Villa della Torre

Villa della Torre stands at Fumane, in one of the Valpolicella valleys, and it is the strangest sixteenth-century building in this part of the Veneto.

It is not a Palladian villa. Where Palladio looked to the Roman temple, this house looks to the Roman domus: it is built around a covered atrium with a pool at its centre, in a deliberate reconstruction of ancient domestic architecture.

What people remember, though, are the fireplaces: four of them, carved as enormous gaping monstrous mouths, so that a fire burning in the grate appears to be burning inside the creature's head.

Book ahead and keep the appointment. This is a private house and a working wine estate, and visits are staffed specifically for the people expected.

Do not touch the carved fireplaces. They are sixteenth-century stone, and the accumulated damage from hands is a real conservation problem.

If the visit includes a tasting -- and it usually does -- arrange a driver. Amarone runs to fifteen or sixteen per cent and the valley roads are narrow, winding and unlit.

Buying from the estate directly supports the terraced hillside vineyards, which are far more expensive to farm than the flat land and are steadily being lost to it.

The villa is privately owned by a wine estate and is open to visitors by appointment -- you cannot simply arrive.

Visits are booked in advance and generally combine a guided tour of the house with a tasting of the estate's wines; expect to pay in the range of twenty-five to fifty euros depending on what is included.

It is at Fumane, about twenty minutes by car from Verona. There is no useful public transport, and if the visit includes a tasting you should not be the one driving.

Allow around ninety minutes for a tour and tasting.

The house has steps and uneven historic floors, and the terraced gardens are on a slope -- accessibility is limited, and worth raising when booking.