Meet the Winner of our Tuscan Villa Giveaway

We had a tremendous response to our April villa giveaway! For good reason, a chance to stay in an amazing villa in Tuscany for free is a very enticing opportunity. The Richardson family from the Bay Area is the lucky winner! They were in Italy a few years ago with their young girls — it will be fun for them to experience Italy again from a different home-base in Tuscany.

Meet the Richardson family …

We are excited to bring our daughter’s Madeleine, 5, and Kate, 3, back to Italy! We have been before as a family several years ago when Kate was only 6 months old. We stayed in a villa outside of Pisa with 2 other families in a town called Casciana Terme, famous for it’s spas. A friend of ours was raised in this town until he was 10 years old, so it was fun to meet his family and friends and have an authentic trip to Italy!

We took lots of great day trips from Casciana Terme with the kids to Siena, Florence, and Pisa. We never took the kids to the beach, which we are excited to do on this trip and plan to hit Forte dei Marmi and Porto Ercole, north of Rome, where we went last summer without the kids (while we were in Italy for a wedding). We are excited to also spend many days by the pool at Villa Le Capanne, which looks amazingly beautiful.

Mom is particularly fond of Italy because she studied in Florence while in college. It is also a terrific place to travel with a family because of the rich family culture and the fact that your kids are welcome and adored anywhere you go. It is also a great country escape for a family like ours who lives in full-time in an urban environment.

Thank you Ciao Bambino for giving us this opportunity to return!!