We are traveling to Italy April/May 2015 for 2 weeks and will be spending 4 nights in Tuscany. I realize this is a popular topic, but haven't quite found what I am looking for. We would like to stay in a small hotel or B&B that has walking access to a nice city/town/village with some restaurants and possibly some sites of its own. In case this makes a difference to any advice you can give, our planned activities while in Tuscany are to visit Florence, tour some vineyards and arrange a cooking class. We plan on having a car. Any suggestions for what town to stay in or specific places would be much appreciated.
Posted by
20 posts
We are going in Sept and Palazzo del Capitano, a small hotel, was recommended to us by someone who owns a villa in Tuscany. Since we have only 3 days there, villa rental was not possible. The hotel looks lovely.
Posted by
lexington, il
4105 posts
Joe,
take a look at these:
http://www.verrazzano.com/en/rooms/.
http://www.molinello.com/eng/activity_and_services.html.
http://www.agriturismomontalbino.it/.
All are fairly centrally located.
Posted by
Portland, OR
1146 posts
Hi Joe, we are going to Italy this September and I was looking for the same as you. We chosen err in Montalcino http://www.canalicchiodisoprawinerelais.it/web/index.cfm?id=0E97327C-789D-4A5E-88F742FAB6074C5D&home
You can read about it on trip advisor. It has gorgeous views and is a winery. You can walk up into Montalcino in about 20 minutes.
We are also staying here in Assisi http://www.ilroseto.com/en/ Again you can see the hill town and they have a pool and are ten minutes walking to town.
I hope these help.
Posted by
OP
Cromwell, CT, USA
10 posts
Thank you all for the great suggestions. I will look into all of these. April and Wendy, enjoy your trips in September.
Posted by
Rick Steves' Europe
16899 posts
Thanks, all. Buon viaggio!
Posted by
1 posts
In May 2014 we stayed at Metina near Montepulciano. We had a quiet, comfortable two-bedroom apartment for 3 nights. http://www.metina.it/ It would not meet your criteria for being in a village, but it is very close to Montepulciano, and it was also easy to visit Siena and Pienza by car. It has a nice pool (too early for us, but beautiful and clean). Our hostess, Monica, was very helpful to recommend restaurants and groceries nearby, and even called ahead for us to arrange accommodations with Italian speakers in the Cinque Terre. We enjoyed staying where the owners were so warm and welcoming.
Posted by
Kansas City
182 posts
We're staying at the Agriturismo Marciano this August - http://www.agriturismomarciano.it/ which is 2km from Siena. It gets great reviews on TA and the prices are very reasonable (70E - 150E depending on room/time of year). We saw lots of B&B's and Agriturismos in the area, but we kept coming back to this one.
Posted by
Hoover, AL, USA
28 posts
Joe,
You've gotten a number of suggestions; I'll add one more. We stayed at Aia Mattonata, which is a few kilometers outside Siena. It's a B&B. It was simply fabulous, primarily due to the gracious hosts. If you read the TripAdvisor reviews (it's #1 on that list for Siena), it'll sound like people are making things up. But it was as reviewed. The only thing it doesn't meet on your list is walking into town. You'd need a car, which you have.
Have a great trip. That's a wonderful time of year to be in Italy.
Posted by
OP
Cromwell, CT, USA
10 posts
Thanks to all of you. I appreciate all of you taking the time to respond and providing great recommendations and suggestions. They say half the fun of the trip is in the planning. I'm learning lots and communicating with some very nice people, so I guess "they" are right.
Posted by
4 posts
My friend if no one else mentioned this - try this site www.airbnb.com
It offers amazing housing opportunities in any city you select
Steve