Some comments from Friends of Annie and Andrew

Hello Rod – some tips re: places to visit from friends who’ve been to Tuscany:

·         Arezzo - We loved Arezzo and visited it at least 3 times. The restaurants under the colonnades are great for lunch. We went to the Antiques Fair that is held there each month (I can't remember if it is the 1st or last weekend of the month).   Even Mike was impressed and he hates shopping! The big thing there are the Piero frescos. Take look at http://projects.ias.edu/pierotruecross/piero.htm

·         Saturnia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturnia the springs/waterfalls are on the right hand side of the page and were free when we went (hopefully still are) and absolutely fantastic. Saturnia is approx 2.5 hrs drive south of Arezzo

·         Sorano – fantastic hilltop town, paid 80 euro cents for coffee with a view off the cliff edge to the tombs in the rock face below.  An old fortress provides some amazing views.

·         Sovano – great old church. Somewhere down here there was a great Etruscan necropolis which we visited

·         Montelcino – less crowded that Montepuliciano, but both great.

·         Sienna and its Duomo – fantastic!

How we love Paris in the springtime

Bruce and Therese have taken another step down the road to joining us at the villa. Here's Bruce's update:

Hi to all our villa-friends!

We've booked our airfares and now we've got our little Paris love nest. Just click this link:

www.myparisvisit.com/rental-studio-apartment-palais-royal-paris-25.html - its tiny but its all we need especially with its closeness to the Jardin de Tuileries (my green fingers are twitching!), Place de la Concorde (the start of the home straight in le Tour), the Seine (for a run), the Louvre etc etc

Resey spent hours scouring the many sites before she came upon this highly recommended site where, unlike others, there was no excessive fees and little fuss - I was able to use my PayPal account to easily transfer the euros. So, here we are wistfully anticipating celebrating our first wedding anniversary in the 'city of love'. Oh, and it bisects Rue Therese (of course!!).

Getting to Granada and Cordoba in Spain is next … stay tuned!

Anyone interested in doing a week of cooking school before or after their stay in the villa?

The Lorenzodemedici  institutue has as Italian language and cookery class that will run  in 2011 if there is a quorum of 4 or more (we already have 2 people) they will run it for us. The 2011 price per person is 850 euro for course & B&B double accommodation or 930 euro for course & B&B single accommodation. The date we wish to attend is 21-28 May 2011.

 If you are interested, please contact Diane Seath on email: diane.seath@gmail.com. Dianne or I can send you more information if required i am unable to post the PDF brochure on the blog.

Airfares are Booked

Special thanks to my travel buddy for finding our Airfares. Tickets have now been booked with Malaysian Airlines. $1775 return which we feel is a good price. I have put the link up for those interested in looking for a similar deal.

Some Helpfull links to start us off

Thanks Phil for the two links below.... if anyone has others to add  please let me know

http://www.arttrav.com/day-trips/italian-summer-holiday-vocabulary/36-0D31-AFFAC0766091
http://www.tripbase.com/travelsecrets/download.do#4561803D-5965-C636-0D31-AFFAC0766091

Sharing a villa in Italy for a month with some of your closest friends .....

Yes its happening.... We are off to Italy. The villa is booked and rooms have been filled, so now the fun begins...

Welcome to the official blog for all our friends who are joining the adventure in Italy 2011. I thought that it might be fun to create a blog to record the preparation and execution of a longtime dream.

Hopefully those of you who follow this blog will either be joining the fun or interested in how our ambitious  holiday plans unfold.

What ever your reason enjoy the posts and please feel free to participate by adding, comments, ideas thoughts and even opinions.....