We're going on a trip, I said. We're landing in Bologna.
“Bologna? What’is in Bologna?” Coco raised one eyebrow — the subtle variant that means she has already begun to doubt the entire enterprise. Little did she know that just a few hours’ drive away, hidden in the hills where Umbria meets Tuscany, stood the hotel at the very top of her bucket list.
Castello di Reschio was planned in complete secrecy. No hints, no breadcrumbs. Just a flight ticket to Marconi Airport and a rental car waiting.
We drove through Tuscany. Past Florence, past the vineyards, into a greener and more untouched Umbria. The landscape changed character — from postcard to something more real, more raw.
Around the bend, the unmistakable driveway revealed itself: a long avenue of cypress and oak, lifted straight from a scene in Gladiator. Coco went quiet. I thought I caught a small tear — but she’ll never admit it.
As we rolled toward the castle, we passed Count Antonio Bolza himself — the founder of the estate — out on his daily ride. He’s in his eighties now, didn’t start riding until he was 57. It is never too late to begin something beautiful.
Nothing is left to chance. Everything has been designed or handpicked by one man.
We had just arrived at a meticulously realised world. It is difficult to overstate the level of detail at Reschio — there is simply nothing left to chance. Everything, from furniture to staff uniforms, from corridor lamps to the art on the walls, has been designed or handpicked by one man: Count Benedikt Bolza, Antonio’s son and London-trained architect.
Through his studio B.B. for Reschio, Benedikt has created a complete aesthetic language. The furniture is produced by local craftsmen on the estate. Antique tapestries sit alongside modernist chairs, art deco lamps, and vintage Marshall radios. Every room is dedicated to a character who might have lived in the castle across its thousand-year history.
She had found rosemary growing wild by the cypress path - Reschio estate
The estate is vast — 1,500 hectares of meadow, forest, olive groves and lakes. We borrowed bicycles and explored every corner: past the freestanding farmhouses, past the bronze sculptures by Nic Fiddian-Green that appear without warning in the landscape.
And then, around a bend in the terracotta path: the Teatro Equestre. The riding school. Count Antonio — who didn’t take up riding until he was 57 — built it as a monument to patience. The flag above the entrance bears the Bolza crest. It was moving in the wind.
Coco finds the spa. The Bathhouse — an underground wellness realm in the castle’s vaulted cellars. Hammam, sauna and plunge pools in Romanesque stone halls where narrow rays of light enter through medieval arrow slits.
It is like bathing in a cathedral.
As daylight retreats behind the hills and dusk settles over the valley, the hotel lights countless wrought-iron candelabras. From The Palm Court — a winter garden inspired by Victorian orangeries — slow Italian jazz drifts into the evening warmth.
One is struck by how classy and unshowy it all is. Not performative. Just deeply, unreservedly pleasant. Walking out in the meadows, with the sun low over the hills and the sound of bells in the distance, it is difficult not to let the mind drift toward dolce vita.
Because this is what it is about. Living in the moment. Surrendering to the stillness and beauty that Reschio offers.
It is not the five-star hotel itself that makes the impression. It is the soul — the feeling that someone spent thirty years getting everything right, and that you have been invited in.
The kind of evening where no one checks their phone.