Sarah Michelle Gellar, 49, brings summer heat in bikini during beachside vacation in Italy

The summer season came early for Sarah Michelle Gellar, who showed off her summer glow in new pictures from her overseas trip to Italy.

Sarah shared a festive carousel on social media, and one shot featured a beachside selfie of the star donning a brown halter bikini with matching brown sunglasses.

Other pictures showed the actress going for a relaxing boat ride, enjoying dinner and gelato, lounging around in her robe, and taking a breath-taking helicopter ride around the coast.

The Buffy the Vampire Slayer star worked hard and played hard, being that she brought a pink script along for the trip, as she studied it while catching glimpses of the horizon while on the beach.

She captioned the post: “A long weekend in Italy is never a bad idea.”

Fans react

Fans flocked to the post to cheer Sarah on. One person wrote: “Thank you Sarah. Hope you had a blast.”

A second follower wrote: “Italy looks LOVELY on you.” A third commenter added: “Beautiful…everything, every picture and video.” One fan joked: “The script?”

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Sarah’s love of Italy

This isn’t the first time that Sarah has visited Italy – the country has stolen her heart.

She expressed: “We’re definitely an Italy family; there’s no question. I think the thing about Italy that’s so great is that there are places for all of us to do things,” per People.

As for her next stop, she has another place in Europe in mind, adding: “We haven’t done Spain yet with the kids. I think that’ll be coming up soon. I want them to see that.”

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Sarah’s take on vacations

Although the actress loves recharging on vacations, she admitted that she is a fan of planning her time efficiently, instead of just winging it.

She revealed to People: “I am a type A person, so I keep Google Maps with pins of everywhere I want to go and everywhere I’ve been. I’ll send them to people, and they’ll be like, ‘This is a 17-day trip that you’ve just given me,’ but I’m like, ‘It’s just options.'”

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Sarah continued: “[You have to] plan, plan, plan, and then have a backup for your plan. And you have to be able to pivot and be able to be flexible sometimes.”

Believe it or not, but Sarah’s favorite philosophy that she incorporates into her trips is actually from Friends’ Monica Gellar, as she expressed: “Rules are good. Rules help control the fun.”