Palombara Piccola Hotel

Puglia, Italy

Puglia, the rustic, south-eastern heel to Italy’s boot, is characterised by sun-drenched days and bougainvillea, everywhere, a riot of pink and purple. Playful kittens prance under lines of drying washing, and mealtimes are sacrosanct. Providing the perfect base from which to explore it all is the honey-coloured villa Palombara Piccola, just over an hour’s drive from Bari, or a mere half-hour from Brindisi Airport.

The property, available to rent exclusively through The Thinking Traveller, sits resplendent amid fragrant, prickly pear and olive tree-dotted gardens and farmland, from which the crowing of distant cockerels provides a gentle morning alarm. Accommodating up to 12 across its six bedrooms, the villa’s elegant interiors are characterised by soaring ceilings, cool grey flooring and chic furnishings in neutral shades. Pops of vibrant colour come in the form of turquoise sofa cushions; a striking painting; a spray of coral carnations in the ‘princess’ bedroom – itself a fairy-tale bower with conical, stone ceiling and access to a vast roof terrace. Babysitting, a home cook, cleaning and shopping services are all available on request.

After a dip in the pool, try one of The Thinking Traveller’s ‘Think Experiences’. Taste primitivo and negroamaro wines at the renowned Duca Carlo Guarini winery, stroll around the famed cone-shaped trulli homes of Alberobello, visit a cheese producer to try your hand at making mozzarella and burrata or perhaps learn how to form perfect orecchiette pasta. Then, as dusk falls, stop for a spot of aperitivo-hour people-watching in the all-white hilltop town of Ostuni, before heading ‘home’ to give the wood-burning pizza oven a whirl. La dolce vita, indeed. From £5,026 per week. thethinkingtraveller.com

Words by Julie Alpine

This review was taken from the May 2020 issue of Food and Travel.

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