Luxury Villa Rentals in Italy

Southern Italy's three extraordinary islands and the heel of the boot

Puglia is the most rapidly rising luxury destination in Italy and the one that competitors are most consistently failing to describe properly. The Valle d'Itria — the trulli valley between Alberobello, Locorotondo and Cisternino — is one of the most photographed landscapes in the world, but the finest properties here are not trulli curiosities but converted masserie: fortified farmhouses of 15th and 16th-century origin, some of extraordinary scale, sitting in hundreds of hectares of silver olive groves that have been harvested continuously for a thousand years. The coast at Polignano a Mare, Monopoli and the Salento peninsula offers some of the clearest water in the Adriatic alongside a food culture — burrata, orecchiette con le cime di rapa, fresh sea urchin — that makes every meal an argument for returning.

Sardinia's Costa Smeralda delivers the finest beach-and-pool combination in the Mediterranean, with the added privacy of an island whose best properties face beaches accessible only by boat. Sicily's extraordinary variety — the Baroque UNESCO city of Noto, the Valle dei Templi at Agrigento, Mount Etna's vineyards producing wines from grapes grown in volcanic soil, the Aeolian Islands visible from the north coast — makes it the single most historically rewarding villa holiday destination in Europe.