About us
Who are we?
We are Frank and Anny from Oostkamp, near Bruges in Belgium. We have three children, Joey, Janey and Jilly, three children-in-law, Stephanie, Benny and Bert, and three adorable grandsons, Jack, Owen and Fergus.
Our Italian dream
Since 1992 – when our children were still small – we have been travelling to Italy for our annual summer holiday. First with a folding tent, not much later with a caravan, then with a motorhome, with which we crossed the country for 15 summers in a row. The fantastic nature, the historic cities and buildings, the rich history and culture, the delicious food and drink, and the friendly people meant an escape from the busy life in Belgium and made us come back every year.
After years of spending our summers in Italy, we have fallen in love with Tuscany. Time and time again we are astonished by its rolling landscapes dotted with vast green vineyards, golden yellow fields with typical round bales of straw, endless olive groves, farm houses built in stone and outbuildings with meandering driveways bordered by stately cypresses, and medieval towns on the peaks of the hills.
Several years ago, we sometimes pondered that it would be fantastic to have a holiday home there, a real retreat. At the time, that seemed just a distant, unattainable dream.
However, the idea of owning a house in Tuscany came back stronger and stronger and we gradually started to look more concretely at what might be possible. True to the proverb ‘Where there is a will, there is a way’, we finally found our dream home in July 2018. On February 1st of 2019, we were officially allowed to call ourselves owners of a holiday home in Civitella in Val di Chiana.
We have now refurbished the house with a lot of love and care and renewed the interior, while maintaining the typical Italian accents, to make it a cozy family home where we can enjoy the Italian sun with our children and grandchildren. We have also decided to open up our holiday home Casa Sulla Collina to other families, so that you too can spend unforgettable holidays there.
