TUSCANY, ITALY
Double rooms from about £120
Cornelia Conti, a British banker turned interior designer, spent seven years taking apart and reassembling this remote, 17th-century farmstead and turning it into a mellow and pretty agroturismo. Set on the side of a densely wooded hill in Tuscany‘s Emiliano National Park, it’s popular with families, but don’t let that put you off if you don’t have children. The 13 bedrooms are large, private and simply furnished with antiques from Morocco, Iran, Egypt, India and Korea. Climate control is provided by clever architectural angles, curtains and thick walls, not the icy breath of air conditioning. Most of the organic ingredients for the restaurant are grown right here, and excellent game, mushrooms and chestnut pasta feature in dishes so good that people come from far and wide for lunch or dinner. There are also some unassuming but good restaurants in the nearby medieval town of Filattiera (it also has the nearest railway station, with a 90-minute connection from Pisa), but this is not fashionable southern Tuscany, and the real pleasure of this place comes from swinging in a hammock strung between two creaking trees, serenaded by the bell tolling from a church across the valley and the sleepy drone of bumblebees. With such relaxed charm and stylish comforts, it’s ridiculously easy to switch off.