Really Nice Villas?
 

My wife and I are celebrating our 60th birthday, and we would like to take our daughters and son-in-law to a spectacular Villa in Italy next April. We have saved a long time for this trip, so money is not an issue. The important requirements are the place must be immaculate, have at least three bedrooms with as many bathrooms as possible, be in a location where we will have a week's things to do (we do not mind walking and we will have a rental car), be quiet, peaceful and beautiful, and be in a place where Mid-April weather will not spoil anything. We are not interested in sitting on a beach; although, would not be adverse to overlooking a lake or ocean if possible. Any ideas would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks!
Steve
P.S. We all love great Italian food and wine.

If you haven't been to www.slowtrav.com you need to spend an hour (or ten) there.

And you might conclude from time researching there that you should beeline to www.theparkercomany.com

But many companies ofer immaculate, very high end villas. Rentvillas.com offers pretty good telephone-based assistance; so does regencyintapts.com

And I have good experience with www.domani-usa.com (though I can't think of what they have high end, off the top of my head).

Or for the ultimate villa - - though it now operates its 13 "units" as a hotel, see www.villafertrinelli.com - - Mussolini's old "headquarters". If you have to ask if you can afford it, you can't.

I know I can't.

Best wishes,

Rex

I see that you have asked the same question twice in a short period of time. Perhaps you couldn't tell if it "took", or were puzzled where your post was. Remember to "refresh" from time to time (f5) in Windows...

... and as more posts are added over the next hour... and next 24 hours... your post will be come all the more challenging to find.

Just "click on your own name" (upper lefthand corner, once you are logged in) - - this is a valuable tip that Fodors fails to tell you when they send you that e-mail confirming your registration.

And might I suggest that you see http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34598057 as well as http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34620862

We have used villeinitalia.com with great success. We stayed in two gorgeous villas near Sorrento in Massa Lubrense. Check out the Il Frutteto with its spectacular views of the Bay of Naples, Capri and Vesuvious and the Villa Bouganville with its award winning style and decor. We took our mothers, son and my sister with us and we had plenty of room. We loved both villas. There are many other beautiful villas offered on this website.

Good luck in your search and have a wonderful trip.

If you google for luxury vacation villas there are 3/4 companies that specialize in truly deluxe - not merely nice villas - if that is what you want. I found one last year - but have lost it since - but distinctly great places - live-in maid - and cook if you want, antique furniture, private waterfall pool and tennis courts etc.

The rates though were from at least $10,000 per week up - way up.

Years ago my family rented this place outside of Assisi:
http://www.villarenters.com/villas/p...&rcam=6000

Wonderful owners, need a car - it is high on a hill near Assisi, very clean and comfortable, nice yard with views.

I haven't stayed at this villa, but I bookmarked it a few months ago because it looked like such a nice place:
http://www.inflorence.co.uk/tuscanyr...iavolaccio.php

Parker House is pricey. Try intuscany.com. Just returned from a heavenly week at Villa nel'Oliveto in Castelmunzio, north of Pienza. Nope, I don't own stock in InTuscany. Quiet, peaceful and beautiful to the max. Don't wait too long to book wherever you decide to stay. The nice places often book a year in advance.

Many positive reviews of this property can be found at slowtrav.com.

icdchess: In 2000, we used Tuscany Now and had a very satisfactory experience. They operate out of London and have an inventory of villas in every price, description and location imaginable. If you go to tuscanynow.com, you can see that inventory, click to have a huge colored catalogue with prices sent to you and read about the many services they offer. They will also have suggestions for things you might want to consider. Simone (the owner) at Tuscany Now found me a villa when I was striking out everywhere. I took my three adult daughters and my one son-in-law.
The rentals almost always start on Saturday. Flying from the West Coast of the US, we arrived at about six in the early evening and knowing that, we arranged through Simone to have a dinner prepared and waiting for us upon our arrival. Our only direction was local ingredients and local wines and we had a fantastic dinner with antipasti, pasta, main course and dessert, all of this with appropriate wines. It was a wonderful dinner on the back veranda overlooking the lights from Lucca below. We chose not to have the dinner served as our party of six were tired and we really wanted to be very informal after sixteen hours of travel. The cook would have served the dinner if we chose. Recognizing that the next day would be Sunday, we also had them stock the refrigerator with breakfast items for the next morning; eggs, bacon, orange juice, coffe, bread, etc. That way we could all arise as we awakened and not have to worry about shopping. We also had them lay in a variety of local wines, white and red based on their knowledge of what was available. We added to this as we did our own wine tasting in the area.
Our villa was a three story sixteenth century structure called I Limoni. Marvelous! It was really larger than we needed, but I wanted to have at least four bedrooms, three full bathrooms and a pool. With many of the older villas no matter how elegent otherwise, getting enough bathrooms can be a problem. We wound up with three and a half bathrooms and six bedrooms, a central parlor on each level, a beautiful dinning room with original freschi on the walls, an original kitchen with modern conveniences and a great view of the Tuscan Plains and Lucca below. I Limoni is on a hill above Lucca and the views, especially the sparkling lights at night, were spectacular.
Weatherbase indicates the average temperature in the area of Lucca in April is 57 degrees F. with an average of seven days rain for the month.
From I Limoni, you are forty five minutes from Florence, about an hour from Pisa, a little over an hour from Siena and less than an hour from Garafagna by car.
We found Lucca to be delightful with good restaurants and cafes and great gelato (every night).
While I don't think you will have any trouble with an April rental, don't wait to long to select a villa. They fill up fast. Have a wonderful trip.

Your "other" post now has an answer too.

Can't tell if you have seen all these answers - - and now you have started a third post.

It may well be that the "best" villa isn't in central Italy at all!

Hi rex, I tried your site www.villafertrinelli.com and it didn't work, only brought up a serach engine, do you have an other information?

Thanks, T.

Whoops... so sorry!

www.villafeltrinelli.com

Villa Fe<b>L</b>trinelli!

Grazie, dr. rex, grazie! :S- T.