Our stay at Casa Trebbio was nothing short of fantastic!

What an incredible review of our little Tuscan bolthole, Casa Trebbio, from honeymooners Fern & Sam in April 2024. I couldn’t put any of this better, so the rest is Sam…

The house itself is absolutely gorgeous, with little bits of familiar ‘Woodfarm-ness’ alongside rustic Italian decor, creating a perfect home-away-from-home vibe.

But that’s just the inside of the house…as soon as you open those shutters and look over the valley, down towards Lucca – you realise you’re not in England anymore! It took my breath away.

We were there for a week, and even though we looked out at the view at least 2-3 times a day, it was just as magical the last time as it was the first – and you always spot things you didn’t last time – I could have spent a full day with the binoculars just watching the scenery. However… we were in Italy!

Just a 25-minute drive away is Lucca, a beautiful walled city filled with amazing restaurants, architecture and shops. We spent nearly 2 full days just exploring Lucca, and testing out as many gelato places as we could (for research of course – we recommend Matta).

And then just another 20 mins from Lucca is Pisa, which is much smaller than we thought it would be, but the tower leans MUCH more than we thought it did!

Again, besides the tower (which we suggest buying tickets to climb as the views are spectacular – especially at sunset), Pisa is also full of fantastic restaurants and architecture – come to think of it, that pretty much sums up Italy!

After doing the main local sites on the first day, we decided we needed to slow down a little bit, so went to the Carrara Marble Quarry (about 1hr away), and had a tour around the underground quarry. For just €15 each, this was an absolute steal and was fascinating to see (especially as it’s the quarry that Michelangelo sourced the marble for David). Then, for a bit of contrast, we spent the afternoon laying on the local beach at Forte Di Marmi, which even at the beginning of April was scorching!

Now that we’d relaxed a bit, we sped up again and spent a day in Florence – another fairly local city (about 1.5hrs from Casa Trebbio) as we wanted to see David at Galleria dell’Accademia! Sadly, we went on a Monday when EVERYTHING is closed! However, we had a lovely time at a food market, and eating gelato outside the cathedral. Then in the evening was the main reason we were in Florence… we’d booked a pasta making course!

We weren’t expecting much. It was €50 each, and lasted for 3hrs – in our minds, we’d have a tutor who just gave us simple instructions and there you go. But I can’t stress enough how good it was! Like, we want to go all the way to Italy again just to go this course!

It was through PastaMania, and was absolutely brilliant the entire way through! It was us along with 4 other couples who were all American. We had an Italian chef (Pino) who showed us a hilarious introductory video, followed by learning about pasta – and then we were thrown in to make it! 3hrs later, after a lot of laughs and learning, we all sat down to eat our creations alongside a lot of complimentary wine, and followed by desserts and wine tasting, all for €50 each!

The session ended up lasting just over 4hrs because we were all having such a fun time, but if you’re looking for something extremely Italian to do, pasta making is up there! Next day, more downtime was needed, so we took the day to explore the local area. We ended up driving to Montecatini Terme, and getting the Funicular up to Montecatini Alto and enjoying a brilliant lunch while taking in the scenery (and more gelato). We wanted to go to the thermal baths in Terme, but sadly they were closed, but it didn’t put a downer on a lovely day – especially as we had some planning to do for the next day, as we decided…we’re in Italy…we need to go to Rome!

So we did!

We caught the train from Florence to Rome, and enjoyed a day trying to take everything in. If you haven’t been to Rome, you won’t understand how much there is to see! You can spend all day walking around Rome and not see half of what’s there – so of course we did the main attraction, and booked a guided tour of the Colosseum, which was superb!

I will admit, it was a long day (up at 7am, drive through rush hour traffic to get to Florence train station, and then a 2hr train to Rome. Then spent 10hrs in Rome, and got the train back at 8pm, getting back to Casa Trebbio just before midnight), but it was so worth it!

All in all, Italy is stunning – but the little slice of Italy that Carl has snatched up is the cherry macaroon on top of the very fancy gelato (Amorino Gelato in Florence), and we can’t wait to go again!