Woodfarm Holiday Cottage in Tuscany: update Oct 2022

Holiday Cottage in Tuscany? Oh yeah! I’d almost forgotten! Crikey, where to begin really? I get asked so often “What’s happening with Tuscany?”

The honest answer is that I have just been too busy to actually get it sorted! I’ll put the last photos I have on here so you can get a feel for it, but you’ll also have to add a huge dollop of imagination. I have to as well, ‘cos I didn’t take these!

Heading into 2020 it was all on track for opening that summer. I’d been avidly collecting all the furniture and furnishings we needed for it, and had booked a van to take it all over in May of that year. I’d bought some fantastic antiques to make our Holiday Cottage in Tuscany feel like a slice of Woodfarm Suffolk, with a Tuscan twist. Then along came a pesky pandemic and changed all that!

I was last over there at the end of February 2020, and progress was good. Slow, but good. As I came back, there was much talk of this Coronavirus that was sweeping through China, and then Northern Italy, where I had just been. But I escaped it. Until August, but that’s another story!

The terrace of our Holiday Cottage in Tuscany, with views across the Garfagnan valley towards Lucca

March 23rd 2020 we went into lockdown in the UK. I’d seen it coming a few weeks before and was saying to friends that we would be going into this lockdown thing that they had in Italy. In the run up to March 23rd we were busy for a week or so with lots of people who had been booked to go to Italy, but couldn’t. Then it all came to a halt! Or fermare if you want the Italian.

Anyhoo, during various periods of my Italian builders being able to get going again, we had our amazing terrace built, which I have still not seen, though it looks nice in the photos. The house is pretty much done with the exception of the kitchen being just a bare room. My intention is that it will have a range style cooker, with a couple of worktops either side, then a few ‘loose’ units. I’ve bought a fabulous old Welsh dresser to go in there, as well as a great old pine drawer unit that we will drop a sink into, and another nice drawer unit that I painted and put some funky knobs on. We then need to tile some of the walls in there and hey presto, a kitchen.

The bathroom of our Holiday Cottage in Tuscany. We’ll probably get a toilet seat!

That’ll pretty much complete the inside. Outside we need a BBQ and pizza oven on the terrace.

Since coming out of various lockdowns I’ve simply been flat out focussing on Woodfarm Suffolk, as well as another renovation in Essex, which is a side project.

The plan as I write this in October 2022 is to get one of my builders to head over there with all the furniture and sort the kitchen out. I just have him working full-time in Essex though at the mo, so can’t spare him to go over just yet. It’s not a huge issue though as we’ve kinda missed summer 2022.

This is NOT our Holiday Cottage in Tuscany. It’s from my mood board though, to give you an idea of how the kitchen will look

With a fair wind and a following sea, we will get to this in the New Year and get things ready for Spring 2023.

So that’s it. I’ve just got too much going on in the UK right now. When I bought the place in 2019 (I think) this wasn’t the case. Please bear with me, I know so many of you are really keen to get it booked, and I’ll do what I can to get it ready for you in 2023!

It’ll sleep 2 to 4 (one double bedroom, with a double sofa-bed in the lounge). To remind you, it is in a tiny hamlet called Piazza Di Brancoli, high up in the Garfagnana valley. It has the most incredible views, which is why I bought it. It’s just 20 minutes from Lucca, the most beautiful medieval walled city on the Serchio river, which winds its way through the valley, past the bottom of our hill. It’s just 45 minutes from Pisa airport and we have a ‘parking partner’ to offer you discounts on airport parking in the UK. We’ll give you all the info you need on car hire etc over there too. It will be Dog-Friendly, though you’ll need to drive there if you’re taking your Dogs.

We have a whole section of our website dedicated to Woodfarm Tuscany.

If you’re not already signed up to our VIP Tuscany list, then make sure you are. We will use this to notify you as soon as we have it ready and available to book. You will be the first to know about it, and we will give you plenty of warning as to when it is going live. I have a feeling the bookings will come flying in!