There were 5 lovely ladies who decided to visit Tuscany (the Under the Tuscan Sun dream, minus owning the villa!). We had no recommendation, no real plan, just the dream to visit and confirm the beauty of Tuscany. Our experience was everything we had dreamed and more. We traveled via train from the town of Certaldo, and literally ate and drank the wine and the beauty of Tuscany. Our Villa was home base and served us well as the location was remote enough to give us the real flavor of Tuscany, but close enough to get to the train to visit Florence and Sienna. Our hostess at the Villa, Elizabeth was a fabulous virtual tour guide and gave us all the knowledge we needed to get around in a foreign country and the recommendations saved us a lot of energy to find the best food and the local scenery. We all loved every minute of our short 7 day trip and felt that we had truly experienced Italy by the end of our trip. Another highlight was a half day cooking school located right in the village of Sciano, another delightful surprise set up by Elizabeth. The food and wine of the region was wonderful and the villa was homey yet had all the conveniences that we would need to spend time in the villa.