Borgobianco Resort & SPA - MGallery Hotel Collection ★★★★★

Throwing caution and our diets to the wind, my husband and I set off for the still-pristine landscapes of Italy's wild southern coasts. A few miles along the coastline, on high where the white cliffs of Polignano a Mare reign, the Borgobianco Resort & SPA - MGallery Hotel Collection awaits us behind its chalk-white walls. Borgobianco (literally meaning ‘White Village’) is the picture of its name; not the harsh white of fresh paint, but rather the soft, powdery white of age. For while the Borgobianco Resort & Spa is a relatively recent build, it takes its inspiration from a historic architectural style; the masseria, sprawling farm estates dating back to the 14th and 15th centuries. Grandeur, stateliness, calm... these are our first – and indeed lasting – impressions of the Borgobianco.

The monumental building, swaddled in its high walls, harbours a paved courtyard planted with palm trees, cacti, olive trees and Barbary figs. Here the gardener frequents each morning to pick the fruits that round out the sumptuous breakfasts: homemade tarts and cakes, eggs, cold meats, cheese and sausages...nothing like any breakfast I've ever seen at home. This is a meal that overflows with the abundance of Puglia's fertile soils, as do all the meals throughout the day. And the bread – where to even begin – comes in abundance; soft, fluffy rolls shoulder up against giant sourdoughs and flavourful barleys. All of this, along with the hotel's 'zero food mile' policy to make maximum use of vegetables grown in the garden just outside, combines to create the sensation that we're sampling the purest and freshest taste of Puglia.

Between meals we walk off our stupor in the exceptional town of Polignano a Mare, towering above the waves of the Adriatic. At other times, we’d capitulate completely to pure hedonism at the hotel spa, home to another fabulous menu, one of treatment options and massages. We found we enjoyed these best of all with a glass of local wine as the sun dropped behind the horizon, before we returned to the purity and simplicity of our comfortable bedroom and its views out over the nourishing Puglia countryside.