Most potent in this planning is the strong continuity with colonial planning for these cities. Watson calls them (33.59 minutes) "new emerging urban fantasies that mimic western cities with their glass box towers, tuscan villas and gated villages".
Classic Tuscan views of vines and, more importantly, the award-winning wine produced on the estate, will keep the adults happy, not to mention the location between the idyllic cities of Siena, Arezzo and Cortona.
Dorm beds at Knoydart Foundation Bunkhouse (01687 462242, knoydart-foundation.com) cost £17 a night for adults, £10 for children This summer sees the first L'Eroica Britannia event – inspired by the vintage-themed Tuscan cycling race that has been running since 1997.
Set in a small Tuscan town it puts before us not only the expatriate protagonists but also the town itself, its history, its local residents and their life histories, all interspersed with scholarly digressions.
Lardo di colonnata, commonly referred to as lardo, is considered a delicacy from the Tuscan region of Italy.
Her garden and bedroom are painted in miniscule, hallucinatory detail: a view past tall Tuscan trees reveals misty mountains in a world that hums with portent.
The British are now more in love with Italy than the Italians are: they appreciate the food, the language, the tastes, the gestures of the people, the Tuscan landscape, the climate that renders indolence a little bit inevitable.
A left-leaning co-operative group helped with a grant of €50,000 ($65,000), Tuscan organisations donated machinery and members put in cash.
I'll lodge within the stone walls of a Tuscan villa built in 1166, sip Brunello by its pool to the bells of an 8th-century abbey, dine on pecorino cheese and pici pasta with a funghi e ricotta sauce, eat quail in the Etruscan vault of Osteria da Divo in Siena, drink my espresso on the Piazza del Popolo in Montalcino, or just soak in the red carpets of the Tuscan poppy fields.
Founded in 1921 in the Tuscan village of Castel del Piano, the family baking business has annual revenues of €14m ($17m), no debt and is growing.That is despite Italy's prolonged downturn, in which the domestic market has shrivelled as unemployment has reached record highs.
Tony Blair, for example, chose a Tuscan holiday to show what a fine European Britain's new prime minister is, and for good measure has found time to hobnob with his Italian counterpart, Romano Prodi, whose home town of Bologna is just up the road.
