Villa Don Giordano Excelsior

Villa Don Giordano Excelsior sits in Vižinada, a quiet inland corner of Istria known for its vineyards, olive groves and hilltop villages, and it was once recorded as the most expensive property ever sold in the region. It is a four bedroom, four bathroom Tuscan style villa where arched terraces and a private pool set the tone for easy group stays, blending stone and arch architecture with the kind of space that works equally well for slow mornings, long lunches and evenings by the pool.

With room for 8 guests, each of the four bedrooms has its own en suite bathroom, and the house comes with an indoor wood burning fireplace, heated floors, air conditioning and room darkening shades for comfort all year round. Outside, the long private pool with sun loungers and pool toys is open seasonally, while the shaded dining area under the arches, the outdoor kitchen with BBQ grill and the fire pit turn the fully fenced garden into the heart of the stay. The property is gated, with a private entrance and free driveway parking for 4 cars.

The story of the villa starts far from Istria. In 1947, during the large wave of postwar emigration from the region, a small family left their home in Vižinada and eventually settled near Siena in Tuscany, where they joined a local winery to start over. Later in life the family's great grandfather set up a small side workshop called Don Giordano, making and selling ceramic pieces and decorative objects by hand. Years later the family bought land back in Vižinada, not to move back but to have a place of their own in the region they came from, and when they built the villa they designed it around what had become familiar to them in Tuscany, which is why the Tuscan influence runs through the entire house and why the name stayed Don Giordano. The workshop itself no longer exists, but a handful of its original pieces survived and a few of them now stand in the villa as a quiet nod to where the name came from.