Girls' trip

[pyrrha]

So one of my (admittedly few) friends has suggested going to Italy with a couple of other girlfriends for a cooking course/vacay.

I'd love to go away with them, and I have no objection to Italy - never been there - but I hate and loathe cooking!

Any other good suggestions in the area? They're set on southern Europe somewhere. It'll be early summer, so warm. Also, none of them are "budget" travellers, alas, so I won't convince them to backpack around part of a country (which would be my preference).

[tzarine]

florence, to start

you can get a villa nearby as well

[Deleted]

Or, you can stay here: www.guardastelle.com. Lazying at the pool with side trips to Chianti, Florence, Pisa, Siena, Volterra, La Crete...
Did I mention you could just lazy by the pool?
Seriously, it´s probably one of the most beautiful and relaxing places I´ve ever been to. San Gimi is just a ten mins stroll through vineyards and olive groves...

[sprite]

soemwhere like rez suggested; they could cook all day and you could explore.
we stayed at this place and could have happily stayed longer. needs a car though.
www.hotelvillavolpi.com/

tuscany is lovely, but you'd either need a car or chose a place with some degree of busses/trains available.

[pyrrha]

Ooh, that looks great. Somewhere where I could do day trips while they cooked would be perfect...and a pool, even better. I guess I will need to rent a car. Is that easy enough in Italy?

[sprite]

i was going to say it was no problem, but we drove our own, haha!
the big names are there (hertz, national) but you can often find cheaper deals with local firms. when we flew into malaga, we looked on the airport website to see who was there, and found a local firm much cheaper than the big ones. sure enough, we were second in line at our agent, and the hertz/national desks had about 20 people each. suckers.

in slovakia, we were able to find a place that rented cars which were a couple of years old, very very cheap but in excellent condition. in that case, we called a branch of hertz and when they quoted us a ridiculous price, said we didn't want to apy that much--and the employee offered us a number for somewhere else!

if you were to contact the resort, they could likely tell you who offers the best deal. you probably know about getting discounts with aeroplan.

[thelittlesthobo]

I stumbled across these villas before and would love to go, so if you go here, can you let me know what they are like!
placeinpuglia.com/

[Sticktoria]

Would painting/yoga/language immersion be more tempting for you, eg www.golearnto.com/search.aspx?ctry=110&activetype=4&activesubtype=16&active=212&datefrom=&dateto=.

[Deleted]

Pyrrha, hiring a car in Italy is easy peasy lemon squeezy. Just make sure you make a reservation for an automatic transmission, as most European cars come with a manual one (I don´t know if that´s a problem for you), and smaller companies usually don´t have automats.That´s why I´d rather book the car ahead.

[pyrrha]

Oh I far prefer manual transmission, so that's great! And I'll look for a smaller local firm too. Stick, I would love to do language immersion instead of cooking, so perhaps that's a possibility...but tbh, wandering around local villages or Florence or something sounds amazing too. That I can do on my own while they're cooking up a storm.

[sprite]

you can go source the wine for dinner. local brunellos are a steal.

[Deleted]

Great. Thanks to you, I´ve just booked Easter in Venice.

A bit too far from the nearest brunello maker, though...

[pyrrha]

Haha, I would love to go to Venice instead! Maybe I'll suggest it...though they seem pretty fixated on this Tuscany cooking business.