German travel agency buys up complete Tuscani village

Room mit ein view: German travel company buys up entire Tuscan village

· Old settlement to become resort for 3,200 tourists
· Italians sceptical over promises for the future

Kate Connolly in Berlin, The Guardian
Friday May 25 2007

It has long been part of the folklore of holidaying that they hog the sunloungers. And now it appears the Germans are commandeering villages as well.

The entire Tuscan village of Tenuta de Castelfalfi has been snapped up by the giant tour operator TUI and is due to be turned into an integrated holiday playground for German tourists within the next two years.

In a move which would no doubt make the Tuscany-loving author EM Forster turn in his grave, the exquisitely beautiful but rundown medieval settlement north of Siena, and close to Florence and Pisa is soon to be renamed Toscana Resort Castelfalfi.

"The Germans have conquered our village!" declared the local paper, Il Tirreno, following news of the sale.

Complete with four square miles of land, a three-star hotel, 18-hole golf course, olive groves, vineyards and scores of elegantly crumbling villas, Castelfalfi is believed to have been bought for €250m (£170m).

Everything from the historic castello that gives the village its name and perches above it on a rocky peak, to its old ramparts, houses and gardens, were part of the deal. Only the church was out of bounds, but the company is obliged to pay for it to be renovated.

The concept involves creating a self-contained "holiday world" within Castelfalfi's historic walls, including restaurants, boutiques, spas, an all-inclusive hotel and an enlarged golf course.

Once it has been given a makeover, Castelfalfi is expected to attract 3,200 guests at any one time and will give the first whiff of mass tourism in a region that attracts holidaymakers precisely because of its small-scale family-run hotels.

It is unclear how Germany's own "Toscana Faction" - the class of politicians and intellectuals who frequent the region - will respond to the idea of their quiet holiday paradise potentially being overrun by hordes of their compatriots. Karl Born, a German professor of tourism and former member of TUI's governing board, told Focus magazine that the tour company's move was an attempt to fill a "gap in the market".

"Tuscany is a dream destination. Many holidaymakers want to go there, but have not been able to find exactly what they want," he said.

Golf and spa opportunities are considered by the mass market tourism industry to be particularly underdeveloped in the region.

For the village, being owned is nothing new. For hundreds of years its tenant farmers produced their olive oil, wine, cereals and tobacco for the noble family to whom it belonged. But in the 1960s the farmers and their families began to leave the village in droves to search for work elsewhere, and it has never recovered from the exodus.

Which might explain why TUI's dramatic move, described as its biggest ever development, has met with little opposition from the five remaining Castelfalfians.

"I'll wait to see how it will be," 74-year-old resident and retired hunting watchman Camillo Carli told the German newspaper Die Welt. "I'm old so it doesn't really affect me - it's more something that will impact on the young."

His son-in-law, Andrea Mechacci, said he saw the sale as a big chance. "If it remains as it is, then the village is dead," he said. Any life German tourists brought with them would be welcome, he added.

However, Valentino Morelli, who was born in Castelfalfi and keeps a holiday home there, told Die Welt: "I only hope that they have the financial means to see this through. But I will not be selling up even if they make me an offer."

There will be very little that is Italian about the Castelfalfi experience apart from the location. Forget soaking up the atmosphere of lively markets, watching courting young couples making out on the hillside or milling with the elegant locals and black-clad widows in the village square.

Paola Rossetti, the mayor of Montaione, the administrative district to which Castelfalfi belongs, cautiously welcomed the purchase, but said the authorities would keep a close eye on how the village was developed. "We will not allow everything to happen," she said. "The Germans can come, on condition that Castelfalfi remains the paradise that it is."

TUI says it wants to offer its guests the full rural experience - including locally produced fruit, vegetables and wine. Its boss, Michael Frenzel, said the village would be "self-sufficient as far as possible through the use of renewable energy".

But many in the Montaione region are sceptical, remembering a string of earlier attempts to rejuvenate the ghost village.

In every decade since the 1970s one investment project after the other has failed. The last attempt at the start of the 1990s looked hopeful. A hotel, golf course and restaurant were built and a spa was also planned, but the ideas collapsed due to lack of funds and since then virtually nothing has happened. House facades have been rudimentarily kept up and gardens tended, just in case another investor was to drop in, but in general Castelfalfi is in dire need of renovation.

TUI Travel, Europe's largest tour operator, is probably its surest bet yet.

Well, I thought, Tuscani was owned already by the German teacher's association since decades. :wink: