Hotel Villa Cipriani

The hotel has no course and no golf packages: it presents itself as a base for the clubs of the Treviso hills, which it lists with distances. The closest is Asolo Golf Club at Cavaso del Tomba, 27 holes over three courses and 140 hectares, a few minutes from Possagno, home of Antonio Canova's plaster-cast gallery and temple.

Towards the plain lies Ca' Amata at Castelfranco, 18 holes in the grounds of an 18th-century villa; towards the Montello, the nine-hole Montebelluna course sits on the old bed of the Piave river. With a full day free, the hotel suggests Cansiglio, an 18-hole links-style course at 1,027 metres in the forests of the Belluno Pre-Alps, or Villa Condulmer, whose first nine, by John Harris, run between the old trees of an 18th-century park.

No golf services are advertised: tee times and transfers are arranged directly with the clubs or through reception.

The house dates from the Palladian era and was enlarged in the 18th century. After Browning it passed to a Venetian family, then became an inn. In 1962 it was bought by Rupert Guinness, 2nd Earl of Iveagh, who handed it to Cipriani in the Sixties. CIGA followed in 1974, Sheraton in 1995 and finally, in 2012, Treviso industrialist Massimo Zanetti.

The 28 rooms have exposed beams, parquet floors and bathrooms laid with flowered Vietri tiles; the largest is the 50 m² Suite Duse. The garden changes with the months, from April tulips and May roses to the scent of olea fragrans in September: Historic Hotels Worldwide named it one of the ten most magnificent gardens among its members. Dogs and cats up to 15 kg are welcome in Deluxe rooms and above.

The restaurant, in the Contarini and Veranda rooms and on the garden terrace, is open every day of the year. Alongside seasonal dishes, from Treviso radicchio in autumn to Bassano white asparagus in spring, the Cipriani classics stay on the menu: carpaccio, risotto primavera, creamed salt cod. From May to September the Bistrot Rosmarino by the pool serves light dishes and sunset aperitifs. Dinner calls for formal dress.

The heated infinity pool, with a hydromassage area, opens daily in summer among olive trees and cypresses. Next to it is the wellness area run with Sothys Paris: treatment rooms, sauna, Turkish bath and sensory showers, open 10am to 7pm. Sauna and steam room are booked by the hour at €20 per room for hotel guests.

• Royals and film stars: the hotel lists the Queen Mother, Prince Philip, Orson Welles, Marcello Mastroianni and Sharon Stone among its past guests.
• On screen: Asolo and its surroundings appear in Liliana Cavani's Ripley's Game, with John Malkovich, and in I Dreamed of Africa with Kim Basinger.
• The town of a hundred horizons: that is what poet Giosuè Carducci called Asolo, once home to actress Eleonora Duse and travel writer Freya Stark.
• A Harry's Bar Bellini: at the American Bar it is made with freshly puréed white peach and prosecco.