THE FACTS ABOUT VILLA SAN MARIO

Italy

This villa is in a most unlikely place: the outskirts of Prato, headquarters of Italy's textile industry and the second largest city in Tuscany after Florence. Srawling Prato is unlikely to feature on many wish-lists as a Tuscan base. But Villa San Mario, a former convent recently renovated as a family home, is a real find. It stands hidden from view in substantial grounds at the end of a long private driveway in Figline, a little lost village just beyond the tangled web of Prato's immediate environs. The remains of a 12th-century church, around which the convent was built, have been encased in a glass-fronted atrium and incorporated into the redesign, and the building's origins are observed in a lovingly restored, consecrated chapel, its lace-covered altar laden with iconography and relics. The vaulted, ground-floor living room stretches through a procession of archways; large, domed glass doors open on to a courtyard that leads to the swimming pool. In the rambling rooms, antiques and oriental rugs float on acres of polished floors; open the heavy shutters and sunlight streams in from the terraced grounds of lawn and olive groves with views of busy Prato, silenced, in the distance. Although it has long been subsumed by Prato, and industrial development is encroaching all the time, Figline maintains some semblance of village identity in its cobbled streets behind the fairly busy, extremely narrow road that bisects it. The pretty, 12th-century parish church of San Pietro, for example, has murals dating back to the 14th century and a small museum. Thanks to the proximity of the motorway, however, Florence, Chianti and even Lucca are all within easy reach. SLEEPS 20, or 12 when one wing (four bedrooms and bathrooms, a kitchen, living room and a roof terrace) is closed PRICE £2,942-£4,466 (12 guests), £4,395-£6,715 (20 guests) CONTACT Les Manoirs (0870 420 5729; www.les-manoirs.co.uk) FLY Ryanair (0871 246 0000; www.ryanair.com) to Pisa (84km away)