Perfect peace in Tuscany

Perfect peace is promised at a Tuscan village house with breathtaking country views.

Appropriately named Casa Pace (House of Peace), it is one of several character holiday homes newly available from Invitation to Tuscany with weeks free during the summer/early autumn.

Sleeping up to six, Casa Pace is on a quiet street in the sleepy little village of Monteguidi, in central Tuscany and just half an hour from Siena and San Gimignano. The subject of a new, high-quality renovation programme, it opens onto a back garden with a small pool, a table and chairs under fruit trees, barbecue and never-ending views of a classic Tuscan landscape. A useful grocery store is a few yards away and the friendly village stages several open-air feasts and harvest celebrations in late summer, to which visitors are welcome. Weekly rental until the end of August is £1,020, then £884 in September and £748 in October.

Only a ten-minute drive from Siena, and also new, is the generous-sized ground floor of an old farmhouse on a huge private country estate – complete with splendid old villa, medieval towers and 14th-century chapel. Called Tinozza and sleeping up to four, it has a comfy sitting room with traditional open fireplace and country antiques, and a well-equipped kitchen leading onto a furnished terrace. Guests share a large swimming pool that is the setting for a weekly dinner organised by the estate’s owners who can also arrange guided tours and wine-tastings. Weekly rental is £1,821 year-round.

Chestnut-beamed ceilings, terracotta-tiled floors, sunshine-coloured walls, country antique furniture and many charming decorative features make Querceto Bianco a delightful rustic retreat. The large, carefully-restored old house stands on a wooded hillside facing a picturesque Etruscan hill village. It sleeps eight people, plus two more in an adjacent cottage, and has a private swimming pool (illuminated for night-time swimming), an outdoor Jacuzzi and impressive stone-built barbecue. Good restaurants are close by, Siena and San Gimignano are under an hour’s drive, and horse-riding, wine-tasting and cookery classes can be arranged. The cost is £5,442 (for up to ten people) until the end of August, £4,081 in September and £2,721 in October.

For more information and bookings, visit: invitationtotuscany.com