Under the Tuscan Sun

Luxury Villas: Ever since you read Under the Tuscan Sun (the original, not the movie adaptation), you've dreamed of having your own Bramisole- but without the spiders and major renovations. Fortunately, ItalianVillas.com has over 600 beautifully-appointed (no home improvement crew required) Italian villas and vacation rentals throughout Tuscany, Como, Maggiore, Italian Riviera, Chianti, Positano, Amalfi, plus apartments in Rome, Florence, and Venice. Suffice it to say, the travel "good life" gurus at ItalianVillas.com are constantly looking for new places in Italy to make your next vacation as picture-perfect as Lake Como as dusk. If you don't believe us, take one look at Villa Campo Chiarenti in northern Tuscany and you'll understand why Frances Mayes packed her bags and booked it to Cortona.

While sipping a wine from a local vineyard, you'll fall in love with the impressionist view of the hilltop villas of San Gimignano, nearby vineyards and Cypress trees lining the low ridges. Campo Chiarenti is a private residence turned summer vacation home, so the walls and counters are sprinkled with photographs and a "lived in" touch. The grand entrance hall with a single barreled ceiling leads to a very large, comfortable and elegantly furnished room with a marvelous high, double vaulted ceiling springing from brick piers. These vaults make natural divisions forming a drawing room with a large open Tuscan fireplace, a space with a grand piano and a dining space.

There are two other drawing rooms on this floor, one equipped with TV, Video, DVD, a satellite receiver and another open Tuscan fireplace. This place has it all- the eat-in kitchen even has a pizza oven, and the outside dining courtyard comes with a barbecue. The mosaic-lined swimming pool will give you a whole new perspective on Al Fresco. So, you can stop reading romanticized travel logs and live your own adventure-or, just bring your book along and read it while basking under the Tuscan sun.

For LxM Amy Covington