Italy’s Scattered Motels Rescuing Submit-Pandemic Journey And Past

The village of Portico di Romagna

In the old monastery

With the curly Lagotto dog Rex in the lead, Matteo Cameli and I hike across a field of wildflowers to the family’s truffle reserve. Here in Emilia-Romagna, black and white truffles hide in the dark under oaks and linden trees, waiting to be sniffed out by the professionally trained dogs of the Cameli family. Truffle hunting is a guest activity offered by the Albergo Diffuso to the family or the family’s “scattered hotel” in the small hamlet of Portico di Romagna nearby. With Cameli’s mother Marisa Raggi at the helm In the old monastery The scattered hotel seems to be a model for a socially distant vacation after the pandemic – but also for a sustainable future of the tourism so urgently needed on our planet.

Although seemingly tailored to the COVID era, the Albergo Diffuso model – in which the rooms of a hotel are not contained in a single structure, but rather spread out over houses in a city – was invented in the 1980s. President and founder of Diffusi Hotel Association hotels Giancarlo Dall’Ara explains that the heart of the scattered hotel concept is the interaction with small village communities. A dispersed hotel is defined as the creation of accommodation for visitors through the reuse and restructuring of existing homes that must be located within an inhabited city center. “These hotels cannot be located in ghost towns,” explains Dall’Ara, “otherwise they will simply become tourist villages.”

The swimming pool of the Locanda Senio in Palazzuolo sul Senio

Locanda Senio

Locanda Senio, a scattered hotel just an hour down winding hill roads from Al Vecchio Convento, is in a lively Tuscan town of around 1,130 residents. Palazzuolo sul Senio has a handful of bars, a gelateria, a hairdresser and a pharmacy. It has an active community like that cooperative CIA organizes cultural and educational events, including the conversion of a disused newspaper kiosk into a small art gallery. Locanda Senio’s owner, Ercole Lega, encourages guests to use these local services as part of an authentic experience of Italian village life. Indeed, as Dall’Ara points out, “scattered hotels are unique because they have two lobbies: the reception and the piazza.” Vacationers at the hotels get a taste of local life, where the streets and squares are communal social spaces.

One of the recently renovated rooms at Locanda Senio.

Locanda Seno

Although “scattered”, the properties in these hotels are relatively close together, no more than about 200 meters, so that it still feels like a single connected hotel. The structure must provide all standard hotel services including reception, common areas, breakfast and room service. In the Al Vecchio Convento, the reception, the dining room and some guest rooms are located in a renovated palazzo, which is rich in restored antique furniture. A stone’s throw away, next to the tiny local church, there are other apartments that are usually rented to pilgrims who lead one of three pilgrimage routes through the Portico di Romagna.

Although the coronavirus emergency in Italy closed hotels for months last year and early this year, there is a silver lining for the scattered hotel. With vacationers now prioritizing safety, interest in Italy’s small villages is growing. They rarely suffer from overcrowding and offer many socially distant activities in the natural setting. Dall’Ara notes that between June and October last year, when hotels were able to reopen, alberghi diffusi saw an increase in bookings, more than in previous years. The outlook for this year is also optimistic. A handful of structures even did expansion or restoration work during the pandemic closings, suggesting an increasing number of guests.

The village and fortress of San Leo

San Leo Albergo Diffuso

Francesca Berardi who opened a scattered hotel in the rocky village of San Leo a few months ago knows the importance of capitalizing on this rising interest. After the opening had to be postponed due to the pandemic, the promising start to this season – with which the hotel is often fully booked on weekends – is badly needed good news.

But the scattered hotel’s growing popularity isn’t just a case for being the perfect place to stay for the COVID era. With the resumption of international travel, the travel industry is realizing the need to change tourist habits. The scattered hotel is an example of sustainable, beneficial tourism. It shows the way to leave behind the fast-paced bucket list tourism that has dominated the past few decades. “I think it’s the winning solution,” says Berardi, “I love showing guests the identity of the territory through collaboration with local artisans, farms, restaurants and wine cellars.” In fact, she chose Albergo Diffuso- Model so as not to simply become a “receptive structure” whose only service was the overnight stay.

