Tuscan Villas: The Perfect Holiday Gift for The Whole Family

Matt travels extensively in Italy visiting many Tuscan villas during his holiday home consulting trips across the region.

The holiday season is getting closer, and in a month or so you will be exchanging gifts with your loved ones. What if this year you gave your whole family the gift of a week or two in a Tuscan villa?

Tuscany is usually conceived as a summer destination, but there is nothing more underrated than a beautiful winter holiday in this wonderful region of Italy, especially if spent in one of its many splendid Tuscan villas. These accommodations have all been restored to offer you a stay with modern comforts. Their setting, beautiful architecture, and homelike feeling are all part of their great charm and the very reason why you should take advantage of the next Christmas season to enjoy one of them.

There are two main kinds of Tuscan villas. Apart from the various sizes, which can accommodate from 6 to more than 20 people, you could choose between a manor with high frescoed ceilings, or a rustic stay with stone walls and wood beam ceilings. Both types are wonderful to experience and provide all comforts. However, while manors are beautiful stays, rustic villas are the real essence of Tuscany, and convey a much warmer feel. Manors can be a bit uppity and unfriendly. In addition, there is a much larger offer of rustic villas in Tuscany and, on a general basis, their price tends to be lower than that of more stately villas. You and your family will surely enjoy more the cozy ambient of a rustic villa warmed up by the friendly flame of a large stone fireplace.

Another positive feature of Tuscan villas is their location in respect to major points of interest. While there certainly are some quite remote villas, none is more than half hour away from a major city or large town, and most are much closer than that. Thus you will be able to stay in the splendid countryside and enjoy city day trips for your shopping and sightseeing tours, having the best of both worlds. In addition, Tuscany is so dense of places to explore and cities rich of art that in less than an hour driving will take you to world renown places such as Siena, Florence or Pisa, just to name the most famous ones.

And while you are in Tuscany during your Christmas holiday, you should really take advantage of the splendid thermal spas that can be found in 11 localities scattered all over the region. Being in an outdoor pool full of water at 102F while outside the temperature is near freezing pint is a sublime experience. If you are lucky enough to be there while it is snowing the experience becomes magical! Some of the most beautiful pools on Friday and Saturday nights are open until 1 am and offer a dinner in bathrobe, a splendid occasion to spend a different evening as a family. Moreover, these waters are therapeutic and spring naturally on a continuous flow from the bowels of the earth, naturally hot.

Some Tuscan villas owners during the Christmas season even prepare a Christmas tree for their guests to create a more homely ambient. While you are exchanging emails with the owner, ask if it is possible to have one for your villa also.

If you decide to go all the way, you will also find splendid villas that offer an indoor heated swimming pool, fitness room, wellness center with sauna and other upscale facilities to make your winter holiday in Tuscany unforgettable.