Can I come on my own?

Absolutely. You can take a room of your own, and the week is designed to work just as naturally for someone travelling alone as for couples or friends.

How long is the retreat?

Seven days and six nights, at both destinations.

What is broadly included?

The house, taken exclusively for the week, breakfast every morning and private dinners, the experiences that make up the programme, local transport and group arrival and departure transfers, and Learn&Co with you throughout. Each retreat page sets out exactly what is included, and what is not, for that week.

I don't know which week suits me. What now?

Tell us roughly what draws you — Etna and the sea, or the hills between Florence and Siena — and we will talk it through with you. There is no payment at that stage.

Let's Talk

Il Santuario in the Chianti hills, vines and olive trees to the walls

Italy · in Italian

Dimora Cottanera.Villa Conti. Il Santuario.

Beautiful private houses in Sicily and Tuscany, taken exclusively for a week — long lunches, the people who make things where we are, and Italian running through all of it.

Seven days, six nightsExclusive use of the houseIn Italian, at any levelSee where you can go →

Two ways into Italy

Etna and the sea, and the hills between Florence and Siena.

One remarkable house a week, taken exclusively for a small group. A chef cooks, the week takes you into the places and lives around you, and Italian runs naturally through all of it.

7 days: Six nights at one house
One house: Beautiful, and taken exclusively
A small group: A table of adults who chose the same week
In Italian: At any level, mixed levels by design

Choose your Italy.

Two destinations, three houses, quite different weeks. Where you can go, and when.

Dimora Cottanera, the villa in the vineyards below Etna

The upper slopes of Etna above the cloud

Etna · 2027

SicilyDimora Cottanera

The volcano, the sea, and a very long lunch.

A gorgeous private villa in the vineyards on the northern slopes of Etna. A morning high on the volcano with a volcanologist, a market and a Sicilian kitchen, a day on the water, Etna wine country and Taormina — with afternoons deliberately left empty.

Dimora Cottanera: twelve rooms across villa, courtyard and garden
An infinity pool over the vineyards, and a wellness area in the old palmento
Etna, the market, the water and Taormina, all in Italian

Dates · Sicily

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Two editions · 2027

TuscanyVilla Conti · Il Santuario

Two editions of the same week.

The Val d'Orcia edition takes a design-led villa above Sarteano, in Brunello country. The Chianti edition takes a restored sanctuary between Florence and Siena. Same week, same care, two quite different parts of Tuscany.

Villa Conti Galgani: seven bedrooms, an indoor and an outdoor pool, Pienza and Montalcino close by
Il Santuario: eight en-suite rooms, a private pool, vines and olive trees to the walls
Pecorino, Brunello, pici by hand and Siena from the inside

Dates · Tuscany

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If you would like to know more

More about the week.

What kind of week is this?

Not a language course transplanted somewhere beautiful, and not an organised tour with Italian added on afterwards.

Every week begins with a house taken exclusively, in a place worth travelling for. What happens from there is chosen with the same care: the people who grow things and make things where we are, the tables worth sitting at, the volcano or the valley, whatever that particular week is really about.

The group is small, and the time together is real — long lunches, drives, kitchens, the hour before dinner. Italian flows naturally through what is happening: the conversations, the people you meet, the places you discover and the things you want to understand. It is intimately intertwined with the week, rather than set apart from it.

And there is room to breathe. Several afternoons have nothing scheduled in them at all, because part of the point is enjoying where you are.

Il Santuario, the house among the olives in the late afternoon

Italian, at the level you arrive with

Any level, including very little. We ask about your Italian and what you want from the week before you travel, so the support is right for you from the first day.

Nobody is streamed, tested or seated by ability. The support arrives differently depending on where you are: a beginner gets the sentence they need, a more confident speaker gets pushed into the harder conversation.

There is no classroom and no timetable of lessons. There are short, informal preparation moments before some of the experiences, picking up the words and expressions that make what comes next easier. The rest of the week is simply the week, with Maria and a Learn&Co Italian specialist beside you.

The Italian has a reason to come out. You use it because you want to know something, taste something, understand someone or join the conversation, and little by little it stops feeling like something you have to prepare for.

