Agroturismo Atzaro

Atzaró has been a hotel since 2004 and still calls itself an agroturismo, keeping up the farm's side of the arrangement: the kitchen picks from the estate's vegetable garden, and the spa's oils are made from plants grown on the same 13 hectares. The buildings are whitewashed, with the stone left bare in places, and at one door a bougainvillea has climbed over the timber porch and kept going, so the way in is a gap in a wall of magenta. The twenty-four rooms have four-posters in solid teak, and in some, tall arched doors open over the garden. There are rooms with a pool of their own, and beside one a round stone bath stands in the open behind white walls, its only company a cactus in a terracotta pot.

Recommended for couples, above all ones who plan to spend the day at the spa, which here is a sound plan. A yoga or pilates class is included in a stay, and after it the effort is largely over: 43 metres of pool, then a daybed under the orange trees, with lunch ordered from the Spa Bar. The sea is fifteen minutes by car, at Cala Nova, for anyone who remembers it. Children are allowed, with a family pool and a menu of their own, but the hotel is pitched at adults. The gardens come in for praise from guests, and at La Veranda so do the Iberico ham and the lamb. On summer nights the Open Air Lounge keeps the cocktails and live music going until the early hours. Or there is the open-air cinema in the vegetable garden, where the film is shown among the vegetables the kitchen will cook tomorrow.