Susan Schwartz
The Gazette
Montreal

When Hudson cooking teacher Maria Loggia was planning an Italian villa vacation for a group of her students, she had some quite definite requirements: a well-equipped kitchen large enough to accommodate the 12 of them when she cooked, an inviting and sufficiently spacious dining area and sleeping quarters equally comfortable for all.

And she didn't want surprises like the one she had encountered on a previous villa vacation. Breathtaking as the view had been from up at the villa, the road to the grounds was so tortuously winding that everyone dreaded the drive.

Loggia ran her list by Sheri Levitt, a student of hers and partner, with Naomi Finkelstein, in the Villa People, a Montreal-based company which offers villa rentals in Italy, France, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Turkey and the Caribbean.