You stop thinking quite so hard about the Italian. You just start speaking it.

A market street in the morning, awnings and stalls

Maria Toubbe during a Learn&Co immersion week, in conversation with guests — Maria Toubbe · CEO & Founder, Learn&Co

Maria Toubbe, who runs the week

“Languages have always been, for me, a quiet kind of superpower.”

I've spent most of my life moving between languages, cultures and places, and nearly fifteen years teaching other people to do the same. But what has kept me fascinated all this time isn't really the language itself. It's what happens because of it. The people you would never otherwise have spoken to. The joke you suddenly understand. The table you become part of.

I'm there with you throughout the week. To coach you when you need it, give you confidence when you hesitate, laugh with you when the Italian goes spectacularly wrong, and spend real time together. Whether you arrive with a handful of words or years of the language behind you, I'll meet you there.

You stop thinking quite so hard about the Italian. You just start speaking it.

Kind words

From guests on an Italian retreat.

“I wish I could bottle that week.”

I was slightly nervous about coming on my own, mostly because I had no idea who else would be there. I needn’t have been. By the second day we were already laughing about things that had happened that morning and nobody seemed particularly keen for lunch to end.

I loved how easy the days felt. We did loads, but there was still time to swim, have another coffee, sit around talking or do absolutely nothing for a while. And I spoke so much more Italian than I normally would.

I was genuinely sad to leave. I’d made friends, my Italian was better and I’d had an absolutely brilliant holiday.

Greta · Australia | Solo traveller

Sunlight at an outdoor café, an afternoon that lingers

“We’ve been to Italy quite a few times, but we’d never experienced it quite like this.”

Usually when we travel, it’s the two of us figuring everything out as we go. This time we could just enjoy it. We ate ridiculously well, met some wonderful people and ended up in conversations we probably never would have had on a normal holiday.

We also used far more Italian than we expected. Jenny is much braver than I am, so she’d start talking and I’d get dragged into it, which became a bit of a running joke.

We came home already talking about doing another one. That probably says everything.

Sam & Jenny · USA | Couple

A couple before a hazy, terracotta city at golden hour

“We went for the Italian, but if I’m honest, we mostly came home talking about the food.”

There were four of us and we thought it would be a fun way to improve our Italian without spending a week studying. It turned out to be much more of a holiday than any of us expected.

We ate extremely well, drank probably slightly too much wine, met some great people and laughed constantly. The Italian just happened around all of it. You’d be chatting over breakfast, ordering something, talking to someone over lunch and suddenly realise you’d been speaking Italian for ages.

None of us wanted the week to end. We’re still arguing about which meal was the best.

Peter · UK | Travelled with friends

A cocktail raised in an easy moment of conversation

A terrace in Tuscany, looking out over the valley

A few things you might be wondering

: No. There is no classroom and no timetable of lessons. There are short, informal preparation moments before some of the experiences, picking up the words and expressions that might make what comes next easier. The rest of the week is simply the week, with Maria and a Learn&Co Italian specialist beside you.
: Any level, including very little. We ask about your Italian and what you want from the week before you travel, so the support is right for you from the first day.
: Nobody is streamed, tested or seated by ability. The support arrives differently depending on where you are: a beginner gets the sentence they need, a more confident speaker gets pushed into the harder conversation.
: Absolutely. You can take a room of your own, and the week is designed to work just as naturally for someone travelling alone as for couples or friends.
: Seven days and six nights, at both destinations.
: The house, taken exclusively for the week, breakfast every morning and private dinners, the experiences that make up the programme, local transport and group arrival and departure transfers, and Learn&Co with you throughout. Each retreat page sets out exactly what is included, and what is not, for that week.
: Tell us roughly what draws you — Etna and the sea, or the hills between Florence and Siena — and we will talk it through with you. There is no payment at that stage.

Still deciding between Sicily and Tuscany? Tell us what draws you and we will help you choose the right week.

Start the conversation →

The ancient theatre at Taormina, the sea and Etna beyond

The conversation

Which Italian week is calling you?

Sicily, or one of the two Tuscan editions — tell us what draws you, and we will talk it through with you. No payment, no commitment.