Tuscany with Simpson Travel - Tuscany & Umbria - Italy's sublime heartland.
People gaze, incredulously, at the vivid frescoes in Siena's Piccolomini Library. Surely they have been restored? Amazingly not. Yet they are as fresh as the day they were painted centuries ago. What's more, the Tuscan landscapes in the background are still astonishingly true. Since this enchanted province of Italy seduced the artistic geniuses of the Renaissance - da Vinci, Michelangelo and Botticelli were all born in Tuscany - it has lost none of its potency. In a cultivated idyll of vineyards, olive groves and cornfields, slim cypresses still punctuate the scenery like paintbrushes in-waiting, while ancient farm houses dripping with wisteria lord it on the hilltops.
Neighbouring Umbria has a painterly beauty of its own - significantly, Pinturicchio, the artist responsible for those panels in Siena, was an Umbrian; so was Raphael. With its wooded heights rising from a rustic eiderdown, and craggy outcrops holding aloft wonderful historic towns like Spello, Spoleto and Perugia, this lovely green central region is no less dramatic and in many ways more intensely Italian.
Two wonderful regions brimming with great art and architecture. . . Yet it's the lie of the land itself and the pleasure of being in it that draws visitors back time after time. In the delightful villas and hotels we have selected, from the wine country of Chianti, Montepulciano and Orvieto, to the lakelands of Trasimeno, you'll feel in touch with the spirit of the place the moment you step across any of their thresholds. Here is your own room with a view, your patch on the terrace, your space by the pool. And the locations are so well chosen - hand-picked by someone who knows and loves this part of Italy - that even in the height of summer the peace and perfection of the surroundings remain relatively undisturbed.
From these relaxing rural bolt holes, it's never far to civilisation, ancient or modern. To the Florence of the Medicis, to marvel at Brunelleschi's voluptuous domes or the latest mules by Prada. To Siena to stand in the lop-sided Campo and imagine the stereo roar of the crowd as the Palio horse race takes over this Gothic city. To Lucca to remember Puccini. Or to Assisi's great Basilica to pay homage to the world's best-loved saint, Francis. Or simply to wander through some perfectly-formed hill town like Todi and, in a quiet side street, find a small osteria where the pasta is home-made and the sauce redolent of just-gathered herbs.
There are so many beautiful old towns to explore, where weathered walls harbour Etruscan treasures, shops are crammed with Italian style and the ice cream is sublime. Pisa, Gubbio, Volterra, San Gimignano - each, or so it seems at the time, more memorable than the last. And when you've had your fill of Giotto and Gucci, of Bargello sculptures and the rip of Piaggios, think what bliss it will be to retreat to your personal corner, pull up a chair in the sunshine, pour a glass of wine and uncurl your toes.
