Booking a family villa in Tuscany is a passport to beautiful countryside, historic cities and great food and wine during your next holiday.
You are sure to want to spend some time relaxing by the pool at your luxury holiday home, but exploring this stunning region of Italy will be an equally attractive prospect. The rolling hills, rugged mountains and pretty coastline are all well worth visiting, as are the attractions of Florence, Siena, Pisa, Lucca and Arezzo.
Tuscany is relatively small in area and you can travel from one side of it to the other in a matter of hours, but if you have flown in to Florence or Pisa, you will need to work out how you plan to get around.
Perhaps the most practical choice is to hire a car, as long as you are comfortable driving on foreign roads. If you arrange to rent a vehicle at the same time as you book your villa, it is often possible to do so at a discounted rate, making a car an affordable option.
Having a vehicle at your disposal will give you added freedom about where you can go and when you travel on your holiday. And as the road network in Tuscany is good, a car will enable you to get everywhere you want to see during your break.
Florence is connected to Arezzo by the A1 motorway and to Lucca and Pisa by the A11. A short drive down the coastal A12 from Pisa will take you to the beautiful port city of Livorno.
You will also find a car is a good way to reach some more rural destinations while you rent a holiday villa in Italy. Many of the ruined castles and villas that used to belong to wealthy families are not reachable by public transport, while some beautiful hilltop villages have only an infrequent bus service.
If you don’t want to hire a car, you will discover there is a good rail network in Tuscany. From Florence station you can reach all the major cities by train, as well as towns like Massa, Empoli, Grosseto and Pietrasanta. While travelling by rail may not be quite as convenient as driving, it does have the benefit of allowing you to sit back and enjoy the stunning countryside the lines run through.
It is worth remembering that the trains get very busy during the peak holiday season, so it pays to book a ticket and reserve a seat in advance. You can find details of train times and ticket prices on the Trenitalia website, which has a useful English language booking page.
By: Dipika Patel
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To book a family villa in Tuscany or rent a holiday villa in Italy, visit Invitation to Tuscany and view our range of luxury properties.
