Trulli La Macina - Self-catering cottages in Brindisi

Tucked away in a patchwork of olive groves, reached via a maze of stone-walled lanes, are five pretty trulli and one square-shaped lamia, renovated with eco sensitivity and an urbane sense of style. You can rent the lamia for four, the trulli for six, or the Dependence with two more bedrooms.. or take the whole lot for up to 14 people. The flexibility is fabulous, the Zen team are warm and loquacious and take care of it all. Breakfast is a sunny feast from the summer kitchen of crostata, fresh cakes and just-squeezed juices and you have use of the outdoor kitchen. Dazzling white, with thick walls to keep out the heat, the 200-year-old trulli have cosy snug bedrooms and diddy new kitchens, natural earth colours and country antiques, bathrooms with big shower heads and baskets of thick towels. But outside is where you'll mostly be, by the pool, surrounded by lavender and jasmine, bamboo and cacti, lanterns, candles and hammocks in the woods – it couldn't be lovelier. Wine villages and summer food festivals abound; the beaches and flowering macchia of the Adriatic coast are an easy drive.