Torre de Palma Wine Hotel

It’s early evening and we’re standing on top of a 14th-century tower watching herds of cattle cross ochre fields. Below us, huge flocks of birds swoop up and down, squawking at one another as they search for a branch on which to perch in one of two mature trees that sit within the courtyard of Torre de Palma Wine Hotel. Our nightly ritual now involves a steep climb past the skeleton of a dinosaur, up a narrow stone spiral staircase to the tower’s rooftop terrace for a glass of wine and to watch the sun set. We also do this in the early morning (without the wine) when our toddler wakes up, and it’s a hard draw between which is more beautiful — the rolling mists of the morning or the dramatic pink skies of the evening.

The landscapes of the Alentejo are vast and flat, scattered with farms and villages that seem to rise up out of nowhere, startlingly white against the burnt earth. Our drive took us through scenery that reminded us of Africa, with Torre de Palma appearing like a palace out of the dust. We parked the car outside, strolled through the gates and across the courtyard to the front desk, feeling a little like we’d stepped back in time.

When the owners, two pharmacists from Lisbon, came across the building, it was in ruins. They were looking for a country home for their family, rather than a new vocation, but one thing led to another and after many months of careful restoration, Torre de Palma Wine Hotel was born. Their aim was to retain as many original buildings and features as possible, which included restoring the on-site chapel and incorporating reclaimed materials into the design. The main house sits at the centre of the courtyard — this is where the reception is, alongside lounge areas, a few bedrooms, the owners’ apartment (the hotel is run by their daughter, but they’re often around and about) and the spa. In other outbuildings are further bedrooms, two restaurants and the winery. You’re given a map at check-in, which we initially thought was excessive, but the hotel is deceivingly large. Even when we had referred to it, we’d always encounter something unexpected along the way — white Lusitano horses roaming between the pine trees, giant bird's nests perched on tall platforms like something out of a fairy tale, a dinosaur skeleton hanging from one ceiling.

Our room was located in the courtyard, accessed via a giant glass door, which we could shutter at night. Inside, it had tall ceilings, an open fireplace and a huge bed underneath a suspended canopy. At the back it opened onto a long terrace, overlooking the vegetable patch directly in front and the vineyards to the side — this is where we sat in the early mornings, while our toddler trailed around after the gardener ‘helping’ to water the plants, and for tea in the afternoons. All of the rooms are uniquely designed — something about the dark wood, clusters of hammered metal lights and ceramics in ours reminded us of being in a safari camp.

During the day, we’d head down to the pool and usually had it to ourselves, even though the hotel was fully occupied — we suspected this might have something to do with the water being unheated, but for us, it was bliss. There are big, squashy double sunbeds on a raised deck, surrounded by pine trees, under which a visiting group had lunch one afternoon, in the dappled sunlight. It was like something from a movie. For us, lunch was usually on the terrace of the café-restaurant — big salads with juicy tomatoes, creamy burrata, homegrown olives, cod croquettes, bread and lashings of the estate’s golden olive oil.

When it got cooler, we retreated to the spa, which has an indoor pool with a built-in Jacuzzi and a steam room. Two loungers are artfully placed at a window overlooking the grounds.

It’s funny how doing very little can take up so much time, how the time passes without you noticing when you’re not watching it. One afternoon, we mustered the energy to stroll down the lane to some nearby Roman ruins (well worth a visit — there’s a snazzy visitor centre currently being built), and on another, we popped into the winery to see the barrels in the cellar, a gorgeous modernist structure with a winding concrete staircase. You can do a tasting here too, if you don’t have an impatient toddler trying desperately to uncork the bottles.

One of the wonderful things about a hotel that sits within a walled estate is that, as a parent, you don’t feel guilty tucking down your Mini Smith and strolling across the courtyard, monitor in hand, to have an adults-only dinner, which we did each evening, feeling very smug. And what a dinner it was — Alentejo cuisine has developed a reputation for a reason. We ate wild mushrooms with sweet garlic, prawns, various spiced-rice dishes and scallops with potato gnocchi, all accompanied by the estate’s vintages. And to finish? A climb back up to our favourite spot, nightcap in hand, to spot shooting stars.