Tuscan villas
 

We are planning a trip to Tuscany in August. We want to tour the Chianti region and stay in a nice villa in Tuscany. It is just 2 of us, so we will not be able to rent the whole villa. I would really appreciate any info on where to find listings of villas, how to rent them etc.

Clear your calendar and plan to spend some time at www.slowtrav.com and its related message boards at www.slowtalk.com, two non-commercial boards with scads of info about just the thing you're looking for.

Buona fortuna

Assuming you want to stay for a week or two? We stayed at a very nice, budget, small apt. in a villa just a few km. outside San Gimignano. Check out www.labellatoscana.it - we stayed in #42 - Oleandra.
Also stayed at Podere Torricella for a couple of weeks - not sure if they have one bedrooms there or not-rented through tuscany.net and would recommend them as you're dealing directly with owners.

Have you seen the current thread "Room in Tuscan Villa"? The dates won't work for you but perhaps the website they used (I think perfectcircles.com) might be worth a check.

Thanks! I will check these out. I recently heard about Agritourism. Has anybody tried this for renting villas?

We found toscanet.com to be very useful as well and booked through there (although we haven't actually been yet ... 2 weeks and counting). There are some very nice properties on it and they are divided by area within Tuscany. They have units for different numbers of travellers. I also liked initaly.com.

We are staying in Villa Il Poggiale next month. It is newly opened (therefore less expensive) and the website is fabulous. I read about it on karenbrown.com. It is 17km south of Florence in Chianti. I will report when I return.