SunIsle Holidays

For a scenic stay amongst an abundance of vineyards and olive groves, look no further than the grand house of Le Tugonie.

Lovingly restored, this house now offers three fantastic apartments with entrances on opposite sides. Each of them has a wide furnished terrace which gives extra living area to the already roomy accommodation. The lovely arched windows allow excellent light into the rooms and have been extremely well renovated. To one side of the house is a large swimming pool, from where you can take in the gorgeous views. Tasteful furnishings and high-quality fittings make Le Tugonie the perfect place to stay.

The house has its own grounds behind lockable gates for added security and peace of mind, and from the sweeping views you can see the medieval towers of San Gimignano.

Please note: there is a 10% reduction on the total rental price for a group taking the three apartments together.

Le Tugonie No. 1 - sleeps 2/3 (1 double bedroom, 1 sofa bed)

From the terrace, you enter the airy living/dining room with a single convertible sofa bed and kitchen with cooker, oven and fridge. There is one double-bedded room and a tiled shower room with WC etc.

Le Tugonie No. 2 - sleeps 4/5 (1 double bedroom, 1 double/twin-bedded room, 1 sofa bed)

A few steps from the terrace lead you into the entrance to the large living/dining room. Here you will find a single convertible sofa bed and kitchen with cooker, oven and fridge. There are two shower rooms with WC etc., one doube bedroom and one double/twin-bedded room.

Le Tugonie No. 3 - sleeps 4/6 (1 double bedroom, 1 twin-bedded room, 1 double sofa bed)

The spacious dining/living room has a double convertible sofa bed. There is a large kitchen with cooker, oven, dishwasher, washing machine and fridge. There is one double bedroom with an ensuite shower room (with a WC etc.) and one twin-bedded room. The tiled shower room has a WC and basin. This apartment has a private lawn area, with a table that can extend to accommodate 12 people.

Barberino Val d'Elsa, Florence, Tuscany

San Gimignano is 18 kms away. In the pretty piazza in the centre there are frequent open air concerts and operas during the summer months and a climb to the top of one of its remaining towers to watch a sunset is a heavenly experience.

Shopping is available within a 10 minute drive from a choice of towns and villages in the surrounding area. Florence and Siena can both be reached within half an hour's drive.

Why Holiday in Tuscany?

It's just not possible to divorce Tuscany from our preconceptions. A row of cypress trees breaking the blue sky on a hilltop. Olive groves and grapevines marching tidily down the side of a slope. Little medieval hill towns gazing down upon a country that has been carefully developed since the Roman times. It has been said , that rather than take a photo of the modern landscape, you can gaze into a painting by Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael or Piero della Francesca. Much of the scenery is simply unchanged in 500 years.

We have the 'art cities' of Florence, Pisa and Siena - the galleries and museums, devotional buildings and architecture of Florence (Firenze) alone could swallow your entire holiday in Tuscany. Another week would just about deal with Pisa and its Campo dei Miracoli around the Leaning Tower and Baptistery. Then there is lesser known Lucca, a perfect medieval city within its unbreakable medieval walls. But let's take a few other highlights without which no tour of Tuscany is complete.

Siena is a superb medieval city, which depopulated a few hundred years ago due to the Black Death and never quite filled up again. Indeed parts of this opulent and stylish town, around the stunning black-and-white marble Duomo, retain a semi-rural air. Cobbled streets spiral toward the central 'Campo' site of the twice yearly Palio horse race. There are dozens of little hill towns south and west of Siena, with San Gimignano (the city of towers) being best known. Montepulciano, Cortona and Pienza are joys, but also see lesser-explored Pitigliano, Massa Marittima and Volterra.

Between Florence and Siena we have Chianti, superb wine country of course and a popular retreat for British and American expats. The main towns of 'Chiantishire' are Greve in Chianti and Radda in Chianti. See too the medieval cloth town of Prato, with the Castello Imperator and a fine Pisan-Romanesque Duomo. Another undiscovered gem is Pistoia, with a well preserved medieval core. Heading towards the coast we have Pisa, Lucca and then the coastline of the Versilian Riviera. The most famous of the resorts is Viareggio, a fashionable resort in Victorian times, and still a fun seaside town, with great gelaterie, restaurants, beaches and the huge February carnival. Livorno is often dismissed as a bombed and uninspiringly rebuilt port town, but there is a lovely old town of canals and humpback bridges, a 'little Venice' indeed. Offshore we have the isle of Elba, once home to a defeated Napoleon.

The southern Tuscan coast becomes the Maremma, once a malaria-ridden backwater but now home to the famed Maremma cattle and the 'butteri', cowboys who tend them. The countryside rises to the hills of Monte Argentario and the rather lovely and very ancient town of Orbetello. South of Siena we come to the remarkable San Gimignano, a little town that became a powerful republic, albeit briefly. The soaring towers are monuments to the pride and hubris of the warring families of the town. Volterra is something quite other - built remote and striking on a high plateau, DH Lawrence wrote that it 'gets all the wind and sees all the world ... an inland island'. Thence on to Massa Marittima, an important mining town since pre-Roman (Etruscan) times. And south of Siena spreads the countryside of the Crete Senese ... which is probably that Tuscan countryside that most of us first-time visitors picture in our minds.

We can't leave southern Tuscany without visiting the Abbazia dei San Galgano, one of Italy's most stunning Gothic buildings, and the Abbazia di Monte Oliveto Maggiore, with its superb Renaissance frescoes. On to Montepulciano, at 600 metres above the sea it's the highest hill town in Tuscany. Then to Pienza, a Renaissance new town created from scratch by Pius II in 1459. Another lovely hill town nearby is Montalcino - wine buffs will know the name.

Eastern Tuscany's main towns are Arezzo - a beautiful Etruscan, Roman and medieval city, and the home and inspiration of movie clown Roberto Benigni (much of 'La Vita e Bella' was filmed here). Finally on to Cortona, from whose heights you gaze down upon Lake Trasimeno. The town has the Museo dell'Accademia Etrusca, a fine Duomo and the Museo Diocesano.

Vivid Italy is your perfect choice for a holiday in Tuscany. In Tuscany we have villas, apartments and hotels ideal for your holiday.

How To Get There

There are direct flights to Florence and Pisa from several airports in the UK.

You can fly from Gatwick to Florence on most days with Meridiana.

From Bristol, Gatwick and Luton you can take an Easyjet flight to Pisa on most days including weekends. Gatwick also has a British Airways flight to Pisa on the weekends.

From Glasgow, Edinburgh, Bournemouth, East Midlands and Birmingham you can take a Ryanair flight to Pisa. Their flights from Stansted, Liverpool and Dublin leave Monday-Sunday.

With Jet2 you can fly from Leeds/Bradford, Belfast, Edinburgh, Newcastle and Manchester to Pisa.