Monteverdi Tuscany

After the Second World War Castiglioncello del Trinoro was all but abandoned, its stone houses and cobbled streets left 786 metres up with almost nobody in them. In 2003 Michael Cioffi, an American law professor, came to the Val d'Orcia for a birthday. From 2005 he was buying the buildings. Ilaria Miani restored them, and the streets still serve as corridors. Indoors the beams are old and the colour is new: one bedroom has a four-poster in lime green and grey-blue on a green floor, with a magenta armchair at its foot. The 14th-century church of Sant'Andrea has new acoustics, a Fazioli grand piano and a concert season that runs from Baroque to jazz. The hotel takes its name from the green mountains and from Claudio Monteverdi, and the church is where it earns the second half.

Recommended for couples who would rather a hilltop with its own concerts than a town, and for families, who are better looked after than the stone suggests: a cot fits in every room category, and some suites take extra beds at no charge. The infinity pool looks out over the valley. The Library Bar looks the other way, across vineyards to Monte Cetona, and pours the aperitivo that goes with it. Dinner is pici all'aglione at Zita, the osteria in the middle of the village, or Oreade, the fine-dining room. Everything else is a drive: about twenty minutes to Montepulciano for wine, half an hour to the hot springs at Bagni San Filippo. The hotel also sponsors an archaeological dig, in case the Middle Ages turn out to be the recent part.