Forget French Loire and the Scottish Highlands. If you wish to spend your next vacations in a castle, why not to consider one of the many offers coming from Tuscany?

Tuscany, a region where Etruscan and Romans, signories and communes, the Medicis and the Habsburg-Lorraine succeeded one another in the course of the centuries, is dotted with ancient castles that have been renovated and divided into cosy holiday apartments provided with all comforts.

• Spending some days in one of these lodging facilities will be like making a jump back in time: century-old walls containing myths and legends, romantic bedrooms with wood-burning fireplaces and period canopied beds, furniture, paintings and tapestry. In other words, renting one of these vacation apartments in Tuscany will be like being immersed in an old-time atmosphere... thrown back into the past among ladies and knights.

• You will have at your disposal the restaurants of these century-old residences - most of whom are open only for the inhabitants of the castle -, magnificent staterooms, modern gyms and swimming pools and riding stables open for most of the year.

• Moreover, Tuscan castles often stand atop gentle hills surrounded by vineyards, olive groves and cultivated fields and overlook panoramas that certainly have no equal. The ideal solution for all painting and photography lovers.

Therefore, if you are looking for very unusual vacations, why do not you take into consideration the idea of staying in an apartment or in a villa in a Tuscan castle in Mugello or in Lunigiana, in the Chianti or in Maremma?