La Pescaia Resort

La Pescaia Resort

The swimming pool at La Pescaia Resort was built inside the estate's original pescaia, the ancient fish ponds that gave the nineteenth-century farmhouse its name, and six thousand olive trees still ring the property on the old road between Siena and Rome, in the Tuscan Maremma near Roccastrada. Sisters Beatrice and Margherita Ramella and their husbands took over the estate and run it with a mostly under-40, international staff who speak English, Spanish and Italian. Guests can walk the estate's forest paths, book time at its horseback-riding school, or arrange a private day sail aboard the sailboat Tupaï along the coast. Dinner is served under the pergola or in the villa's painted halls, built on organic vegetables from the resort's own garden and produce sourced from Tuscan growers. What sets La Pescaia apart is the oil: centenary olive trees are hand-picked before they ripen and cold-pressed into the estate's own extra virgin, the liquid gold Homer once praised. Rescued and resident animals, each with a name, roam the organic farm alongside the guests. Pets are welcome, there's a ping-pong area and a chapel, and private check-in means arrivals skip any front desk. With only fourteen rooms and two apartments spread across Granai and the main villa, this suits couples and walkers happy with a mostly private estate, not groups chasing a packed activities board or families needing a kids' club. Rooms lean simple, not lavish, with travertine bathrooms, Nespresso machines and views over olive grove or garden; Roccastrada's center sits eleven kilometers away, so a car helps. What stays with you afterward isn't the room, it's the oil pressed from trees older than the villa itself.\n\nThe pool at La Pescaia was built inside the estate's ancient pescaia, ringed by six thousand olive trees between Siena and Rome. Fourteen rooms, an organic-farm kitchen and its own hand-pressed olive oil suit couples and walkers more than groups wanting a packed itinerary.