La Vignaccia
Colonica
19th-century farmhouse
8 guests · 4 bedrooms · 3 bathrooms private 12×5 m pool
★ 4.96 · 100+ reviews on Airbnb
Built in the 1800s and lived in ever since. Restored slowly, room by room — the terracotta is worn where people walk, the beams are the original beams, and the fireplace opens on two sides, so whichever room you sit in, you sit by the fire.
Four bedrooms, eight guests, and for the week it is yours alone: the house, the garden, the olive trees, and a pool of twelve metres by five that belongs to this house and to no one else.
The garden doesn't reveal itself all at once. There is the pergola, deep enough for shade at noon, with the table beneath it and the barbecue beside. A lounge on the high ground above the pool, for the hour when the sun drops behind the ridge. And beside the water, a proper bar — stools, a sink, a fridge below, an ice machine and a coffee machine. Aperitivo without going back to the house; the first coffee of the day without leaving the poolside.
Emma lives in the old stables. She will be there when you arrive, and gone the moment you would rather be alone.
Pool & the bar
Twelve metres by five, reserved for this house alone — loungers, parasols, and the Tuscan hills behind. On the high ground above it, a lounge for the hour when the sun drops behind the ridge.
Beside the water, a proper poolside bar: stools, a marble table, a sink, a fridge below, and ice machine and a coffee machine. Aperitivo without walking back to the house; the first coffee of the day without leaving the pool.
The garden, the shade, the table
The garden wraps the whole house, and each side has its own life.
At the front, under a pergola, a sitting area gathers around a bench built into the ring of an old tree - the corner for a book in the shade, or a coffee before the day begins.
Beyond it the garden opens into flowers, and a romantic gazebo wound with roses, where the only sound is water falling from the fountain beside it.
At the back, reached straight from the kitchen, the day turns to evening: a dining area under a second pergola, laid for long lunches and later dinners, with another lounge beside it for the hour after the plates are cleared — the wine, the last of the light, the conversation that doesn't want to end.
The glass veranda
Set into the garden and walled in glass, this is the room that surprises people.
A canopy of linen filters the light overhead; palms and a bird-of-paradise grow against the windows; two Persian rugs lie one over the other, and the curtains move whenever the door to the garden is open.
It is where the first coffee is taken and where the last of the evening is spent — cooler than outside in August, and still full of green when it rains.
It opens straight into the dining room, where a long table stands against the old stone wall, under a window framing the lavender.
Ground floor
A double living room, divided by a fireplace that opens on two sides - light one fire, warm both rooms, and whichever side you sit on, you sit by the flames. One wall is given over to a large library, for the rainy afternoon or the slow morning. And from here you step directly into the veranda and the dining room - the easiest room in the house to love.
The kitchen is the heart of it: a wood-burning stove, a table long enough for eight, and everything a full house needs — four burners, a large oven, dishwasher, washing machine. It opens straight through to the outdoor dining area and the garden beyond.
And a garden bedroom, opening onto the grounds through its own door, with a private table outside for breakfast in the early quiet - with its own bathroom, and a few steps from the veranda and the kitchen.
Upstairs
The master bedroom takes the best of the floor: its own sitting corner, a walk-in wardrobe, and an en-suite bathroom with both a walk-in shower and a bathtub — the one room where you can run a bath and hear nothing but the garden.
Next to it, the four-poster room. Guests named it the bird room years ago, and we've long since stopped correcting them.
Then a twin, which becomes a double on request, with a family bathroom shared between the two.
And an open study on the landing - a desk set against a window over the olives, the place to write a postcard or lose an hour with a book, with the house murmuring gently around you.
Four bedrooms in all, sleeping eight; three bathrooms across the two floors.