Reviews

As before, a magical holiday. Particular highlights this year were two sightings of wild boar, on one occasion with their young, and, thrillingly, a porcupine, also with young! The La Dogana magic remains undimmed: view of MSM Tiberina on its hilltop from the small terraces, wonderful civilised interiors, pool area even better than usual and located at the centre of a triangle comprising some of Italy's finest sight-seeing!

Watching the sun rise over the hills this morning, just sitting reading a book and looking over the beauty all around while the rest of the house sleeps, is part of the restorative magic of this place. This place is truly remarkable: it has all the modern conveniences and indeed luxuries to make living very easy, but retains traditional features that make you feel grounded and relaxed, with a sense of connection to history and local culture.

Before I looked through the feedback provided by other La Dogana "returnees", I thought that since this was our fifth time staying at this magical place that we would be among those with the highest number of times staying there. Oh dear, not at all… in fact our fifth stay made a rather poor showing compared to those who had celebrated their sixth and/or seventh stay there.

La Dogana is peaceful and perfectly equipped. Glorious garden, charming swimming pool and terrace, numerous shady areas. Accommodates 11 comfortably. So close to Sansepolcro, Anghiari, Monterchi, Città di Castello & Perugia with all their delights. A great holiday house. We loved it even more second time around.

This was our sixth visit and each time is better than the last. This is in part due to Mark and Jocelyn (previous owners)'s endless improvements and their attention to detail. Thanks to their recommendation of Danielle we all enjoyed endless home cooking and as a highlight she organized a morning's truffle hunting. Highly recommended. We will be back again.

I found the advert in The Guardian purely by chance, and the website showed such an idyllic place that the children all said an immediate yes. Although I admit I had some doubts: it all felt too good to be true. Could such an amazing place really exist? Well, I found out that heaven could be found on earth.

Returning to La Dogana a short yet incredibly sweet visit of five days, rekindled within me a fabulous feeling of nostalgia having first stayed here eight years ago. The fragrant smell of wood smoke as you enter the cool open kitchen and living area when we arrived made us sigh with happiness.

We loved our 3 week stay at La Dogana. The views were enthralling, especially in the evening light. The house has everything you could possibly need. It is rustic, homely, comfortable and cosy and the number of bathrooms was especially appreciated. Jim and his team looked after us wonderfully well and we found it the perfect place to entertain family and friends.