Palazzo Presta

In 2016 a couple from Salento with a passion for travel were walking through Gallipoli's old town, on its small limestone island, and came across this palazzo: worn down by time, but with its original cement tiles underfoot and star vaults overhead. They restored it and brought their travels home to it. Each room is furnished after a different culture. In one, the honey-coloured stone of the vault is left bare above a four-poster hung in mustard, with ink landscapes on the wall and a blue-and-white ginger jar by the bed: a good deal of Asia for a room in Puglia. On the ground floor, behind a street door of its own, the Libreria del Mare sells books on the myths and history of Salento from shelves painted deep blue, for anyone who would also like to know where they are.

Recommended for couples who would rather spend on dinner than on the room, and for families with one child past the toddler stage: rooms sleep three and there is babysitting, but the house runs to steps and roof spaces. There is no pool, which is easy to forgive when Spiaggia della Purità, a sandy beach under the old walls, is three minutes' walk; anyone who insists can use the one at a sister property a few doors away. The hotel will arrange a day on a boat along the Ionian coast, past its coves. Dinner is downstairs at Lazzaro & Caterina, mostly seafood, and the house's taste for abroad reaches the kitchen: grilled scallops in a violet dashi broth. Before that, the roof, where a row of director's chairs along the parapet faces the sea and the sun goes down on cue.