Looking ahead to Fall 2021... and Summer 2022!

My view from my room at the Study Abroad Center in Castiglion Fiorentino, in 2009

Well...this pandemic is certainly keeping us on our toes. As well being a great teacher in lessons of patience, and pivoting! 

After much deliberation and going back-and-forth with our Villa and Lucca apartment hostesses, in January we decided to postpone our June 2021 Retreats. 

It was a gut punch...not even a full year since our last gut punch of canceling our 2020 retreats. Besides feeling helpless and restless to travel again, I feel like let down my guests who have been looking forward to traveling to Italy as much as I have. But unfortunately our current reality with the pandemic, and a slow vaccine roll out means there's a strong chance that I, and many of my guests, may not even have access to the vaccine before June 2021 in order to safely travel abroad. 

​So, similar to my post about cancelling our June 2020 retreats... now what?

Now... we have our sights set on both Fall 2021 AND Early Summer 2022! 

I'm chomping at the bit to get back on a plane to Italy to visit with friends (one of whom has had a baby since I last saw her in 2019!) and I have guests who are just as anxious as I am to smell that sweet Tuscan air again. Yes, things are still up in the air but a lot of great things can happen in the next 7 months that will allow us to safely travel back to our beloved ITALIA!

And hellooo...Tuscany in the fall? Between the fall colors and the taste of freshly harvested olive oil, it's kind of hard to resist! Our Fall 2021 dates will be September 12-19 for our Villa Week and September 22-29 for our week in Lucca!

In addition to planning for Fall 2021, we are also looking ahead to Early Summer 2022! Many of my guests would rather wait until next year with the hope that ALL the dust will have settled by then and I'm totally on board for that too. With that in mind, I'm happy to share that our Summer 2022 dates will be June 4-11 for our Villa Retreat and June 14-21 for our Lucca Retreat!

Both our Fall and Summer Retreats will follow roughly the same itinerary (availability of activities pending) and will give me the chance to show you around two of my favorite corners of Italy...Castiglion Fiorentino (the town I first studied abroad in and lived back in 2009/2010) and Lucca (a hidden gem of Tuscany that's come to be like a 3rd home for me). 

So...who's ready to dust off those passports and meet me in Tuscany? ​

From my very first visit to Florence back in 2009!