My son Felix and I slept with the windows open, so I was woken by birdsong. The sun was just coming over the mountain, the wooded hills were flooded with golden light, and the land was alive with insects and birds. While Felix continued to doze, I stepped onto the veranda, breathed in the scent of pine trees and herbs and flowers, and saluted the sun.

We were staying at Oasyhotel, an eco-resort at the Oasi Dynamo nature reserve, in Italy’s Pistoia Mountains. We had driven from the Pisa airport, winding through Tuscan valleys where stucco farms and villages perched on the mountainsides.