by Katarina Hamilton
(Kristianstad, Sweden)
2008.07.19 - 2008.07.26
VBV is a beatifully recently restored villa which offers up to eight people a great comfort. Four beatiful double bedrooms on the second floor, all with separate bathrooms and air conditioning. Lots of space in the sitting room, dining room and a top class kitchen on the first floor. The big tent which is attached to the villa on the west side, gives you the opportunity of having long drinks in the evening breeze before you have your dinner in the sunset with the wiev over the south slope of the hilltop and further over the valley and to the next slope and the blue mountains beyond. The pool really was valuable for our family with two 1½ year old girls and 30 - 35 degrees celcius.
We reached Pisa in 20 minutes, Florence and Lucca in one hour and the coast in half an hour. During our stay two concerts were given outside the church situated 100 meters down the hill.
Gabriella, the eight hours a day housemaid, was included in the price of our week. She had to work very very slow to fill her eight hours and she does only speak italian. I woud have preferred to have her only four hours a day and the availibility of chosing different kinds of houshold tasks in advance. That would have made our stay even more comfortable and would also have reduced the very high price a little. We think that the deposit of 5000 Euro is unreasonably high and gives a bad taste in advance.
We did really appreciate Fiona's high degree of service both before and during the stay. We would chose Rent a villa in Tuscany with pleasure a second time.