Four words in the English language will make every woman sigh: a villa in Tuscany.

I toyed with other phrases while trying to decide where to celebrate a recent landmark birthday.

Jen Christensen (ENLARGE)

A stay at a villa in Impruneta, Italy, surrounded by roses, fig trees and olive groves? Plus chianti and your favorite people? Sigh ?

Photos: The author's Tuscany trip IF YOU GO Getting there: Expect to pay $1,500 or more for flights from Atlanta to Florence, Italy, during peak summer season. A more reasonable option is to travel during fall or spring — our trip was in May — and to fly in and out of Milan's Malpensa airport, where Delta's nonstop flights from Atlanta cost about $1,200 at summer's peak. Where to stay: Our gorgeous Tuscan farmhouse came courtesy of Rentvillas.com, whose staff was quick to e-mail me detailed notes and driving directions. Our villa — with three bedrooms, two baths and room for six — cost $1,944, including tax, for seven nights, with utilities additional. At the end of our Saturday through Saturday morning stay, the owners checked the meter and charged us $100 for the utilities. The villa we booked is no longer available online, but there are countless other properties from www.rentvillas.com, in all price ranges and sizes. Information: Tourism in Tuscany www.discovertuscany.com. International travel stories Discounts abound as tourism to Thailand drops  Techie tips for travelers  Want an all-American Independence Day? Try London  Unique Europe: Irish hurling to Riviera cactus  Vive Mexico: Swine flu down, bargains up in Mexico  Photos: Travel / International Galleries Latest deals! Back to: Travel | U.S. and international destinations

Images of endless wine and bowls of pasta, of Diane Lane being seduced by a swarthy Italian — that exact combination of words proved irresistible.

To distract myself from my advancing age, I asked five dear friends and family members to join me for a weeklong stay at an Italian villa. These were wonderful women who already knew and liked each other, so of course they'd have fun in such a glorious setting. Still, I wanted to make sure each of them could enjoy the type of vacation that was right for them.

For my part, I got to play travel agent and plan every detail. I love organizing trips and spent hours scouring Web sites to find the right villa to book. Then I used guidebooks to plot our itinerary. Before we left I handed out day-by-day schedules — and silly tour group hats — to everyone in our gang.

For the others, it was idyllic not to plan a thing. They'd left husbands and children behind — along with car pools and dinners to prepare — and they were thrilled to have everything prearranged.

My partner, Jen, and I travel to Italy every spring and were ready to explore its smaller towns. Jen's mother, Susan, and my sister, Celia, had visited Italy a few times before, while our friends Marita and Paige were making their first trip.

Every morning, we could venture out together and then break out on our own. Jen and I could lurk in dimly lit museums. Susan and Celia, both natural-born speedwalkers, could barrel along from site to site and still have time to climb a medieval tower. And Paige and Marita could hang back and take in Italy, lingering over a cappuccino in Siena's square while a parade of old women and little dogs passed by.

Still, I worried that I'd overlooked some essential detail or that the villa I'd rented sight unseen might be a disaster.

It took a few hours for those fears to vanish. We landed in Milan, picked up a rented Volkswagen minivan and stopped at an Autogrill to stock up on wine, cheese, coffee and necessities. By 4 p.m. we were pulling up to a farmhouse near Florence that was more beautiful than we could have imagined.

Its elegant owner, Manuela Francini, her adult son Fernando and their lumbering dog Nicola escorted us around the property, which had been in their family for generations. We stood on a patio while Mrs. Francini pointed out fig trees and grapevines spread out before us and a sparkling swimming pool below. She gave us house instructions and a list of restaurants, then left us with six glorious days ahead.

It was easy for our group to fall into a happy routine. Someone made coffee in the morning while someone set the table. Someone served pastries and juice while someone washed the dishes.

Then we were off on a different excursion each day. We piled into our minivan and Jen took the wheel, down mountain roads so narrow that she pulled over for oncoming traffic. That's when I noticed her mother praying the rosary in the back seat, oblivious to a gorgeous Chianti countryside.

We posed for pictures "holding up" the Leaning Tower of Pisa and circumnavigated the walled city of Lucca. We gawked at Renaissance frescoes. And at a woman who looked like a supermodel — in Ferragamo high heels and an all-white designer ensemble — as she pedaled a bike through rush-hour traffic, talking on a cellphone.

We raced through the Uffizi, stood in awe of Michelangelo's "David" and shopped for silver on the Ponte Vecchio.

In every town, we scooped up jewelry, scarves and ceramics and drank the local wine. Even lunch didn't seem right without a bottle of prosecco, a carafe of chianti or a toast to the city of San Gimignano with its light white wine.

And we ate our way across Tuscany. In Arezzo, it was paparadelle with wild boar sauce. In Florence, it was pappa al pomodoro and ribollita. In Siena, it was grilled eggplant and sausage with white beans.

A daily gelato was mandatory. But we rounded out other meals with tiramisu, panna cotta with strawberries or chocolate tartuffo.

When our stay at the villa was up, we consoled ourselves with a day in Venice. For the record, there's nothing romantic about six women crammed into tiny, bunk bed-filled rooms.

Still, we managed to soak up much of Venice's grandeur, with a gondola ride down the Grand Canal, a bellini at Harry's Bar and breathtaking sunset views across the lagoon from the top of the campanile.

We spent a final night in Milan, where we raced through the Galleria and dined alfresco one last time.

On the long flight home, I reveled in all the things that had gone right on our trip. Yet I couldn't stop wondering if anything went wrong. Had it really been necessary to visit Volterra and behold its "stupefying number" of Etruscan burial boxes, as our guidebook had warned us? Instead, we could have used more candlelit talks on the patio at night, more people-watching in the piazzas, more afternoons lounging by the pool.

Back home a few weeks later, we eased our post-villa blues with a reunion dinner. We draped ourselves in our scarves and jewelry. We pulled out our photos and laughed at them. We cooked dishes that were as authentic as we could make them and washed them down with Italian wine.

And when the stories started to flow, I realized what I'd done wrong: worried. Even if we'd done nothing at all, it would be the best nothing of our lives. The things that went "wrong" on our trip, like the bus that dropped us off in the middle of nowhere, instantly became the stuff of legend. We'll be laughing for years about those creepy saint bones we saw.

Before our grand adventure, I had underestimated the boundless humor and generous spirit of these remarkable women. Because of this trip, I love them even more.