In an ideal world, we’d all have a coterie of cool European cousins, spread out across the continent so that all our city breaks and seaside stays were spent in delightfully private quarters, sitting down to home-cooked feasts and swanning around the locals-only scene.
Just in case you don’t have that, we’ve got you covered with a collection of Balearic boltholes, Italian layovers and other low-key crashpads, all family-run and ready to welcome you into the fold. Come on in…
PURE HOUSE
Ibiza
At boho bolthole Pure House, owner and host Caroline has cultivated a breezy, barefoot atmosphere. Rooms sport Balinese sculptures, statuesque cacti and a generous scattering of raffia and macramé. Ibiza town is just down the road, but cocooned within the finca’s whitewashed walls, the island’s club scene seems a world away.
Don’t be deterred by the saintly name – there are no juice cleanses or demoralising detoxes here. Instead, you’ll find a healthy dose of indulgence thanks to a daily changing menu of organic grub, including fruit freshly plucked from the gardens and liberal glugs of olive oil from the hotel’s own groves.
Yoga and personal training can be arranged amid the bountiful grounds, but you’re just as welcome to spend whole days sunning by the saltwater pool and snoozing under the thatched cabana.
Perhaps your body isn’t quite a temple, but after a few days of restorative rituals (read: alfresco spa treatments) and luxurious libations (the welcome bottle of champagne in your room), your inner deity’s glow will be gladly restored.
MARINA PICCOLA 73
Sorrento
At boutique harbourside B&B Marina Piccola 73, you can make yourself at home at one of Sorrento’s most enviable addresses. The historic stay’s butter-yellow facade is enticing enough, but inside, you’ll find an authentic family-home feel. Mother and daughter duo Roberta and Alice live on the first floor, keeping their guests well supplied with home-baked cakes and tips re: the town’s best boutiques and trattorias.
Airy Italian interiors star colourful tiles and a collection of hand-picked antiques, supplemented with a family heirloom or two (in one room, you can pen your postcards at Roberta’s grandfather’s writing desk).
Days here start, spectacularly, on the terrace – tear your eyes from the tiered plates of pastries, and you’ll be treated to panoramic bay views and Vesuvius on the horizon.
So close to the port, your boat trip possibilities are boundless – flit across to Naples, cruise the Amalfi Coast or find yourself in Capri in the time it takes to adjust your Jackie O shades. Just make sure you return in time for aperitivo hour, armed with anecdotes to amuse your hosts with over a spritz and Sorrentine small plates.
MIRABÓ DE VALLDEMOSSA
Mallorca
A slow-life breather from the melodrama (and mamils) of the surrounding Tramuntana mountains, Mirabó de Valldemossa serves a soporific mix of sensory pleasures. This Mallorcan hotel’s name means ‘good view’; with honey-hued hills and storybook village Valldemossa as everywhere-you-look eye candy, we’d say that’s something of an understatement.
A swim in the pool is soundtracked by cicadas; a stroll through the gardens, and you’ll catch the scent of citrus and sweet jasmine.
In the restaurant, atmospherically set in the old olive press, vibrant Mediterranean treats are tucked into by candlelight. Rustic rooms have all the stone walls and terracotta tiles you’d expect from a centuries-old farmhouse, with the addition of the odd wall-length window and whirlpool bath. Help yourself to wine from the family’s vineyard, make friends with the resident labrador, then to shuffle out to the terrace and settle on a sunlounger to…zzz…
CORTIJO DEL MARQUÉS
Granada
Cloistered away in Andalusia’s scorching, sunflower-filled countryside, Cortijo de Marqués started out life centuries ago as a convent. These days, personalised service, seclusion and sepia-tinted views make for a boutique hotel worth devoting, if not your life, then certainly a protracted summer hols to.
Rooms range from regal to charmingly rustic – think stone walls and soaring ceilings, peppered with antique armoires and canopied beds but also the odd pigeon niche or period stable trough.
