Locations

Tuscany | Amalfi Coast – Ravello

Tuscany

We offer the Da Vinci Capers experience in a beautiful Tuscany location: the luxury of Villa Michaela, for our September 23–29, 2007 adventure. Read on for enticing details on this wonderful place.

Villa Michaela

Villa Michaela is a large early-nineteenth-century private villa set in 50 acres of pine forests and olive groves in the hills of Lucca.

Villa Michaela has been beautifully restored, and modernized to a very high standard. Great care was taken to restore the original frescoes and to maintain the antique feel of the house while at the same time making it warm, and welcoming.

Attached to the house is a consecrated chapel attributed to Nottolini, the famous Lucchese church and aqueduct architect.

The picturesque village of Vorno affords wonderful walks and hikes and has a bar, shop and an excellent restaurant, only five minutes walk from the villa.

For web site: www.villamichaela.com

Pool Dining Room

Tennis Court

Chapel

Peralta

We settle in the ancient stone hamlet of Peralta, home and studio of internationally renowned sculptress, the late Fiore de Henriquez. Surrounded by Fiore’s sculptures, purple bougainvillea and views of a small national park and the Italian Riviera, we begin our creative explorations . . .

Unlike the famous palatial villas dotting Tuscany, Peralta is rustic and intimate at the same time – a place you feel comfortable as soon as you arrive. That is, after you make the steep ascent – for it is perched on the slopes of the Apuane mountains, overlooking a nature preserve, and beyond to the blue Mediterranean Sea. It beckons you to stay for a while.

"The road up to Peralta is perilous, with blind corners and steep hairpins. There are few safety barriers: it's a choice between concrete wall or precipitous ravine. But we arrive and make our way on foot along the final track, olive trees on either hand, to the hillside shelf on which Peralta sits. Here is a terrce with stretch views across the valley out to the horizon, which is also the sea." —Jan Marsh, The Life of Sculptor Fiore de Henriquez, Elliott & Thompson Ltd, 2004.

Fiore insisted on keeping her ancient stone hamlet in harmony with its earthy surroundings. She felt that it should be simple, like a “good peasant.” Stone by stone and over three decades Fiore created her dream – a place where friends and other artists could come and create their art. With the necessity to cover expenses of maintenance, Fiore slowly opened it to the public. Over recent years it has been updated with beautiful touches of hand-painted headboards, new mattresses, gorgeous tiles, contemporary plumbing, even a swimming pool on the upper terrace. Planted bougainvillea, roses and mimosa create a colorful backdrop. The vineyards and olive trees make room for the wide-leaf fig and tall chestnut trees. It truly is a little piece of paradise.

For more information, photos, descriptions of the facilities, please visit www.peraltatuscany.com, and be sure to read this Condé Nast Traveler article for a wealth of fascinating detail about Peralta and the amazing life of its late founder, Fiore de Henriquez.

The Da Vinci Capers experience at Peralta incorporates the same adventures, and the same instructors, as the Villa Michaela version, with the exception of the cooking lesson, where we are instructed by the delightfully authentic Laura Bianchini, Peralta's resident cook for 30 years.

We invite you to experience Da Vinci Capers at Peralta!

Amalfi Coast – Ravello

For the first time, Da Vinci Capers becomes a part of a community by making our home within Ravello, Città della Musica – the City of Music. Long after tourists leave, we remain to enjoy evenings of strolling and sipping wine while watching the theater of the piazza. We allow ourselves total immersion in the serenity of beautiful gardens and breathe the sweetness of the fresh Mediterranean air – a perfect place for our creative activities.

We are hosted by the Palumbo family, owner of the Hotel Giordano, a four-star boutique hotel, nestled in a tropical paradise. The Palumbo family has made hospitality a tradition for generations. They also own Villa Maria, known for their cuisine and dining terrace with unsurpassed views of the sea; Villa Eva, a romantic villa surrounded by beautiful gardens and incomparable scenery of the Amalfi Coast; and most recently, Gore Vidal's personal villa, La Rondinaia, perched precipitously on the rocks overlooking the sea.

Perched high above the town of Amalfi, in the southern region of Campania, Ravello has historically been considered the jewel of the Amalfi Coast. Shipwrecked by a storm along the coast, some Romans took sanctuary in the hills above and called the location res bella – "a beautiful place." That name morphed into Ravello, the name we use today. And, indeed, it is truly beautiful – every sense will appreciate your surroundings. You will take deep breaths of flower-fragrance-filled air, enjoy whiffs of delectable meals being prepared. Your eyes will disbelieve the beauty of the many gardens, ancient villas, mosaics and the famous Vietri pottery – the unforgettable Mediterranean views will forever be etched into your mind.

Many notable writers, composers and artists in the past have found their way to Ravello – Boccaccio's protagonist, Landolfo Rufolo from Ravello, was written in the DeCameron; Richard Wagner composed Parsifal while visiting Villa Rufolo; and the list goes on: Toscanini, Rostropovich, Mirò, Escher, Turner, Ruskin, Foster, D.H. Lawrence and, more recently, Gore Vidal. It is a place to create and live la bella vita.

And now the mayor and the town invite Da Vinci Capers' participants to follow other artists' footsteps to begin our own personal creative journey.