To Bob,<BR>sorry... I meant to say....your client

We rented from Italianvillas.com. and I had less then 3 weeks to book it before we left. Highly professional and very helpful in picking the right villa and area in Tuscany. The villa was a renovated stone farmhouse, which far exceeded are expectations. They inspect all there villas annually. I would highly recommend them. www.italianvillas.com Have a great time!

I booked a villa through rentvillas.com The owner is fantastic!!! I can report back in about a month on our experience. They gave me the email address of a previous renter, and they loved where we are staying. We have a group of 9, and found a 4 star villa in Chianti for $2k.<BR><BR>My dealing with the company have been wonderful. They are a broker for the large rental agency in Italy (cuendnet ?)

Mary, Because I rented the same property I had seen originally in the Parker catalog for $1000 less by doing my homework. Glossy catalogs are great, but most renters do not know how to shop around for better prices. Most of these properties are not esclusive to one agency, and the pricing differences will astound you. It pays to shop.

Look at<BR>www.genie.it/utenti/carlo.nocentini<BR>Reviews on Slowtravel.com (Florence).<BR>Wonderful place, and cheap.

I too rented a place directly with a property instead of going with Parker and was amazed at the 50% savings (yes Parker sometimes marks up more than 100%) That catalog has to be paid for somewhere. The sneaky thing that Parker does is rename the property so you can't find it in their book and then find the owners and book directly.<BR>

Hi Dick. You've probably got enough information by now but I must just add www.knowital.com to the list of excellent Tuscany websites! Regards, Liz