Has anyone taken Italian in Italy where you either stay with a family or in a pensione but attend classes for part of the day?

My husband and I spent 5 weeks in a village called Castelraimondo. The web site of the school is

http://www.scuoladantealighieri.org/

I highly recommend them. We went to class about 1/2 day, M-F, and spent the balance of the day in some culture activity.

We are returning there, perhaps this fall or next year, to continue our study of the language.

It was a remarkable experience.

I spent the last two weeks of March studying Italian in Siena at Saena Iulia (www.saenaiulia.it), and loved it. It was my first experience of studying italian in Italy and I could highly recommend it. The accomodation arranged by the school was excellent - I wanted my own apartment, but others were living with families.

Lessons were weekdays from 9 until 1. There was some homework, but it could be done in an hour or so. I only wish I could have spent longer there. My Italian certainly improved, mostly through being forced to speak it.

Willit, how large was your class, may I ask, and the average age of the students? I have studied for two weeks privately in Florence, staying at a B&B for privacy. I'm also thinking of studying in Siena at some point. Thanks.

Good choice is ABC school in Florence, You have 3 or 6 hours of lessons during the day and you stay either in a family or in a student appartment (during the summer, when regular students are out of town)

Gariem - my class was 4 including myself. The largest group was six (the school has a policy of maximum of 6 per group).

My particular class consisted of myself (Early 40's) a Canadian (Early 30's ) and two young Americans (both 19 I believe), but in the school in general there was quite a range of ages - A retired Australian, a couple of Americans in their 50s, several people in their 30s, several in therir 20s and two other teenage Americans.

I was worried about being older than everybody else, but it turned out not to be the case, and age was never an issue - Theteenages got on very well with the 50 somethings.

I stayed in a very pleasant studio apartment, very close to the school which was very reasonably priced for the quality.

Thanks for the info, willit. I'll definitely keep the school in mind.