Blairs get another free trip to Tuscany

Tony Blair is to desert the uncertain British summer climate and take his family on another free holiday in Tuscany.

The Prime Minister will return to the fashionable region of Italy to stay once again at the splendid 50-room Renaissance hilltop palace owned by Prince Girolamo Guicciardini Strozzi and his wife, Princess Irina.

The Blairs have holidayed in Tuscany since 1996, but missed out last year during the footand-mouth outbreak. Because of the devastating effect on the British tourist industry, it was felt that Mr Blair had reluctantly bowed to pressure and swapped sun-drenched Tuscany for Cornwall.

He followed it with a three-week break at the chateau of High Court judge Sir David Keene.

Italian reports suggest that the Blairs will fly out during the first week of August, and will spend about three weeks at the Strozzi palace, which has a summertime staff of 12, a large pool and electronic gates to protect the villa from prying eyes.

At the end of their stay, the Blairs are expected to go to the seafront Villa Il Gombo, near Pisa, as guests of Tuscany's regional president Claudio Martini.