the register of real estate agents at the Chamber of Commerce in Frosinone, Lazio since 2007 and has much experience in the international marketing of Italian real estate.