The lounge space in one of Monteverdi’s Tuscan villas.
The outdoor pool at Le Fontanelle.
Tavarnuzze
The Florentine suburb of Tavarnuzze sits at a safe distance from the seething-hot city below. You’ll find plenty of five-star hotels and villas in the area, but the best place to stay is Villa le Rose. This palatial 15th-century Medici villa, bought and restored by the Ferragamo family, is designed as an escape for 12 people Coach Sale Online, with banquet halls, enormous gardens, swimming pools, butler service and, if you book ahead, cooking classes with a chef. Pamela O’Shea, the owner of the travel company Custom Italy, looks after Villa le Rose, and she can also direct you to some of the best restaurants in the area, like Dario Cecchini’s Solo Ciccia.
Castiglioncello del Trinoro
This cluster of medieval stone buildings skirting the ridges of the Unesco-protected Val d’Orcia is one of those towns few people know about. It barely even registers on Google maps or in Lonely Planet guides. But for several years, Michael Cioffi, a Cincinnati native, has been restoring the town, financing excavations of its Etruscan ruins and helping establishing it as a center of opera Coach Sale Online, music, literature, food and wine (it’s the only place in the world that you can get Tenuta di Trinoro by the glass). Cioffi is the force behind Monteverdi, a collection of restored villas for rent. They book up fast in the summer, when players from around the world join in the Chamber Music Festival (starting Thursday and running to July 30), which takes place in Monteverdi’s church and gardens, and at La Foce, another compound of restored villas and farmhouses nearby.
Summer travels in Tuscany — with the noxious heat, nettlesome crowds and multilingual menus — can sometimes feel like work. But beyond Florence and Siena are stony hill towns and sun-blistered dales that remain unfamiliar even to seasoned Italophiles. Here are three gems that promise to provide what their overrun neighbors cannot.
Pianella
In the thick of Chianti country, this quiet, verdant oasis is home to Le Fontanelle, a 13th-century stone house that’s been renovated and expanded to include 25 suites, a spa with Turkish baths and indoor and outdoor pools. It also has a very good restaurant, La Colonna, which serves the property’s own appellation of Chianti Classico — whose grapes you can see growing in the surrounding hills — along with regional treats like homemade pasta under a blanket of black summer truffles. Le Fontanelle is one of the most peaceful places you may ever visit, but you might also want to run loose and explore after a while. So hop one on of the hotel’s bikes or motorcycles, or drive into the hills of Castelnuovo Berardenga to hike, eat Coach Sale Online, and sip more local wine at Osteria di Fonterutoli.
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