Casa Luna – Rustic Hideaway by a Nature Reserve

Casa Luna sits at the end of a long white gravel road, on the edge of the Berignone nature reserve, in a hamlet of twenty stone homes. If that sentence makes your heart sink, this isn't your place. If it makes it lift, read on.

Summer is the pool over the valley; autumn is the wood stove and a Chianti. Wild boar and deer live in the forest next door. Leave the doors open and a cinghiale may join you on the sofa. Rustic, remote, truly quiet. Please read the practical notes below.

Set within Borgo Catignano, a hamlet of just twenty residences, the house is arranged over two floors.

Ground floor: a cosy reading nook, a living room with the wood-burning stove, a fully equipped kitchen and dining room, a small shower room, and a terrace with garden access for morning coffee or evening wine under the stars.

First floor: the main bedroom with a queen bed, wardrobe and a dedicated desk with countryside views; a second bedroom with two single beds; and a full bathroom with a bathtub. Both bedrooms have air conditioning for the summer months.

The living room sofa bed brings capacity to six, though the house is at its best for two to four.

Casa Luna suits writers, walkers, families and couples who want to be genuinely away. The Berignone forest trails start nearby, Volterra's alabaster workshops and Etruscan walls are 15 minutes away, and San Gimignano and the coast are within day-trip range.

Registration: IT050039C2PQSGTP75

The hills roll to the horizon in every direction. Mornings are birdsong and coffee on the terrace; evenings are wine under stars you forgot existed. The forest is home to deer, hares, porcupines and wild boar, and if you're quiet and lucky you'll meet them.

The house is rustic in the true sense: thick stone walls, wooden beams, character over polish. It's cleaned with care before every stay, but this is deep countryside and the countryside comes with it. Dust travels up the white road, geckos patrol the walls in summer, and the seasons change what the house is. Guests who understand this leave us glowing reviews. Guests expecting a boutique hotel should book one.

Before you book

- Access is via 4 km of unpaved white gravel road (strada bianca). It's driveable in any normal car taken slowly, but it's rough in patches, worse after rain, and not suited to low-slung cars. Your car will get dusty. Your shocks will forgive you if you take it gently.
- Your own car is essential. There's no public transport, no walkable shop, no taxis. Volterra is about 15 minutes' drive.
- Casa Luna is part of the historic Borgo Catignano. You'll have neighbours through shared stone walls, as people have here for centuries. It's quiet, but it's a hamlet, not an isolated villa.
- The communal pool, shared with the Borgo's residents, is open early May to mid-October. Outside those months, the wood stove takes over as the heart of the house, and honestly the October version of Casa Luna, fire lit and valley misted, is the one we love most.
- We leave a starter kit for your first days: dish soap, sponges, bin bags, paper towels, toilet paper, salt, olive oil and coffee, plus a welcome bottle of wine and some Tuscan treats. For longer stays, stock up in Volterra on your way in.
- This is rural Tuscany on the edge of a forest reserve: insects in summer, wildlife year-round, total darkness and total silence at night. That's the point. It has to be your point too.