Prati Palai

‘Where the bloody hell are you taking me?’ cried Mrs Smith, and for a moment I wasn’t quite sure myself. The previous night, Lake Garda had been hit by a Biblical downpour; the dusty road out of the village of Bardolino to boutique hotel Prati Palai on the lake’s eastern shore had turned into a higgledy-piggledy dribble of ruts and contours. 

It had been a good idea at the time: a last-minute babymoon to celebrate becoming surprise parents. ‘Where else has better ingredients for uninterrupted romance than Verona?’ I asked, pretending there was at least another option. Handsome landscapes and country air soothing the mind and body, as well as delicious pizzas and pastas, mountainous boards of antipasti and triple-scoops of gelato. It was clever of me to work in the idea of carb-loading. More wine for me, I thought. But jiggling Mrs Smith and junior up a deceptively steep winding road, even in a classic Fiat 500, wasn’t her idea of a relaxing trip. 

So how to go about convincing her it could be? At the first sight of the butter cream farmstead she started to soften, especially since we’d timed our arrival with the emergence of the sun. The eight-room building sat on a sloping meadow populated by stocky bales of straw, oak trees shedding acorns and tufts of fluffy cypress trees poking up like ginormous cotton buds. I walked around, slightly sun-dazed and barefoot, letting the gravel pebbles soothe my toes. She was struck by the smell of freshly-cut grass; I spied a fridge full of wine.

The manor house turned out to be the ultimate farmyard reverie. Bound by fig trees and rosemary, it was tangled amidst fuchsia bougainvillea and ripening vines, with bushy olive, orange, and lime trees in the gardens. Inside, the architecture was a testament to this history of living off the land. The communal dining area was rustic and airy, Old MacDonald-style, split down the middle by a gigantic, saddlebag-brown table. On it sat welcoming bowls of almost monstrously plump apples and the window ledges were crowded with dried-out pumpkins; above, a creaky, 16-point star hung from the rafters. 

Where the cows were once milked in a 15th-century parlour had become an adjoining library and raised lounge, furnished with sofas and a small silver trolley topped with glasses and a help-yourself decanter of deep-purple plum wine. Propped on a table next to that was a simple menu proposing sandwiches and plates of shaved affettati misti (Parma ham, salami, mortadella and pecorino). But I was more inclined to take a bellini made with lemon and peach to the hammock by the poolside. The place was designed for lazy days and little else. How the property’s long history of workers could ever get any work done was beyond me. Even fop-haired owner Domenico Ferrari Barettoni still insists on making homegrown olive oils and honey from the hives. 

The ground-floor junior suite was cosy with the right amount of farmhouse frippery and shuttered windows that filtered sunlight across the beds each morning. But what we really loved most wasn’t found in the room. Neither was it in the invigorating country atmosphere, or the two-inch-thick veal cutlets we devoured at dinner on the Bardolino quayside on our first night (washed down, in my case, with a bottle of Chianti); it was born from the things that had always been there: the wobbly reflections on the lake; the smear of blue mountains at dusk; the free-flowing good times. 

If we returned we’d probably opt for a first- or second-floor suite on the western side above the driveway, where the sun lingers for just a few precious moments longer, before dropping into Lake Garda like a coin in a slot. This time, under a bank of stars, we dozed with little to disturb us other than the church bells from Chiesa di San Severo pealing softly in the distance and the low hum of cicadas. Both were a welcome blessing; it was the only thing to help conceal Mrs Smith’s first-trimester snoring. 

The essence of a break like this meets many people’s idea of Italian romance; it was impossible for Mrs Smith and the bump not to be won over. Lost in the citrus trees, their branches a spectrum of orange, lime and yellow, we sat by the poolside on our final afternoon, dining on juicy tomatoes and goodies bought from a morning’s stroll around the tight-knit streets of Bardolino. We tore into the meal, scrunching up rolls of salami with kitchen bread, the juice running down our fingers to our elbows. It seemed like a perfect moment in time, but as she eyed my drained wine glass, Mrs Smith’s mind was on something else. ‘We’ll be back next year if they let us,’ she said, adamantly. ‘But this time with baby in tow. And I’m going to get very, very drunk.’