Tuscany Villa (Serralta) in Camaiore, Lucca for Tuscany holidays in Italy

This property is a 2 bedroom barn conversion with its own private garden and swimming pool.

This historic old barn that has been restored with care and transformed into a delightful holiday home.

The house has a large garden with swimming pool, covered terrace and barbecue.

Internally the accomodation consits of kitchen (oven, freezer, dishwasher) with dining table and satellite TV, that extends onto an attractive covered terrace (20m²) with dining table, barbecue. One double bedroom with access to grounds and en-suite bathroom, one small bedroom with twin beds with direct access to the garden, bathroom with shower and washing machine in a "niche" on the terrace.

Camaiore, Lucca, Tuscany

Serralta is located in a peaceful rural location, a short distance from the centre of Montecatini Terme, the famous thermal spa town.

Montecatini Terme is a beautiful town that was built around its mineral water springs. The spring water is considered to help people with trouble with the stomach or liver. Healthy people can enjoy the old time grandeur of the town, stroll in the park or enjoy spa treatments in the various hotels.

A little further away is Lucca. Lucca is one of Italy's less flashy destinations. Favoured by the quieter kind of foreign visitor, Lucca is often whispered of as a secret gem; an alternative to the high-season tourist madness of Florence, or Rome. A town still encircled by its wall, it is full of pastry shops and bicycles; visitors are are more likely to be knocked down by an ambling bike than a car.

Lucca’s tradition has been one of sturdy independence rather than flamboyance, which means that the information boards you come across outside its more notable buildings are still usually in Italian only. In fact, the town boasts no famous showpieces, and therefore no crowds of tourists or rows of souvenir shops.

Lucca is roughly oval, flat and hardly a mile across. Within this span there are no wide roads to cross, but a multitude of old churches, little piazzas, towers and family businesses. Behind many an arching doorway there is a glimpse of vaulted passage or columned yard, usually private. This is a town where you can dispense with a map and simply walk or, like the locals, cycle: pretty soon you’re bound to come back to somewhere you recognise or to the city rampart, which offers a high and grassy promenade (generally only resembling a wall when seen from outside).

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.