Forte San Giorgio, Tuscany  – the Italian villa with the best views

Even on the day we left, we were still discovering new rooms in Forte San Giorgio. The yoga space, its windows framing a sea-sky view like a Rothko panel in two shades of blue. A delicious secret apartment with a private balcony that happened to be the house manager’s pad. Most surprising of all, the ancient, barrel-vaulted cistern that we stumbled across – the sole water source for this island fortress on one of the many occasions when it was besieged.

Il Castello, as the locals call it, dominates the harbour and main village of Capraia, a ruggedly beautiful Tuscan island that is closer to Corsica than the Italian mainland. The ancient citadel rises from a plug of volcanic rock that, on the seaward side, plunges down sheer cliffs to boulder-strewn skirts covered in prickly pears. It’s one of those rare, lofty places where you peer down on seagulls and falcons hovering perfectly still in the buffeting winds.

And yet, once inside this impregnable pile, the atmosphere is anything but rugged. A rock-hewn entrance stairwell opens onto a cluster of simple, solid buildings in shades of pale ochre. In a gleaming kitchen, Florence-based chef Françoise makes memorable meals from seasonal produce and the fishermen’s daily catch, and shares her cooking know-how with curious guests – it turned out I had a knack for painstakingly slicing squid for a seafood tagliolini. 

There’s a billiards and table tennis room, and a cavernous games and TV den made for stroppy teenagers. A jumble of drawing and dining rooms could comfortably of those blue views, became a regular pre-dinner rendezvous for our group of four. There are any number of courtyards for lunch and lounging, a brace of well-hidden sun-trap terraces, a herb garden and two swimming pools, the best being at the base of a 66ft watchtower. As we were just two couples, we staked out an entire wing of the property each and took turns at playing the gracious hosts in our respective living rooms, but larger groups could happily find their own niches within the fort’s stylish sprawl. It’s the kind of set-up where people appear suddenly, bedroom-farce-style, from random doorways.

Capraia is part of the Tuscan archipelago, a scatter of seven islands that for much of their history were famous as places of confinement. The largest, Elba, hosted the exiled Napoleon. Others were used as penal colonies. Capraia’s prison, established in the 1870s, only closed in 1986. Unlike its nearest neighbour Gorgona, or distant Pianosa, Capraia also has a long-established resident community, distributed between two connecting settlements which go by the eminently practical names of Il Porto (‘the port’) and Il Paese (‘the village’).

Forte San Giorgio’s Anglo-Italian co-owner Daniel Riva was just 17 when, during a summer 2008 circumnavigation of Corsica in the family’s yacht with his Vicenza-born father and two brothers, papà announced that they were going to pop over to Capraia to have a look at a restoration project he’d heard about. ‘It was in a terrible state,’ Riva recalls of that first hard-hat visit, ‘but we were blown away by the view and the location.’ Offered an apartment within the complex, Riva’s father ended up buying the whole place, also inheriting the half-finished renovation job on the property which had been listed as a National Monument since the late 19th century.

A walled stronghold has stood on this rocky outcrop since the Middle Ages. In the 16th century, the island’s Genoese overlords turned what had been a shelter from pirate attacks into a militarised fort that followed the island’s own turns of fortune until the 20th century. Then, under a succession of private owners, it served variously as a Fascist youth camp, a German wartime base and a hotel. In the 1970s, part of the complex housed the island’s disco (the lovely signora Giusy, who today looks after guests, remembers coming here with friends as a teenager).

British designer Sue Timney, a self-confessed maximalist who’s worked with Paul Smith and Sam Mendes, was brought in to style many of the interiors of what feels like a hamlet of interconnecting houses on a stone raft above the sea. A few spaces, such as the cross-vaulted Sala Sant’Antonio – once perhaps the chapel, later a dancefloor, now a spacious living room – still bear traces of fresco; the rest was a blank canvas. Wide oak floorboards, walls the colour of pale sand and plenty of natural stone set the relaxed mood in rooms that are the essence of understated barefoot chic. It’s special because it’s simple – and not suited to the Dom Pérignon-in-the-hot-tub crowd.

But then, that’s all of a piece with Capraia itself. Mykonos or Capri this is not. There are plenty of yachts moored down in the harbour where the daily ferry from Livorno docks, but they tend to be of the serious-sailor type. Bars and restaurants are breezy and unshowy, though the seafood served in trattorias such as La Garitta is squeaky fresh. Il Paese, situated below the fort, is a place of cobbled lanes, terraced houses painted in jaunty shades and atmospheric bars frequented as much by locals as by visitors. It says a lot about Capraia that an old watchtower has been converted not into a visitor experience centre, but the island’s library.

Outside these two settlements, which occupy just three per cent of this national park’s surface area, Capraia is a wild and rugged place, best explored on foot or by boat. Among the experiences coordinated by Giusy are round-the-island boat trips with stops for snorkelling or diving in the transparent waters, a visit to an artisanal honey farm and a maker’s demonstration in a tiny dairy that turns out exquisite goat’s cheese. You can grab one of Forte San Giorgio’s e-bikes and explore the once densely cultivated slopes above the former prison, which are currently being reclaimed by young islanders such as Francesco Cerri of micro-winery La Mursa. Or head out for a trek on the network of footpaths that criss-cross the fragrant maquis. 

On the day we did just that, the wind cleared the heat haze and Corsica seemed an arm’s length away across the mare’s-tail sea. True, we never did see the dolphins that, as Giusy told us, can often be seen cresting the waves below the castle. It’s just one more reason to go back.

Forte San Giorgio is available to rent exclusively through The Thinking Traveller from £20,677 per week (sleeping up to 21), including daily housekeeping and private chef. thethinkingtraveller.com