03 Jun 2001
Pauline,

I discovered your website last night and spent the whole evening with it! It's fantastic.

We've spent our last two European trips in vacation rentals in a small village in Provence that turned out to be a wonderful place and an ideal home base for day trips. Now I'm starting to research a trip to Tuscany for next spring and looking for the right location. Our only other trip to Italy was to Venice-Florence-Sienna-Rome, so I don't know the smaller towns at all.

The perfect location would be a beautiful and charming village big enough to have 5 or 6 good restaurants (since I only like to cook when inspiration strikes), small enough that they're all within walking distance of our rental, central enough for leisurely day trips, but not so central and so obvious that it's wall-to-wall tourists. In France, we really enjoyed being able to park the car in the evening and not have to worry about driving to dinner, so the beautiful places I see out in the countryside probably wouldn't work for us, as tempting as they are.

Do you have any suggestions? I'm hoping to find a couple of promising locations and then find the rental.

Thanks!

Chris

p.s. If you're interested, I could do reviews for you of the two rentals we used in Loumarin in Provence.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kim,

Hi Chris! Yes, send those French reviews - we are thinking of France next year and I want to build up my France section on the site. I have an FAQ on the information that I would like in a review. { link removed }

Well, what you want in Tuscany is what we are always looking for too. I always ask people in reviews if you can walk to a village or caffe or restaurant. Last June we rented a lovely house from Zak at TuscanHouse - Bellevista - and it was on the edge of a village. But the village, Celle sul Rigo, was too small. It had one caffe, and two restaurants and a food store. It was fun to walk in for bread in the morning, but we ended up liking the caffe in the next town better, so we would drive for 10 minutes to get to it. Zak has another house, and we have a good review of it, in a small town near Montepulciano. But, again, this is a very small town. I the less touristed parts of Tuscany, you will find that the vacation rentals are out in the country and the nearby towns are small.

Another time we rented a house just outside Cortona thinking we could walk in to restaurants - but the walk was too long and on busy roads (over an hour). Again, we just drove for 10 minutes, parked and then walked into Cortona.

I think you are either going to have to do a detailed search to find what you want or you are going to have to compromise and get something a short drive from a good town. Whichever you do, post your shortlist on this message board - you are hunting for the very thing that many of us are looking for.

These are some towns to consider (links for agencies are at the bottom of the posting): San Gimignano - a wonderful town and I know of a good small agency, La Bella Toscana, with apartments in the town, but this is a tour bus destination and can be very crowded. I have heard that at night it clears out. Gaynor's apartments look wonderful.

San Donato - a small Chianti town which I seem to remember has a few apartments you can rent in the town. One is represented by Suzanne Cohen, another by Vacanza Bella, if I am remembering right.

Any of the larger Chianti towns would be good - Castellina, Radda, Greve, Strada.

Pienza, Montepulciano or Montalcino in southern Tuscany. TuscanHouse have some listings in this area. We have booked La Fornacina for 3 weeks this fall. It is in the country, but you can walk for 20 minutes to a village with one caffe and a good restaurant. And then it is only 10 minutes by car to Pienza with many great places.

Lucca - a larger city, smaller than Siena - maybe you can find places in the town.

Cortona - except that is it overrun by our countrymen now because of the Frances Mayes book. We were there in 1997 the year Under the Tuscan Sun came out and it was great. We went back in 1999 and it was packed. Maybe it is better now.

I have a listing for apartments in Londra and town north east of Florence. I do not know this area - but you could check them out. I don't know how big the town is, but I know someone who will be there this month and will be reporting back and we do have a review of the apartments. { link removed }

I think you should do some hunting, read about some towns and send out some exploratory emails to a few of the good agencies saying exactly what you want. Try:
Zak at TuscanHouse
Martin at Italian Vacation Villas
Gaynor at La Bella Toscana
Daniel at Vacanza Bella
and any of the other agencies from my listings. The ones with stars are ones we think look like good agencies.

