Villa la Pergola

I realized there had been promise of descriptions of the Villa we stayed in..and I had not delivered.  We stayed at Villa la Pergola, in a town outside of Firenze, San Martino Alla Palma.  It was near the top of a mountain/hill (hard to do in a stick-shift van with little to no power)... about 15 minutes to the electric train in Scandicci that took us into the heart of Firenze.  All in all, it was actually a lot easier to get in and out of Firenze to the villa than I thought it would be.  Between driving down the mountain/hill, and taking the electric train (2 euro one-way I think, very reasonable), it took about 40 minutes or so to get into downtown.

It was a 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom villa, with a hot tub, a pool, and a wonderful view from the table you see below.  It was fantastic.  And the chairs, tables, etc were all made by the owner - pretty incredible. 

This is the view of the back of the house, which is actually were our door was.  We were on the bottom level on the left.  Two of the bedrooms were upstairs though.  The kitchen had essentially everything you would need to cook.  We even had a welcome bottle of wine on the table.

The table with the view overlooking Firenze and the surrounding area.  The pool was directly out of this picture to the right.  There were olive trees, and it was just beautiful.  The family business is ceramics, so the table was their own design and make.

This was the view at night.  Under the moon, there is a dome-like light, that's the Duomo in Firenze.  Not too bad. 

I highly recommend staying here.  The owner was very helpful with information and recommendations.  They have a couple of units that they rent, and they live upstairs which means they are available if something comes up. 

Hopefully I will finish up the last of the trip (in much delayed fashion) into Dublin soon!

**FYI, here is the website of the villa -- http://www.villalapergola.com/**