We are three couples planning for Italy this spring/autumn. Our plan is to rent a villa for a fortnight/3 weeks. We would appreciate very much any ideas or experiences on such kind of Italy stay.<BR>Bjorn, Oslo

Hop on over to www.slowtrav.com for a lot of information on villa rentals.

I'd be glad to share info on the villa we rented at Lake Garda in September 2001 (the Fodorites Italy trip) - - probably within your budget reach (though big enough for five couples, actually). <BR><BR>I really oughta post this at slowtrav.com sometime.<BR><BR>We rented it from rentvillas.com and I can direct you to it there. I have also had good experiences with www.domani-usa.com and www.regencyintapts.com - - though neither of those was as suited for six people (much larger).<BR><BR>Best wishes,<BR><BR>Rex<BR>[email protected]<BR>

Bjorn, I speak from experience. There are so many options--many of which are good--that you really need to set your critiera before you go crazy:<BR>Location--price range--# of baths<BR>That will help you to narrow the search.<BR>Many of the best rent a year in advance.<BR>And, start at slowtrav.com

Hello Bjorn. Good to see your post. We used Tuscany Now three years ago and had a very satisfactory experience. They operate out of London and have an inventory of villas in every price and description 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. <BR>Bjorn, I would advise you to persue a rental very quickly. The villas are rented months in advance. When we were looking three years ago, we had a hard time getting one in December for a July rental. Simone (the owner) at Tuscany Now found me a villa when I was striking out everywhere. <BR>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 was tired and we really wanted 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 layin 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. <BR>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 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 a pool with a great view of the Tuscan Plain below. <BR>You will have a wonderful experience, but, again, please make your reservations soon. You have helped me with Scandinavia in the past and if I can answer any questions or offer any additional information, please let me know. Have a wonderful trip.