mansion - 4 cuartos - 4/8 Personas

"Peculiar villa en un entorno magnífico: casa, jardín, piscina. Agradable estancia, tranquilidad, buena ubicación para visitar la región."

Stayed in Sept 2017 and had a great two weeks. The location is perfect, 10 min walk to Castiglion Fiorentino the most beautiful hill side (small) town, with several amazing restaurants and a few shops and coffee places. The train station is a 10 min drive, and with its free parking is easy access to Florence, 1hr drive to Siena and lost of beautiful hill side towns with great wine tasting. The villa is a converted chapel and whilst once upon a time it was clearly well looked after the photos are very out of date. The garden/drive and pool area are now overgrown and a little tatty which spoils the feel of the villa. It has a couple of lovely terraces to sit out on, the pool area is still lovely to enjoy the sun and the pool itself is very clean (although one side is a bit over grown). The chapel is very spacious but also quite dark inside, small windows designed to keep the heat out in the summer made it a little depressing when the weather turned bad for a few days with very little natural light coming in. You cant check in before 17:00, we arrived at 16:30 after a long day only to be greeted by a very angry man stating he wasn't ready for us. We came back at 17:00 to angry man (Maria's brother) who wouldn't let us in as it wasn't his job and we would have to wait for Maria. not the best start but no major drama. Maria arrived at 17:20 and showed us around. Without going in to too much detail we had several power cuts during our stay, one caused by thunder and two others caused by the owners Kettle. No issues on our side, however Maria stated after one of the power cuts that while we were out she had to get an electrician in and he had tested our kit t plugged in and that had caused the power to trip and also the possibility of damage to the pool motors. This kit plugged in was a brand new Kindle. Anyone with a hint of electrical knowledge would know this wasn't possible and was very strange. We proved to the maid that every time the kettle was used the power tripped. We had two days of being worried that we were going to be charged for all of this, along with our initial start it tainted the holiday a little for those few days. Maria is very slow to respond to emails and the number she left for us to contact her was never answered.

Summary - great location, place needs some work to bring it back up to the photos and Maria and her brother are a bit strange. Not sure we would book with them again but had a great time and the area is perfect.

We stayed here for a week in July. The villa is wonderfully spacious (you can't see easily from photos) - a converted convent / castle (at different periods in its history) with high ceilings, sofas, tables - plenty of room to relax and a large well furnished kitchen. It was very hot while we were (30+ daily) there but the villa is cool inside and there is no need for AC. The pool is very private and has everything you need including a shower, many loungers, tables and chairs. Our kids (and me !) loved mucking around in it. Around the villa is quiet farmland : olive trees, cypruses etc. The little town of Castiglion Fiorentina is a 10 minute walk away and is very charming, with a number of small shops and at least two gelataria. This is also a great launching point for trips - we went to Cortona in 20 minutes, Siena in an hour and San Gimignano in about 80 minutes. We even went by train to Rome for the day - 1 hr 45 each way on the fast train (via Arezzo). All in all one of the best holidays we've had and a great place for a Tuscan experience. The host is really welcoming and considerate - they live above the villa but we hardly ever saw them, you really do have the place to yourself. Very highly recommended !

Nous sommes revenus 13 ans après, rien ne change, ni la beauté du lieu, ni le sourire de la propriétaire.

A conseiller vivement