Rent Your Holiday Apartment In Tuscany
The onset and development of farmhouse holidays accommodations
The phenomenon of farmhouse holidays, intended originally
as accommodation in agricultural enterprises, started
off and expanded in Italy towards the beginnings of
the 70’s, when some farmers decided to “convert”
their activities, which were getting less profitable, into
proper accommodation facilities proposing holidays
on farms as a valid alternative to hotels. The region
majorly interested by this phenomenon is Tuscany chosen
by tourists not only for the artistic treasures found there
but also because it is a land where it is still possible
to find peace and calm. There is no other region, in Italy,
where foreign citizens have had such an important role in
the development of the farmhouse holidays activities
such as they have had in Tuscany.
What’s more, Tuscany has been chosen by intellectuals,
teachers, businessmen coming from European countries as their
residence and they have chosen to settle in the countryside
of San Gimignano and Volterra or in the Florentine
and Sienese hills or even in the cities of Florence,
Siena, or in the Chianti area, after having visited
them as tourists. The interest of the Americans in Tuscany
is more recent than that of the Europeans.
In the following years, then, the word 'farmhouse holiday'
(agriturismo) indicated all the touristic facilities
located in the countryside which did not necessarily have
an agricultural produce later called holiday homes, residences,
countryside apartments, country inns, etc. providing accommodation
which was becoming all the more luxurious and refined, in
exclusive farmhouses or villas or period country dwellings
with swimming pool, tennis court and large
green spaces carefully tended to and well-equipped.
This marked the start of the conversion of the many farmhouses
spread around on the Tuscan farmlands; much in fact has
been the foreign capital invested in the restoration and the
property purchasing especially by the British, Swiss and Dutch.
The oncoming fashion of holidays in the countryside,
of genuine food and good wine, hiking and horse
riding excursions have contributed to the increase of
this form of touristic accommodation facilities –
and precisely Tuscan farmhouse holidays – and
therefore this reaches an even wider range of customers who
are interested.
Alongside these touristic farmhouse holiday accommodation
facilities, restaurants, facilities for the tasting of local
products (oil, wine, traditional Tuscan specialities),
horse riding centres, and the latest, well-being, health and
relax centres have come forth.
Touristic itineraries in the Tuscan countryside
A stay on a holiday farm
provides the tourist with direct contact with nature and, as
in our case, to opportunity to go on daily excursions to the
main art cities like Siena, Florence, Lucca, Arezzo and Cortona,
Pisa, Pistoia, to go through the famous Brunello di Montalcino
“wine routes”, or even to the less known but still
important Doc wines of the Valdichiana and Cortona. Or they
can visit other different and exclusive landscapes like the
Crete Senesi (Clay Hills in the Siena area) the Val d’Orcia,
the Etruscan Coast.
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