BOOK NOW, BRAG LATER
Escape the 9 to 5 with these solo travel adventures
GO SOLO
One in six people now holiday alone (up from 12% in 2017)*
THE BOHEMIAN MINI-BREAK
WHERE: Amy Grier found her arty side at Borgo Pignano, Tuscany
Ihad reached the point where I just needed to hit the emergency stop button on my life and escape. You know those moments when you feel yourself getting annoyed with everyone and everything? When a cross look on your commute sends you into a spiral of self-loathing and you snap at even those you love most? I needed peace, green hills, great food and unfettered access to a cellar of wine. I needed Borgo Pignano. I just didn’t know how much I needed it until I got there.
LA DOLCE VITA
You might consider a palatial 18th-century Italian farmhouse (turned elegant, restored country estate) too romantic a destination to travel to alone. I certainly did at first, but I was so wrong. Borgo Pignano is no ordinary hotel. Found deep in the Tuscan hills, it’s also a working farm set in 750 acres of land, complete with its own waterfall and hiking trails. It has a yoga studio with individual and group classes bookable on request, an artist studio with at least one artist in residence and renowned classes in painting and sketching, its own soap laboratory with workshops using natural ingredients grown on the grounds, horses for trekking, a small spa and exquisite cliff-side infinity pool.
The rooms are all unique, some with four-poster beds, some with frescos and deep-set marble baths. There’s a library, an art gallery with revolving exhibitions and even a Romanesque chapel. For dining, Villa Pignano is peaceful and quiet, while the riotous farmhouse-style Social Table next door is where guests – groups, couples, solos – talk to each other through mouthfuls of Florentine steak, cooked over the fire, and excellent Sangiovese wines, grown on vineyards that are widespread in this part of Tuscany.
BACK TO BASICS
I spent my weekend reading and swimming, learning to sketch in the artist studio, walking the tranquil grounds for hours and, at night, trading stories with other guests over sweet Vin Santo and homemade
cantuccini biscuits until the embers of the communal fire had died out. I left Borgo Pignano a nicer, calmer, more refreshed version of myself. I felt full – of life and boar ragout – in every way.