Castello Orsini-Odescalchi

A fortress that a family has lived in for three hundred and thirty years and still owns. The Castello Orsini-Odescalchi was built from 1470 as both a military work and a lord's residence, to a design by Francesco di Giorgio Martini, and the two purposes never resolved into one -- it is simultaneously one of the most noteworthy examples of Renaissance military architecture in Italy and a frescoed house. The Borgias besieged it twice and failed both times: Alexander VI sent one son, Giovanni di Candia, with a papal army, and Cesare tried a few years later.

Visit if you:

• want Renaissance fortification designed by one of the period's great military architects
• are interested in the Orsini and the Borgias as neighbours rather than as names
• like castles that were never ruined -- this is one of the largest and best-maintained in Italy
• are going to Lake Bracciano anyway and want the thing the town is built around

Skip it if you:

• are expecting original furnishings -- the castle was looted of its valuable furniture after the French occupation
• want certainty about opening times: the owners' own site did not respond when this page was written, so hours and prices need checking elsewhere
• cannot manage a castle's stairs and towers, which is most of what there is to walk

This is a private house. The Odescalchi have owned the castle since 1696 and still retain it, the museum inside was opened by a member of the family in 1952, and the building earns its keep as an events venue. Everything a visitor is allowed to see is seen by permission rather than by right.

The frescoes are the fragile part, and the best of them are not behind glass: the late fifteenth-century frieze of the labours of Hercules, the painted friezes and ceilings through the rooms, the Zuccari work in the papal apartment. The castle has never been a ruin and the paint has never been removed to a museum, which is exactly why it is vulnerable to flash and to hands.

The furniture is already gone. The castle was looted of its valuable furnishings after the French occupation, so what is in the rooms now is the fabric and the museum collection rather than the household.

Lake Bracciano is a closed volcanic basin and the drinking-water reservoir for part of the Roman area; it has no river running through to flush it. The town below the castle is also an ordinary lakeside town that empties outside the summer, so a visit that includes lunch in Bracciano rather than a return train straight after the castle is worth more to it than the ticket.

The Castello Orsini-Odescalchi is open every day of the year except 25 December, and the entrance for visits is at Via Giulio Volpi 12, 00062 Bracciano. Hours change with the season. In winter it opens Monday to Friday 10:00-17:00, with last entry at 16:00, and Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays 10:00-18:00, last entry 17:00. In summer that becomes Monday to Friday 10:00-18:00, last entry 17:00, and Saturdays, Sundays and holidays 10:00-19:00, last entry 18:00. The ticket office closes an hour before the castle does.

Admission is 10 euros full and 9 reduced -- residents, university students with a card, military and police with a card, and over-65s on Tuesdays only. Children from 6 to 12 pay 8 euros and under-6s go free. VISA, Maestro and Mastercard are accepted. The castle frames the charge as an Institutional Contribution: the Fondazione Livio IV Odescalchi states that it puts those contributions entirely into safeguarding and valorising the building, and that access is reserved to visitors who choose to take part that way.

On Sundays and public holidays the Foundation runs an optional guided route at no extra cost, at 10.30, 11.00, 12.00, 12.30, 15.00, 15.30, 16.30 and 17.00 -- worth timing a visit around, because on other days the tour is self-guided with a dedicated app.

Two things worth planning around. The castle warns that its hours may change on days when private events are booked -- it is a working wedding and banqueting venue as well as a museum, so check before travelling if the date matters. And small dogs are admitted, provided they are carried in arms or in a carrier.

The FR3 railway line connects Bracciano with Rome, running to Ostiense and Valle Aurelia in roughly 55 minutes. For queries the castle publishes +39 06 99804348 and +39 06 99802379, and museo@odescalchi.it.

April to June and September to October are the comfortable months at the Castello Orsini-Odescalchi, as everywhere inland from Rome, and they are also when the lake is at its best for making a day of it rather than an hour. The castle interiors are frescoed rooms rather than daylit galleries, so weather matters mainly for the journey and the town. Summer brings Romans out to the lake in numbers -- it is the city's nearest proper swimming water -- which affects the town and the trains more than the castle. The one genuinely unpredictable factor is closure for private events: the castle is a working venue that has hosted high-profile weddings, including Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes in 2006 and Martin Scorsese and Isabella Rossellini in 1979, so confirming it is open on your date matters more here than at a state museum.