Villa la Vallina - Casa di Rosetta

Any words that follow will not adequately describe how amazing this place was. My sister had stayed here twice and raved about it. So we thought we’d give it a try – a bucket list thing for me to consume Tuscany in a real way. I invited two of my very good life long friends and their wives. As soon as we pulled through the gate we knew this was going to be special. The villa sits well apart from any other buildings in the area. Gardens surround the building and are very well kept and beautiful. Cecilia greeted us and was an absolutely great host – made us feel very at home throughout the week. With three couples, we each had our own floor for the bedrooms in the spacious building – plenty of privacy. The view from any angle out of the house or out of any window in the house was like a picture postcard of just how Tuscany would be envisioned – vineyards and rolling hills. We could see Montepulciano out the back, and Cortona out the front. The sunsets were legendary. The villa itself was very well updated and had very comfortable living areas – perfect for us old friends to stay up way too late drinking the (endless) wine that Cecilia had available (reasonably priced). The pool was fantastic, great view while just sitting around. We took advantage of several of the services that Cecilia offered. The lazy dinner on our arrival day was perfect – she left us lasagna that we could heat up – melted in the mouth. The breakfast packages were an abundant supply of bakery goods, quiche, juices. We had plenty of left overs to nibble throughout the week. The highlight was the chef dinner in the nice dinning room and kitchen on our last day. The chef was fabulous, dinner was amazing. Cecilia picked us out some nice wines, and also helped surprise my wife with a birthday cake for her birthday. Absolutely perfect. We were a little worried about transportation since we didn’t want to risk driving a car. We had a fairly good idea of what we wanted to do, about 60% of our trip was planned. We had a private driver (we arranged) for two days that took us to surrounding towns of Montepulciano, Montalcino, Pienza, Castglione del Lago, and Sienna. We had another driver set up to take us to Cortona for dinner. We did the train to Florence one day, a hot air balloon ride on our last day (something we set up ourselves). In between, lounging around the villa was just perfect. Avignonese winery was within walking distance, which we visited three times (great place, no crowds). Just the walk back and forth was like walking in a movie with the great views. Cecilia helped with the drivers to the train stations and the Cortona dinner. All in all, we managed very well without a car, but took a little planning. I’ll just close by saying that the villa experience was so much different than some of the tourist areas we also went – Rome, Cinque Terre and Florence. Those places had so many people, and the villa was a true oasis. So quiet. I cannot rate our experience here any higher. It was a literally a trip of a lifetime for us – all the better for Cecilia and villa.