The villa is situated in the centre of Sicily. With Piazza Armerina just a short 5 minute drive away providing some lovely restaurants. There are also a number of supermarkets and of course the must see Roman Mosaics at the Villa Romana Del Casale. The villa was large with the ground floor open plan and 3 bedrooms upstairs all with air conditioning. At the front and rear are 2 lovely terraces with outside table and chairs allowing a wonderful view of the sun setting over the farm land valley.
The villa could do with a cot and high chair for children and those with toddlers should be aware that the stone staircase hasn't any stair gates. That said we managed to find items to block our 1year old from playing on the stairs. In front of the villa is the huge pool with diving board. The pool has a shallow end that is not shallow enough for young children to stand but our 5 year old was confident enough to play with the right swimming aids.
Next door to Gela, a 30 minute drive away is a lovely sandy beach with a restaurant/bar. The beach also had sun beds and parasols for hire which was fairly common at the beaches around Sicily.
Being in the centre of Sicily meant drives of up to 1.5 hours to some of the bigger sights such as Taormina, Syracusa, Agrigento and Messina where we took a boat to the Aeolian Islands and the active volcano on Stromboli. Although longer to drive than we would normally like, the value for money villa far out weighs this slight inconvenience. The roads are excellent and having been warned of the mad Sicilian driving we didn't encounter any.
The entire 2 weeks we hardly saw a cloud and the temperature was 30+C everyday with the heat peaking mid afternoon.
The villa is a working farm and they have 2 dogs 3 cats and a horse. The dogs are friendly with one a young dog that is slightly too jumpy but sure she will settle down in good time. The villa is separated from the animals but if they are out on the farm there is a chance one of the dogs may come on to the villa grounds.
To surmise the villa is wonderful and well worth a visit. We would thoroughly recommend a stay.