Our Unique Advantage

The bark was getting louder as we trudged up the hill in the cold January morning... I was with a trifulao, a truffle hunter, and his dog has discovered some “black gold” under a towering oak tree in the Piedmonte region of Italy. The trifulao ordered Bianca to stand down as he produced a small pitchfork like device to gently turn over the ground. In less than 20 seconds he held up a small nugget of truffle, gently brushed off the dirt, smelled it and put it into his small sack for safe keeping...

It was an unplanned stop, but the view from the lake in Orta San Guilio took our breath away... so under the guidance from VillaHost Luisa, we took up residence at the Venus Ristorante and let the sun warm us up as we ordered wine and local pizza and savored the moment at the “undiscovered” lake of the Italian Lake district. Though not in our original travel plans, we all vowed to return to this gem.

The scene was reminiscent of southern California, with a definite French twist... as the long waves rolled in off the ocean with wetsuit-clad surfers trying to stay on their long boards, high on a bluff throngs of locals were boisterously calling out for drinks at the beach bar before the sun began to set. Next door the old Basque men were oblivious to both the ocean waves of Biarritz and the sundowner party going on... they were intently tossing large steel balls in the air, trying to gamely knock their opponent’s balls out of the way... welcome to petanque...

A Season Away's villas and apartments represent a wide range of city and country locations - the perfect vacation home to enjoy, venture forth from at your own pace and return to to savor and share your experiences. A Season Away offers in-depth, international life experiences.

In one of their booklets, “Finding the Perfect Villa,” A Season Away asks the question that we all need to ask ourselves, which is: “Are you a villa person or a hotel person”? They go through what the differences are so that you can insure you will be happy with the choice of a villa or a hotel.

A Season Away knows that a villa rental is not for every client and wants to insure that you make the right choice. The helpful booklets discuss some of the most mundane things about villa rentals such as the fact that there are generally no screens in the windows in most European villas regardless of price, or that air conditioning is not a given nor is a clothes dryer always available, especially in Italy where electricity is very expensive. The written material is designed to help you by giving you a lot of advance information.

My favorite kind of shopping... a lovely covered food market in the heart of southern France bursting with burgundy peonies, wild violet asparagus, and fragrant ewe’s milk brebis cheeses. Chef Alain pulled me aside to a display of very fresh looking poultry and asked for his “special” order. Carefully placing a paper wrapped package into my arms as if were fine china, Chef Alain cautioned me to take special care of our, “caille”, quail that we’d be cooking together later that day. A little later that morning there I was, honey white wine in hand, crisping the quail in olive oil and fresh basil picked from the garden... my first cooking lesson in France... what a memorable experience for a foodie like me!