Hi all,
Two summers ago I spent my 50th birthday learning Italian in Bologna and absolutely loved the experience. I'm ready to do it again and trying to decide where to enroll. I'd prefer to stay away from gigantic and overly touristy cities but still want some smaller city buzz/culture. I'm torn and a bit overwhelmed by research and am looking at Lucca, Trieste and various smaller schools in the south (Trulli in Puglia, Alghero in Sardinia, and Sorrento). Please send me any thoughts, personal experience or recommendations so I can whittle this decision down! Grazie mille...

I've read many good reports bout the school in Orbetello, in Tuscany.

I had a very good experience at Dante Alighieri school in Siena many years ago. Siena is a small Tuscan town with a lot of charisma, great restaurants, and those couple little horse races in the summer... One of my favorite memories was signing up for an afternoon extra tutoring session about colloquial expressions, and the guy handed me a couple sheets of all the curse and slang words as well as insults, since that was 'what everyone wanted' ! I spent 2 weeks there, and would sit at a table overlooking the piazza studying in the afternoon. Great people and tourist watching, and the waitstaff would give me impromptu lessons. Of course you have to watch Equalizer 3 with Denzel Washington before you go, filmed in Atrani on the Amalfi coast.