We are barely into the New Year, and I am already salivating over property.
Country Life is (unwittingly?) aiding and abetting this behaviour because they set me to work on the March issue of Country Life International, a quarterly guide to the best property and travel destinations. As a result, I am inundated with details of overseas homes that look like the Botticelli’s Venus of property. It is physically impossible not to covet them.
My hungry eye has now fallen on the Torre Longobarda, a 17th century tower overlooking the lush countryside around Umbertide, half an hour away from Perugia and its convenient new flight route into London.
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Picture the bottle green of cypresses standing guard; the wafting scent of lavender rising from the fields; and framed by all this, the simple, sober line of the tower in the golden-grey that is typical of southern Tuscan and Umbrian architecture. But what I really fell in love with is the shower, which is a gigantic concoction of jade and veined marble.
Well, that, and the large fireplaces, exposed beams, wrought iron doors and canopied beds set against the terracotta floors and stone walls. And though I am less keen on the bathroom’s scalloped basins, I could learn to live with them. Especially since they come opposite a huge, beautiful, wood-encased Jacuzzi.
When you think of it, even the price??2.43m for the whole lot, including nearly four acres of land?turns out to be reasonable. After all, you’d hardly get something like this for £1.6m in, say, the Cotswolds.
The Torre Longobarda is on the market with Casaitalia International (+39 0743 220122). I mention this detail because my birthday is coming up?just in case anyone is feeling generous?
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