The ultimate retreat
Ute Junker finds a magnificent retreat that ticks every box in your Tuscan holiday fantasy.
Cypress trees lining the drive? Check. Stone farmhouse with terracotta roof, gorgeous views over rolling vineyards? Check and check. Borgo Santo Pietro may tick every box in your Tuscan holiday fantasy but at this beautiful retreat, 35 kilometres from Siena, it’s the things that you’re not expecting that are worth paying attention to.
Take breakfast. You might order some eggs and learn the answer to the question you have never asked before: Do eggs taste better when the chickens that laid them live in style?
At Borgo Santo Pietro, the chickens live in pastel-coloured coops that are the avian equivalent of Positano’s pretty houses – and yes, their eggs taste utterly delicious.
Not in the mood for a hot breakfast? Try the yoghurt: it’s homemade. The seasonal veges – served raw, in an omelette or on a crepe – are also homegrown, and the honey is sourced on the estate too.
With its cosy 800-year-old farmhouse, its expansive villas set amid lush greenery and its 300-hectare estate, Borgo Santo Pietro doesn’t just look like a farming hub – it has become one. Owners Jeanette and Claus Thottrup are turning the Tuscan estate into a self-sustaining community step-by-step,
It wasn’t meant to go this way. When the Thottrups bought the estate, with its derelict old farmhouse, back in 2001, they planned it as a home for themselves. Their first priority, apart from rebuilding walls, was to introduce mod cons such as electricity and water. As the building slowly came back to life under the hands of local craftsmen using traditional methods, they saw that this project could become a boutique retreat with a difference.
Growing their own food was a no-brainer, and guests are encouraged to visit the organic gardens that supply so much of what ends up on the table.
Chef Ariel Hagen serves up exquisite degustations at the fine diner, Saporium, like Casentino trout served with roe, cucumbers, peppermint and sour butter.
More traditional fare is available in the gorgeous Trattoria Sull’Albero, where trailing plants hang from the ceiling and an aged oak tree grows through the middle of the restaurant. Then there is the outstanding cooking school.
After adding a cheese-making dairy and
a fermenting lab, the next step was the launch of an organic skincare line used in Borgo’s romantic spa, where massages take place by candlelight.
If you aren’t that interested in sustainability, Borgo remains a magnificent luxury retreat. There are seven suites in the main house but it is the 15 villas that are the ultimate treat.
It is tempting to stay holed up in your villa, but take a stroll along one of the flower-lined pathways that wend their way through the estate and you are bound to make some happy discoveries.
It could be a sun-drenched piazza with comfortable seating, a duck-filled pond, the plants lining its shore allowed to grow wild, or the swimming hole in the River Merse..
My happiest discovery lies much closer to home. After my final dinner at Trattoria Sull’Albero, where we share platters of pizza and a mighty Florentine steak, I return to my villa to find the candles lit and the bath drawn, its surface completely covered with flowers gathered from the garden. It’s another glorious Borgo moment.