Podere Raparello — Bed & Breakfast among the fields of Montopoli in Val d'Arno, Tuscany
Choosing to stop has become a luxury. Here, at last, the time is yours.
Podere Raparello stands among the fields of Montopoli in Val d’Arno, in Tuscany.
A farmhouse brought back to life: exposed beams, pale plaster, wooden floors and just two suites. Outside, a wide lawn, poplars, an old brick dovecote, and a pool that takes the colour of the sky at sunset.
The address is Via dei Girasoli — Sunflower Street. In summer the name stops being a name and becomes the view.
Around it: fields, vines, lines of cypress, and the hills behind. In the evening you hear the wind and not much else. Real countryside, near the cities everyone comes to see — but their noise never gets this far.
Two suites, two canticles: Inferno and Purgatorio. Dante’s journey passes through this countryside.
One is velvet and brass, the other linen and lime. The same beams, the same fields outside the window, two opposite temperatures. You choose by how you want to feel, not by how much you want to spend.
Only two rooms. Which is why the quiet stays quiet.
Suite Inferno
Suite Purgatorio
Flavours of this land
What you eat here comes from here: the fields around make oil, wine, wheat. There is no restaurant, and none is needed — there is a house, a table, and a day that begins slowly.
Breakfast
Breakfast is included and keeps no schedule.
Inside while the air is still cool, or outside once the sun has dried the grass.
Nobody is waiting at a counter: you come down when you are properly awake.
The table outside
On the stone terrace there is a wooden table and a few folding chairs, in the shade of the big trees. This is where afternoons go to end: a book, something cold, the sound of the poplars. The lawn runs down towards the fields and there is nothing else to do.
When the evening comes you can lay a table out in the middle of the lawn, under a white canopy strung between the trees, candles lit and the hills going dark. No music, no other tables. Just the field, the sky opening, and the rare feeling of having time to spare.
Water and quiet
The pool faces the fields: from the water the horizon sits low, the hills stay where they are, and at sunset everything turns orange. Around it, the lawn, a few loungers in the shade, the poplars moving. There is no spa and no music. There is the water, and that is enough.
