Vacation villas on the loose...

I want to have a vacation getaway but I can't figure out how to get through it. Vacation rentals, as many would suggest, give variety of options on how to have your vacation hustle free. I wonder if it will include all accomodations like transportations, plane tickets, etc. And the most difficult part, where to have my vacation. Plenty of choices but I want to have the best in terms of experience, the vacation villa itself, the accomodations, the transportations, and the fun.

From Kingston to Tuscany and back

Meaghan Cussen just wanted to travel a little bit when she decided to take a six-month job teaching English as a second language in Ireland. But when a handsome Italian man walked into the classroom, her “working vacation” changed her life forever.

Whether by fate or chance, Cussen met Antonio Urbani, a lawyer from Pisa, when he, also on vacation, decided to take an English language class. Within months, Cussen had moved to Italy to be with him and found a job teaching English. The two married a few years later and moved to Florence, the regional capital of Tuscany.

Now, with connections in two countries (make it three if you count the fact that Cussen has an Irish passport), Cussen, 33, and Urbani, 41, are sending a little bit of Tuscany back to Massachusetts. The couple has started an online business selling some of Tuscany’s best olive oils in America. The business is called Oliva Toscana, (Tuscan olives), and their goal is to bring their families, their careers and their cultures together.

“We started the business a few years ago,” Cussen said during a phone call from Italy. “We wanted to find something we could do together that would connect my family in the United States and my husband’s family here.”

After graduating from Sacred Heart in 1994 and College of the Holy Cross in 1998, Cussen worked in Boston for a few years and dreamed of traveling to Ireland, where her grandmother grew up.

“I never dreamed of living in Italy,” she said.

Olive trees grow in groves everywhere in Tuscany, Cussen said, and some of the finest Italian olive oils are produced in the region, which is located on the west coast of central Italy, north of Rome. Italians are very territorial when it comes to products.

“Every little town has its specialty,” Cussen said. “If you want the best Pecorino cheese, you go to this tiny, tiny town in the south of Tuscany. In going to the market with the family in the morning, anything my in-laws buy they ask where it comes from, and if it’s not from Italy they usually don’t buy it. I’m so happy when I come home and my parents are talking about the farmer’s markets that are open now. Everyone should enjoy their food.”

Every region in Italy has its particular style of olive oil, and Cussen and her Tuscan-native husband prefer Tuscany’s olive oils above any others produced in Italy. When Cussen and Urbani visited her parents in Kingston, they realized that their favorite olive oil, the type they use with every dinner, was not available in Southeastern Massachusetts, which is surprising seeing the number of Italian-Americans and the number of good Italian restaurants in the region, Cussen said.

“We noticed that the olive oil we really love is not available in the U.S.,” Cussen said. “There are lots of available brands produced in southern Italy, but not our favorite. We decided to import it and share it with the people we know.”

Thus the business was born.

Like wine, olive oils from different regions taste different, but Cussen said unlike wine, where flavors can be too subtle for the average person to taste differences, the different tastes of olive oil is obvious.

“You don’t need to know about olive oils to taste the difference,” Cussen said. “Sometimes we do taste tests back at home (in Kingston). And most of friends and family aren’t really into gourmet food, and they’ll say they won’t be able to tell the difference, but they do. You can always taste the difference between the average every-day extra virgin from the supermarket and this.”

Tuscan olive oil has a really strong taste, Cussen explained. “The scent is generally fruity, and the taste has strong tones of almonds, and you really get a sense of the land and the vegetables grown here. It also has a peppery finish that you feel on the back of your throat, but it’s not hot.”

Oliva Toscana imports a few different styles of olive oil that all meet Italian standards for extra virgin olive oil, which are much stricter than U.S. standards. The standards depend on the acidity level in the oil, which alters the flavors. Cussen’s favorite oil that she sells, Casale Toscan, is very low in acidity. The slim bottle is stamped with a number, which can tell the consumer exactly where in Tuscany that olive oil comes from. A 250-milliliter bottle costs $30.

Another extra virgin olive oil comes in a Chianti-style bottle, for $20. Their best-selling bottle costs $38 and mixes Tuscan olive oil with sweet balsamic vinegar from Modena, where the best balsamic vinegar is produced, Cussen said. “That’s our best selling product, the bottle is very pretty.”


read more...


-------------------------------------------

This is one lovely story born in Tuscany, Italy. Tuscany certainly is a very romantic place to be in. Having a vacation villa in Tuscany makes you feel very lucky. The place is such so nice for vacation.