Camerons to take budget airline to Tuscan villa

David Cameron has chosen a luxury villa in Tuscany as his summer holiday destination. The Prime Minister will spend a fortnight in an 18th-century villa, with swimming pool and tennis court, near the town of Mercatale Valdarno in the Chianti region.

Mr Cameron, his wife, Samantha, and their three young children will share their holiday with two other families. The Camerons are paying £5,800 as their share of the €11,000-a-week villa, but they will travel to Italy on a budget airline to fit in with the political age of austerity.

Mr and Mrs Cameron will be staying on the Petrolo estate, which is situated among "green olive groves, active vineyards and beautiful oak woods", according to its website.

Mr Cameron will follow in the footsteps of the former Labour prime minister Tony Blair, who regularly spent family holidays in Tuscany as a guest of Prince Girolamo Strozzi.

The trip will be the first proper foreign holiday for the Camerons since the general election last year. Last summer the family stayed in Cornwall, where Mrs Cameron gave birth early to baby Florence. The baby was given the middle name Endellion after the village of St Endellion where they were staying.

In April, the PM whisked his wife to Granada in Spain on the budget airline Ryanair to celebrate her 40th birthday.

Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, is believed to have already left for a holiday in Spain with his family.

There is expected to be a period in August when both Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg are on holiday, and the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, will be the most senior cabinet minister in the UK.