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A Wonderful Week In Beautiful Tuscany

We planned our trip to Tuscany for early September 2006. Rates are less expensive after Sept.1 and the weather is still good. It was done entirely through the internet and everything worked out with no surprises.

The Euro at that time was $1.19, a bargain to today's value of about $1.48. Another way to look at it is that $1 will convert to .67 cents.

We were able to get a villa that met our needs. There were five in our group so the ideal villa would have 3 bedrooms and 3 baths. We found a villa that looked beautiful, was the right size for us and not a duplex or part of a hotel. It also had a swimming pool which we preferred.

Since we expected that our party might want to split up and go in different directions on some days we ordered two wagons, Opel and Ford. A good thing too because one would never have fit all of us with our luggage.

I am glad I was advised to get full coverage on the car insurance because we have not driven in Italy before and did not appreciate the narrow roads and fast drivers. We ended up with several scrapes but nothing serious.

We landed in Rome and drove to Lucca which was quite long, 6-8 hours. We should have flown to Pisa or Florence which are 1-2 hours from Lucca.

The village closest to where we stayed is Aquilea. It is on the way up a narrow and winding road in the mountains north of Lucca. There are about 2 dozen houses and a very small convenience store where no one spoke English.

The road to our villa was beyond Aquilea, unpaved and very narrow, one car width in some places. The woman who managed the property was very nice, but alas spoke not a word of English. Fortunately, her daughter, Federica, had working knowledge and we were able to communicate through her.

The name of the villa was La Comitissa, a stone barn recently converted to a charming villa. There was a nice country kitchen which the gourmet chefs in the group took advantage of. The property was really a small farm sloping down the side of the mountain. It grew grapes, figs, kiwi fruit, apples, peaches, tomatoes, and lots of flowers planted by the manager.

We used La Comitissa as our base of operation and went on a foray each day. Our targets included the Cinque Terra, Florence, San Gimignano , Portovenere ,and several trips to Lucca which was quite close. Since some of us had been to Italy before, we had a good idea of where we wanted to visit. All places were 1-2 hours from our villa. The train system in Italy is very good.

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