HostelBloggers’ beady little eyes recently fell on this tempting proposition: a stay at a castle in Bologna.

Castello di Galeazza is what Butlins would be if it had been conceived by Lord Byron. You pay for your bed for the night (in a room complete with frescoes) and they throw in meals, too.

But where they differ from most places is in the extensive library that’s put at the guests’ disposal. The whole operation has basically been set up to allow travelers to get away and get some good reading done, in one of the most breathtakingly idyllic settings imaginable.

It’s not necessarily going to make any lists of cheap hostels from around the world any time soon (although having said that, at €50 a night all-inclusive, it’s actually a pretty good deal). But that’s hardly the point – it’s a castle in Italy for goodness sake!

The whole thing sounds almost preposterously civilized: we can picture ourselves now, sitting in the hazy autumn sunshine somewhere in the surrounding ten acres of woodland, a good book propped up on our chest… 

Ultimately, Castello di Galeazza is far from your average hostel in Italy; in fact, it’s like nowhere else we’ve ever come across. Flashpacking really doesn’t even begin to cover it – this is a whole new model of hostelling altogether: highbrow hostels, perhaps…