The instructions are clear. We must leave the car in a remote area near the river, about ten kilometres from Parrano, Umbria. We’re in one of Italy’s largest forested areas, a 3,000-hectare natural reserve recognised as a Unesco World Heritage site. After navigating through a series of bumps in a Jeep, we arrive at Eremito, Europe’s first luxury resort for solitary traveller.

This is the dream of Marcello Murzilli, a visionary from Rome who made his fortune in the 1980s with the fashion brand El Charro (leather goods). Later, he sailed around the world on a yacht: “I lived for 14 years in the Mexican jungle, a 10,000-hectare nature reserve. That intense experience stayed with me. I was searching for a place of my own, for people like me."