Hotel Relais & Chateaux di Perugia

Just returned for 4 nights at this lovely hotel after its long renovation. I was traveling with my wife and adult daughter and we had two rooms. We booked our rooms through Amex fine hotel and resorts which included free breakfast and room upgrade. I had booked executive room for my daughter and her upgrade was to a slightly higher category room with a small viewing room up a flight of stairs. Our room was a deluxe suite and we were given a patio suite as an upgrade. The rooms were both very nice. Our suite was huge with small patio and very nice bedroom and living room. The decorations were lovely. The biggest issue of the room was the air conditioning. During our visit it was quite hot and the a/c in our suite room could not cool the room to a comfortable level. The manager of the hotel was very apologetic and brought us a fan to help and assured us they would address the issue after we left for future guests but the lowest we could get the room at night was 76 to 77 degrees which was too hot for us to sleep. My daughter’s room cooled to about 70 her room was better in that regard. Additionally I found the mattress to be too firm but my wife and daughter felt it to be comfortable. Other positives were the staff were all friendly and the manager really tried to help make our stay enjoyable. The grounds were lovely and the pool was the perfect temperature. We had breakfast every day which was nice but not quite to the level I expected given the cost of the rooms but still very good. Dinner by the pool was very good with excellent pizza and pasta. We also had dinner at Cedri which was a big disappointment. We did the chef tasting meal for 155 euros per person. The dinner service was quite slow with meal taking almost 3.5 hours. The food had a few good courses but several courses were not very good. They did have an excellent wine list at reasonable choices. For the price and service at Cedri I would not recommend eating there. Overall, the resort is lovely and a beautiful setting. Had the air conditioning worked I would have enjoyed our stay but 4 sleepless nights in the heat really put a damper on our experience. If you could be confident the air conditioning was fixed I would not hesitate to recommend this resort. Given the managers eagerness to make guests happy, I think he will get it working and maybe with more time and training Cedri will improve. The area of Umbria is quite lovely and the hotel is a good base to explore perugia, Assisi, Spello etc. Don’t miss having dinner at Lillo Tatini in Panicale. It is close by and a great experience.