A three-course meal is served each night, starring local produce and the garden’s seasonal veg. Other indulgences might include sangria as you sun yourself by the pool and between-meals plates of manchego and Iberian jamón.
For intrepid types, the hotel can arrange hill-traversing hiking, horse riding and mountain biking; and if you’re hankering to ascend even further heavenward, skiing in the Sierra Nevada can be sorted.
A CASA REALE
Bastia
Now a boutique B&B in Bastia’s old town, A Casa Reale has a long, starry past – it’s played host to counts and dukes, a viceroy and a vaunted chef, and even, for one night only, Napoleon himself.
Military balls and aristocratic bashes might have been the order of the day back then, but these days, the family behind this four-room stay have extended an open invitation to their private corner of Corsican history. An era-spanning antiques collection, where Belle Époque chandeliers and Baroque mirrors meet striking mid-century lamps, makes for museum-worthy interiors.
But you’ve been ushered under the rope cordon, so find your holiday read in the library of rare books, have a tinkle on the salon’s two hundred-year-old ivories and while you’re there, help yourself to a canistrelli biscuit or three.
Just make sure you make it to the terrace for star baker Rose’s breakfast, a decadent array of Corsican cakes, chocolate babkas and homemade hazelnut spread that alone is enough to secure this stay a place in the history books.
SA ROTA D’EN PALERM
Mallorca
After a friendly, family-run stay that’s also family-friendly? Sa Rota d’en Palerm is your homely grail. Set right in Mallorca’s hilly rural heart, this traditional finca has spacious apartments and extensive, citrus-scented gardens, so little Smiths aren’t short of letting-off-steam space.
The patter of tiny feet aside, peace and quiet is par for the course here. After taking your morning pick-me-up out on the leafy terrace, whole days can be spent lounging poolside or leafing through your holiday paperback under the almond tree.
The finca is fully self-catered, but there’s a storeroom full of homemade preserves and a cellar of Mallorcan wines, so that’s your bread-and-butter holiday diet covered. For actual bread and butter (and everything else), there’s a supermarket just down the road, or the hotel can point you in the direction of the best local markets.
Hiking and biking are hot tips here, too – you’re at the start of one of the island’s best cycling trails, after all. But for now, the sun is high, the tots have finally tuckered themselves out, and a siesta has rarely sounded so good…
MANOIR DE PLAISANCE
Charente-Maritime
We’re all for not judging books by their covers, but when it comes to judging a boutique B&B by its ivy-clad, Juliet-balconied facade? Your fairytale assumptions are spot on. Amongst acres of private parkland, including ancient glades, fishing streams and two tree-shaded lakes, you’d be hard-pressed not to find a happily ever after at Manoir de Plaisance in France’s Atlantic-facing Charente-Maritime.
But owners Michael and Ben have further ramped up the romance inside the 19th-century manor, with five suites furnished with pieces from their antique collection, plus canopied beds, roll-top baths and plates of home-baked macaroons.
Ben sees to seasonal table d’hôte dinners, which wrap up with a bad-dreams-be-damned array of French cheeses. And when you descend from your bower come morning, baskets of fresh breads and pastries from the local boulangerie await.
With Marais Poitevin nature reserve is right on your doorstep, a rowing-boat jaunt along the très jolie canals makes for an enchanting expedition. And if the coast is calling, La Rochelle’s mediaeval harbour is in easy reach.
MAISON MATILDA
Treviso
If you need any convincing to take a chance on Venice’s tranquil, far less touristy twin Treviso, we’ll just tell you this – it’s the birthplace of tiramisu. Sold? Splendid. And we didn’t even have to start on the pretty canals and renaissance palazzos…
Accrue even more savvy traveller points with a stay at Maison Matilda. This bijou B&B has been lovingly restored by a (ludicrously stylish) local family, with original features preserved and chic furniture sourced at auctions across Italy and France.
In the suites, flowers sit by the bedside and Verdi trickles from the radio, Maison Margiela towels are neatly folded next to the roll top bath and there’s fresh cookies and Mariage Frères tea for two. You could take breakfast out on the terrace, but baked goods in bed is just as encouraged.
