I am planning a Graduation gift for my daughters in June 2008 (one graduating College and one high school) we will have 8 total in our group..we would like to be near the following...Florence,Sienna,Rome and have day trips (if possible) to the cities....what town would you recommend that has train service and is somewhat central ? and does anyone have a 5+ BR villa they would recommend ??

First thing you should do is get a good map of the are you'll be visiting so you have a visual of where you want to stay versus what other cities you want to visit. All 3 cities you mentioned have train staions where you can easily take daytrips. If you're interested in staying in the Tuscan or Umbria regions then Siena is a good home-base.

Do you have any idea of your itinerary? What other cities are you interested in? How many days for your trip and where are you flying into and out of?

You might check the slowtrav.com board for info on villas - in both Tuscany and Umbria. We were in one near Orvieto in 2005 and had a day trip to Florence, and certainly could have had one to Rome (only an hour by train from Orvieto).

BUT - be sure to rent automobiles! Unless you stay in apartments in the city with the train stations, you'll definitely need a car(s).

KC

Sandi..... we are going to be there a week.... we have been to Florence & Rome before... I am not familar with the other towns.... We would like to experence smaller villages (other than Florence and Rome) where we can walk in town,etc..... we have a home in St Andrews,Scotland and will be flying into FCO ( I wish there was a flight from EDI to Florence)

Jet2, a low-cost carrier flies from EDI to PSA (Pisa). Have you considered staying in Lucca, a small city west of Florence with intact walls surrounding the historic center? From there you can easily take trains to Florence, Pisa, Tuscan beach resorts or the Cinque Terre.

As knoxvillecouple suggests, you might consider being near Orvieto to be able to take the train to either Florence or Rome. Here is a listing for a villa near Orvieto which is within driving distance to the station:
http://www.vbella.com/tuscany-umbria/colonnette.asp

I just returned from a 2-week trip to Italy with 8 folks, including two 17 year old boys. For one week we rented a villa in Chianti and for the other week we stayed in hotels in Venice and Florence. I strongly recommend that you rent a villa. We rented a 6 bedroom house with a pool about 20 miles south of Florence near Bergino, just off the super strada between Florence & Siena. It was a perfect and perfectly beautiful location, and while there we took day trips to the nearby towns just the way you describe wanting to do on your trip. Everybody, especially the boys and their parents, was much happier in the country villa than in the city hotels -- plus we saved a lot of money by not having to eat in restaurants for every meal. I also strongly recommend that you rent a car; we rented a Mercedes automatic tranmission 9-seater and enjoyed being able to transport all 8 of us together. Plus, except for Siena, the towns we went to had no train access. I reserved the car in January and the price was not bad -- just a little more than renting a regular size car.

Only suggestion, very nice villa:
http://www.tuscanweb.com/property/?ID=4474

AllieNC.... Where did you stay in Florence ?? It would be nice to find a hotel that has "Family" rooms in Florence and Rome

Dannyyoung, we did not have family rooms in Florence. We stayed in a very small hotel and all had rooms off the same small hallway, and that worked pretty well. We rented the villa (really a wonderful old farmhouse), Villa Mandorlo, through domani-usa.com. It is listed in their Florence/Tuscany section.

Dannyyoung -

Just a word of caution. MANY villas are some distance from any town, even a small town - meaning that you really can't "walk" from the villa to town. That's what we wanted also, but our villa was not really walking accessible - had to drive to get to any town.

SLOWTRAV dot com has listings that indicate whether the property is "in town" or not - you might want to consult that if being able to walk from your property to town is important.

KC

We have rented villas in Tuscany and have used Parker Villas, parkervillas.com, they are most helpful and the villas have been wonderful! They will send you a wonderful catalog of their properties for free!