Falling for Florence
By Gavanndra Hodge, Evening Standard
Last updated at 11:35 31 January 2003
Florence: Italy's jewel
It was Friday evening and our flight to Pisa had been delayed by two hours, so imagine my annoyance when I realised my boyfriend had put down Christopher Hibbert's classic tome The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici and was napping.
This book, I had told him, was essential reading before any Tuscan trip. It is the lurid history of the dysfunctional banking family who propelled Florence to the centre stage of Renaissance Europe. A book full of murder, money, gout and gossip, and he'd only got to page three.
However, no amount of homework could have prepared us for the labyrinthine Tuscan motorway system. On collecting the hire car, we set off for Prato, just outside Florence.
Our first two attempts found us back at the airport. Two hours later we arrived (the drive should take 45 minutes) feeling as murderous as Lorenzo 'Il Magnifico' Medici himself.
But the sight of Villa Rucellai dissolved all travel angst. This was once the summer residence of the Rucellai family, who made their wealth through the production of red dye. The family still live in the villa, set in the verdant hills overlooking Prato, and run it as a ten-room hotel.
Weathered stone stairs lead up to a high-ceilinged 16th-century entrance hall, on the left is a communal living area with deep sofas, green baize gaming tables, a piano and a fireplace big enough to accommodate a small tree.
Thankfully, there were embers still glowing at 1.30am and, even more thankfully, we found a bottle of the Villa Rucellai home-made wine and a tin of the local almond biscotti.
We retired to our bedroom. The rooms are modest and a little austere - rather like the servants' quarters in The Leopard - and we were in the 'Swan' room, although, oddly, the walls were hung with drawings of horses.
After an all-too-brief sleep and a breakfast of boiled eggs, fresh bread and home-made jams in the frescoed dining room, we were ready to tackle some Renaissance churches.
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