Presenting Francesca La Sala
- 1-8 May 2027
Meet Francesca La Sala
Francesca loves meeting people of any age or culture. She is also a nature lover and deep connoisseur of Lunigiana, where she was born and raised. Francesca has an artistic background and a passion for the figurative and graphic arts, particularly from the Renaissance period and from prehistory, which adds a further dimension to her teaching.
“More than 10 years ago – in 2014 – Lois, Bill and I began designing Language Holidays at the Watermill. The idea was simple: to create a vacation immersed in the authenticity of the rural Italian region, Lunigiana – the land of my ‘foremothers’ – contemplating the nature of the Apennines and the Apuan Alps from the gentle valley of Posara. Our aim is to help you learn the Italian Language while getting to know the locals, and finding out more about the culture through art and the regional tasty dishes.
“Teaching Italian Language at the mill is an opportunity for me to share my memories and my knowledge as well as my love for this beautiful rural area. We’ll learn in a relaxed way: by chatting using everyday vocabulary, picking wild herbs in the garden, going to the local market and sharing local recipes – generally getting to know each other better and having fun.”
Francesca has taught Italian professionally since 2006. She currently lives in the Casentino region of Tuscany, just to the east of Florence, working as a tour guide with AIGAE (Associazione Italiana Guide Ambientali Escursionistiche) and organising excursions and treks with nature-related activities – such as wolf-howling in the Casentino Forest Park – around Liguria, the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, and the Apuan Alps. Previously she was an English-speaking representative of Backroads Travel (US), providing hiking and bicycle tours in Italy, France and Costa Rica.