A room in the San Leo Albergo Diffuso

San Leo Albergo Diffuso

The Albergo diffuso concept benefits both the visitor and the local community. Vacationers have the opportunity to fully immerse themselves in village and country life. In addition to truffle hunting, Al Vecchio Convento offers cooking classes that could better be described as scientific culinary studies of the area’s edible resources. Chef Cameli’s kitchen overflows with curious laboratory-style glasses filled with fermented chestnuts, porcini mushrooms, and pollen. Boxes contain powdered potatoes, zucchini flowers, and lichen, and Cameli pulls bottles of oil with dill or coffee from a cupboard. At dinner that evening, Cameli’s friend Andrea Peradotto jokes that every menu must contain at least two fermented elements. Tonight there are fermented ricotta in the ravioli and fermented mushrooms that top the juicy steak.

Peradotto works with the hotel in its wine production, another attraction for guests. After Peradotto realized that the surrounding landscape of the city was once dense with rows of vineyards, Peradotto went in search of the remaining vines he could find. Today he produces four different wines made from Sangiovese grapes, including the hearty Ridaccio, which we taste at dinner that evening. In one of the vineyards just outside the village, Peradotto shows me low vines, probably around 60 years old, which he has cleared of the undergrowth and tended to health. Meanwhile, Cameli casually searches for wild herbs between the vines and hands us wild mint and salad rolls to taste.

Chef Matteo Cameli takes a break from hunting for truffles with the dogs Rex and Otto

In the old monastery

Ercole Lega at Locanda Senio also introduces guests to the natural environment through its cooking classes and cuisine. He has collected wild garlic and a cornucopia of herbs as the basis for our tagliatelle sauce. Fragrant bouquets of thyme, mint and rosemary in cracked cups decorate the kitchen shelves. The crostini that start dinner are beautifully decorated with brightly colored petals of roses and marigolds. They are accompanied by beaten elderflower and wild mint.

The activities offered by the scattered hotels encourage slow-paced tourism that encourages longer stays and more respectful treatment of the natural environment and the local community. At Al Vecchio Convento, Marisa Raggi says that upon arrival, visitors often wonder how they can spend a week in such a small settlement. When leaving, they have often already booked to return next summer. As Raggi’s daughter-in-law Ulla Pedersen puts it: “Marisa manages to convey her love for this place to her guests.”

A room in the Al Vecchio Convento

In the old monastery

Even in small towns, holidaymakers can immerse themselves in nature, which the Lega in the Locanda Senio considers to be very important in the post-COVID period. A postprandial get-together with friends is about the crucial reconnection with nature after months in four walls that have rarely been separated by screens and technology. The next day, the Lega shows me a notice board in the city center with cycling and walking routes that can be downloaded via an app.

Ercole Lega and his wife Roberta

Locanda Senio

This is also a type of tourism that benefits local residents and businesses. Dall’Ara describes the scattered hotel model as “a way to revitalize a village” by creating jobs and boosting the local economy. Al Vecchio Convento is a source of life for the hamlet of Portico di Romagna, in which about 250 inhabitants live. Lucia Gennaretti, a ceramic artisan, receives a lot from hotel guests looking for authentic souvenirs. “The hotel brings high-quality tourism and visitors interested in art and culture,” says Gennaretti. In addition to working in the hotel itself, the family recently restored and reopened an artisanal bakery in nearby Rocca San Casciano. Before I go, I stop for some delicious pastries, the creations of Moroccan pastry chef Larbi Serroukh and Austrian baker Caterina.

There are now 150 alberghi diffusi and a further 100 buildings in Italy, which automatically define themselves as scattered hotels. In 2009, the Alberghi Diffusi association also began exporting the model to other countries around the world, including Japan, Switzerland, Germany and Croatia. It is hoped for the opening of the first scattered hotel in Africa this summer. To explain this extension, Dall’Ara says: “People want authentic experiences and we offer them something real.”