It’d take some doing to coax us away from the cradle of coffee- and cream-based treats, but the prosecco wineries to the north and Venice just 40 minutes away by train make for tempting day-trip propositions.
QUINTA DOS MURÇAS
Douro Valley
A working winery right on the river in Portugal’s premier wine-producing region – oenophiles, welcome to wonderland. Quiet Quinta dos Murças has five pared-back, tastefully furnished rooms, each of which pairs perfectly with the riverside views and rolling hills beyond.
Tastings, of course, take place in the cellar, and a nearby train station makes touring the neighbouring terroir a breeze. Any over-indulgence can be soaked up by the family-style lunch and supper spreads, a thoroughly wholesome affair thanks to the farm’s fruit trees and organic veg garden.
Superior souvenir hunters should hit the handicrafts boutique or bag a bottle from the on-site olive oil mill. But really, when you’re not frolicking through vineyards or fine-tuning your sommelier skills, you’ll want to call shotgun on a sunlounger by the riverside pool.
ETRA COLLECTION
Florence
Florentine pieds-à-terre don’t come more lavish than Etra Collection, a triptych of luxury apartments above the piano nobile of an art nouveau palazzo. Interiors are a who’s who of modern Italian design, the dark-wood parquet dressed with pieces by the likes of Ponti, Lissoni and Castiglioni.
Each apartment has a burnished-gold Boffi kitchen, and there’s a private chef on speed dial; say the word and the wine store will be stocked with your favourite vintages.
Deep in the Centro Storico, you’re steps from the Duomo, the Baptistery and the Ponte Vecchio. And with the help of the concierge, you’ll live like the best-connected of locals – we’re talking private tours of the Uffizi, intimate artist-studio visits and tastings at invite-only Tuscan wine cellars.
PALAZZO ALBRICCI PEREGRINI
Lake Como
Meet your newest old friends, Maximiliano and Lidia. Their family home is (no big deal) a palazzo on the southern shore of Lake Como and, lucky for you, they’ve flung open the filigreed door. In spacious, sultry rooms, contemporary furnishings are atmospherically offset by original old-world beams (kudos to the couple’s architecture-student kids).
Breakfast at Palazzo Albricci Peregrini is a convivial affair, with homemade ricotta, jam and still-warm bread served at the rustic communal table. Come dusk, thrash out tomorrow’s plan over aperitivi with your hosts – they can hook you up with cookery classes and lake cruises, or send you off on bikes in search of a postcard-worthy picnic spot.
But when the romance of your surroundings gets the better of you, abscond with the object of your affections to the courtyard garden. Amongst the climbing flowers and candlelight, amore can’t fail to blossom.
CONVERSAS DE ALPENDRE
Algarve
In case the name didn’t clue you in – it means ‘porch conversations’ – Conversas de Alpendre is an Eastern Algarve homestay that’s as easy-going as it gets. Woven reeds and raffia lend the finca a sandy-soled feel – you’re not far from Portugal’s surfing capital, after all – and host Marta and her mother might as well have emblazoned ‘make yourself at home’ across the airy whitewashed walls.
Breakfast is served until the last guest has stirred – oh, and the chef’s just popping down to the local market, is there anything in particular you fancy? While you’re at it, see if the team can’t sort a wine tasting, golf lesson or in-situ spa treatment.
Don’t overfill your schedule, though – you’ll want several hours (days, really) to devote to hanging out in your poolside hammock. Fancy indulging your inner kid? Opt for a treehouse suite, sea-facing and fairylit up among the leafy boughs of a carob tree.
If it’s a beach you seek, explore Europe’s best on-the-shore escapes
Amy Martin is a writer, actor, and travel buff, based between London and Cornwall. When she’s not lurking around a theatre or scribbling in a notebook on the Penzance to Paddington line, you’ll find her at the cinema, on a long coastal walk, or watching Pride and Prejudice (1995 or 2005 is fine).