A Tuscan summer

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LUCCA, Italy -- The population of Vorno, a village in the Apuan Alps foothills of Tuscany, is about 825, but it is a convenient location: about 15 minutes by car from Lucca and about 45 minutes from Pisa and from the Tyrrhenian Sea beach towns of Forte dei Marmi and Viareggio.

The Avenue of Remembrance, the road up to Vorno's village church, is lined with trees planted to honor the local soldiers who fell in World War I. A butcher shop is in the center of the village. Across a side street from Villa Lucia, a rental property, is A Bimbotto, a delightful restaurant and pizzeria owned by the family that also owns the adjoining grocery store.

Alba Berchielli runs the front of the restaurant; her husband does some of the cooking, and their son makes pastry and desserts. Mrs. Berchielli was born in Italy but moved to Ohio with her parents after World War II, when work was scarce in Vorno.

The family returned to Italy when Mrs. Berchielli was 18, and she married a man from the village whose father and grandfather owned the restaurant. She likes to talk to visitors and reminisce about her high school days in Akron.

A few kilometers from Vorno stands one of the region's olive oil plants, where farmers bring their olives to be crushed and turned into fragrant oil. A piece of paper naming the owner is placed on each large bin of green and black olives waiting to be run through the crushing machines. The farmers wait for the end of the process to fill their plastic containers with the virgin oil.

Villa Lucia, a nine-bedroom house painted in the golden color typical of Tuscan villas, is part of a large property that includes two other, smaller houses, each with six bedrooms: Casa Joshua, once a school, and Casa Cameron.

The driveway leading from the gate to Villa Lucia is lined with tall, slim cedars and with lemon trees in terra-cotta pots that can be moved indoors to the limonaia for winter. All three houses are offered for rent by LaCure, a Toronto-based company.

With other travel writers, I was invited to visit several of these luxury Tuscan villas near Lucca and Florence. Although we saw primarily villas with nine or 10 bedrooms, LaCure also offers accommodations as small as town apartments. It's not an inexpensive way to vacation -- about $5,000 to $30,000 per week -- but luxury abounds.

LaCure is associated with American Express and serves as the middleman between property owners and clients in several countries. The client is met on arrival; daily maid service is provided, as is (usually) heating and air conditioning. Sometimes a cook is included, but groceries usually are not. There's someone to call in a mix-up or an emergency. "Matching clients with the perfect villa is LaCure's top priority," says Geoffrey H.G. Williams, a founder of the company.

A small fountain splashes away at the entrance to Villa Lucia, which is surrounded by gardens, a fruit orchard and an olive grove -- and there's a swimming pool. The bedrooms have private baths.