Oh yeah - the apartments in Panicale! This is Umbria, but it is close to Tuscany. We spent two weeks there in 1999 just outside the town, but could walk in for coffee or for dinner. It was really nice to do that. { link removed }


You have your work cut out for you. Let us know what you find.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Pauline,

Hi Chris:

I'll basically agree with Pauline's comments and go one further to be careful about San Gimignano. It's a truly lovely place but it is lined with wall-to-wall tourists. She might be right about it clearing out somewhat at night, but when I was there during the day I wanted to run in the other direction screaming. It felt like the most touristed place in Italy. I might be wrong, but I'd tread with caution before reserving in that town.

Much, much quiter are the towns in Southern Tuscany -- Montepulciano, and especially Montalcino and Pienza -- they're big enough for your desires but not too big.

And I agree that a thorough search thru the rental agencies is what you need to do. I've done enough of it with different criteria than yours. The more you do it, the more you learn to read between the lines of the descriptions of properties in order to find what you're looking for. In addition, the agents themselves can frequently be very helpful.

Good luck.

David

David,

Thanks--that's very helpful. We have friends who stayed in San Gimignano last year and recommended it highly, but I've been skeptical because I know we're a lot less crowd-tolerant than they are.

I wonder how much difference the time of year makes. We're thinking of late April/early May. I really appreciate the advice, and I think I'll concentrate our search in the Pienza, Montepulciano, Montalcino areas.

Chris

Hi Chris:

Actually, we were in San Gimignano in mid-May, but it was some years ago -- I think in '92. I'm not sure how crowded it would be in late April/early May. I do know, however, that much of Europe travels during the Easter holiday. I was once in Vienna for Easter and there were throngs of Italian (!) kids in the city. Vice versa, I know that northern Europeans love to travel to the South and Easter vacation is a big time. So I'd check -- if your trip is after Easter, you should be avoiding that phenomenon.

But doing a "slow" vacation is definitely the right way to go if you want to avoid crowds. We were in Tuscany in August 2 years ago and mostly stayed out of big cities. There were tourists in the smaller towns, but it waasn't oppressive (like being in Florence, for instance) and it seemed that a good majority were Italians on holiday. That might have changed -- with all of the reports of "Italy is full" this season. It's true -- Italy has become an increasingly popular vacation destination and more people are having "slow" vacations. But you're definitely going the right way.

David

Chris sent those France reviews: http://www.cohenkenny.com/other/france_vr_reviews.htm
Reviews 2 and 3. Thanks Chris!!

I posted a few weeks ago about our search for the perfect Tuscan village to be our "home base" next spring. After looking at the listings of the agencies you recommended as well as a bunch of other stuff, I decided the village location wasn't as important as I had originally thought it would be. Especially since I found myself returning again and again to the TuscanHouse listing for La Fornacina and your review of it.

So... we set the dates, got our frequent flyer tickets reserved to and from Rome, and booked La Fornacina for two weeks next April! I'll really be looking forward to your report after your stay there this fall now.

We're also going to spend 5 days at the Palazzo Olivia in Rome, another TuscanHouse listing. I don't remember seeing any reviews for those apartments on your site, but they look nice, and the location is terrific.

Thanks for all your help and suggestions (you too, David!). I just wish I didn't have 10 long months to wait for this trip.

Chris

Chris, I think you will be happy with La Fornacina because you and your husband are looking for the same things that Steve and I are looking for. I talked to Zak recently and he said the American owners of La Fornacina are planning to use it more for themselves next year - that is why it is already booked for part of next summer!! We were thinking of booking it again for next spring ourselves - I better get moving on that!!

You could post on our new Trip Planning forum - post the details of your bookings as you go along.

I have an arrangement with Helga who is renting La Fornacina a couple of weeks before us to leave a note for us in the bookshelf closest to the front door, top shelf, left most book. We will put something there for you. Let's hope no one moves that book!!

Pauline,

I love the idea of the message in the book!

I'm sure I'll have several questions to post in the trip planning forum.

Thanks,

Chris