From farmhouses to castles! What a choice of unique and meaningful experiences these dwellings promise to provide! As you make your way along narrow two-lane roads through the Italian regions of Tuscany, Umbria, Le Marche or Lazio, you soon forget the city, partly because you need to concentrate on all those curves, but also because of the vistas that strike you when you do glance up: alternating layers of silvery green olive groves, baby-green vineyards, golden wheat fields and black-green forests, presided over by the occasional grey stone castle, sumptuous villa or cream-coloured farmhouse.

What is it about the Tuscan landscape that is so compelling? Maybe it is the exquisite late afternoon sunlight that kisses the undulating hillsides and inspires many an artist to capture it on canvas. Perhaps it is the rambling rustic farmhouses constructed lovingly from local stone. Cypress trees creating exclamation marks on the ribbons of road snaking their way through the rolling hills. The promise of delicious local cuisine from olive groves, vineyards, vegetable gardens and fields. The invaluable legacy of Renaissance churches and imperious towers. An exquisite poppy-field. A sleepy medieval town in the morning mist. Villas and castles. La Toscana!

Villa:	Location